Ordinance Committee — March 10, 2026

I have not.

You know why?

I would love to hear it because he saw me literally drive, walking in on the same phone call that I took from Dana all the way here.

So, um, so how are we looking?

Almost okay.

We're live.

It is 7:01 PM on March 10th.

In the year of 2026.

Note this meeting is being live streamed and recorded.

City Council and committee meetings can be viewed on the City of New Bedford's homepage under Quick Links, then Meetings.

I am joined in the chamber tonight by my colleagues in government: Ward 2 Councilor Scott Pepperton, Ward 1 Councilor Leo Choquette, Ward 5 Councilor Joseph Lopes, Councilor at Large James Roy, Councilor at Large and Second Vice President Naomi Carney, and I am your chairman, Shane A. Burgo.

I'll ask the clerk if there's anything to be read into the record.

Mr.

Chair, we do have one communication from Councilor Abreu writing to inform you that he is unable to attend tonight's committee meeting due to a prior commitment.

He asked that the letter be read into the record to make his colleagues and the public aware of the reason for his absence.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Councilor Lopes.

Seconded by Councilor Pemberton.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

All right.

Item— I'll ask the clerk to read item 1, 1A, and 1B into the record.

Oh, actually, that is a lie.

I'm going to ask— sorry.

Due to the length of these presentations for items 1 and 2, without objection, I would ask to take item 3 out of order.

Seeing no objections, I'll ask the clerk to read item 3.

Thank you for that.

Sorry, Mr.

Chair.

Item 3 is a communication.

Mayor Mitchell to City Council submitting an ordinance amending Chapter 2, Article 6, Section 2-105 of the City of New Bedford's Code of Ordinances to conform with Chapter 140 of the Acts of 2024 signed into law by Governor Healey regarding payment agreements for delinquent taxes, referred to committee on June 12th, 2025.

3A is the ordinance.

Motion to receive and place on file.

Motion received, placed on file, made by Councilor Loeb, seconded by Councilor Carney.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

Treasurer Taxiarcos, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Chairman Burgoyne, honorable councilors.

I am submitting for your approval an amendment to the ordinance, Chapter 2, Article 6, Section 2-105 of the City of Bedford Code of Ordinances.

And essentially what this is, is when someone goes into tax title and they're delinquent on their taxes, this gives them the ability to enter into a payment agreement to pay those delinquent taxes before— or the current ordinance requires them to put 25% down as a down payment towards that payment agreement, and the maximum term is only 5 years.

With the new law that was passed and the amendment of this ordinance, it would allow us to take 10% down and extend the term to 10 years.

So that's what this is for.

Any questions from the body?

Chair recognizes Councilor Choquette on his first.

All right, good evening, sir.

Uh, just a quick question.

Will there be any interest on that account?

Um, there is interest.

Extend it out 10 years.

We can— there is interest, but we can waive that interest up to the 50% that we have now, uh, in order to— if they pay on the agreement according to the schedule with no other default, then, then we can waive that interest at the end.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Recognizes Councilor Lopes on his first Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

So, John, I'm looking more at how many people right now would this benefit.

Do you have that number in your, like, in your office?

How many people are currently— I believe we have, uh, possibly 60 or so.

Okay.

Yeah, that are on a payment agreement.

I really think we would have more, but because of the constraint of the 25% down, it's blocking or preventing them from doing it.

Now, does this have to be owner-occupied, or can it be an investment property as well?

Uh, it, it does apply to commercial as well, I believe.

Okay, thank you for the additional information, John.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Chair recognizes Councilor Carney on her first.

Yes, thank you.

Hi, John, how are you tonight?

Um, so this, this will ultimately avoid going into tax title for a lot of the properties, so it gives them a longer period of time to pay those taxes back, right?

So, um, with the 10%, is that great?

What is kind of the amount of the 10% that you see, like, overall with what we've got outstanding?

Well, maybe the highest one.

It's difficult.

I mean, it could be, you know, $10,000 to $50,000 or more.

Some people have owed $100,000 before, so this gives them an opportunity to really put something down where they wouldn't be able to otherwise.

So like on a $10,000 delinquency, and, you know, if you can put $2,500— put $1,000 down instead of $2,500, that really helps them out.

Okay, so that would— that— so that would bring us closer to not taking people's properties and send to tax title.

And yeah, and that— and again, this is for the delinquent portion of taxes.

They do need to stay current.

Okay, so they have to stay— they have to pay their current taxes plus the past-due amount that you make a scheduled payment plan for, right?

And the payment plan, who decides on their payment plan?

Is it a certain amount that they have to come up with, or can you say, okay, um, you put— gave me your 10% down, we're giving you X amount of time, and who decides their, their portion?

Is that We kind of work with the taxpayer on that.

Oh, okay.

So it's on an amortization schedule.

It really depends on what they can afford as well.

We don't want to get into a payment agreement that they aren't going to be able to— Right.

So you're going to pay off— So you will decide the payment plan with the individual to make sure that it's not strapping them.

They'll be able to stay in the house and— It needs to be affordable.

Affordable.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to acknowledge that Councilor-at-Large Brian Gomes has joined us as well.

Any other questions from the body for Treasurer Taxiarcos?

Chair recognizes Councilor— excuse me, Councilor Roy on this first.

Uh, you mentioned that interest can be waived at the end of, um, this new 10-year period.

How does one go about doing that, and, and when wouldn't it be waived?

Uh, at the end of the agreement.

Okay, so if they've paid on time, they haven't defaulted, they've stayed current on their current taxes as well, and then finished the payment agreement, then we would waive the taxes.

And if they missed a payment over the 10 years, would the interest be waived?

If they missed a payment, then we would have to talk to them about where they are in that situation.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else on there first?

Chairman, can I ask Councilor Carney on her second?

Yeah, I just want to follow up on my good councilor to the left on that interest.

Is the interest on the payments that they're paying monthly, or whatever the case may be, is that incorporated in their payment?

They would be paying on that too, but I believe it's principal first.

So it'll be principal and there'd be an interest payment on the monthly payment that you'll be asking them.

So the interest will be in there.

Of what was incurred.

Yeah, right.

And so at the end, that interest that they paid would be given back to them in a check?

How does that work when you pay— if they, they were on time for the 10 years?

Um, I believe what we do is we forgive the interest as we're creating the payment agreement, and then if they default, the interest goes back on.

Okay, so when you're paying your payments, when you come up with a payment plan with the individual, that interest is automatically not on there?

Yeah, I believe we forgive that, the interest, up to a percentage, um, on that payment agreement.

We calculate the payments that they need to make, and then if they default, it would, it would go back on.

Okay, so, so I'm just getting confused.

So they are not paying a monthly interest charge when they're doing it, unless they default in that 10 years, then the interest would go back on.

I believe that's right, but let me get back to you on that.

Yeah, could you?

Yeah, 'cause I mean, it's— I'm just wondering, if you're adding the interest on there, and they're paying a portion, a small portion of interest, whether it's $25, $50, $100 on their payment, and that's part of the interest, at the end of the 10 years, I'm just curious how that comes back, or how you work on that interest.

So if you get back to us, get to board and give it to the the chairman, that'd be great.

I will do that.

Thank you, Council President.

I'm President Vice President Chairman.

You got it.

Vice Vice President.

Anyone else on there first?

Council Burgum.

Anyone on there second?

Seeing none, motion to refer out to the full city council for approval would be appropriate.

So moved.

Second.

Made by Councilor Lope, seconded by Councilor Carney.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

Thank you, Treasurer Texi Arcos.

Thank you.

I'll ask the clerk to read item 1, 1A, and 1B.

Mr.

Chair, item 1 is public hearing continued on a communication, Mayor Mitchell to City Council, submitting an ordinance amending Chapter 9, Comprehensive Zoning, relative to dimensional requirements, Appendix B, Table of Dimensional Regulations.

Residential infill development and multiple buildings per lot, referred to committee on October 9th, 2025, duly advertised in the Standard Times on November 6th and 13th, 2025.

November 20th and December 15th, 2025, the public hearing was continued.

On January 26th, 2026, the public hearing was canceled due to a snowstorm.

It was duly readvertised in the Standard Times on February 24th and March 3rd, 2026.

1A is the ordinance, and 1B is a communication from Anne Lauro, Acting Director of the Planning Department, to Council Ryan J. Pereira, Chairman of the Committee on Ordinances, advising that the Planning Board held a public hearing on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025, to discuss a request made by the City Council for the Planning Board to review and make a recommendation relative to amending Chapter 9, Comprehensive Zoning, relative to dimensional requirements, Appendix B, Table of Dimensional Regulations, Residential Infill Development, and Multiple Buildings per Lot.

The planning board voted to send a favorable recommendation for the ordinance amendment.

It was received by the committee on November 14th, 2025.

This is a continued public hearing, and with that, I'll ask Mr. McCarthy and Ms. Laurel to take it from there.

Good evening, everyone.

Oh, actually, um, this presentation that they're presenting to us, we have never had the opportunity to receive and place it on file.

Oh, uh, motion to receive and place on file this presentation that we're about to see, made by Councilor Lopes, seconded by Councilor Roy.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

Okay.

We'll get rolling.

So this is our sort of our final zoning update on the traditional zoning in New Bedford that we've been working on for the past year and a half, 2 years.

This is updating our dimensional requirements and adding an infill development requirement.

And a lot of the work that came out of our comprehensive plan process fed into this.

And it was also a known item that we had been working on for a few years prior to that.

So go to the next slide.

So really, we'll start here.

Why are we changing the dimensional requirement?

I think if you look at our dimensional table, it has a lot more in common with what a suburban development dimensional table would have in a modern urban developed dimensional table.

Those standards are much more conducive to what you see in the built environment in New Bedford.

Smaller lot sizes, smaller frontage requirements, not giant front yards in the denser residential districts.

We're trying to encourage sensitive development, supporting small infill to fill gaps in that existing urban— that existing urban pattern.

I think we're all familiar with that missing teeth effect on Cushionet Avenue, County Street, those big corridors where a building burned down many years ago, no one rebuilt it, and now the lot has fallen out of its nonconforming status.

And to do development on it, you'd really be stuck with like a matchbook-sized area.

And we want to make sure that we have dimensional requirements that drive reinvestment and renewal in our neighborhoods.

And again, that's getting at those, those blighted vacant lots that just become weed-filled and eyesores.

So in this update, what are we proposing?

We're looking at our dimensional regulations.

We're going to reduce We're proposing to reduce our minimum lot sizes for our multifamily zoning districts.

That's RB, RC, and MUB to match basically the existing pattern in the neighborhood of the built environment.

We're looking to reset our front setbacks right now in our mixed-use business district, our densest district.

The front yard setback for that is about 20 feet.

So you're, you're really thinking about like if you We're going to build something on a cushioned avenue on a vacant lot.

Everyone else has a zero front setback.

They're right up against the sidewalk.

And then without coming to the zoning board for a variance, you've got to already start 20 feet back from the, from the property line.

So we want to make it so there's that continuity along our commercial corridors and we want to clarify our residential density.

There is some incongruity between what's in the table and what we see in the built environment and even within the districts.

There's some things like the minimum lot size you would need just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger as you add more units at a scale that seems out of proportion.

We want to activate residential infill development.

So the dimensional regulations we'll see as we go through the presentation, they bring a lot of lots into conformity.

They will reduce the need for variances on a lot of development.

But we recognize that There's really no way to get it at 100% without completely eliminating dimensional requirements, which we do not want to do.

But in special circumstances, we're proposing an infill development section to the ordinance where the planning board would be a special permit granting authority that would review these on a case-by-case basis to allow for an exception, as long as there is not anything that's more dense than the abutting properties.

So I'll get into that as we go into the presentation a little bit more.

And we currently have a prohibition on multiple buildings per lot.

In talking with the building and zoning commissioner, there doesn't seem to be any building code specific reason here.

There are instances where the building code would cover these sort of multiple buildings per lot, but there is no particular reason why this prohibition exists.

And in talking with our zoning consultant, the trend in a lot of gateway cities is to eliminate this provision.

So we're proposing to do that here.

So what informed the new dimensional standards?

We did an analysis of our districts, and as you can see from the table here, particularly in our multifamily districts, lot size is a huge problem where we have about 87 to 94% of our multifamily lots are below the lot size minimum for what's built on— for what is built on the lot or what could be built on the lot.

These noncompliant lots, you can see in MUB, you have built lots that don't meet the front setback almost 80%.

In order to do this kind of construction, you need multiple variances, multiple special permits.

And we're talking about building a simple triple-decker in most cases wouldn't— would not be allowed today without going to the zoning board and the planning board.

And that's a major investment for a small developer in New Bedford.

So I'll just— I think it's really helpful to have some case study examples.

I know I talked a lot about Accushnet Avenue.

We're going to look at 1283, 1289 Accushnet Avenue.

I think everyone's familiar with this lot.

It was lost to a fire over 5 years ago.

It's no longer eligible for the disaster rebuild.

There's a 1-year limit on that.

It's a 5,195-square-foot lot, so it meets the standard currently only for— it doesn't even meet the standard for single-family.

I'm sorry.

But the buildable area of the lot to meet all the setbacks is about 17,000 square feet.

And it's also below the frontage requirement for a multi-unit.

An MUB, you would need 150 feet of frontage on the street.

Typically in our lots in the MUB district, they're between 50 and 80 feet of frontage.

And this is an example of what zoning compliant development looks like.

You can see on the top there, that's from the old fire maps from 1911.

You know, there's that continuity along a cushion and avenue along Sawyer Street and along Ashley Boulevard.

And when we got new development on those sites, the 2 pharmacies that are there met the zoning requirements, they met the setback requirements.

And when you come down those streets, all of a sudden there's this break in the commercial corridor right around late on the sidewalk, and it's set back from with a parking lot.

Everything complies, but you get this complete different development pattern on these infill developments.

And we hear a lot in the news and in planning circles about the need to allow for this missing middle housing.

We call it missing because modern zoning has pretty much made it illegal to do this.

This is the traditional type of housing you see around New Bedford.

It's 3 families up to 8 families, everything above a single-family home and below a giant apartment building.

This is New Bedford's housing stock, and you cannot build it today.

This is an example that Cruz Development was approved for a few years ago for this vacant lot on Jenny Street right near the plumbing supply building that's over there.

This required multiple variances, a special permit from the planning board.

We're proposing some changes to the dimensional table that would eliminate the need for those variances, eliminate the need for those special permits.

But at this scale, you're still going to undergo site plan review from the planning board.

So it would— you'd still retain that public input process for this type of development.

So I think in the past when we've worked through this, uh, here with you all, uh, we've gone through the changes slide by slide and we've taken questions.

If that's acceptable to the chair, we can do that here.

Everyone okay?

So these are our minimum lot size changes.

You can see there's no change to our single-family, our RA district.

We're keeping that at 8,000 square foot minimum, and then we're dropping down our— the— this sort of tiered lot size that we had on all the multifamily districts.

All the uses now, all the residential uses, um, are lumped into the same categories.

Uh, in RB, which is our 2 to 3 family district essentially, uh, that'll be 4,000, 4,000, 4,500 square feet.

Um, RC, which is our densest, uh, residential only district, will go down to 3,000 square feet for a lot size minimum.

That same number will carry over for our mixed-use business district as long as you're doing residential-only development.

And then we'll— we're putting it at 4,000 for mixed-use under the assumption that you'd probably need to provide some sort of parking when you're doing a mixed-use development, and we want to make sure there's room on site for that.

Any questions on this slide from you all?

Oh, do you want to— do you want to Okay, all right, I'm ready whenever you're ready, so it's— that's fine.

Do you want to— yeah, yeah, Chair recognizes Councilor Lopes.

Sure.

Oh, okay, all right, yeah, we'll go through the whole thing.

Fine.

Our, uh, our dwelling units per lot, um, so this is the only change that we're making to our Residence A, our single-family district.

Uh, currently the minimum lot size for Residence A is 8,000 square feet.

But you're only allowed to build on a lot in Residence A if you have 1 dwelling unit per 10,000 square feet.

So that sort of artificially inflates that minimum lot size without actually changing it.

So what we're proposing is just to bring that down into alignment with what the minimum lot size is.

And then across the board, you can see that it kind of steps up based on the number of units and the minimum lot size.

And in MUB, where we really have a lot of those smaller lots, where we're thinking there's going to be a lot more vertical development.

We're keeping— we're not imposing a dwelling unit per lot area minimum there.

Minimum lot frontage, no change for RA, keeping that at 75 feet for the minimum frontage.

And I will say we do have an RAA district, which is some of the subdivisions in the far north end are in this district.

That's completely untouched.

Those are our largest dimensional requirements.

RB is going from— RB, RC, and MUB are all being compressed to 45 feet for all allowed uses.

This is pretty much the lowest frontage we saw for a lot that would be considered buildable in most circumstances.

Our maximum height, you can see from the table there was a lot of tiering here, a lot of exceptions for religious, educational, institutional.

We're again retaining those for RA, but then in our other districts we're eliminating those separate distinctions and just capping the height for all uses across the board.

It's 60 for RB, 60 for RC, and 75 for MUB.

So that would definitely allow for that traditional commercial corridor you see on County Street or Cushing Avenue, where it's a business on the first floor and usually up to 4 stories built above that.

Our maximum building height and stories— again, we're, we're keeping that the same for the residential uses in RA, and we are going to 3 stories for RB, 4 stories for RC, which is the same, and 5 stories for MUB.

There had been a 7-story allowed use there, but We find it unusual that somebody would come for that, and in those cases we would likely see a variance for other for other dimensional requirements no matter what.

Our minimum front yard setback—it's 20 across the board in all the districts.

We're keeping it 20 in RA.

You get that lawn in front of your house and on your single family home.

RB and RC, a five foot front back setback, and then in MUB, there's a minimum of zero.

And you can't go further back than 20.

We're setting a maximum on that where none existed before.

Our side yard setbacks, traditionally 10 and 12 on either side, keeping that for our single-family district and going to 8 feet on both sides for all our multifamily districts.

And maximum lot coverage, and this recognizes sort of that need for green space.

We want to increase it to allow a little bit more buildable area, but we don't want people to be without a backyard, um, in even in the multifamily district.

So they've all ticked up a little bit, but, uh, not anything where you would not get a, uh, a considerable amount of green space.

So we'll switch over to talking about the infill development, and unless it makes sense for you all to pause here and focus on the dimensional changes.

Yeah, okay, pause here because I know Councilor Lopes has questions.

Yeah, I don't want to veer off too far.

So Councilor Lopes.

So, Mike, thank you.

So how many properties do you think we'll be able to bring back online by doing this?

It's very difficult to sort of get at that number based on the data we have.

I mean, we're relying on sort of a GIS analysis of the— what's available in the assessor's data.

Figuring out whether something has enough frontage and all of the variables that go into that are There isn't really a clear-cut way to do it.

I mean, you can look at the numbers, but then the— our consultant, the modeling that they use doesn't know if it even has frontage on a street.

You know, there's, there's sort of all this fine— you'd have to go through and clean a lot of it.

But I would say it's probably more than 500 lots.

Generously, it would probably be more than 1,000.

But I can't say off the top of my head.

I'd just be making up a number.

Listen, I appreciate the honesty.

I figured it'd be a couple hundred when you said 1,000.

I was honestly surprised, you know, that it could be that high.

Yeah.

So this helps alleviate that jack-o'-lantern that we've talked about for years, especially across neighborhoods.

And then second, when you were talking about the multiple buildings per lot, now I may be— I'm confusing it with Fall River, which allows 2, 3 families on the same plot and lot.

Yeah.

Would this allow similar construction?

Yes.

Fall River has eliminated that.

Aspect of their zoning ordinance, um, where you could do, um, you know, sort of like clustered residential development is what I'm thinking.

Like, um, we've got a courtyard, like a garden complex sort of, uh, development.

Um, so right now if you wanted to do that, you'd have to go in and subdivide the lot, which is another permitting hurdle for, for a developer to go through.

We've seen a few people come forward, um, with proposals like that, and honestly the comp— the complexity of doing that without proposing a formal subdivision has sort of turned them away from the process.

And actually, one person told me that he had done it before in Fall River, and he was confused as to why it wasn't allowed in New Bedford.

And I had to point him towards this section of the ordinance.

So I know it's been allowed in Fall River for, for as long as I can— yeah.

And in talking with the zoning commissioner, zoning building commissioner Danny, I mean, he didn't have a memory of why that was on the books, and it predated him.

And from talking with our zoning consultant, It seems to be around the same time a lot of cities in Massachusetts adopted that provision, possibly for fire prevention, prevention before the building code caught up to it.

But I think we've come a long way with the building code since then.

Well, that got me to my next question.

Yeah.

Is the fire department okay with, with that piece of the language where you potentially have 2, 3 families on, you know, the same plot and lot?

I have not discussed it specifically with the fire department.

But they'd be a reviewer on the building permit and they'd be consulted during site plan review like they always are.

Yeah.

You have to have firewalls and certain feet of separation.

So that would just fall through the administrative review system internally from all the departments.

Okay.

Thank you both.

Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you.

I want to acknowledge that Ward 3 Councilor Sean Oliver has joined us as well.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Any other questions for this portion of, uh, the presentation?

Okay, Chair again.

Councilor Ryan is first.

You mentioned earlier on that this ordinance— right into the mic, Councilor, please, so you can hear yourself.

Yeah, I got it.

Thanks, thanks, uh, Chair.

Uh, you mentioned earlier that, um, this ordinance would give the planning board special permit authority.

How is this changing what currently exists?

So that actually was what we were going to get into next in the infill development ordinance we're proposing.

So that'll cover lots that still, even if we adopted all these dimensional changes, would still be missing a few things.

But you could imagine I have an example in here of a lot on either side.

The lots are the same size as this vacant lot.

They both have buildings on them.

You could build the building that's on either side of that lot on that lot, but it doesn't meet the minimum lot size that we're proposing.

And in those cases, that's why we're saying that you could go to the planning board for a special permit to build even lower on the minimum lot size, as long as you can demonstrate that you're going to do something that doesn't outscale your neighbor.

Thanks.

Anyone else?

All right, all right.

And here's the example I was referencing.

Uh, this is, uh, Westside County Street, um, like a couple blocks up from, uh, Linden Square.

Um, this is a building that was demolished sometime around the 1970s.

It's, um, under 3,000 square feet for the lot, so it would be under our— the new minimum lot size we're proposing for, um, the MUB district.

And the abutting lot is a multi-family.

It's a similar size lot with 40 feet of frontage, just like this one.

You could in theory build the same building on that lot.

And we're saying that under the— if you want to go to the next slide, and thank you.

This is the criteria for infill development on parcels under 3,000 square feet.

Prohibited in RA, you're not allowed to go below that.

But in RB, RC, and MUB, you apply for a special permit for the planning board.

If you have a parcel that's over that, in RA, it's a special permit from the planning board.

In RB, MUC, and MUB, it's an administrative site plan review that's done by staff.

And then there's a maximum on, on the— in our multi-family districts, you can only build a triple deck, a 3-family, or a traditional triple-decker.

In RA, you can only build a single family there, and you cannot exceed the density of your densest abutter.

So if you're next— if you have a multi-family lot that's next to a duplex and a single family, you can only build a single family.

You can't build a— you can only build a duplex.

You can't build a single family, and you can't go to a 3-unit.

Your frontage must be enough to allow for off-street parking, so you have to provide a driveway.

The height is capped at 45 feet, which would allow for a traditional 3-family.

2.5 stories in RA.

And then the setbacks, you have the front setback that's in the dimensional table, or you can match the average of your abutting properties.

So if everyone else has a 0 and they're right up against their property line, you can do that as well.

And then your parking must follow the standard off-street parking requirements that exist.

And that is the end of the presentation, and I'm happy to take more questions from you all.

And, uh, Chair recognizes Councilor Choquette on his first.

Hey, sir.

Uh, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh, piggybacking on, uh, Councilor Roy's question, um, so is this removing power from the zoning board and granting this to the planning board to grant special permits?

And if so, is the zoning board then able to appeal that?

And overturn it after the fact?

Like, what— why are we condensing the power of the zoning board and transferring it to the planning board?

This is just a scheme that we've seen based on our— the feedback we had from our zoning consultant work well in other communities that have adopted an infill ordinance.

It sort of almost works as a mini site plan review for these properties, but lumping those in with the site plan review ordinance would have created sort of an administrative complication.

So rather than go to the zoning board for multiple variances and then probably also go to the planning board for relief, we're saying that all relief is handled in a special permit from the planning board, which is deniable.

We wanted to make sure that that was, that was key for those really small lots.

Deniable by the planning board.

Yeah.

Deniable by the zoning board after the fact.

A special permit is deniable by the planning board.

If someone wanted to appeal, they would appeal to the zoning board on that, on an approval from the planning board.

Okay, so you're not removing the zoning board as the final arbiter?

Nope, nope, they would still be the final arbiter.

They would be who someone would appeal to if they, uh, if they felt that they were an aggrieved party for that, uh, for an approval from the planning board.

Okay, all right, thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Anyone else?

Chair Grant, Councillor Lopes.

I just have one last question.

This isn't for new development.

What if somebody's got a single-family house and they want to put an addition on?

Where would we— where would that work within the confines of these 2 proposed proposals?

Sure.

So I think a lot of people who have single-family homes, I think probably most of the people in this room, your home does not— is an existing nonconforming house.

You have either a minimum lot size problem, you have a front setback problem, you have a side setback problem.

It's, as you saw from the table, more than half the single-family homes in New Bedford.

So in those circumstances, since we're not really touching RA, if you wanted to make a change to your home in a way that encroached on your already existing nonconformity.

So if you didn't meet your rear setback and you wanted to build a rear addition on your house, you'd have to go to the zoning board for a variance.

Because in those cases, it's their determination on whether your increasing of your nonconformity is more or less detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood.

And we felt that's, that's like the basis of the zoning board to hear those types of cases.

We didn't want to go so far as to remove that power from them.

I was making that assumption, but I didn't want to assume.

So yeah, thank you.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Any other questions?

All right.

Seeing none, this is a public hearing.

Anyone here wish to speak?

In favor.

Armando Pereira, Comprehensive Design Build Services.

Good evening, Chair Burgo and members of the Ordinance Committee.

Um, I know he's not here, but I do have to put this disclaimer.

I just want anybody to be aware of that I am not related to Council President Ryan Pereira.

We're just lucky to have the same last name, right?

So I just needed to get that cleared up.

I'm going to give you a couple of definitions, um, that are, are part of our, our codes and whatnot.

Um, I'm all in favor of everything that's going on here.

I just want to clear up a couple of things of my opinion on the multi, uh, use business.

So a story is that portion of a building that includes the upper surface of the area that you're standing on until the upper surface of the level up above.

A basement obviously is a story that's below grade.

Then we also have stories above grade, and the story above grade is basically a space that is classified that's more than 6 feet out of the ground.

So as we're trying to increase this, as we need for the residential in the city, one of the things that I caution people is that we have to look at what was defined here, and I'm okay with this But there's only one thing that I think that needs to be really changed, and that is when we define story, it's got to be defined as habitable story.

In the example that I have, and I have a project right now that we go down 2 feet and we are hitting ledge, it gets very expensive to hit, to, to get rid of ledge, but we can use it as a portion of our foundation by attaching to it, and it gives us a real good base.

So if I'm going down 2 feet and I'm putting in a 10-foot-high garage or a 9-foot-high garage, I'm above 6 feet.

So therefore, we're already going to be hindered by one fact, and that is that that's going to be classified as a story.

When you look at The interpretation of Section 1009.2.1 of the building code, which is elevators, it basically talks about 4 or more stories above or below the level of exit discharge.

That is, an exit discharge is your horizontal plane that you are leaving.

I happen to be part of SABOA, Southeastern Building Officials Organization, and I was at one of their meetings and it was brought up and I needed to get a clarification of how that level— the levels are being determined, and it is basically based on the European method.

So Europe, ground zero is zero, your first floor starts above.

So if we look at it and we have 5 habitable stories above a parking garage, we're going to be required an elevator.

It's just a given.

Um, the other thing too is that it's going to allow us in this area— and I've got quite a few buildings that I'm designing where we're restricted to the lot size, but we have to comply with the parking.

So therefore, we've got to use the lower level or ground or go subterranean to provide the parking.

So I'm looking at it, and I caution that Just that little word, I think it's going to make a big difference when it goes to in front of the building commissioner to help clarify and simplify approvals.

So again, it goes back to the same thing.

So we're not going in front of all these boards because of all these requests.

Um, the other thing that's not being discussed, I haven't heard discussed anyway here, is we're going through all these changes, which is great.

But I think when we look at multi-use business, if we are going to be going and putting parking underneath the building, I think one of the things that we also should take into consideration is probably the rear yard should probably be considered to be reduced as well.

I'm thinking maybe a 50% of the 30 feet that's required right now.

Um, this is very important because of one thing.

When we discuss the need for residential, and pretty much all the people that I'm working on, it's all— there's no money coming in from the state, and you're going to see a lot of developers that come in.

So when you start looking at that, these developers are going to be charging market rate.

So right now I got maybe about 100 apartments that I'm working on in the city.

They'll be new in the next couple of months.

If you put 100 apartments out there that are market rate, you've got people that are residing in multifamilies that can afford that and probably want to get away from that type of neighborhood, the multifamily neighborhood, and they'd rather live in a bigger building that they could actually be part of a community, because that's what you're doing.

You're creating a micro-community, a micro-city.

Inside of that.

And when we look at that, you're gonna open up those 100 apartments of these people that are going in there.

You're opening up 100 apartments in these multifamilies.

So what's gonna happen is people are gonna be fighting for people to be in their apartments because they need to keep them rented.

I got lucky.

I invested when the market was really, really low.

25 years ago, so I don't have this huge mortgage.

I can afford to have 1 or 2 apartments that are empty for a year if I need to.

But you got people that have these homes that have to have them rented.

And again, supply and demand.

Well, if there's a lot of supply and there's a demand to rent them, people are going to have to fight for those people and they're going to adjust their rates.

So I think it's a good thing.

Again, I go back to just that little word, habitable story.

I think that's a key thing that we've got to take into consideration, and if we define it that way, I think it's going to help out.

I can design a 6-story building and be under 75 feet.

It's just a given.

So the 75 feet doesn't bother me.

Again, I'm just looking at Let's get habitable story instead of just a regular story.

I think it would help out everybody and every developer that's coming into the city.

And, uh, we're looking to keep plugging away and providing these buildings.

But again, it goes back to what was brought up, to also prevent and try to expedite our permitting, prevent hurdles.

And God knows I think there's only one councillor in here that's heard me complain about some of the hurdles.

I'm not going to bring it up to him.

But anyways, um, good evening and thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you, Mr. Pereira.

Anyone else wish to speak in favor?

Be recorded in favor.

Speak in favor.

Recorded in favor.

Anyone wish to speak in opposition?

Speak in opposition.

Be recorded in opposition.

Be recorded in opposition.

All right, seeing none, um, anything else from the body?

Any other questions?

Any other changes, suggestions?

No?

Okay, so I guess at this point we would close the public hearing.

Motion made by— so moved— Councilor Carney, seconded by Councilor Pemberton.

Anyone on the question of closing the public hearing?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

All right, what is your— the will of the body for this item?

Make a motion that we refer 1, 1A, 1B, 2, and 2A to the full city council with a positive recommendation.

Oh, we're just on 1, 1A, 1B right now.

Oh, okay.

I thought we did infill the same.

Oh, did we do 2?

No, just 1, 1A, 1B.

1, 1, 1, 1A, and 1B that we refer to the full city council with a positive recommendation.

Motion made by Councilor Lopes.

Second by Councilor Pemberton.

Anyone on the question?

Chair recognizes Councilor Trickett on the question.

On this first.

Yes, thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Again, maybe it's because I served on the zoning board for several years before I became a city councilor, but I was curious.

I mean, can we get more information on this consultant report?

That Mr. McCarthy had spoke of?

How would we do that?

Is there any way?

Because I'd like to see what the, you know, the rationale was behind doing that.

There is— it's my understanding there is no report.

I don't know if Assistant Director McCarthy wants to speak to that.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

So we, we worked with, um, our, our land use consultant, and, and as, uh, Land Strategies Group, who has worked on this whole zoning package.

Their role was really doing some research on what other cities have for their standards, comparing them to ours, and then making the ordinance language recommendations and doing that, that sort of GIS analysis, which is essentially that table and a few other smaller tables that we bounce back and forth with them to reach the numbers that we're at here.

There's no like a— I don't have like a, like a desktop published report for this.

It's more of a collection of memos between, between us and them.

Okay.

I mean, my, my recommendation would be— this is just mine— I'd like to table this until we can see some of that information.

Again, I'm not saying I'm necessarily against this, but I, you know, before we vote for anything that, you know, removes even some power from the Zoning Board of Appeals and gives it to the planning board, I mean, I would definitely want to be able to say that I at least saw the justification and the data behind that.

So, Council President, if you'd allow me to respond to that.

So we're going to be going through the table of uses because they're coming up next, because you had asked for some changes.

And when we went through the table of uses, we changed a lot of the special permit authority, um, in that update from the zoning board to the planning board.

And I do want to enforce that in this particular case for the dimensional The reason that I understand your and recognize your concern that this was this, you know, when it comes to dimensional regulations, it was usually in the past reviewed by the zoning board.

But one of the things that we've been doing through the zoning reform is to facilitate permitting and take away some of the barriers of permitting.

So if we were didn't change it.

To the special permit going to the planning board, we'd be back to where we are now, where a development has to go to the zoning board for a variance and then to the planning board for a site plan review.

So consolidating it under the planning board, which is a special permitting authority under 40A, just as the city council is and the zoning board, it just facilitates development and takes away a step and a cost and a time lined for potential development.

Um, I would, I would do an analogy that we're going to be talking about in the next few minutes, that you've requested taking things from the zoning board and bringing it to the city council as the special permit authority.

So we're doing it here, but we're doing it for the reason to expedite permitting under one authority, and so somebody doesn't have to go to 2 boards.

And it's really simple.

We're talking setbacks that, you know, I think the planning board has the same expertise and authority as the zoning board when it comes to dimensional regulations.

So really, that's— that was really the thought process between— behind that.

But I do recognize you're pointing that out and recognizing the change.

Yeah, I just, you know, before I put my stamp on something personally, you know, I always want to make sure I have the data and I've read everything.

And, and as you noted, if there is an appeal at the planning board, it can be appealed to the zoning board.

To the zone board.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

So I've allowed some leeway there, obviously, since, um, the, the motion at hand is on referral out of committee with a favorable recommendation.

Anyone on the question of that motion?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Roll call.

Oh, can we do that?

Well, you can, but you usually do it beforehand.

Sorry, but since everyone's learning today, we will do a roll call.

Um, no, um, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll on the motion to refer to the full city council for a favorable recommendation.

Okay, Councilor Virgo?

Uh, yes.

Yes.

Councilor Carney?

Yes.

Yes.

Councilor Choquette?

Yes.

Yes.

Councilor Gomes?

Yes.

Yes.

Councilor Oliver— I'm sorry, Councilor Lopes?

I'm still here.

Yes.

Yes.

Now Councilor Oliver.

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Pemberton?

Yes.

Yes.

And Councillor Roy?

Yes.

Yes.

Passes 8 to 0.

8 passes 8 to 0.

I'll ask the clerk to read item 2 and 2A into the record.

Mr.

Chair, item number 2 is a public hearing continued on an ordinance amending Chapter 9 Appendix A Table of Principal Use Regulations referred to committee on October 9th, 2025.

It was duly advertised in the Standard Times on November 6th and 13th of 2025.

On November 20th and December 15th of 2025, the public hearing was continued.

On January 26th of 2026, the public hearing was canceled due to a snowstorm, and it was duly readvertised in the Standard Times on February 24th and March 3rd of 2026.

2A is a communication.

Anne Laurel, Acting Director of the Planning Department, to Councilor Ryan J. Pereira.

Chairman of the Committee on Ordinances, advising that the Planning Board held a public hearing on Wednesday, November 12th, 2025, to discuss a request made by the City Council for the Planning Board to review and make a recommendation relative to amending Chapter 9, Appendix A, Table of Principal Use Regulations, Sections 4800, 4900, and 4300 regarding the special permit granting authority for specific uses.

The Planning Board voted to send a favorable recommendation for the ordinance amendment ordinance amendment, with the exception of the changes proposed to batch asphalt and concrete plants and contractors' yards based on the comments received during their public hearing.

That communication was received by the committee on November 14th, 2025.

So this is a continued public hearing.

Again, Assistant Directors McCarthy and Lauro are here to present.

Hello again.

I don't have a presentation on this.

It was a pretty simple referral from you all to the planning board.

I can summarize the memo that we provided.

I think it said it in the— in their summarized recommendation.

They heard from a few people at the, at the meeting that the outright prohibition of a contractor's yard would be— would create complications for people trying to run that type of business out of the city.

So that's the genesis for that recommendation.

I think generally what the board thought and what we thought afterwards was this is a good use of the special permit system for a contractor's yard, preferably in an industrially zoned district.

I think a lot of the examples where we've seen this be a complication are— I note these in the staff report to the planning board, which came with our, uh, with our referring letter.

In 2021, um, the— there was a motion from the council for a rezoning request, um, on Southside Howard Street, which is, uh, on the corner of Howard and Belleville Avenue, to rezone that to allow for a contractor's yard.

The planning board sent an unfavorable recommendation, and I believe this body denied the rezoning request.

On, on the grounds that it directly abuts residential uses.

And then in 2024, we saw a zoning board case.

The zoning and building commissioner denied someone's application to use a Residence B zoned lot for a contractor's yard.

They made an appeal to the zoning board on that denial, and the zoning board denied that again.

And recently, the planning board approved contractor storage spaces at the old Sunbeam factory, but put some pretty heavy— that's an industrially zoned property, and they put some heavy, some pretty heavy restrictions on the time of business usage of that property.

So we've seen, um, uh, in the intervening months I've done a little bit of research on what a performance criteria would be for a special permit.

I think generally it's, um, making— I, I would say we need to propose a specific ordinance change for that, but It would be allowing for some kind of hazardous material control, make sure there's not big piles of gravel and mulch hanging around, make sure even if it is industrially zoned like Sunbeam, like a lot of our places in the Near North End, industrial lots abut residential lots, making sure there isn't an additional buffer requirement there so that these contractors' yards— where I recognize people have to get up early and get started and get on a job site.

We want to make sure that kind of activity isn't interfering with the, uh, the residential abutters.

I think that that was also the source of the concern, uh, when we presented, uh, last year on this.

Um, but I'll, I'll let you all discuss that.

And then the other, uh, concern that the planning board had was, was the outright prohibition of, uh, the asphalt and concrete plant.

And I believe that came from some discussion back and forth here between Councilor Pereira and Attorney Garatowski over whether or not that was a— prohibiting that use was allowed under state law.

And I, I think that's been worked out.

I'm not, I'm not quite sure, but they were, uh, hesitant to prohibit it throughout the city.

It wouldn't eliminate the only batch concrete plant we have.

That would still just continue as an existing non-conforming use.

And that is the summary of the discussion.

They were in favor of all the other, uh, special permit changes that you all wanted to make.

Thank you.

Any questions from the body?

Seeing none, what's your pleasure?

Motion to refer out to the full City Council with a favorable recommendation would be appropriate.

Thank you.

Motion made by Councilor Gomes, seconded by Councilor Carney.

Anyone on the question?

Seeing none, I'll ask the clerk to call the roll.

Councillor Burgo?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Chouquette?

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Gomes?

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Lopes?

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Oliver?

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Pemberton?

Yes.

Yes.

Councillor Roy?

Yes.

Yes.

8 to 0 passes.

8 to 0.

That is our agenda for the night.

A motion to adjourn made by Councilor Oliver, seconded by Councilor Pemberton.

Anyone on the question of adjournment?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

The ayes have it.

We are adjourned at 7:57 PM.