The Committee on Ordinance and Legislation convened on May 14, 2024, with Councilors Cadine, Hart, Roso, Samson, and the Vice President present. The committee first addressed citizen input, for which no one had signed up, and then unanimously approved the minutes from its April 16th meeting. Following this, a proposed ordinance concerning traffic miscellaneous and handicap parking removals was introduced and passed its first reading unanimously. Stephanie was noted as being present for questions regarding this item.
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2:03committee on ordinance and legislation come to order the court could call the role councel cadine here councelor Hart here councel Roso here councel Samson here vice president here pursuant to the open meeting law any person can make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings
2:26or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or un perceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible first item on the agenda is citizen imput has anybody signed up no okay second item on the agenda is the minutes of the April 16th meeting to approve second there's a motion to approve in a second all in favor I item number three on the agenda is proposed
2:55ordinance for traffic miscellaneous and um Stephanie is here if anyone has any questions motion to pass through first reading second motion pass through first reading a second all in favor I um this handicap the proposed ordinances there's handicap parking removals all of those removals so uh item number four on the agenda is the zoning map Amendment regarding the Waterfront Transit oriented development
3:27district and uh Mr agar is here I he if you have any questions or if you'd like to explain it to the committee that would be fine I see you brought some wonderful renderings backis again do I need a separate microphone or okay thanks good evening for the record Dan agar director of engineering and planning for the city of Fall River um the council probably recalls about a month ago we had a joint meeting between
3:58the council and the planning board where we discussed the proposed amendment that's before you this evening my office gave a presentation with regards to the expansion of this WTO zoning District that currently runs along our Waterfront to include the area um adjacent to the existing Zone from Walnut Street to just past um Wayland Street area running concurrently along North Main Street to
4:26create a new parallel District so this was again and um to allow different types of housing that we are being driven to provide um for NBTA communities as well as sound planning practices in association with what's going to happen along the Route 79 Cara with the land that would becoming available for that so I did bring copies of that entire presentation again paper copies of it um for you to have if you
4:54would like to look through them the copy of the existing ordinance the way that it currently exists so you can see the different types of uses that we're talking about and the densities and parking requirements for those so depending upon what level of presentation you want we can stop from scratch or we can pick up where we left off if you have any other questions so I'm available for anyone have question
5:15you would like I like to have them stop from scrp okay yeah yeah you want to pass these down just you want you you can pass these on I don't know if you guys kept these from the last time any new business Mr Agia that goes into that District are they going to be required have parking um any new business well they would be required to have parking now what this zoning what this zoning
5:37does for us is it actually alleviates some parking um because it's calculated in a different way the remainder of the city calculates parking by the parking ordinance which is fairly stringent compared to most municipalities when this wtod zoning District came into play it looked at parking a little bit differently for higher intensity uses or mixed uses so if you had an apartment building that required 200 parking
6:06spaces and you also wanted some retail space or a restaurant in that space because they're offsetting Peak demands and parking they kind of dovetail and overlap but there there are definitely parking requirements and if you can meet the parking requirements then your development potential expands dramatically from anything from a multif family dwelling three to four units to to a 400 unit apartment building so this
6:32this affords people the ability to do that but they need to meet the criteria that's currently listed Which is less than what the general overall parking demand requirements are in the city's ordinance for parking maybe we need to take a look at that because I think when we get new businesses into the area if they're new business then they have to they're required to have so much parking that
6:54concerns me if you want to develop the Flint you know how how are you going to get parking for all those stores in the Flint all those storefronts well this is you know what I mean so but this is that's a little different but this is not the Flint you know um so this is looking at new construction activities and what takes place through that Corridor and again it's less than what's required now
7:20through through zoning as it currently exists any business has parking requirements that they need to provide um if they can't provide them then they go to the zoning board of appeals route and through a special permit they were able to ask for reductions in the required parking um this expansion makes that easier for developers to meet that demand so if it's an existing business and they're just changing use
7:41theoretically and still a commercial use then they don't necessarily have to provide all that that's up to the building inspector to decide if the new use is more intense than the current use and then he'll he'll make the determination whether or not they need to comply with the new regulations moving forward or not all right thank you anybody have any questions motion to pass through first
8:02reading motion to pass through first reading there a First and a second all in favor I the last item on the agenda is um a resolution it was to convene the police chief to discuss the existing commercial vehicle parking ordinances but those um that ordinances was changed uh we had already voted on that so that you can't park commercial vehicles on streets from 5:00 p.m. to 700 a.m. so I would U suggest Grant
8:31leave to withdraw there's Grant leave to withdraw a motion made second and a second all in favor motion to adjourn motion to adjourn has been made in second all in favor I thank you