Ralph on the item two, the BMR regs.

Um you gonna you want to uh take the lead on that?

I can do that, yeah.

And um Bill and I can jump in wherever uh the um the urge strikes us.

I'd like to welcome everyone and call tonight's zoning board meeting to order.

I'm David Stein, chair of the zoning board, and it is 636 on Monday, May 19th, 2025.

The members of the board and the staff are holding this meeting by Zoom video conference.

The public is in attendance both on video conference and by teleconference.

I'd like to do a roll call of the board and the staff.

Bill Morris?

Here, Roseanne McManus.

Here and Jerry Bozak.

Present.

Uh now for the staff, uh Ralph Blessing.

Present and Benita Matter.

Yeah.

Uh during tonight's meeting, the board's microphones will be open.

The applicant's mics will be open during the public hearing portion for their application.

However, I would ask the applicant to please mute your mics when not speaking in order to reduce background noise.

The first part of tonight's meeting is the public hearing during which the public will have an opportunity to speak.

Each member of the public will be muted until it is your turn to speak.

Here's the procedure for the public to let us know that you would like to speak.

If you came in through Zoom, please use the raise your hand function and you will be unmuted and called on when it is your turn.

If you called in on one of the telephone conference call phone numbers, please press star nine and this will raise your hand.

Then press star six to unmute when you are called on.

When members of the public speak, would you please give us your name and address for the record and whether you are in favor of or opposed to the application?

The board requests that members of the public limit your comments to three minutes so that everyone will have a chance to speak.

If you're trying to uh speak, want to get on, and for some reason you're having difficulty, please send an email to Vanita and uh she will make it work.

Um although I guess Bill, now you're uh the other one who it can go to.

Uh uh anyway, um Vanita's email.

Vanita's email address is V, as in Victor, V M-A-T-H-U-R at Stamford C T.gov.

The meeting's being recorded and will be posted on the zoning board's website.

And you can find the agenda for tonight's meeting and the meeting applications and other materials by going to our website, www.stanford ct.gov slash zoning.

Um the first item on the agenda is discussion regarding pending litigation in the matter of butter holdings five LLC, doing business as butter cannabis, the zoning board of the city of Stanford, application 223-46 potential executive session.

Um we're not having an executive session, and this item um is uh not ready for discussion at this time.

So um we will not be uh uh discussing this item.

The next item we have is proposed changes to the BMR regulations to address the loss of BMR units when the use of the building changes.

Um staff has been um working very hard, particularly Ralph, on um coming up with some changes to our BMR regs.

This was triggered.

Um the idea was triggered when the boulevard, as folks know, uh recently um is being converted from uh multifamily to a yukon dormitory.

And as part of that, there are nine BMR units that are being um lost in that building.

Um the fortunately, the uh owner of the building is making arrangements for those people to find substitute BMR units, um, which is not something they have to do, but which we commend them for doing.

Um but we we started looking at what happens when BMR units are lost due to a change in a building.

And um we've come up with some proposed regulations.

Nothing's been filed yet.

This is just an effect of pre-application conference for the board to look at what we've done.

Um the one thing I would say is that uh the question came up on the boulevard about whether the owner of the boulevard was required to keep those nine BMR units there because they are um filed on the land records and they run with the land.

Um the law department, um, attorney uh Cindy Anger has opined that because the units um are not since dormitories are not a residential use, um there's been a change of use, and therefore the BMR units do not need to be replaced.

Um change of use to non-residential um does not require that BMR units which are being lost um have to be retained or replaced.

Anyway, um Ralph.

You can you put up the text and why don't you take us through uh what the what you've come up with?

Give me one second.

So for this is our chance to change this, you know, mold it in whatever way we want to um accomplish what whatever we feel the goals are here of the BMR program.

I'm sorry, go ahead, Ralph.

So yeah, um thank you for that introduction.

Um and um as you said, um, with regard to the boulevard, there's really two issues uh that we need to solve.

One is uh making sure that the current residents, the current BMR residents um get uh a replacement unit, and uh we actually have an item later on today, uh, an administrative approval which would amend um the uh affordability plan for 74 Broad Street to give the the people from um the uh the boulevard priority uh when those BMR units um come online.

So as I said, one part is to help the people who are directly affected, uh, and the other issue that we need to address is uh more systematic or systemic, and uh has to do with uh in the future uh making sure uh that we are in control, what happens if um BMR units get lost.

So the first thing we did was um in the definitions for affordable housing and below uh market rate housing, uh we added the sentence here that uh any change of use uh demolition or uh redevelopment uh doesn't actually get rid of um the BMR requirement.

So that is a clarification uh to what uh we we currently have in the regulations.