PL PACKET 08202002 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

This proposal intended to curb,demolition of residential structures. The City already had a demolition delay ordinance whereby the Historical Commission could delay demolition for up to one year on structures or.portions of them that were fifty years old or older if the commission found that the structure is "preferably preserved". The applicant could come back to the Commission within the one year period with revisions to the design incorporating the size, massing or architecture features of the structure to.be demolished.,The idea behind requiring the review,and,potential data.to develop is to get developers to think about restoring a structure before tearing it down.This proposal to allow demolitions by special permit was not adopted because it did.not-directly address the issue.of. building size and'scale and it would have substantially.reduced the Historical Commission's power and,purpose. Although this zoning technique was not adopted in Newton,-it might be helpful in addressing the issue of teardowns in,. communities where there is no demolition delay ordinance or by-law or where the Historical Commission does-not have any power. 3.8 Create A Floor Area Ratio Requirement This was the most complex and controversial of all of the proposals. Although the City had floor area ratios for buildings in business and-manufacturing districts, it had none in the residential districts, in part because of the sentimerit.that people had a right to build whatever size home they wanted, so long as.the setback requirements.were.met. A floor area ratio requirement would.limit building mass by restricting the. maximum size of a building as.it related to the size of the lot on which it sat. The first consideration was how to determine the gross floor area. Staff recommended using all floors above grade.(excluding basements and free-standing garages) whether.there was.livable space.in them or not. This proposal addressed the issue of visible building mass. The.next challenge was.to determinethe best ratio for Newton. The Planning Department developed a sliding scale of ratios based on the minimum lots size which,in Newton, went from 25,000.sf. in Single.Residence 1 to 10,000 sf. in Single Residence 3 and Multi-Residence Districts. The FARs proposed initially ranged fiom':3 to .45. When the Inspectional Services Department started applying the FAR requirements, some aldermen realized that they had gone too far by including attics in the FAR calculation. Thus, although the ordinance.,was still freshly minted,-it was changed again, this time excluding attics from the calculation and instituting a new set of requirements ranging from .2 to .4. Because there.was a concern about older homes on smaller lots another provision.. was added to allow an additional .05.for pre-1953.lots when the more restrictive post-1953 setbacks and lot coverage requirements were met. . The final version of the ordinance made clear what types of structures FAR applied to. Requiring application for all structures would have penalized the , 4