As reported in the Sunday issue of The Record, a public hearing was held at City Hall Tuesday evening for the purpose of discussion a possible change to the city's zoning legislation.

TAP, the organization behind the inital proposal, is currently looking to legally define what can be considered a "rooming house" to help regulate the recent trend of property owners subdividing and merging multiple appartments for the purpose of renting out rooms to unrelated individuals - a popular occurance in city neighborhoods which surround local colleges.

Joe Fama, TAP's executive director, said that the meeting went very well and that the public came ready to present their own ideas on the matter as well as listen to the proposal which had been prepared by TAP officials.

"Obviously I'm pleased because most people there were at least supportive of the idea of an effort, but it was far from everyone saying the best thing ever," said Fama. "There were people with a lot of good ideas that we have to consider in terms of fleshing out our idea to a full proposal that actually represents zoning law."

According to Fama, the next step in the process was asking the City Council to extend the current moratorium on the subdivision of city properties, which is set to expire at the end of March, so that there will be time to finish the legislation.

Once the proposal is finalized, it will then be submitted to the Planning Board, which does not necessarily have to approve the legislation, for review and comment before being passed on to the City Council.

"I want to be very clear - If you have things you want to see done that we're not doing, knock yourself out," said Fama. "Once we make our proposal there are two public hearings - one before the Planning Board and one before the council. Say what you want to say."