Good evening everyone. Welcome to the City of Montpelier Development Review Board. My name is Daniel Richardson. I serve as the chair for this meeting Monday, July 8th, 2019. The other members for my right are? Michael Lizorchuk. Kevin O'Connell. Meredith Crandall. Staff. Kate McCarthy. Rob Goodwin. All right. The first order of business is approval of the agenda. We have quite a full agenda this evening, but the looks like there are one, two, three, four, five items of business. Anybody have any additions or changes? Hearing none, anyone want to make a motion that I will accept for approval of the agenda as printed? So moved. Motion by Kevin. We have second. Second. Second by Rob. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. We have an agenda. No comments from the chair this evening. Other than I will note that we do have a full agenda and we will try and keep the, excuse me, we do have a full agenda tonight and so we will try and keep the process moving forward. And I will have more specific comments when we get to particular issues in which there may be applicants or people seeking to oppose or provide comment on some of the issues directly on that and to keep that moving. But the last item of administrative business is review of the minutes from June 17th. Myself, Kevin, Kate, Rob and Michael were all in attendance. Any corrections or changes to the minutes? Hearing none, do I have a motion to accept the minutes of June 17th? I'll make that motion. Motion by Kevin. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Kate. All those in favor of the June 17th minutes, please raise your right hand. And we have approved minutes. Fantastic. Just a note for audience members. If you have a hard time hearing the applicant who will be at the table in the middle, that microphone is hooked up to a speaker that is on the back of that first post so you actually will hear better if you move back a row if you're in the front row. First item of business is 106 East State Street, Gary and Allison Schied. And this is final subdivision review. Hello. Evening. So I am going to put you under oath because this is testimony. So if you raise your right hand, do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. I do. Okay. I'm sorry. I forgot to ask you to introduce yourselves. Oh. Allison Schied and Gary Schied. Okay. So this is final subdivision review. Actually, I'm going to start with Meredith. Do you have any comments from the staff or any updates? I do actually. So we do have written comments from Tom McCartle, Director of the Department of Works. And I sent those to Gary, didn't I? Yes. Okay. And he commented that, you know, the gist of it is that the applicants have installed the East State Street curbing as required as a condition of approval under a previous site plan and that the only final work required there would be installing a pavement patch along the street. Otherwise, the Department of Public Works really didn't have any other concerns or technical comments on the application at this point. So sorry to steal your thunder there, Gary. We have that we got the pavement done this afternoon. Okay. That was a really good time. Yes. I've been I've been trying to get people they're so busy trying to piggyback off of other jobs and I was able to. So Meredith, we took pictures and great. So I'm looking at the copy of the photo that shows the pavement patch. And this is really just a piece of pavement between the existing street and then new curving right you've installed. And I have to say the new curving looks great. Thanks. Thank you. We toyed over should we make it look like the rest of the historic curve or should we make it perfectly straight? So we went with the lines that were there. So we're pleased with it too. I think all the tenants really like the way it looks. We have a yard now. So people are kind of excited. I the house you can actually see it. We got everyone where they're supposed to be. Everyone is parking where they're supposed to and that's so yeah, we're actually quite happy with it. Good. And actually that is the I think the one other main piece of business I want to make sure is on the record. As far as the parking goes. So the four unit apartment building that's 106 is now going to be locked to there. That has four spaces on the map. I'm seeing that three of them are off street that from a common easement with with lot one. And then the fourth is straight off the street parking in front of the building at a garage. Is that correct? 106. Sorry. It's it's sorry. It's for number two. Yeah, 108. Yeah, yeah, that parking garage. They can pull in a park in there. It's made for cars like the the bracing it's it's made for a vehicle. That's what it was used for before we bought it. It was parking cars. So he had that car is a little bit long. I've talked to them about that. It can fit in the garage, but they have two cars. So I'm asking that if they would like to maybe swap out the shorter car, because where he's parking it now, he's parking it in front. He doesn't pull it in. So and I talked to Meredith about that that as long as it actually is like a parking space of someone parks in front or in as long as it is that is their parking spot. But I just want to make sure he understands that he cannot have a cannot exceed the line and not be in the street at all. Right. When he pulls all the way up his car isn't so but right. I mean, at least for our examination, we're not as I mean, part of the problem is is because it's it looks as if it's a 15 foot deep drive between the street and the garage. So it's, but that's an existing spot. That's not a newly created spot. Right. I'm also hearing that you have a parking space inside the garage. Correct. If he wants to use it. It is. And so that is that is one of four parking spaces for 108. Correct. And do you know the depth of that? That's, that's what's shown on here. The 15 by 10 is the spot that is in the garage. And then right here outside of the garage. No, it's not no, that's inside the building. Everything there on the hatch line. That's the edges of the building. The building goes all the way to the property boundary. Okay. And then the picture you're seeing here that I just passed around where there's a vehicle right in front of the garage. Technically, they're parking in that little driveway to access the parking space. Okay. And that's all been existing and was approved under previous site plan. All we've done is match it up with the previous site plan by putting in the curving and the grass. And it's all they're out of they're out of the actual plowed right of way there. Right. That makes sense. Okay, but the four spots for 108 State Street would be the three that are accessed through the shared easement, the easement. Yes. And then the fourth is the garage space. Right. The one we were just talking about. And then the remaining parking for 106 are the four spaces indicated here. Correct. And just for clarification, it looks as if two of those spaces are almost back to back. Can those be accessed independently? They actually can. Yes. Okay. So somebody somebody pulling into that that space in back that sort of using the lot lines. I mean, the compass lines would be sort of the Northwest parking space. They can do that whether there's somebody parked below at that the reason is because there is room on the left. So if you needed to turn, so we don't allow trucks or commercial vehicles. It has to be an automobile. So someone with a big Ford F 250 would be a problem actually in a lot of the spaces that we specifically don't like people to have big trucks. And if someone did put a big giant truck in there, that could be a problem. Oh, and Dan, under the current regulations and residential lots, you can have tandem parking spaces. Right. No, I just wanted to understand the nature of this particular parking space. Gotcha. Understand whether it was a tandem space or whether it was an independent just just the way it's sort of and it's not it's the surveyors lines that make it a little bit confusing. I just want to make sure for clarification. What you're saying is that they they can be accessed independently. It's just correct. If the bigger the car, the more difficult that would be, presumably the skill of the driver would play into it as well. Yes. Okay. And is the plan to sell off 108 State Street or they are actually they're listed. They're both listed. People are interested in both so they may not even want the line drawn someone. We just want to be able to offer an option if we decide to sell one or the other. So that that's the reason that we wanted to draw the line is to be able to sell one or the other. I'm just gonna ask that you make sure the microphone is pointed whoever's talking just in case it picks it up a little bit better. Okay. Thank you. So let's move on to the issue of landscaping. If you could give us an updated refresher on what your landscaping plan is. Unfortunately, I don't have copies. Do we have a you have you have our plan? Okay. Oh, great. Thanks. What would I do without marriage? This is what we talked about. Okay, great. So the yard we I got grass growing already I'm trying to I've been fertilizing it and keep trying to get it strong so we can we've been mowing it some people that start using it. So there is if you're on the front on the far left in the in the front of the the yard on 108. There's a proposed tree but that tree was also part of the other side plan. And I planted a cherry tree there and it just this it just is sad people backed into it and I've tried to save it. So I mean part of my proposed proposal is I'd like to put the original tree that was in there as a crab apple tree. And I want to get at least a 10 foot tree something big enough that is substantial that I've already looked at them they have some really nice ones at Agway. And so that's kind of the historic tree that was there. They're all over my pillar. And if I put a 10 foot tree in it's something that people won't not look out for people backing up in the winter. So it'll be a tree and people will know it's there. And then I just thought framing the yard with a lilac on either end just to kind of create a line of buffer to stop the line of a road so that it looks like house behind. So this is in a newly created in the newly created in the New York on either end. Like maybe I have a lilac growing at 106 like three feet from the road and it survived the plowing the salts and it's there and it's thriving. So if I put them three feet back and if I put them on the ends and I don't take up the yard for people to. So that was my proposal to put those two lilacs in. And then of course we could do flower boxes you know the barrels people can move those around and I think we're less concerned about that sort of seasonal planting and much more about the landscaping buffer that's created. One thing I'll ask, but I think I know the answer is that most of your property behind the houses is wooded. Correct. That's it sort of goes down. Correct. And so it's it's just wild growing profusely green. So so really what you're proposing are you know effectively two trees and two lilac bushes on 108. And then I see I see at least looks like three lilacs around 106 and two trees there. Is that are those planted already or those proposed those have been growing because they were part of the original site plan. They're healthy. So so really apart from the proposed two lilacs and the one proposed tree to replace the rest is growing. The rest is already sort of existing landscape. The lilac. Unfortunately I planted that lilac that's existing. It's really beautiful. It's huge. It's right over the line. So it's creating. If you look at the 108 the back stairway and there's parking there. And so what it does is it divides the parking. So there's a beautiful lilac growing there. And when they drew the line I was hoping it would I wouldn't have to move it and it the line went right next to it. So that lilac is existing and is creating a really nice buffer. So when you're 108 is creating a good screen. You don't see their cars. And then the tree in the corner here will just also create linear you know division like these are two separate. So it's sort of a limited planting in the front yard but a very wild backyard. That's a fair characterization. Yeah. What you're proposing. Do we have any landscaping questions? No good summary. Okay. Good. Alright. And then you know just as a technical note the staff has picked up that some of the corner markers and angle points on a survey need to be added in the final version. And that's something that Meredith has talked with Richard Bell about. And he said it was an inadvertent omission. So presumably put the marks on the just on the map on the map. Yeah. Because I noticed some surveyor posts have appeared. Right. So the I went your new lines. You know where your new line jogs that corner on the survey here it doesn't have it marked as having as having a post being put in. So that just on the final plat it needs to be marked that there's a survey post there but I've already spoken to Richard Bell. And actually I saw things appearing in the driveway. We're like what is this surveyors things. So he's been doing it. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Any other issues that the board wishes to raise on this? You know, Gary and Alison I'll congratulate you. I think you really took what was came to us as a troubled application and really made some good decisions. So, you know, the pre meeting was extremely helpful. Really happy with that. Yeah. Good suggestions. Yeah. Well, good. So I'll entertain a motion from the board. Mr. Chair, I would move final subdivision approval for 106 East State Street. Motion by Kate. Do I have a second? Second that motion second by Rob. Any further discussion? I'd note that in doing so we're not adding any additional landscaping requirements which I'm perfectly comfortable with but just to be clear about that. Thank you. So no additional landscaping beyond what's presented on the site plan. Good. Correct. All those in favor of the motion please raise your right hand. You have subdivision approval. That will be pending in a written decisions that will issue and of course you have the 30 day appeal period um pending and following that. So good luck. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um so if you'll introduce yourself. Hi Paul Markowitz. Okay. Resident Montpelier for Pearl Street. I think you guys might know Deb. We've heard of her name before. DRB alum. So I can ask you to raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth under a pain's penalty supergery? I do. Good. So this is a conditional use review. Um my understanding is you're starting a bret making company. Yeah. As a home occupation and my understanding further from reading the staff report is that the primary issue is about traffic. Um yes. And the amount of traffic. So why don't you give us sort of an overview of the proposed project. Um but knowing that we're particularly interested about traffic. Um sure. So um I recently left working full time and I've been a bread baker for 40 years. My starter's 38 years old and people love it and so I decided that it's almost a public service uh to get my bread out there more. And so the um plan is to use existing facilities are my own the oven that we have in the house. I converted my office which was already in office. I made it into a bakery. So there's no new no no new space that's needed. Um the plan is to make 25 loaves a week. Um I would bake it out of my house and I would sell it directly out of my house. Uh the plan and I think where the thing about the traffic is is that I would sell it to 25 loaves and then people would come during a period let's say three hours on a Thursday and they would come by to pick up the bread. It'd be a fairly quick transaction. Thank you. Give me the money. I give them the bread in there on their way. I think I've also indicated that if this goes really well I'm I would consider I'm thinking about the idea of even going to 50 loaves but you know that's very you know I put that on it would be on a separate day that I would because I have a limit in terms of how much I can bake in a day. So it could potentially be two days of up to 25 people per day. A lot of that traffic could be you know because we live in the meadows so a lot of that traffic could be my foot, bicycle, etc, etc not necessarily all by cars. I don't know. What else would you like to know? Sure. Well, I mean so you would be selling loaves out of the front of the house then. It's actually be the back of the house. Okay. You know because that's where the bakery I'm going to use to the idea of selling this. That's where the bakery would be. But like and so some of this you know strikes me as very similar to like what Mangies deals with you know how foot traffic as well as car traffic and how would you see people coming up? Would they be using your driveway or would they be you'd be telling them to park on the street? They'd be encouraged to park on the street. You know driveways. Yeah, I got we got two vehicles. It would be pretty full. I would have my own. What are those signs called that stand up on their own or like a sandwich board? Sandwich board. That I would take in and out you know just on the delivery day and on there I could indicate you know please park on the street but that would certainly be in the so they people would order by email. I would take their orders as part of that. It would be instructions about picking up your bread the directions and that kind of thing so it'd be like please park on the street and Pearl Street's a pretty wide street so it's you can park easily on both sides of the street and cars please don't move through. It's not a lot of traffic. And you're fairly close to is that is that winter the cross street? Yep, the one that goes up the hill. Okay, I mean would you would you have an objection if there was a condition that said you know customers would not be able to use the driveway for parking? No, because I don't plan on having to use the driveway anyhow so. Right, yeah. So just to make that I think more than just simply please try not to park in the driveway more of a condition because I think one of the concerns at least that I could foresee would be people coming in stopping picking up the bread and then backing out into traffic. You know which having to do that on my own driveway I know you know the more times you do that the more times you're risking somebody backing into somebody onto the street because there is no ability to turn around. Yeah, definitely it would reduce the risk by having people not back out. Right. The other thing I remember there was a question in the staff report the red part of was about truck traffic etc so we are talking small operation here so there aren't going to be truck deliveries you know anything more than like a UPS or something like that you know that's that's we're talking about any supplies I'm going to get like flour I'm going to get like through the co-op or something like that for now. Okay and when you say getting it through a co-op would you then go pick it up or would you have it delivered? No I'd pick it up. Okay. So really a minimal amount of actual delivery trucks we're not going to see like the Black River produce truck stopping in front of your yeah when I get up to a thousand loaves a day then we you know I can come back to the we should talk again when we can talk then we should talk no I'm sorry seriously no I don't anticipate any of those vehicles coming up to the warehouse. I did that on my neighbors now I know they got letters actually that raises a good question is anyone here to provide comments for this particular application well I don't know if you've offered free bread to mollify them. Well there will be a you know neighborhood you know kind of bread opening party with free bread available so that's down the way. Bread and alcohol on either end of town. All right any other questions on traffic or any other concerns? No I agree with the condition that you mentioned to just solidify that parking will be on street rather than the driveway which makes sense given the driveway and given your use of it. Well I think the other part of that is it also shortcuts I think some of the 30-10 access and circulation issues that would otherwise be applicable you know we're really talking about keeping it on the street you know this would be on street short-term parking you're really talking about pick up and delivery not all that dissimilar from what most of the general public when they stop by mangis does as well where you're not you're not starting a thrift store in in front where your baked goods will be perused it would be yeah it's what traditional baked stores are called yeah. You'll have to tell us more about that later Dan. Someone were riding their bike to pick up a loaf of bread where would they put the bike in there is there a place up against the porch right into the yard there so it wouldn't be on the sidewalk that's a good idea right 25 bikes on the sidewalk good and I'm just double checking but I think that is the primary concern so we're talking about 25 per day two days per week this would be starting out one day right but I think at least for our purposes here you know rather than making you come back when you make that incremental jump it's better for us to sort of consider the outlier that you're wildly successful but you can double production and that we're talking about 50 50 car trips a week potentially of customers coming for bread and if if that's the case you know the other analysis that we have to conduct is under conditional use and whether that would be an undue burden on the neighborhood on the character would have an undue adverse effect on traffic and whether it would have an undue adverse effect on the character of the neighborhood you know I will note that pearl street isn't is actually designed so it's not across cut through street with the the little speed bumps that discourage people yet 25 car trips per day does not seem to be excessive given the character of the neighborhood that this is a wide street this is not a a narrow little alley this is a fairly broad avenue it's also located close to an intersection of two cross streets so that you know it isn't a circulation shouldn't really be an issue I don't think it will cause a traffic jam in the meadow at least based on the testimony that's been given and so I think we could even question whether there would be an adverse impact much less an undue adverse impact and that's the standard we have to make sure it's not an undue adverse impact I think it's not undo it may not even be adverse so that's my opinion based on the information we've heard it also based on the feedback that the public works has given us which is basically there they don't have concerns right I mean otherwise this is really a sort of standard home occupation business and it's really the traffic that's bringing it before us but I'm I'm certainly satisfied with the the testimony that it it shows that it's a very light impact on the neighborhood it's a limited scope of what you're proposing you know certainly we hope you do run up against the problem of having a thousand loaves because good bread is worth its weight sourdough I should mention that mention the starter there'll be a rye with caraway seeds and a whole wheat eight inch rounds baked in Dutch ovens each one weighs three pounds so it's a good hearty I mean just a little PR here yeah I was gonna say very close to advertising at this point you know and there have been other home occupations in that in that neighborhood I know eat more kale was located not too far away from that although I don't know if he did too much retail out of his garage but this is similar to you know the way mangs works which does not seem to have an ad do undo or adverse impact on the character of neighborhood any other questions on this more than 25 yes I was gonna say I mean but they also have a distribution system on top of it and it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison definitely but I was more my curiosity more of a rye to sourdough comparison but nevertheless I think I think this is notwithstanding the fact that they do substantially more I think this even more goes to the fact that this is not likely to take any type of cut into the character of the neighborhood or traffic so if there are no other questions I will entertain a motion Mr. Chair I move conditional use approval for the home industry bread baking proposed for four Pearl Street with the condition that customers will park on the street in order to pick up their bread friendly amendment that it did you mentioned conditional use approval I believe I did okay thank you motion by Kate with the condition do I have a second second that motion second by Rob any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please raise your right hand you have your permit good luck with uh well sorry this is the way Phil used to do it as well um the permit the permit is will be forthcoming and issuing and knowing of course that you have 30 days in which a window for an appeal may be taken um but the approval has we've we voted to approve it and the permit should be forthcoming should I keep this sign the z sign on my up uh yeah keep that one up and you'll when you after the written decision comes out you'll also get an actual permit and you'll need to post that permit in your window at that time thanks all thank you good luck farmers market that's awesome voting mr proctor your turn my apologies more detail than we anticipated um so this is a sketch plan subdivision review and I just for everyone's benefit because I believe we have this is the only sketch plan tonight yes this is the only sketch plan tonight so sketch plan is not under oath we take no evidence we make no final decisions tonight tonight is really an opportunity for us to give you feedback um for any neighbors are interested parties who may be in attendance to give you feedback or voice concerns that they may have uh for you to have an opportunity to explain you know your application that's not uh necessarily an opportunity to move it forward or defend it so much as just to explain and to hear these are the issues that we're seeing and that we're arising it's a very informal process and as mr shai indicated in the first application it can be a very helpful process for the applicant to see these are the concerns and let's come up with either creative solutions to address it or you know uh re-emphasize where in our application existing application these questions are are answered and addressed okay so why don't you start out mr proctor by giving us sort of an overview of what you're proposing um we're proposing uh our lot is about 15 000 square feet and separating it into two properties one with the house on it which will be about 8500 square feet and the other property which i believe was separate of one time years back of about um 7 500 square feet and um uh the only the only thing that uh has been mentioned to me by anybody is my the neighbor on uh the other side of that lot but there's a fence there between that property now that's in a little bit of disrepair and she asked if we could fix that up and make it a better fence and we said sure that's no problem uh we don't have any plan to do anything immediately with the property when they're developing it or anything like that we wanted to be able at some point in the future to perhaps sell that separately from the house but obviously as part of the subdivision the idea is that once you subdivide it could be sold off from there and separate residents would be built on it um one thing i'll sort of note off the bat is that at least the uh richard bell survey that we have does not indicate where a driveway would be on it no it does not we were thinking if someone wanted to do a driveway the best place to do it would be right next to the driveway for the other property there's about um maybe 18 feet there before it begins to slope a little and we thought that would be a good place it's not something we were planning on doing ourselves to the property you don't have to necessarily um do that to build you don't have to build a driveway but we will need to see when you come back for a final subdivision review we would need to see where a driveway would be in part um you know i do understand that marvin slopes up it starts to slope up at this point um and it may drop off in the front and so showing that it's possible to put a driveway in a particular location is important um in part as well you know there are issues about where driveways can be located um in relation to each other and and whether or not the best way to even do this would be to do a shared driveway off of your existing driveway would that be like an easement or how would you correct okay you you'd have to when you sold the property grant an easement a right of act ingress and egress for the driveway to the neighbors um and have that sort of shared driveway or it may make sense to put it in another location but the the short of it is that we need to see at least where a driveway could potentially be located um when you say see that do you need a sketch of it or what are you yeah we need to sketch of it and show distances and as you'll see in some of the subdivision regulations you know it does talk about access and circulation um under what's uh I think it's section three zero one zero um Meredith can certainly point you to the to the right sections but that deals with you know how you access and circulate vehicles in and out of the property um in relation to the road in relation to existing driveways making sure that you know what you don't create what we don't want at the end of this is a is a lot that can't have a driveway without some extraordinary effort you know what would effectively be a landlocked parcel or we don't want a parcel that can only have a driveway that would conflict with all the other driveways um so that's why we need to see a driveway on the sketch and and you know one has to be effectively located if only it it may not be the one that ultimately gets built but at least it would be the one that would show us for purposes of the subdivision that a driveway could be located exactly without what is what is the width that is necessary for that I believe it's I'd have to I'd actually defer to the it's the b71 standard which I think is 20 it's the actual width of the driveway is actually more of a carbon and public work standard and I can't I can't remember what the actual numbers I think it might be 20 feet but that can there can be some wiggle room on there um but we'll you know we can we can discuss we can discuss that after the sketch plan hearing for sure I can't remember the exact width of what the driveway needs to be yeah just thinking off the top of my head that would be the obvious place to put it but you know there is 60 foot frontage there so depending on what somebody wanted to do uh I don't think it would affect any other drive with whatsoever yeah maybe I could add to the chair's comments and just say the reason we're asking some of these very specific questions about what goes where and the reason we have this list of standards that we're ticking through with you is to make sure that once this subdivision is complete you have something that you can use um as a landowner and also we have something that works in the neighborhood and for the city so so that's what all these add up to is making sure it's a good good decision instead of something weird yeah I think I think considering that I think uh while we would do it unless there's some other reason is have somebody make a sketch of that area because I think that works pretty well and then if someone wanted to change it like you're saying make it right and just just as a as a point for example right now the the zoning bylaws talk about access points shall be spaced as specified in the in the bylaws which for this this particular district require a minimum of 100 feet between curb cuts and intersections so you know where you cut for a driveway has to be at least 100 feet back from an intersection um and 45 feet between driveways so you know that's something I driveways on the same side of the street uh any driveway any drive any driveway so in this instance if you really wanted to try and have these driveways right next to each other it would make more sense to really have it be a shared curb cut and have the easement right and that may mean expanding your existing driveway so it's a little bit wider um and in fact the bylaws do encourage that type of shared driveway oh they do okay they do yeah I don't think that's any problem there because there's the width would be right but yeah it is it is on both sides of the street um that those measurements come from in part because of course both sides of the street feed into the same and and a street like Marvin it's not as it's not as if there's two demarcated delineated lanes um say like main street right that's a little bit wider um so there's obviously some concern about how how traffic comes in and out right and within our standards we do have a provision it's not in the staff memo but in the section that talks about spacing it says the development review board may reduce the spacing requirement if certain standards are met and those may be hard to meet or may be easy to meet they really they're case by case right so yeah I would I would sort of put that in the hopper as as part of your considerations and Meredith can can talk with you about those those aren't a guarantee they're just kind of a a release valve for appropriate circumstances right if there's no if there's no impact and there's really no other other viable option for um for driveway we can consider on a case by case basis yeah point out yeah so if you if the shared driveway option is for some reason or another where there's engineering or something else really doesn't seem viable then you can come up with an alternative plan I'll review it and we can run it by Department of Public Works too to see what their thoughts are before it comes back here in the final application process okay sounds good good is there um is this two existing separate tax parcels just like on the survey it sort of gives two different parcel IDs and I just right and that's that's so the well the survey yeah there were two parcel IDs because it was at 1.2 parcels um and but they have since been merged so it's going back to what right right that we have a determination or making that that does trigger this process yeah that's that's yeah we yeah that's a good question because they are listed as having separate parcel numbers even today I just read the survey and you know those are the historical parcel numbers historic parcel numbers um by just read the notes of the survey and it appears that this is actually retracement of the two existing lots and I think there's not a new line so I just wanted to make sure that we cross their T's and auto rise to make sure I'll go back to Richard to check on that with him yeah but my understanding is based on all of the other information we have here at the city level that this subdivision had to happen so um and the proposal would be that lot two that you're creating the second lot that you're creating would be a residential would be sold for residential use to build uh yes to have the ability to do that I don't know when that would happen right but you're not subdividing it and planning on selling it as a commercial or retail oh no no commercial um one of I would recommend you take a look at the staff report if you if you haven't so we get a staff packet and it often has in red is that the email I got from and uh just some of it is not anything that we don't think you can necessarily meet but you do have to it will have to be part of your final application so for example the capacity of community facilities and utilities the suitability of the land you just need a narrative addressing and saying why your application either meets these standards or doesn't trigger um you know doesn't violate these standards okay and you know I would say that overall another residential structure or another lot on Marvin Street isn't likely to affect these community services or utilities you know it's close to the school so if somebody with a family moves in it's one family adding to the school population and it's not as if it would create new busing issues because they could clearly walk to the school um you know this is not talking that's served by city water and sewer is that I'm tired and are the lot served by city water and sewer yes okay so things like that you know we're not talking about creating additional requirements where you'd have to run new water lines out oh no no nothing like that or I did notice something in there about the electric um I don't know what would have to be done just to move electric to that lot I mean there's electric all along the street I don't think it's too complicated well that's certainly checked with the electric company if that's that's the next thing you know so we have this requirement that talks about running utilities under uh you know underground as opposed to the traditional where you run it off the pole directly to the house okay um and we've dealt with this in a number of subdivisions where it looks like the utility poles that serve this neighborhood are actually across Marvin Street on the opposite side um and we've had testimony in your I would certainly encourage you to confirm this with the power company where you know running a line under Marvin Street is not a feasible proposal the public works doesn't like people digging up the street the public streets to run lines under and it's cost prohibitive so we do grant waivers for those type of issues okay but it would be helpful to understand that that is in fact the situation and there is no possibility to run those type of underground lines because of the specifics of the situation and the water wouldn't be necessary to check with them I assume well I mean the water is what it is I mean that's that's really I mean there's no water that runs above the ground exactly that's fine it's really we're talking about telephone cable electric that run above and and what it is is it's you know it's one thing if the power lines are on your side of the street to run them down off that line underground got um but when they're across the street like this we've had several applications in which there's been testimony and we would we've taken note of it just in a general sense that this this may be a cost prohibitive issue but I would certainly encourage you between now and your final application to confirm that okay is in fact the situation because what you will have to do is ask us to waive that provision okay I'll check with the company and see what's involved but know that that we've we've dealt with that issue before and that that type of waiver has been has been granted in these type of situations I know that we may have some comments from from the audience on this could you remind me do we take those as we go or do those all after we've walked through the staff report what's your preference I would prefer that we actually do those after the board has had an opportunity to go through so if people do have some comments or some considerations that we sort of save them till the end because they may I think in one case at least with the driveway it seemed as if that may have been answered by us as we were going along so we hopefully we will address the majority of the questions and won't won't have redundancy okay great just wanted to set expectations for that so folks knew where we're headed thanks so we're headed good so the next issue I think is is landscaping and the proposal does not have landscaping I would encourage you to think about landscaping in part because both for yourself as well as neighbors if you do put a house in there um how it fits and sits in there um you know can have an impact on how other houses in the neighborhood what they're essentially the view shed is and so you know landscaping in this sense is not the flower boxes or the whiskey barrels they're the permanent plantings that provide some buffer between these houses so that it's not house upon house or you know you're staring at your neighbor's living room window kind of thing so some consideration or at least some thought about a landscaping plan in part what's helpful is to understand what exists there now what's likely to have to be removed if you build a house and what a project would be involving for landscaping when a house would be built that way we understand and can approve that with those with those conditions for for landscaping not requiring you to put in landscaping before anything is built but at least having that plan in place and I think that often goes to how the neighbors feel about a subdivision because that's the impact that they're likely to feel on a day-to-day basis is what they're going to see so understanding that there's a landscape plan in place as part of the subdivision is is helpful and understanding what's there and what's going to go um and what would have to be likely added is is helpful okay good as I said uh I discussed it with Susan on the other side you know what she would like is just to have a fence there so I don't think there'd be any landscaping on that side um well I mean you know maybe the fence would have to go if the house was was put in um and if that was the case what that would look like or you know whether that fence would be repaired or right you know I mean those kind of things are important um you know obviously if you want to fix the fence you can fix the fence I heard you don't need a permit from us right to do that um you know and you can make that commitment outside of the permit you know that's something that the neighbor says like you know I really want to hear that if I'm understanding about the landscaping it's just some idea of what might what might be good but since we're not developing the property in any way it would be up to the people who if someone eventually wanted to put a house up there as long as it met the requirements that you have for landscaping that would be part of it and you know if you look you know if you look at the pictures here it seems like there's a lot of lawn in the front and there's not a lot of trees in back and so you know this house that's directly sort of below the new lot any house that goes in there is going to have an impact on that right and I don't know how houses are situated across the street or whatnot but but those you know understanding that you know there would have to be plant there might have to be plantings depending on where the house is located towards this front here or along the front you know would be helpful would be helpful for us in viewing this and evaluating it okay as well as you know understanding what the impact is likely to to be or not be you know knowing that this is this is you're not talking about removing trees necessarily to do this but you know what what it's going to need when it's built got you yep okay and of course that would depend on the location of the house on the lot and what they do exactly right so we wouldn't need a specific like I'm going to plant six trees here right seven bushes here but just an indication of these these are would be areas where there would need to be trees because there aren't existing trees here and there would be a house no matter where the house is located you know might have an impact along the front that would need to be softened by the landscaping the buffering if I remember correctly sometimes when we've done a subdivision like this for example the one on pearl street in the meadow there was a condition saying that once the building permits for this structure on the subdivided lot was submitted that would need to fulfill the landscaping requirement so it wouldn't do I remember that correctly that it wasn't even necessarily dots on the subdivision plan it was a condition or a promise some basic thinking about what might go in when the house is being built and making sure there's flexibility and making sure that the final application has a site plan that shows what the current landscaping is on it that's right and then we have a discussion at the final hearing as to some possibilities for future right good so those are my major points I don't know if anyone else has any other concerns if they wish to add if there are any neighbors or interested parties that wish to comment I'd ask that you go to a microphone that you'd state your name and feel free to make your comments I'm Michelle Braun I live at 21 Marvin Street which is directly across the street and just in the staff report there was something about stormwater and the requirement to convey the stormwater over to Liberty Street which I think would was going to require easements across properties on Liberty Street would acquiring those easements be a condition of the subdivision approval or would that come as part of a development well so I think at least as far as those are concerned in in part that's something that we need to determine at the final hearing whether or not and part of that is the drainage of of how the lot you know the stormwater I think part of the reason why the stormwater has to go to Liberty Street is because of the hill it can't come up to Marvin and so part of the question is I get that I just wanted to understand how it fits in the process yeah um no I you know I mean I think that's something that we would ultimately we'd make that decision at the final application yeah I mean it's there's different ways you can do it you can require that the easement be recorded as part of the subdivision and that's something that say with something as complex as the parking garage it was required that all those easements be part of the final approvals it isn't necessarily something that has to happen with a smaller subdivision sometimes the board and Dan might correct me on this but sometimes with smaller projects what is required is that before as part of the zoning permit package those easements have to be part of that approval process and have to be recorded for the zoning permit and and sometimes what that what determines that is not is both the size of the the development and likely disturb soils which we may not be able to determine at this point in time so you know we may put it at at the very least we would put it in as a condition that they would have to seek it at a later time if they wouldn't seek it now and part of that is the applicant because he doesn't have a project may not know you know what the what the storm water needs of this particular piece of property are because there's no project plan and the storm water needs of a 4 000 square foot house as opposed to a 1500 square foot house or can be very different so that that would be one thing that we would take into consideration I mean certainly if there's testimony about storm water and concerns we would take that very seriously and you know we often let the department of public works guide us to a certain extent and utilize their technical resources and and experience in these issues okay but it sounds like that's more part of the development process than the subdivision process right yeah I mean I mean it's it's one of these things and this is this is kind of similar to what the landscaping is which is you know ultimately we're not going to make him plant trees right now because the project it doesn't necessarily the subdivision itself doesn't require it but we still want to see something and understand so that when it comes before us again for an actual project you know that foundation has been laid and so I think it's very similar with the storm water it's there are some projects that just it's crystal clear they're going to need storm water and we need to get those things in lined up now and there's no no reason to wait in other situations where it's going to really depend you may have also seen the staff memo noted that the topography on page nine the topography may create some additional steps for future development such as obtaining easements from the property owner to the north for access to city sewer and storm water so it's not just I mean storm water I guess captures the that part but right right so it seems like that yeah so it seems like something we'll probably discuss in more detail at the final stage because it does seem pretty essential to be able to have sewer and water on the lot if you want yeah but sewer on the on the house now does go to Liberty Street it does yes you know so the question is kind of tie into that and what that would look like and that what that's proposing and again you know part of this is we understand you're not building an actual house or a project but we need to see on paper that it theoretically could work for a project you know and oftentimes there's six different ways to build a house on a lot but sometimes given the topography and other issues with the lot there's only one way to do it and so there but there has to be at least that one way otherwise it can't be a separate standalone lot right and so and like you're saying it's a thousand square foot house there's a lot of differences if it's four thousand I mean I don't even know how big a house could even be built on a lot like right what are the regulations for the size of that are there any set well I mean you do have into and that was actually one of the things I looked at it does appear that at least your surveyor has put in sort of a building envelope here at least for purposes of setbacks so a house could be located within that I mean there are coverage calculations that we do we do depending on a specific district you can only build so much impervious soil on on a on a lot uh and there's also a 2,500 square foot maximum footprint in this district the footprint yeah there's enormous yeah I mean because you go two stories on right yeah that's your five thousand square foot house right um was there anything else michelle okay any other interested parties or neighbors that wish to talk about this application uh okay you come up and then I also have written letter from another neighbor who could make it today okay let's do that let's solve yes please uh i'm rick monk i'm at 47 liberty which is kind of a corner abiding property um sorry i was taking notes as i as i went so we're gonna step back a little bit um and you mentioned uh that you were discussing the intent to possibly subdivide and sell the property for residential purposes um and so my question is could a subdivided parcel be used for commercial or other purposes of what is involved in that decision making well that's it's yeah i mean it's part of it's the character of the neighborhood the the classification of the neighborhood the permitted uses um you know obviously he's not bound to only develop it as a residential if it's a permitted other type of use however you know we we like to understand what the applicants intentions are um you know sometimes people do have it they have a plan they want to put in a business next door or something um but you know it's ultimately driven by what's allowable within this particular zoning district and there's a table of permitted and and conditional uses within the zoning bylaws but in addition there's language within each neighborhood so this is you know this is a residential 6000 um and what is the base district i mean the neighborhood this is the we have about 50 different neighborhoods and each have a sort of uh succinct narrative yeah college hill north so you know if you read the character of the neighborhood uh i would suspect you would find that it's largely residential and so any applicant who would come in who'd say aside from a permitted use you know would have to explain why this is fits in with the character of the neighborhood yeah so maybe it's obvious that if you were to subdivide it would make sense to to drop another house in there but raising the question of a promotional use when you look anything around there i was it just sort of set my bells off that that was a possibility well as residential 6000 the options for any kind of commercial use are very very limited yeah even even things that are conditional uses well there's a home and there's the whole business which is a whole separate thing those can go in any zoning district um but when you're actually talking about full on commercial uses there's almost there's very very few that could actually be here yeah so i can give you a couple examples from this great big table that you too can peruse at home um in the residential sys district one through four dwelling units are permitted they can go to meredith and get a permit and do it but if someone wants to do five or more units that's conditional we have to maybe it comes to this board and we contemplate how well it fits in to the area the same would be true of senior housing or um a bed and breakfast those would all be conditional uses none of the commercial uses we have listed like neighborhood market car wash fueling station retail um veterinary and animal services offices none of those are allowed in this district though a religious facility would be or a recreational park or a academic grade school so um so there's a narrow range of what would be allowed given the character of the area and what we expect to happen in a place like that that's a good question though um i don't know particularly the question about the storm water runoff i would say that um as you're developing your plans as you're thinking about this and as you guys are thinking about this pay particular attention to um i i know that 40 i think it's 45 liberty um there's something of a a new wetlands there it has a lot of water that runs off it's um i know there's a problem currently with the storm water um drain that's been installed there there's been some uh i don't know some um what do you call it subsidence or something in the ground it's full of them anyway so is that is that is that a city installed storm water it's public works okay and they've been out i don't know the details i've seen them out taking a look at it it's one of these uh places that you know come come springtime it's it's wet constantly to the point where you can't walk back there and it's on the doubt you know it's on the down slope of of your property at that so i assume that there's some surface water i don't know that that is the problem and there's so much water down there um but pay particular attention to that as you're thinking about this um and i just had a question about um the the impact of the subdivision and the current development rights on the property versus post subdivision development rights in the sense that you know what is your buy right you know ability to develop to you know if you didn't subdivide the property could you put a for you know unit dwelling on there does that change after you subdivide it or it it does i mean subdivision the primary purpose of subdivision is becomes a separate lot that can be sold to a separate owner whereas if it's not then the lots have to be sold together they have to be single owner but as far as what can actually be built on there it's true he could he the owner could take his whole area and build a bigger building and tear down the existing house there um there are accessory buildings and dwellings so he could build a second house there i mean they're you know it's it's our bylaws contemplate allowable uses within that you know you couldn't put up two separate big houses um you know on there at some point the accessory has to be smaller and it's defined within our zoning bylaws um but that's not to say that somebody couldn't build a new building and tear down the old one um so it's it's essentially whatever they're permitted to do but they couldn't sell it separately you couldn't have its own life typically you can only have one primary use on each parcel each single parcel so that's where accessory use would be subordinate by definition so that's the primary one anything else you're welcome thank you so the final the final thing we have here is a letter from martha smirsky who lives at 15 marvin street um and her primary concerns are um potential erosion from development of lot two um and the the fact that you're disturbing soils there's some issues with prior disturbance in the area and then the driveway and i don't think you got a copy of this did you i don't think so i didn't see it if i did today so i only saw your email i saw in your email you were going on vacation just a reminder to everybody um because i'm not sure dan made this 100 clear that this is the sketch plan so the comments that you've made today aren't technically on the record if these same concerns are still an issue when the final application comes in you'll need to resubmit your concerns and your your issues for all of the neighbors and that's really directed at the neighbors obviously you as the applicant mr pet will um uh proctor will will come back because you have to um but we want to make sure that the neighbors understand that as helpful as these comments are and they are extremely helpful um they aren't they haven't been added to the record as testimony okay um so you know i would given given the comments um that we we've just heard as well as uh miss mersky's uh comments one thing that i would recommend uh that you consider and i would suspect public works may have some thoughts on this um is that it may help i know you've engaged a surveyor but it may help to engage an engineer to deal with some of these stormwater issues this is clearly you have three neighbors who've raised the issue of stormwater and concerns about it and there's been testimony not testimony but at least some comments to the effect of it's really wet down there um we're really concerned about it you i would recommend that you consider um talking to an engineer to see if they have any thoughts that may be helpful in addressing those issues um because now with the public works is somebody i would talk to about this you would talk to them they would give you some feedback but they're not going to design your project necessarily um and so you know in you may want talk with public works first um and if they raise some of the same issues that would that that would if that was the case i would highly recommend that you engage an engineer and there are a number of really good ones around who do you know you're not talking about a full-on engineering study but someone who can help you deal with the stormwater and drainage issues that are clearly around the property whether they're caused or likely to be added to your property that's where an engineer can help and clarify and provide testimony to say no you can build a a 4,000 square foot house and it won't change any of the drainage this this comes from another issue or another area you know i mean engineers are good at that it's saying this is our problem this is not our problem um and that may be something that you may want to consider especially if public works raises red flags about some of these issues and if public works didn't feel there's any problem with the drainage that would it would not be necessary well you know that's a judgment call on the airport and what i would say is that you've heard now from three neighbors who have raised these concerns and the question you have to ask yourself when you come back before us is are my answers sufficient that the board is likely to accept what has been given to them or are these concerns nebulous enough that the board is going to have continued concerns you know at the end of the day we we simply want answers that carry a certain degree of certainty you know we give a certain amount of deference to expert um understanding the department of public public works particularly um you know we rely on them but at the same time we want we want to be able to answer these questions for ourselves for our own satisfaction and that's that's ultimately your burden is to persuade us that these issues are satisfactorily dealt with and that if this lot is created we don't create problems because as a board what we don't want to do is create a separate parcel that all of a sudden causes the entire washout of middle liberty street or something in order to you i mean you know it does um you know so what we want to do is we want to make sure that what we're doing is compliant with the with the zoning bylaws and that there's some reliability to what we're making a decision upon god does that make sense yeah no it doesn't make sense yeah and Meredith can certainly guide you and and give you a certain amount of feedback um and give you she's certainly dealt with public works she'll be a bit more blunt than i will as to whether or not you know these issues are real um and concerns are serious or substantial just to clarify one thing you just said um does the entrance of a does the submission of a letter like this one at the sketch plan stage entitled someone to party status or does anyone who's commented need to come to the final sketch point or final they need to come to the final they need to come to the final it's a completely separate application okay even though they've submitted in writing people need to come back okay i want to get that on the record for anyone who's watching or listening at home or who reviewed the videos thank you so when will the final application be when when do i have to do these things but uh within the next year you have a year to submit your final application oh okay so as soon as i can do it in other words yeah so i would i would suggest that um you know wait till i've got the minutes of this meeting put together i'll send them a copy of those minutes to you okay um and then if you want you and i can set a meeting and discuss the game plan and what you need to add in and and who we need to talk to okay great go ahead but either way you and i should meet before you submit your final application to the office okay sounds good good so uh really it's something that i could probably do if we talk at the next meeting as long as i have the sketch and the engineers report with the deadlines it'll probably be two meetings from now at the earliest okay yeah it has to be submitted in time to give us adequate notice and warning and to give the neighbors adequate notice and warning in the public as well okay so good very good well good luck thank you thank you very much thank you all for participating next application is 29 Franklin street yes yes yes and if you'll introduce yourselves for the record i'm war choice we'll pay we architect Andrew Berglick on the owner with my wife mary and dying of purposes of that great raise your right hand i'll put you both under oath do you solemnly swear or affirm that testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth the whole truth that nothing but the truth under the pains of penalties perjury yes right uh and is there anyone here that wishes to provide comment on this particular application if you are just raise your hand good okay or do you want to explanation yes set the scene we were here to ask for two are they variances for lot coverage one is a lot waivers one is for additional lot coverage to put some stone in the backyard and the other was to increase the or to increase the the already violating front yard setback and i did some research today actually that is what the new sheets i gave you is is that steps actually constitute construction and they are part of this part of the build building and so actually we are proposing that the front steps of the house are already out at a given point relative to the front yard setback and actually what we're proposing is to just increase the depth of the deck alongside the steps and bring them out to not even bring them out to the front of the steps but actually have the roof overhang come as far as the existing front steps and it does a couple important things it gets the front steps covered by a roof for safety and it also makes a four foot deep deck a six foot deep deck which makes it useful but i think the most important point i'm that i would like to make is that we actually are not increasing the frontage or we're not getting any closer to the front yard setback than the existing steps already do let me to let that one sit or would you like me to cover the other one at this point too no okay so so essentially you're asking for a waiver for the front yard setback to bring the porch forward even with the steps i actually i actually don't what i'm proposing is that the front porch can come as far forward as the steps which is what the drawing shows and we are not increasing the use of the front yard at all we are not decreasing the front yard setback because the porch it steps and porch and we're saying we're going to bring the porch up to the plane of the steps which is adding two more feet and it doesn't extend beyond the existing right but essentially what you're asking us is for for a waiver for that i mean well i understand the argument that okay that that that you're not you're not bringing the porch out any further than that's for this point of encroachment is yes you're just evening it up yes to its greatest slightly back from its greatest point of encroachment yes sir if that is a waiver that is what we're requesting okay so the problem is that entry stairs are allowed all the way to the property line that is not the same thing for a covered porch right a covered porch is considered part of the building okay um you know there's there's a separate waiver for side and for like side and rear setbacks for decks and things that are not covered covered porches are a whole another ball game when it comes to setbacks so then i will retract that particular argument sorry trust me i would have made that argument for you if i could it's quite all right so then i ask you to look at the second page on which i have done a tour of the neighboring houses and what i have found is that or what we i think know for people that know this neighborhood is it is one of it's a neighborhood with some of the tightest buildings to the street and as you can see there there's i think six different buildings directly around it that have front yard violations that exceed the ones that we're requesting including the neighbor right next door whose front porch is about five feet from the sidewalk otherwise known as two feet from the front yard setback and we are a good or andress house is a good i mean it's right it's 11 i don't have the sheet in front of me because i gave all three of the way but it's essentially there are six houses directly around there that violate the front yard setback more than we are requesting and we are requesting simply to add two feet to the porch so that it's six feet deep and usable and therefore a friendly amenity in the neighborhood where it's it's fairly usable at four feet and in the process of pulling it out we can get the steps covered which would be add a heck of a lot of safety for the residents okay um and then if i'm understanding the other portion that you're looking for which is the backyard coverage right so the lot is extremely extremely small within city standards and the idea out the back door was we're going to add a back door to the kitchen and within the allowed setback of the backyard which is five feet we were just looking to put stone down right outside the back door and a path leading to a gate in the fence so it's a really small bit of hardscape it's not a built deck above the ground it's literally a stone patio on the ground and because we have already and incredibly over i mean that the lot is already so small around the house that doing anything is is a variance or a waiver request you know literally even to put a stair out of the door would be a request for that so it's a very small deck that we're hoping that you can see the way to allow us to do i think it's helpful to jump into some of the waiver requirements page four yeah on on page four so it says uh to grant a waiver the board must find that um but this isn't the beginning of the waiver this is just a quotation right so the nice thing is is that the waiver provisions that we have now are much more friendly than the variance provisions that we use okay so the waiver if authorized shall not alter the essential character of the neighborhood or district in which a property is located substantially or permanently impair the lawful use or development of adjacent properties reduce excessive access to renewable energy resources or be determined detrimental to the public welfare and the proposed land development is beneficial or necessary for the continued reasonable use of the property so these are the standards so let's break these down i think one at a time is the best way to approach them the first one talks about uh altering the essential character of the neighborhood and if i understand ward your sort informal survey of the neighborhood is that this is precisely what this neighborhood is about at least for the front porch portion and and let me maybe take a further step of saying let's look at the front porch waiver and then we'll go to the back area which is that um this is a neighborhood of front porches that are right up against the street practically um and that by doing so you're you're not altering the character the essential character of the neighborhood in fact it's consistent with the central character of the neighborhood does anybody have any questions um okay would it permanently impair the lawful use or development of the adjacent property this is just strictly in your front yard this is not blocking any sidewalk any driveways any cross streets solar access nothing okay well then we get reduced access to renewable energy resources this is not going to prevent somebody from putting up solar panel or wind turbine um on the north side on the north side um and will it be detrimental to the public welfare and i think the testimony here is that again it's fully within your property boundaries it's not it's actually whether or not the stairs themselves are a part of the building and i i tend to agree with maritus analysis in part because that is what the bylaws say but also i think it's steps are different and we've differentiated them in the past um i think it at least your testimony is that it's it's certainly not going to hurt anyone in the public uh right of way uh or affect them so i think we've hit that point and then the last point is the proposed land development is beneficial and necessary for continued reasonable use of property and while i understand um a six foot porch is better than a four foot porch could you elucidate or elaborate on why um and what the particular need for this expansion is well the i think the more important point of the two that i made was that the front steps can be covered by the roof and the snow does shed forward onto the steps so the ability to carry the roof out a little further is going to make it safer for the inhabitants um and then a more fuzzy argument would be that a porch less than six six feet is not practically going to get used that comes from the principles of Christopher alexander that says that no deck should be narrower than six feet or won't get used so i think that if it's big enough to actually sit comfortably on it you're going to create a better civic character in the neighborhood i think it's actually an improvement for the neighborhood but i think more importantly the safety of the covered steps is the is the is why this is beneficial for the residents because i'm in the mood so when you say chris for alexander i presume he's an architect sorry it's yes it's uh yeah sorry it's uh yeah i just think us anything narrower than than six feet of a deck ends up not getting used by people because if you sit and put your feet out you use about three of them and if you have to kind of barely edge around someone you don't find that three or four people sit there comfortably it actually becomes unused so by making it at least six feet it creates a social space it creates a usable social useful semi public space on the front of the house that's what front porches are for yep it improves walkability and human scale and character all that it's okay if one person if i'm sitting out there by myself i feel kind of okay but if my daughter or my wife also wants to sit out with her like word said you can't get around the other people if you want to have a little table out there yeah sure it's not as useful if you want to run a front porch campaign for your next reelection you know it's well and your dog needs space to wiggle that's right you know having a having a usable front porch you know is an improvement to the neighborhood sure beneficial beneficial i think yeah i and again i i think it's fairly close to self-evident nevertheless it's nice to have the record reflect that so does anybody have any further questions about that waiver issue so let's talk about the the port the the the lot coverage yeah i mean i i think the discussion is reasonable about the you know setback waiver it's just even the regs and the software the numbers are pretty straight forward when we bail on a grant that you know 10 percent which i you know i think we've made the argument maybe to uh exceed that um i just uh i think that you know going forward here i'm not seeing any sort of definitive determination where that street line actually is i think that fairness to the other applicant on the street we might want to solidify that to get some consistency um i see one united document that is a piece of a survey yep i've got that and uh i you know i i guess that basically you know it seems like you gotta use this to come to your determination where things are when i pulled this in the city they said this is unique that you actually have all the dimensions of your lot that this this is very useful for you because it does tell you exactly how big your lot is i'm just seeing the front line and showing the survey not really being exactly parallel with the street and uh i sort of raised the question that's whether that point you've indicated on the area is actually representative of the of the right of way um and i don't want to go down a rattle while you're back i think my sort of guidance for setback waivers is that you know either the city or you know the neighboring property one or other cases inside the rear um sort of grants some permission um to do so i mean i think that that's made fine without coming to determination but um without that um i think that you're going to have to you know if we're going to grant a waiver which you know exactly you know the number that we're granting the variance to um it's very easy to you know someone to come in three houses down and someone to come to a different determination of the right-of-way and that you know it may be supposed to be a straight line to be up the entire street and uh we find it not i i did get the right-of-way setback from the center of the road from the city engineer it's not on here but it is um the one that's shown on the plan i submitted to tonight is from the city engineer's um office that it was x number of feet from the house and that was that was gotten from their plans that and because i mean they did have three they found three of the pens out of the four and then yeah i don't know the point that i'm trying to make maybe a lesson from the city or from uh tell them a car all you know just verifying that uh that marker in front of the street is actually working the right-of-way because it's not necessarily the case so you're talking about what can sometimes be the difference between the edge of the property and the edge of the right-of-way sometimes the right-of-way goes a little way into the property sometimes doesn't is that what you're talking about well that's i think i'm maybe a more layman's way but i i to be honest i mean it is shown on the plan i have shown the front yard setback well into the yard because i was being honest about the discovery i made so the plan that i've got that shows it well into the yard is actually representative as opposed to me saying somehow that the sidewalk or the road was the lot which wouldn't have been which wouldn't have been what i found i guess maybe it's just the opinion of one member of the board but i would like a either confirmation from public works of a specific point because of members measurement of the building or a determination from a you know a survey or as it actually where the line is and what fixed number we are approving as a way to waiver but that's just okay um good point to raise was there any other concern about that i i agree in general that when we put a number down on paper and say that we're granting a waiver of x number of feet and inches we want to make sure that we're being precise um this is something that i don't have as much experience in as as you do as a surveyor but um i appreciate you're raising the the question i do want to make sure we get it right although at the same time i mean part of this is that the testimony of the applicant is that he has reviewed this with public works they haven't raised an objection or an issue or said what you've done is crazy and inconsistent with our understanding of it and you know public works isn't necessarily going to have a survey uh of the setback here um so they may be an expressing an opinion and so i guess the question is you know are you saying that short of a surveyor opining uh you know with a degree of professional certitude that this is in fact where the right of way ends that you wouldn't be satisfied with the existing pin or measurements that effectively have been given to us i think what i'm saying is that a clear sign off from public works um approving the uh you know the the waiver um i think is sufficient uh in you know almost the same as that adjoining property owner you know in this in this case and i repeat that way um so i think that either or okay uh is uh you know this is the biggest addition or whatever the applicant chooses to do but i think one or the other um or open any other ideas um well we we do have what what appears to be a section of a survey um and is that or do you have the yeah i got this from the city engineer so i went in and i i got this which he said was very unique to have the survey and you're right that the actual front facade of the house isn't absolutely measured here and i did not only pace it but i i also scaled it off this and so it's possible that there is six inches of of error here i i agree with you because surveying is absolutely technical the point that i would make encounter to that is that the neighbor's house is six feet more forward so i'm actually the argument i'm making is comparative in the sense that i'm saying with the neighbor two feet from the setback and us 11 feet that us migrating three feet forward relative to the nature of the neighborhood makes the specifics of four or five or six inches less important to me civically perhaps than it does to you technically and i would be as the argument i'm making is that the front porch extending a bit relative to the neighbor makes the specifics of that less important i think to the land to to me than it is perhaps to an engineer and that's what we need but it's both because this is meets and bounds and it is feet so i respect your point of view i you know i don't just think that your measurements are off you know i think that they're probably with a level of certainty you know for the purpose of this application i just i don't see a letter here in the package from public works but feel much more comfortable if they sort of maybe take a second look at this and we feel more comfortable this was the process that we sort of use when it comes to you know granting setback waivers maybe we've sort of already gone halfway there but i think that yes you know doing a full survey to figure out where that was would be very costly and maybe not necessary given the you know magnitude of this course project so you seem optimistic that public works is already sort of verbally maybe approve this and so maybe that is the option is to get some more formal approval for that but what does that does that technical information worth the expense whether it's to the city or the applicant for a couple inches i mean i don't i don't see the purpose of more technicality helpful at all to my personal decision and if you think it is then i'd love to hear why you think having more explanation makes sense here because it's going to be a use of everyone's time and i don't see the i personally don't see the value of whether we're arguing about it as much as a foot or six inches i just don't see how that would change my thought process here i guess in my uh i don't know i have my professional experience i'm saying that if those pins don't actually represent the right away which i think is a possibility we could be talking about 45 i think you know we we've got a width of a city street um we have not much reference to the other side of you know the street um as to where you know the right way is there not much reference to the center of the street um you know how do you explain the neighbor being i mean then you're you're saying the neighbors somehow encroach some city property sometimes that happens yeah sometimes i have we have we have city we have houses where the front porch is technically in what is officially the city right away because it was built there historically and then the right of way was expanded or they went oh wait we actually have right away so we do have that actually happen in the city um i wonder if in this circumstance there could be a if a reasonable use of time and a reasonable amount of certainty might be created with a condition that said permit issued upon um receipt of a letter from public works confirming that the waiver granted is appropriate well the only i was thinking he's conferred with well the one problem of creating a condition subsequent like that is that what if public works doesn't do either doesn't issue such a letter or issues a letter saying no we don't like this well does that mean then we reopen i think we need to be careful right and and and i understand that um there's concern here about this specific location of the edge of the right of way um and the question is really one of standards that we would apply for this application or for any application which is you know what evidence is sufficient for us versus what evidence you know would we like to see mr sure and i'd like to i'd like to just expand on my comment rob i really appreciate your the technical expertise you bring to the to the board and to this application but really the setback requirement that we're talking about is more of a neighborhood issue rather than this property issue and i would think that if we were going to go to the expense of of a full-blown survey that would not be that would not be the best use of effort from either public works standpoint or from the applicant standpoint i don't see that there is a problem and seeing that we have not identified the problem i don't see why we're searching for a solution may i just raise one thing that i think we are sort of losing potentially losing sight of that is that we're not just talking about any old setback waiver here in that you're discussing allowing a setback waiver that is of a greater extent than the maximum waiver allowed per figure three dash 06 which i think is what rob prefaced this way and that and that there isn't anything in here department of public works when they saw this didn't really have a whole lot to say but it may also have been that you know they didn't think they needed to explain where the city right of way was because they saw the information that was in here but maybe just getting a letter of clarification might help i don't think there's necessarily discussion about having a full survey done at this point so much as just something from department of public work saying yes this is where we believe the city right of way is is that where you're at rock similar to approval that we see on on subdivision applications that i don't think we're talking about a investigation expense i just want to make sure that there's not plans out there to you know redo frank frank you know franklin street uh and uh you know we come to determination somehow uh the sort of uh unknown uh location of the right-of-way and a setback waiver and stuff becoming a becoming an issue i think we sort of have a duty through this process to prevent that that may also have been something where the department of public works just wasn't even necessarily thinking that far down the road if franklin street were to be redone that would be a miracle with respect to the with respect but if we're 42 inches back behind the neighboring house that's 10 feet away we're certainly not going to impede future development and that is another thing to consider it's it's a bit of a you know but but it's also you know it's precedent for this street but also for other streets where you may be trying to grant a waiver that is greater than the maximum waiver limitation um which i i hate to say but i do know that we didn't allow it on pearl street for someone else who wanted to put down the porch i bet they didn't have a lot as small as this one though they had a pretty small lot it wasn't a coverage issue it was a setback issue it wasn't 0.04 though it was bigger than this lot i want a pearl street right i'm just saying what i'm not right i'm not sure how that has any impact on how bang the front porch is if that's usable or not well just if you know one member of the board i think i've got two pass and options and i think that the letter from public works i don't think i'm asking too much of them i think that it's well within their purview of review of you know many applications and uh it's just i prefer to make sure okay let's set that question aside for the moment let's talk about the uh the surface coverage and we'll circle back to that um so we have very much the same question and then i think we have a coverage and a coverage issue so at least to the extent that the uh waiver issues and just so i can understand the existing backyard what what is there right now the existing backyard has all of the fences that are illustrated here except the one that goes between the house and the neighbor's house where a gate has been added so the clients would like to enclose their yard for their dog but also because so many houses are very tight we would like to build a six foot tall fence which is allowed by code and all the other neighbors have them so the fence is falling all down so we would like to rebuild existing fence and add that little piece and then the little teeny piece beyond the bay window in the back rendering is new as well just to create closure for the dog the backyard is all grass and uh the idea here is in making a new kitchen and adding a door we just like to have some hard surface outside the back door that made it comfortable to put a table and chair at and so the amount that is here meets the backyard setback and the side yard setbacks and it's really not very big it's just the minimum or it's just a small stone patio large enough to kind of use for their family of five so it's um and it's as I said it's simply the idea is simply lay stone on sand on the ground okay so this would just be stone embedded into the into the ground and and the sort of outline here that I I'm looking at drawing a 100 that seems to indicate sort of a rectangular shape with a path coming out that's the stone yeah the rectangular straight back and then the idea was just to connect it over to a gate with a path that looked like it would be nice to curve right so it's a four foot wide path that just connects to the opening in the gate okay but then the other remaining areas would remain grass or yeah grass landscape planted so it's about permeable it looks like about one third stone in the backyard and two thirds landscaping roughly to me so we're gonna take this in actually three parts the first part will be the um the way the tooth waiver criteria um so we have those in mind and I'll just go through that the question is uh the waiver if authorized shall not alter the essential character of the neighborhood district in which the property is located substantially or um first and so I think the testimony here is to build a in-ground stone patio in the backyard that does not seem to alter the essential character of the neighborhood I think we have some consensus on that agreed substantially or permanently impair the lawful use or development of adjacent properties again this is a development that would be entirely within the property boundaries in the backyard does not seem to alter or affect other neighboring properties reduce access to renewable energy resources again unlikely or be detrimental to the public welfare clearly having fenced in dog area is good to keep the dogs off the streets the stone being somewhat facetious but the stone not uh affecting the public welfare and then the second waiver criteria is the proposed development of land is beneficial or necessary for continued reasonable use of property this is consistent with what we've long granted for patios or decks or porches as far as this is the way in which people use their property which has historically been this way and as as we moved into the contemporary barbecuing era has continued to be so um so this doesn't seem to be inconsistent with with that either unless anybody has any further comments or questions so then we get into the current degree of coverage um and this is a question of so we're talking about a five percent or two thousand square foot coverage issue right that's that's the maximum waiver allowed under three dashes and just for clarification the the stone in the landscaping in the back does not count as part of coverage oh it does it's it does that's why we're here yeah it's it's it's impervious surface unless they there's a demonstration that that surface allows water to to permeate through it if you have gravel on uh on a on a soil base stone right is it it is stone it's on top of it it would go by through the cracks but not through the snow we're talking about like sort of pavers paving stones so stones not so rocks not rocks thank you there's not crap there is some level of engineering that can be shown there's there's ways to design stone quote-unquote stone or paver patios so that it is a permeable surface and i've actually had a separate application come through um that was an administrative application is to be this is impervious based on our definitions of of within the regulations okay unless they can show that it is not okay so and part of this is the way that both the stone pavers and the patio are increasing coverage right so the the coverage currently is already non-conforming non-conforming the maximum amount is supposed to be 60 percent comes out to 60.1 percent currently and then with the patio it's increased to 69 percent but the maximum waiver allowed is five percent or 2 000 square feet more than the district standard whichever is less right so so we're stuck at five percent so the maximum coverage even with waiver based on my interpretation of figure 306 and section 1203 is a 65 percent coverage and so that it's the same issues with the porch as you're you're looking at potentially granting a waiver that is greater than the waiver allowed under figure three dash of six um and both of these are increasing current non-conformities does the board have the ability to grant things beyond that if the lot is exceptional or not or is that a hard stop that's a good question um i haven't been able to find that but it's also not something where we have gone to the city's attorneys to confirm yeah i mean a 30 by 65 lot is a hard lot to live on there could be a you know we would we were just talking about the ability of repaving the driveway and introducing permeable pavers say down the center um and doing asphalt here to keep water away from penetrating into the basements and then perhaps introducing a stripe down the middle that would be permeable and maybe we could get it right back down to 65 percent and do an exchange would it be just as easy would it be just as easy to make some of the back patio area pervious that's a good point maybe the path maybe the whole path is permeable permeable blocks that have grass grass ones or something like that yeah yeah if there's a nice square footage there yeah right so that i'm not sure that would get do we go from do we were at 69 yeah you got to go back to 65 so that's five percent of lot coverage you need to get to 1277 square feet basically how much do we need to lose from the total about i mean if it's if we're required it's about a hundred square feet a little less than a hundred square feet based on my sort of joint calculations so the depth of the driveway could be reduced so if the board would allow us to reduce 100 square feet of permeable impermeable surface to allow this plan to otherwise go i would resubmit the drawings with and reduce 100 square feet of the paved area so that it would fit within the waiver for sure i think that would make sense you know part of this is that before we had the waivers we often did this under a variance analysis i know staff is recommended against a variance analysis here but you know there is that there is that argument and as an applicant you would be but this would simply avoid that and i don't know if you would want to go down that road of variance when you could solve it through engineering and what i would suggest is that that may also solve our earlier setback problem where you can resubmit these drawings you know what what i would feel more comfortable with is not necessarily approving this on the basis that you would submit these drawings but to table this to next meeting have those resubmitted drawings at that time then also having that response from the department of public works on the front and setback question and then we could simply you know move forward on the application at that time um and then we're not dealing with conditions subsequent to a permit um or putting the uh onus or ambiguity on you okay um so we just simply have it in front of us we review it and and approve it i think it's a much cleaner application and it's a much more solid decision if we do it that way okay and getting back to rob's concerns is it would if tom mccartel said that the setback looks properly represented on the drawings and the additional porch doesn't present any concerns for him is that the level of response you'd like for him or is it just to sign off on the waiver itself because not if he doesn't feel the need to get into determining where the front line is then does he sign off on waivers is that it is about being a discretionary decision you're a grant waiver so i think that that's part of it well it's i i think it's more him agreeing that this is a representation of where the city right of way is and that department public works has no concerns with the further encroachment of the porch towards that right of way i think that will give you what you need without him trying to dig into waiver length right now he's not gonna he's not gonna he's not gonna put that statement forward i guess i did find another part of the regulations here that may be useful here um and that's on page three dash four figure three point zero two uh and it's like uh setback dimensional standards you know at the top is that if i think the second one is maybe most appropriate here um is that if the street center line uh the setback is from the street center line the location of the front line is unknown it will be assumed to be 25 feet from the street center line or half the street right away if the right away is not 50 feet i i i guess without that actually determination of where it is which is i think what the information submit it is i would actually think the regulations say to go to figure three point zero two right so but there's there's different depending on the street there's different right of way widths yeah so we would just need again from department of public works is to get exactly what this right of way with is in the street yes another another option i think that maybe being in there indicates the intent was that the person setbacks not to have a determination of where things exactly are and there's a yep out there uh and so i would well and i mean one of the things is that you know this is this is sort of tapping into the old common law idea of the width of a road that if there is no way to determine the center line it's presumed to be the the four watt four rod wide right of way right i mean that's that's in statute so this is sort of but at the same time i mean i'd be perfectly satisfied with part public works not diving into the waiver language but essentially saying that they don't feel that this would be a concern for them for their use of franklin street or or any type of maintenance or redevelopment or plans that they have for it as well as that they don't see any significant issues with the way in which the right of way has been represented that's that'd be satisfactory to you as well around yeah okay and warren you said that this segment of a survey you actually got from department public works yeah yeah so it may also this whole problem may just be solved if we get the full scan of this that has the key so we know where the right of way is marked on this well because it doesn't have i have that in my office and it's it's not here because i mean the sheet is bigger but this is a part of it the right away line that i got was from um not from curt the other gentleman he showed zack showed it to me as well yeah and so i yeah i derived that from what jet with zack so it's yeah i'm very happy to go in and have them say perfect my drawing looks proper and they don't have a problem with it and if there's any issues i'll bring it back or i'll fail to bring it back they're okay so that's fine okay thank you so if you're comfortable with that what we do is we just table it uh this is the july 8th are we automatically on the next one you would be because we would we would continue it so wouldn't have to be okay and i'm going to be out of the country so can you can or the or the applicant i mean the uh the actual owner could present it as long as you feel comfortable i can't remember what they're leaving well i think you've all heard the presentation if we just come back with clarification and a reduction of impermeable i think it'll be hopefully pretty straightforward i i think so i mean i think we've done the essential findings that i'm using for the flavor we're both going to be gone so i could have a i mean you want to bump it to august 5th i'll be here i'll be here too do you want to do that because we're not talking about this in the first phase anyway we're trying the kitchen i think that's fine okay august 5th so i think we've done a lot of heavy lifting on this this is really just clean up unless unless other issues are raised why don't we why don't we put it on the next one and we'll we'll get someone here to provide that information okay um his wife said she'd be willing to come and i could also bring uh my my colleague could do it too so july 22nd you please okay uh do i have a motion to continue this application uh 29 franklin street to the july 22nd meeting so moved motion by kate do i have a second second by kevin any further discussion all those in favor of the motion to continue to a date certain please raise your right hand you're continued we'll see you july 22nd thank you thank you yep we're ready for our last application of the evening uh to sunset avenue howie michelson is the african and my wife allison may any okay so if you just sorry sure state your names for the record howie michelson allison may any okay raise your right hand which under oath you solemnly swear our firm that the evidence you're about to give for the matter under consideration should be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the pain the penalties for a tree i do good all right and uh do we have other people that wish to provide commentary okay what i'll do is we're going to go through the board process uh of asking questions uh addressing the issues and when it comes time to provide public public comment if you still wish to give such comment i'm going to have to swear you in as well uh because this is uh you do have to be under provide feedback and and just to distinguish you know our job here is as a quasi judicial board to make fact finding determinations so we're taking evidence not necessarily general public comment um and we'll address that at the time if if need be it's certainly not as if we have the rules of evidence here that we're going to restrict you but we do want to make sure that you know people are focused on giving feedback and i will note that it's about 10 after 9 you know we'll keep this moving forward but being human beings with day jobs we will we could reach a point at which we may have to continue this that said why don't you give us an overview of what you're proposing sure uh uh we um would like to provide more and more usable parking at our house uh it's currently very constricted parking as much of the street is um as much as Montpelier is but uh our particular situation is that the driveway is maybe a little longer than 20 feet um there's there's a significant drop off the street um right off the street and then at the at the front end of the driveway is our house um it's constrained on both sides by large oak trees and it is particularly difficult in winter time because we're backing up uh fairly steep slope unless we manage to back into the space and it's a relatively narrow street so backing in especially if there's snow banks gets even harder um so we tend to pull in forward and then backing up especially if the snow plow has come and dumped a bunch of snow on our cars which are just barely off the street it it's it's a fairly unfriendly parking space so we're proposing to put in a separate driveway up the street uh 25 feet or so 20 25 feet um past the uphill oak tree um and come around and park next to the building on the north side of the building where in fact they're uh as we discovered thank you very much as we discovered as we were kicking around there that that much of that area on the north side of the house where we're proposing the parking was already graveled and some of it was actually paved underneath some of the soil that's there we we were coming up with pavement and a lot of gravel probably a foot thick so it in the past at some point my guess is that people were pulling forward through the um the parking area through our current parking area to park back there um we looked at that as a possibility but we were told by actually two different foresters that if we drove over the roots of the oak tree that's on the north side of the driveway on a regular basis we would essentially kill the tree or certainly disable it pretty heavily and um we're very interested in keeping the trees there i'm pretty sure the rest of the neighborhood would like to see those those trees stay there um so uh you know one option of course would be to cut one of the trees and expand the the driveway to one side or the existing driveway to one side or the other but that's not our preference um and so currently if we are both home and somebody comes over kids somebody drops off somebody they the the sort of obvious place for people to park at the moment is along the street uh just on the uphill either on our lawn in right in front of the house with because if you park in the street right in front of the house it's very close to the curb the curb uh the juncture between sunset and town and it's it doesn't feel like a particularly safe place to park in the street um so sometimes people park on the lawn itself which isn't a great option um or park along our side of the street just up hill of our driveway uh we have when that happens we have to encourage people to back up some because our neighbor across the street Judy needs to be able to pull out and if somebody's parking there it makes her access in and out pretty difficult um and the other issue is when people come and they drop off they have to turn around somewhere there's no place right there to turn around so they inevitably go to the end of the street and turn around in other people's driveways at the end of the street um which seems like and that happens any traffic that comes down my street has to turn around somewhere so it happens on a regular basis and so the and the final thought I had at the moment is backing out onto the street from our existing driveway especially when there's snow banks and we can't see near the curve of town and and uh sunset um with you not being really not having good visibility in either direction isn't particularly safe and it's actually kind of difficult when there's another car in the driveway to have enough purchase to turn before we're already across the street um so I have to do a k turn often to get out of the driveway and onto the street that's our interest in having um the we would we would like to add the parking it's we have two kids they're teenagers they're like we're likely to add a car and we also want to be able to have parking for when somebody comes and visits uh the street is very narrow people do park on the street often when there's visitors but it does especially in the winter constrain the traffic fairly significantly although we are a dead end street so there's not a ton of traffic there either so you're you're you're not proposing to replace you describe that your current parking area is problematic and all the difficulties with using it and yet you're proposing to add a second one not to replace the problematic driveway um at the moment yes I mean we'd be willing to consider that it does mean I mean if we're replacing it I guess we have to tear up what's there which is you know an effort right cost um but also you know if we're parking in our spaces and during the summer particularly if somebody's coming over and stopping it it's not if there's just one car in that space it's not particularly difficult um it's when we have two cars and then we try to park three cars in there sometimes and it gets really a little ridiculous so yes let's our preference would be to keep the existing space but to primarily use the new parking as our prime as our primary parking one of the problems with that and I'm sure you anticipated I think some of the neighbors are concerned about that is that it effectively doubles your parking area you know you have you now have what fits on maybe it's widest day three cars no it doesn't fit three cars no no unless we park at severe angles no it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't it's two car parking you have that and then and then you're proposing this driveway that would effectively fit two more cars right and um obviously one of the concerns of the the neighbors is that that doubles the traffic capacity that your your house is generating um you know you go from having a two car driveway you know we'll say we'll take I'll take your representation at face value for for these purposes which is you have a two car driveway and now you add another two car driveway um that's not to say you're necessarily generating those but it you're creating the capacity for that um whether that be you or the people you sell it to the people who you sell it to who sell it down the line um that's certainly a concern that that I would I I think I think lies at some of the heart of this um which is I'm not I certainly understand the the issue of wanting to have better driveway access and I was actually as you were talking I was looking to see it it looks like there's a carport like a one car carport um but it doesn't look like you're using it quite as a carport either no um wood storage yeah outside storage kind of thing and and you're not proposing to use it under this new driveway I mean it would still be it's pretty skinny yeah you know so I don't I wouldn't feel comfortable parking in there and then backing out I mean that that's the problem is that you know we've gone from much skinnier cars to much wider cars you know you look at the old old garages especially those built in the 30s and they were built for cars that don't exist anymore of these little narrow model tees um and so they're functionally insufficient you know you couldn't park a truck or a suv in them um or a sedan or a sedan for that matter we have one um so I you know I I understand the idea of a new access point a safer one for what you're for what your concerns are I guess the the question is are you is it a is it a non-starter to have the existing driveway narrowed because that's obviously one specific control that could be put into place which is you can you can represent to us and we can believe you that you'll never use that for more than one car one guest but functionally it is for more than one car and more than one guest and and again it's there was zoning it's not the individuals before us and how good they are it's what kind of use do we create and then leash on the world um and so I think that's at least one of our one of my concerns is as as a board member is you know do we create something that that sets up the potential for a much more substantial and that's part of the reason why we don't allow these multiple um automatically allow these kind of multiple driveways um I would echo that concern so I mean we haven't talked about this so I'm speaking for myself but I could easily imagine doing some landscaping to make it pretty clear that there's space for one car there um if we made it so that there was no car access there that would take that would take tearing up stuff it's that's an an expense that I'm not excited about you know um and having a space there is nice for people who are just dropping kids off or something but um I I don't know if that would uh so I I'd be amenable to I'd be more amenable to limiting this that current driveway to make it so that it's clear that it's room for one car more amenable to that than to say we're going to take it out um okay um and I also would say if it's necessary we you know we have contemplated taking it out it's it's down our list but yeah I don't think it's a problem to take it out theoretically I just think it's you know in terms of how when when we would take it out financially that you know that's more of the right and what does it mean to take it out right because well and and part of this is you know we're we're talking at sort of a high level but it may be helpful to just go straight into you know the zoning bylaws that we're we're applying here um you know for everyone concerned you know when we talk about um what the access of a driveway is allowed and under section 3010 b3 it says that um a lot may be served by only one access point except as provided below and then they they allow certain exceptions a corner lot not fronting on a state or class one highway may have more than one access point on each street provided the spacing requirements as specified below shall be met and b the development review ward may approve more more than one access on a lot when necessary to accommodate unique physical conditions on the property to provide adequate emergency access or to provide adequate traffic circulation within the site and so when we're when we're drilling down deeper we're really not talking about emergency access there's been no complaints about fire trucks or ambulances being able to access the property and in part what we're also talking about you know your house is close to the road so some of the circulation and access things are not as relevant you know because this these bylaws serve properties are set far back you know up on off of town hill road those those expansive mansions that are served by those uh long driveways that's what they're really getting at in some of these things but you know it does talk about unique physical conditions on the property that I think are are really what you're getting at which is that this particular driveway with the two cars you have and then with whatever guests or kids coming over parking are creating issues and you want effectively a longer driveway we want a place to be able to turn around and not turn around into the streets right up a hill so you're unless you unless you as you said unless you back into the driveway you're always you're always backing out okay so let's look at some of the technical issues at least um Meredith if I'm understanding the the staff reports were under are we under the some of the 45 feet right so that's the other issue so you have the the number of access points and then you have how far this new driveway would be from surrounding driveways and in pretty much all instances the proposed spacing is less than the minimum which I think is 45 feet right right 45 feet from the other yep okay so 30 10 b 4 I'm sorry we we've worked with this a little bit but just to increase my familiarity that includes drive that measurement goes for driveways up and down the street as well as across correct has to be 45 feet from driveways but it is yeah I don't have the exact I read it is both it's both okay yeah okay thank you I would like to or opposite driveway or street I would like to point out that I'm not sure there's on sunset there's any drive that meets that standard right and it's and it's a it is a consideration for when a new driveway is put in to make a determination on it's really about making sure that you have driveways where you don't have two people coming out and not seeing each other or other people having to stop in time and those kinds of issues and that's why the board doesn't have to go through a whole waiver process but they can reduce that spacing depending on the site conditions what street are you on how fast does the traffic go oh and and this is the situation where you know the department of public works was ready to just issue the permit until I flagged and said wait no there's no any decisions that need to be made first so as far as what type of street this is and how fast traffic goes we're talking about six seven houses eight on sunset okay and it's probably a 25 mile an hour street it's probably only 24 30 feet wide if that so it's a low traffic street yeah it's a low intensity of use and a dead end and dead end okay so that that would be something I factor in if we contemplate a reduction in that amount and I don't know that I don't know if it how it factors into the swirl but if if the new driveway alleviated issues with the old current driveway would it that would that make make it acceptable to reduce the distances between driveways I mean as a there are some there are some different goals that could be achieved here one way or another and maybe bouncing that is the plan to is the plan to pave the new driveway no what what what is the surface material just gravel no that's okay I think that was a worthwhile addition to the conversation so um you know and I guess I'd further note that you know part of the issue here is that at looking at these existing driveways they're all non-conforming with that 45 foot standard and it the way the house is and my understanding of the way the lot is anything from sort of the round end of your house forward it would be inaccessible because it there's a steep drop off and yeah well you mean like toward the curve right towards the curve yeah it doesn't I mean both it's it would take huge amounts of earth work to make that functional and we don't own that corner there that's right that's town corner and and it's right on the corner right so that's place that's just a factor that we have to take into account this isn't this isn't a problem that you're you're creating where there's an easy solution to the contrary it's really driven in part by the topography and location of the house okay were there any other questions from the board yeah just have one side another sidetrack question so if you were to or call up an ambulance or ems or fire and both your cars are in your driveway how are they getting to your house they would have to pull up on the side park in the street and they're gonna have to go home and turn around and the side they would have to yeah they'd have to go well they have to find somebody's driveway to turn around and yeah so I mean in theory there's a emergency access issue yeah um I mean I don't know if it's it's quite the one that the drive at least in my understanding of the emergency access it's really when the ambulance doesn't have the ability to go up the driveway as opposed to turning around because it's on a narrow street it's a tighter turn yeah no I'm notwithstanding that's that's still a valid point okay um at this point it might be helpful to receive comments from the public um so if you are planning on making a comment if you raise your hand okay and then if you'll raise your raise your right hand I'm going to put you all under oath do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth under a pain's penalty spurgery all of you yes good so the thing I would ask is come to a microphone state your name um and your address and provide any uh any testimony you feel is necessary and we may have questions for you so don't don't sit down too quick do you just give your name sorry I'm carol king and I live at three cents okay yeah miss king I I I have a June 5th 19 2019 letter yes that was addressed to to Meredith but was also copied to various city officials including myself okay so we do have that letter as part of our packet and considered part of the record so I have uh also um how we had sent um kind of response to that letter on um dated June 14th and I have uh put some comments into that letter that um I would like to address and also make sure that you have copies of so may I pass those out sure um an email from our other neighbor uh marriage woman okay well let's let's let's take one at a time and just make sure you give a copy to the applicants as well I just wanted to um one thing in the letter the June 5th letter that I would just try to reiterate with you is that and you've already brought this up none of the driveways near where this is 45 what department nor does the driveway that you're proposing I'm not sure that it meets the 100 foot requirement for the intersection of and sunset so I just add that little piece of information to to that letter we you know we understand what what they're um up against but um we've all had we all have short driveways we all have lived with that some of us for over 40 years have lived with that situation for over four years we've had kids kids have had extra cars we've all done that and uh the previous owners of their house they had three kids they had three cars in the driveway and previous to that there was a renter in there and they had three cars in the driveway so it's not an impossibility I would say that for me part of the solution would be for them to confine whatever they want to do to within the driveway that exists between their house and the tree and going there because personally I'm not looking forward to looking at a driveway that is literally going to be right out across from the front of Bob's in my house it's it's there how you and I had discussions about this because um last a year and a year and a half ago he cut down probably a quarter of an acre of trees to put in a solar panel and I didn't want to see the solar panel from my front area from my front window it's there I can see it so I'm not particularly enthused with the idea of looking for at a driveway the other thing that really concerns me is there's Judy's driveway there's Howie and Allison's driveway and then and less than 20 feet up the hill just up the hill there's going to be another driveway I don't know whether they plan to use that as a you or as a separate driveway and in this this additional driveway who who owns that is that another it would be oh the proposed driveway that they're okay I'm sorry I proposed driveway you know I don't know uh the particulars but why can't they look at going between the tree and the corner of their carport and creating parking up that faces up the hill um versus adding another driveway within very very few feet very very few feet it's tight and it's going to be worse having another driveway in there the other thing is that the driveway is proposed on the rise of sunset and that presents multiple safety issues because you know you won't be able to see coming down you won't be able to see whether or not they're coming out of their driveway I have a question about that one um we're hearing that their safety issues already with the driveway that they have would these safety issues be worse or better it sounds like it's already an unsafe situation so we're talking about swapping one out for another would this be less safe I would suggest to them that they can back into their driveway Bob and I drive back into our driveway every day both of our vehicles on your side too it's we're on we're right across the second house up right across and we back in I'm sorry I haven't been up there does it have a dip coming off the street into your driveway as we've heard them to describe no okay we don't but Judy has a significant one oh she's on the same side as the street she's on the same side as we are and she has a significant one and for her to get up and over and avoid other cars you know the potential for vehicles coming down the hill it's going to be you know it has the potential to be problematic for her right are the close driveways that exist today causing any problems were those causing any problems before this discussion we all we manage it you know we all know the other the other issue for us is elimination of parking we can't park on the upslope of of sunset in front of our house because it creates a blind spot coming up over the hill so we often park just beyond our driveway or across the street either before the telephone pole or after the telephone pole if they have this added driveway it's going to eliminate parking for us you know scenario street it's a small street yeah thank you for describing I'm kind of trying to picture it so I have one more question for you so you're saying that when you when you park on street it's on the upper portion of Howie and Allison's property so they're putting a driveway in would interfere with what people have become used to well then it would take away any space below on the rock downrise of sunset and you know I I worry about people the rest of the neighborhood coming down sunset and having to watch out for another driveway for vehicles coming out of another driveway I would also just tell you that there's eight houses on the street theirs is one and the majority of the rest of us are opposed to this we just you know we have some issues and I I just think that you know they could think rethink some of their their okay well thank you very much was there another my name is Roberta Garland out of 10 Wilson Street which is far away sunset but um I've been a visitor to the home of Howie and Allison I've driven my car up there I it's a very hard street to negotiate in the winter in and not only because it's narrow but compounded by the fact that at the end of the street there isn't any place to turn around it's too bad that there wasn't like a little an extra space at the end to turn around you can't turn around you have to go in somebody's driveway which feels really bad and then their their current driveway I can't go down there in the winter because I won't be able to get up in my car so I just don't go there so where do I park I park at you know where the culinary institute used to be and I walk up you know and if somebody can't walk I drop them off so it's really difficult and when they described to me their idea of putting in their driveway and having having parking back there and a place to turn around and then come out that felt really good felt like this is really an issue of safety that's a really safety concern on that road and that would be really helpful to have that and it would feel much safer thank you very much ma'am did you wish to the property owners of two sunset avenue who have already received a variance plan to construct a second driveway through the middle of their property the obvious place for number two sunset to increase driveway space and most importantly more parking space is simply to extend the current driveway to the right of the carport and extend the area for more parking spaces there are several advantages to this alternative a second large wide and long gravel path cutting down the middle of the grass yard and many reasons why a second driveway is not necessary first of all I understand that the owners are concerned about cutting down one of several trees that border their front and sunset avenue the neighbors who are challenging the approved variants were informed by the owner that extending the current driveway might compromise the health of a nearby oak tree I am very puzzled by this explanation their entire backyard was recently clear clear cut of many old growth pines and other large trees in order to accommodate a large solar panel clearly cutting down one tree to expand the current driveway is not environmentally concerned of the owners the current owners say there is an aesthetic consideration to cutting down one tree again leaving several existing trees excuse me leaving several existing trees at the front border I am also puzzled by this since moving into the property a few years ago we have seen the yard turned into a massive storage site for sets of tires construction equipment including oversized hauling trailers cement mixers log splitters bicycles lodge piles of boxes strewn about shelves full of stuff old furniture which fill up the carport and have spilled into the side of the road in front of the house there has been no aesthetic consideration of the property thus far so I truly questioned the aesthetic argument of cutting down one tree it took a year of constant complaining to how we p