Good evening. Called to order the February 6, 2017 meeting of the Allenten Revolving Board, recorded by the CNI. First on our agenda this evening is a public hearing, EDR special permit docket number 3522 for property at 480 Grease Summer Street. And ask the proponents to come forward and introduce yourself as the public hearing is open. Good evening, gentlemen. My name is Robin Essing. I do represent the petitioner. Cindy Capobasso is one of the principals in the LLC. That's her husband, Michael. This is Joe Renane. He's one of the designers. Renane is also one of the designers. And Paul Fenovio is our surveyor. You may be familiar with the site. I am. I grew up in this town. And that site has always been a very sorry situation. It was a gas station for many, many years. It then turned into a car repair garage for many years as well. The master plan has given us an opportunity to do something very productive for the site, not just for my client, but also for the town as well. We're proposing to tear down the ISOR garage that is there now. And we're proposing to construct the building which you see in the rendering, which will consist of seven residential units, six of which will be two bedrooms, one of which will be affordable, and the other will be a single bedroom unit. We're going to have an office unit in the building as well. The office unit will be for the purpose of the LLC folks, just for them. It's not going to be rented out, that kind of thing. We're also going to have, which will complement the residential stores to the eastern side of the site, we're going to have four residential stores as well. Now, we're here because we need relief for the use itself, we need relief for the mixed use, and we need relief for design environmental review. But we, of course, have submitted the documents with respect to design environmental review. One of the issues that you'll need to discuss will be parking. We need 12 parking spaces for what we're talking about. And essentially, we're asking that the board reduce the parking requirement by 25% down to nine parking spaces. The one bedroom units will require 1.15 spaces. The two bedrooms will require 1.5. The retail will require none, actually. By the way, in a mixed use, the first 3,000 square feet requires no parking. The office use will require 1.56 parking spaces. So that turns out to be 12 parking spaces. Again, we're asking to reduce the parking spaces down by three tonight. Surely, Joe will explain to you where the parking will occur on the site. We're going to have parking in the rear. He'll show you one of the plans. And we're going to have seven parking spaces in the rear, two parking spaces on the right-hand side, on the east-easterly side of the property. Now, what we're also going to do, my client also owns the abutting property right next door. That's an apartment building as well. And there's an access area for that building on the westerly side of the property. What we're going to do is we're going to utilize that driveway area for the purpose of our site as well. We can then on the right-hand side, the eastern side, we park in the back, OK, and on the side. And we exit through that area that it'll be a combined driveway. We'll grant an easement from the abutting property to this property so that it'll be a legal type use, OK? And I think the beauty of that is that we will be exiting away from the traffic light, OK, and not into the traffic light. So I think that's an important consideration with respect to safety. Now, one of the things we need to show you and demonstrate to you is that we can satisfy the requirements for getting the reduced parking. And essentially, I've indicated in my submission for reduced parking what we're going to do, OK? What we're going to do is we're going to have a shower in the office unit, OK? We're going to advertise apartments to rent without a parking spot. Some of the parking spaces will be offered to tenants for an additional fee. Some of the remaining spaces will be shared visitor parking. And by the way, you're going to have a situation where the parking is not going to be in conflict with the type of uses on the site. We'll have a retail use on the site. We'll have a residential use on the site and an office use on the site. The retail use, of course, will occur during the day. The office use will occur during the day as well. And the residential use will occur more than likely in the evening with people leaving the site, taking their cars with them if they do in fact have cars. And we don't anticipate that everyone is going to have a car by the way. One of the good features about this site also is it's near an MBTA stop. So folks who live in the building can easily access the MBTA stop for the purpose of going where they're going. With respect to the parking again, we're going to charge for parking on the site. And we'll also provide covered bicycle parking. The covered bicycle parking will be in the basement. As Joe called it, I haven't heard this expression in years, the cellar. It'll be in the basement. And it'll be in the storage units in the basement. It may not be shown on the plans at this point, but we're going to have bicycle parking in the storage units in the basement. We also are open to having a bicycle parking outside the building in terms of bike racks if that's something the board prefers. With respect to the parking space is required, my submission indicates that we're prepared to install bicycle racks if that's something the board wants us to do. With respect to the requirements of the design environment or review is concerned, I think we've outlined that pretty clearly in our submission. I'm going to have Joe explain to you the details as far as the building itself is concerned so that you can see exactly how it's going to set up. By the way, before he does that, it's a 10,000 square foot block. It has a 100 feet of frontage upon summer shoot. We comply with zoning. We have met extensively with the building inspector, particularly with open space. So we know we comply with zoning at this point. So that's really not an issue before the board at this juncture. The building height is going to be 38 feet. Zoning allows 40 feet in this particular zone, so B2 zone. And the open space calculations are on the dimensional form that we have submitted. And again, it's run by Mike Burr and the building inspector in Hebrews. So we have a completely new building, three stories. It's going to be wood framed with fire protection. All of the utilities are going to be needed separately. And the tenants will be responsible for their electricity and gas and all that. The residential units are going to be heated using direct fire hot water. That will provide the domestic hot water as well as baseboard heat. The air conditioning will be a ductless mini-split system for the resident's assistant for the office. And for the stores, it's going to be a conventional, a handling located in the basement. There's going to be a concrete walkway section in the front of the building that will come in from the sidewalk, come across to the front to access the stores. The existing, this is what's existing right now. There's a garage currently on the building. I can turn it for you. No, it's OK. There's a garage currently on the building on the site and it's paved. And that's going to be anything that's inside of it. It's going to be salvaged. It can be salvaged. And it's all going to be removed in its entirety. The new building is going to be constructed on the site. This is the shared driveway. There's seven spaces here. They'll come in, parking the seven spaces. There's two tandem parking spaces there. There'll be an arbor here with some bushes to block the view from the street. This is the open area right here. This will be a paved section. And this will be a grass section. There'll be a dogwood tree here. There'll be two benches here.  People who rent the residence is to enjoy. We're going to be eliminating 44 linear feet of curb cut. There's currently two large curb cuts in front of the property. And we're only going to be having this curb cut here to access this driveway. And this one already exists. So we'll be having street parking with this project. I'm sorry. The project is going to use in the parking lot area a permeable pavement to handle the water on site. And it looks like asphalt, but it's really aerated. It's awesome. And when it rains, the water can go through it. And then it's going to disperse into the ground over a period of time. So it doesn't go out onto everyone else's property. It's a really nice product. This is a cellar plan. This is the front of the building. This is going to be the stairway that will be used by the residences, access through the rail that they can have access to these storage bins. These are five by six to store their bicycles in and to store dead storage of coats or whatever they would store in there. And that would be locked with a padlock. There's going to be a button on the stairs that you push just like when you came in here. So when they're bringing a bicycle up the stairs, they'll push that and the door will open up. And they can go right out. So they're not going to be at the top of the stairs pushing the bicycle up. Each, there's going to be four stores. So each of the four stores is going to have its own stairway down to the basement where the mechanicals are. The old man always has to get involved. Thank you. So the first floor, the retail area, is potentially four retail spaces that initially we won't put this petition in. We'll see how it how it rents out because it could be rented as one larger unit and one larger unit. And that's their access down into the basement. This is the access, the front access for the second and third floor residences in the office. And that's their rear entry into it.  And there'll be a mat, one of those great mats when you come in, the derringer debris will go into that. The second floor, this will be the office, the Camp Picasso property. This will be the office part itself, a kitchen to go with the office, and a meeting room, the bathroom, and the shower area for the office. And these are the other, these are three units that are on the second floor. And each unit has, each of the two bedroom units has two bathrooms that there's a potential of a roommate rental, lots of natural light. Each one has its own washer and dryer in the unit. Third floor is the same. It's a two bedroom, one bedroom, two bedroom, two bedroom. They get easier to service the air condition of units up on the roof and to shovel it off with the snow. Would you be able to see the air conditioning units? No, they're gonna be set back far enough that they won't stick up high enough that you wouldn't be able to see it standing on the straight. We kept them to the back part of the building. This is the side that you, the driveway side. The, there's gonna be a recess in the building for the gas meters. They'll be protected by ballads and they'll be a lattice screen to cover over them. And the top part of the lattice will extend out. The top board of the lattice will extend out and that will slip over a clip so it can be easily removed to service the gas meters. We're gonna make a, we're going to put the vent hoods for the bathrooms, the dryers and the kitchens to the side and to the rear of the building, naturally so that they aren't viewed from, so it's not in the front elevation. In the rear of the building, these will be the rear entries to the stores. The rear entries to the stores. This will be the door to go down to the storage in the basement for the residences. This will be the rear residence entrance. They'll have a roof above it. The, it's gonna have all the, all the rain, all the roof is gonna be pitched to the backs that the rain water drains to the back of the roof. It's gonna get down carpet drain pipes into the water system in the rear of the building. So the front of the building, if the entire building is going to have, it's gonna be masonry. These bricks with red mortar, the coins that are gonna be on all four corners of the building as well as the cornice, the lentils, the lentil, the sill. And then in the front, storefront area, this will be the coin material. It will all be precast with the look of granite and the brick is going to have a red mortar. The roof above the front entry into the building is going to be real copper, a real copper roof and we accented with the vinyl, soffit and fascia. And that's the building thing. So we think that this is a good use for the site. What it does for the town is it creates more residential units, which I think we need in this town. It also creates an additional affordable housing unit, which I think is a good thing for the town as well. We feel that this probably is the best use of the site that we could come up with in terms of what we'd like to do with it. So we're asking that the ARB vote favorably with respect to our proposal. Just a few questions from the board. That's Jenny, unless you have anything to add. I think that we've, I'm Jenny Ray, I'm the director of planning and community development. The staff has submitted a report to the board regarding this application and from that many of the conditions, the requirements were met. We did have some lingering questions, which we've listed in mostly the special conditions that could be a part of the decision. Should you make that point of time? Including the landscaping materials, the final transportation demand management plan. Finalization of the affordable housing details would need to be met, as well as a review of the drainage plan by the town engineer. And then lastly, returning to the board with any final plans and specifications. One of the things I didn't want to ask about was the transportation demand management plan because we haven't seen much more than what's in your submission, but I want you to talk about how you're going to handle things like charging for parking, will that be a lease, will that be extra, be on top of a rent? How do you plan to manage that? It would be extra. It would be beyond the rent. Absolutely. We haven't decided what the fee would be at this point, but absolutely. And will that differ between residences and retail? We're not going to charge the retail okay for parking spaces. We're going to charge the residential. Will the retail, well I'm thinking more on retail employees, will they have parking spaces or where will they park? We're hoping that we're going to draw a lot of the retail employees locally, okay? And in some cases, maybe they don't need to drive to the site, okay? But if they do in fact have to drive to the site, we'll have to accommodate that. I think in part of any transportation management plan, what we would want to see is some sort of fleshed out options to manage retail's need for parking. Obviously that's going to be a big concern in this neighborhood. Although you did mention that there'll be some parking added back on the street. How many spaces do you anticipate? 44, 44 linear feet of curb cuts being a little medium. Can you make parking spaces? Those are the additional two spaces. Paul Pinocchio, our surveyor. Good. And as far as the retail code, what do you anticipate coming in there? What kind of marketing plan is in place? It's to be determined. We've had some preliminary discussions about trying to get some banks or maybe we know that there's a UPS up the street, but there's no FedEx in Arlington, so something of that sort. I'd encourage you to not go for a bank, but I can't do that. Don't go for a bank, right? We're open to whatever, okay? Accommodate the site. Absolutely. Yeah, local business. I mean, virtually anything completely open. Would it be restaurant-capable? We haven't factored that in at this point. I was just thinking about complimentary businesses in the neighborhood. That would be an open issue as well. Yeah, okay. Something we certainly would consider. Okay. Can you tell me about trash management? And then when you're submission, you said that trash is to be shared with 483. Summer, how does that work currently? This is a dumpster on 489. This is a dumpster on 489, so they'll be sharing this dumpster. We've actually found, the campus was it founded, it's actually more important to have recycling. That's more of a demand than actually a dumpster. It's never, it's always more recycling than a dumpster. And a lot of businesses now tend to be using reusable crating. So it comes in and then the crating gets sent back. So we're planning on sharing the recycling on trash. So you're adding several units here. You're proposing to add several units here. You need to add space to that dumpster. Or add another dumpster to that area. They actually have a property on Summer Street right now that has this amount of units and the dumpster that we would, and they both share a dumpster and recycling facility this size. And the dumpster there is never full either. It really is the recycling. How many units in the other building? Which building? 49. It's 12. Yeah. How often is that trash picked up weekly? Is that on time? Yes, we, it's a weekly pick. I thought that. So my first issue here is the parking. You see you have nine spots here. Mm-hmm. I thought in mixed use or in commercial spaces, tandem spaces do not count as two. It counts as one. Now, where are they at? I didn't, yeah, I wasn't aware of that yet. Can we check into that? Because then your count changes. I think that mixed use has a specific thing about tandem. But it doesn't count as two. Where's the tandem? That's a tandem by law. The tandem's right here. All right. Why is that tandem? Can't you pull out? No, you can't pull out. You put the open space here so you couldn't, so you can't go through. We originally had it, so you could go through. But this is open space, so this is the patio ever. No, it's okay. And it affects the number of spots you're allowed to. You're saying you have, and you're asking for relief on. Sure. You have to, Joe. Good question. We're going to have public comment after the board. Let's have a chance. 26, permission to go. Okay. Go ahead. In parking space here right now, do you have enough backup space, driveway? Because you have, the parking space is what, 18 feet or 20 feet? That's 18. So what's the backup space? 24, 22? Because it doesn't look that way. All right. Yeah. 20 feet. So, because right now they look equal to me. I can check if we have between 20 to 22 feet from the parking space to the curbway. Okay. So you're saying there's adequate backups turning on space there. Those are the two issues I had with parking. Right. That there was enough room for turning around and the counters parked the space there. You said there's going to be an easement for driver access, right? Right. And there's also going to be an easement for trash. Right. It's going to be two easements for that, right? Okay. Okay. So that's parking aside. And you take care of drainage through permeable pavement. And right now, the parking lot sloped from the left to the right right now, based on the planche on there right now. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, if this heavy rain, it would shed toward the green area away from the building, but it would shed onto your own property, not toward the driveway. Right. Because I've done permeable before and it's great for the first year or two, but then, yes, it just fills up with the cook and it's just no longer permeable anymore. Yeah. Yeah, the way this design faces the way it flows now, it still sheds in this direction when we run down so it faces towards the grassy area on this side. There is a wall along the suddenly side of the property, which is actually higher than the slope itself. Okay. So there won't be any more shading onto the property here or to the property in the rear. Okay. So there's a fence that runs across here and there's also a good one here. On your last plan, you show a buffer zone, right? Right, the end of the parking lot there? The parking site is a good place? Yes, it's a five foot buffer strip. What's going to be there? Grasp. Grasp. So you're counting on, there's a fence there that the chain link fence or existing property fence here and then there are on your budding property that's off-site that's already existing. Okay, so you're just having a green grassy zone? Green grass zone right through the existing fences. Okay. My only question is when you situate the building on this little plin right now, is there a reason why it's sitting so high off-site as opposed to dropping it down a little bit so that the retail is more engaging with the sidewalk so it's more friendly? You know, you have this buffer zone of landscaping and then you have this big railing there which I understand why. Well, it's basically because this elevation change we're going downhill. Yes. So we have handicap accessibility coming in at street level on the left-hand side of the building. So we're trying to maintain that grid coming in. But it looks like you can drop it down on this another floor. And on the elevation it does come in at the elevation of the sidewalk. Okay, so you're saying it's flushed? This is flushed to grade. Okay. And you have accessibility coming up and that's why there's an elevation change between the sidewalk and the building because this slope's downhill. So you have a grid at the existing is basically a hundred. And then down here at the back down at 96 was a four foot elevation change on the site. I just, you know, it's an opportunity of having the retail more engaging with the sidewalk so it's not... It looks more residential like a front porch where this is my front porch where I sit and I watch people come by, you know. It's just that you have an elevation change and it was a flat one, but on a flat street you'd be able to keep it going down on the street itself but since you're on a four foot elevation change you would have to maintain accessibility for the handicapped it comes across that way. And then you guys mentioned that you may or may not have a bank here. No, that's just a... It's not something we're really talked about or thought about. Well you have an ATM machine right behind that bush. Well that was just there as like it was just preliminary. That was a mistake in this submission. Obviously there won't be an ATM there's no way to drive up to it. Okay so there's no ATM? No. I just couldn't see how that was going to work. Right, I know. That was probably from past drawings when we were drawing around ideas. I'm going to give it a rest right now. I know there was a good point about the grade but it sounds like you leveled it at the top. Maybe, and I see you're tight so what I agree with Ken is as much as you can feel like it's a porch that you're maneuvering when you're going into doorways and stuff maybe the stairway gets wider so it's a little more inviting I mean it's wide now which is nice but maybe it's a little wider so it just feels like you can get up there easier and we're not perched. Yeah we have no problem with making the stairs wider. I think that was something that we talked about before. So are you talking the steel are you talking the rip because the rip itself is being wider. Well I don't think we... I'm talking about the stairs being wider. Oh so you're just taking the steel well coming up. Wider so that it feels more open. Well one of the things we have to watch out for at the end of the steel well is you go into a seven inch rises on the stairs and you have an elevation change and you're building the stairs up to the street. I understand you're saying if I pick it wider. The problem is I'll be going into the street by the time I widen this out. So the other way can you go? I can but then I'm sort of cutting back on the landscaping but we can look into that. It's just that that's where the jogging is coming in on the building for the access in there. As if I was widening out to the to the north I'll call it to the north side I would have less room between the ramp and the poppy line. So office is 782 square feet is that going to be written into the special permit because it would require more parking if it gets converted to residential, right? Or less. It's going to be in the office. Is the office more than residential? It's different. One is based on bedrooms and one is based on residential. So if there's going to be a one bedroom right it's really small. If it was converted to residential how would it affect the parking? In terms of zoning? Yeah. The parking would not change if it's a one bedroom, okay? And that would remain the same. Okay? I I don't believe that the open space would change. I have to look at that. Why wouldn't the parking change? It's one and one. That's all, that's good. And you're going to, as Jenny said, the drainage plan to be reviewed by the town engineer that's all part of the no school condition. No soil condition issues? No. I'll just answer just one thing quickly to go back to Ken's question about tandem parking. In the zoning, in the mixed use section of the zoning that we can investigate further it's not something that we but that was not something that we were looking for. Not something we consider at all. With my burn or as part of our discussion. We didn't think it was really applying. I would just ask Mike, he'll no more and see how that applies. Because if you had too much of it it doesn't make sense. I think that the bicycle parking on grade is good too. You got it for the basement and the storage units are nice for the units. People are visiting and so forth. It's just nice to have a convenient place to surround back. They can do that. Visiting the retail shops. Right. Same for the retail. And just echoing what Andrew was saying about the TDM and making sure that is completely fleshed out. I think it would be nice to have lockers if you have showers. I never knew how that worked. I know in my building. One shower in the office. One shower in the office. So the shower is not for the people commuting? Oh, so then what does it have to do with transportation command or do I have that normal? The shower is one of the considerations with respect to reducing the parking requirements. But that's for the employees. For any retail employee who rides their bike might want to clean up. And that's fine. So they go up to the office unit? It would have to be accessible. Sure. We can make that happen. Mm-hmm. But you've got to make it happen so that it works if you convert it to a residential unit. Right. We don't anticipate that we're going to convert it to a residential unit. Except if it's one of those excuses. We don't anticipate we're going to do that. We want the office unit. That's why we're applying for it. I think you should think through that because that's the whole point of that shower and locker. If we were to do that, we'd have to come back before the ARB. Got it. But think about it because you may not have any recourse at that point except to say, hey, this is what happened to Lidlid. Yeah. It would be good if you came back and also one of the answers and comments. We had not at this time but we had a spot in the basement of a shower. Not at this time but in the future you could have because we don't know what the rental is going to be if you're going to need two or one and it would be a waste to put multiple ones in if they're not necessary but there would be future shower stalls here. So it would be private, you'd walk in, shut the door up and there would be a shower there. It wouldn't be installed until it was actually necessary. It's not a TDM plan that that exists. Because the TDMs are critical to us. Sure. Because the TDMs are part of mixed use. And if we're doing the mixed use, which we are wholly behind for the town, it's important to have reality now, whether it's bicycle, it's the understanding where employees are parking because we had a pretty good plan from this earlier EDI for the bicycle for the health club or whatever it was. They really thought about it and one of the things they thought about which I want to remind you of is you don't have shared parking, do you? In the other lot? No. This is shared parking uses. Okay, the shared uses. All on the same site. Correct. You're using the same driveway. The shared driveway. Right. Do you own that other site? Yes. Okay, so they're tied together. Yes. And it's probably a good thing in the long run that you'll tie those together. Because of the easement. And that's pretty critical for our special permit to understand what the total requirement would be therefore if you made changes on the other lot. Well, we can't. We would have to apply for a special permit. We're locked in. That's one of the first things I mentioned to the client early on. Absolutely. And the site does not have a special permit. So they'd have to come back as it was said and apply for a special permit. Can you just say what a TDM is? Transportation demand management plan. It says what it does is it says from the applicant how they're going to manage traffic flow if we reduce the required parking. It's a big thing with mixed use and the idea that you're reducing the amount of parking that's required. The town thinks it's a good thing. So what the transportation demand management plan is all the things that can make that work, such as not driving as many cars, taking public transportation, bicycle, incentives for people not to take their car, that kind of stuff. So it's very important just and not shared parking arrangements. I asked about it, but it's not. It's locked in, but shared parking arrangements in other permits that we get are really important. So you say I will forever allow you to park here and take care of the overage demand. I'm off the subject, but that's where that TDM is. And then Andrew talked about the existing trash recycling. So there's another thing that you're sharing. So you're really tied in so that this special permit is putting requirements on that other site. Absolutely. Lighting is provided. Will you provide a lighting plan with the application? So I'd like to put that in the conditions such that you'll be reviewing that. The last exhibit in the packet is information. It's all provided again. Thank you. That's part of the plan of the investigation. You are not contemplating restaurants. But if you did in the future, how would you deal with the venting, you know, the black iron restaurants? We're not thinking about restaurants at this point. But if you did, because things happen, what would you do? We'd have to come back. And where would you put it? The restaurant? No, the fume, the exhaust pipe that has to be after the roof. Haven't even thought about it because we have not thought about having a restaurant at the site. I just want you to think about it a little bit because you want to keep your facade as clean as you can and now you're building a brand new retail building. It'd be too bad not to plan ahead. We can certainly think about that. Conjure up some sort of vision and screen it. If it happens, it could be a nice place for a restaurant. But you get to hold up parking. That's right. They don't have this parking. It's not going to happen. The block next door has two restaurants. Left. All right.  As part of this, Simejo, can I ask that you contact the gas company and let have some sort of memo or understanding that they allow the meters to be recessed into a alcove like you said. In the past, gas companies are already hesitant to put meters in an alcove. Even on the outside? Yes. They're worried about trapping fumes and so forth. Sometimes they may ask you to slope the roof or something like that. But I'd rather make sure that you're sure that the gas company allows you that. Otherwise, I don't want to come back. The gas company won't allow us to put a jam on the outside. That just changes your whole character what you're presenting here. I think we should talk about it. Maybe I should say that to later. Most of my questions have to do with transportation issues. Forgive me if I jump around a little bit. I have a number of different topics. So the tandem parking spots I have a couple of concerns about that. One, it appears from the plan that there's not enough space to access to getting it out of the rear space when there's a vehicle parked in the front space that they would have to move. Yes. So is it how... That gets rented usually to a couple. But that has two cars. The tandem spots at different locations and we would never rent it to people where they'd have to knock on doors or have sets of keys of other persons. It's always a family member. So my larger concerns with the tandem parking are safety concerns. Because access in and out there is directly into the intersection. There's a crosswalk right there and presumably you'd be backing out of those tandem spaces across the sidewalk and into the intersection. Is there... I think there's no curb cut there. There's a curb cut. They're relocating it. Where is it? Right here, we have a proposed curb cut here. There's an existing one. It runs here and then this is all open up this way. So there's a curb cut here to place the curb here. And with the location of the existing commercial building to the right here the sight line coming from the east is very difficult there for car backing out. So I have some significant concerns with tandem parking at that location. We already talked about the shower issue. I had also noticed it wasn't necessarily accessible to the retail employees but I think you address that with the hookups that you're going to have available in basement for future use if that becomes necessary. So I don't think that's an issue. So bike parking I think you need to do some more thinking about. I think it's okay to tell the residents that if they want to put bikes in their storage lockers they can do that. But I think as part of your TDM plan I'm not sure that that's sufficient because that's access up and down stairs. So people would be required to carry their bikes in and out of the bike parking and I can tell you that is not a preferred way of dealing with bike parking if you're intending for people to frequently use their bicycles. So I would encourage you to think even with an automatic opener it's not the opening door it's the carrying the bikes and especially with the burgeoning market for electric bikes which can weigh 50 pounds it's problematic. Just carrying it up and down the stairs. So I would encourage you to think about whether there is a way to provide either covered or indoor parking at grade for the residents. That's also secure. I don't know if you've ever been to AOWI station and seen the covered secure bike parking there. That's a type of option you could use outdoors but I don't know if there's any flexibility in the way the floor plan currently exists on the main level that's more or less at grade to provide a secure room for the residents to park their bikes inside. Joe, how many steps would they be carrying their bikes up? Probably 12 risers. That's a lot. All of the other buildings we have with bikes, storage they bring their bikes upstairs. It's just what happens where they're located. I understand what you're saying with an electric bike but doesn't that become a vehicle then? No. That's an extreme example but if you're asking people of varying physical capabilities to carry their bikes up and down it's an issue. There's a community here because we were building a brand new building and I appreciate that in many older buildings to the extent people are allowed to bring their bikes inside they often have to carry them up and down stairs but that's not the preferred way of approaching this issue now. So I think you need to use some more thinking about how that will work for the residents. As far as encouraging both retail well, retail customers residential visitors and retail employees to bike you also need to think about bike parking for them. Now that for retail customers and residential visitors that bike parking doesn't necessarily have to be indoor or secure but it has to exist. So that's something to think about. We talked about securing the bicycles to the ballads here to provide nubs or something on the ballads to secure bikes to here and also there's an area past the entrances to these two stores because it showed better an area past the doorway here then you can put a rack and then drive the bicycle past the door and have it there as well. So here or here but those are the two spots that we've discussed. Okay I'm glad you're thinking about it. Alright Now it was previously noted there is good access to the Minuteman here so it is a location that people could conceivably bike to and from relatively easily. I did note a couple of things. The access there are actually three viable access points for this location to the Minuteman. Down Bow Street is one and down Forest to Fraser Road is the other one. Both of those are approximately 1400 feet away. The closest one is actually Ryder Street which is the driveway to the rec center which is only about 1000 feet. However, the pavement there is in really awful condition so it's barely what I would call safe for bike access to the Minuteman. I don't know if the town has any plans to do anything about that. But one concern I have because I really want to help you encourage people to ride is that Summer Street is not a particularly comfortable place for bike. There are no formal bike lanes or other bike facilities on Summer Street. There are marked marked shoulders. They're not bike lanes. They're marked shoulders of varying lengths that are not marked as bike lanes right now. And again, I don't know of hand what the town's plans are for any potential future improvements for cyclists on Summer Street. But that's something that it would be worth investigating because I think that it would be a very advanced cyclist. I think it would be uncomfortable for most people to ride on Summer Street right now and that's a concern if bicycling is a significant part of your TDM plan. I did note as you mentioned there is a bus stop directly across the street. The 67 bus is the only one that serves that area. That does give access to Arlington Center and Ale Wife. I did note though that even during peak travel periods that only runs about every 30 minutes and in the middle of the day it's closer to an hour between buses. So it's not great but it's good that it's there and it can certainly be an important part of the TDM plan that it exists at all. I would like to think about specifically what incentives you might be able to provide to both the retail employees and the residents to encourage them to use the bus whether that's subsidizing T-passes or something like that. They're not paying for a parking spot. I thought you said that if they're using the T and they don't have a car they wouldn't have the need for a parking spot. Not necessarily. Because people could have a car and still choose to use the T or bike from time to time. We like people to have transportation options. So talking about the parking so I noted in the TDM plan it said shared well it said two things it said the residents would be charged for parking which you mentioned but it also said that it would be shared in different uses and I just wanted to understand a little bit more about how you anticipate that to work because if people are paying for the right to those parking spaces you wouldn't sell all the parking spaces some of them would be needed to be maintained for for the residents and then they would only be the visitors for the residents would only be able to park there for a certain period of time to be able to share with the stores. So not a whole much yes so if you just stress the board so if you have if you have parking spaces if you have visitor parking spaces and the sign says visitor parking for the residents is between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m. and then they would have to leave the parking space and then it would be available for the store between the balance of the time. So how many parking spaces are you anticipating or reserving for visitor use as opposed to reserve resident use? We'd have to see what the demand was but you know a few would have to would have to go towards visitor and share of use. I'm just a little unsure how does that play into meeting the minimum number of parking spaces if some are reserved for residents and some are floating. Well we would always keep the minimum requirement open and available for the residents. It's hard to say when the applications come in when people apply I'd probably say about 20% of the applicants I see do not have cars. So some people wouldn't be renting a space some people would be. So I actually went and looked at the site and I noted this afternoon that that the neighboring building your other building there's one car in the lot all the other spots were empty are there are all of those spots are reserved for residents in that building? Ironically that's the only building we don't have designated spaces but the tenants seem to kind of take a spot and use that spot we have open spaces there that when if and when some of our residents have gas they get approval from our office we allow them to park there but not every tenet in that building has do you have capacity in that lot right now? yeah oh no I'm sorry you said are you you have capacity in the neighborhood no I also was taking a look at the on-street parking situation and there is very limited on-street parking there right now there are some spaces in front of there's what looks like there were the remains of markings of a couple of spaces in front of this property and then there's there's I think three fifteen minute parking spaces in front of your other building and it's good that you're going to be able to make another couple of spaces available but again there's unfortunately just not a lot of on-street parking and while it's not marked interestingly it's not marked no parking along that whole stretch of summer street the only way you can park is by parking you know partially overhanging the marked the marked shoulder so I can't imagine that that's actually legal parking so there is unfortunately very limited on-street parking and they'll continue to be very limited on-street parking even with the addition of the two spaces I also did happen to see that there were kind of right in the middle of the of the driveway that's between the two properties today there were a number of trash and recycling bins just sitting there by the side of the driveway about halfway towards the back and I can also actually see on Google satellite view that they're there so is that a common state of affairs that the trash is just sitting out there in the driveway? that might be just for the snow season because we've been pushing the snow into I don't obviously do the snow flying but the facilities manager has been using the back of 483 Summer Street and he might have it open that way to get by of course that's not going to continue in any event it's going to disappear okay because I mean the fact that I'm just concerned that I saw it today and I see it on the Google satellite view I don't want to check it this far it could it though because of the share of driveway it would be in a way yep absolutely alright for me at the moment I do want to get to public comment Andy do you want to I will open up public comment please raise your hand please press the board not the applicant I'll call on you we'll go through the address we'll go through quickly we'll get a term yes sir can I go up to stand in front of the board or is that just staying in place well there's a couple of things name and address sorry Chris Connery I had 21 Peter Tufts Road which is the opposite side of the block from this property a couple of things I actually had some drawings I'm not sure if you want them or not it's a plus I thought maybe easier stand over here I think there's I'm pretty glad sorry I didn't have one for each one of you thank you for a couple of things they talked about first off was the gentleman in blue what he described the plan was not what was on the drawings because he described a one-way driveway on the eastern side that circled around and exited through the common driveway so that was completely different from what the plan said he was presenting because we don't want to go back there or it doesn't matter so then the plan does have to handle this parking which gets into so his description was a little bit off maybe it was an earlier plan come on so this is just a couple of things to talk about the elevation on the front view doesn't show the roof access nor the 12 air conditioners with the screening around it but as residents on the other side of the block which is a sloping hill it's a lower morning side that's the side we say is the air conditioners and the roof access so that's something they can slope it towards the so it's not a big square I'm not sure how you would call it a slope roof in the back so I've been there for 18 years and the area of the condos is known as the swamp the reason being is the whole neighborhood drains towards those condos I'm on the upside of the hill so I don't get flooded but I think if there are any condos owners in here they know that all the rain is a good thing it can be a concern for them flowing into that condos association talked about bike storage may I say also the especially how do you go along summer street yes but then the biggest concern is the parking if you're trying to reduce the parking through the bike and also the TDM and everything but reducing the parking is the building size that they're able to build and I have concerns that it's too big for this lot, it regards the parking requirements a couple of things I wanted to look at this property in relationship to the environment although they have nice rendering they're cutting down the tree between the buildings but even though it's shown in the renderings that tree is being removed so it's going to be a brick building right after a brick building you talked about the shower zone but the parking on the street I've both my wife and I work from home and the parking during the day is horrendous two or three times during the day this is an example of the parking around 12 o'clock every weekday in front of the property and in front of the condo area so what that does is it pushes parking into the neighborhood so if you look at the parking along the street between Park Avenue and Overlook there's only eight parking spots on Summer Street four of them in front of the this property and four of them in front of the residents a little bit closer to the ice rink so one concern is the parking for retail then we are in four retail stores whether it's employee parking or office parking we never really talked about office use of the parking spots we talked about residential and the retail but what does it need for the office I mean I don't envision them viking to the office to work or using that as the shower to kind of meet the TDM requirement for reduction in parking and then one of the things I placed on here I actually put cars in the spots of where they would go and there's actually a car on the street to show that these represent the same spot same size spot but if you look at the parking lot for the next development over it is almost a third bigger than what they're proposing and also I took scale from their drawing to the parking and I find the parking is about 15 feet back of the parking lot or parking space to the apron for the walk out for the rear doors so it's something that you could for you to decide because I'm not parking there but it's also something for retail and everything else that has to be I think met for the time because obviously we don't want to turn into a Davis Square especially since this property is a business zone residential zone it's not a broad way it's not massive this is five or right now three properties that are just business all by themselves in the residential area and one of the biggest concerns is the standard parking there is requirement for standard parking whether they're going to consider it as a driveway or because if it's individual it's not but they're talking about it being one unit so if you look at it as one unit so that's one two bedroom unit think of it this way that leaves five bedrooms five two bedrooms plus a one bedroom maybe do out the calculation that's still an important spot that we need for those other units without this the two tandem spots and now growing up on 18 years they've been 18 years on the street plus kids really concerned about the tandem parking backing up into the intersection because that is the crosswalk for the water lower morning side and also parks are over now what's this the water tower turkey area that's where all the kids funnel down and cross over to go to Madison and the high school to keep the place right there because there's no other park there's no crosswalk between Park Avenue and Overlock but just because of National Geographic there's there's no real cross streets the best way is to go down and cross at this intersection so I'm concerned about them backing up into the crosswalk for for the pedestrian safety and also I think somebody mentioned about riding if you ever spend time there and I've gone with our kids when they're running and riding bikes and they're just until about 13-14 you actually ride down the sidewalk on this side of the street because it's wide so you have room to maneuver you don't have across the other side you have to have them pulls in the street in the sidewalk so that's where the kids ride the bikes just so they can be out of traffic so they can access the ice rink to access then the minimum part of the bikeway so that's something that you know, it's also a concern about this this plan and then also we'll talk about that thank you the right side there you are, I'm Sean Duggan a little bit poor, 61 Somers Street three doors down from them we're going to use permeable right there that area is all ledge so whatever you put there it's going to run down to the ledge and it's going to run down to my backyard if you've ever gone by my house during the rainstorm I get the fire hose so they have to connect it to the sewer or the drain, street drain and it's pitch it's going to run downhill so all it's going to do is run on the driveway on the building before it you can see a river coming out of there okay so something has to be done there as long as the parking is closed you've got a baseball field across the street come summertime the game is going every single night okay, there's two parking spots in front of my house you can't even get to them during the summer you know, I get kids walking up and down the street I think with that store there it's a hazard to the children you can see the parking is way out of line thank you I live where I can hand you my name is Lisa Mawanzilla I'm from Glenbrook, Lane the estate is called Sack Bear and I can attest that out of my bedroom window I can see the lake in your backyard which is unbelievable yeah so both the people who spoke before me you expressed some of the concerns that I have so I won't go over them too much except to say that it feels a little bit aspirational that we're talking about using bicycles so often when in reality given the weather and the congestion on Summer Street as you mentioned I think it would be great if we could do that I'd like to find out about the shelters for bikes that you have intended because we're thinking the same thing the reality is that the majority of people who come there are not going to be from the neighborhood and they're not going to be taking their bikes my concern is that you're going to have units of housing that don't have a spot for any guests at any time designated car spot for guests and you're going to have office spaces that have no office retail that has no room for customers I'm not sure what the logic is behind that but it's not going to work in an area that is extremely congested that you're hoping will attract bicycle traffic zero availability to easily get across the street for pedestrians for physically ball or for bicycles so I'm one of those people I would really like to see something done with that property I've lived there about 19 years in the area so it would be great to have something done I think mixed use is great, affordable housing is great I'm not sure how many people really don't have any car and have no use for a car space for guests to come but I would hope you'd really think about that and maybe make the project more suitable for the size that you have there because I think the way I look at this now it butts our property very close I'm not sure there's room for even a fire truck to get behind you maybe the race car may come on but the way I see it right now is just one more example of we in Arlington trying to shoehorn a development in anywhere we can and sacrificing natural space green space in part and sacrificing safety thank you my name is Carol Gonzales I'm at 493 summer street which is one building away from the proposed project to the left of the other apartment building that they own and I have been running a preschool there for the past 27 years and my concern initially I was kind of thinking about the construction phase of this and how that my concerns are around the safety and well being of the 56 children that we have depending the school every day ages 2 through 5 so I was thinking about the dust the exhaust fumes the noise we have kids out in the playgrounds and from 8.30 until 12.30 pretty much continuously we have a classroom of children outside in the morning the I'm also concerned about the parking obviously up and down summer street and I was the construction vehicles construction vehicles when that would even be happening I would be really worried about the impact on the drop off the safe drop off the pickup of the children at our program and now that I'm thinking about now hearing more about this project and the part the limited parking it concerns me that people people that are working there will be parking in front on summer street taking up the spaces that are there I know in front of our building we have 3 15 minute parking spaces and ours is really the drop off the big drop off at 8.30 in the morning so from 8.20 until about 8.40 it's really busy with very young children being dropped off 56 children every day and then there's a big pickup at 12.30 so again but that even though it's busy for those period of time is moving it is you know they're going in coming out so I'm concerned about the parking and the safety for the children in our care I am also a little bit concerned about the during the construction phase this area has also had some road control issues during construction phases and that concerns me so I would want something in place around that and I don't know if that's part of what you put in place anyway but then also with the trash and waste being combined between these two sites I would really want it to be more than adequate to control all of that and to really not make that an issue for the neighborhood I want to stop you and thank you for that construction issues issues that happened during construction things like that outside of our curfew and outside of what we're discussing here so I'm glad that you've spoken up and brought those to our attention but things like that are dealt with through the building department but your other concerns are certainly her there are things that we can do as far as trash control of road and control as the project were the project to be approved as it existed there could be conditions put in place to control those so thank you yes ma'am yes Elaine Crowder to Glenbrook there are a few things that were mentioned that I wanted to clarify I heard that the height of the building was to be 38 feet that there was a 40 foot limit does that include the cap that's to the the top of the top of the top of this so it does not include the cap that's from this side so how high is the cap and how high is the fence that's around the the the penthouse according to the throwing by rest doesn't come into play with the but how high is it that's 8 feet more this is 8 feet actually it's going to so 8 feet minus 16 inches because it will be at the roof level of 8 feet so 7 foot okay and what kind of of the other question I had was I don't know if it's the address of the board not them but these are my questions the other question I had was what kind of noise abatement there is in conjunction with these compressors the 12 compressors on top of the house of the construction of the project as well as anything that would be going in in the future having to do with restaurant venting there anything to do with restaurant venting would be something that would have to come back in front of us there would be a separate hearing on that but the question about noise abatement for what's proposed you can certainly answer these the mini-split systems they're relatively quiet yeah it's these ones where that's the inside part and then there's the outside part and the fans on those they run like constantly but it's that could be put to the board we would have to then yes when the time comes to pull the permit it will be specified what the product is being installed and then we'll know the decibel level at that time so there's not any specific noise abatement that's planned for that structure around it correct I would request that that be thought about because of the we already have had some residents that live on that side of our Glenbrook condos that have had difficulties with the noise from the restaurant and the restaurant fan so that might be considered please the I wanted to ask about environmental hazard study I haven't heard no mention of that since this was a gas station we've had a 21E done otherwise we would not be doing this project okay and what's the 21E I don't know 21E is an environmental study where you do test borings and you conclude that the site is suitable for construction and you don't have contamination and the last thing that I wanted to talk about was pest control we have as the town knows had considerable problems with pests in the area we have taken a lot of measures on our property and with our residents to change the way that we use our dumpster and we have had and we are aware that our property offers the burrowing sites and the home for anything that goes in that is taking up pavement so and I don't think I would like to hear what the town tends to require of projects that are going to have increased impact in that with dumpster and whether there's going to be a requirement that the dumpster be animal proof it really does not allow access to rats whether there would be a requirement that before leasing happens that there be pest control contracts in place that includes both external and internal that kind of thing the the dumpster is going to be going on a pad and there's going to be a fence around the dumpster okay fences rats get through that's something we'll talk about certainly so is there anything else thank you actually I had one other go ahead quickly it was one other comment about traffic patterns that I hadn't heard mentioned and that is that I've had experiences at that intersection where trying to go through that light intersection where someone had paused or parked I think they were parked in front of the of the existing a restaurant area and someone I was trying to turn left and someone who was trying to go straight had to go around it's not an easy intersection thank you sorry thank you Mr. Chairman we have a few questions and comments first on the drainage will any of the storm water be leading the site it's it'll it'll migrate the same as it does now is the pavement or both the pavement into the soil will basically flow down to its it's going to recharge but will it be going to other people's yards or into the street or into the sewer it's going to be designed to go into the ground hit the ground water, express with the ground water to recharge the system has it would receive the storm water plant we have it's part of the original packet I know it's set for review by the time engineer I don't believe he's weighed in on it yet that's noted in the report but that still means I would urge the board to hold off on their decision until you you've received the result of the view of that my understanding was that no storm water is supposed to leave the site for new developments that you the question I had is do you have a landscape plan? it's on the it's on this one that's something that will need some work we've seen some proposals for that as part of the initial application but it's not which one are you referring to? the application for the special permit were you giving the landscape plan or were you on the drainage? the drainage plan is in there then there is a proposed landscape plan in the entire packet can someone explain where the landscape areas are on that figure? basically we have them along the front area and up here on the side this is the grass area this is a patio area and a grass strip that runs along here and then in front of the existing building along the side to be the plate that's putting on that property but that's not part of your development but we are utilizing this driveway so in conjunction with utilizing that we'll be upgrading the landscaping on that property but are you taking credit for the landscape on that site to meet your landscape open space requirement? no and where is the usable open space? over here what is the total area? I don't have that shot in front of me actually it's 1420 square feet and landscape area is 710 square feet what's the total gross square footage of the building? building area is 7100 square feet that's for all the uses the residential and I'm sorry what was the usable open space? 1420 square feet thank you I guess on the parking we're up there what is the aisle width for those two spaces on the side? is that where the 12 feet is? this is the two 10 parking spaces and then the aisle next to them is how wide? this is not really an aisle width so it's not used for backing in and out there's two parking spaces here and we're back onto the street so you're real backing into the street? for these two spaces here I would ask the board to look at that it's my understanding that backing out into a street is not allowed for this type of use it's allowed for one and two family homes but not for business uses and not for mixed use my understanding also is you do need an aisle next to parallel spaces so you don't have enough room there particularly if you can't pull through and you have to you don't have one way of getting out the other issue is there's also limitations on how close you are to an intersection and I think you may have problems with that as well so I think the board really needs to think through the parking issue I've heard the owners say that they own the property next to or those are body sites or nearby sites is that right? nearby sites and that there's available parking there why isn't the board requiring them to provide spaces on that site for use for this development? that's entirely allowed in the zoning bylaw or is it not? it is I really urge you to do that then just a couple other questions did I hear something about the possibility of converting some of the retail or office space to another residential unit? we have never suggested that that came up from the board that's not something we've tried to do on the second floor my understanding though is right now based on the zoning bylaw we cannot put any more residential units in and are being proposed is that the applicant's understanding under the existing bylaw? again the office use is going to be in office use we do not intend to convert it to residential use but I want to ensure the board understands I think the board does understand that they're maxed out then the final thing that was mentioned at the 21E site assessment what is the designation of this lot under the Massachusetts I don't think that's a matter for this particular board well it is because under the 21E program depending on the designation that restricts the uses for example you might not be able to put in a daycare center if it has a particular designation and I think that's entirely appropriate to the board and I would urge you to make that public then the next question I would have is is the board going to require the applicant to come back and reopen a special permit when it's determined what non-residential uses may go in other than the office for any particular retail will any of those require reopening of the permit? depends on the use but that could be a condition I would urge you to put that in because under mixed use my understanding is anything under mixed use for the board you know understandably they don't know exactly what's going to go in I think the onus on that would be on the tenant, the commercial tenant renting and that would be contingent on whether or not they wanted to speak if you had to go through the town that's correct thank you any questions, comments? 20 second follow-up with regards to the parking for the property that's an 18 bedroom apartment building so 18 bedrooms where? according to the assessors report it's a 12 unit 11 unit one bedroom one studio the assessors saying it's 18 that's why I was just wondering but then it gets into how many parking spots are required for that building because they are losing parking spots because of the dumpster relocation that that property is not under what we're discussing here it's just in terms of they're sharing the trash but they're actually taking part from the other part for the trash because the trash has been in the dumpster I understand your question but it's outside of what we'll consider for the apartment it's just comes into the trash you're taking from here any other questions, concerns comments? anything from the board? do you have the office space on the second floor right? would that meet since it's office space would it need to meet handicap codes and have elevator access to that second floor? building inspector said no because of the size there's below a certain size apartment Kit Hayes from Glenbrook Lane I just want to reinforce I think the project is much too big for the site and for the neighborhood and I really think given all the issues the smaller issues that have been brought up I think it should be scaled back thank you yes ma'am Margaret Petrella I live at 23 Edmond Road and I've been there for about 16 years and everyone has raised my issues and concerns specifically with regard to pedestrian safety the tandem parking backing out into an intersection it makes no sense to me and I am also very concerned about the size of the building for the neighborhood the feel of the neighborhood I don't know if you all have walked around that neighborhood but this building as others have said just feels far too large for the neighborhood thank you comments from the board in terms of our questions yeah I think that there's some important questions about access and circulation I didn't realize as you first presented it that that was meant to be the one on the right was meant to be an access street and it's close to that intersection I'm not really sure how you use it I don't think backing out is acceptable in addition to the amount of parking that really is going on on the street and the uses that are being brought there that are going to increase that I feel like there is another step you need to take to show us how that is going to work the other thought I have is that you really should look at this as one project if there is the ability to look at a central entrance and a big parking lot that can work together with 12 units you said on the left side and 7 on the right is there a way you can design this thing with a central parking access shared dumpsters shared parking zone where you can take care of residential visitor and so forth that would be a better plan that would provide better circulation again I don't think that tandem situation works and I am a little concerned that tandem when you get down to that many parking spaces it's quite reduced that tandem is an issue we'll take a look at that I think then the other issues I think could be Andrew could be dealt with in terms of conditions screening, noise abatement sewage very, not sewage storm water and that if we could take another look at this in the continuance that we would be able to see what the actual drainages on the site plus address have you addressed these circulation access issues it does feel a little big when you start thinking about parking and what's happening on the site I had a lot of issues to talk about just the design of it and the feel of it and so forth but I think I really reserved that to the point where we really deal with the size of it, the access and the parking you may or may not want to look at it as two sites but that may be an opportunity so that's my opinion you're combining the sites because of the easement and you know so that's something that's already going to be in place so we can think about that I'm combining it to give you possibly an opportunity to make an argument that the parking is going to be adequate and the circulation is adequate I understand your point so that's why I'm I don't have anything to add to what I do but I think that's well said I think I'd like to see a more fleshed out transportation management plan so obviously you can't find any potential tenants, retail tenants that they'd have to come up with their own but I'd at least like to see what sort of incentive you'll provide to get them in the door to get residents in the door how you'll manage your own office the landscape plan that was provided really needs to be fleshed out we need to see what is going to be used how that open space will be managed there's more things along those lines I think Andy tackled everything as far as parking goes but I would like to see some more thought going to that especially around those tandem spaces and maybe those tandem spaces can be turned into additional green space if you can begin to take from the neighborhood just to be clear if that's not possible you may not want to do it that way think about the size of this building can I add something to this you should talk to your architect about the size when you said this was a sprinkler building right? yes under new codes you only require to have one means of egress vertical circulation on a sprinkler building that's less than 75 feet of travel per floor from this corner towards first corner so by deleting one of those stairs you may be able to shrink the building down it might be a win-win so look I'm not going to tell you what to do I'm just a suggestion thanks Ken you also could think about in the TDM plan having provisions that you would insert into the leases with any retail tenants we have done that before we have actually and so you can while the individual retail tenants would need to deal with TDM on their own you can create a framework within which they would operate that meshes with your overall TDM plan Jenny what does our upcoming schedule look like where we can accommodate them we need the move to continue EDR a special permit to do one thing three days that would be that's what we would say okay we'll do that we'll do this we'll do this we'll switch it up it's going to be it's going to be it's going to be to what date to what date so what are your suggestions we'll get right on it what kind of time the question is if you're looking at the $27 we just said we don't want you to have to come back over and over again we don't want that set point what's the one after that okay well that's a later portion of our discussion currently your next meeting after that is March 6 we were talking about changing that meeting to March 13 but that would be your current next meeting is March 6 I think we go with a March date what about the 13th are you the March 13th meeting would be our warrant articles hearing and we're going to have five articles to be your public hearings March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 is fine that's what they like I motion to move this hearing talking with 3522 to March 6 to continue any chance we could talk about it for the 27th and then maybe just we won't be hopeful then is the 27th how what is that two weeks or is it just a week no two weeks no no no from today continue the hearing you're still in the public hearing and I think that's okay so what are we talking about I need to know well you guys said I'm already looking at the time frame you need to get the plans back yeah right March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 is it so there's a motion to continue to March 6 do I have a second favor thank you gentlemen thank you I know there's a lot of people here for this hearing they're probably going to pack up the needs but I ask you to do so quickly you still have a significant amount of business to conduct yeah all right March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 March 6 All right, next on our agenda is another public hearing to be our special permit to reopen docket on 29-33 regarding a change of use of 29 masks out. The attorney are present so please step forward introduce yourself and we will open this year. Good evening. My name is Mary Winsfield. I represent the health and fitness. This is David Vasconcelos. He is the manager of the health and fitness facility as well as one of the members. And if you'd like, I can give you a little background of this board approved a special comprehensive special permit for the site which houses a CBS used to be a blockbuster video, I think. And it was at the back building, which was the auto repair shop of the old ill life Pontiac arrow Pontiac was it supposed to be a children's entertainment facility. That whole building was the children's entertainment facility. Mr. Marley, who owns this entire property, did a master lease for the back building with two gentlemen, Murphy and McManus and they sublet the back building to the children's entertainment center. That went bankrupt, that it was a place, you know, like a Chuck E. Cheese type setup. Murphy and McManus then subdivided that space and rented it to Mr. Vasconcelos for the health and fitness center and Arlington Pediatrics. They have both been there for about 14 years, correct? 14 years in favor. What transpired is in connection with financing and an attorney doing some due diligence for a zoning opinion. They learned that there was never a request to change the use of that property. That the two tenants went in there, signed leases with Murphy and McManus, but there was no change of use for the facility. I have nothing to do with Arlington Pediatrics. I'm only here with respect to Mr. Vasconcelos's business. And his use is permitted in a B4 with a special permit. Now, I've looked at the parking and I spoke with Laura Wiener about it. It's the same component on the parking as the children's entertainment center, one for every 300 square feet. Actually, the pediatric, I could just point out, the use of the other half of the building for the pediatric offices is actually a less intensive use because instead of it being one of every 300 square feet, it's one parking space for every 500 square feet. There are 120 parking spaces on the entire site and there is also bicycle parking there as well. So we're just looking to change the use. It might be a little late, but 14 years later, but Mr. Vasconcelos had no idea that he needed to do that. I can't have questions. Not really, no. I mean, it makes total sense. My only question is, who is the appropriate party to be requesting the change of use? The tenant is the appropriate party to request it because it's the tenant that's actually using it. It's not the landlord's responsibility to change the use. The onus is on the lessor to make sure that they're in compliance with all the zoning bylaws. Similar to how the prior hearing, any pre-tail use there, we have to come back to any kind of ideas. This is a permitted use, but the original special permit was granted in contemplative use of a fitness center. So that makes sense. I don't have any question for issue with this. It's a business that's been in place for 14 years. I don't want to make it hard for anyone else to do business in our own time. Motion approved, docket 2933. I don't know. Any public comments or questions or concerns? Seeing none. We never know. Motion to approve docket 2933. Second. All in favor. Thank you very much. You're welcome. That's a record. Sorry to be waiting for so long. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Good night. Good night. No, I mean we've actually served in that site quite a bit. We know quite a bit about it. Yes. It's a fitness center and a pediatrician's office. It's a good use. Town meeting warrant article is updated and scheduled. All right. Thank you. So in your packets, you have, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, you've got, so in your packets you have the warrant for annual town meeting and special town meeting for, beginning on Monday April 24th, and you may have noted that warrant article six through eight are the articles that have been filed by the redevelopment board and then there are two additional zoning articles that were filed by 10 registered voters. So, what I wanted to talk to you about tonight is the proposed schedule, which is also in your packet. Looks like this, a little spreadsheet. And the next steps with all of the warrant articles. So this is a proposal. Let's start there. My proposal is that we have our public hearing. Now we know we're having our March 6 meeting, so I'll add that back into the schedule. But the public hearing would be proposed for March 13. That is also the same evening that the Board of Selections will be hearing the warrant articles for the town bylaw changes, which are actually right after the zoning warrant article changes. The bylaw amendments for residential construction. Articles 11 through 14. They're not happening at the same time. So the proposal would be that the Board of Selectment hears those bylaw articles before your meeting. So I think it would be 6 to 7.30. And then you would start your meeting at 7.30. And you'll hear the five articles that evening. Realizing that would be a very long night. But based on when we have to do notice and also wanting to be able to wrap up the draft report to town meeting earlier than we do typically, which has been a challenge in past town meetings. This is why my suggestion is to start the public hearing on March 13, especially in the event that you would need to continue anything or have any additional meetings that would be needed like the March 20 meeting, for example. And as part of this process, as you know, we will have additional meetings with the residential study group. I talked about this probably at our last meeting. There's three upcoming meetings for the residential study group. One of them is on Wednesday. And the other one is on next Thursday. They'll be working to finalize the language for the article related to the driveways and grays. And then would also be working on some of the town bylaw issues as well at the same time. So that's, I guess maybe I'll just start there and see if you have any questions first before I go any further. What don't you have an April issue? Oh yeah, one of the other issues with the schedule was April. We had scheduled a meeting for April 20, I believe. And that is actually April 10, I'm sorry. That is also. So we would like to propose not having a meeting that night. So the last meeting before 10 meeting would be April 3. But if we needed to add a meeting, we'd have to be not on a Monday, I think. That's right. Yeah. There's no other Monday meeting. That's over in the New Pet Patriots' Day. Depending on business, we could plan to do how we've done in the past. So we meet an hour before town meeting as a board. And then the journey continues to town meeting, which is possible. But the reports of town meeting I'd like to have in April 11. So we have adequate time for town meeting members to review our report. And also proposing some outreach regarding the public hearing and also propose public forum sometime in March or April so that we have adequate time for people to field questions. It would not be in just the public hearing setting kind of like what we did last year. So an informational setting. Would that include the proposed town bylaws? Yes. And this would just be for the, I think this would mostly focus on the residential construction. Limited to that. This isn't what I'm proposing, but you can suggest others. I know that we want to opine on the town bylaws and have some sort of recommendation, even though we don't vote on those. And it's not us that's put those forward. Could we do those? I suppose we can't do those separately from the others. Because we're not voting on them per se. It's part of the report to town meeting. But I know there was some discussion at the last meeting about some questions that wanted to be asked and some opinions from the building inspector and other parties that would carry some weight toward our being able to recommend or suggest changes if needed. I think we could make recommendations to the Board of Selectment about those warrant articles. And I think that you can discuss them as part of your report to town meeting. But you would not be voting on them. So we could discuss those in their current form sooner than a public hearing. It wouldn't be a public hearing. It doesn't have to be. You're not going to. Your public hearing is limited to the zoning articles. Yeah. No, no, no. What I'm trying to say is we can speed those up and talk about them and make getting our recommendation into the report easier on staff if we have a discussion sooner rather than while we're trying to decide on the things that we actually are voting on and will be wordsmithing and getting into heavily. So the articles are 6 through 10 that you would need a hearing on. 6 through 8 are the ones that have been filed by the redevelopment board. 6 through 10. Yes. 6 through 10. 6 through 10. So 6. Those are the ones we're going to. Those are our 8 or our proposed changes. 9 and 10 are zoning changes for our 10 registered voters that will. That need a hearing. 8, 11, 12, the ones that look all the same to me. 13, 14. Yeah. Those are pining on those, but not. Those are those are the recommendations that we danced around when we began to discuss the last meeting that involve construction and some of the good neighbor agreement that we talked about in prior meetings. We decided that it was not within our purview to vote on those and equip them into the warrant. But I think because they are ARB adjacent items, it's appropriate for us to at least discuss those in our report to tell me to make a recommendation on those. Because in a securitist way, they've come out of the residential study group, which is the long way down the board chart underneath us. We won't actually propose those amendments. We won't propose them. We won't present them. We'll make a recommendation in our report. In that context, I kind of agree with you. You can get that discussion going, you're saying. Right. And the reason we can get that discussion going sooner is because it doesn't have to be done in the context of a public hearing. So we take out the need to advertise. OK. So I can put it could be the 27th, frankly. By? February 27th, that is. To dismiss the town violence. That actually doesn't make sense to put it ahead anyway. Yes, because the town council will need feedback also. And we can give the town council feedback, and by holding it then, we'll have finalized, I suppose, our recommendation, which will go in front of the board, select them to consider. And that will be at the conclusion of the three residential study group meetings. Actually, residential study group meets before you meet on the 27th. That's another good reason to do it. Clever evening, to my part. Well done. I'll be there. Both of us. Just a procedural question. So I can't be here at least at the beginning of the meeting on the 13th, since that wasn't our original schedule, March 13th. But is there any reason that I can't join the meeting in progress a little later in the evening? You can join the meeting, but learning would be an issue. But we're not going till two more weeks later. Right, that's true. So you could watch it on that meeting before. That's true. Yeah. You have to familiarize yourself. And we'd make that clear to the audience at the beginning of this subsequent meeting, but you'll be able to vote at that point. When's our fifth been joining us? Next week. Next meeting. 23rd. I think so. He is going through the appointment process right now through the board of select men and will be able to vote at the February 27th meeting. He'll be sitting with you at the next meeting, but not quite ready. Not yet. He's been sworn in, cannot vote until February 27th. But that isn't his meeting. That is his meeting. So 23rd is a notice. I'm thinking tonight is when he's being appointed. And then he has to get sworn in on the 27th. And then he can come here to his meeting. OK. He'll be ready to vote, but he'll be at the board, at the table for all these marches and April meetings. Two and a half, four. Two and a half, five, four, again. But yes, that's a good point. March 13th is a new meeting. I had not forgot that. Because initially, I was thinking we would take out March 6th and put in March 13th. But now we just decided to keep March 6th. And so you're adding March 13th as just an evening for public hearings. So it is not in your meeting. So you'd need to confirm that you can actually attend that meeting. And this 327 is also being added, right? Because it was going to be the 12th. And typically, what we've done, Andy can correct me if I'm wrong. What we do is we hold the public hearing. We deliberate. And then continue to allow for public comment to come in via email and other means. And we'll then take that into consideration, take any further questions or concerns and vote with the subsequent meeting. Right. So we vote. We listen to the comments from the public. And we do that. We close it. We vote the next time. And we always allow, after that hearing happened, we do those allow for additional time for people to speak at peace outside of the meeting, email, lists, or however. So just in effect, every Monday in March is a potential meeting. Now it's possible that we won't need read 20, but we don't know right yet. That's, I guess, that's a possibility. You could eliminate that. 127, that's also possible. That's when we have to vote. So we can vote with four people, if someone else. That's right. But the 20th was on the original schedule. Yes. The 27th was new. Yeah. So that's also OK. Because that's when you're also voting. That's, yeah, that's the way they're in this meeting. But to Laura's point, because now every Monday in March is a meeting, you could eliminate the March 20th meeting, I suppose, that's a possibility. I think we can plan for it to be off unless some. So the question is, will March 13th and March 27th work for everybody? Yes. That's everybody at the table. I roll. Right here on the 13th. Borrowing my day job, yeah. I plan on being here. Yes. And if something happens, it's good to know that there will be a fifth member. Yes. I'm going to try and move things for the next 13th. I thought I said it first, so you can move on. All right, director's report. You've got the report here. I've basically got a few just really quick updates. I think you may be aware of the Arts and Culture Action Plan. We've been calling it a cultural plan. Now it's an Arts and Culture Action Plan. This is the work that is being done by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, MAPC, who is helping us with, basically, looking at an asset inventory town-wide of cultural assets, and helping us to then create an action agenda to manage those assets and to also help the organizations that are charged with overseeing those assets to work together in coordination and really strengthen what we have in terms of arts and culture. It also relates, in part, to the cultural district planning that we are still doing, and we still have a cultural district application being reviewed by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. And this is, we're now in the phase where we are going to be doing more public engagement with the entire community. So ending the phase where we had a survey, which I think I mentioned, had a really extraordinary response. Almost 1,000 people responded to the online survey that had been posted through most of January. And then we had a number of focus groups with the business community, with different arts interest groups, and other parties who are interested in arts and culture in town. Now we're into the public forum phase, so I wanted to get this on your also more meetings for your calendar. The first one is on March 1st. The second one will be on June 6th. And they have different intentions. The first one is more like open house style, so you can learn more about the process, learn more about the results of the survey, and provide some feedback. And then the final one in June is really when we start to finalize the actual action plan. So is our official involvement required for this? No, it's unofficial. Is the Arlington Center of the Arts coordinating with it? I'm actually at the art department with the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture. So they don't want to get involved? The ACA and many other arts organizations are also part of the process, but it's predominantly the department with the commission. OK, and then on the back page, just a quick update. Some of you attended the zoning recadification meeting, the all day meeting that we had, all board meeting with her on January 28th. And if you hadn't attended, I just wanted to make sure that you saw the PowerPoint and then also the meeting notes that are provided also in the packet. So that's just a quick update on that. I think we are having our next zoning recadification working group meeting in a few March 1st. And that is when we are going to have the consultant come back and they will be reviewing with us the updated zoning audit. The zoning audit is what was the impetus of this entire recadification process. That's one of the appendices of the master plan. And it's being updated by the consultant right now. So that at the March 1st meeting, they're going to be providing an update about that audit. So if you're interested, anybody's interested in attending, you're welcome to be there. March 1st at 8 AM on the first floor conference room here at Town Hall. I'll be there. Yes. Officially. And then just quickly, a staffing update. I think you know Corey Beckwith have left at the end of last year, the calendar year. And we've been in the process of trying to hire a consulting conservation administrator. We're very close to hiring somebody because it's kind of an interim thing through the end of the fiscal year with the hope that there would be a full-time environmental plan or starting sometime in the next fiscal year. And contingent upon various reviews that need to take place of the department's budget. And then there's another agenda item. So do you have any questions about my report? Yeah. That one's good. Great. No, this agenda. All right, so I've noticed agenda and emails. Two things here. It's incredibly important to me and I think to all of you in many ways you've shared this with me in different ways over the past year that I've been here to get us as a board working in a more transparent environment so that we can see all of the application materials, all of the agendas in minutes in one clear place. The board of select men and the school committee currently use something called Novus Agenda. If you subscribe to updates, then you know how it works.  And it's shared in advance of a meeting. The public can see it. But there's access to materials and there's also an archive of materials that's online. We have not had the ability to have this for the ARB. And so I've been working with the IT staff and will continue to do so to get us to the point where we actually have this. And maybe for some future meeting, we can adopt a policy similar to the one that the board of select men and the school committees have adopted around how you want to. We can set specific timelines and deadlines for when we receive things so that maybe it's not happening so close to the meeting. And you have adequate review time and also so that staff can have adequate review time for materials and the public. In the press. And the agenda as well. Various people who wish to receive materials when they should receive them. Instead of just coming to our counter to request them, which of course anybody can do at any time, or send an email. But we are finding that that's less adequate, especially as we get into more complicated projects. People have a lot more questions. So it's more and more important for us to provide those materials. So this is like draft information for a future meeting. Yes, it says board of select men, but we can update this so that it says ARB. And I have some suggested edits for that.  And also this would, I think, is one more thing. This would move us away from boards being presented. We would have, I think, there would be an expectation of PowerPoints. There would be an expectation of some more electronic materials being shared at meetings. While we would not necessarily provide iPads or other devices for you to use at the meetings, we do have access to them. So you could either choose to bring your own or apparently there's a place where I can access devices should you move them. And of course we can still have big plans, but I think that this would move us into the direction of, yeah. So you use a monitor or something like that? We have a projector. We have paper. Okay. This is great. I think the screen was yours, wasn't it? Nevermind. No, I like this idea. I've talked to you about this before. I think it increases transparency and increases ease for us to get through things. And it creates a better expectation of a proper timeline as to how things should be handled from start to finish. So that we're not being handed packets of information before I bang the cattle. That's right. In the interim, because this might take a few months to get online, we have been providing all of the documentation, but it's actually, there's now a new page that's related to ARB that says projects. So you can see all of the information related to 483 Summer Street, for example, in one place on the website that's related to the redevelopment board. In case you were wondering. And where are we shooting? That website. On the town's website. So if you go to the redevelopment board page, then on the side bar it says projects. And you can see all the three past projects that you've reviewed, all of the materials are now uploaded there. Are the applicants giving you the scans or do you have to scan? In many cases, we do get the scans. So we've been using them or we have requested them when needed. But it is not part of the application requirements. So this would require us to change those, what's submitted, we can get there. We can talk about that. Some other time. But I do think that's a discussion worth having. Probably in June. Yes. Realistically. So the projects are just listed individually on the left here. Right. And then you can click on each one and you can get all the documents related to that project. All right. Great. I guess sort of in relation to this, everybody should now have their own email address through the town as part of, and I've shared this email. So we need to be using those email addresses. And if you have questions about how to access the town email system, like through web mail, I'm happy to answer those questions in one-on-one with you about access. But it's all set up already, right? Everything's all set up. And everything is also set up so that people can now email you right now through your town email account. We had to, well, I... You should have provided, or you may have been asked to provide a password or something like that. I think the town manager sent an email out to me. Yeah, I wanted to be an IT person. Yeah, I did do that. So you just learned. You did not do that. Okay, so you'll, so please... Please do that. And you can also, when you, you can also tell her to who. It's actually, the email that I printed out for you, it's Sue Distler. She is the person to contact by phone or by email. She'll provide you with access to your account. Who contacts you on this email? Anyone. Anybody. It's public. But you don't send out emails on every channel. Well, you can. There are two ways to deal with it, is my understanding. And so you can, you may choose to just use the webmail and log into it and do whatever send and receive stuff there, but you have to go proactively log into the webmail account to check it. You can have it set up to forward emails to any address you want. And then you can either then log into webmail to respond or they're saying we can respond from whatever address we forwarded. To directly, if you want to expose that email address to the public and you CC your town email address so that it becomes a public record. Right. But you don't want to be sending out emails from individual ARB members. That should come from an RRI student. I guess it depends upon the matter that you're responding to. So depending upon if you did receive an individual email and you had a question about how to respond to it, I'm happy to help field that response with you or we can talk about it. But my understanding was that, for instance, communications from you to us will now come through the town email. They will come through the town email. That's right. Yeah, it's really not any different than before. There was some way of contacting us. I think only our phone numbers were on the website previously or addresses. Maybe there was no email address. I don't know if that anything was, I think it's just. Any time we've been emailed, they've emailed the entire group. So, the entire board. So the shift is simply to start using the town email, but it is web mail. So if you're using your phone, you have to open up a browser unless you ask Sue how to set it up on your phone, depending upon what kind of phone you have. That's a little complicated. Or you can, I think that there's a way that you can download web mail onto your. Desktop or open it up in your browser. So that's pretty sure. Check it once a day. That's right. That's it. So that's, that's all I got. All right. And the minutes. The minutes are not on our agenda this evening, but. Give the minutes one on the motion. Look at them, they seem fine. I looked at them and they don't have anything to hand. Was this the meeting that, this is Mike's last meeting? Yes. Okay. So we didn't say anything about our. You want to add a line in the board commended? Yes. Mike Careford is service. Yeah. Commended and thanked. Mr. Careford is here to service the ARB. That's it. Want to move to approve the minutes with that addition of the commendation of Mike Care. Second. The minutes of January 23rd, 2017. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. No one needs to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor. Aye. Aye.