All right. So good evening everyone. This open meeting of the redevelopment board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020. Due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. In this meeting, the redevelopment board is convening via zoom as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. So we will first start off by confirming that all members of the redevelopment board are present. Starting with Ken Lau. Ken, if you could just say here. Here. No problem. Jean Benson. Melissa Tentacolas. And Rachel Zenberry. I am here. I just like to apologize. Unfortunately, I am one of the members of the residents of the Heights that still is having internet difficulties due to the transformer issues. So I'm joining via phone, but I will do my best to help us navigate through our agenda this evening. I just asked that you bear with me. Jenny has graciously offered to help to monitor our public forum in terms of the speaker list. So I thank you very much. And I just wanted to recognize the members of the planning department who are with us this evening. We have Jennifer H. It's just me this evening. Thank you, Jenny. Okay. And with that, we will move to the first item on our agenda this evening, which is the continued public hearing for docket number three, six, five, zero for 190 and 192 to 200 mass as. And I believe we have John Murphy here this evening with the applicant. Is that correct. That is correct present and attorney Bob and Essie. Great. Well, welcome. If you would like to go ahead and kick us off with your presentations this evening that would be fantastic. Bob, would you like to start real quick or do you want me to. And I'm so sorry for one second Jenny. The other thing that's going to be a bit of a challenge for me doing all of this on actually never mind I will work around sorry please go ahead. Okay, let me know if you need help Rachel, you can interject when you need help. Okay, thanks. That's okay I'll, I'll kick it off again my name's Bob can jump in if you need to. My name is John Murphy with someone real estate strategies good evening members of the board thank you for your time. What I'm going to do is briefly for about two minutes just talk about the bigger picture items that changed with our resubmission here we have all the consultants here on the line I'm not going to have them speak, but they will be available for any questions we have the civil engineer. We have our architect as well as our traffic consultant so if anyone needs them they are here for you. So what we have done is, I'll start with the most noticeable changes, we have taken one whole story off this building to start. That was nine units. From what we did there is we combined some other units to decrease our unit count, even more, we were, we are sitting at 24 units right now. Basically, we went back and all discussed together is, you know, we could probably go back and forth and you know a million different times with changing some things here there and spend a lot of meetings going through this but what we came back is with what we think is our, you know, final and best stab, we obviously got a lot of feedback, and we wanted to take all that into account and we just felt like coming in with this version of the project is less impactful. It's still, you know, it works for us. It doesn't work as well as before but it does work for us we like it as is. So that is where we sit. We are down one more parking space to 14 total we have two electric charging stations and the biggest shift that we made on the first floor is we rounded our commercial space down Blake Street a little bit more we increased it from 2084 square feet to 70 which is right around 17% plus or minus. And we think this, especially when you see the other side of the building it squares it off a little bit more it brings more attention down that side down the side street. You know our plan would they have two entrances there. Right next to the entrance emergency exit staircase, which is why we also lost that parking space because the parking lot shifted down but no longer do we have those stairs dumping into the garage and then our plan for the rest of this side of the building would be to add some either artwork murals or, or his work through that to bring give it a little bit more more life as well. And we moved to the entrance for the residents to the old bank building location that door, which we felt like add a little bit more for the people living there where they have their mail room a little seating area direct access to the elevator in the stairs as well. Obviously, you can see it which I think this rendering shows it pretty well. If you look at the building down mass Ave. We do feel like this building fits in a lot better than it did previously. We did we took it our best stab at it we know we're still welcome to hear more feedback on the look of the building but we do feel like this is a great improvement. I don't have any other questions but I think I did address a lot of them in a memo so that I submitted with this updated package I'm not going to go through those all but with that being said those are the biggest items. I think that everyone should know this and I'll turn it back over to the board. Great. Thank you so much for taking us as three of the changes. I think I'll just start off tonight by saying that I do appreciate all of the efforts that were made to address the range of the boards comments that were that were provided at our at the last meeting. I do have quite a few thoughts with regard to the design of the building and several other things but I think the biggest issue and something that we need to quite frankly address because we can't really move forward until this is addressed is the fact that the FAR is currently double what is permitted in this in this B3 district and that's that's just something that we, we can't really move move forward with any of the other comments or any of the other elements until until that's addressed so I think that there are a couple of different ways that that this can be addressed and I'll just run through a couple that that I have on a list here and then I'll quickly turn it over to Jenny who can expand on this a bit more before turning to the other board members but rather than going through a lengthy debate of you know the design and a lot of the other features. My recommendation is going to be that we ask you to address the FAR before commenting at length on any of the other items because it would it will significantly impact anything else that we might comment on this evening. So in order to address the FAR, you're going to need to ensure that the residential is less than 50% of the building, which means, you know, potentially converting that second floor to office space, reducing the height of the building. So that's that's one path to to being able to look to a way that the board can provide some leeway on the FAR. So if you could move this to the to the ZBA to to to go through the process there. You could go to a 40 be and bypass them up us, although I don't think that that is in the best interest of the town. Right now until the FAR is is addressed. You know, and I think my preference I won't speak for the other board members my preference would be that you look at a solution that is less than 50% residential. There's very little we can do. Jenny I'll just ask if there are any other I know that this is something that you've addressed with the applicant as well is there anything else that I have not listed that you think is an option for them with regard to the FAR. I think Rachel no I think that and for my fellow fellow board members as well as the applicant and their representatives. I think that the primary issue really is the FAR, we've asked you to address that at the prior, the first hearing. It's still you know while you did address it a little bit marginally, it's still significant it's double what it should be. It's really important for this board to address that matter. And that's really standing in the way of being able to get to all of the other design issues until you solve for that. I do think that you addressed a number of the issues I outlined them in the memo that I provided that's updated to the board. You know, even, even despite some of those other things that you were able to address, you know, there's still, I would say, a fairly significant concern about the level of residential space that has this non residential space that is now, you know, still lacking, I would say, on the ground floor, you know, the, there's clearly demand. This is in the middle of the business community. This property and the board expressed a pretty significant concern about how, how much space was being lost to other other uses on the ground floor. And so I still think that that's an issue. I think my staff also provided some comments about parking and circulation we still have some questions about some of those items but I don't think it's necessary to get through them tonight because I think really the outstanding issue is how you're addressing or how you have not addressed the FAR in this particular business district there's no way to address that particular issue as we talked about previously. And I feel that again as I've advised you previously, there's not a way to really proceed neatly through this process without you addressing that issue so Rachel has outlined some of the options that we also talked about other possibilities that is up to, you know, you as the applicant to figure out that course of action but I would say that, I think you really need to listen to the people in East Darlington, and what they've been communicating pretty, you know, heavily about the importance of the place where they live and the importance of the business community and the vitality of the community, and how you can contribute a really interesting development to an already wonderful part of the community so I hope that you will take these comments into consideration with whatever you do next. But again I think the out the most outstanding issue is the FAR, and I don't see any way forward for this board to address that issue until it's it's off out of the way then we can talk about all of the other things but that that is really the big, the big thank you Rachel and I'm glad to answer questions and speak about other other details from my memo or otherwise if needed. Thank you. Great. Thank you Jenny. So I'll run through just a roll call to see if there are any questions from the board for Jenny or for the applicant. And again, what I what I'd like to do is, is to keep this focused on tonight. The FAR, because until that's addressed, I think that the building will potentially change significantly and it is the best use of the board's time to focus on that as opposed to some of the other items. Bob and Essie, can you hear me, Rachel? I can. Yeah, my internet is down. Okay, so I'm on the phone. Okay. I just would like to, and again I recognize, I recognize, yes. We're running through the board now and I saw that you were trying to unmute yourself. I see other people have themselves unmuted. Rachel can't see what's going on, because she's on your phone as well. Okay. So I need for if you're not speaking for you to mute yourself please so that we can all hear each other. It just creates some interference so if you're not speaking please mute yourself. What we're doing right now is Rachel's running through the other board members. So we're going to do that first and then we'll come back to you. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. And thank you, Bob. We'll start with Ken. Well actually I'm very disappointed in this right now. I don't know why, how this got so far along along the line here, if it was an FAR issue. Do we, do we not have authority to waive the FAR in a mixed use building or we don't. We don't. And we also spoke with the applicant about this at the prior meeting. I mean this is our third meeting. And, you know, we're sorry. This is our second meeting. The last meeting was a continuation of the hearing. But we're going through and, you know, we're already gone through like shifting, shifting things, moving elevators, talk about parking lots and, and egress, all sorts of stuff that I'm why do we even do that. If this doesn't meet the criteria of a project. I mean, Why was it brought up as this I mean it should have been out. I don't know. I'm a little frustrated on this very much very frustrated on this. And I don't know what to say. So can I I'll just let Jenny respond but I know that she's been providing this feedback to the applicant through through the process as well. I'm just blaming people I'm just expressing frustration about how can you get a project like this, this far along and and and not meet the fundamentals. If we do not have the right and that's fine. I can, I will accept that. But I thought when we were talking about, we had the rights to approve a project like this, because it was it was in the district. It was in that the attorney made an argument that we could. And I'm a little confused as well at this point so I don't know Jenny if we should hear from their attorney or how to best gene, maybe. Rachel genes region raising his hand. Yeah, I'm sorry, I know I know and Melissa spoke. But I don't know what the applicant was speaking so let me before we before we jump around here because that's hard to manage. Let's let's let can finish up, and then we can figure out if there are other things to answer before we jump in. I'm pretty much finished Jenny for now. Okay. Okay. So, Well, I can respond to that by saying we communicated this to the applicant in the beginning we communicated it prior to them coming to the board. There is a possible pathway for them to go a different route. We also talked about that with this applicant. And I think we've had other applicants come to us with issues. This one is a particularly significant issue for which the board cannot simply magically resolve. And I think we, we talked about that actually at length at the prior at the first and only hearing so far this is the continued hearing we did have that a while ago, but it is part of that record of the meeting. Again, I don't have more to say about it and I'm not going to speak on behalf of town council about this particular matter. I'm not talking about the memo that was provided to the board, but I, you know, there are other things that can that the board can do to address some of the other issues that have come up, including setbacks and the step back. There are a lot of issues and other things that we that are also identified as some of the problems with the plan. This one stands out as something that we cannot address and that we have not addressed in the past through this board. So Rachel, what would you, how would you like to proceed next Melissa was talking right gene has his hand up. So let's, let's go to gene next but before we do can I'll just also remind the board that this is one of the reasons why the board suggested that they, that they look at at the office space on the on the second floor to to bring this to 50% or greater commercial use at the last meeting. Next, I don't know if Melissa wasn't finished with what she was going to say I didn't want to cut her off. Thanks gene I think just though the maybe what would be helpful for me as a new ARB member is just to be explicit on exactly. Not addressing the FAR, but be explicit about the bylaw and what we're trying to address or what we can address here, so that it that that it's more evident for everyone, instead of just addressing the FAR addressing the FAR. Yeah, let me, let me say a few things, because I agree with Rachel and Jenny, about the commercial space issue, and about the FAR issue, I will say, for me personally, this is an example of a problem with the zoning bylaw. The owner should not have an FAR limited to 1.5, in my opinion, and that's a bigger issue, but I don't think that we, as a board, have the authority to deal with that. I'm going to read a memo that Town Council sent to the ARB on March 13, 2020. So that was just about a year and two months ago, was about a different project, but it's about this issue. He says I, meaning Town Council, I confirm that while under no obligation to do so, the board possesses the discretion to afford both bonus FAR consideration under section 5.3.6 of the zoning bylaw. Kind of just required setbacks. However, within the limitations and requirements set forth, set forth in those sections respectively. And if you look at the limitations and requirements in 5.3.6, which is the section that allows for us to do bonus FAR considerations. And this project, as it's currently proposed to us, does not meet the criteria for the bonus FAR considerations because of its size and because the principal use is residential. So, while I, again, I think a FAR of 1.5 in this corner is an unfortunate part of the zoning bylaw. And the memo we got from Town Council 14 months ago, and therefore I agree with Rachel and Jenny. Thank you, Jean. Rachel, if it's okay, I just want to add one important omission. In 5.3.6, which is the B3 zoning district is not an allowable district within 5.3.6. When you look at the table, it's not listed in that table. I don't have an answer as to why I did try to figure that out a little bit today, in case the question came up. But I will just say that, you know, it's not even, it's not even a consideration, a possibility. And as Jean noted by very helpfully reading that memo from last year, while we might have some discretion, we do not have the discretion within each section necessarily, as it is written. So, Rachel, I'm going to put it back to you. Great. Thank you, Jenny. I'll see if any other board members have any further questions. And again, Jenny, if you could just let me know if anyone raises their hand because I can't before we turn it over to Bob and us. So Melissa, I don't know if you want to. I was just going to ask, Jean, if you don't mind to send me that memo. I think that was from a year and a half ago. That'd be great. I can prove I'll provide it again to the entire board. I know that it's also posted, but I will, I will provide that as well. Rachel kin has his hand up now. Okay, please go ahead, Kim. I think we have to do something amongst ourselves. As far as some sort of a screening process saying that if we have no, if we don't have the jurisdiction to approve a project, then the project shouldn't be brought up. It just, it just should be simply stated that this project does not meet the criteria is it cannot be approved. And it stops there. It does not go all the way through to where we are right now. I think it sets out a bad message to anybody who wants to develop in Arlington. No, I've, we're trying to encourage more commercial space or trying to encourage more mixed use for trying to do this, and the seat approach it like this get this far down and didn't say. No. And we don't even get a vote at it. I don't know. Just give me a couple days of calm down and I'll be fine. I'm just kind of, you know, miffed by it right now. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Back to you. Yeah. Okay, so I will now invite Bob and Nancy. And we're looking to make. I'm back up at this point. I want to say that the FAR issue is a live issue. And like you, Jenny, I looked at section 5.3.6 to see in that schedule of that maximum allowable that Doug Heim referred to in his memo. Okay. To see whether B3 was even mentioned there. And it's not. Okay. It is, however, mentioned for other districts, of course, our seven B5, our six B2A and B4. My problem is it has been, and you will know from my argument on 82 massive, I think you folks have more power than you were exercising over the years. And that in the context of why would the ARB have jurisdiction over important projects on Massachusetts Avenue. If they don't have the ability to grant relief with respect to applicants coming before the ARB with respect to those projects. Why should the applicants have to go to the zoning board and have prolonged hearings before both the ARB and the zoning board. Now again, I'm recognizing that there's an issue with the FAR. If you read Doug's memo, okay. Doug's memo doesn't necessarily answer that question but he does refer to the section I just referred to 5.3.6 but again if you look at that B3 nowhere is found in that section. So I've got a problem as Kin does okay, with respect to development in this town this is a site that you will never have any open space on because quite frankly, if you're going to develop the site, you're going to have room, you will not have room to have open space. We can satisfy or get relief from the ARB with respect to everything, but I think FAR. And so the question comes down to what we do about that now Jenny and I and john Murphy talked extensively this afternoon. We talked about the matters you raised Rachel with respect to 40B going in a different direction and the like okay. That's a total change from what we have been trying to achieve. And quite frankly, it doesn't make sense for me to see a 40B site in this particular area. It just doesn't fit into the neighborhood. In terms of the kind of a building we were proposing. It does fit in with the building across the street or Lake Street the Frayman building. It does fit in with the summit house across Mass Ave on the other side. But again, we're faced with the FAR issue. And like Kin, I am very frustrated about that in terms of how we can handle that. John Murphy and I are going to talk with the clients about that I'm sure I'm not going to make the argument under section 3.4 that you have the authority. I'm if I alluded to that previously. I'm not making that argument. Okay, that under 3.4, you have the ability to grant relief for the FAR. I'm not making that argument. But I think that Mr Murphy, and the Pescudo family and myself have to talk about this more, and try to come up with a plan that works at this particular site. We had 124 invites to neighbors. Okay, for a zoom here meeting. The zoom meeting was held. There were 20 participants in the meeting according to John Murphy, the meeting went just fine we have certainly reached out to the neighborhood. I don't have a question about that. But again, the FAR is an issue. I recognize that. And that's all I'm going to say on that issue. Great. Thank you, Attorney Nessie. All right, I will go once more through the board for any, any final thoughts before we open this up to public comment. And Jenny, I can't see. Nobody has their hand up. At this point in time. So I think that, you know, I can help you will ask people to raise their hand if you're on the phone I think there's just a couple people who have who are on a phone so I'll wait until the end to call to call on people who are who want to speak who are on the phone line. Okay, that sounds good. So if anyone to speak during the public comment period and again. I would ask that, you know, we certainly want to hear from from members of the public, knowing that the FAR needs to be addressed before other items, I would ask that you that you keep that in mind with the particular questions that you are making this evening. I will take the speakers in the order which hands are raised and then we'll follow by anyone who was on the phone, following that. Any member wishing to speak, you will have three minutes up to three minutes to address the board. Please remember to start by address by announcing your first last name and address. And if you could let us know the first speaker this evening. The first speaker is Kelly Doherty. Hi. I want to thank you for letting me participate this evening and Jenny thank you for accepting all the letters that are coming your way I think you may have missed a few but they may have missed the deadline so I just wanted to share that with you. I think, since you're going to be revamping the entire design, the FAR issue is a big one. I want to reiterate for this board and then ultimately if it's the ZBA or whomever that this keeps getting discussed in the context of a project on Mass App. But this is a project on Chandler Street. The access for this project and the entrance to this proposed parking garage is on Chandler Street. All of the impacts in terms of traffic, visual, etc. They are all to Chandler Street so I don't want that to get lost in this argument, or this discussion because we, we would be happy to see something go in there. We hope that the owner is able to develop something to maximize his profit potential. But we are also residents who look at this building, and we'll be looking at the new building and have had some issues in the past with it so we just want to make sure that what goes in there is done well and keeps everyone happy. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. The next person is Catherine. Hello. I am. We need your name and your address please. I'm sorry to talk loud. 31 Chandler Street. And I have a lot of concerns. But I just wanted to address the point that was made that we were adequately informed. Thank you. I only heard about this from a neighbor last Wednesday. A couple hours before the developers meeting. And so I didn't even know that this was happening. And I've just been trying to play catch up in my understanding of just all the issues with regard to this. I've been going around and talking to a number of neighbors and a number of them also didn't really. They didn't really know what was going on. So I just wanted to address that point. I didn't, we didn't receive a postcard or anything in the mail. As far as we're concerned, we weren't really informed about this. Thank you. Did you have any other comments that you'd like to share this evening. That was the main one. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next person is Elaine. Hi there. This is Elaine Maynard. I reside at 13 Chandler Street. And what that tactically needs is that my home is absolutely adjacent to this proposed structure. I appreciate there are, you know, the number of issues with the FAR today, so I won't, I'll try and be brief here. but a couple of comments. I do take issue with the fact that last Wednesday's meeting sort of went fine. I think Wednesday's meeting was productive. However, there were numerous items that John did not address that had really been well documented from the previous two meetings. And I just wanna highlight those quickly. Specifically was the rear of the building. In the previous meeting, and I think in the comments prior to that, many comments were made to the quality of life and quality of experience that individuals living behind this structure would encounter. And changes were asked to be made to the back of the structure to appreciate the fact that there is a community, a vibrant community on Chandler Street. When we got to that meeting there, that was apparently not available because it was so difficult to render. John, I appreciate you following up and providing the back of the structure. However, I see to the back of the structure, there have been zero changes. So this is not in the spirit of addressing the needs of the Chandler Street community. The second bit was we repeatedly talked about traffic impact. Again, I recognize we have a greater issue. But fundamentally, this is an issue about the quality of life, quality of experience of Chandler Street, Egerton, Herbert Road, Brooks, Party Street.  Oh, sorry. So it's fundamentally an issue about these communities. Sorry. Can you say it? Exactly. We can hear her, Rachel. Oh, it must be me. I really apologize. Sorry, Rachel. Yeah. So Net and Net, it's about these communities and it's about the impact of these communities. Selfishly, it's about what I, as the person who abuts this building has to look at day in and day out. And zero, zero work was done to address that issue. So yes, it was a productive meeting. Yes, it was appreciated. Yes, it's required, but it was appreciated in a good discussion. But it was not without its challenges. So I just want to note that. I think it's very important that I continue to say this is about the impact of the community and there's been nothing really to address the community concerns of Chandler Street and other areas. So I appreciate the opportunity to just speak for a few minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Wayne. And I apologize again for the interruption. It's okay. I just want to make a comment for a minute about that there were two comments made about this meeting that took place. This was not a required meeting. It was a meeting that the developer chose to have with a butters. I don't know a lot about that meeting. It had nothing to do with the town of Arlington was not part of the town's public hearing process at all. We did not mail any postcards. We didn't have any information about the specifics of the meeting and when it took place. So I just want to clarify that was not a formal town meeting. There were, as far as I know, there was nobody from the town in attendance. And so I just want to make that, clarify that to everybody listening in case you were or we're not at the meeting or don't know what the meeting was. So just to clarify that point. Thank you, Jenny. Yeah, you're welcome. The next person is Jonathan. Thank you. I'm Jonathan Josephs. I reside at 15 Chandler Street. I'm in the same multifamily home as Elaine who just spoke. You know, obviously a lot of this meeting's talking about certain bylaws and subsections and whatever. I'm just going to limit what I sort of have to say section one, which is common sense. So I kind of be a little plain talking if you don't mind. So a couple of things with respect to the discussions about whether the neighborhood was informed. I only heard through other concerned neighbors. I didn't hear anything directly from the developer that this development was proposed. And the conversation previously about, well, you know, we reached out to 300 people in the neighborhood and only 20 people showed up. I think maybe a better metric is how many of the neighborhood here are speaking favorably currently about the proposed development versus those that have concerns is probably the best metric for how this is being received in the neighborhood. With respect to zoning, presumably the town of Arlington has reasons for having zoning laws. So this idea of why can't they just be turned over? Why can't this FAR be pushed aside seems odd to me? Why doesn't the developer just develop a project that meets the zoning laws? And this seems to me to be a area of town that has commercial development. And it also has people like myself who live there and we want to keep a nice ratio of commercial to residential. I appreciate versus the five story building that was previously proposed. We're now to a four story building. I also appreciate the fact that you made the front on Mass Avenue look like three stories because any reasonable person would understand anything taller than three stories doesn't fit with that part of Mass Avenue.  As Elaine says, everyone on Chandler Street has to look at. And the reason you're making it three on the front is it doesn't fit. So we really shouldn't be putting something that doesn't fit on the back either. So with that, I will yield my time, but I would respect that if we don't like the zoning laws, we change the zoning laws as opposed to we just get variances to somebody who wants to build a very large building. Thank you. The next speaker is Rachel. Hi, thank you very much. My name is Rachel Roth. I live at 16 Chandler and I agree with everything everybody has said so far. In terms of the FAR, I mean, it seems like what the developer really needs to do is build a three story building that that fits in with the area. I do want to flag a couple of concerns while we're here. Yes, could you give your address, please? Yes, 1616 Chandler. So one thing that hasn't been unless it was in some new documents that were added very recently, one thing that came up at the meeting on Wednesday is the issue of lighting, both exterior lighting and any interior lighting that might shine through the windows on those of us who bought. And so I would just like, I think we would all like some information about what kind of lighting there will be, especially overnight and how that might affect us. I also just wanted to flag that a number of us are really concerned about the garage, especially those of us who live near it, having a garage where there's flashing lights or beeping sounds when cars go in and out, that, you know, especially again at night when people are trying to sleep would be very disruptive. So I want to hear more about that and whether there's anything that can be done about that. I'm not aware of any of the garages like that in town. And I don't think it's appropriate for residential street. So those are the main things I can say now. I did submit written comments. I know also one of our neighbors on the next street was concerned about the light because they get a lot of light pollution now from certain other buildings on Mass Ave.  And I guess I'd like a sense of of what happens next. And just the other thing I wanted to say is it seems like there is a legal definition of a butter and maybe that's a 300 foot radius. Maybe somebody can clarify, but we think when things like this happen, everybody on Chandler should get a notice because everybody in Chandler, you know, and Brooks and the other streets that were mentioned, Edgerton or Egerton, sorry, that's always hard for me to say, we're all affected. And even if that's not the legal definition of a butter, if that's something the town of Arlington could change going forward, because people shouldn't have to hear about it. I mean, it's good that neighbors are talking to neighbors, but we think the town should really notify everybody who's going to be impacted in a in a very dense community like this with one way streets and one way traffic. Thank you very much. Thank you. I can quickly clarify legal notices if needed. Rachel, please, can you hear me? Yeah. OK, please, please go ahead. Yes, thank you. Just that we we send the the butters notices to 300 feet from the property and those are generated by our assessor's office. We mail them out before the hearing. There's a legal notice that's published. We follow what's under state law, which is mass general law chapter 40, which governs the role, the planning function of this board. So I do understand what you're saying. However, I don't I don't want. I'm not dismissing at all what you're saying about other people on Chandler Street or perhaps other in other directions as well, but just from a legal perspective. Understand that when the town doesn't a better notification, that is the that is the those are the parameters of it under our state law. Now, the other meeting that you've you've been referencing didn't have those same parameters because it was I don't know what parameters were chosen for it, but I'm just telling you what the town does when we mail out a butter notices and they are usually in the form of that postcard, although in the past they've been a letter, but now they're postcard notices. Yeah, I think you use the same a butter list, Jenny, just so you know. OK, so the the applicant is stating John Murphy, the applicant is stating that the they used the same a butter list to do their mailing. I'm sorry, I don't know the number of people who were on that list. Sometimes there's duplications as well, but I. I just wanted to give you that legal definition. So with that, I'm going to say the next person is Stephanie. Hi, my name is Stephanie Hansel. I live at 23 Cleveland. I just want to reemphasize and reiterate what a lot of people on this call have already said. And I would like to thank the board for really taking into account this issue of the FAR, this issue of the FAR. I didn't even know what FAR was before this project, but this really kind of made me realize what is being proposed here is an extremely dense, large structure. And this lot is 11000 square feet. So just keep that in mind. It is a small lot, but it is what it is. And we have zoning bylaws for a reason. You can't build seven or eight stories on that lot. You can't even build five. If the lot was big enough, you could go up and still comply with the FAR. But that is not the case here. So despite what the developer with the attorney for the the owners say, we have zoning bylaws that prevent overbuilding on small lots. This is a small lot. So I really appreciate that the board has taken this into consideration. The FAR is a very big issue. It is something that, you know, I tend to believe that, you know, even on busy mass have, you know, as the residents of Chandler Street have said, it's a residential neighborhood. I don't think we can exceed the FAR in the zoning bylaws. But anyhow, that's what we have in the zoning bylaws. So please listen to the community. This is what the community is telling you that we do not want an over dense, you know, double more than double the FAR type of building. We want something that fits in with the community. We want to be proud of the development. We want to work with developers who want to add something positive to our community. And so if the developer, you know, is serious about getting feedback and listening to our concerns, this is what we're telling you. We have safety concern issues. We have density concern issues. There's quality of life in the neighborhood. There's traffic. So please listen to us and thank you to the board for taking the time to listen to the community. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. The next person is Don. Thank you, Jenny. I thought Steve Rivellak was before me. I'm happy to wait for him. No, it's he he lowered his hand and then he raised it. So, Don, you're next. Thank you. OK, thank you. Don Seltzer Irving Street. What all this comes down to is that you simply cannot build a four or five story building on a footprint that is almost as big as the lot itself. Our bylaws provide for consideration of the rights of the neighbors by requiring certain setbacks and yard set stepbacks. Something like this could be built on a properly sized lot and you need to look no further than next door at 180 Masev. This 23,000 square foot lot has a multi-story building on a 9000 square foot footprint. It has sufficient lot area for parking and it could provide open space that would go with residential. And it could be built up to four stories on that footprint without exceeding the maximum floor area ratio. So the question is, what can the applicant do with his small lot? I suggest a three-story mixed use building that is 60 feet deep and has a total footprint of about 6,000 square feet. Make the first floor entirely retail and restaurant. Make the second floor office condominiums. On the third floor, you could put in eight or nine apartments and then you would still have a 30 foot setback of the rear yard, which is sufficient room for parking and providing the required usable open space. And it would also give you a decent buffer to the residence living next door. Next thing is, is this financially feasible? This board is familiar with the recent RKG study of industrial zones and the pro forma analysis used to evaluate various options. I applied their model assumptions to this very scenario. For 190 Masev, the three-story mixed use building that I just suggested would cost about $3 million to build. Just the lower two commercial floors alone would be valued at $5.3 million. This is a feasible project and it would respect the rights of the neighbors and it would be in keeping with the stated goals of mixed use, which is to strengthen our business districts while expanding housing. Before I conclude, I have one completely unrelated but important question that would ask the board to relate to the applicant. How many Group 1 apartments are included in these plans? Thank you. Rachel, I'm gonna move on to the next person. I call point of order for a minute. We only have one more speaker, Ken. All right. And I don't know where Rachel is. I see her, but I'm not sure what might be happening with her phone. So, Steve? Thank you, Ms. Wright. Steve Revillac, 111 Sunnyside Avenue. I just wanted to express a little bit of appreciation for the changes to the Mass Ave and Lake Street side of the building. I think they were a nice improvement over the prior iteration. Thank you, Ms. Wright. Thank you. Thank you. Rachel, yeah, okay. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. Ken, add something to say. We do have two more people with their hands up. I just want to bring up the point that maybe you're not seeing it, Richard, but as a quorum, we generally don't applaud or put thumbs up or applaud when someone's speaking. That's just, we don't do that. We don't boo, we don't do any of that. So can we remind the people that, can we just listen? Thank you for that point of order. Ken, you're right. And again, I apologize that I'm not able to join you to the internet outage so I can't see that. So I appreciate you bringing that to our attention and reminding everyone at the meeting what the rules of decorum are. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you, Ken. Okay, so there's two speakers. I'm going to go to the person who hasn't spoken yet and then we'll go back to another person waiting who has spoken previously. The next person is Chris. Thank you, Madam Chair. Chris Loretty, 56 Adams Street. I'd like to make just a couple of points and then pose a question. As a former member of the Development Board, I'd like to address the attorney's question about just why large projects go before the ARB if they can't grant relief for things like FAR. And when I served on the board, we all understood it was to provide a higher level of review called environmental design review, but that was not to relax the dimensional standards in the bylaw. It was to provide a higher level of the standards that are already there and be sure they really fit in with the locales where these large developments were going. I'd also like to add, I do agree with Mr. Lau that this is a frustrating situation. And I would argue that if the board is not empowered to grant relief as it is not in this case, the project had never come before the board and the options to the developer should be explained whether that's changing the zoning bylaw, doing a 40 DB or seeking a variance. Those are the only options that I see in this case. Finally, I'd just like to end with a question. And there was some discussion at the beginning that I really didn't understand that seemed to imply that if the developer were to put in another story or greatly increase the amount of commercial space, somehow the FAR could be relaxed. I was wondering if somebody could explain that or did I miss here? Thank you. Jenny, would you like to speak to the options that were provided by the planning department to the developer? Sure, but again, let me, let's just, we have two people who are back in the queue again with their hands raised. How would you like to proceed, Rachel? So I think we have run the course on this discussion. I think that everybody has spoken for this evening. So I think we'll close, unless there are any new speakers, we're going to close public comment. We do need, I think that there are a few people who were joining by phone. I don't see that person on the phone any longer. So I don't see anybody else. There's nobody else that's obviously looking to speak at this point in time. Okay, great. So at this point, I think we'll close public. I take that back. Sorry. Just happened right at that moment, really. We have one new speaker. We do. We have one new speaker. Okay. And that is Alam. I'm sorry if I have mispronounced your name. No, Alham. Alham. Yes, thank you. I'm 62 Magnolia Street. And I'm joining the conversation and I tried to learn as much as I could about the project earlier today. I appreciate everyone's comments around impacts to local neighborhoods and local streets. But I also just wanted to voice that I really do hope that Arlington takes a commitment to increasing different types of housing, particularly smaller units and making that corner more vibrant. There's currently two businesses that are completely empty. And it's really depressing as a local resident to walk by that and see that continue. So I would really, I appreciate all of the comments from the folks on Chandler Street, but I really would also appreciate from a member of the kind of larger community to think about what overall community vibrancy looks like. And I think that means vibrant businesses, not empty storefronts, additional neighbors that don't look like, my family, which is just an NF5 that maybe are single people that are maybe are older retired people. So allowing access for smaller units to be developed. I appreciate everyone's concerns for the local neighborhood and I also very much like the newer design changes. But I think it is important to think about something other than the direct impact to the small number of a butters that about the units. And there is a larger impact that affects the community. And I think we should try to think about that in the context of also thinking about the local of butters. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next person is Ryan. Good evening. And thank you everybody for your contributions. My name is Ryan Jacobs. I live at 64 Chandler Street with my spouse and young child. I actually wanna echo a lot of what the previous speaker said. I'm very much pro density given that I live one block away from a major commercial corridor in a city region that is desperately lacking housing as an equity issue and a diversity of housing to boot. So I guess my hope is that the developer can find a way to create the type of density that makes sense in one of Arlington's only three business commercial districts while also of course maintaining a vibrancy. And noting that having lived here for 10 years the number of empty storefronts even well before the worst of COVID hit does again bring us back to the issue of without a critical mass of residents you don't get the type of vibrancy in the stores that we wanna see. So as an alternative half the stores have just been empty and I don't see how that's going to change in the world of internet business that we can hope that Arlington's population base cannot grow and yet somehow East Arlington will remain a commercial Mecca beyond the capital building. So I just wanna say I certainly recognize the concerns that have been articulated. I again just wanna say very much in support of finding a compromise that allows for the type of density that urban areas and town centers need both as an equity issue and to help maintain a commercial vibrancy that the previous speaker alluded to. So that is all. Thank you. Those are mainly two additional speakers. There are two people who had spoken before. Okay, so I think at this point and given where we are on the agenda we are going to close public comment and move to a recap of the options for next steps. You just muted yourself. I don't know if you meant to. I did not. I'm sorry, my evening is a challenge. We understand. Okay. I wanted to see if we could run through for the applicant. Once again, what the options are which I know you and the department, Jenny have provided to the applicant ahead of this meeting as well in terms of what their options are to meet the FAR requirements or move forward in a different direction that would allow them to pursue an option other than perhaps through this board. Sure. So the FAR has been discussed with them as well as the other issues that need to be addressed and that are still some of them are still outstanding. They can choose to either address those issues and come back to the next hearing at a whatever date we choose to provide us with an updated proposal that addresses those issues appropriately. I think that I'm not sure they would necessarily get the same height at that point. So some of these other issues with massing might become very different. So I don't feel that it is really a good thing to talk about all of the other issues until they genuinely address the FAR. I don't want to prescribe a way for them to address the FAR, I think they have heard significant comments from the public, the board now two times about preferences and I think they can utilize that information and come back if they choose. The other options are if they believe that they would like to have more of a principle use related to residential and a significant amount of residential compared to the commercial use, they would need to go in a different direction and one direction would be through chapter 40B, though not something that I would recommend in any way at all, but there's not a way to do a development here with the amount of residential that they've proposed, especially when it becomes the dominant use, principle use rather. And I think another scenario would be that they do some of these things, but not all of them and go to the ZBA for a special permit on some of them, not a variance, but through a special permitting process potentially. And again, we're speaking about this in a speculative way about what they may or may not do. So Rachel, I'm a little hesitant to give them any more guidance than I already have at this time. I think it really depends upon what program they're trying to push and how responsive they are to the comments that they've received and also how well they understand the boundaries. I mean, they've essentially tapped at a boundary with the board and how far they can't push it any further. And the FAR one is the last part of that. So until that piece of the puzzle, which I think is a really significant and important one is resolved, it's really hard to touch upon all of the other matters that have been raised. So I think it's really back in the applicant's hands to figure out what they would like to do next. They were provided this feedback already by me earlier today. Would have provided it sooner if I could have, but I couldn't get to them sooner. So I'm sorry for this being a little bit drawn out. I do think it was really important for us to go through the public hearing process and to continue to listen to the butters and others in the community about the project. But I think it's back to the applicant to figure out what to do next. Rachel, Melissa has her hand up now. Great, thanks, Jenny. Yep, I was going to run through the board members before we ask the applicants if they would like to continue the hearing and if so, to what date? So we'll start with Melissa. I was just curious about what the applicant was thinking after this period of time, hearing everyone and understanding their options. Sure, that'll be the next, I agree and that will be the next question that we'll get through, but I'll run through and just see if Jean or Ken have any final questions or thoughts before we turn it back over to the applicant for next steps. And we'll start with Jean. Yes, thank you, Rachel. And thank you everybody for the comments, excuse me. I had, I think about nine different issues and concerns on the current proposal, one of them being the FAR, but because I believe the project's gonna have to be reworked, I'll hold all of the other comments they may not be necessary, depending what the project looks like. The one item that Jenny didn't mention that I think the applicant could consider is coming to a town meeting next year for a change in the zoning of the parcel. And if the applicant was at all interested in doing that and I'm not suggesting yes or no, just if the applicant is interested in doing that, would probably want to come back to this board no later than the fall to start that discussion. And that's my only other suggestion. Thank you, Jean. I think that's a good point to make as well to the applicant as an option. Ken? No, I have no comment. Great, thank you. So I will turn this over. Let's see, I'm not sure if John, you or Bob will be speaking on behalf of the applicant as to next steps, we can certainly continue the hearing to a future date at this time and we could select that, we would need to select that date this evening. This is John, I can go ahead and speak if you'd like. So I'll answer a couple of questions but just to save everyone's time, I think at this point, most likely not the place for us. So I don't think we'd be looking to continue this hearing. I hear everyone's concerns. There's a lot more that goes into these decisions than it sounds like. We've been working on this for close to 10 months. Everything that everyone brought up has been looked at. I will just say you cannot build this building for $3 million. We've looked at all types of uses. We've looked at mixing things up. Steel's very expensive. We probably wouldn't even be able to build a two-story, even three-story building as constructed, this design that's mixed use. The cost per unit, the steel, it just doesn't make any economic sense. And honestly, you have to convince yourself and you also convince a bank that it's a good investment. And it's not as easy as it sounds. It is a little bit frustrating to hear a lot of comments and I do think it is easier when it's not your neck on the line. We would love to make everyone happy, but there's a lot that goes into this. And I just think there's some better options for this very complicated site as the property line is the building. The FAR is very challenging here. It's my personal opinion that you most likely can't construct a building, convince a bank to give you a loan and have everything lined up. It's very difficult. So I think whether that's 40B or others, some other state uses and programs, all different types of housing we can do here that probably is a better avenue. And we don't wanna, certainly don't wanna waste the board's time either. So I think that is where we stand now. I don't think that this is the right place for it. Can I say something, John? Bobby, I see you here. John, can you hear me? Absolutely, yes, yes. All right, the one thing I do not want is I do not want the board to take a vote this evening and just vote it down. And the reason for that is that I would have a concern with respect to coming back before the board, okay? And I don't know what we might come back before the board with, but there is a provision in the law that basically states that if the board votes it down and we come back, and I'm not sure, again, what that comeback would take the form of, if we come back, we might be prevented from going before the board for two years. I'm not sure about that, but I have a concern about that. So my suggestion would be that rather have the board, I would prefer that the board not take the vote this evening and vote it down. I would prefer that at least we get another date. So we have an opportunity to decide what to do. If we decide we don't wanna come back at that point, we can withdraw, okay? But I don't think that we should let the board take a vote because I don't want the board to vote it down. John, would you agree? Yeah, that's what you think, Spess. Yep, no problem. Okay. Rachel, would that be something that the board would be okay with? Hello? Rachel, you're muted. Jenny? Rachel. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm back. Yes, I think that we can certainly take a vote to continue the hearing. And I think what we would like to do is identify what date would give you enough time to regroup as a team and be able to identify either your next steps forward or withdraw the application. John, I'm gonna defer to you on that. Okay, so Jenny, if you could give us some options. I know that we're gonna be speaking about meeting dates in the next section here, but if we could perhaps find a date in July. July. We have July 12th or we have July 26th. Bob. Actually, the two dates in July. Bob, do you have a question? John, can you hear me? Yes, is there, is it possible that you're the first one in August? Jenny, or is that too far? I don't think there's any problem unless we haven't talked about our schedule. And so I think that we're probably gonna have, it's possible we won't have any meetings in August right now because I think we have a bunch of vacations, vacationers. Jane, you're on mute if you're trying to talk. I'm not available on August 9th. Okay, yeah. I think Rachel's not free at the other meeting in August. So I don't think we have any August meetings figured out yet. So right now the last meeting would be July 26th. So if I could make a second. Rachel, if the 26th would work for you, I'd like to target July 26th. And then again, if we need to continue it to a future date, whether it's a date that we later determined we were able to hold a meeting in August or to September, if you do need more time, we can certainly do that at that time. Or if we decide to withdraw, we can withdraw before that date as well. Yeah. Absolutely. That is also an option. John, is that okay? That's fine. Great. So do I hear a motion from the board to continue this public hearing to July 26th? So moved. Second. This move by Jane and Ken seconded. Thank you. We'll take a roll call vote. Ken. Yes. Jean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Thank you very much. And we will see you on the 26th. Thank you. That closes our first or continues our first agenda item. And we'll now move to agenda item number two, which is the committee appointment to Envision Arlington Standing Committee. Jenny, I will turn it over to you to introduce the appointee. I am not sure that he's on actually. Let me see if Jaggett is here. I don't see him. So I mean, if you would be okay without him being here, you could proceed or you can take the next agenda item. I'm not sure where he, you know, I don't know. Okay. What is the next agenda item? And if he arrives in the participant list, we can circle back. Otherwise, we'll have to defer that. I think we can still appoint him without him being here. It's also, it's my recommendation to the board. It's for, to approve my appointment to Envision Arlington just to clarify that one. So I would, I would love for him to be able to serve. I hope he can get here. I still don't see him yet. So why don't we give him another few minutes and we'll move to agenda item number three. Why don't we go to the next agenda item? So that is the town meeting recap. Great. Rachel. Thank you. So our meeting was epic and it's now complete, which is why we're meeting this evening past eight o'clock. So I want to thank everyone on the board and everyone in the public who went their voice to the spirited debate around the zoning warrant articles. The top line is that all of the recommendations of the redevelopment board, whether they were favorable action or no action were supported by the town meeting, there was a substitute motion or excuse me, an amendment which was passed to article 38, which was the energy efficient homes on non-conforming lots. But, and there was also, actually I believe that was, sorry, I'm just going through my notes, Jenny. I think that that was the only amendment. Article 35, the industrial uses. Right. Article 35 also had an amendment which increased the allowable height within the industrial district. So those were the two amendments that altered what otherwise the board had recommended. So Jenny, I don't know if you have any other specifics that you wanted to add to that. Otherwise, we could certainly take any questions that board members might have about the discussion and deliberation during town meeting. I would just add that it wasn't exceptionally, I think we talked about this quite a great deal, but there were many more zoning warrant articles this spring than there are typically. So it's not the norm to have that many articles, but we were carrying forward a lot of articles from 2020 and we had to of course dispose of them. Some of those were our articles and some of those were other articles filed by citizen petitioners. I guess I'm saying that because I don't necessarily envision that there will be as many warrant articles like that and of that nature, which was, there were a lot of sort of small articles that ended up taking a lot of time to get through. I don't necessarily see that coming up and I hope that we are able to make zoning amendments that I get that continue to implement some of the plans that we've been working on or that we will be working on throughout this year. Two of them are the housing production plan as well as the open space and recreation plan. Then of course we just adapted the net zero action plan as well as the transportation plan. So there's a lot in all of these planning processes that will lead to not necessarily the open space plan but a number of things that I know will arise from all of these other plans related to zoning amendments. Some of them have some active, people who are already very active and interested in pushing forward with amendments for a spring town meeting next year even with town meeting just in the rear view mirror. It's already talked about it. And I think that it's really important for the board to stay engaged. We're gonna talk at our next meeting about committee appointments and two of those committees that are three of those committees that are very important to zoning amendments are the master plan implementation committee, the zoning bylaw working group and the housing plan implementation committee. And currently we will need to switch up the membership on these three committees. We actually don't have any board members serving on the master plan or the housing plan implementation committees right now. And I think that that's problematic. We did have David Watson on the zoning bylaw working group that we will need a replacement. So I think these are some of the things to look forward to but in terms of working with citizen petitioners I just wanna go back in time a bit and say that, I think it's great that the board put together a really thorough sort of process and timeline which was brought forward by a petitioner, Barbara Thornton. And I would like us to be able to follow that moving forward. If people are interested in working with the board I think that that proved to be very effective both in our efforts with the Clean Energy Future Committee as well as on the accessory dwelling unit bylaw even with the parking minimums. In fact, James Fleming attended our meetings before anything was filed. So I do think if we can continue that with future petitions I think that will be that will be very helpful for the board and the community but I can answer any questions about other things that passed or questions that people have in general if there are any. Jean, does it stand up, Rachel? I have a couple of comments. First, I sat in on some of the town meeting when the zoning articles were up and Rachel and Jen just both did marvelous jobs in representing the redevelopment board at those and it was not always the easiest thing for them to do considering the timing and the number of amendments and some of the things that were said. So I think they deserve a thanks from all the members of the board for that. So that's one thing. So thank you. Second is I think in addition to the height change made in the industrial zones I think they also increased the far if I remember correctly in the industrial zones. It was both, yeah. Yeah, so even though we didn't propose that as part of the industrial zones I thought that was a wonderful amendment that got passed by town meeting for the industrial zones on that and hopefully that combined with the other things will help in the redevelopment of the industrial zones. And then I agree with Jenny. I think the process that we use that got the residents involved and working with us on their petitions was very successful. And I hope we can put out a schedule by early fall and encourage people to work with us within that schedule. Two other thoughts. One of the commitments that I believe that we made related to the zoning article, if it's number, I've forgotten already wiped them all out of my mind about not increasing the percentage of affordable housing in inclusionary zoning was that would be taken up as part of or adjacent to the housing production plan. And we would come back with a report and a proposal for how we might implement an enhanced inclusionary zoning. So I don't want that ticket dropped from our sort of radar screen of what we're gonna be working on in the next few months. So, and I have my own list of things I'd like us to consider, but I'll save those for another day. Thank you. Great, thank you, Jane. And I believe that was article 45 that you were in reference to. Thank you, Richard. Great, Ken, any questions? I'd like to echo on Jean's comment and thank you guys for representing the board in getting these articles passed. Good job. I like to say, or can we, not that we're sort of past this pandemic, we're gonna start meeting again. I wouldn't mind having an organized retreat where we can talk about what Jean's talked about, some of the things we wanted to push forward. And in a setting where we could talk about these things back and forth as opposed to in this meeting where it doesn't seem as easy to do. You know, I've never met Melissa, for example, you know, me and Jean go back, but, you know, and so I would like to do that maybe set aside a day, sometime during the summer that we agree upon to have a, you know, just a planning board meeting, you know, Jenny and her staff too will be great. But we have maybe a round circle and talk about things. And then my other question is, I know it's off topic a little bit, but do we have another candidate coming in? I mean, one more voice is helpful. Is there an appointment from the governor yet or where are we at with that? I'll ask Jenny to address the gubernatorial appointee. Sure. Well, just a couple of things first of all, thank you both for those thanks. I appreciate that very much. The recognition. Give you a job, Jenny. Yeah, thank you. I definitely appreciate that in my team as well. On the retreat idea, Rachel and I did talk a little bit about that. We are gonna talk about the meetings going forward and we were thinking it would be more like a September timeline for something along those lines. It's usually in July, but it seems like we might not do it next month necessarily. And it's seeming like August might be a break for the board. We'll see where we get to when we get there. So let's come back to that when we talk about the schedule. The gubernatorial designee has taken a lot of time, but I believe that we are now there, we've got a candidate and there will be an appointment announcement very soon. Great. And I'm hoping that it's soon enough that that person will come to the meeting on the 21st. So we'll see how far we get. Great, thank you, Jenny. Yeah, you're welcome. And thank you, Ken and Jean for the kind words as well. I really appreciate it. Melissa, any questions regarding the meeting and the process? No questions, but I too wanna thank both of you for being there representing the ARB and handling all the questions, all the amendments and with such grace, I really do appreciate that. I know I find that it's challenging at times. So, and I've heard from people in the community who've said the same thing. So you might not hear it, but I have heard it directly. So the sharing, passing that on. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Okay. Jenny, do we see if our candidate has joined us? He hasn't joined. So I guess I would ask if the board has questions for me about Jagged. Basically, this is an appointment. It's to approve the appointment by me for his three-year term to the Envision Arlington Standing Committee. And I was, I'm really hoping that his term can start soon. The committee is actually down three members because we've had a couple of members cycle off the committee, but those other two members are not people that I can point. And I have had a great conversation with Jagged. He also attended a master plan implementation committee meeting. And I know that he's very enthusiastic about the opportunity. He also really sees the connection between the master plan and the work of Envision Arlington, which I think is somewhat unique to some of the other folks who have served as my designee in the past. Great. Thank you, Jenny. I reviewed the letter and the resume and I think Jagged's background is very interesting. It would be a really welcome voice on the committee. I'll run through just a roll call of the board members for any questions for Jenny, starting with Ken. No, I have no questions. I think you'd be fine. I mean, if that's what Jenny thinks is appropriate, I'm okay with that. Great. Jean, any questions or comments? Yeah, I'm disappointed he's not here. So we can see him like those things happen. Yeah, I did read his resume and he has an interesting background not having anything to do with planning, but I hope that's sort of something that he wants to get into and do things with. And I'll defer also to Jenny's opinion that he'll be a good addition to the standing committee. Great. Thank you, Jean. And I'll just note that with the power and internet outages, it's a challenging evening. So I too was here, but I difficulties myself on certainly understanding. And Melissa, any questions or comments for Jenny? No, I think he had a different kind of background, but welcome in his perspective. And so I think that's great. If he could come and we could meet his face, see his face, that would be wonderful. That's a great idea. Jenny, perhaps if you could invite him to our next meeting. Yes, no, I'm going to follow up with him. I really don't know if he had been here previously and then he dropped off potentially. I didn't notice in particular, but I will make sure to let him know to come to a future meeting and schedule that. Great. So I think we'll just need to take a vote to approve the appointment of, please correct me if I mispronounce his name, Jenny Jagget, Adiha, Adiha. Yeah. Thank you. To the Envision Arlington Standing Committee. Do I hear a motion to appoint this candidate? Someone? Is there a second? Second. We'll take a roll call vote. Ken? Yes. Yes. Yes, sir. And I'm a yes as well. All right. So that closes agenda item two and previously finished agenda item three. So we will move to agenda item four, which is the meeting schedule for the ARB from July through December. So Rachel, I'll start and just say that the state of emergency is ending on June 15th. So until further notice, we will be meeting again in person for our next meeting and back in the same old place. I recognize that we had 48 people at one point on this call and I have absolutely no idea how to accommodate 48 people in the conference room. It's clearly not possible. We don't have a lot of alternative meeting spaces. We meet basically the same night as most of the select board meetings. If I can try to change our room and venue, I will try to do that. But for now, I think I just wanna commit to the second floor conference room. The other thing is that our next meeting is the last of our meetings that is starting at 7 p.m., just simply because that's on our current schedule at 7 p.m. So when we come back together again on June 21st at town hall, it would be at seven. But then all these other meetings moving forward reverting back to our 7.30 p.m. start time. And I just simply went through, tried to stagger the dates, get away from Monday holidays. And I figured that we would talk about it further here. So I just wanted to give you that context. Great, thank you, Jenny. So I let Jenny know earlier that I'm unavailable for the August 3rd date and it sounds, Jean, like you're unavailable for the August 9th date. So I think we should look at whether or not we find another Monday night, whether the 16th or the 30th would work. Actually, I don't know if it's the 16th. I had been planning for the first and third Wednesdays and that's the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. So if people would be available to do a week earlier in August. The second? Yeah, the second or the 16th or both. I tend to not try to do the double Monday meetings. That's why I didn't put it on the second because it gives me a little space between meetings in case there's meeting materials that still need to be gathered. That's why it's not July 26th and then August 2nd. Jenny, do we have a lot coming up this summer? No, I mean, basically no, we don't have anything. I don't know when a 10 sunny side might come back and be filed, but given the date right now, I would say if they do come to us, it would have to be an August meeting. So we would need an August meeting. And obviously we already know what happened with the other project. I have no other active projects and I have nothing else in the pipeline right now, by the way. So I would suggest- Can we just cancel August for now? I was going to suggest August 16th since sort of in between, I just don't know, Rachel. I think you said the last two weeks. Right, I can't do that unfortunately. I'm gonna be out of town the week of the 16th and the 23rd. Okay, so I mean, if you wanna choose the 2nd, we can choose that and then we'll, if it's too close to the prior meeting, then we'll cancel it, I guess. I think that makes sense. Sorry, if 10 sunny side files anytime soon and the amount of time to review that proposal, it would mean we'd need an August meeting. There's also a possibility that they won't come back to the ARB and they're only gonna go to the zoning board of appeals, by the way, because they wouldn't be required to come to the ARB. So there's a lot of scenarios there. So we may not need the August meeting in the end. We do August 30th instead of August 2nd? I would, that would work for me. That would be better for me. Okay. Works again? Does that- Okay, is that again? Monday, August 30th. Said again, both of you guys spoke. Monday, August 30th, instead of the 2 earlier for August dates. Okay. I'm putting it on the screen and I'm gonna send around, once you vote on this, I'll send it around to everybody. It'll also be on the town calendar. Can I also make a suggestion that I would like to move the retreat not to September, but have it earlier in the summer, because some of the stuff I wanna talk about is maybe some zoning changes or zoning things that we could talk about. And I don't want to wait so long that it'll take another year or two. So I rather get it going and talking about it earlier. So can we make it such that maybe part of this, maybe the August meeting or the 26th meeting, we can have that as a retreat if there's not gonna be booked on that date, nothing will be going on. We just stay a little later at the meeting and talk about these things. 26th is when you just continued that hearing too, right? Right. Which is fine. I mean, you could have that if it continues indeed to that evening, then you could have the rest of the time on the agenda for sort of a retreat. Is that what you mean? Suggestion, I'm just, you know. So if I could just give you my thoughts, I'm certainly not opposed to that at all. My initial thinking for September was to allow the two public processes for the open space, the open space public process and the housing production plan public process. It's hard to say, housing production plan public process to get a little bit further through so that perhaps we might have some information from that to be able to speak to as well. But I see your point as well, Ken, about some potential other topics in addition to that that we might want to speak to. So I'm open to that. I also found that when we met together on I think we did a Saturday morning one time, it was nice to kind of not be at the end of a long day and to kind of have a fresh perspective when we met. And so my thinking too was to try and find a Saturday in September when we could do that. But again, if the other board members I feel like we want to get started on working through some of our goals a little bit earlier by doing it in July, I'm certainly not opposed to that either. No, the reason why I say that, Rachael, is I want to make thoughts about some of some zoning suggestions or changes. Because right now what we ran into today was one of these issues. Yes. I think zoning along MassAb is so hodgepodge and there's no real thought through the whole thing there. How it developed was whatever was on MassAb was that's what it was zoned for. And there's no real thought. And I think we need to have enough time to talk about this and do a little talking and reach out to the community. If we do it way too long, we're not really get it in. You know how when it gets into the fall, it gets really tough to get these things worked out. So I read it started a little earlier. That's all. That's what I'm pushing for, Rachael. I understand. I completely understand. And I think that's a valid concern. And I don't disagree with you at all about the need to look at that quarter. Gene, what are your thoughts with regard to timing for the retreat? I like the idea of a Saturday. I think that worked very well the last time we did it. And because it was away from sort of whatever was on our agenda, we had sort of a little more time to discuss things and get to know each other a little better. And you know, with Ken, I've never met Melissa and may not have met the person we don't know that who's gonna be the curatorial appointment. But maybe we can sort of at one of July meetings at least sort of start the discussion and maybe put together the agenda and then carry it over and sort of do the rest of it, you know, on some weekend in early September. Thanks for the suggestion, Gene. Melissa, what are your thoughts? Well, I think I leaned into do something a little earlier just having things fresh in our mind from town meeting and having not had a chance to meet anyone in person yet. That's all. Great. So, I mean, we could look to one of the Saturdays in July to see whether or not we could block out a morning. For that, if not, I think we could look at to Ken's earlier suggestion, the second half of the meeting on the 26th. So, I will throw out the 17th, the 24th and the 31st to see if any of those dates are available for the board members or if there's a preference. All three dates are good for me. They're all fine for me too. Melissa? Sorry, they're not all fine for me. Did you say they're the mornings on Saturdays? Is that what you're? Yes, that's what we did previously. That's what the suggestion here was. Okay, well, do you think we'll have our appointment guy person ready? Will they be eating on board by July? Do we know that, Jenny? Yeah, they will be. Okay, great. So we could hold a tentative date, perhaps, and then firm that up once we know who the appointee is. So is he not a she? I don't know, I just said the appointee. I'm trying to get clues here, and Jenny's pretty... Any of those dates works for me, by the way.  Yeah, so were we talking the 10th, 17th, and 24th? The 17th, 24th, or the 31st? Or the 31st, okay. Right, the 31st is not work. The 17th, best, 24th, okay, and then 31, I cannot do. So why don't we hold the 17th if that's acceptable to everyone for now? And once the appointee has been confirmed, we can firm up that date, and we'll hold the 24th as a back update, if that works? Yes. Okay. Jean, can any concerns with that approach? I don't know. Okay, great. Rachel, aside from the retreat date, which I think we probably will have soon settled, are there other dates on this meeting schedule that don't do or don't work for people? Anybody object to any other dates? But in a different way. I have to work around the Monday holidays in the fall again, so we do have one back-to-back meeting situation, but I think I skipped all the other holidays and everything else at this point. But let me know if there's any other issues, and then I don't know if there's teaching, if you have a teaching schedule issue with any of these or no, no, good, okay. I have retired from my teaching job. Oh, wow, okay. Congratulations. Congratulations, yeah. Thank you. Melissa, do you need me? Jenny, the only thing, I mean, I don't want to be a stinker, but the only thing I can see is the 18th in October. Okay, a little bit of a challenge for me. And that's just one of those. One, let's see, we only have, so we could do the 25th. It just means that I have another double Monday instead of the 18th. Would that work for other people? October 25th instead of 18th? If no issue with that change. Okay, great. All right, I'll firm this all up. I'll send this around to the board, post it, and I think we're good. Let me know if anybody has questions. Do we need to approve this, Jenny, or? Yeah, just to vote on the approved meeting schedule from July through December, please. Okay, so motion. Is there a second? Second. Take a roll call vote, Ken? Yes. Jean? Yes. Melissa? Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Great, thank you, Jenny, and everyone for your flexibility. The next agenda item, we have four sets of meeting minutes. So we will start with the meeting minutes for April 8th, 2021. And I will start with any corrections with Jean. Give me a second to call it up on my screen and call in somebody else. We'll start with Ken. Nope. Melissa, any questions? Melissa wasn't there that evening, actually, according to my notes. Okay, according to my notes. Were you there? I looked at that, Jenny, and I think I don't know how I was remiss in missing a whole meeting. I was actually, this one where you came later? No. Because I did come later to one meeting. I don't know if that was- It's not this one. It was- I have, I found my copy. I do have a couple of changes. Okay, while we try to figure out if Melissa was or was not there. It was a Thursday meeting. It was an additional meeting. This was an added meeting. Yeah, this was a Thursday. It was a week of time. Well, while Melissa's looking through her schedule, Jean, do you wanna give us your corrections? Sure, on the first page, the paragraph that starts with, oh no, I have to make it bigger again, wait a second. The paragraph that starts with Steve Moore, the second line should be planting rather than planning. And then two lines down after the phrase lands, a plan that should be a period before Randy Marron. And that's what I had on that. Great, thank you, Jean. And then, Melissa, are we- Yep, no, we confirmed that I wasn't there at that meeting. Okay, great. Are there any other changes? All right, so we will, is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from April 8th as amended? Second. All right, so there'll be just the three of us who can vote on this, starting with Ken. Yes. Jean. Yes. And I am a yes as well, Melissa. You'll need to abstain. Okay, so those are approved. We now have the April 26th meeting minutes. And I will start with Ken for any questions or corrections. Nope, I have nothing here. Okay, I actually just found I have one. And Jenny, it's the last line of the whole document. I think we're right before that. We only had four of us at the meeting, so that should be four, zero. Jean, any corrections or questions? Very minor corrections. First page, third paragraph, second line should say continuation for 190 and 192-200, not 190-192-200, mess up. That was it. Replace the dash with an ampersand. I put it in an end. I spelled it out. Oh, you did. I think that's acceptable. Melissa, did you have any corrections? Yeah. Okay, is there a motion to approve the April 26th meeting minutes as amended? So a motion. Second. We'll take a roll call vote. Ken. Yes. Jean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Those are approved. The next meeting minutes are May 3rd, 2021. We'll start with Ken. Any questions or any corrections? Nope, nothing, I highly don't. Ampersand. Okay. Jean. I just have two on the first page, about halfway down where it says the chair introduced the second agenda item. The third line, I think it should say when your record is the air bees designate, rather than designate. I think that would be the right word. And then the very last line of the minutes before meeting adjourned, I think it should be approved four to zero, not four to zero to zero. That's it. Okay. Great. Thank you, Jean. Melissa, any corrections? No. All right. Is there a motion to approve as amended? I move that we approve them as amended. Second. Thank you. Is there a second? We'll take a roll call vote. Yes. Ken. Yes, Jean. Melissa. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. And the last set of meeting minutes are the May 17th minutes. We'll start with Ken. Any corrections? No, we don't have them. Melissa? No. Jean. I think in the, about halfway down the first page where it says the chair introduced the third agenda item. The second line, I think regarding amendment 43 should be article 43 instead of amendment. Yeah. And the next line after that should be article instead of amendment. And the next line after that should be article instead of amendment. So I think those three places, the word amendment should be replaced with the word article. And then on the next page we're about two thirds of the way down where it says Patrick Cameron questioned if a third vote for change is necessary. And I think he said that it has in short statute says that a simple majority is needed if the town later wanted to tighten the AD requirements. So it doesn't, it just didn't say why he said a simple majority is needed. So I think I'd add the clause at the end if the town later wanted to tighten the AD requirements. Wanted to tighten? Is that what you're saying? Make more restrictive, whatever. Yes. Those are the comments. Okay. Not, no edits to this final sentence though. No. Oh, right. I missed that one. Okay. Cause that's, that was the part that he was saying. That's it. Okay. I don't think David was at this meeting. No. And at the end is a 4-0-0. So it needs to remain with zero there too. And the one above it too. I don't remember if David was there, but I think you're right that he wasn't. So you have to remove him from the town. I know he was not. I think it's just a carryover. Yep. Great. Any other changes? All right. Is there a motion to approve the May 17th minutes as amended? I'll second Ken's motion. Okay, great. I will take a roll call vote. Ken. Yes. Jean. Yes. Melissa. Yes. And I am a yes as well. So the minutes from May 17th are approved as amended. All right. So that takes us through agenda item number five. We will now move to agenda item number six, which is open forum. And again, Jenny, I will ask for your assistance in reviewing the participant list. So any member of the public wishing to speak this evening, please use the raise hand function and Jenny will call on you in the order that hands are raised. Please remember to identify yourself at your first, last name and address. And you will have three minutes to speak once called upon. Okay, we just have Steve Raveleck. Great. Please go ahead, Steve. Thank you, Madam Chair. Steve Raveleck, 111 Sunnyside Avenue. I originally wanted to mention something, or mention this because I thought it was a, something really cool that I had come across, but I think it actually ties into some of the discussions the board was having earlier. So in, I recently, due to a, you know, a ZDA case, came into the, came across a copy of a 1955 Arlington Zoning By-law, along with a map that was in effect at the time. The map is dated 1946. And the way we had zoned commercial property back at that point in time was really, really different than what we have now. So our business zones in 1946, think Macassav, a thick band that runs, you know, one side of the street and the other side of the street through the entire length of the town. And by thick band, I mean like 150 to 200 feet deep on either side of the street, much of Broadway was the same. And there were a couple of other little business pockets scattered here and there. The industrial district ran all the way from, you know, basically west of Arlington center to the Lexington line. And then, you know, essentially from the Mass Avenue business district up north to what was then the Boston main railroad and what's now currently the Minuteman bikeway. Which is to say that in the middle of the 20th century, we had a lot more land zone for commercial uses. And, you know, with respect to thinking, well, this, I think seeing this helped make our own map, our current map a little clearer. Because you could see where these, you know, what used to be business districts back in the seventies, if there was a residential use there, well then it was no longer a business district, it became a residential district. Or if there was a business, it kind of got put into, you know, one of these finally compartmentalized business districts that we have. But in terms of looking at ways to kind of open up the Mass Ave corridor, I think it would not be a bad idea to go back and look at the 1946 map as just a frame of reference, but also maybe for some ideas. I presume town staff still has a copy of it handy. If not, I am happy to provide mine. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Steve. It's an interesting point of reference. I appreciate it. Rachel, can I ask them a question? Please, go ahead. Yes, please. Do you have then a PDF form? Yes. Would you mind sending it to me or to me through Jenny? I don't know how, right, where to do it, but... Also, I have all the maps scanned, so I'm happy to send it to the whole board. Thank you. For their reference. Thank you. Also, Steve, if you want to reach out, you can do that anyway, regardless, but I'm happy to provide that information to the entire board. It is an interesting map.  Do you have that chunk? Mine is not missing a chunk. Okay. Something must have happened to it. Well, I will offer to send my copies to the director, and okay, very good. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Jenny, do we have anyone else in queue? I don't see any other hands raised at this time. All right. So seeing no other members of the public with their hands raised, we will close public comments for the evening. And I'll see if the board members have any other final questions or comments before we adjourn for the evening. Jean? I'm ready to adjourn. Okay. Ken, anything final? I'm just looking forward to where we can all meet and have a normal meeting not through Zoom. I missed those days. Great. Any questions or final thoughts before we adjourn? No, thank you. Great. Well, I too, I'm first of all really looking forward to meeting Melissa in person. And not having to read the script at the beginning, I don't have a meeting anymore. So thank you all so much. And everybody who's joined us from the public for all of these meetings, I appreciate it. And I will see if there is a motion to adjourn. So motion. I second. Great. We'll take a roll call vote. Ken? Yes. Jean? Melissa? And I'm a yes as well. Great. Thank you so much. And thank you for bearing with me with my internet problems tonight. Thank you. Good night everybody. Thank you everybody. Goodnight. Goodnight. See you soon. Thanks Jenny. Goodnight.


dollar limits. So the total amount you can elect to deduct under section 179 for most property placed in service in tax years beginning in 2022 generally cannot be more than 1,080,000. So those are dollar limit quite high oftentimes for small businesses, but larger businesses can hit that limit quite readily, clearly. So if you acquire and place in service more than one item of qualifying property during the year, you can allocate the section 179 deduction among the items in any way as long as the total deduction is not more than $1,080,000. So this becomes an interesting area as well. You might think that's pretty straightforward, but if you have multiple pieces of property that might be subject to a 179 deduction and those properties have different or varying useful life for normal depreciation, then if you hit the cap of 1,080,000, you might want to think about that like which properties you want to apply the 179 to. You would think as a general rule, you would like to apply the 179 to those properties that have the longest life of depreciation that's applied to them, because then the property that goes over the threshold has the shorter lives hopefully, which means you'll still under normal depreciation rules get to recap the costs earlier than later as a general rule. So that would be if you hit the caps. So it gets a little bit more confusing than just saying well we'll just apply the 179 as willy-nilly until we hit the cap and then go over it. You want to think about it possibly a little bit more in depth because there could be differences in future depreciation depending on the useful life of the property. So you do not have to claim the full 1,080,000 either. So you could claim less than that. Why would you ever do that? If you had a ability to claim the 1,080,000, why would you ever claim some 179 less than that? Well if you claim the 179 less than that then you would think that the depreciable property you would still get a depreciation deduction in the future and you might be in a situation where if you take enough 179 it's going to take you below into a tax bracket that's lower due to our progressive tax system. So you might say hey look I'm going to take enough at this higher tax bracket rate and then maybe I would be better off applying the rest to the future possibly because that will help me out in the future when I'm having a higher tax bracket rate possibly as opposed to taking the deduction earlier. So the general rule we always want the deduction earlier normally but there are exceptions. For example if I have a lower tax rate due to the progressive tax system due to having less income this year or changes in the tax law I expect to happen next year increase in the tax rate then I might want to take the deduction next year if possible maybe. So tip the amount you can elect to deduct is not affected if you place qualifying property in service in a short tax year or if you place qualifying property in service for only a part of a 12 month tax year. Caution after you apply the dollar limit to determine a tentative deduction you must apply the business income limit described later so we'll get into that in it's the other limit right to determine your actual section 179 deduction. So example in 2022 you bought and placed in service $1,080,000 in machinery and a $25,000 circular saw for your business you would elect to deduct $1,055,000 for the machinery and the entire $25,000 for the saw a total of $1,080,000. So you might say so we hit the limit and instead of just saying I'm going to put the full amount on this piece of equipment that costs the same amount as the limit we decided they decided to fully depreciate the $25,000 saw and then apply the rest here so that means that you would expect the difference between you know the price of this first piece here and that $1,055,000 you would still be able to depreciate in the future you would imagine that they could have applied all the $179,000 to the first piece of equipment and then have the whole $25,000 of the saw to go forward what would be the difference between the two why does it matter well they might have depreciation they might have different depreciation lives into the future which could affect how early you get the depreciation under normal depreciation rules so this is the maximum amount you can deduct your $25,000 deduction for the saw completely recovers its cost your basis in depreciation is zero the basis for depreciation in your machinery is $25,000 so you figure this by subtracting your $1,055,000 section 179 deduction for the machinery from the $1,080,000 cost of the machinery and then you would expect that that $25,000 you would be depreciating over you know whatever whatever the normal terms of depreciation would be so situations affecting dollar limit under certain circumstances the general dollar limits on the section 179 deduction may be reduced or increased or there may be additional dollar limits the general dollar limit is affected by any of the following situation the cost of your section 179 property placed in service exceeds 2,700,000 you placed in service a sport utility or certain other vehicles they always mess things up you are married filing a joint or separate a joint or separate return