Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the February 8th meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. 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. For 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. 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 in order to confirm that all members of the Redevelopment Board are present, I'll take a roll call. Kim Lau. Here. David Watson. Here. Eugene Benson. Present. And myself, Rachel Zimberry, present as well. The two staff members that I've, three that we have joining us this evening are Jennifer Rait. Here. Erin Zwerko. Here. And Kelly Linema. Here. Great. Do we have anyone else joining us this evening? Jenny, I think it's just the three of you this evening. Just the three of us. Great. Wonderful. Thank you. With that, we will move to the first item in our agenda, which is a discussion about the MBTA community district. And the proposed zoning amendment to comply with new requirements as required by the recent, recent measure that was that was passed and we started to speak about this during our last meeting. And I think that you were going to take us through some of the analysis that planning department has started to look at. Yep. So thank you, Rachel. Before going into the particulars of the proposal to address the MBTA community requirement. Let me just outline the timeline to date that we're working within. We're working on our development bond bill was signed into law by Governor Baker on the morning of January 15. Included in the law is a requirement for MBTA communities of which Arlington is one to zone from multi-family housing by right with the following criteria. We have a reasonable size, have a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre. And if the requirement is more than a half mile from a commuter rail station subway station, ferry terminal or bus station is applicable. Have no age restrictions and be suitable for families with children. I'll also note that the definition of multi-family in the law is three or more units. This requirement is effective 90 days of the governor signing into law. The MBTA community does not comply with this requirement. It will not be eligible for funds from the housing choice initiative. The local capitals projects or the mass works infrastructure program. So due to that impending effective date and the subsequent eligibility requirement. I wanted this topic to the ARB on January 25. In order to include the submittal of a relevant warrant article by the deadline of January 29. The ARB agreed to submit a warrant article. Subsequently, on the afternoon of January 29, we learned that the eligibility for these three grant programs would not be affected by the zoning requirement for the upcoming grant round. In the coming weeks, we understand that the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development will be working with mass dot and with the MBTA and seeking feedback from the effective and affected MBTA communities to develop detailed guidelines on compliance criteria and timelines over the coming weeks. So therefore there's two pathways for the ARB to consider tonight. The first would be to hold this particular warrant article to provide time to complete a planning study of the requirement, once that detailed guidance is released by the state and bring forward an amendment at a special town meeting if one is to be scheduled in the future, or the 2022 annual town meeting, or we can pursue the, the amendment that was included with the in the packet at this upcoming town meeting. Rachel at this point I can either pass it back to the board for consideration of these two pathways, or provide the overview of my analysis and the work on the amendment provided in the packet. I think you've done a lot of work already to look at this and I think I would certainly appreciate at least you know foundationally hearing, you know all of the work that you put into date whether we choose to move forward at this time or to further study, unless anyone on the, any other members of the board feel, feel differently. You know, I'd love to maybe hear the overview and then we can speak about which, which pathway we'd like to pursue. Sure. Can David Jean any, any other, any objections to that. I would agree with you. That's fine. Great. Thanks. Of course. The packet and what's shown on the screen right now is a graphic that shows the half mile radius from a life station. There are a handful of business districts be one be to be to a and before the R2 district, the open space district, and the PUD are all located within this half mile from the station. In the 25th meeting there was discussion about establishing an overlay district to address the requirement. I also heard that changes affecting the R2 district were not desirable. I'll also note that the parcel zone to PUD that are located within the half mile are likely undevelopable, due to the extensive wetland and floodplain resources that are present at that site. The proposal that was included in the packet establishes an overlay district with its boundaries being the half mile radius from a life station. It does not include any land that is owned R2 or open space by the underlying district. So the amendment affects the parcel zone PUD or business based on the underlying zoning. So for the specific density and dimensional requirements, I looked at the 13 parcels business is owned parcels on the western side of Mass Ave. These parcels range in size from 1750 square feet to 14,000 375 square feet with the average size of about 5,060 square feet. The law requires a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre or based on the simple math of for 43,560 square feet divided by 15 one unit per 2,904 square feet for a building with three units. Again, that's what's the baseline definition of multifamily in the law for so for a building with three units. The lot size would need to be at least 8,712 square feet. That's the two 904 times three. Only one of those business zone parcels meets that minimum lot size. So by reducing the minimum lot area per unit to 1000 square feet. 11 of the 13 parcels could support at least three units, while also accommodating parking open space and other ancillary requirements. I'll also note that the the question, one of the sort of unknowns at the time is what a reasonable size means so by including by reaching that threshold of 11 out of the 13 parcels. It would seem that that would be a reasonable size. So now looking at the maximum height and the maximum stories. The proposed four stories and 40 feet is similar to what is allowed from mixed use buildings on less than 20,000 square feet in the b2 b2 a and before districts now, and two apartments on right of ways and more than 50 feet in the b2 a and the before districts. The ARB might want to look closely at the FAR, the floor area ratio, but at 2.0, the units could be family size units meeting again that criteria of the law. Further analysis might show that this could be lowered a bit. We also looked at the off street parking requirements and reduced the number of spaces per unit required. The proposal at point five spaces per unit might be further than the ARB would want to go, but reducing this requirement in conjunction with this effort was also discussed at the January 25th meeting. And then finally, we developed language to tie in the requirement to comply with the inclusionary zoning. So at this point, I think that's the high level overview that I wanted to give hitting on some of the major points in the amendment. And I'm happy to answer detailed questions from the board. Thank you so much, Aaron. So I'll run through the art list here and ask for any questions for Aaron or your thoughts. Well, let's do questions first and then we'll circle back through the group again about whether you'd prefer to hold this for future town meeting and ask for a study to be undertaken or move this forward in the timeline that we originally understood was required. So we'll start with Kim. Aaron, I'm looking at this map you created this color map. It's essentially the areas that are in pink or shades of pink and red. Is that the areas that those are the 15 areas we're talking about. Yeah, exactly. So the zoning map uses the pinks and the reds to denote business districts and the PUD has has the lovely polka dot. But yes, the primary focus is the pink and red zone to parcels. Okay, so you feel strongly that if we got 11 out of the 15 units that that was suffice as far as their thoughts about meeting the criteria of having enough area for this rezoning. So again, the what the reasonable size is in the eyes of the Department of Housing and Community Development and the transportation agencies is unknown at this point. But based on my planning background and in my practice, I would say that that would achieve the requirement of a reasonable size. And I might have a different opinion than the agencies that are developing the guidance. Alright, I'm just playing devil's advocate here and I say, they said not you don't have enough space here. How do we proceed then. I think if, if what is being proposed here does not meet the requirements of that guidance that is to be released. We could look at including more land in the in the overlay district so that would be addressing the particular constraints that the R2 parcels might include, or it could be expanding the radius from the ill life station to go beyond the half mile radius from those would be relatively straightforward pathways should this zoning proceed to town meeting. But there could be other pathways if the ARB decides to hold on to this for the time being. Oh yeah, I'm not trying to. I'm just trying to figure out all the different options we may have. Yeah, absolutely. All right, I think I'm, I'm kind of okay now for now Rachel I might want to have a few questions later but I'm just trying to get get digest all this right now. Great. Thanks Ken, Jean. Yeah, thank you. Excuse me, Aaron I think you did a really nice job with the draft and with the explanation. I have a few wording suggestions, and if we end up deciding we want to go ahead. I'll sort of raise them then, but we may not. I guess my sort of one question is, if you look at the area a little massive in addition to the business districts there are two or three lots that are R2. I was just wondering if you consider including the R2 lots that were on mass as part of the area that would be subject to the overlay district. So, one question. Yep. A couple of things be the R2 parcel that's between Lafayette and Fairmont Street that that's sort of squashed right in there as a single parcel that's a historic structure. I, I, that would have a number of other restrictions on it is probably not worth including in here because of the historic nature of that structure. The other two buildings, the other two parcels that are right there. Those potentially could be included. Although it makes maybe the language a little bit trickier when it's a blanket prohibition to include the R2 that is just cleaner and more straightforward but I'm sure we could figure out a way to include them. I will note that the many of the business owned parcels with the exception of about three do have residential structures on them as to those two are two parcels. So there, there's not much other than the one that I had mentioned that has a historic structure on it. The use on the ground is not very different than the business owned parcels. I like to that. You also authorized mixed use with at least three residential units and this I thought that was an essential thing to do and I like that a lot. I also like that you tied it to the design guidelines. Also, which I think is, you know, the best substitute we can get to special permit environmental design review. So I did like all of those things also. And everything I'll say now I'll say more later is, I understood the discussion about the R2 district going in the other direction, which was maybe we should authorize free family dwellings and the R2 district, but for reasons I'll discuss later I don't think we would want to do that at this town meeting because I think we'd need more groundwork if we were to do that. And I think that if the guidance that eventually comes out of DHCD determines that what we have here is not a reasonable area. That's the other alternative to think about. But Rachel, should we save the discussion about whether we want to. If you could please yeah I just love to make sure we have any questions to Erin on the work that she's done today. So that's my question. Great. David. Thank you Aaron for pulling all this together so quickly. It's, it's very helpful to have it to look at, given the extremely compressed timeframe for this project. So, I just going back to the, to the map for a second. Are the parcels that are included on both sides of Mass Ave or only on one side. So I looked specifically at the parcels that are entirely within the half mile radius on the western, or I guess that would be the northwestern ish side of Mass Ave. The two that are zoned to be one adjacent Henderson Street, the one right there Jenny, the that is a residential structure, and then the lot next to it is vacant. It appears that it's used for parking for the residential structure. So down in the B to a that is CVS and monotomy grill and the hotel already developed lots. Not certain if there would be significant changes, or this would have any bearing on the development there. The B to a parcels are quite bigger than what I looked at, but I focused primarily on the western side of Mass Ave. Okay. I was a little confused by the, by the complete exclusion of, of the R2 district, because I like Jean I thought that we, we kind of, we wanted to see what the possibilities were.  The overlay necessarily, but I think it was something that ultimately, ultimately as part of this process we, we wanted to see what all of the, all of the scenarios might look like. But I think it really depends on the guidance we get. So that's, I think my feeling is the analysis is, is as complete as it can be at the moment. I, let's see, did I have any other questions. Great. Thanks, David. I didn't have any questions other than those that have already been, been broached specifically. I had one similar to David's question about what was in and out of scope and the review that you did. So, I think I'd like to open this up to the board and we'll go through in the same order to discuss whether this is something that we'd like to defer until we have further guidance. So the parameters that need to be included and include a more thorough planning analysis, or whether this is something that we do want to move forward. As we had initially identified when we initially thought that the timeline was was different in order to be able to continue to apply for the grant cycle this this summer. I'll start with Ken. Rachel, I did I had, I had one more question I forgot this was a process question. Sure. So, the, the latest guidance from the state says that these new requirements will not apply to, to the current round of grant funding. That's correct. Well, I might that it is correct. Your compliance with the quote MBTA community requirement in the new law does not prohibit otherwise eligible communities from applying for housing choice the local capital projects or mass works for the upcoming grant round. And I don't know. I know that we meet the eligible, I believe that we meet the eligibility for mass works but I'm not 100% sure there is a concurrent process relative to that that the project that would presumably be applied for. And, and if we don't pursue a change now. When would the next round of grant funding happen that we might potentially want to participate in. I'm not sure, perhaps, Jenny can help me answer that question. I would presume next year 2022. I would be in, in all likelihood June of next year. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks Rachel. Great. Thanks David. So I'll move it to Kim to open the discussion about our thoughts on timing. Well, let me stop. I did forget. I apologize Aaron, but thank you for your hard work. This, this doesn't look good. My rush to ask questions. I got that. Thank you. This does look nice. I want to see if I would lean toward a way you see more clarification and not rush to get this past, just because we don't know what all the parameters are. One of the things I do want to study. If you can do it. Can we do it? Another quick one like, like you just did is increase this radius from half mile to one mile. And also maybe maybe throw in one mile and three quarters miles and see how that's affecting Mass Ave. Because part of me feels like, and maybe it's just me, that the couple of a couple of units we show here is not enough to make, make this compliant. You know, we're talking here, maybe a dozen units, maybe 10 units at most. I don't see that as as greatly increasing the addressing the housing event that they're looking for. I think we have to increase that number by quite a bit. And I think I don't want to affect any of our two housing. But along Mass Ave. I'm very interested in looking at. So if we, if we just increase this up incrementals that made three quarters and one, one mile. Aaron, and then just highlight the same way you did with some of the other buildings, and get an understanding of how what how does that affect it, how many more lots we can get. Yeah, that that wouldn't be a problem could certainly work on that. And we can talk about it, but I would, I would both defer. Great. Thank you, Ken. Jean. Yeah, I too would prefer to defer until we get the final guidance on this because we don't know whether the way this is structured would meet the requirements for a zone of a reasonable size. First, second is a building on kids comment. We're not sure whether you could do it with things that are outside the half mile radius because I think the law that got passed is pretty clear that the zone is within the half mile radius so you know that I think is a question. So, and third, if it doesn't meet it and we do need to think about things like allowing three families within the R2 district within the radius. I think that requires more discussion, more analysis and more community outreach. I'd say what was disappointing about the law that was passed is that just having this general half mile radius makes a lot of sense around a lot of commuter rail stations, sort of major commuter bus stations. It doesn't make all that much sense for places like Arlington, which are pretty built up that are, you know, within a half a mile of subway stations. And there are a lot of other communities like Arlington in that regard, but clearly we're going to have to deal with it so I'd be very interested in the guidance and would want to not move this forward now. I guess the other thing I would say is if DHCD and MBTA are reaching out to communities for input in what the guidance would be, I'd like the redevelopment board to be moved in to that also. That's it. Great. Thank you, Jean. David. I would also vote to defer on this for all the reasons that Jean just stated. I think one aspect of this, which I think the state definitely needs to think about is in a situation like this where the MBTA station is located. It's basically at the edge of multiple communities. And there's only a sliver of the half mile radius within our community. That makes it dramatically more difficult potentially for us to comply because there's just a lot less area for us to consider. I think that, you know, in situations like this, and I would guess we're probably not the only community that has a situation like this. But it certainly I think is affecting us significantly due to the location of the slice of Arlington that's within the half mile. I also think, as Jean said that since we don't know what the exact parameters are going to be or what the state will ultimately consider to be reasonable. I think one of the things we do now, whether it's further analysis or or or actually moving this forward to town meeting would would be just taking a shot in the dark. And I don't think that is the right way to approach this particularly where if we get into a situation. We need to consider including some part of the R2 district in the overlay that is definitely going to require some careful thought and and a lot of community outreach. So that's where I am on this. Thank you, David. And I concur with all of you that in the absence of clear guidance from the state, it makes sense to rather than try to anticipate what could be wait for that guidance. And then further further study and determine the type of outreach that that will be required at that time. So, are there any other comments or questions from the board before I move this for public comment. Okay, just one one more thing Rachel. I always have one more thing tonight. I just wanted to mention as as I alluded to with my follow up question to Aaron earlier with the additional guidance the state has provided on on when this will go into effect with respect to the grant eligibility. There really is no downside for us in deferring this from from this year's town meeting. Thank you. Thank you, David. So with that, I will open this up for public comments. I will ask that you please use the raise hand function under the participant button if you wish to speak. And note that you will be allotted three minutes for your comments. And I would ask that you please identify yourself by first and last name and address before you start your comments. One second here. And the first speaker that we will have this evening will be James Fleming here. We can thank you. Awesome. Thank you James Fleming 58 Oxford Street. I was just thinking about looking at the map that I'd seen. If I'm the state and I see this half mile overlay. And I see that because of the weird way that our zoning is laid out that you have this tiny sliver of Mass Ave, and maybe the PD accounts toward this. My thinking is that they would probably say that's not sufficient you're using a quirk of your zoning rules to get around this requirement. And the state law, it does seem pretty clear that you can't go beyond a half mile to count and even if you could, you still only really get us the sliver of Mass Ave that's own business. So there isn't really a lot of potential for development which I can only assume that the state would require in this district without doing some sort of modification to the R2 district. I think a reasonable approach would be to start thinking about allowing three families by special permit and tying it to the design guidelines as a way to alleviate some concerns about going to increase density in that area. You know, there are already about 10 three families in the area so it's not something that's completely unheard of in that area. It is, it's traditionally more urban closer to LA of closer to more public transit. I suspect the pushback that you would get would come from people who don't live in the area, who just don't like our who don't want Arlington to be any more dense than it already is. And then goes I saw I liked that I liked that the parking requirements are lower in these districts that have space per unit, but given that this is literally the definition of transit oriented development, where you're close to a wife and other public transit. I don't see why requiring any parking at all as a requirement from the town is necessary, but you could probably just let the people who build on those lots. Aside for themselves how much they need given the location of the of the parcel in relative to public transit. That's all thank you. Thank you. Let's see the next speaker will be identified as pb w o r in the participant button for a section. And that's Patricia Worden. Oh, great. Thank you. Finally, can she's the computer savvy one. This is john Worden Jason Street. Well, first, I find it hard to believe that the senator representatives with the court to represent Arlington, let this outrageous provision affecting our town to go through maybe given up time, they could get it fixed somehow in this idea of that there's a law and guidance so it's again becomes a rule of not not of laws but of men, men and women. We're going to decide what what what the law means and how it suits their, their perceptions, not ours. If, if, you know, places like say datum or swam Scott were built to the same density that we already have in Arlington, we wouldn't have the so called shortage of housing. So the rate really that they should fix their own, their own towns before they, they start messing with ours. I do agree with the redevelopment board that that there is no rush. We've got a lot of things to find out before we go forward on this. And we should certainly take the time this is a very important and potentially devastating blow to our community. And, and there's no need to fly into it and the proposals that have been been made are so on Arlington like and inappropriate that I can't believe Tom meeting is going to go for those really think that. So, we've got to. I would ask the board in their further deliberations and consideration of this topic to ask their staff and planning department to come up with the minimal minimum number of things that could be done to satisfy what we know about this awful law. Present time, not this thing of these high buildings with no, no front yards, no backyards, no parking notice know that that's that's not the kind of Arlington that we know. And I point out that that you members the board. You know, you, you represent the people of Arlington, not the governor, not Chapa, not developers, not MAPC. We have to consider what is best for the people of Arlington, and to, and to inflict anything similar to what's been proposed by the planning department at this point would be outrageous and I hope you won't do it and won't try to persuade me to do it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr warden. The next speaker will be Don Seltzer. Thank you madam chair Don Seltzer Irving street. The street mandate requires that we allow three family houses to be built by right somewhere in the district. I looked at our bylaws and I found that three family houses are already allowed in all of our business districts by special permit from the sport and the dimensional requirements allow us to build a density of up to 17 units per acre. What we do is tweak the table of uses to read three families by right, instead of by special permit. That's it. There's nothing in this new law that suggests we need or should eliminate front yard setbacks, side yard setbacks and usable open space. Rather the law states clearly that this new housing must be suitable for families with children. This is the elimination of all yards of any patch of green where children can play, make it suitable for families. What is family for family friendly about a neighborhood where every square foot of ground is either built up, or paved over, where there isn't even enough space for a tree that has real shade. These tacked on dimensional changes make any housing distinctly family unfriendly, and they will decimate the small businesses of this neighborhood. The lunacy of all this is that we have already met the state's density goal. We are already well above the target of 15 units per acre. The neighborhood of two family houses on very small lots. By what logic does the state say that this is not good enough, and we should adopt a cookie cutter approach, which is more appropriate for other communities. I agree with those board members who say, we're not ready for this yet.  Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The next speaker will be Steve Revolac. Good evening, Madam Chair, Steve Revolac 111 Sunnyside Avenue. I also am in favor of deferring this decision or deferring this article until the next town meeting or next special town meeting, because it sounds like we would be able to do so without penalty. And I will only denies, I think, to wait until DHCD issues or guidelines for compliance so that we have a clear picture of what's going to be required for us. Now, in the event that some of the, there are changes, we wouldn't need to make changes within this R2 district. I would suggest perhaps reaching out to town meeting members whose precincts are in this half mile radius and trying to set up some community meetings. I mean the R2 districts in East Arlington already have a number of triple beckers, and it's quite possible that, you know, folks there would not be averse to having, you know, to having a few more. Basically the idea, the general, what I'm generally saying is that it would be nice to do some precinct meetings and get some community input if, you know, that area is going to be affected. Although it sounds like the current draft language isn't going to go, may not go forward. I would like to make two substantive comments on it regardless. I would recommend Ms. Worko for the job that she's done, but in section 510-4B, I think the paragraph is referring to minimum lot area per dwelling unit. And if that's correct, I'd suggest changing the term development intensity to minimum lot area per unit, because the latter is a term that we use in our dimensional tables. If you're using the map of the overlay itself, I think there would be benefit to clarifying what happens when the radius bisects a parcel. I mean it sounds like the intent is to have to include parcels that lie completely within the half mile radius, but it would be, I think beneficial to spell it out so there's no uncertainty about that. So that's all I have and thank you for your time. Great. Thank you, Mr. Revillac. The next speaker. It's identified as, I believe it's Danit's iPhone. You're on mute. Hi, thank you so much for allowing me to speak and thank you for all the great work that has been done. Can you hear me. I can. Yes, if you could just identify yourself by first last name and address. Thank you. I live in 43 Brand Street in Arlington, and I'm also a town member precinct 19. And I wanted to raise a question, whether this will be included in the updated report, what will be the financial impact to the town, not just to the specific districts precincts that are affected by this. Assuming the population will increase in that half mile use half mile radius, we'll probably will need to increase classes right to build more classes in the school, hire more stuff. So there will be an added cost to the town and whether the state will chip in into that cost or would that come from the entire town budget. That's a good question. Aaron, I will throw that one over to you to see if that's something the financial impact is something that could be included potentially in a future planning study. We could certainly work with the finance department in town hall to look at what the cost would be. Just at one point if that's the case. I think the speaker who spoke before me about having some meetings with affected precincts I think meeting should be around the town because all the town will be affected by this new rule. Great. Thank you. Did you have any other. No, thank you. Thank you very much I appreciate it. Okay, the next speaker will be Laura Liebensberger. Hi, I hope you can hear me. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I just, I'm just a person. I'm sorry. Could you just identify first, last name and address. I'm Laura Liebensberger. I live on Long Dix Street. I've been here for 27 years. I'm just a normal person and not part of any town meeting or anything. And I was just reading about these things online. So I don't know everything about it. But I am going to say it seems like each car is getting walloped with the weight of development. And I just want to say we're already the most developed area, we don't have a lot of other space. I just kind of feel like we're being sacrificed for the rest of the town. Nobody, you know, no other areas are stepping up and saying we'll take this development because it's wonderful. So, I mean, I'm just saying, I've been reading about this and I'm not really happy about it. So, so I want to say I feel like somehow East Arlington is going to bear the brunt. And we're like already the most developed area without nobody here has been lots, you know, then no big open spaces to say there's not a lot here to develop into. And I know what the state mandate is, but I'm just saying maybe the state mandate isn't the best thing given that this is already a highly developed area. And I don't know if we have anywhere to go. So that's all I'm saying. I don't think we really have anywhere to go in terms of building. I think other areas of Arlington would take this on more easily. That's it. Thank you. Thank you for sharing sharing that I just I just will point out that unfortunately due to the state mandate and again we'll find out a lot more information hopefully when they provide additional guidance. We don't have another area that very specific about the radius that we do need to look at, but I definitely hear your, hear your points. The next speaker will be Carl Wagner. Hi madam chair, can you hear me okay. Yes, we can thank you. Thank you very much for taking my comments. I applaud the board for what sounds like maybe a decision to put this off till we know more. And for any members of the public who showed up. I wanted to point out that I think this is a laudable goal of the government of Massachusetts the idea that there should be 15 units per acre of density at the end of transit sites like the nation at the same time I want to applaud the poor people who live in that part of Arlington and all over Arlington because that part of Arlington is already over 15 units per acre. The sad thing about this law and I hope everybody listening will write to Representative garbly and Senator Friedman about this. The sad thing about the law is that the fact that there are two families doesn't count. They have to have 15 units per acre in more than two families and that's just unfair because the whole purpose of the law. Is to get Arlington to be the model for all the other terminuses and we're doing well this is why we moved here this is why we stay living here. So I really encourage people to say wait a minute this is the model and the others should come up to our level. Not we should be forced to demolish our successful area and build expensive luxury condo was for God knows who. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr Wagner. The next speaker is just identified as Chris. Thank you Madam Chair I think that's me Chris already 56 Adams Street. Great thank you. Thanks. I, I also support the board deferring action on this until later date and until it gets more guidance from the state. And also to Mr. Seltzer's point I also read this primarily as a desire to allow by right development. And so I'm surprised to see that the board or staff was proposing so many changes to the dimensional requirements, since the town already allows the desire density by special permit. And all you really need to do is change special permit uses to to buy right uses and you can take care of it. I'm very concerned about having no side yard setbacks and 40 foot high walls on those lots that above these, these, the lots that would be buildable under this proposal. And I would ask you if you lived in one of those are to zoned homes, or even in your own home, how you would like having a 40 foot wall built right on the property line next to your house. What I want to raise is the inclusion of mixed use in this proposal. And the problem I have with this is now mixed use becomes right. And you combine that with your board's interpretation of the mix you zoning by law that says you can put any loose in a mixed use. And now you have any use going in by right into one of these developments, just put three housing units and you're all set. If you're employed by say McDonald's or other some fast food restaurant, I would think this is just swell. And I would be happy to explain to them how they could get one of them in there by right, when in past and long past, they couldn't do it at all by special permit or otherwise. So I'll leave it at that but I really think this does need some more thinking as you move forward. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And I'll just take a minute to address one, I think misconception that I want to clear up the report that was prepared by the planning department, as well as the studies were requested by the redevelopment board. In terms of the scope and breadth of what they looked at so that we could begin to look at all the different potential ways that we could push and pull to to meet this requirement. So, again, thank you to the planning board but I do want to be clear that it was a study that was done by the request of the redevelopment board, not of the revolution. So, the next speaker, I believe, do we have anyone who has not spoken yet who would wish to speak I have two people who are looking to speak again. Okay, seeing them will go to James Fleming. So just a sort of a question about what else might be in scope I was looking at the text of the law. It wasn't clear to me if bus stops say for example along Mass Ave or Broadway we're in scope for this law. Do you have given to know if that's the case. Aaron or Jenny I'll defer to you as I know that you've looked at the scope and which which transit nodes are included. So as we understand it, the law uses the phrase bus station. I think that both Jenny and I believe that had they intended to include bus stops like the bus stops that are up and down Mass Ave and on other streets in Arlington. They would have the writers of the law would have used the word bus stop rather than a bus station. I also don't believe that it is applicable to the bus lay lay overspace in Arlington Heights the, what is sometimes referred to as the bus barn. So that is turn around primarily for buses and does not operate at the same level as bus stations like large terminuses where multiple lines connect with other rapid transit services. But I would assume that in the guidance this would be, you know, made more clear. Thank you. Thank you. The next person on our list is Patricia warden. Patricia, I have one other speaker while you are working on your technical issue. I will. Are you. Oh, you have it resolved fantastic. Go ahead please. The other computer turned off. I think I'm trying to turn it off. Can you hear me. We can it sounds much better please go ahead. This is my first time speaking. I set myself up in another computer thinking you would surely recognize me as a first time speaker but that's why the interference occurred because I have a second computer going. I just want to say that as a former school committee member and chair. I'm extremely concerned about the, the, the lack of interest shown by your, the, your staff in the very, very constrained situation as far as the school population for that that area in the hearty school and the trauma school are extremely for and crowded and I cannot believe that you're even considering increasing enabling increased population density maybe drastic that without consulting the school committee and as one of the participants earlier said the financial situation, which has been, which has been really promoted by Alan Tosti former chair of the finance committee that we cannot endure any significant increase in school costs. And I think that you have to keep in mind that our children's education is probably the most important thing of all in this town. And as Mr seltzer said, the ability of children to be provided for with a little bit of open space is also a very high priority. And this whole situation really needs to be brought to the attention by you to the attention of our legislators has been totally inappropriate for Arlington. And thank you for deciding to postpone your decisions on this matter. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Don Seltzer. Thank you Madam chair for indulging me a second time. Don Seltzer Irving street. I have a question about the half mile distance criteria. Clearly the intention of this law is that people within walking distance of the T station. It sends to interpret it as half a mile by as the crow flies. People can't get from mass avenue to our wife walking in half a mile it comes far shorter than that. I guess that you give consideration and maybe ask for further clarification from the state as to whether the real intention here is to only include that district within a half a mile of walking distance from the T station. Thank you. Thank you for the question. The next speaker is Colleen Cunningham. Hi, it's actually store Boris and Colleen's husband. We're on Kensington Park. I just have a question and that is that so I understand that the, the requirement is to, you know, make the zoning changes and if the town doesn't make them, then the town is not eligible to receive certain grants or certain sources of funding that you mentioned and I have forgotten what they are. My question is, do we use any of that funding. The short answer is, is yes. I can defer to Jenny we spoke a little bit about that during the last meeting but Jenny perhaps you could provide an overview of specifically the mass works funding, how that is intended to be used by the town. Thank you, Rachel. So there's three types of funding that are connected to this requirement. The first one is mass works, which is a grant program that is essentially a an amalgamation of multiple infrastructure public infrastructure grants that help to advance housing and development activities across the state. And it used to be a number of different types of grant funding programs actually Arlington had accessed the community development action grant way back in the day to improve Arlington Center. And most recently we've turned our attention to utilizing mass works to potentially address the very dangerous and challenging intersection at Mass Ave and Appleton, as well as the surrounding area there, particularly due to the fact that it will cost the town, likely a lot of money to address the number of issues that are there so that funding is a resource to the town that would offset the costs that the town would have to bear otherwise. So that's that's one of the programs mass works. So the first ones are housing choice, which are basically grant pro both grant programs for planning and then for capital funding towards affordable housing programs. So we are an eligible housing choice community which we are not, by the way, due to the fact that we part one do not have a high high enough rate of development, and also that we do not meet the lowest level of criteria for activities to advance housing affordability If we were to meet those two minimum threshold requirements, then we would be eligible for both the planning activities granted to communities for housing choice, as well as the capital funding for affordable housing projects. So I think that that's the three programs Aaron is there anything else to it. I don't believe so. Okay. Okay, so thank you let me just say one word and then I will sign out so it sounds to me. Well so yeah it sounds to me like a lot of the money that's on the table is there for development in any event and so if we don't develop then we don't get money for development so it is with the exception of you know the really a nice project that you mentioned up there on Appleton Street it sounds like it's not money that we actually need. And then the question becomes you know the money the project on Appleton Street. What's the cost of that offset against the cost of this Mrs Warden points out all the kids in school we're going to have to pay for all of the street repairs that are going to come from, you know, increased population and so on. So let me respectfully ask the board and I guess eventually the town meeting members to consider, you know, dual cost benefit analysis on the same we really need to do this development in order to get these funding sources or are they funding sources we don't actually need and we'd be better off without them. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just identify that in response to that last piece, the intersection at Appleton and the need to be able to apply for those funds. I think goes beyond a cost benefit analysis it's a public safety issue and I, and I, I think that we've heard from many people how important it is for the town to make a positive impact at that intersection which which is going to take a significant amount of funding and the town has identified that this particular grant program is a very important. Very important part of their being able to address that Jenny I don't know if you have anything else that you wanted to speak to on that. No, I think that summarizes it. Great. Jenny or Aaron did you have any other, any other responses to any of the questions or feedback that that came up during the public comment area before we just move it back to the board for any final thoughts. So I might, I would like to address the simple change of going of allowing three families in the business district versus by special permit that with of which they're allowed right now. The families in the business districts including all the business districts that are within that half mile from a life require a minimum lot area of 6000 square feet, plus a minimum lot area per unit of 2500 square feet. You can meet the requirement by taking a basically a 700, sorry, 7500 square foot lot, but and, you know, you could allow three family a three family on that parcel, however, within the scope of business owned parcels that are within that small radius, only one lot at that is 14,375 square feet would actually be able to accommodate the required minimum lot size. The other ones are as low as 1750 square feet. And then there are a number that are at about 5600 so that is would probably be the simplest change that we could envision, but by the nature of the size of the lots, it may not play out in reality on the ground. Great thank you for that clarification Aaron. I'll go through again. The list of board members to see if there are any final thoughts or questions. There's no action we need to take tonight obviously this will the warrant has already been filed and this will come up again during the hearing, but it appears that we're all in alignment to defer any action on on this. As of, as of at least this meeting for for this coming town meeting. Kim, did you have any other additional thoughts.  Sorry about that. No, I just wouldn't mind having more continuing meetings on this. And I think Steve had a good idea about meeting with some of the people in the affected area. And I'll reach there. And I just like to also see if, but that three quarter mile and one mile radius would look like. Great. Thank you Ken. Jean. Thank you. I'll just add a couple of things, you know, I grew up in a triple DACA until I was 13 years old. My first house I lived in in Massachusetts for a few years of triple DACA three family. There's nothing wrong with them. Kids can grow up in them. They, you know, they have fine lives. I'm not saying we will end up with a zone that allows three family homes where they're now to within the radius. But if we do, I would say it is not going to make a major change to that community. Kids are going to be a few blocks from those parks. That's what I did when I go up, learned how to use my eyes to get to and from. So I think this perception that somehow allowing more three family homes is somehow going to ruin children or ruin Arlington is just wrong. Another thing I'll mention is that those areas are pretty well developed, and it's not like there are lots of open lots where people will then build three family houses instead of two, you know, probably there will be a few built over buildings, but it's not going to have a major influx of students to the school system. So, you know, that those are just my perceptions and I would just ask people to consider that when they're, if we come back and take a look at this. Thank you, Jane. Good point. David. I have no further comments. Great. Thank you. So we will close discussion on on this topic. We'll ask that Aaron and Jenny keep us updated as we hopefully hear additional guidelines and requirements from the state. Great. Thank you. So we'll move on to agenda item number two, which is an update on redevelopment board properties. Jenny, I will turn it over to you. Thank you, Rachel. And before we do that, I just want to sincerely thank Aaron and also Kelly. Lanema Kelly and Aaron worked on the maps and, and also the text that was presented this evening. No Kelly didn't get to a chance to speak but I certainly want to acknowledge her effort in helping to prepare for this evening. Of course. So thank you to both of you for helping with the conversation. It helps to have a map and the visuals and something to actually respond to and when we first talked with the board about this at the prior meeting. Of course we were work we were operating as quickly as possible just to insert it so that in the event that we needed to comply in order to apply for significant funding. We were going to do that and we, I think, honored the board's request in terms of moving forward and preparing something and providing us with an additional week of time which is why the meeting is this evening and not last Monday night. In order to do that so that we could have a real conversation about it. I realize it obviously has elicited a lot of response and reaction and we of course understand that and this is not a typical situation that we find ourselves in and we talked about that when it came up the evening when it first came up. So I appreciate the board's comments this evening and also the path that you've chosen to go down to allow for more time for us comfortably to understand what's going on. And also hopefully to provide feedback during a regulatory process that typically provides any lawmaking process. So I look forward to that conversation continuing but I just again want to thank Aaron and Kelly for their effort in a very short time frame in the middle of the other things that they're also working on. So thank you. I'm going to pivot to the redevelopment board properties and just, we actually have a couple of neighbors, I think still maybe. Now I'm not seeing them yeah I think show us here and Max are also here our direct neighbors to 23 maple street. So I'm going to go to Maple Street as you might recall. Last year we had a tenant who left. And they left as of basically around the middle of July. So the property became vacant, we put out an art request for proposals through the town's typical process received no responses. And then the second request for proposals and began a conversation with folks in the arts community about potentially looking at the property and looking at some opportunities. And I actually extended the RFP response deadline with hopes that something would gel and come together. Unfortunately, the property is really not well suited to that use for artists. Many of them looking at the property I held many tours. I also spoke with many arts administrators and consultants I spoke with the Arlington Center for the Arts who is a tenant at the central school I, and also other arts organizations in the community. Unfortunately, that's that does not appear to be the right avenue to go down right now. It requires capital, and it requires a structure that allows for one, we need to have a lease with one tenant, not with multiple tenants. So it was hard for that to come together unfortunately and so we had to abandon it. I put the RFP out again, and also received no response. And I think part of the reason is that it's, it's basically a single family home that had been used for school administrative functions for a long time after it had been a single family home. Until the town basically turned the property over to the redevelopment board. And soon thereafter, the tenant that had been at the property up until last summer was in that was at that property, operating a group home, which is of course a residential use so essentially that residential use seems to fit in. Unfortunately, that, you know the use that was going on there, we wanted to pivot and change and look into other possibilities, particularly offices. We had been investigating that market, but due to the fact that a lot of upgrades would be needed in order to accommodate offices and that it's actually a quite sizable property to rent it's about 5400 square feet of rentable space. I couldn't get any interest. Also, we are prior tenant had been paying about a neighborhood of $56,000 a year, including all of the capital costs by the way they made they basically maintained the interior of the property so it was a very, it was a quite a sizable decent situation a decent agreement to be in at that time for quite a long time, that benefited the urban renewal fund, which is basically the fund that supports that property, the central school property and the Jefferson cutter house which is part of the overall, when I say portfolio, those are the three properties that I'm talking about. So, without that tenant it's hard to figure out how to fill that blank, and we're almost into, you know, pretty long time without any, any rent at all, by the way. So, with, as you're familiar with the DPW building, and frankly that whole campus is being renovated in the coming, you know, 18 to 24 months essentially. And obviously they have a need for office space, I had previously looked at the building with other town offices that are being displaced by the high school renovation. Unfortunately, it was just not an appropriate space for the IT department, for example, or the facilities department, and so we then started talking with the DPW staff, and basically their engineering division, as well as the Inspectional Services department, are in need of space, which includes customer facing space, because obviously people come in, typically not, not currently, but typically obviously a lot of people go there for applications and appointments, particularly the Inspectional Services department. But none of the other functions through the DPW would be would be housed at 23 Maple Street so we were really just, you know, looking at the space for those two entities. They are very interested in being housed there during the time that the DPW campus is being renovated. They can pay a modest amount monthly, certainly wouldn't fill that big hole, but it would be something to continue to support the fund, and the general, you know, basic operation of the building. But not any repairs, which is what we've also used the fund for. So, essentially, there's just to keep at this for a little bit longer the, there are six parking spaces that go with this particular building. Those spaces we think would include maybe a couple of spaces that would be very short term for visitors who, you know, are coming and going specifically for the purpose that I just mentioned, when visiting Inspectional Services, and then for spaces that would be reserved for some, some of the employees. Everything else though just like with any other town office that operates at either frankly town hall, or at the central school building where we have a lot of town offices. They would have to figure out where else to park there's not actually any staff parking provided. There are some spaces that are designated staff spots, as you've likely seen, but for the most part, people park along Academy or Maple, sometimes in the town, municipal lots and then also behind the Masonic building. That's generally what what happens with town staff cars, people who drive. And I'm looking for your to understand if you have any, you know, comments or concerns, I know that the two neighbors are here and they've, they've also expressed by email their concerns to me about, you know, particularly idling trucks. That doesn't happen with the, you know, the coming and going and visitors. And, you know, we did talk a little bit about that by email but I want to make sure that the board is would be comfortable with this arrangement for this time period, while the DPW renovation is happening. And then also with a look ahead to maybe thinking about what to do with this property in the long term. I have thoughts about that and I don't think that now is the time to talk about what to do with the property. If it's two years away but we will need to definitely have a deeper conversation about this at a future date. But in the meantime, we have a vacant building that is under our purview, and we have a need by town staff during a renovation to have spaces for their offices so I would like to proceed with having a this lease agreement with the DPW and the services department to provide that option for them for this temporary time. Great. Thank you. Thanks. So I'll run through the board members for any, any comments or questions starting with Jean. What is the temporary time? How long would the lease time? Well, I think we heard from Mike Rademacher and the architect that it's like an 18 to 24 month timeline. That's the best I have.  From my perspective, I mean, I, I'm giving you the 18 to 24 month timeline because that's what they've been communicating both to both basically town meeting as well as to the redevelopment board we actually will be having a hearing on the property. I'm going to forget the date. March. No. Oh, the DPW property. February 22. The next meeting. So I think we'll, I'm sure we'll hear again about the, their projected timeline but again it is projected until they have a, you know, contractor and all that stuff. Yeah, I mean by sort of initial take on it seems like a good short term solution for inspection services and what it was the other department you said would be. Engineering. It's a division within DPW. Yeah, I think one of one of my questions I'm, I know the building from the front I don't know the building from the side of the back is there a handicap accessible entrance to the building. Yeah, there is, there's actually a ramp that goes into the back that's actually where we would have the public facing, like a counter essentially we would need to do some work but there's like it used to be a garage and then it was converted into like a room. So we would just have to do a little bit of retrofitting there's actually an accessible restroom there as well when you first come in. So, yeah, I do need to work on the parking piece though so we've talked about that we would assign a couple of accessible parking spaces as well. Is there a need for more bicycle parking. I mean does it make sense to put bicycle rack there. Is there a space for it in that driveway proper and that prop I would, it's in the historic district so I any change that I make to the exterior I have to approve, have them approve anyway. But maybe across the parking lot. I just across the parking lot is actually more parking. It's basically all parking. I just wondered, I just wondered if it would benefit from some bicycle parking. So, yeah, I'm not saying it's necessary but I think it's worth looking at. I know I totally agree with you the bicycle parking in that vicinity is at the central school. Around the driveway. And I guess the only other thing is, you mentioned idling vehicles. I don't know if that's a problem but clearly the town should be. If it's not, you know, making it pretty clear to the employees that you know there's a five minute rule on idling in the town. So, that shouldn't be happening. Yeah, I think this is a good short term solution and I hope, maybe halfway through the least term, if not sooner. You know, the board and you can have a discussion about what next for the building. Great. Thank you, Jean. Ken. Yeah, I do agree with Jean. I think it's a good fit. I think it's a good place here. I'm just the only question I have is how much renovation are they requiring to suit their suit their needs. It's minimal. Yeah, we, we did an ADA self evaluation and transition plan update last year, which showed us that about, you know, certain level of updates would be needed to make it into public offices. We'll have to pay for those updates, but it's basically, you know, there's not, I wouldn't consider it to be renovations. It's really it's like signage dealing with thresholds. The door has to be replaced. We actually did put in a capital request to update the windows in the building but that's, that's coming into the next fiscal year so if I, if that is secured, then we will be updating the windows, some of the windows in the building, you know, going through the typical process with the historic district first, and then updating those windows. Okay. I mean, I'm glad it's, it's an historic building. I think we want to keep the building there. But if we can fit it, find a nice use for it in the future, be good. Great. Thank you, Ken. David. I have a reasonable use to meet a short term need of town staff. And I also agree with Jean's comments regarding bike parking and the idling issue. So if, if there is an idling issue, that should be something that DPW can take care of because they're already required to comply with state law. Thank you, David. And I didn't have any questions either. I concur with with my colleagues. I'm glad that we've found a solution. Even if it's temporary and as, as the halfway point of the lease approaches, it would be great to talk about, you know, how potentially we could position the property in the future. Great. We do have a couple of neighbors. I don't know if they want to ask any questions. So. Great. So at this point, I will open it up for public comments so that if any of the neighbors do wish to speak. We would certainly welcome, welcome them to do so. So if you, if you would like to speak, please use the raise hand button under the participant section, and I'd be happy to call on you. Great. So we have shirish Hirani. Yes. Good evening. We live right across from 23 maple street. So I just wanted to actually thank Jenny for giving us posted on the events that are taking place at 23 maple street and really appreciate her openness in discussing our concerns with what may be coming into that property. Actually, as a neighborhood have discussed prior to this evening's meeting and our real concerns were to do with traffic and idling trucks. And I'm glad you made note of that. I will tell you that even though if you say that it's a state law but somehow DPW at Arlington doesn't like to turn off their trucks. I mean, that's life I guess but so hopefully you can address that with them. So thank you. Thank you for speaking and for acknowledging the work that Jenny and the department have done to to work with you that's great to hear. Thank you for sharing that. Any other neighbors wishing to speak. Okay, seeing none we will have one more Max Mahoney. Thank you again for addressing this issue we've had problems with this property over the last couple of years. And I'm glad to see that it's Jenny's put a lot of effort into kind of the next move and use for this property. One of the things I will point out in addition to all the safeguards that I think Jenny has kind of talked about. The last tenant was subject to a lease that was either it was poorly drafted, and it did not really fit the activity that was going on at the, at the property in many, many ways. And I was just hoping that whatever use and this proposed use that Jenny and you guys are talking about seems very reasonable under the circumstances, especially because it is a kind of short to intermediate term. The use of the property that it that it is subject to a written lease that the board actually get approves I think that's an important thing that it just can't be an unwritten tenancy at will I think it should be go through some some bit of in terms of putting a lease in writing putting a on a denim or an exhibit on it as to what we all expect the use of the property to be in terms of the number of cases, the traffic, the hours of use, very simple fences around kind of the use of the property will it be open on Saturdays and Sundays, what the hours are simple things like that that weren't really covered in the last lease. I'm just voicing my concern and expectation that there would be some type of written lease that we can at least all get a look at before this tenancy actually begins and I'm hoping that you would address that either now or offline at your next meeting. Great, thank you Jenny, would you like to address the question and comments about the lease. I mean it's a it's a town department. So it's a, we, we actually have other town departments in like the central school building as I mentioned, without a lease. In this particular case what I would like to put together is is sort of elite elite version of a lease that the lease that Max is referring to is our model lease that the town uses basically for all properties so I would need to work with our town council on something that makes sense and of course that addresses the issues that have been raised. Those issues do tend to get addressed through the model lease process but can of course be better defined, which I think was missing from the last lease for the last tenant of this property. And I think I'd need to speak with council about what we would actually put together and typically what happens is you assign me the authority to enter into that lease on behalf of the board. I would be more than happy to, to work with Council Heim, and also, you know, I'm just trying to think of the timeline. I think we can try to do that and come back to the next meeting and hopefully at some point in between now and then share something with the neighbors to make sure it captures some of the issues that have been raised here and also in correspondence, emailed to me. Do you think we can move back just from the boy's from the board's perspective. Absolutely, I think if we, you know, that I think the discussion was great tonight and if, if the next step forward would be to authorize you in the town to move forward with executing the lease at the next meeting that that sounds like, like a good next step. Any other thoughts on that as a next step. Any of the board members looks like we have agreement. Okay. Great. Great. Thank you. And thank you, Shell and Max for speaking. Great. And on behalf of the board, thank you, Jenny. It sounds like you've done a lot of work with the, with the neighbors and keeping them informed and looking at every which way to try and position this property. Thank you for all of that, that, that work get to this point. We're very lucky to have very nice neighbors on Maple Street and and Academy as well. Very lucky. All right, so that will close item two on our agenda. The next item. There was actually, there, there was actually one, one other piece. I'll be super brief. It's just that the renovation is still in progress. It's, we're actually now starting to do the ground and first floor rough, sort of rough carpentry work and things are really starting to come together. Various, you know, things are really moving forward. The second floor is now occupied with health and human services. And I was just, I want to put out there that I'm happy to, if the board, if individual board members would like to have their own tour with somebody from the construction crew to see what's going on over there. I wouldn't obviously not as a group. Not, there's no gathering of people but if you are interested in learning more or seeing more details, you can get in touch with me and I'd be happy to arrange something. If you're not comfortable going there I'd be happy to do like walk through with my with, you know, on video or whatever would be, you know, helpful. So, the photos of the project, basically keeping the permanent town building committee posted regularly. Our owners project manager the OPM attends those meetings to provide updates on our behalf as well as get approvals of, you know, requisitions and change orders and all that stuff but so a lot of a lot of correspondence has been been communicated to that committee, but I want to make sure that the board, if there's any interest in seeing what's going on has the opportunity to do that so if you're interested just please let me know. Great. Thank you, Jenny, can we on on schedule on budget. Yes. That's all you know. On schedule with the exception of coven which delayed the beginning of the project so we're behind in that way but ever since we started the project now we're on schedule. Yeah, the three months is delays. Yes, but good job. Thank you, but we have an excellent OPM and actually we have a really great contractor. Cronen burger and sons, as well as an architect who's doing, they're all doing great work. They seem really good. Yeah, and I will not. I want to make sure I mentioned facilities has been really critical to making this all work. It's a great way for the town and for the building that has, you know, a lot of need for up had a lot of need for updates so it's great that they've been very engaged. Great thank you. David or Jean any questions. This is a not sort of a tangential question a couple years ago I think we voted to change the name to the community center or something like that, but people still call it the central school and some people still call it the senior center. Is that ever going to change or is it going to be the, yeah, I mean the, the health and human services calls it the community center as do the council on aging. And I think that for the purposes of signage at the building, it will reflect the community center but we have other building tenants there who also require signage. And so we're trying to honor that with a sign that says what the building is, but then makes it clear the other tenants that are located there. And to that point we actually currently have to. And they were supposed to be temporary signs that have been there probably for about two years now for the Arlington Center for the arts that also will be will need to change and for that I've been working with the historic districts commission actually on this approval process. But if we have to install another sign more permanently. I would actually need to come back to the board. So I haven't, we haven't gotten there yet but yes the name of the building. I don't know what to, I don't know what to do about the, the history of what people prefer to call it or like to call it. Yeah, I think some signage when the building is done would probably be helpful. Yeah, there will definitely be a sign. Yeah, not the old sign, a new sign. Great thank you Jean David did you have any questions. Nope. Okay. So agenda item number two Jenny. All right. So now I'll move us on to agenda item number three, which is the review and approval of the meeting minutes from the October 28 2020 meeting. So I will start with you Jean, and we'll run through and see if there are any additions or corrections. Yeah, I have to give me a second here as like had it up on my screen disappeared for a second. I have to on the first page of the minutes. The second paragraph about 123. I think the name of the firm is Western and Samson not Westford. Somebody might check on that on page three. The large paragraph near the end just before Mr. Low. Said that starts the chair asked the board, the last word of that first sentence should be worded instead of work. You see that says the chair asked the board to review and comment than the article starting with article 16 Mr Watson said, he's not supportive of this article as it should be worded. I just changed it. Yeah.  I guess. Yeah, I guess I'll just say, you know, I know COVID is sort of slowed everything down. It's hard to remember October board meetings. For the details. We're a little behind meeting minutes. Apologies. Ken, any additions corrections. Yeah, on page four. Near the middle. Was there Mr. Law there or is that me. Isn't that an alternative spelling. No. Anything else can. I thought I had one. Nope, that's it. Great. David. Yes, I had a few corrections back on page three, where Jean made a change the sentence after the one. It should read. Mr Watson said. The term. Quotation open space close quote quotation open. Yeah, open space. Is used as a term of art. And many other, and we would be using it. Oh, we would be using different terminology. So, delete it as. Okay, that's that one. Page at the top. Mr Watson said there is a larger conversation that sentence. It's an affordable housing account starting with the word account. Delete to the end of the parentheses. Including the word account. And that process is ongoing. Then the next sentence. Mr Watson said that if the ARB makes substantial changes to the article. I guess it could be vote. But I think I was talking about the language specifically. And then in the next paragraph. Can we just not leave that paragraph because one word needs to be changed. And the second line, I think you need to take out hand. Second lines with regarding affordable housing. Oh yeah, you're right. Regarding and yeah, and affordable housing. Get rid of Ann. You're right. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. In the middle. Or it says Mr Watson said that he supports the idea of ADUs. But his concern is that if ADUs and then add. As broadly defined by this proposal. Then one more. A little bit further down in that paragraph. Mr Watson said that his concern. Just delete the words that his concern. Okay. Thank you, David. The only change I had was actually on page one. In the second paragraph. Roughly the, the sixth line where it says Mr. At the end of the. On the far right hand side that should be miss. Miss rate. Anything else. All right. Do we see. Do we have a motion to approve the meeting minutes as amended. Okay. Second. Any discussion. All right, we'll take a roll call vote. Ken. Yes. David. Yes. Jean. Yes. And I'm yes as well. The meeting minutes are approved as amended. And that brings us that closes agenda item number three. And brings us to agenda item number four, which is open forum. And the meeting minutes are approved. Thank you. On any topic. To the redevelopment board is welcome to do so. If you would like to speak, please use the raise hand function under participants. And I will call on you in the order. In which hands are raised. You will have three minutes. Please remember to introduce yourself with your first and last name and address. The first person will be Don Seltzer. Thank you, Madam chair. Don Seltzer Irving street. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your information regarding the William Clark house. Otherwise known as 400 mass F. At a previous special permit hearing, I pointed out that the applicant was claiming that the two existing apartments were each single bedroom. That is not correct. They are each two bedrooms. And you can just check the assessors card for this property. It wasn't a big deal at the time. But it did trigger a memory of former president of the historical society. Ron shorn lived in one of those apartments about 30 years ago. My wife and I were friends with Ron and Marcy. And we visited their second floor apartment. At 400 mass F. There was no circular staircase in their living room back then. There was no expansion up to the third floor. It was just a simple one bedroom apartment only on the second floor. I researched the records and found out that what exists today far exceeds what the zoning board has specified in a special permit in 1980. Roof dormers were have been added on in front. The roof has been raised in the rear and skylights added. Both apartments have been expanded into this new third force space. The ZBA special permit approved a plan with a floor area ratio of 0.72. Within the bylaw limit of 0.75. The building as it stands today has a four area ratio of 1.16 exceeding what is allowed under the bylaw by 50%. This EPA never gave permission for this excessive expansion. The only development board hasn't given its permission. And remarkably, there were no building permits issued for this work during that period. Bylaws and special permits are not just voluntary suggestions. They're meant to be complied with. It would seem that the applicant has some explaining to do to this board. The ZBA and to the building inspector. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. Can I ask Mr. Seltzer a question? Please, Jean. Are you reporting this to the building inspector whose job it is to enforce? I have just pulled together this information with the last few days and I expect to be writing to both the building inspector and the ZBA since they are the ones who issued the original. And I'm not sure who has more jurisdiction here. I think all three of you probably do. Thank you. Certainly. Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak this evening? Seeing none. We will close the open forum. Any other items from the board before we adjourn the meeting? Ken. I'd ask at the last meeting that. If we give me an update of some of the products we approved over the last couple of years and where the status of that is. Can we get that put into the agenda. Or the next meeting or the following meeting or whatever their space. Yeah, that, that was the agenda. That was asked to be put on the agenda for the 22nd. So it will be on that agenda. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't know what one it was. And I wasn't sure. Not a problem. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Jenny. And thank you, Ken. Any other. Items from the, from the board. All right. Seeing none. Do we have a motion to adjourn this evening? So motion. Second. Any discussion. All right, we'll take a roll call vote. Ken. Yes. David. Yes. Keen. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight. Good evening. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good evening. Thank you. Good night. Good night. Good night.


Hello, everyone, welcome back to another AI video. In this one, I'm going to show you how to create free and unlimited amount of logos, icons, anything, pretty much. And I'm also going to show you how to fix them. So when you create the logo, for example, you might get some background or you might get some text on it. It doesn't look right. What we're going to do is we're going to combine text to image, and we're going to combine generative fill, and we're going to use the two tools together to create free stuff. Now, before I go any further, I want you to know that I'm in my free account. All you got to do to do this is just click on adobe.com, get a free account. And just to show you that I'm working with that, it says upgrade your free plan today. So again, this is a free account. Anybody can have this. And I'm in Canada. There might be some countries it doesn't work for. But I don't think so. So here we go. We are in Firefly. I'll put a link in the description below. The first step to create your free logo, for example, click on text to image here and then just click on this generate button. Here we go. You can see a whole bunch of cool looking images. But what we want here is the bottom is the prompt bar. We're just going to go ahead and type in something. So I'm going to go bulldog logo for a coffee company. Something simple like that. I just want to show you the technique. I don't want to do any prompt engineering type fancy dancy stuff. So there you go. I hit bulldog for a logo, bulldog logo for a coffee company. Look at that. These are great logos. Do note that it has applied on the right side here. I'll quickly show you. It has done it in a square, which is generally ideal for a logo, although four or five isn't so bad either. But we've got a square logo, but if you wanted it to look different, you can go ahead and change the aspect ratio. Also it has selected the art content type. You can do it with a photo or none or graphic, but art is generally pretty good. And then you can also go ahead and apply different styles and colors. So I'll just quickly show you. If you wanted it to have like a pop art type look, or maybe any of these other ones, 3D art, you can go ahead and experiment with all of these. They are free as well as some of these techniques and effects. I won't go too far down that rabbit hole, but I do want you to know that they are there. Also, you can adjust some of the coloring as well right here. So if you wanted cooler colors, vibrant colors, et cetera, lighting and composition. I'll let you experiment with that. I want to show you now how to go to the next step. So let's say for argument sake, I like all of these actually, but this one here, I'm going to go with this one. And the reason why I chose this one is because it looks like it has some kind of writing here at the bottom, which doesn't really fit. Sometimes it does a logo, but then you get the text, which also raises an interesting question, is Adobe using, where are they getting this text from? How are they doing this experiment? So look at this. I've gone ahead and clicked on this, but we can go a step further. If I go up here to the top, look at that. You'll see here when I hover over here at the top left, it says generative fill. It also has show similar, but for this one, we're going with generative fill. So I'm going to click on that, and now watch what happens. It now takes me to the generative fill workflow, and now I'm just going to go ahead and I'm just going to reduce the size of my brush and watch this. I'm just going to sort of color this out. Let's just move it a little bit here. I'm going to color it out. You don't have to be super exact, but I just want to show you the technique. So if you get a logo that you like, but it's got a bunch of text in it and it's kind of like melted in and you don't want it, let's just do something like that. And now I can type something in here if I wanted to say something, but if I just want it to fix it, I'm just going to click on generate and watch this. We're going to get some examples. And this is a combination of text to image and generative fill, all done and bang, that is awful. Let's click on the second one, awful, third one, not so good, fourth one, fit better. Okay, we don't like it. Let's just click on the more button. Let's run it again. What we're basically looking for is we just kind of want to get rid of that ugliness and make it into a good looking logo with no text. So there we go. This one's actually manageable. I don't mind that we could keep it. And again, we have the option. If we want to, we can just go over it again and then we can keep doing this until we get the look that we want. So I'll just click on generate again. It's going to give me four more examples. Let's see if we get a better one this time. Come on Adobe Firefly. This one is not too bad. This one is correct. So we could keep that one and presto. And if you need to make any changes, you can of course color it up in Photoshop or Illustrator or any online free tool. But this is how you create logos. You can create an unlimited amount of logos using Adobe Firefly. Thanks for watching.


Maybe you've heard of the legend of Granny Bird and her prize winning jam But I bet you haven't heard her secret Those who have know the best thing to do is Run!


TESOL jobs in the Middle East General information for the TESOL teacher the countries that comprised the bulk of the Middle East include Dubai and the rest of the UAE Bahrain Israel Palestine Kuwait Lebanon Oman Qatar Saudi Arabia Syria and Yemen as a region It has many stark contrasts the oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE Offer generous salaries and very pleasant living facilities at the other end of the scale Palestine on account of its Difficulties attracts few TESOL teachers even within the oil-rich states one can find considerable contrast For example Qatar is engaged in a program of rigorous Westernization Including the free availability of alcohol However in Saudi Arabia one is dealing with very much more in Islamic State In general TESOL teachers report of the region that the salaries are considerable However, there is very little to do hence It is a region dominated by the hardcore professional TESOL teacher out to make a good living and build up some savings And then perhaps move on somewhere else It should also be noted that in many states single women are at a serious disadvantage Posts are often advertised for single males only or to married couples A woman may for example be able to teach in Saudi But she won't be able to drive a car or go out without being clothed from head to foot The oil economy has meant that English is a necessity Even if it is sometimes grudgingly accepted as such on the other hand In places like Qatar it is becoming the first language and is part of a great move forward With all this said there is in general a great deal of opportunity for well-compensated work in very good conditions Teaching given the high salaries in the region It is not surprising that the highest qualifications are demanded Not simply a TESOL qualification But also an undergraduate degree and often in Mayan TESOL are comparative linguistics and three years is teaching experience The irony being that you may need all that baggage just to teach high school children elementary English Outside of the official education system There is a plethora of language institutes and these tend to be on the lookout for well-presented Confident candidates and and of course all the qualifications you can muster will help you gravitate to the better institutes Another thing to be aware of is that many companies run in-house English language training And these tend to be the better paid more stable and predictable posts One of the peculiarities of the region is that students even in a group of 30 feel they have an individual Relationship with the teacher and that their questions should be answered immediately Even if 20 students have just asked the same questions Some TESOL teachers complain that nine years of high school English appears to have taken little hold on the students Who often have very rudimentary problems What this means is that you may have to work and be prepared to innovate and adapt in order to qualify for the substantial salaries on offer Visas and regulations The visa situation varies with each Middle Eastern state One should inquire with the relevant consulate in your home country And at the same time make it clear that you wish to go and teach This may yield some useful leads in general in order to get a visa One should be ready to submit copies of education certificates a blood test and medical report and a resumer cv Tourist visas for most of these countries are very difficult to get Your visa requirements and entitlements will depend on what your country of origin has fixed up with the host country Think about also what you have to do to renew your visa All the way back home or does a cross border trip do nicely How many times can you renew your how can this be converted into a work permit? Think also about exit and reentry visas often required in the region You might like to take a holiday to Bahrain from Saudi. What does the exit and reentry visa cost? What is the process popular destinations? Bahrain is probably the most liberal of the oil states and is such attracts many tesal teachers including women Israel has such a high proportion of expat english speakers that there is not much of a market Palestine is really for the person wanting to do a bit of good rather than earn any money There are a great many voluntary agencies active in the area and this is the best route to teaching in the region In Kuwait salaries are not quite as high as they once were However, there are many organizations seeking to lure highly qualified teachers to the country Lebanon is trying hard to recover from its war and is looking toward a fruitful future English looks set to overtake French as the official second language Much to the chagrin of the French and whilst salaries are not high There is a lot of opportunity for the less well qualified tesal teacher in Oman a very peculiar situation exists Where most of the expat teachers are from the Sudan, Sri Lanka, India and North Africa Historically it has been the case that few westerners have had much of a look in nevertheless There is a fast expanding tesal market and it is worth having a go Qatar is a tiny desert country bordering the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia It is experiencing great growth in the tesal market Although Arabic is the official language English is widely spoken and in 2003 the authorities announced sweeping reforms placing english in front of Arabic in the school curriculum It's a very wealthy state and offers some of the best packages around for tesal teachers In Saudi Arabia expatriate packages are still very attractive But as in all the oil-rich states you may just as easily find yourself teaching local bureaucrats as school children Much the same as other oil states you will probably find yourself living on in an expatriate compound With good facilities and a good standard of living but not a whole lot to do At the other end of the scale Syria is a poor country and whilst there are many opportunities available in the growing tesal market Salaries are rather low for the region Finally Yemen is considered by many to be the most beautiful and intriguing countries in the region That said salaries are again not that great However many find its history and culture very engaging Getting a job if you are thinking about the middle east then a modicum of preparation prior to setting out will pay dividends Think of not one country But the whole region you may come to value mobility once you hit this part of the world Hence it is a very good idea to contact all of the middle eastern embassies in your country of origin Inquiring about teaching and visas and see what you get back You will find that you have a nice big file folder of leads and information That will vary from country of origin to country of origin embassy to embassy Due to visa restrictions, it is practically impossible to get a job on the spot You need to fix up the post in advance and there are a number of avenues You can pursue in order to achieve this many embassies in the region act as recruiting agents for their home country Hence the advice above in addition to this the british council is active in all of the countries in the region And may be able to provide you with a list of schools in your chosen country Hence one of the best and most realistic propositions is to build a working life based around a contract That gives you a work permit and then bearing mind that revenue from privates can double a teacher's income One should always be on the lookout for private students, whatever one's employment or visa status The market for those wanting private tuition or conversation practice is huge and potentially very lucrative Therefore not be neglected Give yourself time to build a portfolio of work This is best safeguard to both your income and employment status