 Good evening. My name is not Christian Klein as those of us who know Christian in a test, but I am Pat Hanlon and I am the acting chair of the Arlington zoning board of appeals at least for the first part of this evening. And I'm calling this meeting to order. I'd like to confirm that all members and anticipated officials are present. Members of the zoning board of appeals Roger DePont here. Daniel Rickidelli here. And I'm here. We're expecting Venkat Holy. And imminently. And so he will, I will be able to join us in just a few minutes. In terms of town officials. Colleen Walston. Zoning assistant. Here. Colleen, do you know if Vincent Lee is here? I do not think he's here. And I believe that Rick. So I'd like to then go down the list of the people appearing for the applicants. Appearing for 189 forestry. Is Ilya. He had indicated that he may not be. Appearing for 79 Dothan street, Adam and Jessica. Jessica Markowitz. Here. Yeah, it's actually 75 Dothan street. What did I say? 79. I stand corrected. I'm sorry. It's all right. It's on. Come to get our appeal. We're happy. That's right. Appearing for 212 Pleasant street. Here. Nellie. Nellie Aiken head. Appearing for 20 Hobbs court. Bob and a CD. Yes. Good to see you again. Good to see you as well. So we'll go through the usual preliminaries. This open meeting of the Arlington. Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely. Consistent with an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations signed into law. On July 16th, 2022. This act includes an extension until March 31st, 2023 of the remote meeting. Provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020. Executive orders suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. Which suspended the requirement to hold all meetings in a publicly acceptable physical location. Public bodies may continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location. So long as they provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. Public bodies may meet remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. An opportunity for public participation will be provided during the public comment period. During each public hearing. For this meeting, the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals has convened a video conference via the zoom application with on-site and telephone access as listed on the agenda posted to the town's website. Identifying how the public may join. This meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcast by ACMI. Please be aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means. Some attendees are participating by video conference. Others are participating by computer audio or by telephone accordingly. Please be aware that other folks may be able to see you. Your screen name or another identifier. Please take care to not share any personal information. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask that you please maintain the quorum during the meeting including the display of inappropriate background. Supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website. Unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along the posted agenda. As chair, I reserve the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting as the board will be taking up new business at this meeting. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting. As chair or acting chair, I make the following land acknowledgement. Whereas the zoning board of appeals for the town of Arlington, Massachusetts discusses and arbitrates the use of land and Arlington. Formerly known as monotony and Algonquin, working in swift waters. The board hereby acknowledges that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe. The tribe of the digitized peoples from whom the colony province and commonwealth. Have taken their names. We pay our respects. To the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe. And to their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories. Today. The. Agenda. Has several hearings scheduled tonight. We'll go through each. One of these. The first one. The first one. We'll go through each. One of these. The first one that is scheduled is docket. Number 37, 31, 189 forestry. This has already been heard. And it was continued tonight to give the. Applicant time to provide material in response to the. Extensive testimony that occurred at the original hearing. The next meeting that we have. Is March. The applicant who. Unless he's recently arrived is not here. Requested a. Continuance. By a letter to the board. Asking. To give him the opportunity greater opportunity to. Respond to the various issues that both the board and the people who spoke at that hearing. Raised. January of 2020. March of 2020. March of 2020. I'm. And. Terrell entertain a motion. To continue this public hearing until. date certain of March 28th at seven PM or as soon thereafter. As the matter may be heard. So moved. Second move by Mr. Dupont as their second, I can second. By Mr. Rick Adelly. Let's. Take the vote. Mr. Mr. Riccardelli. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. And the chair votes aye. And the motion carries. I know many of you who were here and there's a great deal of interest in this. And I look forward to seeing you, seeing you all were at least many of you next month. But we won't proceed any further with 189 forestry this evening. The next item on the agenda. And the next item on the agenda. We'll be. Got it. Number 3733. 212. Pleasant street. And there's a substantial number of people who are from sugar to discuss this one. As well. And the second head. Are you going to do the presentation for this? Yes, I can do that. We are looking. It's an 800. And a basement. We are looking to do an addition. And put on a second floor, which would bring it up to just under 2200 square feet. And because we're increasing the total living area by more than 50%, we need to get the special permit. I can answer any questions. That's the board has. Yeah. Are there any questions from the board? Mr. Chairman. If I may. I know, and, and I suspect that the applicant hasn't had the. Benefit of seeing some comments that had been sent to the board members. Regarding this proposal. And I guess the question is, have the applicant seen this? Because I know that a couple of questions were raised by planning. And I'm just going to say what was in this email. So that you can comment, but one of them was whether or not it would be two or two and a half stories. And that was asked to be clarified. Because there was a question as to whether the proposed basement would be a story. And the second issue is an observation. And I'm just going to make a comment on the part of a morris allow, saying that there is some amount of usable open space. On the property. And the question then is, because she said that the application doesn't provide a calculation. To show that the proposal meets the 30% open space. And so there is that question as to whether or not that 30% open space requirement is met. So I guess I would just leave those out as issues that have been cited by the planning department. Okay, so I did actually get that memo at 545 tonight. I do have the calculations for the open space. It is, I believe well over the required minimum. I did submit it to the town. On January 8th, but I don't think it made its way out to the board, perhaps so I could share my screen. If you want to see that, I did email it back to, I think it was Colleen this evening. So she also has it in her email. Now, is this the, there is a calculation that, that shows the end, the staff materials that we've been given that shows that usable open space is about 175% of the gross floor area of the house. As you're proposing it is the calculation that you have done different from, from that, you know, I mean, I calculated it just sit here. I have it showing as 28% unusable, 56% usable and 15% open space landscaped for a total of 100%. Okay, well, maybe be helpful if you just go through the figures for the, for the board. Yeah, I'd like to share the screen if that's okay. That would be perfectly fine. Colleen, can you help her do that? All set. Okay, thank you. Do you see this or should I make it bigger? If you made it a little bigger, it would help those of us hope for 70. And me too, because I can hardly read it. Make it bigger, please. Oh, that's better. Is that okay? I can do it. Okay. So I think they have the existing GFA. 822 and we have the proposed 21 75. And then we have the, the footprint of the house with 822 going to 1176. The parking area is getting a little bit bigger from 480 to 638. And I, there's a little bit more steps to the front door. In terms of walkway, there's a little bit more steps to the side door. The sheds, they're going to be the same. So. Okay. I think that's about 29%. We're unusable. Okay. Could we, could you get out in the, in, in number 16. Rows 16. Yeah. I take it that the figure there for. The use of the open space. Is that's the 3,800 and 11.25. Correct. 56%. Okay. I think that's, that's, that's where I think it came from. Yeah, yeah. This is all everything. This is in the application. Okay. So then if you look at the next line. The person has a percentage of the GFA, which is what's relevant for usable open space for us. It indicates that that's 175%. Oh, I see. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. And that would be considerably more than 30%. That's required. Correct. It's a huge amount of open space. Honestly, it's a, it's a pretty big lot with a pretty small house. And there's. Minimal hard services. Right. Okay. So maybe we, the second question. Is. Is one that. That is a little harder to answer from the application materials. As I understand it, the. House sort of backs into is in an honest on a hill and. On the basement level, the front part of it or a part of it on the, on one is sort of almost not. Buried at all and, and much of it. And then it goes back into the hill. So in the back. Or when I'm calling the back. It's quite a bit. And the question is whether or not. That. Meets the zoning definition. The zoning bylaws definition of the stores. And I wonder if it does, then you have a three-story building instead of a two-story building. And that will create a difficulty here with the half story requirement for the, on the third story. So I wondered if you could. If you're in a position to address that. Marissa basically asked. The building department to do that, but this will have came to us. Late enough that we have not gotten a building. Building department determination. Right. So I mean, you'll have to, I guess. Turn to them for their expertise. I did go into the building department in September. I did talk to Rick. We did look at my. The plans, which has a very steep grade to the back of the building, which is on this fight. On the side does have the exposed basement, but it goes up very quickly. And he, at that time, and it was informal. So I'm not holding him to it. Did say that. We didn't have. Of story down in the basement. I did do some calculations, which I think are in my application. I did that calculation. That you have with like the seller versus basement. I came out with seller myself. But he'd have to verify that. Okay. So. So your view is basically that not only is it not a beat. That it's neither a seller nor a basement. The definition of the seller I guess is. Is. A. B under a two. Yeah. Seller is less than half of the building height is above the, is above the. Finished average. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. You go ahead. Well, the question is the question there would be a gather. A basement is one where the, the amount of the. Above the average finished grade is more than half. And. And the seller would be less than half. So that's something that we'll have to leave open for the time being. I think. My calculations say it's a little bit under half, but. I guess Rick will have to weigh in or somebody. Mr. Yeah, I'm actually sort of. Going through the definitions. In the bylaw. And I don't know that this actually adds anything to the conversation. As far as what you've just read Pat regarding the definition of a basement. But it goes on to say in the definition of story that a basement. Is more than half of the average finished grade. And I don't know what six inches or more. Above the finished grade. And I guess the question then that. Is supposed as what is the finished grade. If you have a slope. Right. And so I think that is exactly where we need the building department. To chime in. So I guess I just, I don't know the answer. From either of those definitions in the bylaw. Right. I agree with that analysis. I, I have an average grade of 14.75. I did run it by the building department in September again, but you're right that you'll have to run it by them again. I think there was one other comments I wanted to make on the memo that came out today. Which says in the first paragraph that. We are increasing the floor area from 822 to 2175, which is approximately at 265% increased. There's a mathematical error or a typo in there. It's a hundred and 65% increase. I don't know if it matters, but I would like to make sure that that's correct. Okay. Yeah, I, I, you can see what she did is instead of measuring the delta over the toes. Exactly. The whole thing. Exactly. So. No, they're in a lot of in the. In the application. There's a great deal of history in this case so far. You've been before various other boards, the. The historic district commission you've been before. Concom and there's some other things that you've posed in this property that are designed to achieve environmental benefits and so forth. And then. I wonder if it may be a useful thing for you to expand a little bit on those beyond what stated in the bear. The bear lines of the application form. Sure. So we can keep it as low as we can. The roof line is 26. We're also planning to make it as energy efficient as possible. We're going to go all electric. We're going to have triple pane windows. We're going to have a heat pump. Hopefully ducted heat pump system. Ventilation system. ERB or HRB. And we're trying to achieve a really low hers rating. So it will be, you know, a building that doesn't have any. Greenhouse gases and is kind of a modern. Energy efficient structure. And the hope is to add solar to you. Further. Increase. Right. We are. Yeah, we are talking. We've already talked to a solar company. We have to go back to the historic district commission to get the solar panels approved. But. I think they would be approved. We're also doing some. Regrating of the parking. We don't have any driveway because we have no access, but we have parking. We're re grading it so that. The runoff will go away from a spy pond as opposed to what it currently does, which is go towards spy pond. We have a set of steps that go down to the pond, which we are also going to similarly. They regrade to help with drainage and erosion. And we are going to do way down by the pond. We have about a 25 foot wide swath of native plants that will help. Reduce runoff and also provide fruit and berries for the birds. And we're getting rid of all the invasives. At present, do you have approval from those two bodies? The conservation commission and the. HTC that you need to move forward or is there something. We have everything except for the solar panels, which would be an add on, which we need. Historic district commission approval floor. We have approvals for the house, the building, the landscape, the patio, the decks, everything from both entities. Okay. So is there any other, are there any other questions? From the board, from the applicant, Mr. Chair. Mr. Rick. I was just wondering. You know, from my benefit and maybe also for the benefit of other people who are interested in the hearing. Would it be okay to ask the applicant to just give us a brief walkthrough of the plan on the project? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just wanted to just give us a brief. Walkthrough of the plans and elevations they submitted. So we just make sure we understand. The design. Sure. Sure. Do you want me to. So. Miss Braxton can do that. Okay. We shared the screen again. Yes. She should still have access. Oh yeah. Okay. We do commute. So do you want to like. I'll show you the outside. You probably don't care about the inside. So this is the side of the building that's facing pleasant street. You can't see it from pleasant street, but the neighbors will be able to see this. This is a slope roof. So this isn't in the second story. This is about 26 feet high. It's flat. And you'll see later. This is a slope roof. This is a slope roof. This is a slope roof. This will be on the pond side. We're hoping not on this side. So as to be less. Obvious from the street side. This would be the right side of the building. If you're going down the driveway. You see the slope roof. This is the 26 feet. This right here is the addition. And this is the rear of the building. So the rear is you. It does look a lot bigger, but it's not as big as the other side. So this is the two sides of the building. This is the two sides of the building. This is the two sides by pond. So we tried really, if you see here to tuck it down low. For the neighbors. And then in the back where it's less visible is where we have a little bit more height in total. And this is the other side of the building. Did you want me to go over any additional details? Mr. No, that's, that's very helpful. Just on the, I think on the end sheet. Just the area of the addition, just. That would be great. So they're, so this, so they, this is pleasant street way up here. We come down like this, this little L shape thing is the 822 feet. Currently there. And if you go down this square here is the addition. So this is 150. And this is the L. This whole space is empty backyard usable open space. Could you explain how you, what is the arrangement for getting, for getting in, right? That's a problem we haven't totally solved. So, so we have, we have access. You can easily drive a car down there or pickup truck. I'm going to see if I can scroll it over. So here's pleasant street. We have a right of way down here. This, this belongs to these people. We have a right of way here. And we have a right of way here. So we can get in there. Getting a concrete truck in there is going to be. Difficult to impossible. So we're looking at what alternatives we have. It's pretty tight. There's just a construction issue. Yeah. Not a living issue. Right. Mr. Is there anything more? No, that's, that's very clear. Thank you. I want to point out one thing that this is the parking area that's currently. For me. And this is what we're going to change to. This is a public hearing. And before opening the public. Part of it. I wanted to give you some ground rules for effective and clear contact at tonight's business. I'm going to start with the public comment. After I announced the item and had the applicant. Introduces themselves and, and given the presentation. They just did. I'll now open the meeting to public comment. Public questions and comments will only be taken as they relate to the matter at the end. They should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing our decision and not directly to the applicant. Members of the public will be granted time to ask directions and make comments. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the participant tab in the zoom application. Those calling in by phone, please dial nine to indicate that you would like to speak. You will be called upon by the meeting host. You will be asked to give your name and address. And you will be given time for your questions and comments. All questions are to be addressed through the chair. And please remember to speak clearly. Anyone wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing. The chair will allow those wishing to speak for the first time to speak first. Once all public questions and comments have been addressed or the allocated time has ended. Public comment period will be closed. The board and staff will do our best to show documents. That are being discussed. There are quite a few people who are here tonight and it could be a relatively long night. So I'd encourage people to. Be as focused as they can and avoid if possible. Repetition of what others are saying and focus in on what you have to add that hasn't been said yet. That being the case. The beginning of the public hearing. The first person I have up is John Garber. Great. Thanks. Thanks so much. I'll try to keep it brief here. But just first want to thank certainly the zoning board of appeals for having us at this meeting and giving us a chance to all comment. I really appreciate that. My name is John Garber and I live with my wife Sabrina. We moved into the house actually in June 2017. And then just a few weeks before our twins were born. This is our first home. And we plan to make this our home forever. You know, moving into this house and the birth of our, of our children are so completely linked in our experience that we measure how long we've been here by the end of the house. Our kids are five and a half. You know, they've spent their entire lives in this. You know, quiet sort of wonderful pocket of a neighborhood. That is near spy pond. And for them, it's been and for us, it's been absolutely filled with light. Air nature. And I think most importantly with neighbors really that it become, you know, our best best friends. So. I do want to just, I think the key point that I want to emphasize is that, you know, we're, we're, we're not experts in this process. This is our first house. This is our first process. We just, you know, are not at all experts. And we really need, need a little bit more time. You know, we, we received the notice that there was. You know, that the owner of two houses. Was requesting a special permit. We received that notice, I think on Friday afternoon. So, you know, we had, you know, in essence about two business days. If you include, include today and, and, you know, Dan, thanks so much for just kind of, you know, requesting kind of a high level walkthrough with some of what's been proposed because I do, I do think it's important. I mean, the changes that are proposed. You know, they're really quite, quite significant. You know, we, we received the notice that there was a, you know, We received the notice that there was a, you know, you know, You know, they're really quite, quite significant. You know, we'll more than double the gross flurry from 800 over 2000 square feet. And I think as Nellie, of course, walked, walked us through this will include adding, you know, an additional floor will include expanding out beyond the existing footprint by 350 square feet on both the first and second level. And I think the one thing as we look at this plan that's in the, you know, the existing structure at 212 and what, what is proposed as part of this project. And all in relation to the property lines, but I think what's missing here is how this relates to the, the actual houses that are all around at all sides of this, of this, of this house. And, you know, we really feel that we can't really convey how close together the existing homes are and really kind of how sort of discordant the scale of this project would be with the neighboring houses and how much this may potentially impact our neighborhood. So, you know, I think given the, the scale of the proposed changes, I think we really do need a little bit more time to fully understand how this, you know, how this, this, the proposal will impact us and, you know, how it might impact our quality of life and the character of our neighborhood. So, you know, we did do our best to put together kind of a letter that would, you know, from, from each of the neighboring properties and collectively and on very short notice and we did submit that I don't know if it made it into the materials. I hope the board can, can have a chance to review that we would really appreciate it. I just, I don't want to take a lot of time, but I do want to just maybe highlight just a few high level points from that. You know, I think we just now tried to understand what, what, you know, are the conditions in which, you know, an exception to the town bylaws are granted. And I think one of the key themes that kept coming up was, you know, whether those changes would be essential and, and overall beneficial to the welfare of the neighborhood. And I just, I'm not clear, you know, that what's being proposed really would be beneficial to the welfare of the neighborhood. And I wonder if it will actually be, I'm concerned that it'll actually be detrimental, you know, both on the, you know, potentially the property values, but as well just more importantly, the quality of, the quality of our life. You know, we're, we're a very close knit community. And we grew even, you know, much, much closer during the pandemic where there were endless days of, you know, the center of gravity of all of our lives moved inward into our homes. And, you know, we're very, you know, we're constantly paying close attention to, to each other and we're conscious of our actions and packed our neighbors. And, you know, I think this considerateness is, you know, very, very essential given how close our houses are together. And I just wanted to put a little numbers on it because it's not apparent from any of the materials here that are, that are submitted. And, and, you know, we can take as an example of the plot, the plan that we're looking at here, you know, the house at 212 Pleasant Street is only 110 inches from the property line that it shares with our house. And the next nearest house at 210 Pleasant Street, it's 132 inches from the property line. And I think, you know, even with the flat roof, I think it's, you know, clear that the views, the free flow of air, light, these are all going to be blocked by adding the addition of the second story, certainly from the upstairs bedroom, but as well light, I think into our first floor, which is our kitchen, our dining room, our, our, our family room. And likewise, I think the views from 210 to 16 to 18 Pleasant Street, these all have the potential of being partially, partially blocked as well. You know, one thing I measure, I mentioned was we had these five year old kids, you know, one of their favorite activities is actually just digging huge holes, making tons of mud in the garden, which is currently situated just in that little sliver between two, between our house and 212. And, you know, I think, you know, the proposed renovation, you know, and now you mentioned it's a 26 foot, you know, I mean, that's, you know, potentially would erect essentially a 26 foot wall, you know, 100 inches away from that garden. And, you know, I don't need to kind of be labor the point, but I think the mental picture here is clear that this really will obstruct, you know, sunlight, air will really kind of radically change their relationship to the national environment and the beauty of spypond. So I think for us, I think that's, you know, very stressful and, and, and concerning. I think also, you know, I think we're concerned, you know, we love spypond, you know, this is our, this is the only home we've known. And I, I worry that there will be a, you know, sort of a precedent for order for properties to, to go ahead and make large additions and to do so without really, you know, much concern for, for how this affects the neighbors and their quality of life. And then I think, you know, I think now you, you know, touched on the driveway, it's a very unique driveway. And as you mentioned, I mean, the access to your property or sorry, addressing the board, the access to 212 is, you know, via an, via an easement. And it's a, the driveway is jointly owned by the properties at 2, 14, 16 and 18. It's a steep driveway. It's a fragile driveway. And it's narrow at points that are tight. There are at least two very tight turns. And it poses really real challenges even for sort of moderate sized cars. I think we're really concerned that, you know, how we're going to navigate this with construction vehicles, equipment, building supplies, how we're going to ensure that there isn't significant damage to the driveway, to the foliage, to the structures, and how we ensure that this project at this scale gets completed safely. And, and that, and that the pedestrians that need to use that driveway to get to and from school and work that we can do so in a way that, that is safe and, and, and reliable. And then finally, I just have two final, final points. And I think they're the most, you know, and these are just top of mind for us. I think, you know, I mentioned we deeply cherish our relationship, you know, with our neighbors. And I, you know, I think we have a nagging concern that, that, that the owners, you know, would potentially flip this house. You know, the resident is not a neighbor, it's not a resident, the owner is not a resident to the property. You know, according to a real estate website, she uses her depth and breadth of real estate experience to facilitate, you know, quote, is high quality residential flips. And I think only, you know, only she and her husband can truly know in their hearts what, you know, what their intention is in terms of living there and being, being neighbors with us and being friends. And, but I think our concern is that, you know, potentially not being a neighbor means that the applicant may not be as interested in the community that we've, you know, in maintaining good relations with the neighbors and preserving this really unique kind of pocket of Arlington that we've worked really hard to build over several years. And then I think my final point that I, that I want to make before I, before I, I guess see the floor is like probably reflects my ignorance and how little I really understand about this process, but I just want to throw out there if it's, you know, even at all a remote possibility that, that. You know, like members of the board, if you could just come down and visit. You know, I just, I think again, these plans really can't convey the, the nature of how close together these homes are and how they relate to the pond. And I think in order to understand that, that proximity and how there's harmony between the largest house up on Pleasant street and kind of work its way down to the pond front where there's a modest cottage there and how all of that is I think very well harmonized. I think a site is it would also make more obvious the significant challenges with the driveway in terms of, you know, the proposed project of this scale. And I think also to really fully understand and appreciate the unique character of the small, the small neighborhood. And I think which, which will be detrimentally impacted by the, you know, by the proposed changes here. So that's all we really wanted to say. I think there's more that we kind of tried to put together in, in our initial letter that we had just drafted late last night as a, as a sort of group of neighbors here, but I'm just really, really thankful for having the chance to kind of come in and talk here. Thank you. Thank you. Next person on our list is show you. Hi, yes. Can I also share my screen. I think that's easier for me. Thank you. You see. Okay. So this is the video I take today if everyone can see. This is kind of express how what, what John is trying to say is we really close to each other. This is from our bedroom, master bedroom. So you can see the green house is John's house. And the white house is 212 and we are 218. So I just take a short clip. So if they do the addition, it will actually literally on our property line. And we, we already could hear everything from my living room. Let have a, maybe a guy or friend visit before on the site, about a month ago, talking really loud. And we have a six months older baby and then my baby cannot sleep for whole afternoon. So that will be one potential like we are concerning because it's really close. And so this is, let me see if I can share this one. So this is the survey we also have. So we are 218 the least people here. The driveway is also biggest concern that we have. So the driveway actually owned by, by 216 Matt and 214 John and us. The driveway, as you can see, it's not big enough to have any concrete truck to, to the site. And we have a right of way to share, which is okay, but the driveway is not strong enough as well. I have a video here that Nellie actually has a trip service last year. And let me see if I can share it. I'll do it. Oh, are you guys able to see the video? We're trying to know. Okay. Let me see. Okay. This one. I think I'm sharing. So, could I interrupt you for a second, please? Yeah. I know where this video will after seven seconds show somebody who I can't identify myself, but who I don't think is anyone here coming across the screen. And I would prefer not to show a video that has somebody on it. That's going to be without his consent, blazoned over, over ACMI. So if you, much of this is consists of about a minute of loud noises. If you could either go after the. The period where the man comes across or if you could go up to that person. It's not the man loud noises. I just share about traffic now. Well, why don't we, if this is the one I think it is, there's at seven seconds, there's a fellow who's going to come out and deliver something in the front. Oh, that's what you mean. Okay. Then I can show another one. Let me see. Okay. So. So I want to show this is actually the driveway that the driver himself cannot hold the big machinery or a truck at all. And as Nellie was saying, she tried to figure out the way, you know, how to bring those truck in. We also concerned about how the truck will go in. It might be just popping up from yacht over the share driveway. And I think all three of us are using that share driveway. It's not that easy yet and practical for all of us. For this to go on, let's, let's just, just say it. And. So you can see. Right off the way here is super narrow is just 12. From each other. We are really concerned that this is not practical for the project. And I think my another point. Um, the noise. So the noise. Yes. As I just mentioned, we all are old house over here and we hear each other clearly. If the addition is more close to us, we literally can hear anything like previous residents. We kind of like joking around like she can hear my dog and then she will ask me, Oh, how's your dog today. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on from her. Her house. So. Um, we are really concerned about a new addition. If. We don't know what's going on. And we've been taken by surprise to be honest. We got at least notice last Friday. And we don't even know. The floor plan until now. I just have a question. Did you receive no notice of this prior to last Friday? No, I actually only get this later last Friday and. That's why we kind of like all bumped. We have no idea what's going on. John and I and also Jessica Matt. We were like chatting. We were discussing like, what's going on. We didn't see any floor plan. And then we also didn't know about addition as well. No one discussed with us. Thank you. No problem. To anything else, Miss. No. That's it. Our next speaker is. Rebecca Gruber. Did you, I have not actually, I, because I'm in experience of this and I forgot. But when you begin, could you state your name and your address for the record? I was just about to Rebecca Gruber. Two 15 pleasant street. I've lived at two 15 pleasant street for 30 years. It's directly across the street from this little neighborhood that we're talking about. I guess my concern and. Pardon my ignorance about the role of the zoning board of appeals, despite having lived in Arlington for 30 years. There are many things that I might like changed about my property or about my neighbor's properties. But when I bought my house, I bought it under certain constraints. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. And I paid for it. I paid for it. And I paid for it. And so I was in those constraints. And I paid a certain price based upon those constraints. One of them is that I happen to live unpleasant street, which has lots of traffic. And I accept that has part of the purchase of my home. I remember when two 14. somebody buys 212 and redevelops it? What happens to 214? And as it turns out, there are rules and regulations as to what can be done to 212. And what is being proposed is drastically different than the circumstances under which I or anyone else would have bought 212. Excuse me, 214. So I appreciate someone wanting to improve our property, wanting to buy it, sell it for more, by making changes that make it more desirable. But I thought the Zoning Board of Appeals is here to protect us and to operate within the constraints established when we buy our homes. And I'm concerned about the precedent this might set for other properties in town to be dramatically changed impacting neighbors who've lived there for a long time or maybe for a short time having just bought a house thinking that certain rules and regulations will apply. And this is a very drastic significant change under which the conditions of the neighbors of this property bought their homes and understood the living conditions under which they expected to have when they bought those homes. I will also say Pleasant Street is a very busy street. There is not a lot of parking on the opposite side of the street. A significant construction project while the applicants have indicated, you know, when the construction is done, it probably won't be noticeable to people walking up and down or driving on Pleasant Street. But until the construction is done, it will affect Pleasant Street and Pleasant Street is affected regularly by all sorts of construction that happens on it. So I don't think having more of construction vehicles and other types of activity will be helpful to the significant traffic that's happening on Pleasant Street. But that's a personal issue. I'm much more concerned about the precedent that will be set if the zoning board of appeals should approve this. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Gruber. Can I just say our job is actually to enforce the zoning ordinance. And the zoning bylaw has a specific provision in it which is cited in the notice that you've seen that governs large additions and allows them under certain circumstances and we're required to find those certain circumstances exist. And we're supposed to consider among the relevant facts and all the things that you've seen in the staff report. The proposed alteration or additions, dimensions and setbacks relating to abutting structures and uses and conformity to the purposes of the bylaw set forth in an earlier provision. So we're focused to see it isn't really strictly a matter of whether it's a big change or a little change. But it is a matter of whether it's a change that in some way adversely affects neighboring properties and one that meets the general requirements that we apply for all special exceptions. And if it does we often and sometimes we sometimes prove quite major changes and sometimes we disapprove even minor ones because they may not under certain circumstances taking into account the neighborhood in particular they may not meet the requirements of the statute. But that's where we are. It's a rule of law sort of thing. We have a bylaw that we are required to are required to enforce and we will uphold the law one way one way or the other. So the next speaker is let's see I'm sorry I've lost track of who's next. And Dawson were you next? Yes. Hi my name is Jessica Sun Dawson. This is my husband Matt Dawson and we live in 216 Pleasant Street. So I just have a few points I'd like to make as well. So kind of following up from our neighbor Rebecca there are a lot of constructions in our on our street. However like other people have mentioned before us the driveway is a pretty unique situation it's pretty narrow even regular cars will have trouble turning. So I think this is a pretty significant significant impact for our lives. Although temporarily and yeah it will have a pretty significant impact during the construction. So for a project this size we would really request that this to be considered very carefully. And another thing that show has mentioned we live in historic homes. So we work really hard on maintaining the character of this neighborhood. And one of the drawbacks of living in the historic home is that the insulation is not very great. We don't have central air so in the summer usually I open my window to and I work from home. So a lot of there were times where the noises were pretty loud and I it's it's going to be pretty impactful for our lives during this time. And not to repeat the point too much but this project will make the houses in our neighborhood very tight and very close to one another and this will change the layout near the water from dramatically. And the next point I would like to say is that we have an easement to the pond and the easement is shared between the show's property and 212 and the addition of parking lot wall and then just imagine in order to accommodate parking of a bigger house they probably will need to park 2 cars instead of 1 car because there's no overnight street parking in Arlington that will really obstruct our access to the pond and we love by pond we go we kayak there in the summer and we skate on the pond in the winter when it's frozen. So it's a really precious thing for us and also when we bought the house that was a big a big value for us. And one of the argument has been really hard for me to hear is that this will have environmental benefit I don't quite understand why and this is to the board I don't understand why do we have to why additional floor will be necessary to improve the either for for plants or improvement of environmental value that shouldn't be linked to the increase of floor print either the base or the addition of floor. And one point I like to make about the construction is I do sincerely worry about the safety of our neighborhoods we have we have to Well, not us John and Sabrina have 2 kids at just 5 years old and show has a baby the the way the driveway is set up the twins play in the yard all the time I'm sincerely worried about doing this time their safety and also I think fine the final point is that Matt and I have been here for eight years and we are a really close knit community like John had mentioned and I'm really close to John and Sabrina and the kids and one of the things I'm always really proud is that that like my name just is one of the first first words the kids learn to say and I'm really proud of that and yeah and that we've always been friends with the residents in 212 as well we had our wedding in our backyard so it's show and Abraham we had our guest live in the lake house during that time so this process this whole process of this project it just feels like it's not very inclusive or completely transparent during the historic commission meeting we raised the concern of the footprint and hide and create and hide increase and our concerns were quickly dismissed and we were told that no special permit was required so I think we really do have a lot of concerns of how this will impact our lives and that president and we will like the board to consider to give us more time to delay this delay this decision and give us more time thank you mr. Dawson tomorrow Joseph good evening hello everyone thanks for allowing me to comment here my name is Tamara Joseph and 15 years ago in 2008 I moved into 210 Pleasant Street with my husband and then five-year-old son so same age as the twins next door and he has grown up in this house we are long-term tenants here the owners of the property are the Hart family who have been here from the 1970s doctor and mrs. Hart live at 208 Pleasant Street the big house right on the street with the semi-circular driveway and their daughter Alexis Hart manages my home I have gotten to know all the neighbors in this area over the past 15 years and welcomed the other couples on this call when they first arrived we have stayed at 210 Pleasant Street as tenants it was a surprise that we are still tenants but because the hearts do not want to sell and we want to stay on state spy pond in this house which is a wonderful home with much character it is a deck house it does not have AC central AC like the older ones here so I share that in common and we love the house we love this particular community in Arlington in general and we feel that we are really blessed to be living here I've spoken with the hearts about this proposed bill at 212 and they share our concerns but they were unfortunately unable to attend this hearing the size and scope of the proposed bill at 212 has come as a rather unpleasant shock which I learned about this last Saturday night it is not consistent with what the applicants previously shared with me and other neighbors last year we believe that their proposed addition will have quite negative impact on all of our properties given its size and we are also frankly troubled by how the applicants have proceeded my home shares a property line with 212 on the map that's on the screen my home is on the water right next to 212 my bedroom and my son's bedroom and our bathrooms are only 22 feet from the house our front door face front doors face in the same direction 212 is several feet closer to the pond a thin line of trees and shrubs are between the homes it is quite visible as you go down my driveway and stand at my front door in the back of the house my screen porch where I work in the summer is next to the property line and will be next to their newly installed deck the backyards are separated by a low wooden fence that you could step over as well as shrubs in the summer when the windows are open we can hear everything increasing the size of 212 and the number of residents who could potentially live there will exacerbate the noise issue immensely the extension will also impede my view of spy pond on one side more troubling the house will be quite visible and look disproportionate on entry to my home it will look more akin to neighborhoods in Cambridge densely populated and densely populated parts of Arlington it is not consistent with other waterfront areas up spy pond the bathrooms and bedrooms will be on the same size as mine and it appears that one will be able to see from their windows into my bathroom window which is the only window on that side of my home at a minimum their new story will block light into my home we also share a common sewer line up the main sewer line up to the main sewer line on Pleasant street I have sadly learned way too much about that line over the past 15 years when there are there are issues the results are not pretty adding a much larger home that accommodates many more people is really not a positive development and will put additional strain on an already aged system for the past 15 years only one person has lived there at a time with this new build more residents and guests will be using the plumbing because I've lived here 15 years I know a lot about the history of this particular neighborhood and of the additions to homes the hearts added on to my home prior to my move here but they were unable to add the two car garage that they wished to do so because the then owner of 212 felt that it would block his view of the lake paul english at 206 had to be very creative when he combined houses to build his current home because he likewise face limitations imposed by zoning most recently amy bernstein and vichar limited the addition to 214 to ensure that the house didn't block the view from 216 and was to scale in the neighborhood I do not believe that different rules should be applied in considering this proposed addition to 212 which is the smallest of these lots where such a drastic increase in scale would be most noticeable finally a couple points related to what applicants mentioned the point about whether their ground floor should be considered a floor or a basement they are on the same hill as mine same slope my ground floor is living quarters their ground floor which I have seen I would assume will also be considered living quarters but I am obviously not the decision maker here finally as to their we have gone in quite a lot of detail about the unique driveway that they would have to use for demolition and then rebuild applicants mentioned that they are because of the challenges looking for an alternative the only alternative of which I am aware is my driveway and they have repeatedly asked the hearts whether they could use that driveway because the hearts share the driveway with me so 208 and 210 share the driveway along the property line for 216 214 and 212 and it is a straight shoot and if they were allowed to do that and were allowed to demolish landscaping they could bring a concrete truck in there however the hearts assured me that although they have gotten this request multiple times they had zero interest in allowing this nor do I and my leasehold does include the driveway therefore that would not be an alternative for this project I'm unaware of other alternatives where I'm from in Florida we bring concrete in sometimes by barge I don't think that's possible on spy pond so I think the only way that they will be able to bring concrete to this home is through this very sinuous driveway I thank you for your time and attention and just ask that you consider all the many points that I have raised and that my neighbors have raised thank you Mr. Johnson Steve Ward yes thank you Mr. Chair Steve Moore Piedmont street I have to start off by apologizing I was not able to join the meeting until quite a bit late and this my questions may have already been answered by the presentation provided by the applicant so I apologize in advance if that's the case in looking at the submissions I've been trying to figure out whether or not this project is going to require the taking of any of the protected trees and the setbacks I couldn't really tell about trees and the property except that I looked at aerial views on Google maps and it looks like there are trees I don't know what property they are on since the property lines here are odd to say at least in close to new abutting properties so Mr. Chair I'd like to ask for you is there a tree plan are there trees to be taken and if also what are the plans they have for protection of trees to do this rather large project thank you Mr. Moore the second head do you have an answer to that okay so yes I do we have a couple big trees down by spy pond some willows which we are going to protect as is required by the notice of intent issued by the conservation commission and we are going to retain we did contact the tree warden and he did say that we don't have any trees in the setback basically there's only two big trees we have are down below and he said I'd have to look at the exact language but it doesn't apply to us we do intend to make the landscape better and to plant trees but there's just a couple trees down there right now to save which we are saving and I don't know at some point I have a couple things that I just want to mention related to previous comments but I want to wait I don't know how to we can't get our raise the hand function going so just if you can note that it'll be okay I'll come back to you and give you an opportunity to address vague not the opportunity so much as that it will be helpful to everyone if you can address some of the comments that have taken place but Mr. Moore still has the floor so let me get back to him thank you Mr. Chair I'm glad you contracted the tree warden if you would have to say as to whether or not you had to do any of those protections so that that's that's excellent that that occurred I would have one question that the video that was being shown by one of the one of the folks giving some comments here showed a tree truck in there doing some tree work I don't know if that was on this property or a neighboring property if it was on this property that we're looking at uh under this application I would be inquire as to what was the nature of the tree work being done at that time Mr. Chair I'm not sure whether Ms. Naked Akinhead can answer that or I think I can't answer that okay so after we got the okay from the conservation commission we had marquee tree come in the bulk of their work was pruning back branches that were overhanging the house which we had the okay to do and removing some of the invasives which were down below they pruned the bigger willows that are down by spy pond but only minimally so that they would be in keeping with the conservation commission permission and there was a giant u-bush near the house that they cut down if I can add some thank you Mr. Chair that that helps what what were the size of the invasives that were removed I mean I can't answer that right now I'd have to go back and look they were small but I'd have to go back and look at my nose for marquee tree and my notes on the property we did have an ecological plan by parterre ecological that called out what was invasive and what wasn't they were relatively small but I can't give you I mean I can't give you the exact figures right here right now I can send them in later okay well thank you Mr. Chair I I bring it up only because one of the issues that we've had in the past with additions and permits being required for projects like this is tree work is done in advance of the application and then suddenly there's not an issue for what the application covers that would have been issued prior to that tree work being done in advance of the application which is an unfortunate occurrence protected trees on the property I think probably at the time were eight inches and larger in diameter at breast height and laws have been changed to six inches but in the fact that they were invasive there's not really a mitigating factor if they were large adult trees that provided shade and environmental mitigation that's something that we watch so I wanted to make sure the applicant is aware of that thank you Mr. Snake Hagan if I if I can remember what you said the only thing was actually was removed was the U tree the others were just pruned back that is correct except I think you said weren't eight inches dbh's branches one inch two inch yeah okay I'm sorry Mr. Chair I thought I heard a comment about invasions being taken maybe I misunderstood yeah they were they were like bushes little thing oh okay thank you thank you Mr. Chair okay thank you applicant for the info is there any else who wishes to address this application it's time Mr. Chairman yes hi this is Sarah Radigan I I apologize I couldn't raise my hand and the zoom function so I'm just speaking out but thank you thank you for letting me speak your address as well please your name and yes I'm I'm an attorney with trilogy law and my address is 12 Marshall Street in Boston and I am here assisting representing John Garber and his wife who are the ones who spoke initially and who live in the property at 214 Pleasant Street which is the property just right behind 212 Pleasant Street where the house addition is being proposed I I wanted to comment on a couple of things and I'll try to keep this brief because you've obviously heard a lot of testimony and I've been keeping notes furiously trying to keep up with some really strong comments from from the neighbors but the first thing I wanted to point out you would you had asked a few of the folks about when they got notice of this hearing I suspect this has happened to me for clients in in Cambridge as well but the US post office is not what it used to be and we've been hearing difficult stories of people getting notice you know much too close to a hearing date in order to be able to scramble to find you know information and counsel and so one I have to apologize I have just barely been getting myself up to speed in the past two hours just to be able to provide some assistance to these clients but I hope that this board will take seriously the request for a continuance at least in order to allow for a little more time to digest information but there are also some technical questions that you've raised already but I just want to follow with a couple more some of these again maybe because of my unfamiliarity honestly with the Arlington zoning but just a couple things so we have on the list of questions whether or not the basement counts as a story and it seems like the applicant has said you know we should go back and speak to the building commissioner building inspector and have them make a determination I wasn't able to understand by looking at a cross-section of the plans with the average grade I wasn't able to you know pick up a ruler and figure out how that aligned with the ordinance but that's obviously really really critical because if it is a story then their request is a variance and I think that there's there's no set of facts that would show that they're entitled to a variance it obviously would be a different application altogether the other thing we were talking about the open space usable open space the only thing there is a lot of area on the lot but there is also a very sharp well I'm not sure I haven't been there but from looking at the plan it appears that there's a pretty sharp steep drop down to the water and the I believe usable open space includes a definition that requires that at least 75 percent of the area has a grade of less than eight percent I'm not quite sure what eight percent I mean eight percent is relatively steep but I think that when they're when they're double checking those calculations I'd ask that that someone pay attention to that piece of the of the puzzle because again it impacts whether or not this is a variance or a special permit at a minimum also I would hope that the applicant would be able to provide the more information to this board and to the neighbors about the actual impact of the changes when seen from the viewpoints of the very closest neighbors and if you wouldn't mind me sharing my screen I just wanted to show a couple of photos if that's all right that would be all right okay thank you very much and I'll keep this quick has rosen have you provided her with miss radigan with the permission to do that she should be awesome okay yes and let me just see if I am able to do this um let's see I don't want to show you something I don't want to show you right let's see if I can do this uh nope that's not what you want to see I apologize let me try again I'm gonna try one more time sorry about that okay so um this is just a google earth view um which I thought would be helpful I don't capture all of the neighbors who spoke today but the red dot is the uh two twelve pleasant street lot and you can see the modest size of the existing home um this is uh 214 pleasant street the folks who I represent you heard from people who live all around the surrounding area um here is an assessor map view of the same thing which I thought was helpful because um what's missing from any of the plans provided is um an indication of the distance between the buildings I don't think you know these GIS maps are often not super accurate it would be really helpful if the surveyor could run it could just shoot a line to where the nearest um walls of the neighboring house houses are on each side that are going to be impacted by the by the development and the last thing I wanted to do is just to show you some photos that are taken from um from the windows of my client's home um so this is the house that's going to be um enlarged significantly this is a photo from the upstairs bedroom again from the upstairs John please correct me if I'm getting any of this wrong again from the upstairs of the building this is from the back deck so this is the existing home and you can imagine I mean just look at the this is a you know small little cottage this is what they look at from their deck and this is just gives you a sense of the proximity another view so the addition now if you're looking at this house the addition is going to extend out to the right and um be two stories though this entire view of the pond will be gone just another view of the same and here's another view from inside the building sorry the only corrections here that previous photo was not from the deck that was from the the the family room inside this this photo right here correct that's fine okay great okay great thank you thanks for for clarifying that so um just a couple of things um in addition so there has been a lot of talk about um impact on the neighbors in terms of of negative you know substantial impact on um on all the things that you know your zoning ordinance are meant to protect against um we've talked about views light air noise issues cramped feelings of you know over overcrowding and density all of these things of course being relative to the neighborhood that we're in um we've talked about concerns about quality of life impacts on the access to the site um including this uh unique driveway easement um concerns about um privacy blocking light as we mentioned before there's also some concerns about um impacts on shared utilities and I think that the real hope is that um you know we often hope that these conversations happen before a zoning hearing um but if where there's a continuance that hopefully there's a chance to open a dialogue and um and talk about some modifications to these plans that that uh that might be more acceptable and that's it thank you thank you miss radican is there anyone else who is I don't see anyone else with a hand raised it's going once going twice uh we'll close well I'm next we're going to close the public hearing quite let's let's uh let um miss uh he can have an opportunity to respond to or to clarify do whatever she would do what she would like to do in response to the what she has just heard okay thank you thank you for that opportunity I'm not going to comment on every single thing there's a lot of stuff said there's a few things that are really critical that I comment on and they happen to do with my integrity and my communication so we have sent out four separate notices to all these neighbors one from the conservation commission which I sent myself certified mail one from the historic district commission which they sent themselves certified mail one was the good neighbors notice which is required to be sent as a part of a permit application which I sent myself certified mail and then the notice for this hearing the first notice was sent out last I think it was May or June of 2022 and all of the plans including the addition and the second floor were the exact same outside as they are today we have tweaked the inside somewhat but the outside plans haven't changed since then and I would like to note for the record that before we had any hearings or sent any notices we emailed all three of the neighbors that are here personally and we met on the driveway with our plans to discuss with them what we were hoping to do so they have known for many many many many months and nothing has changed and I can produce documentation if need be that's the most important thing the second thing that I'd like to address is this notice that this is an integrated neighborhood and we are not part of it we are neighbors we live about a five-minute walk away right up the hill and our intention is to move down to that house when it's finished we are not flippers we are not from some other neighborhood where our LinkedIn residents that live in that neighborhood those are that's my g want to say something yeah there was never throughout all the months where these plans were made available and discussed in person with us in the driveway there was never any kind of communication back to us about any objection of any kind throughout the like this is a shocker no conservation commission review historic district so it's kind of surprising that this is now suddenly all these issues are suddenly coming before us yeah so so the first public meeting we had was conservation commission and several neighbors were on and I forget the exact comments we've had two public historic district commission we can multiple times we see the neighbors zero we have zero zero sorry okay yeah okay fine so okay so my main point is we have talked to them we have communicated I'm fine that they I understand that they object but we have I want to be super clear that if there's some issue with the driveway and it's damaged we're going to fix it uh that was one big objection I think that's that's the main stuff for now I guess thank you so let me close the public hearing now this is the appropriate point for the board to discuss this and but before we do that I have the sense from listening to and I'm eager to see whether my colleagues agree but between getting straight with the building department on whether the basement counts as a story which is something that we really can't do tonight and the various the offer to go out and see the property more and to look at it I will say that from my own point of view I almost invariably go out and look but because this doesn't have a public isn't publicly accessible in a way that's very obvious I was not able to do that in this one others may have may have persevered beyond that but a lot has been aired tonight and I think that the board may benefit from the opportunity to go out and to see if all of the property owners there are prepared to have us as intruders in their neighborhood but I would certainly feel a great deal more comfortable if instead of looking at pictures we got a greater feel for what is going on at that site and the time between now and then may be an opportunity for Ms. Rattigan and her clients to get together with the applicant and perhaps clear the air a little bit and see whether there are any possibilities of coming up with something that will work for both sites for all sites and and hopefully not require going back through the conservation commission and the historic district commission and going through the procedure all over again but there certainly is a reason to talk and I think there's a sensible willingness of people to talk if this project goes through you all will be neighbors and you will be living together and you probably will hope that the memory of this particular night isn't going to spoil your relations going forward so with that said I open up to the board is there anyone who wishes to comment on this application well seeing none Mr. I'm sorry Mr. Chairman I had my microphone turned off if I could I just had a couple of comments one is I'm in complete agreement with you I think it would be wonderful to have the opportunity I like you drove by and couldn't figure out where the property was and if you stop too long on Pleasant Street you're liable to be rear-ended so I was pretty careful about that I would I have a couple of questions if I may because I think that there are a lot of issues that have been raised and I just had two very quick questions for the applicant and I think I know the answers but could I just ask will the setbacks change between the property where you're going to be building I think it's as it relates to 214 and to is it 216 because I know that there was a comment made by Mr. Garber in the very beginning about how close the property is your structure is to his structure it wasn't really with reference to the setback it was really I think the distance between the structures so is your building going to cause the building that you propose to be any closer to the Garber property no it is not and similarly on the side where you're going to be putting that addition if it's if it's going to be closer to that abutting property is it still going to be within the setback requirements yes we meet all the setbacks it'll be about five feet closer to the property on the level just 218 but well within the required setback okay and then I would just note that I know that there are a number of things that have been raised as concerns by the neighbors and if we're going to have this hiatus between now and another meeting I do think obviously the issue with regard to the construction and the driveway is something I'd like to hear some more about with regard to damage but also with regard to pedestrian safety because I do think that that's an issue especially if it's narrow and it's not a great sight lines the other thing is I'm assuming that even if you do increase the amount of parking you're not going to interfere with that easement down to spy pond that was cited earlier because you can't legally but I assume you're not going to we are not going to we get but there's very little the whole it's basically all paid parking anyway we're just going to square it off a little bit there's going to be essentially no change and we're not going to interfere with that easement and if I may one more thing that was raised and and I think it's something that I'm not sure it's addressed as part of the process but obviously that sewer line strain is an issue I don't know if that's part of what you've been talking to the building department about so I'm not asking you to give us any sort of information about that but when we come back the next time that may be something that we want to talk about okay okay that's all I have thank you okay thank you mr define sir any mr brighid alley who's often mr chair mr rickadale I'm in agreement with I just kind of wanted to echo what you said about the confirmation of the the basement story and as well as the slope of the grade and the usable of its piss I think that you know those are sort of the two critical things that we need to just understand before we we vote on this on this project and I do I do agree with miss radigan's comments about you know it would be helpful if we just knew from the survey you know where the adjacent properties are so if if that's something that would be possible while you have someone confirming the grade I think that you know it would go a long way to just help us understand on the site plan the relationships so the site we have a full survey right now it has all the setbacks on every side of the building and it has all the grades as well the usable open space that we calculated is all behind the house and that is all very level the drop is on the side of the house and then it's down and the backyard is not dead flat but pretty close to level I think the information that you need on the survey I'd be happy to provide a full-size copy if you need that maybe you know it may just be just a little hard to read but maybe we could just you know identify that for next time so it's very clear for the maybe just a line or something on the on the plan so that we can all see it for the next year yeah I wonder if we can head if it's possible for you could just to just take up the plot plan when you're in the place where you're making the calculations and just color in the parts of that that you're actually including because I think what you're suggesting is that forgetting the contours and anything like that you have what you're taking into consideration already is not the steeply slope spaces so we don't have to worry about that but assuming that that's true the best way to show that would be just to sort of shade in the part that's sloped and say this isn't what we're considering and and that the rest of it still adds up to the the 3000 square feet or whatever whatever it was in the calculation yes I can I actually did that but I think it came through to you I'm kind of black and white so I'll do it I'll do it okay thank you I'm sorry that's okay okay so seeing no no further discussion uh chair will entertain a motion to if it's the sense of the board to do this to continue this case until the date certain of March 28th at seven o'clock uh or excuse me at seven thirty or soon thereafter is the matter may be heard so moved so moved by mr. Depond second second second mr. rickard ellie um we'll go through the wall mr. Depond hi mr rickard ellie hi mr. Hoffman hi and the chair votes aye and the matters continue thank you very much everyone for your participation it's been a enlightening and I hope a useful discussion certainly for the board and I hope for all of you as well thank you thanks thank you thank you so much thank you so the next uh as soon as my mouse comes off strike and we'll begin to move so I can look at the agenda uh then so the next case in the order of things is uh uh is uh 75 dothan uh I would like to let's see um yeah the applicant is here either we we talked to them earlier on quite a lot long time ago still here um would you mind terribly much I'd like to be able I'm not sure do you have are you going to be presenting yourself do you have a professional here to present for you yeah it's just us if if you would be I would if you would be so kind uh the next case up uh the last one is hopscored and that's being presented by uh by uh mr. Inessie and uh it would be it might be helpful at least to the applicants there if they don't have to pay mr for mr. Inessie's time for one more case so with your consent I'd like to take him first and and leave you to to back clean up is that okay with you yeah I mean will we get a chance tonight or oh absolutely absolutely yeah I'm just trying to do it since as a former lawyer I'm I'm I'm very attuned to efforts to diminish legal fees and uh usually I oppose those things but but but this time is different now so but yes you you'll you'll be given a chance and I'm hoping this later this case will not be will not last quite as long as we had before mr. Inessie the case that here they will call uh docket 37 34 12 20 hopscored yes and all right mr. Handlin yes hi it's uh it's uh let you know I'm here let's jump again I have to defer to him I'll let you know I'm here okay so mr. Klein is is here as well christian if you want to step back into the chair you're welcome to do that you're doing so well I'm more than happy to let you proceed all right then mr. Inessie why don't you explain what it is that your client would like to do yes I am here representing Mike Hines who and Mike is the prospective purchaser of the real estate located at 20 hopscourt in Arlington uh 20 hopscourt is real estate located in an eye zone now uh mr. Hines had operated a auto body shop at 34 Dudley street uh for some years going back I believe to uh 2014 uh and that was the auto body shop that been up that had been operated for many years by Ed Whalen and uh when Ed Whalen uh passed away the property got sold but the body shop uh used continued so what subsequently happened was uh mr. Hines uh sold his 34 Dudley street property again in an eye zone to uh 34 Dudley street LLC not to be redundant uh which was a storage which is a storage facility and I represented that LLC before the ARB and they got permission to construct uh 850 storage units at 34 Dudley street LLC so now uh mr. Hines needs a location and he loves being in Arlington he's been in the business since 1959 by the way uh and he has uh a son and I believe a grandson as well who are in the business uh the son is third generation at this point and what he would like to do is open up an operation at 20 Hobbs court and have the son basically run that operation now he's got other operations as well in some other cities and towns and a couple of those a minority operated uh by women uh they own at least 25 percent of the interest in the LLCs and they've been operating very nicely for many years now what has the property at 20 Hobbs court been used for uh for the last number of years it's been used for a landscape business and uh if anybody had at occasion to ever drive down Hobbs court and take a look at the property they would have seen bob wire above the fence they would have seen windows that were eliminated and and filled in with cement and the building would have had the appearance of a fortress what my client is proposing to do is to change all of that he wants to put the building back in the uh condition that it looked like uh before all of this ever happened and he's going to talk to you about that uh momentarily the uh the hours of operation for the new uh body shop uh a business would be eight in the morning until six at night you'd have 12 employees and if you viewed the dimensional form uh the dimensional form shows he has ample parking ample parking on site he's going to do some landscaping out front on the site as well and he's going to talk to you momentarily about what happens with respect to the the spray painting operation which is going to be located in the back of the building uh that spray paint uh operation is going to be uh self-contained uh there's not going to be excessive noise uh there's not going to be any undue aroma in the neighborhood and by the way I point out to you that if you go to the bylaw the definition for an eye zone uh suits my client's property uh immaculately and that is the industrial district in the millbrook valley allows uses requiring the manufacturing assembly processing or handling materials which because of their traffic noise appearance odor or hazardous uh would be disruptive to residential and other business uses now uh my suggestion to you is we don't fit any of those categories but if we did then we would be okay because that's what the master plan and that's what the bylaw contemplates for an eye zone that's what an eye zone is all about so uh again with respect to uh the what's going to happening uh be happening internally in the building I'm going to let mike talk to that right now mike are you there I am good want to jump in mike all right thanks for the time tonight um give you a little background on myself which bob just did is that I've been in the auto body business my whole life and that's actually my father started it in 60 in 1959 and we've have several locations and pride ourselves in being owner operated and when I say that when I say my son um has been running Dudley street since for the last five years we'd say and he's become very he enjoys working in irlandton he enjoys the people and the fact that we felt that there's a chance that we might not have got another location in irlandton was really it's been a it's a tough road and we came across Hobbes court and feel that it's a perfect fit and probably about the only fit because you it's a 6600 square foot building with plenty of parking and that's very odd these days when you're looking for locations so as I said when we're owner operate owner operated and it's we're family business and you know and we're a good neighbor so when I go in there I I look at it my job is how am I going to make this building look like like a good neighbor would leave it or like I want to call a village look and that is to put new windows in doors that are you know are nice to look at and landscaping the the big thing over there is um the rusty chain link the barbed wire you don't need barbed wire anymore these days you know you take it all taking it down put in black vinyl just give making the curb appeal that which would be neighborhood friendly um we are a company that that we we hire we train people we hire people we train them we promote them and as they go along they can become partners and that's happened in three of my shops prior to this we have one in Belmont which I'm actually hadn't mentioned to Bob we had won an award from the Belmont trade and it was because we took an old ugly body shop and we turned it into something that was a nice shop to look at and that was on Fletch fleet Fletch Street in in Belmont right off a Trapello across from the CVS so there's we don't have to change the footprint of the building all we are going to do is we're going to put in new windows in the front which were there before we'll put in an office on the left side with glass windows and the inside stays the same the only real piece of equipment we put in would be a spray booth which is going to be factory installed by a factory approved dealer it's auto quip they've been in the business for 50 years and have done every one of my shops and I've never had an issue and it's they have all their own filtration systems and and I think that's probably as far as the other item that we were going to be doing is we were going to be putting it adding two doors on the parking lot side of the building and the reason for that is so we'd be able to operate within our own footprint so meaning pull not having to pull out into the street to pull into the building that we'd be able to get in and out with ease and not be a burden to anybody driving by the other items we had is the signage we keep it simple and conservative usually just you know white stainless I mean silver stainless steel letters nothing fancy no neon or any of that landscape you know as as appropriate and you know just just make it a good looking building run our business a nice clean neighborhood friendly business thank you mr I I think we can show the signage if we can Mr. Nessie one of the things that I think that we need to just to pause here about is that as you know the signage in since for the last several years has been exclusively under the jurisdiction of the ARB and I think that we're not in a position and don't have the jurisdiction to approve the sign plan that that has to be done by the other body all right that's fine we'll take it to planning and have them take a look at it not the ARB necessarily Mr. Hamlin yes we don't think that we need ARB approval but we do need planning board approval we believe so we'll do that for sure the couple of other things that uh as Mike mentioned the only reason we're here is it's change of views okay we don't need any zoning relief we're not changing the footprint of the building in any way now I spoke personally with David Morgan of the conservation commission because we are in close proximity to the book and I asked Mr. Morgan do we have any issue with the conservation commission and he responded you do not bob I had Mike talk with Wayne Shenard the town engineer with respect to any potential engineering issue and Wayne indicated that so long as we're not changing anything as far as the footprint of the building we do not have any issue with his department as well so again the only matter I believe before the board is the issue with respect to change of use I would suggest to the members of the board that this zone is an ideal zone for the body shop operation and I'm also going to suggest to the members of the board that a lot of the clients and customers of the body shop operation come from Arlington from the town of Arlington and not necessarily from outlying cities and towns so I believe that this would be a decided benefit to continue to have this well known and well operated body shop operation to have an alternative location in the town and perhaps to go on with the younger Mr. Heinz for as many years as dad and grandpa have gone on as well thank you thank you so are there any questions or comments from the board Mr. Chair Mr. Klein thank you um so I I'm I'm glad to see um you know this industrial use in the industrial district I think this is a good location for it um apart from the possible confusion over being deadly street audio auto on Hobbs court um you know that's you're going to have to train your train your customers on that um I did want to just briefly touch on the site plan and I'm going to go ahead and share this so um so this is the plan that was that's provided in the packet from this is the architects plan and the civil the plan from rover survey um it's rotated relative but the the site plan from rover doesn't include a lot of the landscape notations that are on the architectural plan and then directly across the street there is a an r5 district so residential five district with a large development of residences and so that if this was a new construction there is a buffer requirement that's a 25-foot buffer that would be required between the two where this is an existing site an existing use you're not changing the building is really just a request for for use um the board's not in the position to impose the buffer but I would what I see in the architectural plans I'm very gratified to see where it looks like there's intent it's intended to be improvements to the landscaping that is facing the residential district and I and you had mentioned during your presentation that you are looking to remove the chain link fence remove the the barbed wire from the top and provide a different kind of fence surrounding the property um I think all those are are are great things and they will help to yeah I was going to say they would help they sort of help mitigate the change in use but you know there's not really a mitigation necessarily um required the prior tenant did a lot more work outside because they operated a landscaping yard um on the side where this will you know in this case most things will be occurring inside um I would be interested in getting a little more specificity on what the what the intentions are for the for the landscaping and the fencing so that the board has a um you know has has an in writing exactly what what that plan is I think that would be helpful helpful to the board and I also appreciate that you had mentioned in your presentation that you are adding a side garage door to allow the movement of vehicles more easily into and out of the building and the parking lot I know the adjacent tenant closer to the to mill brook is enough is another large automotive use they park cars all over on mill brook street and so I just wanted to confirm with you that your intention is that you would be maintaining all the vehicles that you are servicing on your property absolutely one of the things about it there is a substantial amount of parking there for an operation our size so I don't see any reason why anybody would be parking out there and I did notice that myself um and you know driving to the property Mike with respect to the landscaping uh at least depicted on the architectural plan am I talking out of school by indicating that that is what we're proposing to do yeah there's already there's already a substantial amount of they're like um Abravi you know great american abravitis and about six feet tall and I I like I kind of like the look of them because you know it's nice to have a little bit of um you know it's nice to have a body shop if your car's damaged but sometimes to have it sheltered by a natural you know by a natural type of wall there of um of trees sometimes is also nice for the neighbors not necessarily for us and I'm very aware that having done quite quite a few auto body shops so some of them are already there I think there's like six or seven of them and they're got to be at least eight feet tall okay um so are the the proposed length the the way that the landscaping is drawn on this plan is is that how it's existing laid out I'm going to say three quarters of it is okay and I had planned on um because even like there's a gate on that one side of it and I'm not really sure there's a need for you know a gate to be operated there so much so I had planned on pretty much kind of self-containing that area and you had said you were looking to do um I think I think Mr. Nessia said a black vinyl fence yeah it changed the chain the chain link from the ugly kind of um you know the rusty to like the black vinyl which would be chain link and then what you put is you put kind of black slats in it and the black blends into the you know to the background as opposed to rust or a different color and what would be the height of the fence um what's what's currently there now so you know again it's it's not for security really for security reasons because there really isn't a security issue it's just to probably divide the property so whatever is there you cut you take down the barbecue on the the barbed wire aspect of it cap it off and then just kind of paint all the poles that are there black and then put the new vinyl on it okay I mean there's no there's no need in having a 20-foot fence or because it's just it's just not the case these days and maybe in the 70s and 80s people were breaking into auto shops but that really doesn't happen anymore okay currently at the back edge of the parking lot there is a uh sort of a rather substantial wall built up out of sort of oversized concrete blocks is that intended to remain or is that going to be removed you know I I was asked that and I think it also it makes a good divider I mean it obviously takes up a little bit of space but I was planning on probably leaving it because it's just kind of a nice way to privatize unless there was some negative about it which I did I did I didn't see any and I just felt it was a good somewhat dividing line and that's obviously left over from the previous owners right and then the only other question I have is so on the spray booth itself are there any ventilation components that come that's come out through the through the roof yeah it's all filtered it gets it we use water-based paint so that's all regulated by the DEP obviously and the spray booth is approved by the you know all the regulations when we buy it that's the idea of one that we have installed it's by a certified factory which there should be documentation showing you that he's a factory rep for the for the manufacturer and anything that's coming through the roof there's nothing that's unusually tall about any of those components there's there'd be a vent that would come out but it's the whatever the whatever the the code is I mean it's not gonna be no sound like a chimney or anything you know okay yeah that was more of a concern okay great that's all I had thank you hey thank you very much for the questions are there any other questions from the board all right seeing none this is a public hearing we announced the general rules for good conduct we're earlier on and I don't think see any need to repeat them now is there anybody here who'd like to address this project Mr. Moore yes thank you Mr. Chair Steve Moore Piedmont Street a question for you to the applicant in reviewing the documents it looks like the the car lists which are they are going to be movable and not embedded so I assume they're warm gear floor mounted car lists correct okay thank you and I was wondering what is the age of the just in buildings the um the other building perfect gotta be I'm guessing it's gotta be what 19 I would say 1920 I'm guessing but I think it's in the 1920s sometimes okay thank you Mr. Chair I the one thing I note here that I mean it's it looks like it's an excellent use and it's perfect for the eye zone and it sounds like the applicant is going to some great lengths to restore the aesthetic aspect of things so that's that's great to hear my concern is that this looks based on the older site plan that it but it abuts or is even over the building is over a part of no brook it's hard to tell um and with the bill for that age I just want to point out that I'm sure the building uh it oh there may be cracks in it and such and um I would caution the applicant to be um very attentive to making sure that any uh off flow from this property and from the automotive use building is uh is definitely carefully watched and not allowed to somehow end up in no brook which has had historical significant pollution problems from the eye zones which went up to it during its length of the breadth of the town um and and I just would I would suggest that the applicant be very careful in making sure that that nothing ends up in no brook be it uh in liquid form or or you know solid solid waste form by mistake certainly the applicant would never try and do such a thing on purpose but um I I would hope that we're careful that way now thank you Mr. Chair for putting that up on the screen it's just hard to tell for me whether or not the no brook is buried and then a pipe at that point or or uh it's under on posts and and so I was concerned about that we're well aware of that issue uh uh Mr. Moore and that's the reason we talked to David Morgan about it right the course of the conservation commission he did not see an issue and he pretty much uh uh said the same thing that uh Wayne Chenard said if you're not going to be doing anything to change the footprint that helps uh but uh we're going to be aware of the fact that we can't do a thing to uh bring pollution to the brook the brook is sacrosanct in this town and we know that you know also the brook is on that if you're looking at that picture there around that left back side and there was no access outside of the building from that side so of course you know obviously you would respect the and you'd have to be an idiot not so but there isn't any real activity that would go on in that area if you notice when I said about opening it up and if you look to the right of the building where all the part that's where your car is going and out you're not going to have really any type of activity on that on that side of the property from us at least uh thank you I I appreciate that and it sounds like you're going to be quite attentive to any conditions that might develop that would be negatively impacting the brook so thank you mr thank you mr more is there anyone else who's wishes to address this application if you haven't seen anyone with their hands up it's going once going twice close the public hearing I turn to the board uh are there any further comments or questions relating to this application if the board is inclined to grant the application uh if you really want to do so uh in accordance with the standard conditions uh which are as follows standard condition number one is the plans and specifications approved by the board for the special permit shall be the final plans and specifications submitted to the building inspector of the town of Arlington in connection with this application for zoning relief there shall be no deviation during construction from approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals standard two the building uh inspectors here inspector is here by notice that he is to monitor the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures at any time he determines that violations are present the building inspector shall proceed under section 3.1 of the zoning bylaw and under the provisions of chapter 40 section 21 d of the massachusetts general laws and institute non-criminal complaints if necessary the building inspector may also approve an institute appropriate criminal action also in a in accordance with section 3.1 and standard three the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to the special permit are there any members of the boards who believe that additional uh conditions would be necessary appropriate um mr clain and i was looking to prepare a um a condition just in regards to the landscaping and the fence because those are not otherwise referenced in the application so what would you would what would you want that to say um busily scribbling history that's the one mr clain is scribbling i wonder if there was a it did come up at one point that that your intention was to keep all the vehicles on site uh i was little unclear whether that meant just the vehicles that are being worked upon or whether that meant also the vehicles of employees could you clarify that uh mike yeah yeah that would that would be yes okay and i take let me ask if we impose the condition that said something to the effect that all vehicles of employees and customers will be park stored and service and serviced um on the property that that would be appropriate yes yes mr clain i i've given you some time okay so i have two then and were you proposing um but you had just discussed as a third i was actually okay okay so what i had to put down was uh was the applicant is to provide landscaping in accordance with the january third 2023 proposed site plan by ad architect the applicant is to maintain the landscaping and replace any plantings which expire within a period of three years that sort of that seems to be the standard term for landscaping that we have used on prior applications um and there was a the existing fence is to be replaced with a black vinyl chain link fence not to exceed eight feet in height um with black infill slats for privacy uh judge that mr nessie is that meet with what we had discussed yeah it does and then the channel i believe you were with that um but i had said is all vehicles of employees and customers will be park stored and serviced on the property perfect okay are there any other conditions that that we should we should consider if not i would just um apologize uh i just wanted to reference the questions that were posed by uh the department planning community development um they had just asked two questions of us one was regarding proper handling of noise fumes related industrial loaders to be made specific conditions of any permit approvals the property about residential uses including the old colony apartments um so i know mr nessie had and the applicant indicated that you know the system is designed specifically with that in mind but uh do we feel does the board feel that we should have a specific condition that just says the fumes are related industrial odors that's going to be so subjective yeah i suppose it's true we just say applicant to abide by all applicable regulations concerning emissions at the yeah yeah i i'd like to just interject it seems to me excuse me that all of this is so highly regulated either by dp or whomever our point that you know no no permit for operation i would think would be issued if you didn't uh you know act in accord with those so i have no objection to putting in some general language like that but i do think that it's going to be addressed in the normal course of business well i think in addition to that if if the nature of the thing that we're proposing is that is that the applicant will will comply with all the other things we haven't really added anything to the all the other things right so i would then say the applicant to comply with all applicable regulation for the approved special permit use all right that would be fine is there any are there any are there any other conditions and then they had the the other question was have the applicant designate any spaces to be used for outdoor storage of undamaged operable automobiles we had discussed that that was all just going to be in the yard so i believe that that is addressed this point i have nothing further this point the chair ellen will entertain a motion mr chair mr quine uh i move that the board approved the special permit use uh as let's see which point use as proposed for the this property with the three standard conditions and the one two three four additional conditions second right second by uh mr dupont um are we do we all understand what we're voting on okay thank you so much for that nod of the head it really it's going to help a lot all right uh we'll call the role uh uh mr dupont i uh mr cline hi mr rickard ellie hi miss hoffman hi and the chair votes i and the motion carries um the order incidentally was the order you all appeared on my screen thank you very much thank you very much good night thank you and thank you mr and mrs marcovitz for for yielding your pride of place here and we're now getting to you all right mr i have mr cline i wonder if the chair has been sitting in this chair for a really long time and would appreciate it if the regular chair could take over for this last case absolutely okay so we are this is so now we're going back this is item number four on our agenda for tonight which is docket number 3732 75 built in the street um so i would ask the applicants to introduce themselves do you have a presentation or would you like me to go ahead and pull up the plans um i've i've got a small presentation um i think it should be pretty quick um but first of all my name is adam marcovitz this is my wife jessica we're over at 75 duffin street we've been here for about 15 years now um slowly eating our way to our perfect home um so uh if i could share my screen you should have that permission all right let me just double check and i do uh can everybody see that yes oh yes um okay so basically what we're looking at here is uh this is the the plot plan for our yard uh i want to point out that we do own both lot 182 and lot 181 b um so that actually gives us 67 feet of frontage um and really what we're looking at is this small area right here we want to add a small 10 by six uh mud room to the front of the house um which will benefit us greatly uh with people not walking directly into our living room um the the issue that we're having is that we're currently 28 feet back and adding six feet um to the front of the house we'll put us 22 feet which is uh i believe three feet from what is allowed right now um if we take a look at this this is this is what our house looks like right now screen sharing has stopped oh did i share just the i want to share just the image sorry let me go back here okay uh and can you see that yes all right so this is the drawing of what our house currently looks like here at 75 duffin and this is the side view of the house um what we're proposing is adding this little mud room onto the front such this uh side view one and side view number two again it's it's 60 square feet that we're looking at it's six by 10 or i think it might actually be six and a half is what they barked down um that that is all i really have presented at this point in time i'm ready for questions very good um so the the reason that you are before us is because as you had said is because of the front yard set the front yard set back so this is um you know members the board are well aware of other members other people who might be on the call might not be um the board often receives applications from residents seeking to do a an addition on the front of the house that is small in scale often it's open porches or as in this case an enclosed entryway which the board can approve by special permit and so that is the the reason for the the hearing today i did note that the there are several other houses on the street that are similar to yours yours would be the the first that has this projection on the front there is a pretty consistent street line um but that this is a relatively small um small piece on the front and it's only you know a single story in height um the just looking through did you you didn't provide a floor plan for uh for this entryway and i was just because it doesn't have any windows on either side so just i wasn't really sure uh what the layout was specifically for this entryway yeah so we are not 100 we haven't had the architect do that up yet but basically so as i said it's going to be approximately 10 by six so six feet coming forward 10 feet to the wide um basically it's a front door on one side when you walk in there'll be a large closet for our coats and jackets on the other side there'll be a spot for cubbies for the kids and my wife and i to hang up our everyday stuff okay and that's pretty much it and then on the site oops i'm looking at the site plan here on my screen um yeah so it is just a the 10 by six and then it looks like the steps is there a landing in front of the steps in front of the steps uh sorry no in front of the steps um so the steps come up and then there's a note on your elevation on your side view it looks like there's a landing and then there's you know four steps down um but a note on the site plan it does not include that landing in front of the steps yeah the landing is going to be all open it's just going to be a freestanding structure it won't be yeah no i just want to make sure that we're because we don't because we don't have a plan specifically i just wanted to make make note of that um and the site plan indicates that the depth of the is six six point five feet i just wanted to be confirmed with you that's correct okay the addition is six point five by ten are there questions for members of the board cne um with that i will go ahead and open the meeting for public comment uh public comment is taken as it released to the matter of hand and is intended to assist the board with reaching its decision if you would like to speak to this application please use the raise hand button on the participants tab i don't think anyone is on the phone are there any members of public who wish to speak to this application we do have a couple of neighbors here okay they don't need to say silence is good if there are any neighbors who who would like to uh you know we do accept people speaking in favor of applications i know it's not been the case this evening but we we openly encourage that as well i've just unmuted myself i couldn't figure out how to raise my hand but this is me this is meg samini i live at 71 dock and street where neighbors with jesson adam good evening yes good evening um and i'm here but i um just wanted to say we support their plans they've been really communicative about it and we think it would make their house look lovely and we have no objections wonderful thank you thank you madame so anyone else who wishes to speak to this application yeah i'm fernanda i'm their next door neighbor too if you could just give me that the street address as well mine is 79 thank you so much yeah and just like meg say all good for us we think will be really good for their house and yeah no objection at all wonderful thanks fernanda thank you so much is there anyone else who would like to speak to this application seeing none i will go ahead and close public comment for this uh for this particular hearing so what we have it's an application for a six and a half by 10 foot so 65 foot addition on the front of the existing house um this will reduce the front yard setback to 22 feet um which the board can approve with uh the granting of a special permit um just wanted to quickly grab that section of the bylaw leave this 539 yep so the fortress and enclosed entrances uh larger than a lot above may extend into the minimum yard regulations otherwise provided for the district by special permit so that is what we are doing um there was a this was reviewed by the department of planning and community development um and they had maintained that the proposal was consistent with the special permit criteria um and specifically they noted um that the criteria one the requested use is a perm is a permitted use in the r1 zoning district uh proposal would improve the convenience and safety of the owner's entrance to their home would not increase traffic ingestion or impair any public safety would not be an undue burden on any municipal systems it would not result in the need for any special regulation um it would not cause a detrimental excess of any particular use and they said that the consistent with the residential design guidelines the proposed design will introduce human scale architectural variation to the overall streetscape and add visual interest the applicants may want to consider centering the door panel and adding side windows to the addition and extending the uncovered landing the full width of the addition applicants may also be able to improve upon the consistency of proposed detailing including eve returns and railing material with the style of the existing house and streetscape overall this proposal would not detrimentally impact the neighborhood character of the district or adjoining districts nor would it be detrimental to the health morals or welfare of the neighbors of the property um the architect told us that we couldn't center the due to side windows oh okay we agree with them i like i like expanding the the uh the floor the uh the landing yeah i like the whole idea yeah so thank you for that let's see you guys go back and put the all the front elevation here um so yeah so i think what they were just sort of getting at is that um they sort of had this with this this front elevation is rather plain to some extent um so i think that they were just sort of encouraging you know sort of possibly thinking a little bit more about the detailing um that would be expressed here uh obviously it is you know very much in keeping with the with what you have otherwise on the house so yeah it's it's kind of boring looking at it from the front which is one of the reasons we wanted to do this are there any other comments from the board seeing none if the board was to uh act on this application of the board has the three standard um conditions which um Mr. Hanlon read in into the record on the prior uh case are there any other conditions which the board feels would be necessary um in regards to this application i just have a question yes please so um i think you noted that there are no floor plans for this and so i think one of the uh standard conditions refers to the fact that it will be built in accordance with the floor plans and and i to me the solution is just to say that you know it can be constructed and not to exceed you know so many feet by so many feet whatever the dimensions are so that gives a little latitude if there have to be some minor revisions so just a thought maybe it doesn't need to be said but it did occur to me it's very well taken thank you and if the architects on the board want to roll their eyes at that suggestion and say you really don't need to do that that's fine too but it just occurred to me as i'm listening to it yeah i think one of the reasons we did not get the floor plan was because uh if we didn't get this special permit we would probably have to well we weren't told that we needed to submit as well but yeah but we would also have to reconfigure so that we wouldn't be within the the three-foot set by the the setback so yeah anybody okay so i would then for mr dupont's um note i would propose a condition of the proposed addition shall not exceed 6.5 feet in depth and 10 feet in width and unenclosed landing no greater than four feet in depth shall extend the width of the addition yeah that sort of cover everything we talked about yep excellent anything further with that then i would uh speak a motion on this application to chairman mr handlin i move that we approve the application subject to the three standard conditions plus the additional condition that the chair just read into the thank you mr handlin may i have a second second thank you mr dupont uh so this is a roll call vote of the board for approval of the special permit application with the four standard conditions plus the one additional condition uh so then excuse me can i just interject did you are you including the one that says that the foundation wall is still the wall do we do that typically thank you i appreciate you're bringing that up um we should include that so this is a quirk of the arlington zoning bylaw so um currently the foundation wall is at the front wall of your house and by building out the small addition it theoretically moves the front wall of the house forward which would then allow you to do a much larger addition later by right but the board routinely includes a condition that um the construction of these types of structures does not move the foundation wall of the house okay got it it's just all it means is that if you were to do something larger in the future you would still have to come back to the board that's yeah this old end of that in the plans fingers cross this is the last one so okay so the addition shall not affect the position of the foundation wall so then um mr hanlon has a friendly amendment it would be three plus two conditions yes that's correct and perfect um then with that we'll do a vote of the board um mr hanlon uh i mr dupont i mr ricka deli i and this hopman i and the chair votes i we are approved thank you thank you very much and we really appreciate your patience it's a thank you for you good luck and you thank you very much thank you very much do we um will you send us all of the uh the paperwork and the amendments now is that how it works or do we so um what we'll do is we will prepare a full written um decision that we will need to vote on at a subsequent hearing um which uh we'll like we'll have a we have a hearing on march 9th on a 40 b application so we could do that as an administrative item at that meeting and then at that point there's a 20 day appeal period um if anybody wants to appeal it and then you are free and clear okay awesome thank you so much so if you just contact inspectional services they can walk you through all that all right well thanks again and have a great night everybody okay thank you good night wow so uh just uh covered a few items here um so we had our hybrid meeting dry run um which i i think we all thought was pretty good um we all sort of i think also agreed that we hope we don't have to use it so we'll sort of see what what goes forward i have not heard anything yet from the state delegation as to whether or not they're going to be voting in time to allow our meetings to continue remotely but we will keep everyone informed as that moves forward so hopefully we'll be hearing something at some point um did also want to let the board know that uh the select board has interviewed a candidate for the open associate position on our board um and that gentleman will be on the docket with the select board for approval um at the start of march so um in short order we will be back to a full complement of members which would be great um so as i said at our next meeting uh thursday march ninth is the continued hearing for 10 21 10 25 mass av we will have us our typical next regular meeting would be march 14th but my understanding is that we do not have any business scheduled for the 14th which i i will confirm that but i believe that it's the case um so then that would mean that our subsequent meeting is march 23rd which would be the comprehensive permit again should that meeting be required and then march 28th where we have two continued hearings um so far on that date is already um so that christian you're correct about the 14th we don't have anything ready for that but um we have a bunch on the 28th oh perfect um and so we'll uh so pat are you able to take on it uh writing the decision for this case i think so yeah okay um two of two what hubs do 20 hubs and okay 75 dolphin and you're okay taking on both of those or do you want to share the wealth uh far away is nine days i'd like to share the well there's a lot of things coming up in the next week um yeah i could take a do you want me to take a stab at the hubs sure i'll do nothing okay it works um anything else from from the board nope not i think we are at an end so i'd like to thank you all for your participation at tonight's meeting of the erlington zoning board of appeals i appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting i would especially like to thank uh colleen ralsson and um marissa allow for their assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting i would especially like to thank uh pat handlin for taking over uh for the start of the meeting uh i myself was this the first meeting i have not been at a portion of in over two years so it's a little strange for me to sort of log on in the middle but uh i appreciate i appreciate pat stepping in for me it was uh in another role i am a scout master of one of the local scout troops and one of the scouts who i've known since he was eight or seven um had his eagles got border review tonight so i wanted to not miss that on his behalf so i appreciate people letting me do that um so uh please note the purpose the purpose of the board's recording this meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of our proceedings since our understanding the recording made by acmi will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the coming days and if anyone has comments or recommendations please send them via email to zba at town dot arlington dot ma dot us that email address is also listed on the zoning board of appeals website and to conclude tonight's meeting i would ask for a motion to adjourn mr chairman so moved second and thank mr dupont vote of the board to adjourn mr dupont hi mr handlin hi miss hoffman hi and mr ricka deli hi and the chair votes i as well we are adjourned thank you all very very much good night everyone good night everybody thank you mr chairman