 Call to order the Monday, November 19th meeting of the Arlington Revealment Board being recorded by ACMI. First in our agenda this evening is an appointment of a member to the Housing Plain Advisory Committee. As you may remember in August you appointed seven members of the Advisory Committee. There was no one representing the Housing Authority at that time and I've since spoken with John Griffin who's the Executive Director and who has agreed to serve on that committee. So I'm hoping that you will approve his membership. Just to update you, bear having their first meeting on October 22nd, which is Thursday. You've hired an MAPC to do the plan. We have a $15,000 grant from the state to pay for consultant to do a housing plan. So we need a motion to appoint Mr. Griffin. I'll move that we appoint John Griffin to the Housing Plain Advisory Committee. Next up is a proposed zoning amendment by a town resident. I think they're here this evening. I ask them to come up and present that to us please. Do you want to set the table? Yes, please. Introduce each of your cells with address please. And Laura Knottman who is an architect, an industrial architect working with us has some handouts for you that she's going to pass out now. Yes, absolutely. So for the record my name is Dorothy Held. I live on 184 Jason Street in Arlington. My business partner is Christelle Salami, who lives in Beverly, Massachusetts. And then we also have Laura Knottman, who is an industrial architect who also lives on Longfellow Road, I believe, in Arlington, Massachusetts. Feel free to have a seat. Okay. All right, so we're here to talk about repurposing a particular property for dog daycare and boarding. In this case we are talking about 10 studies side, but we want to emphasize that maybe this is an option for other properties in the town. We just haven't done the analysis. So as way of background, Christelle and I have known each other for 10 years. We've been talking about this seriously for five and now we're doing it. And Laura, who I've met when I moved to Arlington, is an industrial architect who is helping us as we assess properties in Arlington and elsewhere and also undertaking the feasibility study. And we've spent quite a bit of time on this particular property at 10 sunny side. So what I'm going to do tonight, you have a rough framework of what we want to talk about. And the first two bullet points are really focusing on the business of dog daycare and why we see a need, and particularly for Arlington. The third point is talking about the zoning constraints in Arlington, which is why we're here today, of course. And then the last point is really to talk about our vision and also why we believe really it's going to serve the community at large. So I guess I'll begin with the introduction of why this business, why for me and how Christelle and I came together because I don't think it's that uncommon, my story. I am a single woman with a dog. I am a busy working person. I have long hours and there was a time when I was traveling quite a bit and I wanted a dog. I wanted companionship. And while there's many backstories about the certain ways that I tried to fulfill that need, ultimately I decided I needed a dog care service that was 24 seven, which is to say 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For him, you know, dogs are packed animals. So they like to be with a pack. They're very social animals. So I wanted a cage free environment. I also wanted it to be well supervised. Okay. I wanted a routine that was familiar to him. So whether he was there during the day or whether he was there at night, you know, he was going to be a happy dog and not suffer from separation anxiety or uncertainty or whatever it may be. So yes, he's my kid, undeniable. I don't apologize for that. So when I was looking for this, there was really nothing in any anywhere convenient. And I found pet companions, which is where Christelle was managing up until recently. And I met Christelle and I met pet companions out in Reading. And it is exactly this philosophy that I just expressed. For me, again, I wanted a seamless experience for the dog, a routine, a true home away from home, something that was institutional and not what I will call babysitting, which is there's no problems with babysitting. It's just I needed for my lifestyle something more. Okay. So how do we measure whether my experience is a growing demand in the community? Okay. Well, we can start with the Arlington dog licenses. And in 2012, it was roughly 1800. And this is on your website, by the way. And it's grown to an estimated 2200. Now, Arlington, a dog with a conversation with the president there, we learned that that's estimated to be 30% of the households. In other words, there's 70% who are not licensing their dog. So that comes up with an estimated 7300 dogs in the community. That being said, I don't put a lot of money on the data. And, you know, we just don't know if the dog per household is grown, or we just don't know much about that data. So I don't I'm not going to use it as an argument for demand. I think instead, well, and let me just say that that data conundrum, if you will, exists on a state and a national level. If you do a survey of dogs per household national, you're going to come up with all sorts of mixed analysis and, you know, speaking to the integrity of those surveys. That said, so let's let's maybe flip it around and say acknowledging that the household, as we know today is very different from what it was 20 years ago. So what people care and want may be different now than it was 20 years ago, whether the number of dogs have increased or not. So how do you know, let's look at supply. His supply grown is their demand and therefore would supply follow. To that point, I'm going to talk about two things locally. Okay, when we did, let's start looking at this five years ago, we did a competitive analysis. Christelle has recently picked up that competitive analysis. In fact, there are many more smaller daycares that have, you know, put their shingles on the door recently. And I'm going to characterize those strictly as a daycare and also with limited space and also, you know, with limited time. So you're talking about an 8am drop off in a six or 6.30pm pickup, which again, for someone in my situation is not going to fit because we're looking for an expanded pickup and drops off somewhere from 6.30 to 8.30pm to allow for flexibility of, you know, challenging home schedules. Alright, so there are more dogs that are daycare providers out there than there were, but on a limited basis. Another data point that I think is interesting, which doesn't speak to this community, but shows you maybe the demand for this type of service or for dog care service is that both dogvacay.com and rover.com are two web-based platforms that have seeked funding and have had two rounds of venture funding. In 2012 and 2013, they both hit $15 million in venture funding. And then, most recently in the past 12 months, they both went for a second round and got $25 million. Now, we are not proposing a web-based platform for dog sitters. Again, we're looking to do something that's more institutional in nature and has a standard of quality and it has accountability because after all, this is not a regulated service. In fact, while I'm sure that there are a lot of good dog sitters and a lot of good babysitters, there's also an opportunity, because it's unregulated, that people can put their shingle on the door and promise a lot of pretty pictures and I'm great with dogs and then put the dog in the bathroom for the weekend and unless the dog has died, what's the accountability? How do we know what that dog's experience was? Again, what we're looking to do at All Day Dogs is a more institutional, a more institutional experience, quality of experience that has space, that has supervision, that has high staff to dog ratios. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about the zoning issues that we have and this is specifically if you look on the regulation of use zoning at 6.11 and if you read it through and we have many times and we did with staff of Arlington as well, at the end of the day, it limits two things that are critical to our business plan and that is one outdoor space and that's also boarding. So let's talk about maybe the outdoor space first and I'll leave it to you guys to address the concerns of the community. I'll just say from a business person's dog care business person's perspective, there's some unintended consequences that come out of that and basically where are dog care, daycare providers curbing their dogs? And the reality is that they're doing one of two things. They're either curbing them inside whereas the dogs take those behaviors home and it also raises some health issues for both dogs and other dogs and staff alike or they're taking their dogs out into public throughways, sidewalks and streets if you will. We've done an analysis of who's doing that and what we're finding interestingly is not that not only are a lot of the daycares taking their dogs outside onto the public throughways but they're charging you an extra 10 or 15 bucks to do that which is fine. I mean they're trying to make ends meet but the point I'm trying to say is that that we're looking to do something that really addresses the health and the health needs of the dogs and the staff that work there. I guess the other thing that I would say about outdoors space is that what we're looking to do is enclose space for dogs both indoor and outdoor. So it's going to be enclosed and you're not going to have very limited contact with the surrounding community. We're also looking to have a location that has parking so that we adhere to a very strict on-boarding process whereby dogs are delivered to the facility on leash from the parking lot. Again we're looking to really control that environment where dogs are in contact with the broader community. And then there's the issue of overnight boarding. Currently nothing exists so I am sort of backtracking talking about needs here. So this is a problem for a lot of Arlington and you know surrounding community folks. They only have essentially Crate Escape and Petsmart and you can ask Christels or in Q&A but during peak periods there's just no boarding around. It's very limited. We're talking about predominantly July and August and during the holidays as well. So what about boarding? Well the way that we see it again as business people is that we open our doors at 6.30 we close them at 8.30. That's when all the traffic and the you know the activity occurs between those hours. When we have our boarding dogs at 8.30 the door shut down and everyone goes in for the night. Now I can't promise that there won't be noise particularly during peak seasons because as Christel can tell you there are times when you have to let dogs out at night to go to the bathroom because if one goes they all go but by and large it's you know we don't see it as a big issue and we also would note that there are ordinances in place that if it were to be an issue the noise factor in the overnight that the surrounding community has recourse. Okay so I'm gonna make sure I've covered all my points here. Oh yeah no I want to talk about real estate for a minute. So you're saying well if there's so much of a need why aren't there more people doing what you're suggesting that you want to do now. And the reality is that the cost of real estate as well as a zoning make it prohibitive. So if you are doing daycare you're not going to be able to afford a place with space and you're not also you know and also by the way that's why you'll see some pretty high dog daycare prices too. The beauty of the boarding and the daycare you know business plan if you will is which by the way is what we want to do because we believe in the home away from home but regardless that from an economic standpoint you're now taking that fixed cost and you're leveraging it 24-7 and the the two takeaways from that are one is that you you know you now have margin and you can manage your pricing you can also pay your staff and we've used we've had the benefit of the numbers from the daycare that Christelle was managing and we're very comfortable that not only can we maintain a high staff to dog ratio we can pay them well and you know we can deliver it and make this business work while paying for the real estate and making the conversions that need to take place. So it's 10 minutes gone up? No we're still got so let's talk about 10 sunny side as we see it or or any place as we see it the business of it you know we aspire to a safe and controlled environment. I want to reiterate that the surrounding community will have limited contact with the dogs the indoor and outdoor spaces will be enclosed and I'll note here too that the outdoor space is also an important exit in the event that there's some sort of natural or disaster otherwise fire or earthquake if you will for the dogs to go so we like that we like that. The on-site parking for leech dogs drop-offs and pick-ups. Health the outdoor play is a good place for them to use the bathroom and I also emphasize and Laura can speak in more detail about that is that we're doing a lot of analysis on the turf systems and the flooring systems to manage the waste because honestly we don't want staff spending a lot of time picking up waste we feel like if we can keep staff happy we keep dogs happy and if we keep dogs happy we keep clients happy so putting in the investment to make an efficient waste management system will you know do well for our business at large. Noise control I'll just reiterate some of the things that that we've said and maybe add a few points. Here Christelle can give you the background but dogs are social animals and often when they're in the pack they're engaged and an engaged dog is a quieter dog. A high staff to dog ratio which means that dogs are being supervised and Christelle can talk about some of the methods that they use at PCI to manage the pack which you know keeps them quiet and then I'll also say as business people we will be doing temperament testing this won't be a daycare or boarding facility for all dogs and noisy dogs simply won't be invited back I mean you know that's unfortunate but that's just the way we have to manage the business and then as I as I had stated earlier there is a noise ordinance in place so then in the event that there's you know some disruption that's bothering the neighbors they have recourse. We also think that this business would do well to serve the community. Our business plan calls for on average 14 people working there during the week. We see it as a local option something that we're eager to brand as local and you know you say grounds up you know the real deal not a big box not a pet smart you know you'll know the people and working there and they'll be part of the community. We're excited about this particular location and I would say that this is in general who we are anyway it's a historic warehouse and you know sort of bringing back that character you know revitalizing it bringing to life you know for our purposes this is pretty exciting and then we've also are looking into landscaping where we can to not only you know make the community pretty but also manage things like noise and you know other other factors so with that that is our proposal for repurposing 10 sunny side and we really welcome your questions and Christelle again my business partner and Laura our architect are you know available to dig in on our on our handouts as well as thoughts and concerns. I wonder if you would mind if the staff just presented his put it in the context of what we're doing here. Yes. Good evening. Do you want to sit up here? That's okay. I'm a former member of the board so I sat up there enough. We met with Miss Heldon and Christelle and we discussed their concerns and their plans and they asked us you know they brought to our attention the fact that zoning right now really doesn't allow for all day 24-hour boarding care of dogs. The closest thing is a veterinary care facility where boarding is accessory and accessory used to the medical functions of the facility so that's clearly not what they proposed to do so they were thinking that zoning would have to be changed to accommodate the use that they propose and as I indicate in the memo that was part of your packet we believe instead of inserting or instead of adding a new use into zoning it might be easier and just better to amend the language under 6.11 to read veterinarian animal care including temporary day and night time lodging providing all shelter facilities are within an enclosed building and instead of adding in new use or something along those lines. And this would be just in business and industrial areas right by special permit. I guess my first question is probably to Ted just to follow up on your zoning analysis is this would this only be in B4 versus a number of different districts. Well they proposed the location they proposed it as a B4 district changing it to 6.11 to be in B2 through B5 but with special permit control obviously you know the locational characteristics and yes and industrial to know actually it's not it's not allowed industrial so that would have to change okay so that would go from no to right yes yes you know I'll just throw this out there there's another property that I just saw came up for a lease it's next to stop and shop it's acting and if you show me the map I could tell you what it's right next to stop and shop apprentice no I don't know but anyway the point is it's perfect in some regards except for it's right next to residential and not to you know one of the beauties is is that we are looking for something that he has a little more space so that we can offer the outdoor and in this case we've measured it and you're talking 238 on one direction is our closest resident and 200 feet is the other one so in this case you know just arguing I guess on our behalf for this particular property we think that it has some unique characteristics that some of the other space one and I guess that's why you're recommending special permit okay yeah sorry just to follow up on that so how would industrial zoning work would you add that into the allowable district right I actually I like the concept I think it's a good idea I think it's one that there's a need for I think one of the things just to sort of anticipate to anticipate how this might play out at town meeting because the zoning change requires two-thirds of town meeting is you're going to get the question how divergent is this use from what we have now because whether you're folding it into the existing 6.11 use or creating a new use it is a little bit of a new use so you know that's just a question this is really more of a oh yeah absolutely you bring them on because I think that you know we're pretty committed I guess to your point that we're waiting to do you know go through an April 1 I mean quite honestly if this wasn't an issue we would be our real church and a frankness here we would be working on putting together an offer for this property I'll be frank with you and time is money and it's so I'm not going to tell you we're not looking at properties but it's you know it's kind of a bummer to have to work for that on the other hand we figure like if you guys if we think we can do this and we have all the questions we address them you know then we'll just look at the next three months between December and April as a marketing you know we're just marketing ourselves making our case and getting people to know us and so we'll turn it into something positive right but the bottom line is you know I would say that's probably a good question for sorry Ted to put this on you but but it is a new it is a new use I you know personally feel like it's a new use that's needed and it's going to be value add to that particular area of the community I think it's gonna don't get me wrong I think the current owner has done a lot to make the you know he's put a lot of love into that building let me be clear but I think we're going to take it to another level and you know it's it's you know it's gonna be a destination spot it will the the front warehouse is such that we'll be able to sponsor you know events for like the Arlington a dog group or training and agility training and stuff so there's there's a lot with that space that we can do that's adjunct adjunct to the dog daycare but also you know provides a real service to the community so and then my last question again this is really more towards staff but just and it may be alleviated by the fact that we're talking about special permanent as opposed to has a right but are there other sites in town that would be within the zoning net here that we're throwing down for v2 through v5 and industrial where this might be problematic and I'm not expecting that you have an encyclopedia in your mind of all these sites but just is there you know an area where we're bumping up against the residential district perhaps parts of Dudley Street where there are residential interspersed with yeah business and industrial zoning but I think that's why the the Sunnyside location question is ideal because there really is very few there's no residential about it is quite a bit farther down the street yes yes it's really quite isolated from residential contact and it by both grade and space so I think it's an ideal spot in that low in that regard other spots that we've looked at are a little bit more problematic they're closer to residential areas but there are currently veterinary facilities that are right abutting residential areas and I think you know part of your first question was how how much does it diverge from that existing use and in some ways you have better control in this type of a facility than in the better veterinary facilities because dogs going to the vet are often quite anxious you know so there's I mean I go to the vet pretty often and you know you have dogs coming in and out on short time frames you know so you have a lot of traffic back and forth and dogs who are a little bit anxious and nervous you know a greater risk of them kind of getting loose up the street and there's certainly a lot of vocalization inside of the vet so you know it's probably not that different from you know in terms of right impact but different in a better way but it's a larger facility what's proposed is larger than the existing vet facilities in Arlington but those are often right within the residential neighborhood so having it be a special current lease allows that consideration to be done you know what are what are the what are your thoughts that the ones that are in other towns and things how do they how do they work and what kinds of issues might those might come up relative to those is it it's not it's not a kennel right it's no it's cage-free but some can answer some of this but let me ask if you're asking about cops are you asking about competition are you talking about operation are you talking about other communities experiencing looking for boarding and zoning because I know just like other types of facilities like this okay so maybe not exactly like your business model but yeah great escape is would be the closest to go that's on I'm just want to get out of Arlington what's it called again great escape which is on Blanchard Road right across from Fresh Pond animal hospital and then the other camp of course is Pet Smart I don't know great escape facility in great detail I do know that they offer boarding how big are they they are large in terms of square footage I want to say because I went on to the yeah I just I want to say that that it's it's very large so in terms of space I don't think that they have an issue however dogs today I don't know we can try and ask but keep in mind again this goes to this whole point that it's unregulated so there's no one that is you know I know that we believe and it is Laura correct me if I'm wrong that the Board of Health in Arlington will have some responsibility of oversight for our facility right but right now there's no best practices are really you know up to you to decide what we have decided is to look at the ASPCA the animal the association of whatever we all know it right I'm just having a mind you know black is really saying that 75 square foot per dog and you know 15 dogs per staff person and I would challenge you to actually walk in and make you know this notion of 75 square foot dogs in New England is is that's a tall order to meet in terms of cost so do you want to tell me something about that well I was just wondering about the why you talk about there is a facility in in Coolidge corner in Brooklyn section the second floor of a building in the middle of Coolidge corner they have I think they board about 35 dogs 50 50 else together yeah 50 is their maximum and they typically have about 35 and they don't have any outdoor space so they take the dogs out in Coolidge corner on leash which I think is not an ideal situation but you know they're right in the middle of a dense commercial residential neighborhood so I think this is a much more ideal setup than that would be but they seem to be in Brooklyn is not the kind of town where people don't seem to care about things so so I think they've managed to you know make it work in terms of you know it's in a it's in an old building that they've renovated the dogs I guess go up the stairs I think it might be useful just to have that in your in our town you know you're you're obviously doing something that you want to be a new paradigm or whatever a new kind of a thing but it has it can be compared to various other types of things and why is it different I think it would help those those that don't know about this kind of thing we want to know yeah we want to know it's not a kennel it's not a that it's you know it has all this it's a dog care facility 24 hour seven a week come under a lot of demand these days working people so forth but we can only point to things that are similar and this is how we see this working to other types of things I think that is a point well taken well I think you're going to get the question yeah I think it's a good question I you know I tend to come at you like oh well it's a kennel are we gonna allow that in our town no barking barking barking barking barking and barking well I want to ask you a little but that's I think cop's spaces no more just the model and how this base is different from what I think the coolest corner one you'd also want sort of comparable statutes as to what you're looking to have you meant if you are zoning by law how Brooklyn handles it how down on handles it in there zone okay ahead of time yes you'll definitely want to be prepared to answer that question okay if you can present that right off the bats right yeah and they're successful yep right and then they'll go to the barking I live in a place where there's a dog that barks every night and now you're telling me I've got 50 dogs that's not gonna fly that kind of thing so you have to and I think you have placed it in the right context but about the barking so is it there's indoor and there's outdoor which is great I think I love the idea and how much how do you control the noise outside so if I'm working well I just recently left to dedicate a hundred percent of my time on this but my companions in writing right on Main Street there's actually a neighbor across the street which is like less than 200 feet away never had a complaint and what's important to know is that like a regular kennel like you leave dogs in those runs and you know when dogs are not being attended to they tend to bark a lot because they're anxious they want attention so what they do they bark because they want somebody to come and hang out with them right at a daycare like this when dogs are playing with each other they keep it sure they're entertained you have a high ratio of staff versus dogs so maybe about 15 dogs per staff we can control the dogs we can entertain them play ball with them there's a lot of different types of dogs they're dogs that don't really care about dogs they'd like to hang out and follow us around the dogs that only want to play ball so as long as we entertain them and play ball with them they're happy they're dogs that just like to play with dogs so that's what they do now what we do if they're companions they came up with this they call it the gentle method of correction so basically what it is is every time a dog barks plays a little too rough or mounts another dogs will put them on each and make them sit for a couple of seconds let them go if they do it again we do it again and dogs learn by repetition so as long as staff is consistent by doing that every time one of those behavior happened the dog actually learns and doesn't do those behaviors or they'll do something because you know they're dogs so of course they're gonna do one of those three every so often but they'll see you coming and they said already they know it's coming because they you know they know the routine so as long as a dog respond to the gentle method they do really well here there we could provide videos you know I could video their area with 40 dogs outside you don't hear one buck so it's it's possible to actually keep dogs under control that way as long as you keep them engaged now if you leave them alone outside with no supervision nothing to do no balls no nothing that's when they'll start barking because they're like hey where are you you know so it's possible to keep dogs under control it's interesting to their space is predominantly outdoor so they have 3,000 square foot outdoor and you know maybe you know 6 to 700 indoor so it's a different we're looking to take this sort of concept but also add a lot of more indoor space on the zoning Ted when you go to it says what would the outside space be allowable I guess it says that because it says so it's veterinary animal care that's good including temporary day and night lodging providing all shelter facilities are within an enclosed building well the shelter facilities as I read their plan is they're going to keep the dogs inside at night when they sleep but there's nothing that's going to jump out saying well you can't have an outside area right an outside recreation area yeah the only thing I mean because we want blood water exists sometimes the dogs will have to have to go out to go to the bathroom and then they'll come back in yeah so but but they won't be playing it won't be play recreation outdoors at night you see what I'm saying so when the door shut at 830 it's you know bedtime folks and the dogs come inside with the exception that they need to go out to go to the bathroom which in peak periods you know it's probably going to be necessary it will be necessary I just want to be addressed through conditions on the special permit to right we're gonna say okay but in town meeting I don't want to say well that this this doesn't isn't written to allow outside outside lot outside temporary care yeah well that's why I say I recommend providing all shelter facilities are in an enclosed building right I read that as you're okay to have these things or an enclosed building but I worry about it should be written so that it's clearly outside exercise yeah of course there won't be dog parties at midnight but yeah but yeah sleeping over cold boarding is that the word that you would use maybe shelter boarding facilities right but yeah I mean I guess it's also when you're drafting this if you want to consider specifically mentioning outdoor recreational areas right and then adding but all boarding facilities yeah just to make sure that people get it yeah because otherwise there may be confusion about oh it's been dogs you're gonna be out at night it's part of your model as you did you come forward with that and then that's really a draftsmanship that's great glad to hear you feel that way the overnight thing for weekends that's what I find we need a lot yeah so you want to go out away in vacation yeah and would it would you do it for a long week oh yeah yeah we have dogs up for a few months sometimes and what about training like I know that that's another big thing these days and sure different ways do it would you well I'll tell you yeah there will be because this face a particular allows for some training and we also can speak to this but we've also given thought we want to have one of our floor managers have a training background because the unfortunate part about I mean there's good things but the bad thing about a cage for environment is that some dogs aren't suited for that experience right so rather than saying no we want to offer potential clients a solution to that it doesn't mean that the dog will be ready but let's say your dog is fearful of other dogs working with the right trainer you can overcome that and then the dog might be better for that experience you see I'm saying so we feel like a trainer is going to be an important element to it and you know we've had a couple conversations with local trainers when size there's quite a few around here but I mean that's you know we're kind of we don't have a job to offer yet so we can't you know talk about that you know who that will be and what that program will look like but we're putting a lot of thought into it all right thanks what's the next steps here do you mind me asking I think that call Ted with the planning department staff okay think about how you would want the the warrant article typically when it's going into the warrant it's a little it's purposefully kept open so because the warrant is just noticed that there's going to be this man discussed at town meeting and you don't want to make it so narrow that if your thought process evolves a little bit between the warrant deadline and then town meeting that you have don't wind up with an article that's out of scope right so you tend to keep it on the broadside so I understand right and then as you get closer to town meeting you'll want you know more or less the exact text that you want to be settled on and you know presentation usually these articles zoning articles are presented by a member of the board but they could call up one of you if you wanted to speak okay you're a resident yeah so you could speak at town meeting and and add what you wanted to the presentation remember though you're dealing with I think it's seven minutes yeah I don't know if this is right and I don't know how I came up with the schedule but a warrant would go in around December and I would start with Christelle and Laura meeting the 250 people you know from January to April every Friday night there's gonna be a party at my house talking about don't you take care you're all welcome well what you said it's marketing right I mean it's your opportunity to tell people what we're about there's one one more dead one more milestone which is the hearing there will be a hearing before the redevelopment board of all the zoning articles it's usually late February early March and we'll make sure you know about it okay okay it's a public hearing okay yeah yeah so the warrant is due though by December it's close at the end of January so it's December January okay but you're good to start thinking about it December you know so it's good to have an artificial deadline in your mind and Ted will work with you on that okay that's fabulous yep okay well I don't know thank you guys it was a pleasure moving on to design standards adoption that we never brought it back to you to adopt it officially as of now it is not a part of the zoning officially it is just really guidelines that the building inspector has as well and will apply in discussion with proponents I think if we we can talk about whether or not we think it should be part of the zoning I've always thought maybe it would be nice to test it out a little bit before we make it part of the zoning so we'll depend on if any projects but we were hoping that you would adopt it tonight if you're comfortable doing that if you have any questions go right well I'll start I'm very impressed actually I think the presentation looks great you know has enough color in it to make it you know user-friendly and I like the matrix idea where it's you know easy to sort of find you know what my man and then what the other the guidelines are and Laura your point is a good one maybe it does make sense to have this has just a guideline that's not officially part of the zoning but you know if you are applying for something particularly that's going to get up to one of the boards and you're hitting a lot of these items on it you know it looks like you're really you've got a project that's going to sit well with the respective board and then if it turns out that this is we want to sort of codify it into the bylaws great I like so I like it too is it editable now or is it on minute man bike way down in the second highlighted section taller buildings should be stepped back to diminish shadows addresses you might say I mean this is just a thought I'm trying to think out a little bit but define maximum shadow encroachment I wrote down what you want to do is protect the light and sun I mean other in a pan bike way this implies that maybe enough tall building should be stepped back to diminish shadows how would you define it like what would be no I'm saying well okay that what would be the language that you would or you would minimize the shadow encroachment what you're doing here is you're giving kind of statements about purpose right so maybe you make it another statement of purpose do it the other way from what I said minimize or I wrote define maximum allowable shadow we would I see you'd have to define it right here is what you're saying but I thought it would be just a mission to to define maybe I should say it to minimize shadow encroachment tall there should be stepped back to diminish shadows taller building should step up taller building should step back and overall you know you could put it in the same sentence somehow so it's not just taller buildings it's overall shadow encroachment I think it's probably important okay in other words you would say well you should build you can build higher on the north side potentially if it's appropriate then you can on the south because you're going to not block some of it is it very building height between three and five stories to minimize shadow encroachment on path is that the same no no it is totally different I think it's it's part of told us we step back overall in shadow encroachment should be monitored or something like that I'm trying to sense to stick in there that took on the path I agree with you on the first section down on for parking and access parking should be invisible from the sidewalk I agree I agree with that but is that a good parking should be invisible no I'm just saying it's it's that's a tall order to have it completely invisible but it's certainly the right direction to go shield yeah I was thinking that should be screened but I like that I mean you're endeavoring to be camouflage no no no I think it's more like we're talking about all parking I mean we're talking about parking facilities parking lots or just well it's in it's in the parking and access and commercial corridors maximize parking and include by that's good so if they shared parking to reduce areas of parking that's good parking should be invisible from the sidewalk what we're trying to say is well I think it's parking facilities isn't it it's parking lots it's private parking not yeah private parking I don't want to it should be as much as possible out of view or screen not screen because then that just makes it too easy so accessory parking parking that's part of yeah use the primary right right right right right because you had a parking garage it'd be impossible to see it right it's not going to be invisible impact impact of private parking facilities should be reduced or minimized visible presence of parking minimized I think minimized it's better than invisible it's just doing what we're trying to get at here is to prevent people from you know setting the building back and having a parking lot in front right or even minimize in the amount of parking that it that is visible like the end of a parking lot yeah don't make it a three-quarters of your site make it much smaller pieces yeah so maybe we just need to soften invisible a little bit but still keep some yeah it's gonna have to minimize minimize parking visibility from the sidewalk yeah it should be invisible from the sidewalk right about the text that's it now is that it's it's very kind of you know it's short and snapping in I mean that's that's a that's a goal yeah on the last one Milbro quarter do you all want to go two to four stories or two to five stories or maybe we talked about this but I think we did and I think that my memory of our discussion was that five stories on the Milbro quarter could be could be a lot but same as a bike path it could be a lot too yeah I mean I think that's that's why I thought I said wait a minute I don't want to give five story allowable allowability either on the bike path or next to Milbrook but they're very comparable so you're gonna get some cases where you may right but I guess you know the only areas that you're going to be able to get to that height is you know you're higher business districts right so you already have a height control on all the residential parts of the bike path so maybe the three to five isn't quite so bad you know because it's gonna be concentrated just the real commercial court district where the bike path passes through let's say gold's gym area it's okay it's a little I mean it's part of the whole issue of how you you know it's kind of got to be form-based in a way it's got to be based on a plan that looks that's the provable and so forth it's okay with me to leave it to the two to four but I see that it's very comparable to to the min-min bike way places where you can be pretty high around in commercial areas around the the Milbrook quarter the overall quarter no but it's it's interesting to consider so we have five on the commercial partners three to five on Minuteman and two to four on Milbrook does that seem right try to think of examples we I mean we go back and forth the staff because in the visual preference survey people seem to comfortable before and as soon as we went to five we lost support so we maybe maybe it's too foreign I think from the visual preference five in certain areas is okay but not everywhere whereas four people were more comfortable with the three people were comfortable with and much larger it's appropriate like in the industrial areas it's like you know the building a 22 no yeah was that three stories or three and a half I mean it's over the medical office building is for four is it for us at all well there might be a basement or something but it's for is it getting elevated for yeah I think the heart of it is submerged and below right but I mean that doesn't strike me has too high no no right it's fine I mean it has kind of that nice kind of you know industrial yeah yeah it's good urban feel to it right you're gonna have more you have some stuff like that yeah but then the other question then maybe it should be why is three to five on the Minuteman bikeway is that because the 22 no I mean the other thing is that you've got setbacks mentioned I believe on the right established buffer okay so that helps that so you have a buffer and you can go three to five and then you leave two to four on the no brook yeah I mean almost seems like you could have those what's in the Minuteman column could also be a no brook and vice versa yeah because I think that's sort of this what what's getting you away from a shadow problem is having the upper stories step back right that's one thing that's getting away from yeah but I definitely want to add that other sentence so they don't put a four-story building right against the southern wall of the bike path and you're in shadow forever but I'll stick with two to four on a no brook quarter and it's it's so varied some places you're not gonna want more than two but other areas like in the whole industrial area that exists next to my right whatever it's called the industrial they're already high big high wooden buildings yeah they're already there so depending on the type of element might be okay to have that kind of high so it really varies leave it as it is I mean it's it's a general guideline I think this is sort of you know why we're not quite ready to embrace it in an emerging end of the bylaw is that you know and I think this actually has a better purpose as being a guideline too yeah because if you try to put it in the bylaw I think you're gonna wind up with you know a lot of people attacking it for being big right so exactly then the last one is just third foster the last one on the right little foster connections with Mass Ave and the bikeway I want to say pedestrian connections foster pedestrian connections with Mass Ave and the bikeway all of them should say that oh they all do that can you vote with those changes that will make those changes if we have any questions we'll run quiet before we the only ones I made were adding the minimum shadow encroachment yeah maximum shadow encroachment and the ad word pedestrian to the pedestrian connections and then it is a war yes so I would I'll move that the board adopt the design standards town of Arlington has a set of guidelines for development and the commercial quarters and bikeway and Millbrook quarter as a vented because I don't know if I want to add anything more but I'm just want to sure we're adopting it solely as guidelines and not as beyond that just say that period this is adopted this is to be adopted as guidance solely as guidelines right and look and then after it's finalized we'll distribute it to the VA the building sector I know it's got a second to it all right Laura update us as far as bylaw amendments please so first I'll just let you all know that the implementation the management implementation committee is going to be meeting on October 29th and the staff has started to work on the on the implementation steps that involve going to town meeting because we felt like we needed to get started so there's a memo in your packet we the staff has been meeting and we met this last week with my firm in the building department to talk about what we thought our priorities were and yes his priorities were right now we're working on two well three things primarily one is residential some changes to deal with complaints about new new houses all you know small houses being demolished and very large houses that max out the lot being built and large additions that also are very large for the ones you know it's not an easy problem to deal with and it's a problem that many towns are trying to grab these are just some of some of our thoughts one issue we want to try to deal with is the big garage doors that are facing the street and so there's just a big curve cut in the front there's not really a front yard anymore and set the side yards and approachmen on neighbors and possibly an FAR which is not we have no FAR in the residential zone right now but looking at it would just control the size of the house in relation to the lot I think we're open to your thoughts and suggestions on any of these definitely the implementation committee will be working on this as well and I'm thinking maybe we'll have some kind of working group of people who can help us think about this I know there's a lot of interest in it trying to do we used to have curb cuts is the thing that limited you what you're trying to say it's not just the curb kind is the amount of black top that you're allowed to put on Joey would you like to discuss the how we get around the front yard parking prohibition you can park on a driveway leading to an accepted parking spot and the tendency is for people to park on that driveway and they can add two cars and usually in that space one car is usually deeper in and one further out essentially in the front yard setback but it's not enforced well so that it's become rather accepted the problem is that we're seeing is especially in two family houses which are being currently erected that they're having parking underneath the house so that you have this very wide paved area in the very center of a lot essentially and it goes to that with that it can be 20 the driveway 20 feet but with the current cut it becomes 24 feet wide and if you have a 50 foot wide lot that's half a lot it's cut but you're seeing a lot of that right because if you're building a house that's as wide as it can be there's no place to put a driveway to put the parking in there so there's there are different ways to attack that people have a wider side yard but that gives you a whole lot of pre-existing now conforming uses with the side yard encroachment that's right that's right and I think you know this was largely a phenomenon with new construction I think that you know the older homes that are on some of the smaller lots you know which are now pre-existing non-conforming lots you have to do what Joey was just describing I mean you may have a single-car garage and the driveway leading to it but your lots just not big enough for that for that second car go anyplace other than in the driveway that is technically in the front yard many of those old garages are not wide enough to be used as garages now really or if it becomes the new storage annex yeah which is great but but now with new construction you would think like well there's a way of finding a home for the for the vehicles except for the fact that folks want to max out them we've also looked at possibly limiting the width of front facing garage doors a maximum width for you know if you have a garage door in the front the maximum width for our maximum total width if you have two garage doors and you know something along those lines there's another control and I kind of related because as you make the structure bigger then your choices for for the parking you know dwindle so is that what the F.A.R. does to three different size lots just to see well right now we have a lot of coverage but still within a lot of coverage control it actually fit quite a large yeah I'm intrigued by the F.A.R. thing I know we're sort of borrowing it from the from from more of the commercial sphere but you know the percentages I think you still wind up with a pretty generous house I mean if you're in the are zero district and you go 55% of F.A.R. you get the 4950 of interior living space that's a pretty big house. Ted looked at some of the different residential zones to see what the existing average F.A.R. is and it was 54% reducing? Well it depends on when the houses were built but overall as a town-wide average the average F.A.R. for a single-family home is 49% and you know it it's 54% for into war home into war homes homes built between 1919 and 1939 and it's about 40 it's about 41% for post World War two homes built before 1973 and then the average F.A.R.s climb you know with more modern homes so yeah right now you know they're older type homes are definitely smaller than what we're seeing built right now in terms of F.A.R. so that's where we are looking at these controls. Okay I mean if you have any thoughts or if you were interested in participating as we go ahead. I have one other thing to add just and this is on point five we're talking about signs removing them from zoning you may want to just make a note though that they should be still part of special formal EDI. That was the building inspectors addition to the list okay so just to talk about the other two things that have been on our list one is to add mixed use as a new use with very with limited setback requirements the problem the biggest problem with mixed use right now is that if you have a residential component the residential has residential setbacks which are generally like 20 feet and you don't want that with a mixed use building with retail in the first floor so you end up with well you end up that no one wants to do it because they're they don't want to step back the residential that much so if we it seemed to us the simplest way to deal with it is to add it as a new use with its own set of requirements one thing that we wanted your input on is whether or not they can be by right or if they should be by special permit any mixed use property you know smart growth zoning says if you have a use that you want you make it by right you make it as easy as possible for people to do it so on the second page that I hand out the MU this is an existing code so that's multi-use not mixed use I was confused by the asterisk after maximum at they are such lower maximum at they are allowed in development where less than half of gross area is non-residential is that read correctly that's what that's one thought we had where basically you're giving a 25 percent that they are bonus for mixed use properties that are predominantly commercial right what we're saying is that what I what we're saying there is if you have a predominantly commercial that should read it's meant to read if you have a predominantly commercial mixed use property the max of our be 150 okay but if it's mainly residential that would be 125 so instead of allowed you would have to say required required yeah okay yes I hear what you're saying you want to encourage it easy but we are kind of you know going in a little bit on chartered waters here too so kind of lean on the special yeah I think it's important to have some oversight just to sort of build on my point you know and I think the conversation that was just having illustrates it you could have something that has just a scintilla commercial use and now all of a sudden you're trying to get it into you know mixed use and evading all of the controls that you have for what we would typically think of would be a residential use so that's that's why I'm you know till it's unless you made the mixed use zoning district really complete but all the controls are built in I think it's probably more special permanent I'd agree with that it'd be nice to see a little if you don't want to do a little diagram of each one of your lines here so this is a quick visual way to understand how big a building would be yeah but that if they are with zero line the only one that you have setbacks in that's what's existing right there we didn't change it in B1 right neighborhood office which are mostly about former residences that I see you do the same thing with your your houses that have that block cover it's just to see because I think a lot of it is just these monstrous things are just tightly packed and then they have to figure out how to get the driveway don't work so a little F.A.R. diagram would be useful you guys can do it could be very helpful because you would instantaneously understand what you're talking about coverage setbacks and height the other one was parking so this is related to mixed use because we I think we want to talk about requiring less parking in commercial zones in general but also multifamily residential there is evidence like certainly some of the older buildings in town have one parking space per unit and the Pam Hallett of the housing corporation of Wellington says that she does not use all the parking in many of the facilities they own and she's looking for reduced parking in the next project so I'm actually looking at doing what's called a right-size parking study which is kind of a market study for what do residential developments have for parking and how is the demand but what we were what I was considering what staff has discussed is to allow a reduction in parking right now the bylaw allows a reduction to 80% of requirement but to allow to go lower by special permit with some kind of transportation to man management meaning that the owner has to do some things to encourage people not to have two cars you know I wouldn't say that I wouldn't say no cars but I would say one car could be adequate for some households so that would mean maybe providing teapasses bike facilities indoor bike facilities and the office might have a shower there's a number of different things that they can do to encourage people not to drive carpool give preferential treatment to people who carpool have zip cars bikes that bike rental like how boy type thing but again that would be my special home so they have to come here like remember when the Hilton hotel came in and they needed to provide all this parking even though they kept saying they don't need it and they they they wouldn't build a hotel without parking because parking is that important to their business model but they didn't need more parking and yet we had to require a certain number of parking spaces there was no way to get around that so this would give a little more flexibility especially you know for a business or a residence that's close to alway you know so that was that that's our an approach that occurred to us you know there's other ways of doing it you could have a range you could say you could a residence could have one to one to two per unit you know and then it has they can do one or two but this just I thought sort of covered it's good to see what other towns are doing how's it working out for them they've already got this parking maximum they don't want too much parking so it's always good to know I mean it's obviously Boston is a totally different type of urban environment some of the new projects have a there's no parking requirement the north station because it's a transportation hub I hope that we're ready for that no yeah but we I mean we have transit here we have decent transit here but we don't have great transit we don't have a train well just wanted to run the ideas by so approval minutes from our last meeting a couple of comments and I think there's just something that's left out in the second full paragraph but very less that's just talking about the parks at the hotel site and the senate reads neighbors expressed interest in having the town parks behind the sidewalk between Route 16 and the hotels willing to do they wanted to tell me how many lines down the last paragraph of the last sentence of this the last sentence of the second paragraph neighbors expressed interest in having the park parks the neighbors wanted the hotel to maintain and having the hotel maintained the town park the town parks adjacent to the hotel site this is a typo of the following paragraph last sentence where I said that yeah Dan said that the following sentence just a clarification so beginning after the comma the phrase that says so that the and I think the word hotels restaurant would not become a public restaurant that's the following paragraph when he gets miss O'Connor added that the owner of Claremont would be agreeing to a deed restriction so that the hotels restaurant could not become a public restaurant over on the next page the third paragraph at the end of the first line with the tandem spaces is should be there instead of in one page this is special condition five on a permit that reads there shall be no public use of the hotel and I think we want to work amenities if we want there to be public use of the hotel we just don't want the amenities such as the boardroom or restaurant yeah being used by anyone other than hotel guests and staff that's all right one thing is just second page three four five paragraphs down it says Mr. West cited benefits of the proposal and added that the hotel instead of the word will say has incentive to I don't know that they will I just said they have incentive to manage the parking as best as they possibly and then all I found was there a few references to John Warden the name is the spell okay should I just look for them there is the last line on the third page and then two references to him about happening on the final page September 21st 2015 as amended second all in favor this is the third time I get to do this in my brief chair but very sad that this is probably Bruce Fitzsimmons last meeting this evening but I want to thank you for your years of service you're helping getting me to the board sitting next to me and my time as chair walking through special hearing and public hearings you will be missed I will miss you I will keep you on speed dial next year or so but thank you Bruce for all that you've done you're very welcome and it's been a pleasure to be on the board you know it's this is really you know a group of colleagues and it's collegial you know in that regard too so there's a high respect for what everybody does here when everyone breaks to the table and that also goes for wonderful planning staff too we're very fortunate to have such a great group of professionals helping us look good in public so that is true and if anyone is ever considering being a appointee on a town board I highly encourage them to do so it's been a great experience I've learned a lot from it and you know I've enjoyed all the time that I've been here and I want to second what Andrew said about Bruce I don't know how many years it's been but it's been a long service and you were really the leader you have been the head of the board I think you had at least one term or extended terms and led important projects for the town such as 22 Mill or the project around 22 Mill Street and I think that even when you weren't the actual head of the board you were a great leader for us I think we needed to grown up to come into the board for me I'm just saying that and all jokingly in a way but in the best sense of a great leader and also a great friend it's made it really enjoyable to have you on board and you should be very proud of the service that you had and the friendships that you made Thank you It's been a pleasure working with you as well I appreciate your interest in affordable housing in particular in every way Thanks Good job We have another term Oh right, we've proven that Move to a term? We are We're continuing Oh we're continuing? Oh yeah, yeah Let's get the parliamentary part of this right So we're recessing We're recessing I guess we need Bruce one last time to help us So I move that we recess the meeting to reconvene at Chris in 10 minutes, something like that Or in no business what shall we discuss? I second that All in favor? Aye