 Excuse me, call to order the Monday, November 21st, meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board reported by ACMI. Beginning agenda this evening is continuation of public hearing for EDR special permit documents, 3520. There is now open 117 Broadway Housing Corporation of Arlington based on it. It's been forwarded. Left off last time. Thank you Mr. Welles, members of the board. Quickly, my name is Mayor and Ms. Stanley O'Connor. I represent the Housing Corporation of Arlington with me is Kamala Hallett, the executive director and from Davis Square Architects, Paul Ward, who's been into the phone work. There were a number of issues that the board had asked us to address and I'm going to leave it to the architects who address the landscaping and some of the other issues that were asked, who asked Mr. Rowland that we can talk about the traffic that planned. Okay. Hi, I'm Cliff Bomer, Davis Square Architects. I'm going to briefly start by talking a little bit about where we were in the comments we've heard and then Paul will get you up to speed on where we, how we continue to develop the design. This is where we were last time we were here and bring up some of the comments that were brought just so everybody remembers what our goal really was to respond as thoroughly as we possibly could to all of the comments. You probably remember that we talked about showing the screening of mechanical equipment and you'll see on revised elevations, Paul will talk to you about that. We talked about adding and planting to provide some relief, particularly along with parking. It is planting space along the parking area. We've worked on that, screening along the school yard. We do have a landscape plan that is included in the package that you have. We looked at narrowing down the curb chuck, which we were able to do by parking. We now added another whole area of parking to the plan of the elevations. We got a lot of comments about making the lowest level really more of a commercial look increasing the openness of that lower level. And the issue of the transformer came up. We have a location that we want to put the transformer. It is something that's very difficult to commit to and to what we're actually negotiating with the utility. But we know where on the site plan we want to put the transformer. And I think those are the big points that came up. So, we don't get confused about which is where we are now and where we were before. And I'll walk you through some of the details. So as we been looking at our texture elevations when the comments was having a larger amount of blazing and storefront across the commercial area at the bottom, we put that along the curved corner here and also opened up more sections of windows along the bottom at this side. We also had some comments about the way this curve looked here up at the top. It's sort of a blank space up there. So we added some windows to that, sort of made that major feature of that corner unit. Also modified in the ship that for comparison error. So we have this, it's just this sort of smooth curve and now it sort of works in a little bit better with the rest of the top corners there. So moving along, this view did not change a lot although you never seen a little bit more of the storefront along that side. Here are elevations. I won't go through all the elevations, but again, the storefront showing the windows along their mechanical screen across the top. We're showing this mechanical screen as being about six feet tall. You can't even see it from the renderings. I mean, that is in the model of all these renderings but because it's far enough back over this area of a plant, it doesn't even register from the screen for the most part, which is a lot further back. Looking at the plan, so we're showing now six foot solid width fence across the property line in fact, we allocated an area out doors at this point with a metal screen fence for bike parking. We're thinking that this could, we have vertical racks where you hang the wheels of Berkeley along there that would be some cold 12 bikes. We showed a bike storage area on the inside, the ridge, you would much rather prefer the exterior just because it has a lot more capacity. You don't have bikes with bunny tires coming into the inside part of that space. And it works well application. The transfer location that folks is talking about, we want to bring that to the back part of the lot here as we said, but with the negotiation between us and the facility is an effort on their primaries all the way through there. So that's where we would want to be able to mandate that. Again, we ran our plans, we showed the changes to the blazing along that side. Planning, I think, is trying to maximize the reason we can, the narrow areas and grand plans that we have at the edges of the sidewalk along here. We have some planter boxes along the front. We want to keep that as a larger pavement so it didn't potentially fit me as outdoor space, but then also putting in some street trees along the front as well. Moving up into the interior building, we did not have major changes to this, but we did show the enclosed bike storage at a larger scale of this time going along there on this, imagine we have a door coming from the outside to be able to access all of that, but other changes to these plans, we really didn't have a lot of other changes to these. And we also, there were some questions about the floor area ratio, and we did some recalculation on that. To be under-zoning, we have a baseline of 1.5 FAR. We increase that by 20% based on our, because this is affordable housing. And so that got us to 1.8, which is where we are in terms of our floor area ratio, with our total square, which is the building, 19,000 square feet of dirt. So that again remains unchanged from the initial application. That was, yeah, working down. I like the changes to look at those. So I appreciate that. And on the lighting, what am I seeing on the lighting plan? Is there ballers out front, I think, is a sort of, in terms of lighting and lighting of? The lightscape? I think there's a plan here. I was trying to figure out what you're doing. There isn't, I see something called a landscape light and a light ballard. This is all existing. That's all existing? Yeah. But the ballard's not? No. No, there's nothing there. I don't think there's anything there. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, but that's right in the parking space. I guess I- The ballard's gonna be there. I think it would be in accordance with our lead principles, we'd be wanting to have a dark-sided client, but it's still got plenty of lighting around at the end of the spot. It's over two or ways. We're here to run dark spots around the windows and the buildings, particularly in the light parking area. Any overhang areas we want to have that blue well lit if we can. Our intentions at the rear parking lot is we'd have some wall lighting similar to a knock-over although it may be on the ballard side. On special conditions, is that something that we have on the map? Those lighting signs and stuff like that. There is a document that you're receiving in your package that has proposed changed revised conditions. Yeah, right. I don't know if you're ready to present that yet. Okay, no, I'll let everyone else go. Go ahead. Well, I commend you guys on your changes. I think you guys adjust most of the issues we had when Andy, Mr. West there, mentioned about making the bottom more retail-like. You definitely did do that and it does look much, much better. The corner is opening up a lot more above and below. On the fourth floor, you have a balcony that runs along the outside perimeter for those three units. Do you guys propose to have any wing walls there to separate those balconies between units so it would be shown, so you would see it on the elevation or it's just a continuing balcony that goes through. It is no real, you know what I'm saying, right? Yeah, yeah. We couldn't certainly separate those. That would be, and we'd prefer to be there. We also, I mean, the main rationale for it, as we talked about last time, for that whole setback was to not have it be as vertical at the end. No, I think you did that, good job. I'm just wondering, are you gonna see a little wing coming up along the rails? I think since the top part of this is a metal rail, the inner part of that would also be a metal rail. It would register as a, I don't think that would be registering as a thicker piece at the top. So that wall is just a separation, it's not a visual screen between the two balconies. So you're not gonna see it, like you said. You're thinking like it would be a wall. I don't know. I don't know. That's a question. We just draw it out. Okay. And I just want to refer back a little more, what Mike said about the sight lighting. So you guys plan to have wall packs on the back of the building which would shine on the back half of the parking. You're not having any light poles or anything else that could be lighting the back door. I have a lot of space on the site. So we certainly would prefer wall packs with cut-up ups. Okay. And there are street lights out there already, so we don't need a tremendous amount of additional light. Maybe we don't want to even spread the light. Is it possible to bring the ball back? Yes. In fact, I think because we have the taller building, we might be able to mount them higher and have a point to mount that light. We might be able to get better light pole lighting. Certainly any light poles that were, you know. I mean, where was we put it? It just makes it work. And my last question is, you showed the parking that are back there. What is dedicated for retail and what is dedicated for the housing? I mean, is it shared? So during the daytime, the tenants are thought to go to work and they drive to work and it leaves more open spaces for the retail or is it just- That is the thought. That is the thought that basically the retail space would utilize it during the day, tenants would utilize it at night. And we will not be allowing, there are 17 spaces, the tenants will not have access to all 17 spaces. They will have a designated space for the sticker on their car. And we're anticipating probably half or less of the tenants having a parking space. And when we get to the transportation demand management plan, we'll go over the thinking. Okay, so there's, so on the transportation management plan, it designates how many parking spaces are retail, how many parking spaces for residential, how many spaces are shared? No, it does not, but we can speak to that if you'd like. But what we're proposing in part is, and I would talk about the transportation demand management plan and the context of the draft special conditions. If you want me to get to that now, what do you want to weigh in? I don't know, it's Andy's call. You can get to that now. That'd be helpful. I think that you, I will also add you have the green components for the project, a very detailed list of, for this project, we're for Downey Square. With respect to the transportation demand management plan, Ms. Hannah has put together a much more detailed plan as you requested. One of the things that we talked about was, the special condition talks about reviewing the situation and maybe coming up with alternatives. What we would propose instead is a condition and term in the lease and each tenant's lease. So this is 14 units, two of which are only one bedroom, the other 12 are multi-unit, that each unit may have not more than one car. So that in the lease, we would provide one car at the most on a first come, first serve basis. And we can limit the number of spaces for residential tenants, so that there are several for the commercial tenants as well. So we would agree to that type of condition to be added to the lease to be enforced by the landlord. So that would be another component that we could add to the transportation demand management plan. That's how we operate now. That when a tenant leases a unit, they get a space as part of the lease or they do not. And you can see that there's incentives provided in the draft plan that provides for negotiations with Zipcar. It's too far out at this point with Zipcar to make an affirmative agreement that they will provide a Zipcar. Haven't built it, it could be two or three years out. Language that says, shall use the best efforts to secure Zipcar or an alternative like Zipcar, at least one space in the lot. The other is to charge for the parking at $100 a month and to give a credit for each unit or for a MBTA pass. So that is all in the plan that we propose. So you guys did contact Zipcar, right? Yes, yes, I got in touch with them. They come back to me and they said, are you kidding, 2018, you want to negotiate now? So I tried to offer them a space in the current site, they're considering it. Okay, thank you. Let me know. So we haven't sent those to the Zipcar yet. I still don't know the number though, is it half, is it a third? I would say we expect it to be half. So seven of the, well there's 17 spaces. So half of them we assume will be in a tenant lease and they will have the right to park there. The rest of them will be 24-7. 24-7. Okay. And the rest of them, there will be one shared space. We get Zipcar to go ahead and lease it. And then the rest will be retail. Retail slash visitors. Visitors at night. Right. So they'll be really. Or every day depending on what the retail is. Yes. Not to interrupt, Kit, but to piggyback on that question. Your intent, as I recall from the application, is that a bulk of the retail space will be for the food pantry. What? Food lake. Food lake. What kind of car traffic do you have there? What kind of foot traffic do you have there? More foot traffic. The food pantry has 76 families that come twice a month. They're planning to open more days starting in January. We don't know what that will do. Whether that will reduce the number of families that come at one time. Or whether more people come. We don't know yet what that will do. The majority of them do not have cars. The majority of them either walk or come on the bus. Any time when the food pantry is open, there are no more than five cars in the parking lot at this point. So we don't anticipate that changing dramatically. Okay. And when you begin to market the additional retail space there, what kind of use do you anticipate these things to? Well, we've had several inquiries. One was for an after-school program. I think they want too much space. I don't think we'll have that much square footage. One was for a coffee shop sandwich kind of place that would be open in the morning and only until about three o'clock in the afternoon. Another was for a bank, just a small ranch. I think that's as much as we've actually had conversation, but we don't have pricing yet. So it's very difficult for people to sort of make it up. Yeah, I understand that's kind of a speculative question. Just trying to get some of the traffic impact based on the use of the thing and understanding on similar spots in town. Kid, did you have anything for other? I would just piggyback off your saying that I would encourage leasing up that third space or the remaining space, something that would activate the street. So it's had some life to the street because it goes back to our philosophy of multifamily and having an active streetscape. I don't think we can write that to a special condition. No. I think it's the opinion of the board that we'd like to see something that benefits the community, not a bank. Well, and that's certainly where we come from too. That's why something like the coffee shop or even an after-school program where people are coming in and going is something that we want to see. I mean, this is our first push into that commercial district and we'd love to see it be a real push towards more development over time. And that's having that kind of activity would be better. David. I've got a couple of questions about the plans but most of my questions are about the TDN plan. Do you know what the square footage of the space allocated for the bike parking is or more the dimensions than the square footage? Maybe we could make it as long as three feet long. So when we're anticipating you take your bike and put it up on a rack and hang it in the front tire. So basically we'd be hanging along the series. Well, first of all, thank you for being responsive to that comment from last time. I think this is a big improvement and it's more in line with what people are looking for these days. And just generally I would agree with the rest of the board that I like what you've done in response to many of the comments about the design of the facade. So I would just ask you to think and this is maybe a thought that will come later when you get into the real details. Hanging bikes on like you're mentioning is a good use of space. It's very high density parking but for someone who's got a heavy bike or isn't very strong or has one of the newer larger cargo bikes that's not gonna work. So when you actually get to the point of designing the specifics of what's gonna go in that space, keep that in mind. That's a long time bike, right? Totally here. But we're definitely moving in the right direction. One thing I didn't see. I saw it mentioned in the TDM plan that there would be a URAC at the side entry on Everett Street. Yeah, so this is as we were going back and forth with our engineering and on the landscape plan and the planning plan and the architecturals. That's essentially he had drawn the rack being a certain kind of way we had progressed on to something else frankly didn't have chance to get him to change his go back in time. Well there's nothing wrong with a URAC out on the street. Oh, on the street, I see, yeah. Yeah, on the street. I just said at the side entry. Yeah, on the right on time. Yeah, so I wasn't sure. We had talked about the need for three types of bike parking. For the residents, for residential visitors and for retail customers. And I wasn't quite clear how you were addressing residential visitors and the commercial, the retail customers. There were a number of ways we could address that. One might be to have some smaller, almost the style that one puts on parking meters. We could put those along. Ring and post. Like 12 posts along in the front. Because I think for those, you really want to help those nearest to the retail. Absolutely. So that would be my first on it. And I think essentially that, considering the number of visitors one might have to the residential area, I think that solution probably suffice for that as well. So I think one decent approach for that would be to locate a few of those along inside the property line. Adjacent to sidewalk and strategic locations. Adjacent to around planters. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. Because then we'll also still be underneath the properties that we have along there and be able to still have some shelter. All right, as long as you're thinking about it, but I would like that to be clear in the TDM plan that you are thinking about not just the residents but also the visitors and the retail customers. So I want to talk a little bit about the TDM plan. If now's a good time to talk more about that. It is. So thank you for going into much more detail. This is a very substantial improvement over what we saw last time. And I understand that you're not in a position to know for sure whether Zipcar is going to want to move forward. And I think, do you know what your plan B is to replace that element if Zipcar doesn't bite? Actually, no, I've been trying to think that it might be an easy access to Lyft driver or Uber or something like that. But actually, I don't have an option alternative. Well, I'd encourage you to think more about that and look at the list of acceptable strategies. Just to kind of have that in your back pocket in case Zipcar doesn't come through. And I like that you're talking about paying the initial membership fee for Zipcar. And have you had any experience doing something similar at your other properties? Well, no, actually, we never have done that. We never have, no. Do you know what common practice is if there is a common practice among those authorities? Well, I know that companies sometimes have a membership and anyone that actually uses it, they actually do it, they often come out of the Zipcar. And so the company basically pays the fee and then you sort of trade off the card that you have. You know what's the problem? Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, we can do it the opposite way is what I was thinking is pay for each initial membership of the households that would tend to want to use it. And then, you know, they take care of the charges beyond that. Okay, well, I think there, I think in combination with another piece that you've talked about, which is providing a $25 monthly credit against rent for transit passes. Yes. I think you could also think about extending a similar credit to people for things like Zipcar or a Hubway membership or even just by commuting expenses. There is some precedent. There is a federal bicycle commuter tax benefit that businesses can take advantage of. And that's something to think about where the business actually pays for some of the bike commuter's expenses because it essentially equalizes the value assigned to the different transportation modes so you're not just subsidizing people parking or taking transit but you're also encouraging them to bike. The $100 a month parking space charge. I like conceptually charging for parking because it does have a value and tends to be undervalued generally. I don't know whether $100 is the right number though. That seems like maybe a lot, especially in the context of affordable housing. And I don't know whether you had done any research until what appropriate pricing might be. It depends on how we structure the deal with our funders as to whether we're going to have to pay the parking fee as part of the rent to begin with anyway or not. And so that's a conversation we have to sort of feel out with both the state and the tax credit syndicators and see where they come down on that. So how would that work if it had to be bundled with the rent? If it had to be bundled with the rents, HUD gives you a maximum rent that you can charge. So you would have to certainly be under that for the different size units and it changes linearly basically. And if we were capped then for those that, well what we typically do is we're significantly under those caps typically. And so what we would do is for those who want it or needed the car space, that would increase the rent up closer to what the limits are. Is that clear? Yes. Yes, okay. So for instance, you might have a limit of $1,200, $1,250 for a two bedroom. Typically we would be about 1,100. And so for someone that was getting a space, a parking space, they would then be 1,200 but still under the cap. I see. And had you thought about the leases with the commercial tenants about including any provisions in there that would require them to provide an interest to their employees to use alternative transportation? We've thought about that. Two of our potential tenants are of course not for profits. So we'd have to see what they could afford you to get in. Both of them have minimal staffs, all part-timers. So we have to see if that was even possible in their view. There could be just an argument at that level. On the other commercial, if their market rate tenants, I would think that we could certainly include something on it in the lease, yeah. And prior to any tenant opening up for business, we'll have to come across certain TDM restrictions on there as well. Yeah. I don't have anything else. I know I did close public comment last time, but given the fact that there are some significant changes to these plans, I do want to open it up to folks in the room if there are any questions for the applicants. If I ask any questions, we direct it to the board. They end up state your name and address and ask you. Please. Yes, ma'am. Rachel, 46 Marion Road, Arlington. Just had a question about moving the bicycle to the exterior of the building. I just have a concern about security. That's a pretty isolated area in the town. We don't want people's bikes to get stretched even if they're locked to something. So just wondering if you could address security. So whether we're anticipating that this release would be a locked-in fence area, that the fence would go ground all the way up to the other side of the ceiling. I think some of the discussion about bike parking outside was for daytime use for the sale of the fixes. Thank you. Other questions, concerns about this project? Back to the board for a file question and discussion. Yeah. We've received some updates, proposed revised conditions, special conditions from town since our last meeting regarding some of the bike parking locations. One of the conditions that we look for is for final approval of bike parking locations, type of parking, sidewalk materials, exterior materials, plans and specifications, as far as colors, materials, et cetera, for no permit for actually issued. Speaking from the town engineer, that all proposed utility services have adequate capacity to serve the development and have proposed site drainage is adequate. The board maintains continuing jurisdiction over the permit after a duly advertised public hearing to attach other conditions or modify these conditions as appropriate. Aside to that, as I alluded to with David, any tenant, any applicant you wish to open for business as a retail tenant would have to come back in front of us as a matter of course for approval and signage would have to be approved guided by the Department of Planning to provide this board. Snow removal would be the owner's responsibility and important with town bylaws. All exterior trash and storage areas and the property shall be properly screened and maintained in accordance with Article 30 of the town bylaws. Seeing that, we discussed that in the last hearing. Traction recycling will only be picked up on weekdays and normally between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. No final permanent, no final or permanent certificate advice that's each of the issues till the project is completed in its final form and all conditions within this permit have been met. On the issuance of the building permit, the applicant shall file with the building inspector and the Department of Community Safety, the names and telephone number of contact persons who may be reached 24 hours each day during the construction period. And then as far as special conditions go, the board will reserve a right that upon installation of any landscaping materials and other site improvements. The applicant, owner, shall remain responsible for such materials and shall replace and repair as necessary to remain in compliance with the approved site plan. All utility work, offsite, public rights of way, the town of Arlington shall be undertaken in accordance with provisions of the town bylaws. The applicant shall show evidence of grieving with Zipcar or provide an alternative TDM method prior to the mission to build a permit or the courage to seek out alternatives. And I just wanted to, if you want to wait till the end. We only have issues with respect to 3 and 4 about some of the board. Okay. With respect to number three, we've discussed Mr. Watson brought up the issue of some other alternatives such as giving a credit for bicycle, users, a highway. That could be an alternative at a later date. But we would respectfully suggest prior to the issuance of a final certificate of occupancy, requiring that before the issuance of a building permit is still pretty far out for us to come to terms with Zipcar. So I would suggest that change to special condition number three. Thank you. Number four, the applicant shall continuously abide by the Transportation Demand Management Plan dated November 17th, 2016. Keeping with section 8.0183 of his zoning bylaw, applicant shall conduct a survey of residents and commercial employees one month after date of certificate of occupancy in order to determine a baseline mode split for the project. Percentage of resident households and commercial employees using cars, bikes, transit or walking is their primary role. The survey which shall be provided to the Director of Planning and Community Development will include questions to determine if additional resident households or employees could be using alternative staff in the car on site and impediments to increasing non-vehicle travel to the site. One year from the date of the first report and generally thereafter, a similar report based on survey data will be delivered to the Director. If vehicle usage is increased from baseline report to extend the required reconsideration, one or shall work with the Director to reduce vehicle usage. Reports to the Director shall include survey results and the following additional information. A, number of households with one or more cars parked on the site. B, number of households with bikes on the site. C, incentives provided to resident households and or commercial employees by the applicant and actual usage of incentives. I mean, how many bicycles are usually parked on site and when transit passes are purchased and how much subsidies provided. D, if subsidies are being provided to resident households, how many and of what type? E, there was the usage of the zip car on site. So let me just respond to a couple of the things. Getting that survey one month, I think after, I don't think it's practical, I would suggest six months for the baseline and then annually my client at the Housing Corporation has no objection to doing that type of survey. As to the commercial, they don't control the commercial employees. So that would be very difficult on their part. And we are committing to there being only one car per house. So we are prepared to agree to that now. We also won't be able to know how many people share the zip car because it could be community residents as opposed to tenants. Right. The zip car may not share that information with the public property. Is there a way to track usage of the site as far as when it's being used and when it's there and when it's not there? Well, we won't actually be on site. So that would be difficult. To get back to the one month question, how soon after CO is issued, do you expect to be a full occupancy? For the residential, I would say within three months. Okay. I think six months would be fair. Thank you. And we wouldn't have any control see over the commercial employees. We could ask the commercial. I think if you would ask them to do that, this board would keep that condition in mind for any tenants and ask that any reopening to special permit or any conditions placed on them, would that be included? Would that be in the lease? With the tenants? We can put that in the lease. We can certainly put it in the lease. Any further comments on number four? I think that was a good one. Thank you. Five TDM plans shall include provision of commercial leases require that commercial tenants provide incentives for reduced employee car use. Six TDM plans shall include in section five, bicycle parking, retail customers. Yeah. That's the board for the discussion. Any questions from the applicant? Five and six were five. Okay. I have nothing more on this board. Now this is kind of a big stack for us. First project, I appreciate your patience and your ambition in getting it done. I'm happy to see that you've come back with some of the things that we've asked for. It's good. I'm excited about it. And I hope that we'll see what happens here. Reserve my comments and tell them. So, yeah. I'll move to approve the special permit with the conditions set forth as amended. The 117 Broadway, I'm not sure the docket number for you. Docket number 352, 117 Broadway. Second. I'll second that. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you. I said I'm excited. I think this is a big step. Thank you. Thank you. We're very excited about this. Now, moving on to continuation of public hearing EDR special permit for docket 2519, which involves 19-hour hard cab that's going to go to the people in the room on here for tonight. Despite the fact that I did close public comment for the last hearing, I will be re-opening that tonight to see if there's any interest in the project. It will allow you to go ahead of what's been changed first. And I would ask anybody in the room to hold any comments until I do open that section of the evening. Please, but I'll be, before we begin, I just want to look forward to know that we received attack comments and we are not going to record in traffic tonight because we have referred that back to our traffic so that he may opine as to the comments we've got. Okay. We do have however views from attack here tonight to answer any questions about the report that they have in case any members of the board or any members of the public have any questions about that, whether it's available, that report or not. Where's the copies in the back? Yeah, our copies in the back. People haven't seen them. Do we have questions? Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. I think you also have in your packet of the landscaping plan you requested. Plans showing the redesign of the print building and the architects who speak to that. Bicycle storage and the tracks. The shadow plan that was provided. And a small building on the front. So I'll move to one more thing. If you'd like to hear that first, I'd like to get to the start, please. Okay, thank you very much. With this site, our goal was, as it was at the last site, and we certainly got lots and lots of comments and we're pretty confident it led to nicer buildings and I hope you all agree. I will tell you really briefly, I think our, I would say we had a consensus that the original design for the corner building needed a lot of work. And we did do a lot of work on that building. I think it is including looking a lot in the neighborhood and looking for the kinds of details that we think would really transfer nicely to this building. As you know, this building does sit in a commercial block as a kind of gateway position into the historic building or into the historic neighborhood. So our goal was to think of it that way and look into the historic neighborhood, really tap the neighborhoods with details that we think really add quality to the buildings and break down the scale of the buildings and provide more sensitive materials on the buildings. So we see that where it sits as a kind of trans, it's both a transitional zone because it does have buildings that it relates to right across the street from it. But it also is a gateway, we took that pretty seriously and looked hard at that. But so I won't dwell on that. I think I don't want to remind you if they have memories of it or anything else. The other building, I think there were comments about the scale of the building and how massive it looked as well as how institutional it looked. And those are all sort of things that we really took apart. We changed the materials, as you'll see when Paul starts talking about the new design. We really radically changed the materials on the buildings. We changed window types. We added lots of visual means of cutting down on the scale of the building, the perceived scale of the building. And we have some views in particular that people were asking. I think they were curious about particularly views when they were crossing over the bridge. So we spent a lot more time creating some perspective views so that you would understand it better. I think that's essentially what I had to say. I think we did also, we did do extensive shadow studies so that we can better talk about the impact this building doesn't have on the existing buildings. And we took that to pretty far to the degree of really studying the landscape, the existing landscape materials that are there. The kinds of, so we documented both existing, the existing shadow, shadows on the site and then the proposed shadows that result from our new development. So we really tried to listen and we got open views for more listening. So Paul will walk you through the details. So starting out on our building on the corner, we made a number of significant changes to this. We, one of the first ones is we just brought in the massing of these corner elements so that they didn't dominate over the top of this. And so smoothed out that edge so we didn't have like these larger blocks. We also toned in this cornice and also made it more continuous. That kind of gave it more of a continuous residential feel to these things. At the same time, we were also thinking about the references back into the, we're coming from Park Avenue, from Park Street, I should say, from Mass Avenue. And so in terms of brick color, we were thinking about picking up on some of the materials that we have from the adjacent buildings, Arlington Cole Lumber and our neighbors directly nearby in order to have that be more of a part of the neighborhood. Another, as Paul was saying, one of the other things we were looking at in terms of the look of the building. You know, we were going around looking at the, you know, some of the neighborhoods in Crescent Hill, Westminster, Monument Street. Just looking at how siding works, how trim works around windows, you know, picking up a few of these details and bringing them over in the sense of the cornices and so on. One of the things we considered tonight, because I'm sure somebody will bring it up, is gables and whether we should be having gables and all this, because a lot of these buildings do have them. I mean, we did consider that. We were thinking about it, but our concerns were twofold. One is that if we were to gable up on top of this, it sort of made it more massive. We kept the same footprints in here. On the other hand, if we were to go the opposite way and do a top floor, which is, you know, doing something like this, or like, you know, as one sees elsewhere, in the true single family houses in the neighborhood, that sort of, you know, it seriously limits what you can do at that top floor. And we felt that was not really something that we could just apply it or do in terms of cutting down the number of the amount of area we needed for a residential space. So, so that's our view from across down square. This is the view coming from Park Avenue. We're showing a mechanical spring in here up at the top of the building. And so we're using similar materials to that. And it really doesn't dominate the overall size of it, but it does show up, you can't see it at that point. We also did another view looking around the corner. And this is, so this is looking across from Lowell Street, across the street. And, you know, this is a bit of a pan-around view because we're close to us. This is our next-door neighbor here on Lowell Street. But one thing we did want to do here is to add another element that does bring it up a little bit on this side, where it's a little more screened by trees. But also this is sort of forming the transition into the other buildings that we have on the side out of the rear. One thing we did want to do as we were moving along is to have the same kind of language, visual language and detailed language in this building as we start to do a larger building on the rest of the site, on the bikeway. So in elevations, we do have a little bit of a screen there. As I said, we did bring down the cornices on the Park Street elevation, but we did top up a little bit. This is where our stair happens on the outside, so it's not the residential part of that building. So yes, this is the elevation along Park Street, so we're again trying to have a rhythm where we have one set of windows here, and then two, and then one, and then two, and that way it's not just a repetitive series of windows going straight across. So moving on to our larger building, facing the bike path. We felt it was really important to study its relationship to that bike path. There was a fair number of questions about how the ramp would work in, and there's some fairly good-sized trees that would be staying that are right coming off the corner of our neighbors who are in the Citadel Station. So this is freezing, and it's actually still there, but we really like the idea of being able to open that up and have the building be something that still, it still has a lot of foliage around on to the bike path. This is a similar view that to what we had before. We still have the darker panels here. Again, we're trying to work with the, getting some passivity network for the back of solar, some solar thermal influences here at the rear, basically doing a collector on the south side to only be on the south side, I think, those model panels. But again, we were looking to lighten up the color palette due to detailing differently. We were bringing down the cornices and several other areas just to lessen the overall impact. And again, changing the material colors, changing brick, changing trim style. So this we're imagining this as being fiber cement panels at the top level, using fiber cement siding, it would then run down at these other parts in order to tone that all down. Again, this is a larger building and we still wanted to use similar visual language to what we were using at this building. I think this really ties this two together. Yeah, that's fairly successful. I'm gonna move on to questions that we had about shadows. We did a series of shadow studies and we're gonna have you all can see from that far back. We did shadows in two colors on these. So existing shadows are in gray. Our building cast blue shadows in those studies for referencing. This is summer solstice that's located in June. So at 9 a.m. noon, 3 p.m. at 6 p.m. So from 9 a.m. to through the middle of the day and at 3 p.m. there's really very little shadow cast amongst any of the neighbors of buildings really not even out of the parking lot. At 6 p.m. of course the shadows like it. They do move across but they're moving across the bike path and not across towards the building. So we also did indicate trees casting shadows. So at 9 a.m. we are casting a bit of a shadow out to get into here. By noon they cast a shadow about to the base of the buildings across the parking lot on the Wall Street but not blocking the base. By 3 p.m. the shadows lengthen probably about to here. So our stories of those buildings are only being seen some side by side. Possibly not below in the course. 6 p.m. doesn't make any difference anymore. What time of the year was that? I'm sorry? What time of the year was that? So this is winter solstice. So December. So yeah, December 20th. December 1st. Second. Right, yeah. About a month. Right. We also did include with this an updated landscape plan indicating trees indicating planting going along our arch buffering between our parking lot and the neighbors who are going to be having a solid fence. Actually there are solid fences. The neighbors have solid fences for the most part it's along there now. That's about it. Not this weekend. And thinking about the complaints about it being a large development and being height and mass. And actually the sunrise assisted living, which is a blob to the west, is four stories and much larger than what our building will be. And on the east is the watermelon condominiums, which is actually five stories over a parking garage. And many more units than what we're proposing. So it's not out of context with what's in the neighborhood actually. And also if you look at the corner building and there was one that you see showing but up lowell, our corner building really is about the same height as its closest neighbor. Yeah, so right. So there were a number of questions about height at the last here. And before I forget about it, since we talked about it so much in the last one, we are including showing indoor bike storage here on the first floor. We got a door from the outside, so the muddy tire through the hallway probably. So we are anticipating including that. Then we showed that as a mechanical space, but not further reflection on the different aspects. So we're talking about the height of the buildings. Right, right, right. So I just wanted to say that before I forget about it. So height building. So our, you know, we had surveys that indicate, you know, so the height of our building from ground level to top of the roof, that would be 30 feet plus about another 18 to 24 inches for the cornice. The zoning itself refers to the height to top of the roof. Neighboring buildings of course, while they do have peat roofs, according to what we're seeing from the survey, the peats of those roofs are generally about 32 feet or so above the level of the curb. So, you know, we're in the ballpark, as it were, in terms of the overall height. And actually if you go down low, there are at least 10 to 11 buildings that have full three stories. You know, maybe peat roofs, but full windows. So they're full three story buildings. And most of them are single town houses actually. As far as the height, the height of the larger building. So that one, you know, we're 30 feet to the word. It's not an issue. The height of the larger building, you know, the allowed height, according to the by-law, refers to the distance, the height is defined as the distance from the average of the elevations at the curb to the top of the roof. So we took all of the elevations at the curb, we averaged them all together, and that came to the 154 chain. Out of that, 40 feet. And because the site is basically higher here than the height that we're doing our building at here, we're essentially at least, from ground level to the top of the roof, about three feet under the, what's in the zoning by-law for the maximum height. We did a little bit of research and a little bit of math to make sure that we were well within the requirements there. There have also been a question whether the building could really be shifted a little bit closer to this site and a little further away from there. But there's, we have the same site, side-law line requirement here as we do over here at 20 feet. So even the back of that is a gas station and these are the houses. Without relief, we wouldn't be able to make anything. So as far as rooftop mechanicals, similar to what we were talking about on the other buildings, we created a few areas that would be screened basically over each section block of the building to be able to screen around our mechanicals for those sections. As you probably noticed from the, from our perspectives, these aren't screens that one typically sees because they're, we keep them pulled back far enough from the, you know, you only catch some glimpse of them as you're on the outside of it. So I definitely can appreciate the scaling back a bit of the front building. You know, it was the first time to take a look at it. I guess one thing I'll say is, I don't know, I never go in this direction, but my first impression is, oh, I kind of like the green. I kind of like the way it was. Does that make sense? Another tan building with a brick basement, it's kind of like that. And I wonder whether the scaling of it really depends on that type of thing. I mean, in the end, because I do find it a little of a mishmash on the other building. You've got brick and you've got the other thing. So anyway, on the larger building, I don't quite get that one. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I don't have too much, I guess. I think it does harken a little bit back to the old three family type of thing, which I think is what you're trying to do. Anything you can do to even make it maybe a little bit more like that, like turning around with the, curving one of the walls or something like you do on a three family sometime. You may want to consider. There's certainly quite a few of those, certainly at least Garmenton as well. Just a thought. But I do think it's the right direction as far as getting rid of that, you know, big blocky type nature. So I don't have a huge amount otherwise, just because it's kind of new. So I haven't put my thoughts together too well. So I'll pass it over. There's something more on the coin. Well, everyone else does. Let me start with, I like the way it's heading. You guys did a lot to address those comments we had earlier. I'm going to give you a few more, okay? Let's start with the driveway right now. What is the slope of that driveway? It's almost like from the street to say where the bottom of that curve is. It's almost what, 12 feet? No, no, no. There's a good deal that height change is really behind the building. Going down from the rear of the building to the bike. How steep is that ramp then? Essentially well, our elevation or building range is about 151. This is the target we're shooting for in terms of elevation. The height at the curve on the outside here is about 154. So essentially, there's a little bit of up and down as it goes around here, but essentially it's a three foot difference from here all the way out here. And in terms of how much gradient that is. We've committed to making that an accessible map. From Lowell Street all the way across. The only time we're actually thinking we need a plan may be to get down to the bridge. The transition from that. So that slope on that driveway is equivalent to a handicap ramp. Yeah, I mean, it's basically, not even a ramp, it's actually a slope. Slope. I'm just trying to get to Winnie railings there. And as the cars come up, they need some sort of transition strip before you get to the... We haven't done all the actual grading of it, but it doesn't look like we really need it. We've got the existing contour line at this point here is 151. And you work your way up a lot over there. It's actually steepest here. We might be trying to smooth that out so that we have a smoother transition. I apologize. I was on the bike path over the weekend. You're correct that the bike path is a good deal lower, but that's when this ramp is negation. That's fine. I just saw from the bike path what the street was and I just made that, you know. No, you're absolutely right. And the goal is, but not a goal, we're confident we can create an accessible path that is really important for public benefit for this development. And as I said, the limitations are only at the very end and there we would have a ramp that probably would be steep enough to require railing. So it would be greater. And then I'll go back, like I said before, you don't have an idea where the transformer's going to go here. I'm sorry, but it's always something that comes up. It's always a big kind of... I mean, right now I would be thinking right here would be the obvious place to do. We've got some power poles right at the closest. Directly, directly across is the closest. It's not in the way of other things. That's where we start shooting for it. And actually, I think the town has a transformer looking box there. Not exactly sure. Yeah, there's something there. It's right there, I think. With this complex, I know it's the larger building. Is there enough water pressure so you don't need a fire pump or a jockey pump? We haven't done a hydro flow test yet. I think usually the solutions do that if the pressure is low, the fire pump goes into the building. Do you know of surrounding buildings? You mentioned some of the taller buildings there. Do they have provisions for them? No, if they haven't actually asked them, I've not heard that there's a problem at all. I'm just... We could certainly look into... I'm just saying once you go across that threshold with a fire pump... Now you're talking generator and all the other stuff and all the other stuff comes with it and just makes the whole thing a lot more complicated than... Certainly, those are all important bridges that will be crossed. Our engineer. Both buildings will be fully explained. Yes, I realize that. And then I'm assuming trash is all internal? On the big building. On the smaller building, it's going to be outside by the parking. Yeah, we have a private place area here. We have the potential work behind this. Transformer parking. And then trash. And then where the parking lot fronts to the neighbors, you show a bunch of shrubs there, right? Right, yes. We have a... ...circle planting running along all that. Is there fencing there too or just shrubs? Yeah, we're showing a six-foot board fence. Okay, so headlights don't get into the neighbors or anything like that stuff there. And they're going to be trees as opposed to just shrubs. They're going to be trees and shrubs. It's a mixture. It's going to be called out as... There's some lending trees in there. They're substantial. We have a five-foot wide buffer room there. Lots of space. And then I like the fact that what you guys do, the scale, trying to break down some of the scale and transitions, I still have a little more issue with the bigger building at the corners. We have those corner units with the big illegal storefront windows. That still somehow seems to me a little bit... Let's go to the other side on the bike path side. Yeah, yeah. That still seems kind of outscale. What's there? I know it's facing the bike path. It's facing toward the master. It's facing the culvert. But that's the side. I just feel that's still a little... I mean, that's a living room. Well, the genesis of that is going back toward that zero goal or near that zero goal. The windows as designed now have integral sun shape into the windows. We made really big windows in the living rooms, hoping to even have some passive collection on the inside of the living room. So a dark color, probably an inch and a half of concrete dark color. That's why we did it that way. There was lots of southern collection on that side with shading. So during the summer we were actually shading the breeze away. People, anyone on that side, could not look across and see into those units. There's the coal backyard that's there. And it's actually very well... You can't see the bike path from there. Maybe I'm in a minority here. It seems like my other partners, they don't seem to mind it. I've seen too many of just the boxy... I just suggest maybe instead of more of a horizontal kind of mullion, more of a vertical mullion, where at least what... I realize that. But it's more toward residential. It just doesn't seem as industrial to me. That's my opinion. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm done. David. I wanted to talk a little bit more about the height, particularly both the larger building. If I recall correctly, at the last hearing on the Broadway site, you had showed kind of an elevation comparing all the neighboring structures. Do you have something like that for the down and square site? The only thing we could really see is A212 buildings. It's really kind of difficult because our buildings are directly next to the neighboring building of us. There's the gray change from the front to back with the site as well. We did some studies where we do know that, if you're standing here on Lowell Street, you're basically about this high on the large... This elevation does not show our new building here. We were really thinking about how this one worked in the corner. But our new building going across here would be right around that high going across the back. It would literally be 3C low. Isn't that what we saw earlier? Wouldn't there be powering over? It would actually be equal low. The reason we didn't do that in the street elevation is we're not making a street. That building is set quite a way it's off of the neighboring building. We do think of a site section where you can... I don't know if you can all see that. This is our proposed building. It's going down. There's our proposed building. The top of the Lowell Street building is virtually the same. The height of it is virtually the same. We did these studies in conjunction with the shadow studies. Because solar impact is usually measured two ways. One is direct shadow impact. Which is why we pulled the building so close to the bike path. But the others view the open sky. That's what we wanted to study with the building section. We think that this demonstrates pretty well that the view of the open sky has changed almost not actually particularly with the mountain landscape. This is what we're proposing. Does that show the relationship between your building and the existing structures just to the west? Low place. This is the other section. This section here is cut on the site plan through this building here. Through that building and through ours. This section here is cut the long way there. We're seeing the profile of that. That's our building here. These are the trees that are right along the fence line on the property line between us and the Lowell Street place next. On Lowell Street they're looking at the end elevation of the building. They're looking at the narrow brand even when you see that in elevation that's not what you see. That's elevation here which I think you meant Lowell Place. Yes. Anyway that's how we did that. It's different talking about height with this building than it is when you're really climbing through the streets. That's helpful. I did take a look at the site and it was having trouble visualizing the relationship between the proposed building and the existing building. The terrain is uneven and what you see is exactly what finish grade would be anyway so we had to do it from the civil problems. When I was out there it was actually early in the morning and so I was looking at the shadows and looking at the shadow of the study for the winter in the morning. I am a little concerned about the buildings to the west, northwest yeah and I'm not, how does that how does what we're seeing there relate to the light that those structures get now without your building there? Well, right now there's a lot of vegetation there and there's going to be a lot of vegetation in the post project as well so I think that's why we looked at trees, heights of trees, density with and without leaves to study exactly that. There's no question and remember this is the worst case that you see as far as that morning and shadow as bad as it gets any time of year December 21st from that point on it gets better in both directions right up until June when there's minimal impact. If you want to talk about the traffic study and transportation committees what order are we deferring now? I think we probably will defer that in the evening but you can certainly ask any questions we do at Howard News here sorry? I was wondering if you would like to have you run through the memo that he would be helpful. My name is Howard News I'm the chair of the transportation committee we formed the working group of four working people to review the traffic study and provide you with some comments on it. Our major comment actually has to do with the fact that it's a traffic impact study and really doesn't address anything but traffic and from the site plan and the TEM program and so forth there seems to be a lot of other things in transportation that we think should be included in the set of calling it a traffic impact study maybe a transportation study such as the proximity to the bike path and ramp down to the bike path. The bike path is set of stairs up to the park path so residents of the development could go down to the bike path and up to the park path to get to the bus stops and the heights. So a number of our comments are suggesting that information like that be included in the study. In terms of the traffic impact study itself generally we felt it accepted methodology and in one regard we felt it may overstate the number of vehicles that would be coming in and out of this site because it did not take any credit for the fact that there would be transit use or bike use that sort of thing. What's called trip generation rates that were used are from a national source that usually has very little transit use so again there may actually be fewer trips than they're projecting. One question we had is they do have a trip distribution for the project which on the face of it looks reasonable but they didn't cite any sources for how they developed it. The trip distribution is looking at the percentage of vehicles that go on various roadways approaching the next city site. One of our sort of another major concern is the analysis of the operation of the proposed driveway on Lowell Street. It does a level of service analysis that shows no problem with it. However that level of service analysis as best we can tell does not take into account the queuing on Lowell Street of eastbound traffic approaching Downing Square. The driveway appears to be only about 65 feet from the spot of our downing square so if there's any expense of queuing at all which I believe both in the evening and the morning probably more so in the morning it would be very easy for the queue for the cars to queue past the driveway blocking people trying to get out or more importantly blocking cars that may be turning left into it that have just come out of Downing Square. If the car gets stopped there then the cars behind could get stopped and you wouldn't have to have very many cars queued up before they might have went to Downing Square. There's no discussion of that or analysis of that so I think that's something we should take a look at. We do recognize that this transportation to be a management program is being developed and we think it should be included in the transportation study. There's some confusion over the number of parking spaces it appears that the report says there's 27 spaces the site plan that we have kind of go on if it said 23 spaces we only counted 20 spaces so it would be important to make sure that we did that final number correct. The other comment we would make would be nice to have some documentation of that. Whatever number you end up for the number of spaces is adequate for both the residents and any visitors because there's not very much on-street parking around the site. And all of it would require people to go basically going from the low street right down to the major building so it's not very convenient on-street parking. We thought because of the location I think there's about three bus lines that go through Mass Ave and Park Ave we thought it would be good for those to document the number of lines how frequent the bus services this sort of information has a way of getting some feel for how effective transit use could be for the residents. The plan also indicates outdoor parking for bicycles you discussed that a little bit more tonight and the connection to the minimum and by the way none of that is discussed in the transportation study and again we think it'd be appropriate place to outline all of that information. Again I mentioned the potential connection to the bikeway by pedestrians there's a set of stairs a very long set of stairs going from the bikeway up to Park Ave but you could also if you were on a bike or walking you could go through the building parking lot which would have much less line involved in it and finally we did raise a question about the maximum grade on the site's driveway which you discussed this evening the other one was it was not too clear to us about access for fire trucks and emergency vehicles how they get not so much how they get down into the site but how they would get back out of the site and I don't know whether you've met the fire department here or not obviously they have to approve what they do so just to be clear about the number of parking spaces you're not on the first one there's 20 spaces across here we also have three handicap spaces here, here, here so that's how we got to the total number of 23, I don't know where the 27 23 is the number and I have two comment questions and I'm I'm the architect I'm not the traffic engineer so I'm actually asking this to help give some more information for the traffic study is that the queuing during peak periods is that both morning and evening the queuing is past the the driveway it is it is fairly heavy amount of traffic and it all has to stop at the square so it's very easy for the queue back and it very strong effects every other road okay I'm not expressing an opinion that was a question to the engineer and then we sort of answered this over we did need the fire department that was the fire chief's suggestion about having that turn around in our right of way we have that right of way that cuts through we thought that it would be kind of a disaster to propose a driveway out on the park but we can't use it we aren't guaranteed by D to have access, free access to that right of way which we would use as a turn around we did ask the question about whether we could have a driveway that would alleviate the problem of left turning those coming in off of Lowell Street or traffic exiting on Lowell Street and going through Downing Square if you could have a driveway going out on the park to have it would have to be right turn out I think it's still sloped I don't think you'd be able to see over the bridge but I'm not a traffic engineer I think Park Ave would be a disaster if people were turning off Park Ave into a driveway because you would that back all the way out to Route 2 but anyway, our suggestion was that you look at the document we didn't know about the engineer and feasibility of the driveway and also the traffic take a look at that included in the report just a clarification the proponent did indicate to us they've seen this, they've taken it to their traffic engineer very obvious that we'll be continuing this here next time some of those questions will be answered I know we don't have a lot of questions David, do you have anything else? again the site visit was at about 8 o'clock in the morning and we did observe queuing on Lowell Street eastbound that did extend past where the driveway would be located and that was really the only leg of the intersection where we saw that kind of queuing so I think just to emphasize that that is a concern as Mr. Mews pointed out and I'd be very interested in seeing an analysis of whether we could adding another driveway on Park Street potentially with the right term restriction we're thinking about the circulation in and out of the site to avoid that back up on Lowell Street I think would be good to see so I look forward to seeing that I'd also point out that giving bicyclists a way to get out of the site and out to Mass-AA without going out to Lowell Street and navigating the Downing Square intersection could be advantageous I wanted to say I like the look of the bridge and the connection down to the bike path and I'm thinking also as the TAC noted that that's I think worthy of including in the TDM plan because I think that's a vital connection in the end so I'd like to add to other questions I have one comment I would make about the bikes the bike certainly could use that right right absolutely it's paved I was when I was standing there on the bike path I was again having trouble visualizing what it was going to look like how massive it was going to feel from the perspective of someone on the bike path and seeing this really helps me understand that it seems like there's considerably more setback from the bike path than there is with some of the existing structures along the bike path and so I think my concern from that perspective was alleviated by seeing this view of it thank you I really like the opening up of the bike path the question there is what sort of lighting do you propose that's a great question it's anybody who's ridden the bike path after dusk it's very dark can be very dangerous and it sort of runs right into the question of being dark static fine we're obligated to not have light falling outside of the property line our property line is not on the bike path so what do we do with that I think certainly there's plenty we could do to have lighting and we would absolutely do plenty of lighting up and down the ramp so that we have either lit handrails or mini sconces in the site in the rotating walls of the ramp which would provide plenty of illumination in there and on our site the illumination of the bike path itself it's a bigger question I think we would be picking up some diffuse lighting for whatever we had going on in our in our backyards for our own security of the site but it's really difficult to make commitments about how you know how this would be illuminated more than the rest of them many miles of bike path on that that's a great and bigger question to me we're actually willing to talk to Arlene about what they're going to do on their site in terms of lighting tonight there isn't much over there either there also have been approached about doing a ramp from there parking lot down to the bike path some people tell me they agree to it I've not heard that from them and does this provide public access from the bike way up to the whole street we're not showing any gates or restriction of that getting back to we get away from the design a little bit but I actually like the larger building for the most part I think it's the height concerns me but I think I'm more concerned with that front corner on the whole street of that building there I know that's the old model that you have there still not satisfied with the massive I think it's still a fairly institutional hard right angle design that I don't think is necessary particularly welcoming to that neighborhood and I'm not sure how that impacts the view from a round corner I don't know if there's anything you could do to soften that top corner and bring that down but I think I'd like to see some other option in the Flatwoods box we heard last time there was some kind of softening that is still not seeing that it fits it still seems like a large box in the corner of this neighborhood with some yards some green space but I think it may be that consistent with the comment about pushing the triple-decker some of the more which might include adding base to it to make it less fine and certainly also 15 particularly along this face of it actually this actually breaks up a fair amount along here but I think that's the one you're reacting to maybe it's the drawing it doesn't look quite so bad if you look at the drawing too forward there it seems a little more suitable a little less there's just a locked up corner here but if there was some openings to last if you don't have regular access it might lead to a feel of being a little bit more welcoming to that part it opened up to the building to this other side we're going to open it up to the folks in the crowd I appreciate you all coming and waiting when I call on you and raise a hand name and address please address the board we'll direct your questions to the applicant for their architect or TAC please yes sir Don Mills 33 Bow Street regarding your comment about the massing of the corner building the main part I have a hard time with is the approach when you're coming over the bridge on the bike path and you have these very small windows that look like bathroom windows that are introduction to the building as we're heading north yeah it looks very unwelcoming I don't think your plan showed those to be bathrooms I think those were bathroom do we have any windows in the bathroom and it conflicts greatly with your effort to get solar gain in the large building with large glass facing south facing south and it's the smallest windows that are on there I also wondered if you ever considered mansions with dormers or not that you want to use the Peter Pan soup project for your reference I don't know if it would work with that but it would be a potential to solve them maybe even if it's just a corner the other comment or question I have regarding funds for maintenance we live next door we live in a single family home next to a two family that was bought maybe a decade ago by the Arlington Housing Corp and the difference in maintenance from when it was privately owned to when it was owned by the corporation has been significant in terms of the exterior with the condominium association there's a guarantee that you have funds through a condo association fee but I don't know if there's anything like that for this multifamily housing in terms of maintaining the building over time deferred maintenance things of that sort that's a great question Sure well this will have 34 units that will be spinning off a decent cash flow and so we don't anticipate maintenance on a ongoing basis being a problem the trouble with the two family is there's very little cash flow very tight and so it is more difficult to spend money on maintenance although I think we've done a significant amount of work actually on that building next to you in the last couple of years and they are up for painting next year or so as well as the one further down on Bull Street Lisa Hines 14 Sunset Road I wanted to offer my support for the project I think that this will be a good amenity for Arlington and increased density but I do have some concerns one of which is about the mechanical screen on the top floor for addressing that I'm wondering if there are any acoustical provisions including mufflers or sound attenuators or whether it's strictly an aesthetic screen I also have a question about the larger building being located in the blood zone I don't know if that's within the purview of the redevelopment board but I would be glad to hear comment on that and what things might be put on burden on the part of the town for infrastructural changes as a result of ongoing climate change and flooding over time or what the project is going to implement my last concern that I would be glad to hear address is about the dumpster location near the private way which also seems to be where a possible transformer might be it appears as though it could be blocked by a parked vehicle one of the accessible spots so I don't understand the provisions for trash removal if that is the dumpster location and I wonder if the architects would consider alternative things but in closing I do want to re-emphasize my support for the project and that I think it is an asset to our community I can start by answering some of the questions I can start by talking about the dumpsters that would be on the side they would be carts first of all for the six units and our maintenance men take them out and take them to the sidewalk basically the day that the will be picked up so that's not an issue as far as this location relative to that space it would essentially use the access aisle for that handicapped space not the space itself so the car doesn't block the space because it can just use the access aisle of the public maintenance space the other one said this is screaming yes acoustical and there are state guidelines for deep level of property lines which could very well mean having to add some acoustical absorption at the screening we would totally do that because that's very common for planted neighbors we don't want to be there so that is taking into account your comment about resiliency that in this building we had the bigger building in particular we had the option of second floor which would be at the very minimum a step towards resiliency the building is going to be designed with a flow through foundation as well so we'll be well above the flood level and we'll have a flow through foundation and we'll get our mechanical equipment upstairs is there a resiliency plan is there a I think that covered the things I brought to you I want to say that the project will need to go in front of the conservation commission for adhering to the distance from the mill but that is a separate process and we're crossing our amenity that we're proposing the connection to the bridge across that stream so that's going to be some careful review thank you hi Laura Desmond I live on Wall Street I'm also here representing a number of my neighbors who were not able to be here tonight thank you to the board for actually hearing what the neighbors on Wall Street place have been worried about in terms of the height of the building if there is any way to cut down the end height on that we'd be very grateful it's going to severely impact the houses that I bought right there and there are people with families with kids that like to plant the yard and they'd like to actually have some sunshine back there once in a while one question that we do have for the housing corporation given that the bike path access looks great one problem that we have on Wall Street places we do get and I hate to use the word favorites, kids ours is not an actual cut through and we try to keep the reedage sort of there so that the kids can't use that as a cut through but we'd like to know sort of how the solution might help mitigate some safety issues for their residents and possibly in the planning the lighting of that to help mitigate two of those problems that arise when it is well lit a problem when it is well lit or it needs to be well lit or less well lit yeah I know it sounds counter it needs to be like Goldie Blocks lit so the area where the street stairs meet the bike path where you get just that little bit of residual light from our Ellington pole lumber tends to be a congregating point for local youth and we've had to call the police a number of times and to be a bottle second thing and part along that path that has that same little light zone tends to have that same problem so for the safety of the people at the end of our street we tend to keep the weeds there slightly overgrown so the kids aren't jumping over the whole path there. I would hate to see the residents start to have a problem with people seeing this well lit path and starting to use that as that same sort of congregating point. Can I speak from my personal experience living at the Global House? When I first moved in there were teenagers in the woods every night, fires drinking, noise screaming, all kinds of things every morning I would go out every evening I would go out as they were going to say okay you know last night you promised me you wouldn't leave the beer bottles they're not there. They haven't been there for two years. They were gone within three months. All you have to do is have presence and this is a well known urban issue. If you have presence in the area the kids aren't going to hang out because they don't want to be seen they don't want you to be calling the police. It's a very easy thing to take care of. It's been an ongoing in our area for at least seven years. Spend more time outside on your street and they will disappear. They will not kind of get on the street. It's not on our streets. It's not on our street. It's on the bike path that's the problem I'm going to talk about and I'm worried about the safety of your residents having that problem when they're using the bike path late at night. But we will have hundreds of residents basically who will I mean they'll be there. Their presence will tend to move the problem away. Right now there's a street that's kind of in formal entry. There's an actual barrier there and they can keep there for that reason because we don't want the and the town has been very helpful in making sure that it's not a formal access. I think the last time I went down somebody put a plank in and said you know the kind of issues you're talking about. But I mean another thing that we could do on our end of the day and I don't think we've talked in any great deal about it with Pam is security cameras on our for you know covering our area but should some of that say our tenants are very good at calling. This might be related and this might be Alexander Rowell 88 Westminster this might be related but I was curious about the path going down so I got thinking about how we would access that from coming up or not going to allow any of our hood and do we just walk down the driveway right in the middle of the driveway or car? There's a sidewalk that connects the sidewalk at the way, runs along this this sidewalk comes in and joins here and that's where the ramp and stairs are beginning to take you down the cross. So you know it's not down through the middle of the driveway. It will cross the right of way so you do have to pay attention at that point there's a fire driver or if we decide to go ahead and drive in and run out. Same as crossing a driveway. Yes sir. Congratulations. Couple of things first of always I am in favor of the types of projects in general and I think the Broadway design is a good example of something that's pretty well done for the area. That street, that's a pretty nice solution to a problem that's been ongoing for the years that I've been involved. But in terms of fitting I think one of you guys called it a monolith. I forgot who and I hate to say that because that'll need to be offensive but if somebody used the sunrise living as an example. I know you don't want to sacrifice a floor to get the gable effect. I've spent a lot of time the past couple weeks looking at different developments for the neighborhoods. I think this would be a great place for a neighborhood that butted up against the neighborhood off of Lowell Street you know four or five, two family homes maybe a three family home. Something different at the corner that sort of blended in to it's called a transition. Not only see a whole lot of transitions there's still a giant shoebox that's number one. So I think a neighborhood would be great back there with some two or three family homes that would be a neighborhood. This is, I think somebody needs to look at the definition of urban and suburban. This is the suburbs. This is not a city block. Again that's the city block no matter how you change the windows or whatever you do. Number two read the article in the Advocate the other day. I got the impression that it was saying there's no impact traffic wise but now I hear from the horse come out that we didn't really talk about and we didn't look at all the things that really and truly matter so now I'm hearing something different than what I read and I've been told no impact at all so who's culpable when there is an impact when we look five years down the road and go oh I guess that report was completely wrong or that you know what what do we do at that point numbered and what is the plan when something goes wrong. The other thing is we've talked about solar and shadow reports and all that and a screen up on top we've got a 30 degree pitch on a very large solar panel for that roof. I don't think the shadow plant takes that into account the size of those so from what I can see the winter solstice everybody on Lowell street never going to be able to have a solar panel people on Lowell street can not do that summer solstice east is over here west is over there so when suns come right up that and they're only going to get three hours of sun so both those streets none of those people are going to be able to put solar on their homes I feel kind of bad for them so the question is if the report says something and we all look at reality in a couple of years and it was wrong who do we go to if everybody says there's never going to be parking on Lowell street where you live don't worry about don't worry about the kids coming up and down where do I go when that is wrong you know people didn't show up tonight I all talked to the wrong and they said why are you going this is just going to be a GM venue for anybody why are you wasting your time I don't like to say that because I don't want to think things like that but that seems to be a lot of consensus that's going on so I'd like to know about the height of the panels if that's been included if that's going to actually happen net zero is fantastic to say but just say it's got to have big walls that doesn't really help and one of you said this doesn't dominate the landscape one of the designers I can't think of anything more dominated than what I'm looking at and if you're using the height of Lowell street as your current height get the height of the building which lets you achieve you know 10 feet still 8, 9, 10 feet taller than the closest building and it really is very easy to show on a plan all the adjacent homes I guess you're going to do a sketch of it wow so I'm just baffled by what the neighbors are going to have to face the design can you come up with some kind of a neighborhood design that matches the neighborhoods because again this is suburban this is not urban we seem to be forgetting that just look at those photos and that's not suburban so suburban parking parking on my street design panels for people and who's culpable when these reports that we're being told are not reality answer one of those questions there is a zoning enforcement officer the town and so it turns out that these things that are done incorrectly are not appropriate and there's always the option of reopening a special permit and having things there's already a show of doubt so what do you do as a zoning enforcement officer who sits on the board I can't sit here and answer what I have I can tell you what the answer is I can't tell you what the what I have but there are procedures in place to assist and we're here we're hearing all these concerns the vote's taking place we're all hearing this we're all trying to come up with a solution so thank you I can make one comment on solar panels are not casting any shadow they're flat and they're at the level of the parapet shadows that are cast that have any impact on the north parapet on the building and the west there's zero impact on solar panels they will be flat PV panels PV panels that are south facing are actually best you're probably thinking of solar hot water solar hot water panels but solar thermal will sit at an angle PV panels sit flat yes sir John I'm in 2017 a couple of questions with this site there's already been declared a site a hazardous waste a hazardous site if this project doesn't go through is it my understanding that town is likely to clean it up it's not town clean well we wouldn't just let the somebody would have to clean it up right like any other like any other land that's blue the owners and past owners have to deal with it the town has nothing to do with being an owner so they would be instructed by the town to take whatever the federal law it's not a town department it's a separate non-profit in the town if the project doesn't go through environmental issues like that are not town issues there's state and federal issues there's a DEP directive that will help the owners what and how clean those up so measures will be taken to clean it up I can't answer that and also to repeat that the gentleman from the tax committee and I think with this other gentleman was dragging about there was an article in the advocate this week and it talked about if I may quote according to the study the current existing conditions monitored at Lowell Street west of Downing Square shows that there are 552 trips in the morning peak hour 5532 in the afternoon peak hour now I'm not trying to be sarcastic in any way but I've been driving for 50 years and I guess what they're talking about is morning rush hour here and afternoon rush hour and I guess what I'm trying to say is there's no such thing as rush hour it's actually rush hours so these figures I don't think could be that accurate because there's no peak hour it's up to Drew and Akai rush hour is not one hour long so we understand that it is something to keep in mind someone who travels through that section frequently during rush hour hour I understand that I just started that's why we passed tax thank you I have a feeling there will be more questions Hi I'm Mary Ann Morrison I'm Drew and I'm also a member of HCA's board and I just want to go on record with the strong support of this project I think our two most recent projects what I consider the iconic blue and burgundy house on the curve of Mass Ave on the corner of Forest Ave and what I think is the very classy renovation we did to Cat Square are very emblematic of the kind of work that we do and I think the community and the board have raised some really good questions I think you see that we're addressing them and at the end when many of these concerns are addressed I think we're moving in that direction and we'll continue to I think you'll see that we will be the good neighbor that we are and continue to be the good tax paying neighbor and I urge that when your questions are satisfactorily addressed that you will issue a permit time is somewhat of the essence because in order I think Pam will mention this at our last hearing in order for us to get our financing package in to DHCD I think we need to kind of move forward which means there's a lot of work for HCA to do to answer your questions but I appreciate your approval of the Broadway project because they're combined financing package and I hope you will agree this is going to add a small but significant number of units to our undisputed affordable housing project Thank you Just to comment I'm also here representing St. Paul Luther Church which is up on 920 Highland in the Heights and we just want to go on a record strongly supporting the project we really appreciate the work that Housing Corporation of Arlington is doing to develop these projects and we as a congregation as well as other Arlington congregations are contributing financially to some of these projects because we think affordable housing is so important as an individual person who lives on Marion Road I have encountered in my 20 years living in this town numerous people who are kids of people who grow up in Arlington and say we really want to be in Arlington we can't afford to live here so we just want to go on record strongly supporting the project I live right by the capital program I wait in the bus with people who live there I think it's fantastic Thank you Here sir Dave Berberan 2 Reservoir Road for quite a while bike back and forth to work for about 20 years until the corporation moved me to Lowell from my family so it's a little bit too far and I do provide the only access right now to the bike path for people from Lexington to come down Lowell Street and other locations because I'm the one that the property they go over at this point and I am on Google maps for whatever it's worth 2 Reservoir Road so my main concern is that people can bicycle for a while and we all get older I haven't found a way to stop it and people will acquire cars so parking spaces need to be available I mean and you are in a flood zone for this development and of a lot of triple-deckers you can put them on the pillars park underneath I mean there are things that could be done but it is quite as dense as what you've originally laid out here but it may fit in more with the general neighborhood of having triple-deckers and since it is already lower down than a lot of the other houses I realize some of the roof lines may be difficult as far as shadowing because some like as obviously from the sunset it was originally approved and they promised it was only going to be 40 feet high and lo and behold we got this behemoth and now I have shade from 2 o'clock on every day for the next month and a half or so which I take and I was told it would never happen that was what was promised to me and that was my only request and that was just a big lie I don't know if the roof or whatever but I went in and said it would throw a shadow that covers my house which it does late in the day anyways all I'm saying is people are going to need cars because they just bought a place to park their car you know I've taken the bus I'll take the bus but I have a car too so I don't I see that happening for most of the residents and anyone who says anything else is just living in denial thank you we have a lot of comments as brief as possible we're getting laid we're about to lose a member for the evening we'll most likely be continuing this to a further hearing and there will still be comments accepted Matt my name is Doug Crevastin and I live at 1302 Gilmore Trail at Fairbanks last so you might be wondering why a guy who's at the edge of the earth here, testifying, well my daughter and her husband and young child live on Westminster Ave and we spend about now about a month in Alaska and then a month down here and because of the grand kids which is great and I really enjoy this community I want to make a couple observations or asking two questions but first though I want to compliment this board I think you're doing a fine job of the public process and it's very interesting to me to hear how it's working and the expertise that's available on this board I also want to compliment the people that are here tonight both those that are for and those that are you know, not wavering a little bit the comments are really insightful they don't necessarily repeat each other they add information and they're civil and that doesn't always happen but here's here's my question to me there's two issues here or two questions one is can this project be done and from what I've heard here tonight in the record in the last meeting yes this project can be done the zoning's there, the height's right you've got the right water pressure for your hydrants you know that's true but the larger question to me in what I'm perceiving is should it be done now where that last decision gets made I don't know where that is this board to me is can it happen and pretty clear that it can but maybe you can enlighten me as a visitor where is that second question should it be done that's why we're holding this public process and it decides the should partly, mostly okay, thank you thank you Christine got a lot going on tenant and municipal forestry and for this project and I know we're talking about lighting and you know aesthetics and all that but the ultimate goal is for people that can live in Arlington affordably, unfortunately the dog gets to go to the high school and yeah that's baking I'm sorry I didn't even cut you out I was very sick when I applied for my housing and without this housing I would not be able to afford to live anywhere and there's a lot of people out there that can't afford to live in Massachusetts at all and I'm very grateful and I was a single parent and I was very sick and these people are very compassionate and love Arlington it's one for the project okay yeah it's baking 15 pound road I wasn't going to speak but I guess when you speak I grew up here at a time when it wasn't affluent we didn't have a lot of money we didn't have a house to a family and the concern is whether you keep that economic diversity especially around any radius of Boston whether it's a good community it's got good schools how do you keep your kids safe with also good education near public transportation Arlington has always treasured itself for heaven and many of those pathways to public transportation I don't know how we're going to resolve this so I just want to be very supportive thank you sorry we need to have a question which is about the design you did mention about some potential sprinkler systems and maybe a fire pump and that would probably pull in the emergency generator is the project a power generator not this one well let me be really clear we haven't done construction documents we're nowhere near because of the timing we can't really advance until we're secure funding so that would be that's a code issue the building code is about to change we haven't designed the building yet through that level so let me say if we need to agrees the water pressure we will in order to run the sprinkler system and if we need emergency power to back up we would provide that great that leads right into my question which is when we put a generator and we have to put a stack 10 feet above the height of the building it's a DP regulation you had your screen showing your mechanicals clearly it's not showing the total project because we haven't designed it fully we would address down the road if we say we decide to have an emergency generator if we need to have a stack it's higher than the top of the building how does that process work well quite simply the height of the zoning ordinance in terms of the set height of the building it defines it as the top of the roof not the top of equipment on a roof and it actually specifically excludes you could have a penthouse it's a third the size of the roof because of 12 feet my question was it wasn't exactly for the zoning aspect it was more about at the height no matter what that height is we create additional shadowing the visual, the aesthetics of it the screen goes up one important reason I brought up the building code is right now the building code doesn't require an emergency generator to power up a fire pump that's a good reason for that because fire departments bring their trucks and they have pumps on them and they like to hook up and be 100% assured of pressure so at this point the only reason we would put an emergency generator would be part of a resiliency plan or some other reason other than the fire plan I'm really more making the point that as we're designed in the building and we have a lot of full design it's actually real so potentially down the road may change and I just want to consider that as we move forward I knew you were here for the prior hearing where we'd have to have final review building construction documents that would also apply in this case they would go above the height come back in front of us work on that with this kind of questioning scrutiny to make sure that that wasn't exactly the exact same down the road process where the same thing would have to happen kind of like when we said to them earlier they bring in those tenants that have to come in front of us to make sure that the uses are appropriate under bylaws my last comment for the corner I was agreeing with your comment is that it just doesn't feel welcoming to the neighborhood it is that boxy look that we had down the end here just wanted to sort of as we hit that point the gable roof a while the total allowable occupancy does really soften as a potential option for us and I would encourage that I also want to commend you guys for doing a great job and the project on Broadway this is going to be a great project I like the design so if you want to take these last two comments we'll have to continue to hear my name is Ed Trumbly I live on Roy Street I was interested in the comment about dumpsters you know dumpsters that roll out to Lowell Street are all well and good nine months out of the year but there's about three months where dumpsters don't roll very well there's probably no place on Lowell Street to put it I think they're talking about plastic bins sir they're not talking about metal dumpsters we're not talking about dumpsters we're not talking about rolling dumpsters we're not rolling dumpsters I also this the house on the corner of Lowell and Park Gap that's a 600 build right yes I don't see any parking attached to that the parking for the full project is the 23 the six cars that will be attached to that building will have to park way in the back there is not necessarily a sign of parking there will necessarily be six cars so you're making the assumption that there will be less than one car per unit yes that's the proposal proponent has put in place certain incentives to disincentivize car ownership of the project okay interesting so I'm also curious about the line between the Citro Station not sure how the elevations are going to work there so could somebody help me understand how how you deal with the significant difference in elevation between the Citro Station and the I think the sidewalks you're talking about grade you're talking about the ground well not really grade but I look at the plan here and there's a property line that seems to almost touch the touch the driveway and touch the parking next to the 16th building that's the right way I know it's the right way but it's also got an elevation difference of something like 10 feet so is that going to have a retaining wall how do you have an elevation difference of almost 10 feet once I'm misunderstanding something between the driveway and the corner of that property which is right there on the curb and then is the back of the building there's a lot of elevation right about where your fingers are the elevation of that corner is between 157 and 156 about 156 and a half and that's right now that's the grade line 153 154 155 I'm not seeing a 10 foot change so I hate to do this but I have to lead I have to pick up my daughter at the airport who's coming back from college her mother is going to kill me if I don't unfortunately we need to close the hearing continuing to our next meeting December 5th so I'm sorry to anybody else who didn't get a chance to speak tonight remember you my apologies the next hearing we're calling first you can also email me I think all of our email addresses are on the town website I'm happy to take additional comment we'll be taking additional comment on our next hearing and we'll try to thank you all before anybody does anything so I move to continue the hearing until December 5th December 5th December 5th December 5th December 5th December 5th thank you all sorry