 Good evening everyone and welcome to the March 28, 2022 meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This open meeting of the Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely for the governor's extension of the Executive Order of March 12, 2020 due to the state of emergency and the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. For this meeting the ARB is convening via Zoom, as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We also ask that you do not play any recordings in your background when you are speaking to the board. All materials need to be shared through the Department of Planning and Community Development, Generate, and Kelly Linema are running the materials for the meeting. With that, I'll start by letting everyone know that tonight is the last night of the four public hearings for one articles proposed for a 2022 town meeting. There were three previous nights and tonight wraps up the 18 articles consistent with past hearings. The ARB will be hearing from applicants and the public wishing to speak on each of these articles as scheduled. The board will pose any questions to the applicants, but will reserve discussion and voting on each article to recommend action or no action until after all hearings have been completed, which will be next Monday on April 4. So the typical format for each article will be to hear from the department regarding the memo that has been prepared, followed by up to a six minute presentation by the petitioner. We'll then take questions from the board followed by public comments. We'll then ask the petitioner to address any questions and take final comments from the board members. So just to run through our procedures for public hearing. The scope of the public hearing is the subject matter as was posted on the agenda and is shared on the screen right now. Any person wishing to address the ARB on the subject matter of an agenda item shall signify your desire to speak by raising your hand when I announced consideration of each item. To raise your hand and zoom on your computer, go to the participants and select raise your hand on your phone. Or excuse me, raise your hand or on your phone, press star six to unmute yourself after being recognized to speak. Each person will announce a purpose or comments excuse me by announcing your first last name and street address each person addressing the board will be limited to up to three minutes. If time is allowed, if time allows excuse me, I may be able to allow you to speak if you have a new and different points to make or a question to ask on the topic and that's if time allows. The board may receive any oral or written evidence, but such evidence is restricted restricted to the subject matter on the agenda. The material or unduly repetitious evidence may be excluded. Any person president public hearing requested not to applause or excuse me applaud or otherwise express approval or disapproval of any statement made or action taken at such hearing this includes using the reactions button at the bottom of your screen. Hearing participants shall refrain from interrupting other speakers and conduct themselves in a civil and courteous manner. We will address all question through the chair which is me. Speaker shall not attempt to engage in debate or dialogue with the ARB members or hearing participants questions may or may not be answered during the public hearing and will be addressed at the discretion of the chair. But this time I'd like to go ahead and take a roll call to ensure that all of the board members are present and can hear me. We'll start with Kim Lau. Jean Benson. Present. Melissa Tentacolus. Present. Debra Black. Good evening Madam Chair. Thank you. And I am Rachel Zenberry the chair of the board. We also have two members of the Department of Planning and Community Development with us this evening. Jennifer Rae. Present. And Kelly Lineva. Present. Great. Well, thank you all for joining us this evening. We'll move right ahead into the first agenda item which is the continued warrant article public hearings for 2022 meeting. And we will begin with article 32, which is the zoning by law amendment for the zoning board of appeals, rules and regulations. And this item was inserted at the request of the redevelopment board at the part of discussion with Christian Klein, who is the chair of the zoning board of appeals. So first I'll turn it over to Jenny Rae to see if you have any comments or anything additional that you'd like to share related to the memo that the Department of Planning and Community Development created. I will very briefly just to say that we are, you know, this is basically an administrative amendment in nature, which is something that followed recodification, where we tried to remove a lot of the administrative rules and processes from the zoning bylaw into separate rules and regulations. And so this would enable the zoning board of appeals to do the same. The redevelopment board as you know did that after 2018 for codification, and we have since amended it a couple of times. And so this will allow the zoning board of appeals to do the same. And to begin to do that with removal of these items from the zoning bylaw at this time, which and they're enumerated here. So I don't have anything further to say about this. I don't know if Mr. Klein would like to add anything to this discussion, but I think that that is all. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. So I see we have Christian Klein with us this evening. Christian, is there anything that you would like to add before I turn it over to the board? I would thank you, Madam Chair. Christian Klein, Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals. So at the time of recodification, the Board of Appeals actually did not have a set of written rules and regulations. As they relate to comprehensive permits, but not general rules and regulations. And so this subsection A was maintained as was sort of the only set of rules and regulations that were available. The board has subsequently adopted rules and regulations that are posted on the board's website. And so we request that this subsection A be removed as it is now redundant. Great. Thank you very much. I think that's very clear and I'm certainly supportive of this. I'll move over to Kim Lau to see if you have any questions for Christian Klein or for Jenny Ray. No, I have no questions at this time. I am also supportive of this article. Great. Thanks, Ken. Jean, any questions? I have no questions. I also support this article. Melissa, any questions? Nope. Same. Support it. No questions. Great. Thank you. And Steve, any questions or comments? No questions or comments, Madam Chair. Great. Thank you very much. So at this time, we'll go ahead and open this discussion up to public comments. Any member of the public who wishes to speak on this. Article 32, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen and I'll call on you in the order that hands are raised. Seeing none, we will end public comment for article 32. And I'll just ask if any of the board members have any further comment before we move on to the next article. All right. Seeing none, we will move now on to article 33, which is a zoning bylaw amendment related to have stories. This was inserted by the request of the redevelopment board again after discussion with Christian Klein. So Jenny, I'll turn it over to you for any discussion related to the department's memo. Certainly. Thank you, Rachel. Again, here, this is I'll be very brief, but I do think that there's a little more that perhaps Christian Klein would like to add and perhaps Kelly linema as well. In brief, you know, this has been amended actually a couple of times at this point, but we still seem to have some questions about the calculation based upon how you're measuring the actual half story. And so we think that this the amendment, perhaps as proposed or with some minor modifications might be the best way in order to alleviate eliminate actually this sort of discrepancy and the method being used of measuring. This particular calculation, it has caused a lot of back and forth between the Department of Planning and Community Development and Inspectional Services on the Zoning Board of Appeals. And I think that it's, it's definitely something worth addressing through this amendment, but perhaps with some minor adjustments. Great. Thank you, Jenny Kelly, did you have anything that you would like to add before I turn this over to Christian Klein. Sure, I think just to clarify the particular part of the definition that's been a little bit confusing for staff is this measured from the underside of the roof running to the finished floor below. And the question is whether that refers to the finished floor below the actual finished flooring on the third level or if it's the finished floor as in the second floor, which I think is interpreted in different ways by different, different departments and different boards. So this, this amendment seeks to clarify that. Great. Thank you very much. So Christian Klein, I'll turn this over to you to see if you have any, any background that you'd like to to offer for the discussion tonight. Thank you very much. Christian Klein, Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals. So what the proposal here there's two parts to it. One is to get at as, as Linda had mentioned, trying to clarify exactly what we're referencing, not only in terms of the clear height of seven feet but also what the half stories in relation to. And so we're including language on that but at the same time we're also, there was an attempt made during recodification to have the definition section really, really be about definitions and not have too much regulation involved, and then shifting that regulatory language to the main body of the zoning by law and so this is seeking to do that by creating a section 5.3.23 on half story, which takes sort of the regulatory portion out of the original definition brings it here but then also adds that the proposed areas to be measured relatively close to our area of the story next below, excluding porches and decks and that language is actually taken from that one of the diagrams that we had included as a part of recodification but did not take the language directly into the bylaw. Great. Thank you for that clarification is very helpful. I'll now turn it over to Ken for any questions or comments. Yeah I do have a question in this one here. I remember a few years back we voted on something similar to this, and we voted so that the height actually was this. And it was coordinated with the state height. Is this sound foot zero. The same height as stated in the state or state code. But I believe yes it was changed from seven foot three is seven foot zero if I'm not mistaken. That's correct Rachel. Just to clarify what Kelly said earlier. This height is taken from the underside of roof rafter, the bottom of the roof rafter to the finished floor of the half story. That's correct right. Kelly I'll have you, I think he directed that question to you. I can have the, actually, Mike Tampa can probably clarify better what how inspectional services interprets this. I'll turn it over to Mike Champa, Director of Inspectional Services. Thank you. Yeah, Mike Champa Director of Inspectional Services. Yes, so it's measured from the finished floor of the attic to the underside of the roof rafter. I'm also that yeah this this makes sense to me I have no other questions. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Ken, and thank you Mike for that clarification as well. And we'll now go to Gene for any questions or comments. I had an email exchange with Christian earlier today about this which I forwarded to Jenny. I think this all makes sense except that I think the entire thing is a definition. It's not how you apply a half story but this is all about how you define a half story. So I would not include the 5.3.23. I would move the other pieces up to the definition so the definition would basically read as follows. A story half a story which is under a gable, hip, gambrel, or other slope groove with a minimum slope of two to 12 or less than one half. The floor area has a height of seven feet or more. The height is determined from the underside of the roof structural framing to the top of the finished floor below. The floor area is measured relative to gross floor area of the story next below excluding porches and decks. So what I did by that is is put it all into the definition because I think what we're trying to do, and I think this is right, is have the definitions to find things. So I would say how do you apply those to certain things? So what I'm suggesting is all of these things really defines how you measure a half story. And the substantive part is not here at all. The substantive part is in the table for heights and FAR in the residential districts where they indicate which structures can be two and a half stories. So I think we don't need the 5.3.23 we just to me to move that part into the definition. And that would be my suggestion. Great, thank you, Jean. I'll take comments from Melissa and Steven and we'll circle back and I'd like to talk about the proposal to change the way that the main motion is, it's forwarded and the definition is constructed. So we'll go to Melissa next. Thank you. I don't really have any questions I can see what Jean saying with applying it more in the definition and combining it. And then kind of I'm really just repositioning it. It's the same language, right Jean. Yeah. And I just feel better when I do hear from my champion just because I know he's boots on the ground applying this. And I'm wondering through you Rachel if I can hear if this again is helpful I just want to make sure these changes are helpful from a very practical application. Melissa specifically about the proposal that Jean indicated in terms of putting this all in the definition as opposed to adding 5.3.23. Yeah, if he could share some color on what's better from his position. Sure. So I'll turn it over to Mike Champa to see if from the way that you currently work with applicants, if there is any concern with moving this all to the definition as Jean has expressed an interest in doing. Mike Champa, Director of Inspectional Services. Thank you. No, I don't have any concern. I, you know, I like the, I like the changes and I think it will clarify and I don't see any issue with moving it as Jean has proposed. Great. Thank you for the clarification. Melissa, any other questions for Inspector Champa or any or Christian Klein. No, thank you to Christian for putting this forward and thank you for the response. It's good. Great. Thank you, Melissa. I'll actually turn it over to Christian as well to see if you have any concerns with the with the change to including this in the definition that the gene has proposed as well since we've also asked the same of Inspector Champa. Thank you. I don't have any, any specific concerns one way or the other. I want to make sure that, you know, whatever we're doing we're in keeping with it with the intent of the layout of the, of the bylaw. I'll now turn it over to Steve for any questions or comments. So I have two comments. The first actually has to do with the picture, although it's for illustrative purposes only and is not part of the bylaw. Under the, the, the half story in this illustration there's a little cross hatched sort of wavy area that indicates the area that is meets the definition of a half story. There's a little box at the bottom next to the text floor area where D is greater than or equal to seven feet. So that box should have the same cross hatching. It's, it's a key basically. Now, as far as the choice to do that I actually like I am with with respect to Mr. Benson I do like the idea of moving it into a separate section. And I do like the definition with some of the things that we've done during recodifications, you know, the, like the, the definition of gross floor area and the rules for calculating gross floor area, for example. You know, I think there's value in keeping the definitions simple. And yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. James, did you have any thoughts relative to Steve's proposal that we treat this similar to the way that currently gross floor area is defined and then constructed for calculation. I think if, well I think if we made a mistake with gross floor area we can fix it next time. But I think with this what what clued me into this is the proposal which has just a little bit of part of the definition the way the definition was sort of stripped out of a substance, and then said go look at 5.3 point 23, and then it just turned out to be the rest of the definition, which is, you know, here's how you determine whether some things I have story or not which is a little bit different by the way. So I thought it was much more appropriate to be all in the definition, because none of 5.3 point 23 tells you what to do with a half story. That's all in another part of the zoning by all altogether. So I think in keeping with the idea that definitions should be definitions. And this all defines how you determine what I have stories. I move this all to the definitions, and we don't need 5.3 point 23, because if you get from there from the definitions and you get anywhere, you know, you have to know that half stories have to do with, you know, addicts and things like that on residential so I think the better practice is to move it all into the definition, because that's what it is defining how you determine to have story. Thank you gene. Steve any additional commentary. No, there's, I think, I think Mr. Benson makes a good argument. I don't actually have very strong feelings one way or another and moving it to the definition would be fine with me. Okay, thank you. Ken, do you have any comment related to genes proposal to move this back into the definition, but in a more streamlined way in the way that he's proposing. No, I don't. I can go either way. And it looks like the board's heading that way so I can jump on board. Okay, great. Thank you. And any other comments or questions before we turn this over to public comment. All right, seeing none. I'll now open this up for public comments. Any member of the public wishing to speak about article 33 please use the raise hand function at the bottom of the screen. All right, seeing none we will close public comment on article 33. And let's see it sounds like there is a sentiment to support genes proposal to move the move the clarification all into the definition with the wording that is has been proposed. And I'll just run through the board members and see if that isn't in fact the case and if so we'll make that change before we vote on next Monday starting with Ken. Yes. Jean, obviously yes. Melissa. Yes. Okay, and Steve. Yes. Okay, and I support that as well so why don't we go ahead and make that change, and we'll have that wording. Updated and I also am supportive of Steve's proposed change. Jenny if we can add that in as well in terms of adding the hatching to the, to the diagram, if that's possible as well. All right. So at this time we'll move to article 37, which is a zoning by law amendment related to unsafe structures in terms of defining who may make the determination that a structure is unsafe. And I'll turn it over to Jenny rate for any information that you'd like to add relative to the memo that was prepared. I don't have any specific additional information to add other than what is already in the memo. Great. This did come from the zoning by law working group and Christian's observation about the need to make this change. Great. And we also had a conversation with Mike Champa about it so I think that between the two of them, there might be additional information to add to this discussion. Great. Thank you Jenny. So Christian, I will start with you for any additional information that you would like to add relative to this proposed zoning by law amendment. Thank you very much. Again Christian Klein chair the zoning board of appeals. The reason for adding for requesting that this be added is that there have been occasions in the past where a contractor has claimed that, you know this this piece of zoning was unsafe and so we just removed it. And having done so without consultation with inspectional services and so we just wanted to make sure that the bylaw was clear that that determination was at the, was at the discretion of inspectional services. Great. Thank you, Christian. So next I'll turn it over to Mike Champa to see if there is any additional commentary that you'd like to make relative to this proposal. No I actually I agree with the change and I agree with what Christian had to say it has happened in the past and it is something that we can enforce to hopefully prevent from happening in the future. Great. Thank you very much. I do have one question for you if you don't mind. It's very specific that it's determined to be unsafe by the director of inspectional services and my question for you is if that is your intent or if it's through the inspectional services department. I want to make sure that again, we follow your recommendation so I just wanted to check on that with you to see if it was clear that it needs to be the director. Thank you. Yeah, Mike Champa director of inspectional services yes so obviously if I was, it would ultimately be would be left to the one decision to be made but if I was, you know, it could be at the opinion of one of our local inspectors being on site but rather than, you know, have too many people able to say so. Okay. Thank you very much. So, I will now turn it over to members of the board for any, any questions or commentary and we'll start with Ken. Thank you Rachel I had the same question you had. Just one is, is it has to be authorized by the director or could be done by the building inspector that's in charge of that district. So I was wondering if we can do a little loser commentary, unless Mike wants to put it all on his shoulders I rather keep it a little more broader saying by unsafe by the inspectional services and leave it at that not take the word director out unless Mike feels strongly he wants to be part of every single one of those decisions. That's my only question. Thank you, Ken. So, Mike Champa, I'll, you know, just see if you would be amenable to changing this to be determined to be unsafe by the Department of Inspectional Services, or if there is another designation that's more specific that again doesn't render you having to be responsible for every single one of those, if there is an inspector on site. Mike Champa, Director of Inspectional Services so yeah I mean I think that, you know, I think that makes sense I think the original intent was that ultimately, the decision would come back to me but it, you know, if I think that it would be another inspector that would be making that determination and a lot of times. So, I would be comfortable with the team just by inspectional services. Great. Thank you very much. Gene, I'll ask you next if you have any questions. I'm sorry, Ken, were you, were there any additional questions that you had? No, that's the only change that I would like to put in there. Great, thank you. Gene, any questions or comments? I'm fine with the change and I support this. Great, thank you. Melissa, any questions or comments? I'm fine with the change and I support it and I, is it Chris that's bringing these forward? Christian Klein, yes. Christian, and thank you for bringing these forward and making it, you know, clear and easier for people to do their jobs, and you included Christian. Thank you, Melissa. Let's see, we'll go to Steve next for any questions or comments. Overall, I think this is a good article. I would like to just ask about one potential piece of wardsmithing. Instead of by the director of inspectional services, perhaps by the director of inspectional services or their designee. You know, still has still, it's just just another way of, I think, just as another way of raising it. Sure. All right. So what I'd like to do is open this up for public comments and then we'll circle back one more time on the wording before we move on from article 37. So at this time, I'll invite any member of the public wishing to speak on article 37 to please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen. We'll give a few seconds to see if there's anyone who was just to speak on this article. All right. Seeing none, we will close public comment or article 37. I'll just run through the board one more time to make sure that we are aligned on the wording before we get to our next meeting on April 4. And we'll start with Steve's proposal of amending this to the director of inspectional services or their designee. We'll start with Ken. I'm okay with that change language as is yes. Great. Thank you. Jean. Yes, I'm fine with that amendment. Okay. Melissa. Yes, I'm fine with that. Great. And Steve, obviously you proposed it. And I'll just circle back to Christian Klein to see if you had any concerns with the change. I do not know. Thank you. Okay. And I'll also circle back to inspector champa to see if you have any concerns with that final wording. No concerns. Thank you. Great. Thank you very much. All right. So at this time, that brings us through all of our zoning articles for our public hearings for 2022 town meeting. So at this time, we will need to vote to close the public hearings for 2022 town meeting, noting that our April 4 hearing will be for board discussion and voting only. So at this time, is there a motion to close the public hearings for the 2022 annual town meeting. So emotions. Second. I will say. Great. We'll take a roll call vote starting with Ken. Yes. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. All right. So next, let's see, we are not going to be able to move. I believe to the public hearing. I'm sorry. Christian, you had your hand up. I just wanted to express my, my appreciation to the board for undertaking the series of articles this evening and at the prior meeting on behalf of the zoning board of appeals. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I really appreciate again, the zoning board of appeals taking the time to consider all of these and make some really good recommendations and changes. So thank you as well. Thank you. Great. So, unfortunately, Jenny, I think we can't move to the next article because we probably don't have all of the petitioners here since it was advertised for 915. We could have the board at 915, but it could move up items three and four. Right. So I was, why don't we go ahead with item number three then if you wanted to speak to the request for waiver of the special permit filing fee. Article or agenda item number three. So I've only come to the board one other time with regard to a request to reduce a filing fee and that was as a result of something that was in a request for proposals by the town where we were changing the full price of our filing fee for the hotel. In this particular situation, we've had a request made by an applicant for a special permit to waive the fee in its entirety. It is not something that is economically possible. And unfortunately I do not have the authority to waive that fee. So I need to bring it to you. The redevelopment board does have enough money in its budget to cover the cost of the legal notice. I think you probably know this but, you know, we, we don't actually have revenue that comes into the redevelopment board account we just have a budget. The revenue goes back into the towns, you know, the general fund. So there's not necessarily a direct relationship between the payment of a filing fee and the cost of advertising for the legal notice. That is really the transaction that is happening but we would have enough money to pay for that advertising notice so I would like to request that the board waive the filing fee for for this applicant. And I, ideally I would like it to remain anonymous but if you have questions about it this is one of our family daycare childcare rather applicants. We'll be hearing the application at some point soon, depending upon the outcome of this conversation. Great, thank you Jenny. So I'll run through the board to see if anyone has any questions for Jenny or any discussion that you'd like to have on this topic and we'll start with Ken. Is this a family daycare nonprofit. No, it is not a nonprofit organization. You know it is an individual wishing to operate a family childcare out of their home. And was just unaware of the level of resources needed in order to be able to proceed and the special permit was a new, a new item that was not anticipated I believe as another fee and to be clear that's a $500 filing fee. I'll circle back. I want to see what the other board members think. Okay, thank you Ken. Jean. You know when, when we voted to waive the other, or part of the other file in Seattle, I think it was part of my journey the whole thing. It was half of the fee. Yeah. I felt that we were boxed in by the select board in what it did. And we had to do it. I don't know what gives us the authority to waive a fee. I mean, I, I wonder if you can tell us what gives us the authority to waive a fee that's been sent by the town. I'll turn that over to Jenny. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, these are, these are fees that are administrative. They're not in a published bylaw. So I think that we would have the ability to waive those fees, and we actually changed the fees ourselves. So we changed the fee to include the cost of new construction, which was actually the cost of that other fee, as opposed to this one. So I do believe that we have the authority to waive fees or amend fees if we're, if it's ever requested. And again, we've in the six years that I've been doing this work, I've only, this is the first time I've ever had anybody request for a fee waiver. So I think, you know, that demonstrates that probably we're not typically asking applicants to pay very much. We're also doing the bulk of the work for the applicant, as opposed to the conservation commission, for example, just for a comparison, you know, the applicant actually does the legal notice themselves, and pays for all of those costs outright, you know, on their own independent of the town. I think that this is a slightly different operation. And so perhaps this was not anticipated by this particular applicant. And I believe that their economic situation is one in which I think it's fair to make this request. And do you know how decide what the size of the daycare will be. This is the sixth child daycare. So I think there are fewer children. Yeah. And what can you just review what the, what the $500 pays for. I mean, I think that it pays for the cost of the legal notice. You know, to run the advertising for the legal notice. So right now we run our advertising in the Arlington advocate, hoping that it continues to publish newspapers. Right. Well, still, it does apparently. So that's where we run the legal notice and it runs for two weeks and we have to pay the price of the, you know, that they charge, which is quite high and actually the price of the advertising has gone up, which is why I've changed the budget year over year. So it does pay for that. But again, it's not, we do not collect fees to then deposit into a redevelopment board account. It's a fee that goes into the general, the general operating fund for the town. Yeah, by the way, the only the owner of the Arlington advocate announced last week that it was being combined with the Winchester star. So it's now to newspapers of probably six pages. Yeah, those, those were my, those are my only comments. Thank you. Thank you, Jean. Melissa. In terms of staff, you know, I'm curious to hear staff's perspective on setting precedent and if we say yes on this, I know it's not one, you know, it's been a long time since you brought a waiver before us. But I'm curious about setting precedent for anyone that, you know, for either this use or some challenges, you know, as presented by other applicants. That's one thing. And then I guess the other piece is I can make a little bit more sense of it if, you know, the use or the goal of this. So I guess this is childcare. Have we stated that, you know, somewhere in our master plan or somewhere that we've said that we are concerned about this use or we are in need of this use. So you'd like to direct those questions to Jenny. Okay. So for the first question, I don't think that this set some sort of precedent for other applicants at all. I think that this is an unusual circumstance and I'm treating it as such and I'm here, tend to be pretty reluctant to bring these types of requests back to the board and I've had other types of requests like this in the past that I've, you know, decided on my own that I did not think it was appropriate to make any sort of request to the board. This one, however, I feel is one that is important and does not set some sort of precedent and there's an economic challenge for the applicant and I think that it is clear that we, but my, my recommendation is that the fee should be waived. No, I don't think that there's something in our master plan that says something about promoting childcare specifically I think we've made very clear however that we want to support independent businesses and entrepreneurs and people who are wishing to create home businesses and you know economic development sort of broadly. Thank you Jenny. I think in terms of me I'm supportive of waiving the fee. Thank you Melissa. Um, one small question. This, this would be a special permit filing fee for just a use. I mean we're not talking building a new building for a use. Yeah. Okay, so there, there is just by nature probably less review and staff time involved. I don't see a lot of review involved in this or the other take a family childcare special permit application now. Now, well, as a, you know, as an extenuating circumstance for a sole proprietor who's trying to start a business. You know, I would, I would be sympathetic to their request. Thank you Steve. I know that this is a, the removal of this special permit condition is something that we are going to be taking up at the special town meeting. I think if we are to approve it, it would be helpful to identify that this is for specifically for this type of use and it's not something that we will readily entertain for other commercial commercial businesses. So a way that we can make that clear. I certainly take Jenny's advisement very seriously in terms of the economic hardship that this particular business owner is is facing and specifically that it is a small family family daycare. But again, I would want to make sure that we're clear on what we're going to be doing. I think that Dylan won't entertain and again that that this is something that we will be addressing again at special town meeting since it is not something that's something that has not been right regulated, even though it is in the bylaws in the past would you say that that's a fair assessment Jenny. I think the only, I would add only one minor thing which is that perhaps the board can put into its rules and regulations something about economic hardship. You know I think that that don't think that that means that has anything to do with use I think that there could be other applicants who might face a similar challenge for a variety of reasons. And I don't think we need to go into all the possibilities but I think that it would be to have to have some sort of rule about that it or maybe to amend the rule related to our fee structure. We can make a point about economic hardship requests, and sort of the process that you wish to go through in the future we just don't have one. I mean, I'm, you know I'm doing what I can to facilitate this for this particular applicant who is clearly has an economic hardship. Thank you. Let's see so I'll circle back to see if there are any other questions or discussion, and then we will need to vote on whether to waive the special permit filing fee for this particular applicant. I'll go back to Ken. No, I have no questions. I think I could be supportive of this too. Great. Thank you, Ken. Jean. Yeah, I will rely on Jenny's representations to us about the need to do this and, and also I agree completely we should add something to the fees part of our rules and regulations which sets out some standard, or criteria. Or something by which we can show how we do this and might do it again. Great. Thank you, Jean, and thank you Jenny for that recommendation. Melissa, any additional discussion before we move to a vote. No. Great. Thank you. Steve, any additional discussion before the vote. Nothing further. Great. So at this time, is there a motion to approve the requested waiver of special permit filing fee for economic hardship for the applicant that Jenny brought before us. So motion. There a second. Second. Take a roll call vote, starting with Ken. Yes. He. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for having us as well. All right, so that waiver has been approved. Thank you all. And thank you for the conversation about it. Well, we'll circle back on the other matter at a future date. After town meeting. Yes. In June. In July. Right. Okay, so I think that the other agenda item that we'd be able to take before we pause for the agenda item number two at the meeting minutes from February 28, 2022. And I will go through the roll call to see if there are any additions or corrections and we'll start with Jean. I just want to send a number of additions and corrections to Jenny and Kelly the other day and don't have any additional ones to add. Great. Thank you, Jean. Steve, I saw that you sent some earlier today. If there anything else that you. Nothing beyond what I sent earlier. Okay. Thank you. Melissa. No. All right. Yes, add one small change, and I can't seem to find it now. Well, can I do one while you're looking? Okay. So on page two, Jenny, I think it's the, if you stop right there, go down a little bit. It's the second to last paragraph. Where says Mr. Tocco has said that he should be the mass works grant cannot be lost. I'm going to take your time. Can we have 45 minutes to tell. It's on page four out of five near the top. This area. Yeah. I'm going to allow asked all of the ones to be a better community or if I don't see the ones take the word does out or some of that. I meant diverse, more diverse community of street activities and vendors. Just, I think that's why I had, I said I'm not quite sure exactly what I said, but that's what I meant. Does that work for you. It's close enough. Anything else can. All right. Let's go ahead and see if there is a motion to approve the February 28, 2022 meeting minutes as amended. So motion. The second second. All right, we'll take a vote can. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Steve. Yes. And I have ES as well. The meeting minutes have been approved as amended. So at this point, I think we'll, we'll need to pause. And we'll need to cut to open forum. When you can move out if you wanted to. And again, let's do it. Now there are 20 minutes potentially. Absolutely. Let's go ahead and do that. That would be fantastic. I think that's the last agenda item we'd be able to, to, to move through. But at this time we'll go ahead and open the meeting up. For open forum. So any member of the public who wishes to address the board. We'll have up to three minutes to address the board. Please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen. And we'll give a minute or two to see if anyone. Okay. Okay. I'm going to address the board this evening. All right. See no one will go ahead and close open forum. So that closes agenda item number five. So we will need to. To, to pause. And what we'll do is. A journey and return. Back. Okay. So we need to take a motion to adjourn. So I could hear a motion to adjourn until nine 15. From the board. So motion. There a second. I can't. We'll take a vote starting with Kim. Yes. Team. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Yes. Okay. Not. I guess as well. So we will see everyone back here at nine 15. For the environmental design review. Rachel, we just need this logged on, right? Yeah. We can stay well gone. Just mute and stop your video. Yeah. And we can pause the recording. I'm going to. I'll put it up. Try that again. All right. Welcome back, everyone. So we'll now. Jump back in and return to agenda item number two, which is the public hearing for. Docket number three, six, nine, zero, 34 Dudley street. And before we begin, I'd like to turn it over to. I'm going to turn it over to you. Jenny rate and Kelly lineup from the department of planning and community development. To run through anything that you would like to highlight regarding the. The, the really thorough memo that appreciate that the. Department of planning and community development prepared for this docket. So Jenny, I'll hand it over to you. Rachel. I will be brief. I know that the applicant and I think their whole team is here right now. So I'm going to turn it over to you. I'm going to turn it over to you. I'm going to turn it over through when they're ready. So in, in our memo, you know, I, this is the first time that we're seeing an application that is applying the industrial use design, sort of the. The standards, the site design standards. And trying hard to find a way to incorporate. You know, sort of different elements on what is currently a building. I think there's, I think a total of three structures on the property, one larger one, and then two smaller. Buildings. It would be taken down and what would be. Put up in its place in their place rather would be a self service storage facility. That storage facility would be as proposed as a five story, 58 foot tall. And it would be a 25,706 square foot building. Which would hold approximately 740 to 780 storage units. And also have an office for staff. It would be staffed between specific business hours, but also allow customers who have storage units, access between six a.m. And 10 p.m. All every day of the week. They're proposing a reduction in parking. We used a standard to look at the parking, which measured out how that they would need about almost twice the amount of parking that they're actually wanting to put on site, which would include their proposal is for four loading spaces and 11 parking spaces, which would be provided on a surface parking lot. And then also some very modest amount of bicycle parking spaces, both inside and outside, which they also would need a waiver for, because they're reducing the amount that is required. So this is a very unique proposal in that it is also adjacent to the mill Brook. And in that it is the back of the building is really what's looking at the brook. They've already been to the conservation commission where they actually have received some excellent feedback. And I believe incorporated a number of the things that were requested by the conservation commission, which is included in this memo. So it appears that from a storm water and sort of the, the ability to look at these sort of open space on the site, trees mitigation, those are things that are being adequately handled on site to the best of their ability. I think the, you know, the primary thing that I would point out here is that the back of the building probably needs some work. That's the side that I think probably needs the most work, but I think we also might talk about sort of how the front of the building interacts with the street. I do think that they've done as much as they could at this point to try to find some sort of more human scale elements to the building, but it probably could go a bit further. It is a pre fabricated metal building completely. And I think that potentially if they change some of their materials, that might add to a slightly different feeling overall. The other thing I'll mention is that they do have a traffic study. And I think that it probably warrants taking a look at that more closely to get a better understanding of sort of the flow and the demand of this particular use. We only have one other self service storage facility in the town. So we don't have, you know, necessarily a lot of experience with this particular use, but it is actually along the same street. So there is some proximity to that other storage facility. Then lastly, you know, I don't think I'm going to run through every single one of these site designs. They are of course also asking for that exception to the maximum height. So it is important for you to review them because they're asking for that additional height. And I think I'm going to pause and I'm going to see if Kelly, would you like to add anything or point any, a couple of other things out and you can all scroll for you. Before we let the applicant provide their presentation. I think you noted the other requesting the exception to the height maximum. This building is definitely taller than any other building along Dudley street. And that is really as a function of the updated zoning. So. This is the first application we've seen. It may not probably will not be the last. And so that's something to consider. And also just, you know, in discussions with our environmental planner. And conservation agent. You know, they are doing. They're doing their best to improve the site and improve its relationship to the milk rock. That is, I think the other thing is, as Jenny noted, is the parking reduction. They're seeking a parking reduction. That's greater than what the board could probably allow. So there's a discussion that has to be had about parking. And then just overall, I think, you know, they are. Checking the boxes on those various site design standards. And that they are providing, so they have requested signage that is greater than the allowable signage, both in area and in number of signs. A couple of these signs are allowed under. Because they're directional signs or providing incidental information that are allowed. But I think it is important to note that the two wall signs are significantly larger than what's allowed in the zoning by law. And then the additional free, free standing monument sign is illuminated right now. And that is limited free standing monument signs are not permitted in section six of the bylaw. So that would be another discussion. I think overall it's the sign area that the board may want to consider as part of its discussion. I think that is pretty much. I think that covers it. The existing structure is not historic. And that they are demonstrating that the, the lead could, the building could have a lead score. It could be lead platinum certified. So they're sort of, they're seeking the highest lead certification rating. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Kelly. Rachel, if it's okay, then I'm going to see if I know Bob and SE is here and I believe the other team members. So it's okay. Unless there are questions for either one of us, we can turn it over to the applicant for their presentation. I think that would be great. And then we'll take questions for both the department and for the applicant at the same time. So attorney and SE, I see that you're here. You could introduce yourself and your colleagues who are here this evening. And we'll look forward to a 10 minute presentation. Thank you. Robert and SE for the applicant and since Jenny and Kelly have essentially. Stolen my presentation for the most part. There isn't an awful lot, I have to say. I would like to introduce our team. And what you're going to, you're going to hear from Eric Gerard. Eric is going to talk about our site plan. Matt. Keely. Keely is going to address the traffic report. Jan. Brian. We'll be, we'll give a short introduction with respect to the elevations. And you're going to hear from Pete Williams, who's the president of a premier storage investors. Because I think it is important that you know something about the company itself. That is proposing to build the storage facility. I'm just going to make a couple of comments. We're talking about an eye zone. I know that there are residential homes in the eye zone. But this is an endemic. We don't have that many. Industrial zones. That basically. Are in, in private hands. We have the town yard. We had the Myrak property, but that's now 40 B. This is a prime industrial zone. And as Jenny rate has indicated in her memo. And I'm going to plagiarize that a little bit. She has said that the master plan has essentially indicated that we should be trying to maximize the kind of building that is done. In the industrial zone. That's exactly what we're trying to do. We're trying to maximize the kind of building that is done in the industrial zone. That's exactly what we're trying to do with this project. I'm going to be available for any questions that may come later on. But what I'd like to do is get right into the presentation at this point. And Eric, would you jump in? Eric, I believe is going to make a PowerPoint presentation with the aid of either Jenny or Kelly. Thank you, Bob. Good evening. My name is Eric. I'm a civil engineer with VHB. Our headquarters are in Watertown, Massachusetts. So thank you very much for hearing our project tonight. We're really excited with the opportunity to come forward with a project that is really striving to meet the intent of the industrial zone, the new, the new regulations. That have been set forth. As you can see, this is the cover sheet and go to the next. Next page. Next page. Bob already went through this. I'm just kind of the discussion points that we want to kind of hit on our current project status, the reviews coordination. We've already been to the conservation commission for our first hearing, our next one scheduled. It's either going to be the seventh or likely continued to the next go over the site conditions, the existing conditions, proposed projects, site improvements with the site, traffic and architectural. And then obviously open it up for questions. Next, please. So we have, we have met, we're meeting with, with the redevelopment board tonight. Planning department, we, we've coordinated with Jenny in the past as we were getting the project off the ground. I went through a couple, you know, design changes during that, during that process. And then also I'd coordinated a little bit with the engineering department as we were getting more involved with the unit and, and in the future we'll be in the future with the water management, which is, which is still, which is, which is still a very important piece to any redevelopment project. Now we are here seeking the special permit for use, as well as the, the waivers for the reduction in parking and the reduction in the bicycle parking as well. And the conservation commission with the order of conditions. This is a view of the existing site conditions. acre parcel of land, auto body repair shop, it's about 11,000, 12,000 square feet in total area out there. Very, very little open space. It is within the Milbrook resource areas. As you can see it's in pretty close proximity. We have the buffer zones that extend in with the 25 and the 50 foot, the 100 foot and then essentially the entire sites within the 200 foot riverfront area. So we are in front of conservation with the order conditions with the notice intent application. A portion of the project adjacent to Milbrook is actually encroaching into town only and so where as part of this project we're proposing to pull that encroachment out and fix up the rear slope and restabilize that. So that's part of our discussions with the conservation commission is you know the proper way to do that getting the town involved and making sure that you know we do that appropriate and saving the existing vegetation as best as possible while stabilizing that slope. Just want to point out that the existing building also doesn't conform to the current set backs that are out there. It's really it's on the property line and might actually be over it slightly. So with the proposed project we're going to be tightening that up and you know conforming to the set backs. Next please. So the proposed building that's a 95,700 square foot five-story self-storage facility. We are proposing access off of Dudley Street and we are proposing to close one of the curb cuts that's currently out there to make a make it a little safer as far as site access goes for people walking up and down that street as well. Site improvements include 11 new parking spaces which we are requesting a reduction from the 96 that are required for industrial building of this size. Similarly with the bicycle parking a reduction where it's required for 134 total bicycle parking spaces where a 57 would be short term 77 long term and we are proposing 11. We feel with this use bicycle parking is not going to be really desired or used. However we do feel it is important to still provide it and meet the intent as best we can. Matt Keely will get a little bit more in depth with the with the parking, how we come up with the numbers and how we can defend a use in a building of this size to require. We believe we are well over parked for this facility. Other other site improvements that I would like to point out. Pedestrian men is allowing the frontage design standards are calling for some additional benches. We're providing two benches, a new sidewalk along the front new access and pedestrian connectivity into the site. A big component of the project is the landscape. We are reducing the overall impervious area on the site as part of this redevelopment project so that's both aid in stormwater management with a reduction of that where we're slowing down all the water, the amount of water that's coming off, as well as the ability to provide new landscaping and really enhance the site and add a little bit more green space within the Millbrook resource areas. We are providing four covered loading spaces that were showing there within interior to the building. Those are essentially going to be parking spaces as well, but we are calling them loading because they are enclosed. That's where the primary function of the building will happen. Most of the vehicles arriving here will be just backing into that. That's the primary location where people will be utilizing to enter into the building to access the storage facility. Additionally, all the bicycle parking that we are proposing is either covered or enclosed. We have two bike racks at the rear of the site that's underneath the building overhang. Within the covered storage area, there's going to be an additional six spaces and then the employee space will be dedicated. There's going to be a dedicated storage unit for employee use within the facility, which will certainly be large enough to house at least one bike. We are also providing an enclosed dumpster area at the rear of the parking facility to handle all the... It's a very low refuse generation waste generator. Persons visiting or utilizing the site, they're required to... Whatever they bring in, they got to carry back out. It's not a dumpster to be utilized by the tenants of the building, the people leased in the spaces. It's more for just the employees at the facility. I just want to give you a time check. You have about a minute left. If you have a bit more in the presentation and you need another three or four minutes, that's fine, but we did get this ahead of time. I think if we were able to run through it, if there are things you want to point out, that would be helpful that perhaps weren't in the presentation documents. Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry. Moving forward, utilities, stormwater management, all nasty EP regs. I'll let Matt get into the traffic study because I feel like that's an important piece to go over. I'll let Matt run through that. Thanks, Eric. In the interest of time, I can just cover these things really briefly, just a few highlights from our traffic memo on the next slide. In terms of trip generation, in our study, we provided a table that compared the trip generation associated with the existing use with the proposed use. That was based on Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation manual data. You can see on that table on the right and it's shown in the memo is that the proposed use is expected to generate notably less traffic than the existing use. Another thing we provided in the memo was a summary of some empirical data that we've collected at other similar sites as part of other projects we've done with the proponent. That data actually shows that empirical data is actually less than the ITE data for self-storage uses. Again, just to summarize trip generation, we are expecting to be the proposed project to be a decrease compared to the existing use. In terms of parking, we are providing 11 surface spaces and four loading docks. Again, we collected some parking data at those sites that we collected the traffic generation data for, and we saw a peak demand of eight vehicles at those sites. We feel that the 11 surface spaces and the four loading docks are adequate for a site of this size. As far as bicycle parking goes, as you can assume, this type of use isn't exactly conducive to customers biking to and from the site with it being a storage facility. That bicycle parking is really geared towards accommodating employees who want to travel to and from the site without using a car. And again, with 11 spaces provided for bikes, we feel that's more than adequate for the use. And lastly, just related to the town of Arlington requirements, we have to provide three transportation demand management measures. We reviewed all the different measures that are summarized in the regulations, and we chose the three that we thought are most applicable to the site. The first is to pay a stipend to workers who without cars and don't travel to and from the site with cars, provide a preferential parking for carpool vehicles, as well as providing covered bicycle parking and storage. Are you all set? Yeah. All right. Jan? Jan, are you there? Jan Bryan? Yes, can you hear me? Hello. Yeah, go ahead. Hi, my name is Jan Bryan. I'm a principal in Michael Parker Studios and our office is located in Mint Hill, North Carolina. I'll be very brief. I think the building kind of stands for itself. It won't take too much time other than to indicate that based on the comment that Mishrait has made, recommendations certainly would be more than willing to discuss any of those particular items with the board and possibly leave that more toward the time of questioning. I think certainly the opportunity to add additional glass at the front entrance is certainly reasonable. I think the addition of some masonry certainly across the front of the building would be acceptable. And then certainly we can discuss what methods we think might be best to address the rear and side portions that are visible from Milbrook side. So I won't take much more time than that. Obviously the building is primarily EFAS and a pencil rib prefabricated metal. Five stories, 58 feet tall. I believe we're allowed 68 feet, 65 feet, I'm sorry, but 58 feet is the tallest parapet that we have. I will just leave it at that and certainly available for questions as we begin to discuss what the board might like. Can we see, can we see images of the exterior of the building so that we can see what it looks like? There we go. There we go. You'll see right the front of the building where we've got the entrance into the office. And again, there's an opportunity to add some storefront additional if we need to. We've met our transparency with the 50% glass that we have, not including that loading zone area that is obviously open for transportation in and out of sight. You can see a sight image there from the rear of the property that really wants the landscaping, the trees are in place, full growth. The topmost portion of the building is what's going to be most visible. So certainly can discuss options and recommendations that the board may have to address misrates concerns on those. So unless there's some specific question for me, I can certainly be available for questions as we get into that portion of the presentation. Our last speaker is Pete Williams. Pete, can you jump in? Yes, sir. Am I visible and heard? Yes, we can hear you. Oh, thank you. Am I visible? I think I've got everything on. We can see you too. So welcome. Thank you, board. My name is Pete Williams. I am the president and principal of Premier Storage Investors. Our offices are located 530 Oak Court Drive Suite 155 in Memphis, Tennessee, 38117. I've been doing this. Self Storage is the only thing that I do do and our company does since 1989. I've acquired and developed over 300 properties in 35 states in my career. Premier Storage Investors has been in existence in some form since 1997, which is right at five years. The mandate and the mission of our company solely is to identify self storage sites in major metropolitan markets throughout the U.S. that are supplied deficient and deprived. Candidly, Arlington is probably the most deprived that I've seen in the past several years. Currently, you guys mentioned having that one small self storage facility in the market, which provides, I don't know, probably not even one square feet per capita, whereas the need in the U.S. as calculated by the industry trade companies, there would be seven square feet per capita. That would extrapolate into probably a current demand in that marketplace for about 8,000 self storage units. We are adding approximately 750 somewhere between 740 and 780 and would estimate at this point, based on what we know of the market, which is generally a three mile radius, that that would be about 1,500 units, which certainly leaves even after we would build this self storage facility would leave a deficiency of unmet need of 6,000 to 6,500 self storage units. It's quite simple in that I think the presenters have done a great job in laying out what it is we're trying to do specifically, but generally speaking, we're trying to meet a need in that marketplace to give your constituents and the people in that community an opportunity to have that space that others in the community or in the area do have. So I'll leave it at that, certainly available for questions on anything operationally or philosophically. We certainly said have done this in 35 states and our desires to be a great neighbor. We've worked with boards throughout the country to solve the issues and the needs and are certainly open and willing to do that with you guys and the other boards that we're working with right now towards this project. I appreciate it. Thanks for the time. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. That's our presentation, Rachel. Okay, great. Thank you very much. So at this time, I'll turn it over to members of the board for questions and thoughts that you'd like to share with the applicants. So we'll take questions from the board, then we'll take public comments, and then we'll come back to the board for a more thorough discussion. And just for any member of the board, any visual that you'd like to see up, we'll just direct those requests to Jenny and to Kelly. So we'll start with Kim. Thanks, Rachel. Yeah, if we can get to a site plan, Jenny, is that possible? Right now, I am supportive of this project, but I do have a few comments that I like to or request. I like the request of the ownership here. Once we get to the site plan, I noticed you have a six foot wooden fence along one side of the property, and it stops right at the corner by your, right there, that's good enough. There's a six foot fence that lines all the way to that corner where you have, let me see where it is, load up a little bit. Right at the angle there, it stops right at the angle. I like to request that the fencing continues along that angle, the part of the property line, until it closes off the building, just because all those cars that park there, their headlights are up high and it'll be shining right through the trees into the park, the playground field. So if you continue that fencing there, I would appreciate that. And that would limit some of the lighting that was shining on the ballpark. And also, I believe some of the trucks will be using that for the frequent turning into a loading dock. So there's quite a bit of lighting high and low shining through that edge there along the angled edge there. That's one of them. The other request is, if you can go to one of the the renderings, Jenny, on view three, it's the 3D axis asymmetric. This is view three on it. All right. See that big white panel there? That's right at the corner. You have to put some a little more articulation there. It's just one big white panel that doesn't seem, it seems kind of out of scale. You have to introduce either some more, something to break down the scale a little bit more, or even put a silk screen up there with some sort of design. I think one of the letters came in and they showed some examples of what all the parking garages did. That's a good idea. I'd be appreciative of that. Some sort of something to break down the scale. And that we were the first thing that you see along the edge there where we have the grass that faces the driveway there. The way this right now, I see people parking all over that grass and driving all over that grass because that's an industrial park to that little alleyway down there. If you can put some sort of shrubs right there along there so that cars won't be driving on the grass on your property and making it a huge mess, it's just going to get really ugly fast there. And you have a very nice building, landscape building. I want to maintain it that way. So if you put some shrubs right along that your property line, so cars won't be parking there, won't be driving over there, won't be, you know, so forth. The yellow one is, I have a question. How many employees will there be in the, in this place? Two. Two. Then I'm going to request that you double your inside parking. You're asking quite a bit of reduction in parking, car parking. I think you got to give us at least two indoor bicycle parking so that we're really encouraging the workers to ride their bicycles there. You're only providing one right now. So if you can just double that, I would appreciate that. Indoor bicycle parking, yeah. Indoor, not just not covered, indoors. I think we can make that happen. Let's just one the list, Bob. The other one is your blade sign. I don't like it. If we can eliminate that blade sign, I think your building is going to stand out. People will see it. You have presence on the street. I don't think that's required. And the sign that you have that's above the entry there, it's way too big. It's above our sign standard. I think if you cut that in half, I would be fine with that. The one you have up high, I think I'll be okay with that. I'll let the rest of my board members think about that, but I think that one up high is fine. But the one that's above the entry there, it's just too big. I like to get rid of the blade sign. I think most all the things I request, those small changes, but generally I'm a supporter of the project and I like it. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. Just for clarification, by the blade side, were you referring to the monument sign? Correct. Okay, great. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you very much. Gene, I'll move to you next. Thank you. Can you, Jenny, go to the page that has view number five on it, please? Thanks. Can you tell me where I'm standing in this view as I'm looking at the building? If I were looking at this building standing where I'd be standing to look at this view, where would I be? You would, this is, Jan, Brian, you'd be at the, this is the back of the building facing Millbrook. So for instance, the... Would I be standing in Millbrook to have this view of the building? Yes, sir, you would. And I'm not sure if I can tell you exactly the distance away from the building we're here or here, but yes, that's the direction that we're looking back at the building. And are those trees currently in existence that are shown in this view? I'm not sure. Eric, is that... I'm not sure how many of those are existing. How many of those we've added, Eric? Yeah, I don't think it's fully representative is the exact vegetation here and the slope. The slope isn't that, you know, well-grasped. There's a lot of shrubs and, you know, some invasive species out there as well that kind of mingling through some of that area. So I think the more intent of this was, yeah, to get the view of the back of the building from where you're standing. Is this your intention that you replant it so it looks like this? Well, I would suggest that we've done the best we can with this rendering program. Certainly it's not meant to be an exact replication of what's there. That's one reason you don't see the undergrowth and some of the shrubbery that's here existing. But to the best of our ability, we've tried to express the amount of coverage that we would expect to be there. You know, one of the concerns which I'll just state now is the need to do something with the facades. And it's a little hard for me to know exactly how bad this facade will look or how good it will look because you've put up a representation that's not representative of what one would see when one stands on the side of the brook and looks at this. So we're going to need to do better with this to get a feeling for what this is about and what you're proposing to do here with the slope and with vegetation. Yeah, just I don't need this of you anymore. Thanks, Jenny. You know, this is going into where there's been auto repair places, wherever there's auto repair places, there's a history of ground contamination. I wonder if you've done any site assessment of the site for any contamination? Jesse Morgan from our team. Jesse, are you available to address this? Okay, doesn't sound like Jeff. I know. I mean, the answer is yes. It would be helpful if you've done a site assessment to look for contamination. I didn't see it, so it would be very helpful. Okay. We have a phase two that was done. And we can certainly provide that, but we did have a clean bill of health. Okay, that would be really helpful to see that to allay any concerns I would have about construction impacts on contamination. Absolutely. As well as the infiltration chambers you're going to be putting in and, you know, ground contamination. So it'd be very helpful to see that. Thank you. You probably saw the memorandum from the staff that your signage is not consistent with the town's sign requirements. And I would expect that the signage is brought into consistency because I don't see any reason to give you any waiver from the sign requirements. So, you know, I think somebody can work with the staff of the department on how to get it in compliance. I'm a little wondering about the hours. So as I understand it, it will be staffed from 8.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday. But people can access the site from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., so a much longer period of time and seven days a week, not five. So explain to me, please, because I don't use one of these storage facilities. If I go during a time when you don't have staff there, how do I get in? How do I use the facility? How do you assure there's no damage taking place when you don't have any staff there? Gene, if I could jump in just a bit on that. I'm not an expert on that, but we are going to have a code system for each of the customers who will have access to the facility. We are going to have a large number of security cameras that are going to be surveilling the exterior of the building at all times, so that we will know what's going on. And sure, we're not going to have an employee there after hours of Monday through Friday, but nevertheless, we're going to have a surveillance system there. So I think in answer to your question, the customers are going to be able to have access because they will have a code to get into the building. And during the hours when the building's not open, the code won't work. Can I assume if I get there at 11 at night, my code won't work? That is correct. Yes, Bob is correct. Every tenant has a specific code, so we know whether the property is being staffed or if it's after regular business hours when a tenant enters and when a tenant leaves the building. And as Bob said, our security package generally has 20 to 22 cameras in it, so there's a number outside. There's a number of cameras inside as well. It's security concerns are not one of our biggest, even though I know there's perception that in our industry, there's what happens. And there's very few people that use outside of regular business hours, but there are people from time to time that, hey, look, I'm getting ready to go on a trip and I'm leaving at 7.30 in the morning and I need to stop by and get my beach gear. And they need access or vice versa. They're coming home from the beach at 8.30 and they need to stop by and drop some things off. So I think you've gotten the picture and certainly we can provide more detail on the security package as needed. Okay. Yeah, thank you. That's very helpful. On the bicycle parking, our general rule is the bicycle parking should be at the front or before the parking so that if somebody rides up on a bicycle, they can see where the bike racks are. Yours, however, are going to be at the very back of the facility. So not the indoor ones, but the short-term ones. So I think there are a couple of options. One is you can figure out how to move them to the front or second, and maybe my colleagues will disagree with me, but it's possible perhaps to have some signage indicating where the bicycles are because right now, if you ride up, how are you going to know where they are? Unless you happen to have this graphic in front of you. So I think something needs to happen with the location of the short-term bicycle parking or the need to be some wayfaring signs so people can find them. Ms. Wright mentioned the possible problem with trucks getting out onto MassF because there's no traffic light at the intersection. I would say more if they have to make a left turn rather than a right turn. Can you comment on that? I think I'll jump in on that again, Jean, if I could. I think at least with respect to the kind of vehicles that we anticipate will be coming to and leaving from the site, we anticipate that you might have small u-hauls and that kind of vehicle coming from and going to the site. I know there was a comment in Jenny Wright's memo about heavier vehicles heading down or coming around a corner down on Grove Street, which admittedly is a tight turn. We don't anticipate that we're going to have those kind of vehicles. That's not the kind of experience that we have. These units, these storage units, are relatively small and they're not the kind of storage units where you'd have a large truck coming up with a lot of goods, whether they be household goods or the like, to be stored in the unit. In terms of having a traffic light up at Mass Ev, we of course don't have any control over that in terms of that kind of traffic. But if you look at the traffic report, we're not talking about generating a lot of traffic coming to and going from the site. I don't think that that is going to be a major problem as far as the use is concerned. Yes, I will add as a general rule in self-storage, 90% of users are personal users. Those personal users, and this is broad in a facility like this with a demographic like we have, I'd expect it to be closer to 95% personal users as Bob referred. Those people, I would say way more than half. There's no way to call it. It's an art. Just having done this for 35 years, probably half of, not less than half to 75% of the people will just come in their personal vehicle when people do need assistance with moving out of an apartment or helping some dislocation took place. The things that drive our business, he's correct that what they'll do is go around a small U-Haul and come into the site. But even beyond that, the design and development of this site, our managers talk to people and we tell them, this site cannot take a large vehicle. We will not accept large vehicles on the site, and that's a managerial thing. Certainly we house storage facilities throughout the country that they're wide open, big, huge areas on four or five acres and we communicate with those people. We can accept moving type trucks, but this just will not be available at this storage facility, and it will be advertised and communicated the same way. So that's not our customer, I guess. So when you say not a large truck, what size large is too large? I'd say the largest truck you'll ever see on that site would be like a 24-foot U-Haul truck. So we could probably, assuming we grant this permit, put a condition in limiting to no more than 24-foot trucks, I would think. That would probably work. Let me see if I have any other questions. The other is about the facades, and I'm not the facades expert on the redevelopment board, but I am very concerned about the view they provide from the park, from Milbrook, and maybe some of my colleagues will talk about that, but I would be interested in seeing some alternatives to what you've got to soften the look. My final concern has to do with lighting, and Milbrook is a wildlife corridor, and I just want to make sure there's not going to be any lighting that shines down onto Milbrook or the banks of Milbrook from the facility. So I'm wondering what we're thinking about for lighting for that. Yeah, I can hop in on that. In conservation, brought that up as well. So the lighting plan that we provided, there was a 14-foot light pole back there, and the spillover was slightly off the backside there. So I talked with our lighting vendor, and we're going to shorten that down to a 12-foot pole, so that will pull the lighting back, so it won't be spilling off down into the property. If you zoom into those numbers, most of those are zeros, so it's a little, as it goes down the slope. But we are going to propose to shorten that to a 12-foot pole rather than the 14-foot, and we can provide better shielding along that edge on that light fixture, so it doesn't spill over. And I just want to make sure that you're not going to have any lighting light up this building in the evening, because even though it's an industrial zone, there are residential properties. Yeah, there won't be any sort of uplighting on that. That's not allowed, so yeah. Okay, thanks. Those are my questions. Thank you so much for the answers. Thank you. Melissa. Thank you, Rachel. And thanks to the applicant for, you know, bringing this forward. Although I want to kind of take a step back, because I feel like I disagree a little bit with some of the staff comments in terms of getting to this special permit, and I want to talk a little bit about that. I guess, if we're talking about, you know, just the decision criteria around this, and I was looking at 3.3.3B, essential and desirable for public convenience. I understand from the applicant there's a need, but I also want to look at the surrounding area. I know four miles down the road, there's another significant U-Haul storage space. There is the existing one, so I don't know if we've taken an account beyond the immediate boundaries is one thing. I think the other thing I wanted to think about and talk a little bit more about was 3.3.3F. And I'm thinking of this because although it's an industrial zone, our thinking around this from my understanding, the increase in the FAR and the intention in the industrial zone has been specifically to capture more emerging growth industries. I think we called out in our master plan, biotech, pharmaceutical, creative sectors, and I'm struggling to see how this use fits in line with a vision that we intend for this area so that it wouldn't be detrimental to a vision to enhance it over time. So I'm really struggling with this and seeing how it does meet that criteria. Explosive, we can certainly return to that during our discussion portion. Any other questions for the applicant? Well, so do you have any other questions for the applicant or just that one? No, I mean, if they could address that, those are questions not only for us as a board staff to talk about, but the applicant is welcome to comment. I think the applicant, they dispensed quite a bit of time talking about what they determined to need for the area. So I don't think I'm going to have them rehash that at this time, but we can certainly circle back to it as a board. Okay. So then the other piece then I guess in terms of the applicant, in terms of a commercial value for this property, nearly 100,000 square feet of new commercial, could you give me a comp for this property, a new commercial self-storage building here in town? And could you compare it then for a commercial office and then compare it for a biotech R&D space? And if then you can include in the analysis, you know, an estimated personal property tax? I'm not sure what you're asking them to do. I'm looking at them asking them, Rachel, to see if we can try to get some comparisons, because I'm really struggling to understand how this, you as much as it is a commercial property, I don't see it being as valuable as the intention that we have for the industrial zone. Okay. I see what you're getting at. I don't think that's appropriate to ask them to create that analysis. But I think that that's something like I said, again, that we can circle back to in terms of the discussion on the desirability when we come back to discussion after all of the questions for the applicant. Okay. Thank you. Steve. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a couple of questions. Over the weekend, I hopped on my bike, took a ride over, looked at the site as much as I could from, you know, the property aligned and also walked or went through Wellington Park to look at the backside. And, you know, having done that and read the stormwater management plan, I think this is going to make a big improvement since the applicants are already working with the Conservation Commission. And this is in a 200, you know, the 200 foot riverfront boundary. I'll just leave it at that and say this seems like a welcome improvement. Now on to parking. With three, I believe our by-laws requirement of 96 spaces is excessive for this use and this kind of space. I do have a question about the estimate for 11. Was that gathered from examination of similar facilities or is that from the ITE parking generation manual? I can probably take that with Eric as well. So the data that we can collected at two other facilities had a range of two spaces to eight spaces as far as peak demand goes. I think Eric could probably comment on how that laid out on the site and how they arrived at the 11. But in terms of demand, we were definitely less than that from the empirical data. Yep. And as far as the site layout goes, with fit in the other site features that we wanted to hit on, you know, we need the dumpster, transformer, some of the extra space around the edges, we fit in the buyer retention base. And so it was essentially what kind of we could fit out there is what we placed out there. The, I mean, my main question is, you know, the, I agree, like I said, I agree that 96 is probably too many, but you know, I wanted to understand the, you know, the sort of the case for 11. So thank you for that. Signage, I tend to agree with Mr. Lau in that the sign that's, you know, up on the fifth floor is probably okay. But I think 200 square feet on the second above the entrance is probably a bit much. You know, after visiting this site, I went down the street to look at our other self storage facility. They do have a wall sign, which looks, which is roughly about 66 square feet. You know, something I around that size, I think might be more appropriate for the, you know, the front driveway entrance. And Jenny, I'm wondering if we could look at bring up sheets a 103 through a 105. But would somebody remind me the direction it might be in in this packet? I'm in like the consolidated packet. I'm sorry. Keep on going, Jenny. Keep on going. Rolling down. It's past this. Keep on going. Probably maybe search for a one. Keep on going. You're getting close. It's after the site plans. It's after the site plan. Yeah, I'm just, oh, there it is. Okay. I skipped it. Did you want to see this one? Actually, the so 101 is the first floor. I'd like to see 103 and 104 and 105 more on the what's on the left of the screen. Yeah. So the diagonal wall looks like this is a rear wall. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. I was, you know, thinking about trying to think of the facades and looking at the internal layout and it, you know, it looks on in a number of cases or our units, you know, planned up against the exterior wall, but this the diagonal on the rear of the building seems to be, you know, you know, that doesn't seem to be the case. So, you know, I would suggest considering some windows or just windows or fennis windows to break that up. It seems like it would fit in with your layout and would probably improve the appearance from the back. And that is all I have. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Steve. Let's see. I just had a couple of comments to make before we then move on to public comment after any final questions on the board. I just want to, again, agree with my colleagues about the need to comply with the existing signage requirements. I also, Jenny, if you can either pull from the presentation or the rendering the axon that is looking, I think it's view one that's looking, that's perfect. So, the other thing that I think is important, and I believe the department called this out in their memo, is to actually install the signage over the entrance rather than in this area above the dry vial. I think they rightly pointed out that it is difficult to actually pull the entrance out of the facade and whether, again, that's with awnings or looking at significantly increasing the amount of glazing there at that corner and making that its own volume. I think that that's something that's important to look at. I agree with Ken that I don't think reducing the parking down to 11 is something that I think is appropriate, nor quite frankly with the reduction, the way that the reduction opportunity to reduce your parking 25% down to 25%. I don't believe that there's a real reason for us to go below that 25% that I think has been demonstrated. I do have no issue reducing the bike parking because, again, I believe that most people will come here just due to the nature of what they're dropping off in vehicles, but to Gene's point, I think we should try and encourage the two employees by increasing the interior bike parking for this space. The other item, again, that I'll just reiterate that I think it's really important to look at is the articulation of all of the facades. I don't think that the full metal panel cladding is necessarily the most appropriate for this building in the neighborhood and I also agree with Ken that the scale of that first EFIS area just on the other side of the right side of the building here that we're looking at is definitely something that's out of scale and needs to be looked at. Again, I just think that the cladding overall, looking at some more masonry, looking at a way to create some more rhythm and whether it's to cap the building or in some other way break down, but just the enormous visual scale is something that's very necessary. So I'll just run through and see if there are any other questions from the board or comments before we move into public comment. Starting with Ken. Yeah, I'm a little concerned where Melissa was getting at where she had trouble with this project. I kind of agree with Jenny saying this is appropriate for this area. This is an industrial area and I'm hoping we're not going to go pick and choose what we want for buildings. That's just not going to happen. So if that's an issue, I think we should discuss that much more because I hate to see this being turned down because of that. Thanks Ken. I agree. What I'd like to do again is to move through questions and then that will definitely be the first topic that we turn to as a board following the public comment if that works for you. Okay, great. Thanks, Gene. Just one thing I forgot to mention, a question. The roof has to be solar ready and I'm just wondering why you won't just put solar on the roof as part of this project. Bob, I'll ask you to answer that. You had two or three options and to me you chose the worst option and to me the option should be solar on the roof. I'm just wondering why you wouldn't do that. This is Jan Brown. We do have the roof set for to accept solar panels. Solar ready, but I'd like you to actually commit to put solar on the roof, not just solar ready. Can I address that, Jan? From the business standpoint in that regard, many times that has to do with the programs that are available. We are not in the solar panel business. We have at times when there's a program available, done solar panels with a company that is doing that, but many times your state and local municipalities come in and out of those programs. The reason we make it solar ready is when the program is available and out there we can respond to it. That's great because we have in the state some of the best solar programs. I would really encourage attorney and essay to maybe talk to the town's energy manager who can connect you up with those programs because it sounds like a win for you. Let's put that on the list of things that will happen. That's great. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jean. I have that on my list of follow-up lists. That was it. Thanks. Great. Thank you. Melissa, any other questions for the applicant before we move to public comment? No, not at this time. Great. Thanks. Steve? I will hold until after the public comment period, Madam Chair. Great. Thank you, Steve. All right. So at this time, I'd like to open the discussion up to public comment. If you would wish to speak to the board about this docket or if you have any questions that we will collect and then address to the applicant, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of the screen. You'll have up to three minutes for your comments. Please introduce yourself by your first last name and address, and we will start with Wynell Evans. Oh, you're on mute. How's that? Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Wynell Evans, orchard place. Thank you. My only comment is it seems like the facade has drawn an awful lot of concern tonight, and I wanted to make sure that all the board members and the applicant had seen the examples of facade treatments that I set in to correspondence. Is it possible for everyone to see those now? Jen, I don't believe that we can pull those up now, but Gene is not in his head, and I know that I saw them. We all did receive both your email as well as those were posted online, and actually Gene referenced those to the applicant when he was making suggestions for how they might treat the facade. Okay. It would just, it would be. Oh, great. Jenny can pull it up. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jenny. This is, as I mentioned, for the applicants who may not be familiar with the Boston area, this is a parking garage on route two that has used this screening, which I believe is metal, but if you scroll down below this shot, you will see the two, and even further, there are two more examples which are tensile fabric. They're not metal, and the great benefit of these is that pretty much anything can go on them. So particularly from the park when you are looking at the rear facade of the building, to have something like this, a pattern of trees or plantings could really do a lot to soften the impact of that rear facade and might even be appropriate on the sides of the building. So I just wanted to make sure that the applicant had seen this. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Excellent suggestions. The next speaker will be Christian Klein. Thank you, Madam Chair. Christian Klein, 54 Newport Street. Had a couple of questions. One, so there was a, on the exterior views of the building, it appears that the rain leaders are running on the outside of the building. And if that's the case, if they could be running interior, it would be one less thing on the facade. But it also appears that they're about four feet down from the top of the building, which implies that there's a huge parapet, which really has, was going to interfere with the solar use on the roof, and really serves no purpose except to make the building taller than it needs to be. I agree with all the discussion about the parking. You know, I think that the going down as far as 11 spaces is way too small, especially in the Boston market, as we all know, Boston moves on September 1st. We do not have an even moving season. And so there's a big spike that comes in September 1, and I'd be very concerned about the, the spike in traffic that would be coming to this area, specifically around September 1st. And my, my last question has to do with the site drainage and the ability to go to five floors. So their site plan seems to indicate that on the west side of the building, there's a series of drains that run along the side of the building and then enter into an existing outfall to Millbrook. And the ordinance in 562d7 bullet three requires the retention and treatment of all stormwater on site. It appears that this site may not actually meet that criteria. And it's one of the requirements for going to five floors. And so I'm concerned that maintaining that existing outfall to Mill Street and the need to do that because there's so much impervious area does not actually qualify them per five floors. And so those are my comments. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And I captured some of those questions and we will ask the applicant to address those as we get through public comments. So thank you. Thank you for the questions. Let's see. The next speaker will be Thomas Falwell. Good evening, Thomas Falwell. I represent the Director Butter at 26 Stubbly Street, the Sintini Realty Trust. I filed earlier today with the board a memorandum and opposition in which raises a number of questions. I hope the board will have, if they have not already, had the opportunity to review it. I won't rehash that other than to have make one comment with respect to the parking diminution. I don't think under any set of circumstances, you can go lower than the 25% because the reduction, the provision in the bylaw that allows a reduction below that, as I point out, my memorandum applies to business zones entirely. So 25% would be the absolute minimum. I think this has to be studied. As was just mentioned, the vehicle trips, I would recommend, as I did, I would say I'm a former member and chairman of this board back long before neither Barbara Nessie and I would like to remember. And we would always require in cases like this a peer analysis of the track, traffic in the parking. We've taken some look at it. I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any traffic data for Watham at all. And it's also important to note that the facilities that they cite as compels and traffic-wise, one's on Route 60 and two of them are on Route 60 in Malden and the other is on Bear Hill Road in Watham, which is substantially different in terms of the ability to traffic, annual traffic than Dudley Street, which is and has always been quite congested from a traffic standpoint with parking on both sides of the street. I have a series of other questions which I won't put in writing and submit that based upon some of the comments of her tonight. One question I did have though is, have they raised the rear elevation from this present elevation? Is that proposal to raise that elevation? And is that reflected in the total of the total building height? I think you have noted the question and we'll add that to the questions for the applicant. Okay. As I say, the applicant's traffic counts, they happen to choose April and May, which are by their own standards, the lightest months of the year and during the pandemic. If you look at their August and September figures, they're several times higher than that. So I think this cries out for an actual peer analysis of their information done at the expense of the applicant. I'd also think it would be important to know and perhaps the staff can do some digging on that as to what's the average number of parking spaces that are actually required for these facilities in the Greater Boston market area. Thank you. You're actually at time. So thank you. I will submit the other questions later. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. The next speaker will be Don Seltzer. Thank you, Madam Chair. Don Seltzer, Irving Street. I have three comments to regarding parking. First, there's a small problem with the single HP placard space shown located in the far rear of the lot. This is contrary to federal and state regulations, which require that it be located on the shortest accessible route to the entrance. My second point of parking has been made by others. The board has the ability to reduce parking to 25%, but not the 90% that the applicant is asking for. And I wanted to talk about why this matters. This building is likely to remain here for 50 to 100 years. In the not so distant future, it could be reused for another purpose, perhaps for life sciences research or some other emerging growth facility offering good paying jobs. But if there are mere 11 parking spaces, a future board will have to deny the permit. We're going to be locked in with this. My other point had to do with the solar exposure. This building is a lot taller than any others in the neighborhood. Don, I was very clear at the start of this meeting that you cannot share material in your background. I can't have a background. You can't share material, which is what you just switched to. This is not the background you started with. So please switch to the background that you had before. Thank you. I don't understand why you don't want information. But in any case, this building is a lot taller. And the shadows that were shown in the presentation package are not at all representative of reality. Unfortunately, there happened to be four two family homes and two single family houses falling within these shadows, which I could show you if you gave me permission. Their potential for installing future solar panels is going to be taken away by this project. But under the environmental design review, this board could take this under consideration and limit the height of the proposed building. And I refer you to section 3.4.5. I'm sorry, 3.4.4 item K, which calls for minimizing an adverse impact on light of the immediate environment. And if any board member happens to be interested in the details of this, I'd be glad to discuss it with them and send them the materials. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker will be Steve Moore. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. I've got a number of serial questions that sort of build on each other. So I'll just ask them and hopefully the answers will come sort of serially as well. I'm wondering, and I believe I missed this. I believe the CEO spoke about how many years that this business and how many years have they been in business doing this? I thought it might be eight years, but I'm not sure if that's if I heard correctly. And this is the investor group I'm talking about in Tennessee. How many years have they been in business? And the second question is how many properties have been purchased for self-storage over the course of those eight or whatever years it is? And the third question is, of those purchases, how many does the investor group still own? What happened to the properties that were purchased were self-storage? Did they stay within the portfolio of the company? Or were they sold for other purposes? I'm trying to get a feel for the amount of properties like this that have passed through this investor group and what happened to those properties. In terms of the fact that this, I believe they said it was going to be staff sort of like a eight to five timeframe with one or two employees and then as a self-service area until 10 p.m. at night, seven days a week. I'm a little confused about how that all works because once the staff leaves and the people who are renting can come, there's really no control on size of truck or what happens. And once someone gets in it, let's say 9.30 p.m. and has their truck and are doing whatever they're doing, who forces them to leave at 10 o'clock? Why could they not continue to, as long as they wanted to continue to do whatever they were doing, be it just loading or unloading or something else in a self-storage unit, which is unpoliced at that time except by camera. Is there any ability to state what can and cannot be stored in such a facility? I don't know how that works, but I'm a little fearful that with housing there, right there, that, you know, dangerous, let's say gasoline, I don't know, dangerous chemicals or something, is that special issue? Also, the 24-foot truck idea, I know that that is the expected limit, but with a number of storage units that are 10 by 20 or 10 by 30, I'm not sure you can limit it. And I don't know how on a street the size of Dudley Street, which is a small street with cars parked on both sides, trucks can't really easily get down it. And I just don't know how this is going to work with all the traffic, particularly in the time period that Mr. Revlak pointed out in September, which is quite busy. Also, dumpster trips, there's going to be significant dumpster trips because people throw stuff away in storage. And the dumpster trucks have to be of a certain size. And how often is that going to happen? Is it going to happen in the correct hours that doesn't disturb the rest of the neighborhood? And finally, my question would be, in terms of this phase two study of soils, which was mentioned earlier by Mr. Benson, I don't know what that is. I'm not an expert, but I would hope that that study covers the entire site, not just parts of the site, because this is a dramatic time. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any other members of the public looking to ask questions of the applicant or speak this evening? All right. So seeing none, we will close public comments and move back to discussion. A couple of questions, which I'd like to address to the applicant and attorney Nessie, I'd ask that you field these or ask your colleagues to reply as expeditiously as possible as we try and get through all of these before discussion. Let's see. The first is the question about the rain leaders on the building. Is that something that you can look at moving into the interior? All right. I guess I'd like Jan to weigh in on that because that's more of an architectural feature and how that would want to come in. From an ownership perspective, it's not our preference at all. There's two things our people ask of us that rent from us. They ask that when they come back to get their stuff that it be there, number one, so we keep it safe. And number two is is that it be dry and the likelihood for an issue is much more likely if you have interior roof drains than if you keep the water on the outside of the building. Okay. I understand. So what I would ask then is that as we look at the facades, that they be much more integrated if not integrated within the building, that they be integrated within the design of the facade. So the next question we have was a question about drainage off of the site and whether or not we are actually meeting the criteria for the increased FAR with the outfall to Mill Street. Yep. So the drainage along the side of the building there, they're primarily area drains to pick up the landscaped area on the backside. So no site impervious area is planned to be collected in there. So we just wanted to make sure that that wasn't puddling up against the building the way the grading worked out. So we are proposing that to go direct out. The intent along the entire for the stormwater system was to reduce with the redevelopment the future 10-year storm to be below the existing two-year storm in discussions with the town engineer kind of walking through some of the stormwater pieces and the intent of the regulations to best meet that and significantly reducing anything going out towards Dudley Street, which is one of the primary goals with MS4 is to kind of keep the stuff on site and utilize existing outlets towards resource areas rather than send it into a municipal system that could cause surcharging in issues within the municipal network further downstream. Great. Thank you. There may be some more questions, follow questions, I think, to that from the board. And I think you answered some of the operational questions earlier. Some of the questions around limitations on storage I think would be good to answer in terms of I'm assuming that there are materials restrictions, but if you can elaborate on what if any restrictions exist that would be helpful. Yes. Each tenant signs a month to month lease that has a rather extensive list of restricted items that would be stored that they walk in and they're in front of a camera and we have their IDs and you know candidly we our manager patrols the sites when people are moving in and takes some bottles of water and says hey how you guys doing and kind of looks over people's shoulder and not in a nasty way but just in a policing manner that's what they're taught to do whenever folks are moving in so yes we do police it and you know what we do have a our month our leases are month to month and I said before you know we do have cameras we have a system we know when people come in we know when people leave if people if we ever have an instance and and that somebody wants to stay over at night we find it out real quickly and we address it you know actually much more efficiently than somebody who rents a 1500 square foot retail bay that there is absolutely no policing of and the person could live there if they wanted to it's not the case in our building we the security we focus on the cameras we know like I said we know somebody comes in if they don't leave we were we have that knowledge my understanding is too with the access codes that's also how you restrict access of renters for after hours correct each each renter has a unique code so it's not like one code that could just be passed around town and they make it up themselves they do it just like you do a password for your everything that you have that's the process great thank you very much I appreciate it okay so at this point I'd like to turn it back to the the board for some discussion and I think first we should go ahead and address some of the concerns that Melissa identified I'm I personally am and supportive of this use I think that there's some work to be done on the facade and some of the the signage as well as the the parking but I see given the the sections that were cited no no reason to oppose this project from from that round but I'm interested in what my other colleagues think and I'll start with Ken I agree Rachel I am supportive of this project and the fact that I think it's appropriate and I think it is beneficial and I don't want to be saying that we want something else there I do have one follow-up question if I'm changing subject a little bit Rachel is that okay I wonder Ken if you if you wouldn't mind if we could I just want to make sure that we're in alignment or or not or have a discussion about that just about the suitability of the project if you don't mind okay great then I've said all I want this far is okay and I'll come back to you as soon as we we run through this topic quickly gene your thoughts on the suitability of the project I wonder if Melissa wants to say anything more about it before I comment and before Steve comments so sure Melissa did you want to elaborate on the concerns that you had shared earlier um I mean I think I kind of summed them up I think I'm a little concerned that you know we haven't taken into the broader context context of you know this use and if it's truly kind of you know needed we haven't kind of done analysis you know more regionally I think we had to take that into consideration um I just think we have you know precious limited industrial space if you know my understanding with the rezoning and the intention to enhance the industrial area was not for kind of low value commercial space kind of built to the lot lines but rather you know places that offer jobs create places that create vitality that might fall into a light industrial use um and so when you look at the long-term intention and character of this I don't see this fitting in and I don't see this setting a tone or being a catalyst project for the area okay thank you again thanks to Melissa for elaborating so I I should start by saying that yes I am disappointed that this is the first proposal that's come in since we changed the industrial zoning we had hoped for a lot more and more in terms of things that would be catalysts for better development projects that would employ many more people things that might be more cutting-edge and a self-storage facility so that's all really disappointing um and on the other hand you know self-storage facility is an allowable use in this zone with a special permit um and I think we should get rid of that when we go to town meeting next time because I think one of these is going to be enough if not too many but I I don't see enough although I agree with Melissa Melissa I just don't see enough to quote me on your side of the line about this I think it falls on the side of the line as being something that we could issue a special permit for assuming they meet the other issues that we've set out and will be setting out so that's my thought about it thank you Gene Steve yeah I've um I was on the zoning recodification working group and um you know while we were working on these proposals and one of the sort of things that we went back and forth a lot about was um buildings and uses versus traffic so I would personally I love the thought of seeing three to five hundred thousand square feet of class a office space in our industrial district to me that would just be wonderful until you realize that you know that's uh anywhere from a thousand of maybe thirteen hundred people who would have to commute in and out each day so you know where waltham has route 20 has 128 lexington's industrial strip has route two cambridge has a green in the red line arlington's got mass av and so one of the things that we tried to accommodate when coming up with the uses were low impact um you know lower traffic impact uses um like you know self storage self storage facility is something we actually added later in the game because hey it's you know they don't take there's they don't have a lot of activity they don't generate a lot of traffic most of the year and um you know there's we only have one of them in town now the one in town we have this isn't exactly a comp but the assessed value of it is it's a ten thousand eight hundred square foot facility uh the building is assessed at about seventy dollars per square foot so if you were to carry that assessed value over to this ninety five thousand seven hundred square foot building it is actually a fairly nice bump in new growth um you know one of the I I agree that something more transformative might be nice but um we've got a history you know a his we do do do to various aspects of the town's history that's I think that's going to be very difficult to do um you know towards the close of the um of the you know project of coming up with the industrial zoning changes our consultant asked you know what would success look like to you and my answer was one to two built parcels being redeveloped in the next five to ten years so the fact that we have something after one is is actually um you know was kind of a pleasant surprise thank you thank you Steve Rachel may comment to that please go ahead um yeah I mean I think you know just you're not to belabor this but like if we're part of where this I think the intention in terms of commercial value is also just something not to get lost is also the personal property tax which goes into you know the guts and the values that are also inside buildings so there might be you know there's the shell of the building there's a value of the outside building and the inside building um and you know from my experience you know labs you know in new lab buildings um there you know three to four times higher than even what you just said Steve so I mean yes it's an increase yes it'd be it you know an increase from what exists there um I don't think it you know kind of holds the intention of what we were trying to get there um and you know I I wasn't you know I wasn't familiar I did reach out to Jean a little bit just to figure out like did we what was you know what was that um the FAR because you know we we included a density bonus but we don't want all out for the traffic so I mean that that is a little bit incongruent to me and I feel like um you know if that is a thing we need to go back and revisit these uses and and because if I was looking at redeveloping a space and we were looking at that um I think we'd have you know hard press to do you know an FAR of three for you know storage and I just don't understand how people are reconciling that um you know moving forward I'm really struggling with it and again I get it it's an investment and it's an enhancement but we're also right on the edge of Melbrook or Melbrook and so what I also have seen lately and it's really about these commercial buildings that have come in and really use the natural resources and the natural kind of assets to enhance place and to you know contribute to that activation so I also see this as a loss in terms of turning our back onto the Melbrook pretty much with this project um whereas if it was happened to be a commercial maybe we would be able to activate it the interface with that you know public natural asset could be improved but here it's nothing but you know it's back turned to it so I you know from the applicant's perspective I'm sorry I'm going on a little different and I component of this it's a little higher level but I'm more I'm newer to the you know ARB and I'm trying to understand some of the intention that was built into this zoning that you are using and you're using you know well to your project um but I'm just trying to reconcile that a little so apologize for um kind of a different discussion exactly on that thank you um Steve just one more small there you go yeah one more small note on history um the you know the original industrial proposal didn't change the FAR limits that were um yeah just this is just on background uh the FAR it kept the FAR of one or one and a half or whatever it was um this was actually the FAR of three came from town meeting along with the extra story um basically the person who proposed that amendment said I want bigger taller buildings that generate more tax revenue in the industrial district in town meeting said yeah so that that's just you know that is where the the FAR of three came from thank you Steve um so Jeanne or Ken I don't know if either of you have anything to add further to add on this particular discussion I think that um Melissa that there's you know support in making this project um the best it it can be with the the the project that is in in front of us um you know in this in this new business looking to um establish here on this this parcel um and I I think you know we we do need to move on with our questions and and discussions um Ken or or Jeanne um I have Steve recently weighed in if there's anything else that you would like to add to this discussion um I I think I would like to to move us on to the next topic unless you have anything further to add um I respect Melissa's opinion I just think that uh opposing that view on this project because of that I think is is inappropriate I think something that we should talk about as a board later on and if we if she feels strongly about that maybe we should make some changes but for what is there right now I think this is certainly very appropriate so I that that said you know I also say I also want to state that you know the wish to have this becoming a lab building uh you know I I personally right now working on three lab buildings right now and there are certain criterias for that and you know some of it just has to do the synergy around all their lab spaces you know you know they like they like to have that all sort of together that's where Kendall Square and South at South Boston and sort of that and Waltham sort of the development that way but they also have um transportation which is Steve's I mentioned earlier where it's either by the uh some sort of mass transit or next to a quarter like a highway or something like that that's stuff we don't have here and we don't have enough space for parking um because as soon as you introduce you know 150 to 200 cars you know there's not going to Dudley Street and some of the side streets they're not going to be able to afford that uh kind of transportation I just can't see that happening here uh so there's certain limitations that we we we're sort of stuck with so um you know I would hate to see all the stuff go 40B you know which is sort of happening with uh at the car dealership it is a nice project but it's still something that's taking away industrial space and not and um you know I just don't I just see this um aligning for some of our our interest right now if you want to change it let's do it later but not through actions of uh voting a project in or out but let's change it if you want to change that in a different form that's why not that's all I want to say too great thank you can jean yeah I I said what I had to say I'll just okay you know I think maybe we should take a look at the uses that are allowed in the industrial zones and for next year decide if we want to make any amendments to anyone we most certainly do jean we most certainly do right um all right so Melissa um I appreciate the the discussion and it sounds like this is something that we will take up again following um town meeting um we can certainly uh talk talk about that further what I I'd like to do is go back to ken who had uh so questions in a in another path and uh continue our our questions for the applicant so that we can get to I'm keeping a list of follow-up items uh for for them to address bob I don't know who they asking your staff there but what's the base spacing for this building is it a 30 by 30 or 20 by 20 it can't be a 10 by 10 it is a 10 by 10 grid system and that allows us the opportunity to do um you know factors of 10 so if you've got a a 10 foot grid then allows us five foot corridors and then a 10 by 10 a 10 by 20 a 10 by 30 and as a as a baseline as a grid really gives us uh ultimate flexibility to adjust those storage units as needed again we've got a number in there of 740 to 780 and the reason that's there is the mark it really does help determine um if we've hit the right number of units so that 10 by 10 grid allows us to uh if we have a 10 by 30 unit and nobody uses it we have the ability to subdivide that uh equally so if we have a an excess of five by 10 units we can combine those to 10 by 10s or something like that I understand that Jen uh and that's not my question I know you have a grid of 10 by 10 and I understand that your structural columns your structural bays are not going to be 10 by 10 that's not an efficient way of making a steel building uh it is a candidate is actually a 10 by 10 uh uh uh column and column and two uh layout and so uh we do have columns every 10 feet really yes sir okay you guys are the experts on that I think but I've never I've been doing this for a while like 30 years now and I know when you do big spaces you you know columns and footings add up you know as opposed to heavier steel beams but that's okay well I'll be glad to I'll be glad to describe that for you but actually what this does is it allows us to uh spread out the load of the building into much smaller portions simply because we have a lot more bearing points right and so that 10 by 10 post and beam system allows ultimate flexibility for the layout of the interior space you know it's not like we're trying to get a large volume of space for instance like a large retail or a k-mart or something where you have much longer spans this really does allow the flexibility we need on a 10 foot grid uh spreads the loads out so the footings are smaller than they would be on you know longer spans and heavier loading at each point all right I add to someone's comment not too long ago you know hey this building's going to be here 1500 years what if it somebody else comes and changes of use nobody's going to change the use of self storage and we we build it specifically for self storage and you know candy the only thing to do somebody change the use is be tear it down because like you know you can you can do it with not another 10 by 10 grid no that's right that's right okay um is the building slid over as tight as it can be to one side I was wondering can we add more a couple more parking spaces uh who uh someone from VHB or some of that I can take that that's you Eric yep that's me um yeah no we're pretty maxed out on the on the setback line so as far as shifting the building um to to add more parking spaces it would it would it would essentially be carving some space out likely um into some of the units on that first floor all right because you could because you have three parallel spots right there and those three parallel spots could instantly become uh nine perpendicular spots there um your driveway is what what's the width of your driveway uh 24 feet okay we can give you I believe right Jenny we can give you a variance to get it down to 22 or 20 25 25 22 feet get a more narrower 22 feet sorry I thought you meant the number of spaces no no I'm trying to get the number of spaces up the width of the driveway yeah yeah I'm just trying um get get that parking number up a little higher and uh that's what I'm saying I think it has to be up to 25 that's that's 25 percent true okay if I could tell you something about the driveway I'd be hesitant to allow an hour of driveway if they're going to have people showing up in new halls when they're usually not the best drivers of you halls so I would be real hesitant about reducing the width of the driveway camp if it was one way I would I agree with you but it's two ways I know still 22 22 wide driveways pretty wide street for a new hall but okay well we'll review it and see what we can we can do with the parking okay may I ask uh in the can we get I feel like we hadn't done a good job I realized that we're probably just at the 25 percent with this board uh and that's probably just where it stops but so far need goes I mean need municipalities that have addressed self storage like holistically and said okay we're going to do a study and we're going to come up with how many parking spaces needed for self storage the municipalities around the country that have done that have come up with four and six units no matter what size the story like if you do a storage facility that's it secondly like we would never build the self storage facility that didn't have enough parking but what happens is is people don't park itself storage the only time they park at a self storage facility is the five minutes that they come and rent the unit the the other times that people are coming to our storage unit they're using the loading space so what we focus on we want to make sure if you were to say hey you know Pete what do you guys focus on we want to we would focus on getting the four or five spaces we know we need for parking for the people that come for five or ten minutes walk in the office do a lease I mean we're doing so many leases these days that are that are act listed they just come into the office boom show an ID get to go to their unit there may not be in there two minutes but what what we focus on besides that need is is what the is the loading and unloading that's where the people come and go to they don't come and go to a parking place they come and go to actively load because nobody wants to hang out at the self storage facility I kind of wish they did but it's it's usually not a pleasant visit when people have to use it unfortunately you know again we feel a real need you know people have needs and that's why they come to us and when they come there they want to get there do their business and get out of there so I just wanted to make sure that we did a good job of demonstrating why you know 11 we we'd say 11 we're just we got way too many parking places I realized this board is limited to 25% and some folks on the board may just be one you know I don't want to I don't want to consider anything more but I just felt like that it was important for you to know somebody that been doing this for 33 years and have built over 100 self-storage facilities and bought 280 self-storage facilities that you know it's it's that's the okay thank you okay Ken I'm done I think I have all my questions answered right now okay yeah I still have that list that we want to go over yes I have a long list that I will recap at the end sure great thanks Ken jean all right I don't have anything else to add thank you jean melissa um no not at this time thank you Steve nothing for me madam chair thank you all right so um attorney and I see what I'd like to do is run through the the list that I have of items that the board has identified that we'd like to take like to request that your client take a take a look at before coming back in front of us again I'll just run through in the order that they were mentioned the first being continuing the fencing along the rear of the site to eliminate light spill from the cars into the park address the large white ethos panel that is to the right of the the facade to the right of the building entry add plantings on that same along that same facade next to the building rather than grass on the property line to ensure that we don't have uh cars driving uh over that grass planting strip um add an additional indoor bike parking space eliminate the monument sign actually look at all of the signage in general in terms of bringing the signage into compliance uh there was a request to eliminate the monument sign and to also locate the Dudley street facade sign over the actual entrance taking a look at the facade articulating all sides of the building looking at glazing masonry perhaps opening up that rear diagonal wall of the building when I also shared some metal screening and industrial fabric the scrims that have some precedence over on route two let's see Jean had requested again as we look at that rear facade to really understand what it looks like from standing um out of the park over by Milbrook rather than the mature trees which are shown in the rendering which would not be there upon construction and move the looking look at moving the outdoor short-term bike parking towards the front of the parking area closer towards the closer towards the entrance so it's clear and visible uh also moving the handicap accessible space closer to the entrance provide the phase two ground assessment for contamination for reference potentially look at limiting we would add potentially a condition for the size of the truck the largest truck that could access the space and so please confirm that would be 24 feet I believe that you mentioned you were already planning on pulling the light pull down to minimize the lights the lower to Milbrook from 14 feet to 12 feet I would like you to connect with the town energy manager to look at adding solar panels on the roof rather than just making that solar ready look at whether or not the rain leaders can either be incorporated on the interior of the space or if they can be rather than highlighted be made to if they run on the exterior incorporate more into the design of the side of the building and that's everything I had so if I need member of the board is there something that you indicated that I did not cover Jean did you mention the solar on the roof I did mention that to connect with the town energy manager about solar panel programs for the roof and moving the bicycle or yes okay thanks great but she'll in addition to what you've just indicated will Jenny be generating a list for us as well I she has done in the past yes I'm I'm always generating a list and we will be fine thank you that would be great and I had additional items too okay great Jenny can I ask a point of order sure um the questions that were asked by the public are they also on some lists where I several of them had been addressed previously by the applicant if you would like to submit any that were not addressed this evening they weren't addressed to your satisfaction you're more than welcome to send an email to the board and we can follow up with the applicants okay so the questions that I kind of listed serially right so some of them I felt had already been answered by the applicant so we didn't rehash them this evening but if you felt that they were not answered to your satisfaction you're more than welcome to submit those questions to the board and we can get them to the applicant all right thank you madam thank you okay um so with this this uh list of items and again Jenny um we'll follow up and I also would be happy to um to uh review you know any list and and make sure that we have everything captured um we need to look at a date to continue the hearing to uh so Jenny I don't know if you could pull up our calendar I'm trying to pull it up right Eric uh what kind of time should we be talking about Eric yeah I think we want to take some time review the questions um with the team and then we can come I mean it's conservation is realistically to get information in for the if we were going to get in for the seventh it would have to be in tomorrow so I think as far as the hearing goes for conservation it's more of an update and the next hearing for them yes the 21st so I guess you know we're probably looking you know at least a month out here and that's probably what we're talking about anyway is that right Rachel yes yes which is uh we'll be into town meeting at that point but we can look at Jenny I believe we didn't have to look at an earlier start time yeah so if you want to meet on the 27th at like 6 30 that would be the next option you're already booked on the 25th and I still need to find a date well I think we're going to do the other daycare hearing on the second so that leaves this 27th so that'll be three fairly long evenings and take that Eric that can work for us when does the material when does the response to comments package need to be into you know for that we would need it by probably Friday the 22nd um yeah the latest is that too soon based upon conservation I think I'd like to try to hold that date if we can and then you know follow back up if based on discussions with conservation if it makes sense to push it the alternative would be fourth fourth yeah of May I'm thinking that may be more realistic but I'd like to leave that to the to our you know to my client to Pete and Jesse but whatever means that if you can't meet on the 27th this board needs to meet to continue your hearing so I think they'd probably prefer that you decide which date you want okay so so May 4th is now let me uh this is Jesse 27th would be ideal if you can get the materials in by that day I have a conflict on the fourth okay we'll shoot for the 27th let's do that thank you the girls need to be in by the 22nd yep okay all right but any other uh so uh we will look to continue this to April 27th is there a motion to uh continue the hearing for docket 3690 to April 27th from the board no motion is there a second second we'll take a vote Kim yes Dean yes Melissa yes Keith yes and I am the s as well so we will see you back on uh the evening of April 27th and that will be at Jenny 6 30 p.m. 6 30 p.m. yes thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you appreciated all right um so that brings us to the end of our meeting we previously had covered um agenda items three through five so is there a motion to adjourn so motions for a second second uh we'll take a vote Kim yes Dean yes Melissa yes Steve yes and I'm the s as well thank you everyone for joining us and have a great evening thank you thanks goodbye bye