 Welcome everyone to the December 6, 2021 meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This meeting of the Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, and the extension due to the current state of emergency and the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. The ARB is convening via Zoom as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join. This meeting is being recorded and that 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. So I would like to now confirm that all members of the Redevelopment Board are present and can hear me starting with Kim Lau. Yes. Dean Benson. Present. Melissa Tentacolas. Present. Steve Bratilac. Good evening, Madam Chair. And I am Rachel Zimbary, Chair, and I am here and we have two members of the Department of Planning and Community Development, Jennifer Rates. And Kelly Lineman. Who is here and maybe jumping over to the select as we speak. So let's see. With that, I'd like to go ahead and well, Jenny, is our applicant here for Ducat number 3680, the public hearing for Citizens Bank. I do not see the representative from Citizens Bank here with us this evening unless, as you've just announced, we are seeking the representative of Citizens Bank. I do not see them, however. Here, I think what I would do is request that we that we postpone the hearing and defer it to our global meeting if there is room on that agenda. Jenny, do you know if the December, I think it's December 20 is our next meeting that we could continue this too. I, I might suggest that you take an administrative item, and then come back because only four after and then and see if somebody arrives. We have had, you know, everybody has a challenge sometimes joining and so why don't we put a pin in this item and we'll go ahead and move to agenda item number five, the meeting minutes and take care of those while we wait to see if any other member from the applicant team is joining us this evening. So I'd like to go ahead, Jenny, if you could bring up the meeting minutes from November 1. We'll go ahead and review those and see if any members of the board have any modifications to the meeting minutes, and I will start with Eugene. Yes, thank you. I have to propose modifications on the first page of second paragraph, which is right on the screen now the third line said, says Barbara Nessie said he's taking a look at the case and relief requests I think it should be requests relief. Instead of relief requests. One paragraph up, Jenny. Third line. Yes, I think it should say requests relief. Request requests, I guess requests relief. Not relief requests. I mean, it would be better to say that he requests he be allowed to withdraw his application without prejudice. Take a new look the case requests permission to withdraw his application. So the application. That's the sentence before though, are you. Right, so then we can just say requests relief. That's fine. Okay, and a new application will be filed. Right. And then on the second page. Go to the second page. The second sentence at the top or it said Mr. Benson said he is interested in the possibility of change being retroactive or not. That's not exactly right. What the discussion was about was places with existing parking and whether if they had to come for a special permit for something else whether the new parking would be retroactive. For that particular location. There are more that you want to. Parking being retroactive or not at existing locations, which at some point would need to apply for a special permit. And it should say and existing location. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome to suggest that amendments. Great. Thank you, Jean. Kim, any modifications. No, I don't think I was here most of them meetings. Okay. What's up. What so did you have any modifications. Now, Jean took my modifications. Okay. I'll give it back. Thank you, Melissa. And Steve, any modifications. I do have a few. Not many. On the bottom of page one, the very last sentence. Where it reads Mr. Revolak said he would like to know if there has been a cost per unit under both. I'd like to, I would propose striking. Know if there has been. And replacing it with the word see. And then after unit. After cost per unit insert the word model. Mr. Revolak said he would like to see a cost per unit model under both regulations. And then the second one is just punctuation on page two. In the second paragraph. One, two, three, four lines from the bottom. And then the third one is the sentence. The clause wording the use description as temporary group activities conducted by profit and nonprofit organizations. I'd propose putting. Open quotes before temporary group activities. And close quotes after nonprofit organizations. Yep. And that is all I had. Yeah. Oh, I'm on 10 police. Anybody hear that firing. I have, I have two small modifications. One Jenny is on this page in paragraph below where you just where, where we talked about the open, the public comments for the, for these articles. I think we should change that to Mr. Seltzer. I think we should change that to Mr. Seltzer clarifying his remarks to the minutes that I would just want to update. So where at the, the last. Sentence here where he says, Mr. Seltzer said that the open space. You should be included with the town bylaws, not the zoning bylaws. I think we should change that too. Mr. Seltzer said that issuing special permits. I think we should change that to the town bylaw than the zoning bylaw. And then my other modification is on page one. It's just on the vote related to the continuation of the first hearing. So I think that's in. Yeah. It's the top of what is showing there where it says four to zero. Mr. Wow is absent. If you go up a little, I think to the, to the, actually the earlier one paragraph above. That paragraph there. So, um, where it says miss tentacle is seconded approved. It should have been three to zero because, um, Mr. Revolac was not able to vote on. Okay. Thank you. Great. Are there any other modifications? Okay. Seeing none. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from November 1st, 2021 as amended. Okay. I'm second. I can't. Take a roll call vote starting with Jean. Yes. Ken. I'm going to abstain. Okay. Melissa. Yes. Yes. And I mean, yes as well. Those meeting minutes are approved as amended. We'll now move to the meeting minutes from November 15th. 2021. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will start with Jean for any additions or corrections. I have two. Okay. One is on the exceedingly long paragraph that starts halfway down. The first page. And continues for most of the second page. About a third away down the page. There's a line that starts with support. How do you do it on that? You don't want to haste back here. Three lines down. There you go. Oops. You passed. That's it. Yeah. Okay. Support. You should say the previous plan. Where it says the paragraph. The paragraph. The first page or on the second page. Second page about a dozen lines down. There's. A line that starts with word support. How are you doing on that? You don't want to haste back here. Three lines down. There you go. Okay. So. Where it says the support the plan. The word previous should be before the word plan. Okay. And then. On the next page. On the next page. In the paragraph that starts with the chair introduced. The next last line that says. The chair suggested a joint meeting with the zoning board of appeals to discuss the ZBA's perspective. That's it. Those are my suggested. Thanks. Thank you, Jean. Can any modifications? Yeah. On page. Two. Somewhere near the top, probably four or five sentences down. Is of course, as Mr. Laos says that he feels. Moving the existing building forward. When I activate the street, the streetscape. The new doer one should. Not. Not the new world is needed to suit massive. Anything else. Nope. That's it. Great. Thank you. Melissa. Any modifications? Nope. Okay. Steve. Any modifications? No modifications. Great. I do not have any modifications. No. No modifications. No modifications. Great. And I do not have any either. So is there a motion to approve. Approve the meeting minutes from November 15th, 2021. As amended. So. Second. Second. We'll call vote starting with Kim. Yes. Yes. Yes. Melissa. Yes. Great. Steve. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. Meeting minutes from November 15th, 2021 have been approved as amended. So I will. Ask again to see if there is a member of the applicant team for bucket number three, six, eight, zero, citizen's bank, a 69 mass app with us. Yes. Tracy deal has arrived. And is now present. Good evening. And Tracy, thanks for joining us tonight. So we will now go ahead and open docket number three, six, eight, zero, which is the application for. New signage. For citizen's bank at 699 Massachusetts Avenue. So Tracy, I would. Like to give you up to five minutes for. Pre presentation of the application. Then we'll turn it over to. Generate from the department of planning community development to speak to the member that was prepared. Before we. Turn it over to the board for any questions we might have for you. Okay. You can help and take it away. Thank you. The changes that are proposed for this particular location. We have worked extensively with staff. To try to keep the changes to a very. Minimum. The biggest change that you're going to see is the addition of the awnings on the windows. The citizens. The location is being changed. The windows at this location as well as all of their other locations in the region. This is something that they are proposing as part of their rebranding that is taking place because. Citizens bank is changing from citizens bank to just citizens. So their name is being changed. And all of their locations. This is a bank that is throughout the region in Massachusetts, as well as other states in the New England area. And the proposal for the awnings on the windows is something that is consistent with most of their locations. The other signage that is being replaced is the signage. Above the. Signage on the side of the drive-thru. It's a removal and a replacement. As well as the signage on the side of the drive-thru. It's a removal and a replacement. As well as refacing the parking lot. Informational signs and replacing a directional sign. And. Removing and replacing an awning over an entry door. And a replacement. Custom mounted citizens letter set above that awning. And. Refacing the rooftop sign. With no alteration to the size, just a reface. Which aesthetically would give it, you know, an updated look, get rid of the sun worn. Look and make it. Cleaner and more crisp and appearance. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have. And I'm here to elaborate if needed. Great. Thank you very much, Tracy. I appreciate the presentation. Jenny, did you have any notes that you wanted to identify from the memo that the department put together? Trying to finish scrolling through all of the signs here. For the benefit of the public. And then I'll switch. Switch over to that screen one second. So with. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So this is, you know, Tracy provided an overview. There is an existing bank here. It's been in use for a very long time. They're really only changing the signage. There is nothing else that is happening at this particular location of citizens. In the community. And our main, you know, issues with this particular application were simply. The, you know, there's a large number of signs for one. And so, you know, there's a large number of signs. Most of the signage is acceptable per zoning by law. And particularly our updated sign by law. But we did note. A couple of issues with some dimensional details for some of the signage. And also noted that a couple of them exceed the allowable sign. Requirements as noted in the zoning by law. We also have the application to see if there was a way to. Just have her essentially switch out the existing signage rather than a large enlarge it in these couple of locations. But. They are requesting that this be approved with the signs as seen on the plan. So that is why it is being brought to the board. Great. Thank you for that summary. You're welcome. Great. At this time, I'd like to open it up to the board for any questions to the applicant. And we will start with Ken. Can you flip over to the monument sign? Can you tell me what which page it is on? Please. Let me look up at the. The one on top of the building is still the same, right? That hasn't changed at all. It's the. I was muted. It just takes a minute for me to scroll through. That's why I was checking to see if Tracy could give me the page number of that sign. Well, this is. Is this what you were looking for? This is just a directional sign. No. Ken, is it the one on the building? The one on top of the building. Yeah. Is that what you're looking for? No, that didn't increase in size at all. I don't think Melissa. Tracy, which, which page in your plan in your submittal has the monument sign? I don't have any monument signs other than what's on the rooftop. Unless you're referring to the directional sign. That's in the parking lot. And were you talking about? Sorry, Rachel. Maybe you're right. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Sorry, Rachel. Maybe you're right. I don't know. I only had one question in saying, is the actual box of the sign to sign or is the letters. Within that box, the sign. Or S nine, which is on page seven, the monument directional sign is the whole size. The whole sign itself is 4.58 square feet. So this illustration isn't really isn't really. Exemplary of what you're going to see, because this sign itself is just a very small directional sign. That's four and a half square feet in size. They're removing this bigger sign and replacing it with something that's small that's hidden by the fence. That one there I have no problem with the one you're showing right now. Jennifer, I think I must have been talking about my note was about the. The actual size of the letters on that on the billboard. And how's that is that counted is the actual. Square, where it says four foot high by six foot three. That is that the sign or is it the letters does the sign. That's over the. What's permitted. This that's the whole face, the whole face is four foot high and six foot three inches wide. That's the whole dimensions of the face. Yes, but is that considered the sign or the letters is the sign. The letters within that face is the sign. That would make no make any sense here. That would be a question for code. I'm not exactly sure how the sign area is measured. From what I can see in your code. Sign area is measured by the whole face. So the sign area would be the height of the face. Times the width, not just the letters. The size of the sign. Can I just ask Jennifer to answer that, please. Can you tell me which sign you're looking at specifically? Right up right now. That one there. The sign. Sorry. The size of the sign is the size of the whole sign. That includes the timing, the time and all the little. The whole thing is the whole sign size that we're talking about. If you're talking about dimensions of the sign. The dimensions of the sign, is that correct, Tracy? Those dimensions cover the sign panel. They do not include the existing message center. I do not have those dimensions for the message, the existing time and temperature sign. Available to me. But that's all existing though. Yes. So all you're changing is that face. That's four foot by six foot three. That is correct. This is considered a grandfather. I guess that word is not PC correct. I was told not to use that word grandfather. It's a legal nonconforming possibly. Yes. Okay. Okay. And to your question, the, the, the one that you're speaking. If you're referring to Jenny's memo. It's the monument sign. That's the directional. That is above the allowable. Square. When it's replacing the one that's currently up on. Two posts. No, yeah, no, that I wasn't referring to that one. I'm a little confused that one there is actually lowered. Below the fence. I'm okay with that. It's, it's a little bigger, but, you know, I'm not really going to. I was, I was trying to figure out what this is. So, so, so if this whole thing is existing. That's all nonconforming. I have nothing else to say on this. Thank you. Gene, any questions or comments for Tracy? I do. Thank you. Just a few Tracy. Thank you for bringing this to us. Have you had a chance to look at the staff's memorandum. About your proposal. I don't. If I have looked at it, it's been quite some time. I haven't looked at it today. Okay. So there are two places in the staff's memorandum. Where. You had not provided dimensions. So it's hard for us to determine. Whether. Your proposal meets the dimensional requirements. And one of those is sign S 17. And the other is S 20. So I don't know if you can tell us now. What the size of those would be. Size S 17. The door vinyl. Yes. And S 20. I do not have those dimensions. Okay. But if Johnny, if you can go back to 17 for a second. Is, is this the same size as the existing ones? Yes. Different. Yes, it is. Okay. Let's go to S 20. And this is the ATM topper. And it's the same size as what's existing. Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. Okay. Then. The staff. Had goes on to say that. We don't have, you didn't provide the mounting height dimensions. And description of the mounting hardware. For the proposed window awnings on signs one and 11. So do you have the. Mounting. I thought that the, the mounting descriptions were provided. I do have. All of the mounting details for. Each window, but I'm not allowed to share my screen. So. Okay. Okay. No, I just. I thought that those dimensions were added to page three. But I don't know if they were at, if you, if they were added before or after. Okay. Okay. This was submitted. There they are. So look at sign. Okay. Jenny, does that meet what we need? I believe so, but I mean, Kelly has rejoined. Kelly, do you want to chime in here? Yeah, I can add the concern was just wanting to know the, the height, the base height that the awning will project out to. That will be a minimum of eight feet. So we have the height. Yeah. With those windows are all, if you can see, there's a gentleman standing in front of the building. And those windows are already more than five feet above grade. And the awnings are. At the top of the window and they only extend down three feet. They only extend up three feet above grade. Kelly, is that what we need? Yeah, it has to be a minimum of eight feet. We will comply with that. And I will make sure of that. Actually, Jean, if you look at the, the, this elevation right here is a door right there. That door is seven feet high. Okay. And then on. That's 11. The dimensional details regarding the printing on any sign that's on here now. No. S 11. And what is your question? It's asked for the dimensional details on S 11. This is an existing awning and it's re skinning of an existing awning. The existing dimensions are not changing. The dimensions are not changing. The dimensions are not changing. The dimensions are not changing on the existing frame. And we don't have the dimensions. The dimensions are up in the top left-hand corner. They show that it's five foot seven inches wide. Three foot seven inches in overall height at the back. And then that it's 48 inches deep. Okay. But it's basically just going over the exist. Just changing. And then there are two. Well, there are three. The proposed service island canopy signs exceed the allow size. In the bylaw. For service canopy signage. And the proposed monument sign for directional signage. Exceeds the allowed area. That exceeds signage. Among other things we need to determine. That it's in the public interest. To allow a larger sign. Based on the architecture of the building. The location of the building. The use of the building. So I'm having a hard time. Figuring out. What would be in the public interest. And I wondered what your explanation would be. Or whether you'd be willing. To reduce them to the required sign sizes. And which particular signs are you talking about? The service island canopy signs. Is that S four. S two and S four. S two and S four. So those signs. That are existing. And those are. As you can see in the photographs, those existing signs. While they're there, they're not really legible. So the idea is that they can provide signage. That is minimal, but legible. So these are these letters are two foot. In height. And that's the maximum height with the citizens. And that's where the square footage comes from. Because most of their letters are lower case, but you're putting one box around the whole letter set. And you have to be able to read the letters. So citizens bank is. They feel that this is the appropriate. Letter height for. This for this location. And they feel that this is the appropriate size for legibility for their patrons to be able to see it in different weather conditions and traffic. When they're unfamiliar with the area. When they're traveling here. Because the sign that is already in place isn't. Really legible. At the square footage that it's at. And so they tried to, they were actually proposing something bigger and we reduced it. And so they're just trying to do what they can to make sure that the sign is legible for motorists so that they can safely find. The bank. In all. In all directions. When they're traveling. To hear. So Jenny, can you go to S two, which is the sign over the canopy. That's it right there. And so S two and S four are proposed. And so they're just trying to do what they can to make sure that the sign is legible for motorists so that they can make sure that the sign is legible for motorists. And S four are proposed. At the same size for aesthetics. To make sure that the signs are matching in size on, you know, both elevations. The S four is. It faces the parking lot. And as to. As to faces the road. I guess I'm not. Convinced. That a sign that meets. The. The allowed signage, which is 20 square feet. Would be something that people couldn't read. From the street. And if we measured it. Putting a box around the logo and putting a box around the letters. It would be 20 square feet. The reason why we've got this 20, 26 square feet is because it's measured. In the size of the sign. So the space above the Z E N S. And the space in between the citizens and the daisy logo. All of that is captured in that sign area. And that's what puts them over. Kelly is that correct. Actually, Kelly, can you jump in? Yeah, I'm actually don't. I don't know for certain because the dimensions aren't provided of the Z E N S. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the area of the daisy and then the separate area of the letters of citizens. And I believe we had like a minimum of 25.8 square feet. And then a maximum. For the rectangular area of 26.8 square feet. So I'm not sure. But I don't, I don't have the specific dimensions to know that would actually be as low as 20. Yeah. And I sort of feel like, you know, these regulations were put in these bylaws were put in place. For a reason and our ability to alter it. Is limited. When we confine it's in the public interest. And I'm, you know, so that's where I am in the moment, not really convinced in the same thing with. The monument sign for directional signage. Well, here, my other colleagues have to say, but my general thought about this would be to send this to the staff and see if you and they can get to the correct signage because I'm sign with the signage because I don't think, at least as I read this, I would approve something in addition. Can I ask you what is the maximum for that directional sign? The monument sign. It's supposed to be three square feet according to the staff. Yeah. I don't think that that would be a problem. We could definitely comply with the three square feet on that monument sign. Well, that's good. Because we did another location in a nearby community where we had to comply with a size of that, a sign of that size and we were able to do it. Okay. I'm sorry to interrupt. Tracy. That's okay. But the letters, the letter set, when you start cutting the letters down smaller because of the delineation of the design, it starts to make them less and less legible. So I'm not sure sure that we could bring those down much more. I don't know, it looks pretty big to me, but that's my thinking at the moment. So thank you. Thank you. Let's move on to see what some other. Board members have for their kind of starting with Melissa. Okay. Thank you for, you know, the presentation, Tracy. In terms of the thinking for the number of signs on this site, I'm just curious as for, I can understand like some of the eliminated signs facing the street, but the S for that's kind of facing the parking lot again. It seems a little bit redundant to me. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I haven't given the amount of signage throughout the kind of citizen's campus there or parcel. So I don't know. I would consider kind of. You know, if it fits, or is this one remind me, is this one within the size or is this was one of the ones that we're talking about. This is one of the two that one of the. Outside. So maybe one option would be to consider eliminating that one. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know the amount of signage you have. And then Tracy, could you help me. Just understand what citizens banks approach to maintenance. Is both the awnings. I think one thing we notice over time is that they look good at the beginning and then they start to deteriorate, sun fade. And, you know, kind of. I'd be concerned about just how the bank will be maintaining it. I don't know, but they're doing a good job. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you have. They're not supposed to deteriorate very quickly. They're rated for many years of use. Citizens would be happy to comply with any requirements to routinely maintain them. As the board would stipulate if you would like them to routinely inspect them, say every two years. Or every three years. This, that is actually not a question that I have experienced before, but I do know that they will, that they will be happy to comply with any required maintenance. I also want to comment regarding S4. If you refer to the site plan on page two, you can see that the bank is on the eastern portion of the lot. And this is a drive up that's on the western portion of the lot. So the purpose of that sign is for the person that say enters from the rear and isn't exactly sure of where the drive up is or where they need to be. That sign in the parking lot says, hey, yeah, citizens is over here, but we're also over here. And this is a unique layout with a drive through that's not attached to the building and in most cases in the bank and banks, you know, the drive through is typically attached to the building. So that is the purpose of that sign is from the people that are entering say from the rear of the parking lot that they can say that they can tell that this is part of citizens bank. It's not a separate bank. It's not a separate location. It is part of their location. And that's why they have the branding there. Okay, okay, that's helpful understanding the thinking process. Yeah, in terms of the maintenance, I think that would be, you know, something that I would look at, I would look for as well as kind of the brackets and any kind of resting that kind of occurs over time. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa. Any other questions? Oh, no, thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. Steve, any questions for Tracy? I, there's, I do have one which hasn't. I, we haven't addressed yet. And I think I know the answer, but I just like to be sure. There's a provision in the sign by law about visibility and the visibility on corners and it essentially prohibited signs within a 20 foot trying 25 foot. So, so, this is the Cossily's triangle at the corner. It's section six, two, three, a three. And I just, I think the front sign would be outside of that triangle, but I would just like to make sure. Are you making the request of the applicant to, as to whether or not they have reviewed that section of the bylaw. Either, either the applicant or or staff. Tracy, I'll put that over to you first. And I believe that specific to, is that to the entry signage? Yes. And which sign is that that you're referring to? That one. S3. S11, one we're looking for. That S11 is on the wall. That would not obstruct, wall signage would not obstruct the site triangle. That was the question, correct? Yeah. You were asking about walls, about a signage that obstructs the site triangle? Yes. Yeah, wall signage would not obstruct the site triangle. S11 is located on the building over the entryway. And it is not on the corner of the lot. It is completely out of the corner of the lot. And it's parallel to the wall. So it would not be obstructing unless the whole building was obstructing the site triangle. That sign would not. Okay. That's fair enough. Yeah. And then signs S8 and S9, those are directional signs that are already in existence. And to my knowledge, there's been no traffic related incidents with those signs. And S9, again, we had already said that they would reduce that to meet the three square foot requirement. And S8 is a reface of an existing which you can see through the bottom of that sign and around that sign. So that shouldn't obstruct the view either. Okay. That's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. So Tracy, I just have one question for you. Jenny, you can go to sign S11, the sign over the main entrance. And I'm just looking for a little bit more information on this light bar. So I'm assuming that these are illuminated letters. The, you said it was the Daisy logo and the citizens itself. Does this gray bar also eliminate or is that the race light? That is a downlighting. It is a downlighting that casts down over. It washes over the top of the awning. It is not obtrusive or obstructive. It doesn't. It's basically designed to give a wash over the light so that, you know, if you were looking at this green material in the dark, it would be dark. So the light, the light bar is designed to give a slight light wash over the top of the awning. It's a very low LED that just it's very dim and it just gives like a light wash. Like, but like if you turned your cell phone on and you like tried to light up an area with your cell phone, that's about how much light it would put up. It's not very much light. It's just designed to wash the cover of the awning with a light. Okay. And are the, is the citizen plate, are those internally illuminated letters? These letters are dimensional letters. They are not illuminated. They are not illuminated. Okay, so my only comment here, and again, I'd like you to explain the thinking and it may have to do with the awning itself. It looks to me like the light bar, the width of that should match the width of the awning itself. Right now it sticks out behind it, but I'm not sure if that's because of the pitch of the or the flare of the awning. But if you could just explain that to me, just architecturally, it should it should match the width of the window and the awning itself there at the back. The light bar will match the width of the awning. This is just very bad artwork. When you do these kinds of dimensional drawings, you're trying to create depth and, you know, you're trying to recreate what's already there. And sometimes that's not easy to do. I will make sure that they know that that light bar has to match the width of the awning. Great, that was my only comment. And I'll make sure that there's drawings that note that as well. Great, thank you. So I'll turn once more over to the board for any questions before I open it up for public comment. We will have time to discuss before we make any ruling on this hearing. Any other, it looks like Jean has another question. I just wondered to the staff, is this building on the list of historic buildings in town? Kelly? Yes, it is on the local inventory. So we'll have to go on for the historical permission for making. I mean, I think that's good because I will say, I don't think we have the authority to say anything about the awnings in general, but I don't think they're the right look for this building, but I'll leave it to the Historical Commission to have that discussion with the applicant. Thank you. Great, thank you, Jean. And with that, I would like to, at this time, open this up for public comment. If there are any members of the panel attending the hearing this evening who would like to offer any questions or comments to the applicant, please do so by using the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen. I'll give a minute or two to see if anyone has any interest in speaking on this, on this docket number. All right, seeing none, we will close public comment for the citizen's bank signage and I'll turn it back over to the board. I will recap what I heard in terms of the items that we need to review together and any items we might want to refer back to the applicant bringing further questions. I understand that the applicant is willing to reduce the size of the monument sign. Kelly, can you just confirm which sign number that is so that I can refer to that in the motion when we make that? Second, I'm just looking at the members. Yeah, sure, absolutely. Sorry, it's a long list. Yeah, the sign S9. Thank you so much. The applicant indicated the sign S11 which is the entry signage would match the width of the existing windows and I think from what I heard the point of discussion that we have is whether or not we would approve the two signs that I believe it was S2 and S4 which are currently proposed at above the current allowable signage allowable signage for their locations on the building or whether or not we would grant any relief to the applicant. Jean, I'll start with you. I know that you were the first one to bring those two signs up. I thank the staff for bringing them to our attention and I don't see anything that makes it in the public interest to allow a larger sign than is authorized by the bylaw. So I think if the applicant would agree to reduce the sign to the size required those two signs on the canopy to the size required by the bylaw, I would be ready to improve this with the other changes that were discussed. Great, thanks, Jean. Any other thoughts from other board members relative to the proposed signage size and Jean's suggestion to request their reduction? Go ahead, Ken. I would be okay with the one that's on Mass Ave. Just have them delete S4 and say they will okay S2. I see their point in view of making an eligible from the street and needing a certain size so you can see it traveling on Mass Ave. But I see less of that from the parking lot for wayfinding because you're not driving very fast, you're at the destination already. So it's not like you're going somewhere else. You're in the parking lot, you're basically at the bank. So I can see eliminating, I'll be okay with eliminating the sign on S4. And would that make S2 meet the regulations then, Jenny? I believe that they're both individually over the 20 square foot requirement. It'll still be over, you're saying, Rachel? Yes, Kelly, if you want to. The maximum area is per sign, so it's 20 square feet per sign. Oh, per sign. Okay, well, I'd be okay with giving them some relief for the one on Mass Ave, but not the one I would ask that there'll be no sign on S4. That would be my opinion. Okay, Gene, do you mind if I get Steve's take first and then I'll come back to you? Great, Steve? Yeah, I'm looking at S, I've thought about S2 and S4 a bit as well. I mean, the one thing that I like about those signs is I think they're very well proportioned to the island roof itself, just in terms of height. But I take Mr. Benson's point, and I actually agree with Mr. Lau and Ms. Tentacolas. I think that S4 is redundant. So my personal inclination would be to request the elimination of S4, but grant relief with respect to S2. Great, thank you, Steve. Sorry, Gene, let me just see if Melissa has any other thoughts, and then I'll come back to you. Melissa, do you have any other thoughts on this particular topic? No, thank you. Okay, Gene, sorry, I appreciate you very much. I'll just mention to my colleagues that the sign on the side of the canopy replaces an existing sign on the canopy, and I'm personally not interested in our having something that tells them that they have to remove one sign that replaces an existing sign so that another sign can be larger than a sign allowed by the bylaw. I'd be more happy to allow them to keep both of the signs provided they each meet the size required by the bylaw. Madam Chair. Yes, Melissa. Question. Okay, so it's harder for me to visualize the difference between what's, you know, how much we're exceeding what is allowed by the bylaw. And we don't have a visual for that, do we? Are we talking 20 percent? I mean, I think I feel like I need to see some comparison. My initial reaction is that it's pretty insignificant, but I understand what Gene is saying in terms of, you know, the intent for why we would be allowing it to be bigger. So I don't know, is there a way to just kind of see that? Is there a percentage? You know, so it's another six feet over the 20 feet. So, you know, you're, what is that, 20 percent? You know, a little, somewhere between 20, 25 percent. For each one. For each one. And Madam Chair, may I ask Tracy another question? Sure, absolutely. Tracy, I know you said you could accommodate and fit in the one. I think that was the monument sign. Three. And I lost track because we're talking about several different signs. These two S4 and S2 and S4. Could you just explain again the 20 percent increase on the signage as you see it is mainly because? It's mainly because the way that the ordinance measures sign area is with a single rectangle. And so the Daisy logo is two feet tall. The sea in citizens is actually slightly smaller than that. And then the ITI are the same height as the sea, but the ZENS has a bunch of dead space over it. And so that's where the extra space comes in to play. In theory, the sign itself is probably just right about the 20 square feet, maybe 21 square feet. If you took out all of the dead space. But that's really a moot point because how the ordinance measures signage is how you have to look at it as a board. So I very seldom even bring that up. In this case, if we wanted to shave off six square feet with a sign of this size, you're talking about taking this down to possibly a 12 inch letter. And then that becomes less and less visible. The more you shorten it, the less visible it becomes. And then that becomes difficult for motorists, especially being that there is a rooftop sign. And when we're driving, we're not driving up like this with our next up. We're driving with our eyes and our field of vision to what it can see within a certain plane along the roadway. The rooftop sign purpose that serves is for people that are coming from a greater distance. But the motorists, you know, not everybody is tech savvy. Not everybody is GPS savvy. Not everybody is familiar with the area. These are going to be at times people that are completely unfamiliar with your city traveling here, looking for this bank. I'll give you an instance. I had an incident in Peabody where I was doing a board meeting. The board, I was actually there in person. The applicant was behind on their taxes. I had to go and withdraw money to pay the taxes for the board, for the board to hear the case. I had to find a bank where I could do that. I'm in a strange city and stressed, extremely stressed because my case is about to be tabled. And I'm trying to find a bank so that I can very quickly withdraw $3,000 to pay somebody's delinquent taxes in a hurry. You know, there are situations like that that occur where people are transient, unfamiliar with their area, they're trying to find a bank, they're familiar with the citizen's brand, and they're looking for a sign. So the more you shrink down that sign, the less visible it becomes, the more confusion you have for the people that are trying to find this location. And that's really what they're trying to eliminate. Citizens think it's concerned about the safety of their patrons and the citizens of your city as well. Thank you, Tracy. Melissa, does that answer your question? And perhaps what I could do is offer, you know, for the board a way forward. I actually like the suggestion of offering relief on the Nassad-facing sign if the applicant was interested in removing the additional sign. I agree with Steve. I think that it is well-proportioned to the sign band that's created on the awning. Or what I would suggest is perhaps we give the applicant the option of either reducing both signs to the allowable square footage or removing one and approving the other sign at the larger square footage. So I'd like to see what the board thinks of that potential proposal. And I'll start with Kim. File that. Jean? I was looking at the existing sign compared to the proposed sign, just trying to look at the height of the letters. And Tracy, you might be able to help with this. It looks like on the existing sign, the height of the letters is not as tall as on the proposed sign. Is that correct? That is correct. And that existing sign's been up there for probably decades and I don't think people are getting lost finding the bank. So I'm not convinced. Sorry. So you wouldn't be in favor of offering an option? You would just want them both to be removed. Okay. Steve, your thoughts? I'm okay with either option. I agree with Mr. Lau. Okay. Melissa? I'm okay with either option. I just, I also had, I don't want to believe her either, but I do for, I think for our board to consider, my understanding is these illuminated box signs are kind of, we're moving away from those illuminated box signs and are these more articulated signage. And so I think that's a positive. So just reinforcing that. And I don't know if we've talked about that as much with the sign by-law here. As far, in my history here, I have not talked about that, but I think that's important to keep thinking about as how the technology's evolved. And then with regard to Madam Chair's proposal, I support either or. Great. So I believe that that's four of us here on the board who would give the proposed, giving the applicant the option of either reducing the both signs or eliminating one and keeping the other sign. If that motion is the motion that passes, Tracy, do you have a preference on behalf of the, of Citizens Bank as to which you would be comfortable moving forward with? I think that they would be preferential to having the larger sign on the mass avenue size and foregoing the sign on the side. My question for you is, is that after this board, would we have to go to another board to get a variance for that? You would, you would not, but you still would need to have, actually, I don't believe that the drive-thru canopy historic would have any jurisdiction over, correct? Kelly and Jenny, would they just be reviewing the specific, the building itself and not the drive-thru canopy? I would consider anything to be part of the property, to be what they would end up reviewing. It is all on Mass Ave, so it is all relevant to the subject parcel. So you still, whatever we recommend, still would need to be then further approved by the town's historic commission. And if this board recommends approving one sign on the mass avenue side, and then I go back to citizens and they say, well, we would rather have two signs that comply with the code. Do they still have that option? We could make, we could build that into the motion that you would approve either option. Give you the opportunity to work that through with the staff and with the historic commission. Okay, I think that would be fair enough. Thank you. The board approves going forward. Okay, thank you. So at this time, is there a motion to approve the signage as submitted with the following changes to reduce the size of the signage for, I've lost this in my notes, S, I apologize, this is the monument sign. That's S9, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for S9 to conform with the requirements in the bylaws to reduce the size of the white bar to match the width of the awning in sign S11 and to either reduce the size of the signs of S2 and S4 to conform with the size requirements of the bylaw or to eliminate the sign facing the parking lots in order to receive approval for the sign as submitted on the sign on the sign facing Mass Ave. And I believe that is S2 facing Mass Ave and S4 that is facing the parking lot. Is there a motion? So, a motion. Is there a second? Second. All right, we'll take our roll call vote. Before I do so, are there any other modifications to that motion? Okay, we'll take a roll call vote starting with Kim. Yes. Keen. No. Steve. Yes. Melissa. Yes, I'm sorry, out of order, but Rachel, what about the condition about maintenance? Is that have to be in at this point? I apologize, that so let us read. Let me add back to the motion and then we will retake the vote. Thank you for reminding me of that. So, I will add to the motion the requirement to routinely maintain the oddings or to routinely maintain the oddings every two years as suggested by the applicant. Is there a motion with the addition? So, a motion of the additional comment. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right, now we'll take the vote. Keen. Yes. Keen. No. Steve. Yes. Melissa. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. So, the signage application has been approved. Thank you very much, Tracy. Thank you. My apologies to the members of the board for being late. My sincere apologies. I don't want to disrespect your time ever, so I'm sincerely sorry. Okay, thank you very much. And thank you for walking us through the applications. Much appreciated. Thank you. Good evening. All right, that closes agenda item number one. And we now move to agenda item number two, which is the continued preliminary discussion of zoning amendments. And I will turn it over to Jenny. Thank you, Rachel. So, this is a longer discussion. We have, as a result of the board's interest in having people attend our meetings and discuss their ideas with the board before actually filing warrant articles, we have had a number of people inquire and ask to attend. And so the people who are on this list on the screen are all in attendance and ready to speak with the board about their ideas. They have shared their ideas with me, which I might, if they request, will project them and sharing my screen. But I think that for now, they may just want to talk through their idea and speak with the board about any concerns or other suggestions, as you've done with prior individuals attending these meetings to discuss proposed zoning warrant articles. And then at the end, I would like a little bit of time to talk about my memo provided to the board, but I'll go last. So you've got a list of people here and everybody is in attendance. And Annie LaCorte and Laura Wiener are first. Thank you. And I'll just note for everyone who's joining us, that what I'd like to do is take each of these proposed articles individually. We'll have a short discussion, questions from the board before moving on to each separate item. If there are any public comments related to these proposed articles, again, this is just the first preliminary discussion with the board. I'd like to suggest that any public discussion happens during the open forum, so that we can again move through these here. And again, we'll have some short period after each for questions from the board members. So we'll start first with the proposed article for two family housing from Annie LaCorte and Laura Wiener. Good evening. Can you hear me okay? We can. Thank you. Excellent. So I'll start. And then I think Laura will join in with anything that she feels that I have missed. So the proposal that we are offering is pretty simple. And I have sent to Jenny both the draft article language and the draft main motion and she's made some edits, which I immediately accepted because they were really good. So all that we are proposing is that we change the zoning in the R0 and R1 districts to allow the construction of two family buildings by right. And my thinking on this article is two fold. The first is that allowing two family by right will increase housing production in general. I believe it's compatible with the draft housing plan, production plan that we are looking at, and that as because it will allow for smaller sort of what I think of as missing home construction. So for example, there's a house across the street from me that's just gone up that's 2,800 square feet. If that was a two family, it would be 14 or 1500 square feet per unit for those two units, which I believe is a pretty adequate starter home or small family home for folks. There's a house down the street from me that sold for $1.2 million recently that I think is under 2,000 square feet. I assume that the house that is under construction is going to go on the market for something like 1.5 to 1.6, even if the two family units could have been constructed, went on the market for $800,000 that would be more affordable than any other construction that we're seeing in our neighborhood. So it helps us with housing production. It helps us regionally as well as in Arlington to make Arlington a more affordable place for young families to get some pressure off the housing market generally. It doesn't produce what I would call capital A affordable housing. It produces what I would call naturally affordable housing that is naturally more affordable than single family construction. So that's what's in my head and I look forward to hearing from the board about their ideas concerning that. And then Laura, if you have anything to add. Yeah, I'll just add that one of the things that appealed to Annie and I about this proposal was that it increases units without adding physical density. It doesn't change the setbacks or the heights or parking or really any of the things that neighbors perceive on in their neighborhood but does allow more housing to be added. And I think really the neighborhood will still feel the same. Also it's well it's a very simple proposal and will be easy to understand but it's not we're not the first people to consider doing this. Cambridge has done something similar. California the entire state has enabled that to happen. And Minneapolis also now has no single family zones within it. So it's an idea that is being considered in many places and perhaps its time has come. Thank you both. I appreciate you bringing this forward. So we'll go ahead and start with Jean. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead with Jean with any questions or comments for any more. Jean, sorry, you're on mute. Sorry. I mean overall I'm not opposed to this. I have a couple of questions related to accessory buildings and other structures whereas when you have a two family theoretically you can have twice as many. I just wondered if you've given any thought to that like detached garages or shades or things like that. I have not. I believe that the ADU article would cover most of what would make sense in an accessory building or like top of a garage or in replacement garage. So I think those things are already covered. I was thinking straight up two family just more families less space per unit in some of the large homes we're seeing constructed in our neighborhoods. But otherwise as you said they'd need to meet all the dimensional parking and other requirements that exist currently in those two zones. Okay, thanks. Thank you, Jean. Yeah, this is a very interesting proposal. Did we have one of these proposals like maybe two years ago? We did. And I'd like to think back and see what were some of the questions that were raised then that would be different now. At that point in time I believe we chose not to support it at that time saying to eliminate single family residents and make all single family residents two family. And there was a reason that we chose not to support it. Rachel and Jean, you two are around that time, right? I don't recall what was some of the reasons behind this. I have a vague recollection that the applicants chose not to go forward, but I may be misremembering. That was how I remembered it as well, Ken, that it was withdrawn. But it also may have been right before the town meeting in 2020, if it was two years ago, which is the town meeting that was significantly scaled back. So Jenny, I don't know if you have any recollection. Of that particular prior similar recommendation and the timing for that. I do remember. And it was, it's in one of your reports to town meeting, which I'm not going to go through the exercise of trying to pull that up. But I believe the board had actually a slightly divided vote on that from what I recall. And a lot of feedback was provided to the proponents at the time. And there was a recommendation for further study to be conducted, which I think at that time, we, even though we agreed, that was very challenging to do since there was not, there are not many bylaws that have this specific requirement or change or modification. That was what was requested at the time. I believe that that was 2020, the fall of 2020 special town meeting. I couldn't be here the evening that you voted. So this is my recollection of what I read in the report and the discussion that was had. I see Jean waving his hand. Yeah, I just wanted to add my, I'm starting to get some recall of this. The applicants put together a package that showed us many currently one family districts where there are two family homes currently located. Because they were built, you know, either before zoning or before that zoning for that area. So, yeah, I'll just point that out that this isn't starting to put two family homes in one family districts as if they never existed and don't exist now. Thank you, Jean. Ken, did you have any other questions? No, I just want to get a little past history. Because I'm kind of on the fence of this one right now. Just because people who bought homes in a single family area bought it for a reason because they want to be in that kind of single family area, not in a two family neighborhood. So that's, but, you know, I mean, I guess I can support it as far as let the town decide what they want to do as opposed to us on the board deciding that kind of stuff, you know, which would happen anyways, but I'm just on the fence right now. Can I speak to that, Rachel, or is that not? Well, I just wanted to see if Ken had a specific question to do that. Again, so, Annie, what I'd love to do is maybe get some of the comments from the other board members and then give you all a chance to make any final comments. Again, I'm just trying to move this along if that's okay with you. Steve. Yes. So in disclosure, members who said that this sounds familiar is correct. I presented this very same idea to the board two years ago. There was a divided vote and, you know, like, you know, I haven't got, I have not reviewed my notes from that hearing, you know, prior to tonight. But, you know, I think there was, there were a number of, at least some desire to attach performance standards to, you know, to two family or duplex dwellings built in a single family zone like electric charging stations or there are a whole bunch of ideas. I actually favor the simpler approach. But, you know, one of the things that things that have happened in the last two years, one is, you know, yes, more municipalities and even states have adopted this sort of thing. You know, Oregon is an example that I don't think was mentioned earlier. The other has just been, you know, this is partially driven by the pandemic, but there has been a rapid increase in home values and therefore home prices in just the last two years. So in terms of the, you know, the cost impact of a regional, of a very regional housing shortage or decades of underbuilding, if you want to put it that way, I think it's hitting us a little harder than it was, you know, back in 2020. Great. Thank you, Steve. Melissa? Well, thank you to Annie and Laura for bringing it forward. I think it's, you know, in terms of housing, it's a progressive approach and I think it's something that, you know, obviously consider a little bit more. I'm curious if you guys have talked to some real estate professionals because they fear, I'm wondering, my initial reaction is, you know, residents thinking that the houses, kind of like what Ken said, like the houses that they bought into will be torn down and, you know, kind of even though we think we're kind of creating more stock and more options, you know, are the land economics such that, you know, I haven't, you know, given this kind of a fiscal analysis, but where, you know, where does that stand based on some, you know, residential real estate analysis to that, you know, what's the likelihood of a tear down, what is the land, you know, cost? And I'm assuming I didn't hear all the details, but you're saying the footprint remains the same. Is that right? Right. And then I think one thing to think about would be the parking because the, you know, the two family, imagining two families on the same lot, the cars tend to double. And I'm imagining that would be just something that, you know, neighborhoods would kind of start to, or neighbors would start to kind of question at least. So I don't know how far along some of the comparable places that you mentioned, I have, you know, read about that. I think that's great that we're pulling in some trends that are progressive and are trying to address the problems. It would be interesting to know what's happened, how things have progressed in those areas too. Great. Thank you, Melissa. And Melissa actually just hit on the two items that I was going to mention from my recollection of the prior discussion as well, which when the public laid in, I think most of their concerns were about preservation of existing home value and understanding what that meant for, you know, again, their property that they had purchased in for and the question of parking requirements as well in their, in their neighborhoods. So just wanting to be sensitive to what we know had been some of the public questions prior. So Annie and Laura, before we move, oh, I see Jean has one more question or comment before I open it up to you, you know, for any, any last thoughts before we move on. Sorry, I'm dredging things back from my memory. One of the things I had asked about last time was whether there could be a requirement about what the houses would look like. And since then the towns come out with the residential design guidelines. And I wonder if Annie and Laura would take a look at those and see if there's something that they would want to mandate or not for the two families that we get built in the single family zones, just so we don't end up with weird, unacceptable. Look, I'm not sure that's a good idea. I'm just suggesting to take a look at them and to see whether you think it would make sense to make them mandatory just for the two families in the single family zones. Just a thought. Thank you, Jean. So Annie and Laura, any, any thoughts now that you've heard the initial initial feedback from the board? Well, I have thoughts, but maybe Laura, you want to go first? Well, I guess one thing I want to say to Melissa is the foot, I would not say that the footprint has to stay the same. I think that the set there, it has to meet the setback requirements and height and all requirements, but that's not the same as the footprint remain the same. I mean, I think when there are tear downs now, the footprint does not remain the same. And that could happen. But I agree that we should probably look at what some of the impacts are. I mean, I think it's pretty new. But there are some places that have adopted it. And it would be more than just interesting, but critical to find out how it's going there now. And we haven't done that. And I'm happy to do that. I think a field trip is in order. Yeah, I got family in Minneapolis. Happy to go any old time. So, so I would add a couple of thoughts. First, Kim, what I would say to what you're saying is that, you know, I live on in a 1,500, 1,600 square foot house on a 5,000 square foot lot when we put the addition on this house. Okay, it made it the largest house in the neighborhood. So my neighborhood is not the neighborhood I moved into. It's not the kind of neighborhood I thought I was moving to when I bought my house. And I don't get to control that because our single family allowed footprint allows people to build houses twice the size of my house on 6,000 square foot lots across the street from me. So I'm not sure that people are under the impression that they have that much control over how their neighborhood develops. And certainly, within walking distance of my house, the neighborhood has been transformed in the last 30 years. But all of it is single family development. So it is typical in my neighborhood that when a small house sells the house down the street from me that just sold for $1.2 million has a very large lot that is only a third used by the house that's standing on it. That house is going to get knocked down and a very large home is going to be built there. But it's not going to be a two family home. It's going to be a one family home. And I would say that the other thing that has changed since 2000 is that a 1,500 square foot house in my neighborhood in 2020 was worth $700,000 or $800,000. And now it's worth north of a million. So you can't buy a single family home for what you could buy a single family home for two years ago. And so for young families trying to move into Ireland, then that doesn't leave them a whole lot of options. And we're trying to create those options. I think the parking issue is a question. I believe that our current zoning limits where and how much driveway you can have. And that would limit how many cars you could park. I could be wrong about that. And maybe we should look at that more technically just to see what I'm wrong about that. So I think that the purchasers would just have to know how many cars they could park. We did have one discussion with a developer whose response to the idea of whether or not developers would build two families if they were allowed to was, of course, they would they can make more money. And I'd be really excited about the idea of applying performance standards if we could do it in a way that made sense to town meeting. My concern is that if we put forward very complex changes to the zoning bylaw, in general, we will vote them down not because they don't agree with what's being attempted, but because they don't understand whether or not complex changes actually are going to have the effect that the proponents say they will have, as opposed to the effects that the opponents say they will have. So if we had a simple way to do that, something like if you add to the property one of these five things, then we'll allow you to build a two family. I'd be really interested in looking at that. And then I, I don't know much about this technically, but I'm told that something like an overlay district might be the alternative to that. And I just don't know whether or not we can get our act together for that right now. So and I could be misusing the term. So those are my thoughts. Okay. And yes, maybe one more comment and then we are going to need to move on to the next. Yeah. Maybe my comment was a little misinterpreted, Annie. I didn't mean what I'm looking for is, and maybe I'm wrong, but typically single family houses families by those. So if I look in my neighborhood, you're all single family houses, I live in a little small ranch and it's all families up and down the street. You know, as they grow, they either increase the size of the house or they move out and another family comes in. But I think if you start introducing two families, now the family neighborhood of that neighborhood now may develop in a different fashion. That's the thing I was looking at. And it may be, and I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm just saying that people who bought in thinking that the neighborhood is a family neighborhood now also is not, doesn't have the same kind of quality of feel. That's the only I'm not sure how that is going to develop. And you know, in the two family name, but it's a little different where I was before I was married and had kids, I lived in a two family house and but it was a bunch of guys. So it wasn't kind of like a family. But that just from my experience, I'm not sure how it is elsewhere. And I think we have to look at that a little bit, that's all. It's a comment, that's all. Got it. All right. Well, thank you, Annie and Laura. I really appreciate you bringing this floor. I hope that the feedback was helpful. And we look forward to seeing as this develops further. All right. So the next person that has an article, proposed article that will be speaking this evening is another article on starter homes. And this one is from Barbara Thorne. So Barbara. Okay, thank you very much. I'm going to I'm mindful that there is a game on. So I'm going to go through as quickly as possible. We are, do I get your vote for that? I'm going to just try and summarize quickly because I've sent a summary already to the board about what we're proposing. I'm calling this starter homes. And as we know in Arlington, land use values have gone way up. A lot of people want to live here. But the current zoning that we have now encourages the building of McMansions and not starter homes. And by homes, I mean, when I'm speaking of two families, I'm thinking primarily of a two family house that's like a condo where each family, each of the units has an owner that has an opportunity to build equity. And we can't have people that aren't already millionaires coming into town and having the opportunity to be family and build equity and live in our town. If we don't start building more diverse kinds of housing. So we want to make more housing available. We want to make more diverse kind of housing available. The proposal, the starter home proposal affects all the residential zones. And it uses a process of rethinking our dimensional requirements and our FA requirements in order to do that. We are delighted to see as we move forward thinking about this idea that the housing plan came out just a few days ago. And I just want to highlight a couple of things that reinforce why I think this issue is so important. If we are in fact going to follow the recommendations of the housing production plan, starting around page 60 and thereafter, one section says over 60% of the town falls within its lowest density residential districts, R0 and R1 with minimum lot sizes of 9,000 and 6,000 square feet respectively. In both districts, the only economic use permitted by the town is a detached single family dwelling. In that same report it says local zoning does not allow for enough diversity of housing types. Residential buildings containing more than two units generally require a special permit to be developed. This adds time, cost, and uncertainty to the permitting process and also makes permit approvals more vulnerable to unwarranted appeals. So we want to do what we can with a warrant article that will encourage the private market to develop more housing. All our housing is going to turn over. I mean we're not going to live forever and the housing that makes it feel like the neighborhood today is really getting old fast and it's going to have to be rebuilt. And if we don't change the zoning it's going to be rebuilt to maximize the current zoning opportunities or the what's allowed to be built. And we would rather have the developer come in and build two 2,000 square foot buildings for homes than we would have them come in and build one 4,000 plus square foot for homes. And that's pretty much the position that we're taking. I'd like to know, that's kind of the general summary of where we are. I would really like to know in our conversation later what you the ARB members would like to see us do as we and I'm speaking the royal we hear including Annie and Laura and others that are out there thinking about writing these warrant articles. Would you prefer to just hear our ideas and then you write them or would you like us to continue to flesh out the ideas, for example, the ideas that that we're on track with now with the starter home proposal? Or would you like to propose an additional different adjustment in the direction that I've proposed tonight for the starter homes, for example? Great question. Thank you very much, Barbara. We'll start with Ken. Well, my opinion is I think I would encourage you to continue doing what you're doing because I think it's a good collaborative way of doing things and gets more people involved from the town what they want. Thank you. I think having a more diverse housing and more also more economic housing is great. And I think one of the things that we're lacking is aging in place housing besides the starter homes. Things that I've I'm just giving my opinion that's okay. Don't think it's not that there's not enough housing where there's elevators and there's not enough so when you get older I'm looking toward that soon that there's no place for you to go that you want to stay in this neighborhood. We all love Arlington. We want to stay here. But I know I'm not going to be able to manage keeping up the house and having multi-floor living. And it'd be nice if there was an option and I don't think there's enough of an emphasis put on that right now. And then also I think what you said Bob was right on starter home. There's not enough where someone who's just graduated college that grew up in the neighborhood and wants to stay in the neighborhood can stay here. They're priced out of the market. There's no way of building equity. So I think having maybe something like that and maybe a mixed-use housing complex where there's integrated and diverse living together might be a good choice. Or maybe that's only one option. There might be other options. But I think to answer your earlier question I think I encourage you guys to stay involved because then you bring in a different attitude, a different view and I think it's good. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara, for bringing this forward. And in the spirit of full disclosure, a few other people and I have been working with Barbara on this. So I say I'm doing it because I think it's a good idea to try to figure out how to get homes built that aren't as big as the homes are that are getting built now so we can maintain some of the quote-unquote missing middle houses and to do so in a way that hopefully by doing enough of it might help with economic and racial and ethnic diversity in the town. I mean we're not going to get to you know, very inexpensive houses just because the land is so expensive in town. But if we can sort of knock down the price of some of the houses by doing some things with the zoning code, I think that would be helpful. And part of the impetus for this came with something that Barbara thought of a couple of years ago but didn't bring forward was can the town do something with with currently non-conforming lots they might be too small or they might lack adequate frontage and maybe though that's one place where we can think about some allowing smaller homes. So that's a little bit of a thinking and other than that I'm interested to hear what other members of the board have to say and then what the public has to say during the open floor. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Jean. Melissa? Thanks. Thanks Barbara. I don't have too much to add at this point. I mean I think you know again creative ways to create some options in terms of size. You know I do feel like I'm a little bit more cynical because I think there's larger market forces and that you know one community cannot solve a lot of the affordable housing. I think we can do what we can to make adjustments within our housing stock and I think that's you know what we're trying to do before we did that your work through the accessory dwelling units and exploring this as an option I think is in the right direction. But you know this is you know a larger obviously social kind of condition of almost where we're at you know as a nation with housing and affordability. So just to you know keep that in mind Arlington alone cannot do that. Thank you, Melissa. Steve? Yes, thank you Ms. Thornton for the presentation. I'd encourage you to keep working, keep refining your ideas and keep working on it. In terms of you know possibly some specific suggestions perhaps looking at either townhomes or single family attached. Just as a few people noted land here is expensive and you know whatever I think whatever you could do to amortize the cost of land will help. You know I want to but I want to be really straightforward because most of Arlington's parcels are developed. You know this is going to be a series of incremental steps that take place very gradually over time. We are a redeveloping community I think I think I think the the housing product the draft housing production plan referred to us in that context a community that's in the middle of redevelopment. But you know I'm fully supportive of the idea to have you know smaller units that cost correspondingly less than you know the large new construction we're seeing today. Thank you. Thank you. Great thank you Steve. And I would just add that I agree that I think I'm really interested to see where this continues of evolving to and I think to some of the points that Steve just made and I would say that this is both for you as well as for Danny and Laura as well. One of the things that's important I think for not only the board but more importantly the public and time meeting members understand is what the impact is potentially incrementally because I think that understanding how how long it takes in some cases and how gradually the you know it is an impact but it's it's not like blood gates open you know usually and you know the entire character of the town changes overnight. I think you know under looking a little bit that validating some of those you know making some projections based on you know again talking with developers those in the real estate community etc is is really important because I saw how impactful that was in terms of creating that understanding when you and and your your your colleagues looked at the ADU article as an example so that's just an area that I encourage. Thank both of you to take a look at. Barbara any any further questions or or thoughts for the board at this time? I know thank you very much. Great thank you. Let's see the next person who will be speaking to us this evening is Zavi Prepser which is a proposed article for the floor to area ratios in business zoning districts. Hello thanks for giving me time. Something I've noticed recently is that while you know we've said that we're allowing mixed use development in the business districts and like in the you know sort of in the bylaw we've said that they can be as much as four or five stories tall. It seems that in practice it's hard to build something that tall in our existing districts because of the floor area ratio limitations which is often just like 1.5 so you're not going to be able to get the four or five stories with an far of 1.5 unless you've got a very large yard or parking area which isn't practical and a lot of our business districts or the parcels are pretty small and already often covered with like one-story buildings and so I think there'd be a lot of advantages to increasing the floor area ratio in these parcels so we're allowing for more mixed use development which could potentially provide both like the capital A affordable units via inclusionary zoning and also more generally allow us to have more either more housing along public transit corridors where people could take advantage of those opportunities and provide more customers to patronize local businesses or potentially for other mixed use could provide other more effective use of this accessible space in Arlington so I'm still working out the details but my current thought is to maybe double the existing floor area ratio limitation for the B2 through B5 districts so that would take something where the FAR is currently 1.5 and make that 3 which would make it comparable to some of the existing buildings that are along Mass Ave that were built prior to the current FAR limitations and I think those buildings are great and sort of more buildings of that form is something we should encourage in areas that are currently you know just one-story buildings um yeah that's my concept thank you so much I appreciate it we will now take a couple of questions and comments from the board members starting with Jean you know the board itself thank you very much the board itself has discussed this in the past and has said look we need to do something with floor area ratios in the business district so um I think this is a really good idea I think you know you can look all up and down the town and find so many reasons why this is necessary one of the more interesting ones is the buildings with the capital theater on it which everyone loves and thinks is terrific and it couldn't be built today because it exceeds the current floor area ratio there and you can find lots of other examples um up and down Mass Ave so I think this is really needed I think what we need to sort of figure out is where what type of buildings and what should the FAR be in those areas and I think that's going to be a really challenge in in you know what he brings back to us and we might need to talk to the planning and community development staff including the economic development folks about what seems reasonable as and you know get an idea about how to put this together and what the right FARs should be and we suggest doubling them that may make sense in some places maybe in some places it should be more than doubling because they seem to be a weird amount of numbers right now but I definitely encourage him to go forward with this thank you hi echoes jeans comments it's something that we've always talked about never got around to do I think what you're trying to do is is spot on and doubling it may be not aggressive enough in some areas and so I think you can have to do a sort of mini study along the business quarter and see what's right you know I don't think you're gonna have to look at it in certain ways where as you go up and down Mass Ave it's not a one concurrent quarter I like to look at Mass Ave and say there's nodes within that quarter there that can be that can be built up and there's other areas that naturally have open space has has more community space and other things so it's not going to be that to put words to some of our other people that have heard this canyon along Mass Ave it won't be that because it won't develop that way and I highly encourage you that and if you need any help I will offer whatever I can to help you with this I think I'm very interested in this personally and I'm not sure I'm not going to speak for the board but I think we encourage you to move forward with this I think this is really important yes thank you I'm new to being a town meeting member and I'm still figuring out a lot of stuff so I definitely appreciate any help you're able to give and sort of figuring out sort of what the right parameters are for this for this warrant article I think going through Jenny is am I putting you on the spot there Jenny is to go go through Jenny and that's the way to go she's a great resource and and you know I will help you as best I can but style off going through Jenny okay thank you Ken Melissa any thoughts or comments um thoughts I mean I think it aligns with what the ARB has been you know talking about is its goals it also aligns with the master plan that's outlined in kind of reconsideration of how we are better supporting kind of our main streets mixed uses and enabling that so thank you for moving this forward in terms of working through details yes with staff have you done that um yet to date I wasn't sure because I know some have already worked with it sounds like with some folks yeah I only proposed this like a week ago and so um I did talk to Jennifer Raid and she's like well I think the first step will be bringing it to this meeting so it worked out there but I am definitely excited to develop it further um as uh yeah as we get closer to town meeting okay great well thank you for your efforts on putting it forward appreciate it thank you thank you Melissa and Steve thank you madam chair um like my other colleagues on the board I am also supportive um and I think mr pretzer you know had a very good point we allow four or five stories in a number of the business districts and it is absolutely not practical to go up you know to go up that high with the floor area ratios unless you're willing to have a like a five-story building that covers 25 or 30 percent of the lot um so I do think rethinking is in order so two things I would find helpful in terms of you know just trying to you know think about what a a more appropriate set of FAR regulations might be one would be a sampling of you know sort of a list of some of the non-conforming buildings in our business districts uh the capital theater is an obvious example I'm sure there are others the others the other list I would like I think would be helpful is a list of one-story buildings where that one-story buildings that would be where you'd be unable to add a second story because of FAR regulations so one-story building with one-story buildings that have better using more than 50 percent of the floor area ratio already so thank you thanks that's a great idea great thank you Steve and I I also echo my my colleagues comments that I'm I'm really excited to see where you go with this um I think to what Steve was just starting to get to one of the things that I I think will be really important um is is modeling a little bit of this and and understanding what the potential is within each of the the districts based on some of the existing um really positive examples of um pre-existing non-conforming structures um and the potential within some of these spaces that um is is unable to be met based on the the current restrictive FAR requirements so whether or not that's something that you yourself are able to do or whether you're you work with the department um again I want to be respectful of the what everything that's on the department um uh list to do list right now and I know that Jenny will certainly be very open with you about what they're able to assist you with and and and whatnot um but whether that's you know for this meeting or for an upcoming one I think it's really not only important to um to really look at those different factors and whether it's you know what the right increase is per per district but also do doing a little bit of that modeling and helping people to physically see what this could could look like um I think when that comes to time meeting that's really impactful and really important to make sure that you have the time to be able to to do that thank you did you have any further questions for the board uh no I mean I think uh I think I'm glad everyone seems to like it um and I think you have some good suggestions so thank you thank you I really appreciate you everyone actually all all three four people who came before us um really looking forward to seeing where all of these head forward um and Jenny you uh had an update that you would uh indicated that you'd like to share with us regarding some of the other zoning one articles that are shaping up um thank you and um to all the individuals who previously spoke I am available to follow up with you and work on the next steps I know there was a lot to absorb and many questions and comments and um I will be in touch with you soon hope that's okay I've seen nodding and thumbs up thank you so you all have seen my memo but I'm just going to put it on the screen just for ease of conversation um it's as comprehensive as I could get it to be for now it doesn't include the proposals some of the proposals that you heard um not all of them and and including the other proposals that we've heard and uh at past meetings this is really just an overview uh similar to the one that we prepared last year and I think years prior as well that outlined some of the things that have come from working groups or committees or people working on plans and so I wanted to bring forth some of those ideas and sort of where they stand and where they might go for the next annual town meeting but also to suggest that I think due to timing of most of these things a potentially a proposed special town meeting in the fall of next year should that be possible um so the things that I wanted to mention are and and this is not this is not comprehensive this is this is selective so there are people participating tonight and perhaps people who are watching who will recall that there is a broader suite of things that have been discussed in some of these groups and as part of these plans I this is my my memo and so therefore I have handpicked and selected certain items that I feel are perhaps ready to be moved on to a next step so in that spirit actually the number one thing is what I think we've all just heard and have you definite consensus on that we need to work on the business zoning districts that seems to be the top priority of both the board and from members of the community the way that the board talked about it versus the way that the zoning bylaw working group talked about it in relationship to zoning audits that have been performed is somewhat different I think the board had a I'm going to go through my whole memo if that's okay Rachel okay um the um you know there's a it's a little bit more comprehensive in terms of what was uh lifted up in the zoning audits that needs to be adjusted the board in its um development of goals had a more reduced number of things and then of course we just heard of a potential warrant article that just focuses on FAR so I think that in general though I would like to focus on this but I would like it to be uh I can focus on a portion of it but I would I would prefer that it is something that is much more comprehensive as suggested originally um when I see that as being a priority issue um the other things that are noted here are other items that come from the zoning bylaw working group that are of interest they include reducing the number of uses requiring special permits we've talked about this um ending the special permit for large additions um we have also discussed this in the past though this board does not have any review of those special permits for large additions they fall under the zoning board of appeals we have had a lot of feedback over time with regard to uh both that process and the practice and then what the zoning bylaw says um we've also heard from the zoning uh board of appeals the issue of parking issues that exist in the bylaw as well as from this board we've certainly tackled commercial parking but now we're starting to hear some ideas about residential parking um we also briefly discussed amendments to standards for townhouses this one is a little bit more comprehensive in that we would need to address the districts where you can allow townhouses it's not as simple as just a use change or standards it is where they're actually allowed so that one is a little bit more broad um and so I've suggested that and at the very end of this memo there's an outline of a nice summary that outlines which which things fall under what I'm proposing for different town meetings so I'm gonna I'll wait till the end to talk about that then of course the board is aware of various long-range plans that have been taking place that we are in the process of wrapping up the year long housing plan process which will be a little bit more than a year when it is actually officially wrapped up it'll be before the board for your first review and discussion on the 16th looking forward to that and it as you may know or have seen already includes many recommendations for future zoning as well as other policy issues to be amended and there's a time period that it will be reviewed by the redevelopment board as well as by the select board with a number of priorities uncertain it is only a five-year plan but I do want to say and state here that the department is committed to concluding the finalization of the plan and getting it adopted prior to advancing amendments I think that it's important to carry out the full conclusive and conclude the process um and to make sure that we gain all of the input towards the end to codify it in the final plan before we move that full that forward that said a lot of the things that we're hearing about perfectly align the housing plan and its recommendations and so it's up to the board to decide what to do about those things it's not just the housing plan though some of these things do also as noted by a prior people who have spoken this evening also aligns with the master plan we've completed three long-range plans this year connect Darlington which is the town sustainable transportation plan the net zero action plan which is to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as well as the fair housing action plan all of these things have various zoning recommendations and so I wanted to note that in particular one overlapping issue is what we're going to hear about amendments related to the net zero action plan at a future meeting particularly around solar access but the parking residential parking issues are tied both to the connect Arlington plan as well as the fair housing action plan though there are some specific differences I then just want to say that um then I think I've just said that there uh there's some other there's additional items from the fair housing action plan as well and then I just want to say lastly as promised give you an update about the recommendations related to the MBTA communities housing choice um still don't have anything from the state yet the expectation at this point is there will be a release sometime this month um that will include guidance and when we receive that perhaps we can bring that to a board meeting and have a discussion about it and provide feedback to the department of housing and community development I believe will be collecting the comments but it will not be in any sort of shape to be ready to file a warrant article for the next annual town meeting so with that said here's the suggested summary timeline that I'm looking at which would be that for 2022 annual town meeting I think these four articles are something that we could work on through our staff amending the special permit for large additions the first one the second one is amending dimensional and parking requirements for multifamily and the other parking requirements that have been brought up amending the solar ready recommendations that would be mostly an amendment to the environmental design review but might also be relevant in other sections of the bylaw I have to investigate that further and then the amendment to allow two family homes by right which would be something that we have heard about the special town meeting in the fall which is the one that I believe really requires a little more time and energy and input relates to the amendments for the commercial corridors which we have talked about and which the board agreed when we set goals that we would aim for a fall town meeting to realize those potential amendments followed by recommendations from the housing plan and then of course amendments related to the MBTA communities by then we should have sufficient information and time to prepare so now I'll stop talking Rachel thank you Jenny I appreciate the overview and the multi-step plan that we have for moving forward with all of all of these um I think very necessary revisions and potential warrant articles so I'll open it up to the board for any questions that you might have for Jenny starting with Jean yeah just just a couple things if you move to the top of the first page where it has um those numbers right what one of one of the things that um we've talked about on the board that I'd like to suggest be added to number one which is building height minimums we had talked about what's the sense of allowing new one-story buildings to be built in the business districts so I think when we think through what we're going to do with the building districts I would suggest adding building height minimums as part of that package second is and I generally agree with this and I really appreciate Jenny providing this to us the number two uses requiring special permits in there is a lot different than at the end because one of the problems with uses requiring special permits is they're required for three family homes and townhomes and apartment buildings which is a lot different than we want to change what special permits are required for commercial development and I just want to raise that because what got down on the last page is different than what's up here and what I understood number two to be was broader included all of the things that make it difficult to build housing in town and not simply commercial so I want to make sure that distinction is maintained and we don't lose it when we get down to the last page um yeah I'll stop there those are the two Jenny you look like you have something to oh I just want to understand um all right Jane are you saying you want the whole the whole all of the review of all of the uses for special permit or I was focusing on commercial since that's what I was trying to make the focus I well that's interesting because I understood that but I understood the discussion being broader it was broad yeah and it was more time timing wise and I and I think it's important if we're going to do things coming out of the housing production plan that that would include you know taking a look at where special permits are required for residential development I have a lot more skepticism about how much we want to scale back special permits for commercial development than I do about I think the need to scale them back for residential it certainly won't be lost on the the broader issues but I I do I I understand what you're saying I just wanted to clarify thank you anything else nope thank you so much great thank you thanks Jenny this is good I think this allows us to focus on and what we all want to do and I agree with you I think we should really focus on the business quarter and in that area right now that's sort of misrepresented right now or not misrepresented I'm not represented enough right now I guess that's a better word I'm sorry about that misrepresented but I think this is good so thank you great thank you Ken was that um yep thank you Jenny for this I think um and just help me understand with regard to the bullet point one under special town meeting which is the focus on commercial corridors is it a matter of timing and bandwidth that that can not get plugged in into the annual town meeting it would be challenging we and it's as we discussed during our goal setting meeting it's there's a lot that would be there are a number of zoning districts there are many many properties that would be impacted many conversations need to happen that have yet to occur I am going to be I will not have my um all full staff still um into the spring and that includes how we liaise with the business community I think it's not possible at this particular moment in time that said I'm still willing to work on the far proposal that we had just previously heard and see what we can what we can do with that um while also understanding that we want to work on the broader issues move that forward as well okay yeah I mean I think my sense is just you know given that the commercial corridors have been of focus and interest in and where we wanted to target that if we could um you know through the organization of this even you know kind of you know amplify that message that the ARB is working on this even at the at 20 at the annual town meeting so that it is one of those bullets and that it doesn't look like we're just focusing on housing at the annual town meeting I guess that's my thought thanks great thank you Melissa Steve yes I I think the I think the timeline makes sense I just have one question about the DHCD guidance for MBTA communities I'm sort of expecting DHCD to issue draft guidance take comment for some other some period of time go back and think about the think about the go back and consider their feedback and then at some point after that issue final guidance is that usually how that sort of thing works that is usually how that sort of thing works yes I anticipate that sometime I would guess March maybe April will have something final okay so December 5th this mid December is really the first step where we where we actually get you know it's where we get our first impression rather than a final thing yes okay thank you very much great thank you all and thank you so much to Jenny for putting these together and helping to clarify the outline of how we'll be moving forward you're welcome um I'm sorry I just Rachel I just realized there were two things that I completely lost off and I super I very much apologize for that I just two other that they're very quick that one is actually related to um street activation um so we could perhaps talk about this at a on the meeting at the 20th on the 20th but um potentially like an enhanced business district which would be an overlay to maintain an active street which I think has come up during some of our public hearings recently we don't want to see inactive storefronts and you know just sort of limited use spaces occupied by for example banks offices lobbies and other non-active uses and to create some sort of enhancement um in the zoning bylaw that would require that a certain portion of a Massachusetts Avenue or other Broadway kind of facing building would it be required to have a certain percentage of the building that remains active so that we can limit the number of non-active uses that was one the other one is a requirement related to street trees um for any as part of our site standards which has frequently come up in our reviews but is not technically a requirement and so I would like to find a way to to codify a couple of the things that I think we've continually seemed to discuss and provide us feedback to applicants but perhaps could make part of the bylaw so those were two other things thank you for giving me that extra time sure thank you Jenny and to confirm were you looking at those for the potential special town meeting I was actually thinking those would go to our annual town meeting in the spring in the spring okay thank you and so what I would say is that for the first meeting in January whenever it is um we would be able to start sharing some draft language uh very draft early language of a warrant article not the language of a vote but at least of the warrant article so that we can start talking about that because you have really only your two meetings in January before the deadline for the warrant article filing great thank you okay thank you um just perhaps with the show of hands any uh questions on those last two items that Jenny just discussed from the members of the board Steve yes it's um it's more of a comment than a question and it's perhaps a little bit out of our jurisdiction meaning that it's maybe a better topic for the next time we meet with the select board but in terms of um you know increasing the amount the number of street trees in the the tree canopy along you know business districts I I think it's worth considering you know there's possibly convert you know at least talk about the idea of converting some parking spaces into space for you know additional pedestrian space or planting spaces but like I said it's a comment great thank you Steve Melissa did I see you raise your hand um yeah I just wanted to say um you know kind of recognize that this is you know a great effort to put this forward as well Jenny so thank you um I think um in terms of activation I'm just curious with an overlay um how you see the mechanics of that working versus um I'm I'm not sure if there's an option to creating that as it are we going to still make it work with the overlay sometimes I feel like they're not as effective the moment I'm not I'm not sure I I I probably use the term overlay but it didn't I didn't mean it as an overlay district um so I I think it would be in addition to the other requirements in business districts okay okay great thank you great thank you Melissa any other questions for Jenny before we move on to our next agenda item sorry thank you very much so our uh that concludes agenda item number two agenda item number three is uh the MOU uh for the central school uh between the town of barlington controllers office and the redevelopment board so Jenny I'll turn it over to you thank you um so we've got two items here one is an MOU um you bring it up between the board and the office of the comptroller office has an EI know that um the um this is necessary because they've moved into as I've mentioned at prior meetings we we have the town yard great you know under development and of course the high school and so during the time that the those buildings are under construction we've need to move a lot of offices town offices around so currently the comptroller needs to occupy one of the vacant office suites at the central school building 20 academy street um and so I used the similar format of the MOU for the 23 maple street that was uh reviewed and approved by the board and uh just wish to put something in place that establishes um an understanding between the board and their office about how how things operate um to have that documented writing while they are occupying the space before they return back to the high school um in the future great thank you Jenny that's that MOU do you want to do this first and then the next one um sure we can take we can take questions on this one and then we'll move to the the next item so I'll just run through and see if anyone has any questions on this starting with jean yes I I mean all the wording seems fine to me my one question is how do you determine what the amount of rent I um I just didn't get a chance to confirm how much rent they are planning to provide um if any I mean you know it's a town department so they don't typically pay rent for the spaces that they occupy um this happens to be a building where we typically collect rent so I I'm going to have to talk with the comptroller's office about and the and the finance office and department about what can be paid so I didn't have that in advance of this meeting unfortunately no that's fine I just even wondered whether it made sense for the comptroller's office to pay if they're just going to be in for a year because they've been you know temporarily moved out so I would leave that to whatever you're able to work out but I just wondered about that we required it of the other in the other MOU so I wanted to maintain that possibility here okay that's it great thank you jean okay oh I have no questions this is fine we've done this in the past I'm okay with this great thanks Melissa uh no questions great thank you Steve no questions I have no questions either um do you want us to um go ahead and authorize execution of the documents one by one jenny now you can do them together I think um the other one is a lease extension um for our current lease agreement with the contributory retirement board um they occupy actually the space the suite next door to the one that we were just talking about um and so this is simply extending their lease agreement um from november 1st 2023 to november 1st 2025 so we'll run through again and see if there's any questions or comments starting with jean they pay rent they pay rent yes should we usually when leases are up for renewal the rent goes up the rent term stays the same basically it it has an annual the annual increase factor so that would be the adjustment factor that would continue all of the other terms of the lease would be the same with the exception of the term okay I can make that point if necessary great thank you thank you jean can no Melissa oh thank you Steve no questions and I have no questions either uh let's see so at this point um I think we'd be looking for a motion to authorize the chair and the director to execute uh both of the documents so the two documents are the MOU between the town of Arlington comptroller's office and the ARB and the lease extension for the Arlington contributory uh retirement board I'll make that motion with the addition that the amount of rent in the MOU with the comptroller's office is as negotiated by is right so noted second great we'll take a vote jean yes jean yes Melissa yes yes jean yes and I'm a yes as well so uh the motion carries and uh Jenny and I will work to execute both of these documents with the amendment um as proposed by jean on the lease extension great thank you all so uh concludes agenda item number three we now go to agenda item number four which is the ARB meeting schedule so Jenny if you could pull that up we'll then just review the upcoming meetings january through april which brings us to the start of town meeting Jenny anything particularly of note that you wanted to point out it looks like we have first and third monday except we're altered by holidays and every monday in march as we start working through to town meeting you've summarized it so well I don't know I mean that but please note though that I've seen all those mondays in march and even the april meetings might are subject to change depending upon what is actually filed for warrant articles and how many meetings we really need to go through all of the hearings so that's just what we've done in prior years so I wanted to do the same I've also cut it off in april because that's technically the end of our remote hearing our remote meeting um you know ability so I figured we would end there and see what happens I believe town meeting unless there's a action by the governor or some sort of special action by the town we will need to have an in-person annual town meeting so I think at that point we will be transitioning back to in-person meetings unless something changes so that's why I cut it off in april not because I ran out of mondays thank you Jenny I'll just run through and see if there's any questions or comments on the proposed schedule before we take a vote to adopt the meeting schedule through april 2022 starting with jean no comments thank you can no lisa no see no comment this looks good to me as well so there is there a motion to uh approve the uh the airbie meeting schedule of january through april 2022 so second great thanks uh we'll take a roll call vote jean yes ken yes lisa yes steve yes i mean yes as well that closes item number four um so we already disposed of item number five so that brings us to agenda item number six which is open forum uh so at this time we'd like to go ahead and welcome any member of the public who is joining us this evening to please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your screen if you'd like to um address the the board um if so you'll be given up to three minutes of speaking time and uh let's see we have our first person who is going to be speaking to the board uh before you speak i'll just remind you to please introduce yourself with your first last first and last name and address uh so the first person will be sanjay newton sanjay newton um 32 otawa road um and i just wanted to uh take a quick second i won't talk about um uh zavids far amendment because i was pleased to hear you guys all be very supportive of what he's doing um and so i was glad to hear that um in terms of the the two family um i i would say to some of the concerns i heard from from board members you know in most of our neighborhoods or at least in mine the two families already exist right i live in a single family house and around the corner from me are several two families um and i you know i would say one of the board members mentioned um the two families that i know have families living in them right that that is the entry level housing that exists in town right that the young families many young families that are moving to our length and that's that's where my friends have moved is into a two family um and that's where they've started their family um and so uh i think that the chance to do more of that will be great um the town is going to change um and that our choice is do we want giant houses single families or do we want something else and um personally i would love to see something else i think a lot of other people would too so thank you thank you very much uh any other member of the public wishing to speak this evening let's see the next person will be chris larry thank you madam chair chris larry physics adam street um just a few comments on the proposed zoning articles i guess i was a little confused by the planning directors memo related to the two family zoning because it spoke of the um um the changes applying in nominally single family districts where two family developments were historically commonplace i think from the as i understand the conversation is is what it really applies to is all single family districts and as someone who lives in a two family district i don't feel that strongly about this but i think i think anybody need to be transparent about that and i think you ought to be transparent about what a terrific way this will be to gentrify the town um because what you'll do is you'll increase the price of those single family homes so they're no longer available at the starter family a started home for families and you'll create two units both of which are more expensive than the single family home the displays so it'll be great for that and it'll be great for tax revenue it will not be great for affordability um as far as this thorton's article goes um i'm not a royal like her and i don't expect to ever be a royal so i have no idea what she was talking about because i didn't see the proposal even though it was apparently sent to the development board i would ask that for any of these zoning amendments you post all of the documentation with your agenda so that the public can know what the meeting materials are because otherwise we're just guessing based on on the comments and then as far as the far one goes um you also have to consider both parking and open space because i think contrary to the comments that were made and the current fa elements are not that far off if the development for mixed use which are predominantly residential use comply with the usable open space requirements and if the board requires a reasonable amount of parking on the site um now if you're going to not apply the zoning bylaw particularly with regard to open space as has been done for some of the um mixed use developments like the hca property on Broadway or the development next to the high school then then indeed yes you do have to increase the far but if you're going to keep the open space requirements and i hope you will then i think you'll find that they're really not that far off and finally i would just end by asking or noting that when i first got on this call on my phone i was kicked off for some reason by the host i would ask that um you try to be careful not to do that because once that happens you cannot get back on the call to resume it it keeps you out so anyway that that's all i have right now thank you thank you uh any other uh members of the public wishing to speak this evening let's see the next speaker will be james plumbing camera fails can you hear me we can hear you yes fantastic uh james flowing 58 oxford street i love the far article it's really good um whether or not it's residential is not up to us it's up to horizon building it um animal uh for the 200 article i'm interested in both of those because business can't survive without customers and so by doing the um higher fr by doing two family you're creating more customers for business which means you can have more stable business and you can have if you're lucky you can have a more creative variety of business um which are all good things thank you great thank you very much if anyone else uh wishing to speak this evening okay seeing none we will close the open forum for this evening and we will uh take a motion to adjourn ken you're muted so motion's okay i can't great uh we'll take a roll call vote ken yes ken yes melissa yes see you yes i mean yes as well thank you all for joining us this evening have a great night