 Okay, ladies and gentlemen, here we go. Welcome to the Borders-Lechman's Meeting for Monday, March 21st, 2016. Item number one on the agenda for approval, the Farmers' Market, Patsy Cramer, the market manager. I don't have enough to do. Patsy, welcome. I'm here to officially request that you give us permission to have the 19th Arlington Farmers' Market in the municipal parking lot. We hold the Farmers' Market every Wednesday starting the second Wednesday in June, going through the last Wednesday in October from 2 to 6.30. We are anchored with six produce farmers, a meat vendor, chicken vendor, fish chowder, and smoked fish, and two cheese vendors, two wine vendors, bread and pastry, prepared foods, honey, pasta, and a knife sharpener. As you recall, the last two years, we had a program of a parking permit pass because of all the difficulties with the machines, and I'm told by Mr. Currow that he hears from the parking guys that the machines, the new machines are working really well, and that you would like us to try to see if that continues to work well through the Farmers' Market, which certainly makes sense to me. And then, if there are a lot of complications, I'll come back and talk to you. Did you mention a beer and wine vendor in there? Two wine vendors. Two wine vendors, okay. Yeah. I'll be coming. Any discussion, questions? Yeah, Dan. Move approval, and I'll say just, I'll second, I hadn't brought it up beforehand, but I had a similar reaction about the parking, was that I thought that the parking we did the last couple of years made a lot of sense when those machines were in such disrepair, but I'm really hopeful that the new ones go forward, so I'm delighted to support the market for another year. Great. I'll second, could you second? Oh, yeah, I didn't, yeah. I'll second the motion, and also just say, thank you very much for all the work you put into this, it's always much looked forward to, and just as a side, do I understand correctly that someone in your organization has a birthday today? Oh, God. Oh, God. Yes. Yes. It's a happy birthday. That would be me. It was a happy birthday, Pat. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Patsy. Happy birthday to you. I won't be bothered. I don't look nearly as old as I really am, right? Thank you for doing this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Greenland. Thank you, Patsy. I'm also going to support this. But I do think that now, as we're kind of going through a parking strategy for the center, that this is going to be, I think, when we consider the allocation of parking spots, it gets pretty filled up in there. And I don't know if, certainly not this year, but I think down the line, it might be worth considering potentially other places to hold the farmers market. I think that we certainly have to kind of see what the turnover is with the new parking scheme. But I think it's just something I wanted to put on everyone's radar for the time being. And maybe we can start to brainstorm about that moving forward. But nothing imminent. I just want to put that out there and say that we are looking at the different turnover and how the lot is used currently. As Patsy knows and others, we have talked about other locations for the farmers market before. But it continues to get more popular and more popular. And it's taken a good part of that whole parking area. So anyhow, I'm more than glad to brainstorm on it. Yeah, Joe? Thank you. I'm sorry. Yeah, to Mr. Burns point, actually, I think it is important that we note that we do have two other activities that I think are going to be contending for some of the parking space closest to Jefferson Cutter House this season as well. I know I think the work is going to be taking place on the house, isn't it, over this summer? And so we did approve using a couple of those parking spots as a staging area for that construction. And if I'm not mistaken, the Safe Travel Project in the center is also using a little bit of that space. So that's a further agenda item. And in the Russell Common lot, it would be overnight space. So it shouldn't have an impact. But there is some spaces in the railroad lot they want to use during the day. So it shouldn't impact farmers' work. Just to keep that on the radar. Good. Great. Thank you. OK. Thank you. All those in favor, please, on the motion by Mr. Dunn, seconded by Mr. Cureau, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And I should have asked any of you here wishing to speak on this. It's too late. No. Thank you very much. Sorry. Thank you, Pat. So happy birthday. Thank you. And finally, drink. Why don't you go out and have a cocktail? Consent agenda. The minutes of the meeting for February 22nd, 2016. And then we have a request for one day beer and wine license for April 9th for the Arlington Center for the Arts Theater, 41 Foster Street for Blues Apocalypse. First of all, any comments on the minutes of the meeting from February 22nd? Mr. Cureau. Thank you very much. I did talk to the office. I think on the vote regarding the medical marijuana dispensary, the minutes did reflect that we voted a letter of support. But I believe it's correct that we voted a letter of non-opposition. So I did transmit that to the office. But I think it's called that support non-opposition, isn't it? That's what they kept saying that night. It's either support or non-opposition. Oh, it's either. OK. So yeah, we agree to non-opposition. Non-opposition. I agree. OK. And is Carol here from the Arlington Center for the Arts? Anybody here from the Arlington Center for the Arts wishing to speak on that matter? Yeah. Am I saying a hand in the back? Is there a hand up in the back? Yes. OK. Hi. I'm Barbara Costa on the board of the Arlington Center for the Arts. I had no idea I was going to speak on this, but seeing that Carol's not here, I could certainly answer any questions. It's a one-day event. It's a big fundraiser for the center. And as you know, we need all the money we can get these days. And so we did this Blues Apocalypse last year. It was very successful. And we're looking forward to hosting it again April 9th. So I don't know if you need to know anything specifically legally about this request for the license, but. Well, just for the millions watching at home, Barbara. Yeah. We hope you'll all buy tickets in advance. You go to the Arlington Center for the Arts website. Say it again. Go to the Arlington Center for the Arts website to be able to purchase tickets in advance. OK. And we hope to see everybody there. Thank you. OK. Thank you. On motion on the consent agenda? Move approved. Second. Second in. Further discussion? All those in favor, please stand by by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed. Appointments, newly appointed open space committee member Kelsey Cowan. They spelled it phonetically here. Kelsey, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for your willingness to serve on this open space committee. Why are you willing to serve on this open space committee? Well, I graduated. In May from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in physics and coastal marine science, was interested in getting a job in the environmental industry sector with limited success. So I reached out to the conservation commission initially to do some volunteer work for them. And then they assigned me with a gigantic project on my first meeting there, which was awesome. But it ended up being outside of the scope of their work. So the open space committee adopted it. And therefore me, and now I'm a member. Well, you're about to be a member. I'm about to be a member. Sorry. Thank you for being there, so we really appreciate that. Questions, comments? Mr. Dunn? Delighted, thank you very much. My pleasure. I think Ms. Cowan is correct, though. Didn't we not appoint her last time, but we asked? Oh, that's what it is. I'm sorry. She is a member of Ms. Betsy. Putting me on the hot seat here. Yeah, but we do ask, for new appointments to committees, if they can't come the night of the appointment, we do ask that they come eventually. So thank you for doing that, and you're right. You're already on, so you know what? I retract my question. You don't have to answer it. How would you do it? Stephen, anything else? No, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Kelsey. Thank you. Good to do it for you. All right, thanks. I'm off to a roaring start. Licenses and permits. Requests are the common victuers and wine and malt license for mashed during businesses, Otto, 202 Mass Avenue. Anthony W. Allen and Michael Kiln. Just one here tonight. Anthony Allen. Hello. I'm just going for my CV this evening, not the wine and malt. Oh, just the victuers? Yes. OK. So talk to. He's not going for the wine and beer yet, because he has to get the rest of the papers into us, so he'll be hopefully ready for April 4th. Oh, you're going to be going for it. OK. Yeah, OK. So questions from the board? No. No? Anybody want to make a motion? I move approval. And I can now walk to Otto, which I'm very excited about. Happy to be here. Second. Yes, so I just, so I'm curious, I read a little bit and it said this is your 10th location, is that right? 11th, yeah. 11th, OK. And also the New Hampshire Massachusetts, is that right? No, New Hampshire, six up in Portland and five in Mass. OK. I live in Newport. My business partner, Mike, lives up in Portland. OK. Cool. Yeah, happy to be here. Terrific location in the Capitol Theater Building. Really excited. Great. Samples of the food. They were here. Next meeting. But when you come back for the wine and malt beer, you know what I'll be asking. OK, so is there a motion? Yes. Did you see, sorry, a motion and seconded? Seconded. I actually see a raised hand in the audience, surprisingly. Yep, one second. So moved and seconded subject to all the conditions as set forth. Sir. This gentleman doesn't know me. I'm Jeff Boudreau. I live in Arlington. And I know that his reputation precedes him. There's an excellent professor of mandolin playing at Berkeley College of Music who plays in his shop in Portland on Tuesday nights. And I hope that he does the same here. Joe Walsh. We'll break him down. Thank you very much. Thank you. So will there be an open mic night for us singers? I don't think I have that in the application, so we'll do it quietly. It's like tones, maybe. OK. Anybody else wish to speak on this? OK, on the motion, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Thank you very much for choosing Arlington. Best of luck. Thank you so much. When do you hope to open? Early May, hopefully. OK, great. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. So traffic rules and orders, the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture, Barbara Costa, come on back up. And Stephanie, is there Stephanie else? Yep, sure. Hello again. Stephanie and I would like to give our annual report since we are charged to keep in touch with you about all matters, arts, and culture. And actually, you should tell us what's on your mind as well. But just very briefly, I know you have a lot this evening. We've accomplished a number of things this past year. I'll report very briefly. Both of us will report on it. The whole cultural district designation process is underway. We started last April with a meeting at the Old Schwann Mill. We had a really packed room, a lot of different organizations in town interested in the application to the Mass Cultural Council for the designation of a district in town. And we are in the middle of applying to that right now. We have basically put preliminary description of a district which would run from the Arlington Center, kind of near Lake Street, Mill Street area, down into East Arlington. It needs to be walkable. The Mass Cultural Council will decide if it's walkable. But it also needs to include historical cultural locations and have it be a place that ultimately we will enliven with more activities, with signage. And it'll be on the website, the statewide website. It'll be a really good way to bring Arlington on the tourism map and also to enliven it for the community itself. So that's the general idea. We have a managing partnership of many organizations that have come together. And part of the excitement is that groups are coming together, working together. It'll help in grant writing later. It'll just help to gather ideas about ways to synergies, I guess, that we could have among various groups. And I guess there are too many to mention but include the primary ones who are organizing this managing partnership. Because we, as an umbrella organization, the Commission on Arts and Culture, are making sure this is happening. But there are other groups that are running this application. And that's the town libraries, the Arlington Center for the Arts, Arlington Center for the Arts, and the Chamber of Commerce, and many other groups which we've listed. So that's in process. And then the public art inventory. We did this summer working with an intern, Will Sullivan, did a lot to get an online version of what's in town in terms of, and you should help me here, Stephanie, art, three-dimensional art, statues, and a lot of information on each, including, well, anyway, it's in a database that we will continue to add to. Is there, is that pretty much done? Our website, it's not 100% done, but it covers about 80% to 90% of what we have. And Will will come back and hopefully finish that maybe this summer or other during vacation times. But yeah, it covers indoor and outdoor public art. So you might want to take a look at that. And our website again is the, well, through the town website, the Commission on Arts and Culture. But we also have our own page, which is Arlington C-A-C dot com. So I will do that. But I'm just curious, what number of, do you remember? What was the total number inventory of public art? The total number inventory, that is a great question. Well, ballpark? Ballpark 35. Actually, on the same topic. So I actually, I read the packet, and I actually went online to look for the inventory. I didn't. And I actually couldn't find it. So if you could give me more direction or navigation, I'd appreciate it. Like I found the website has got the circles with the, and one of the circles was public art. And I clicked on that, and it had a blog post. But I still couldn't find that. That wasn't where that inventory was, because it was something like that last time I looked. So I will check up on that. I was very interested in to find that one. OK. We'll make sure that that's more obvious then. And then we'll be doing a, well, this is reporting what we've done already, that we have been on the idea of a town-wide cultural plan. We have met and discussed potential scopes with one of our, at Lilly and Shu, at the Cambridge Arts Council, one of our advisors. We've also spoken to some other people who do run cultural plans, who organize cultural planning just to get a sense of the budget. And we have been applying for funding to help that process through the Metropolitan Area Planning Commission. We're waiting to hear on that, by the way. Anything more on the cultural planning process from last year that we've done? No, we really decided that some of the numbers were quite large. And so really the Metropolitan Area Planning Council seemed to be the best approach because we do have to provide a match, but a lot of it is in kind. And then they provide a consultant who helps to put together the public meetings and all the data and pull together a cultural plan. So it is still in two phases. And it is, but we do think that that will be the most cost-effective and also makes the most sense because Ted Fields has already been working with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council on the Arts and Culture Toolkit. And also our new planning director is from Massachusetts Metropolitan Area Planning Council as well. So we're waiting to hear on that. Why don't you continue with other things that happened last year? OK, so well, arts advocacy, we understand that the ACA is in a transitional year. And so we've just been trying to support them in any way that we can. We've attended a lot of their meetings. We've written letters on their behalf. And so we're just here to support that because that's part of our job, Advocate for Arts and Culture. And we want to make sure that the ACA ends up with a suitable home after all this process ends. And then we also were aware that there were a lot of different public, there's so much energy around public art in town. And there are so many initiatives happening. There's the Capital Square, the Banner on the Capital Theater. And then there's the Banner, the Youth Banner Project that was happening. And also Cecily Miller's projects in East Arlington. So we, again, as the umbrella organization, wanted to make sure that those efforts were being coordinated. And that since we have Arlington Public Art and we have the Capital Square and other people doing things, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was aware. And that they were also aware of the larger cultural district project and the goals of the cultural district and the need for us to fill in the space more between East Arlington and Arlington Center in order to be able to qualify for that district, which is rather large by their standards. But they have given us the OK to pursue that district being from East Arlington all the way up through Arlington Center on the condition that we think through how to make that feel more continuous for people. Go ahead, Ceci. Yeah. OK, so now our goals for the next year are to facilitate a successful application for the cultural district designation through the MCC. And the next step in that process is to have a public input meeting, which will happen on March 30. March 30, 7 o'clock at the ACA. You are all invited. We do hope that you attend. Everyone in this room, everyone on this board. We'll be brainstorming ideas at home, watching at home. We'll be brainstorming ideas for things that could possibly. You could even, places you've been around the world that you thought they were really fascinating and they were doing a certain thing. And could it happen here? I mean, anything like that. And as well as talking about Arlington's specific offerings and what would be exciting to have featured in a cultural district. So it's really a great important time. It's part of our application process, but it's also a great opportunity for everyone to really come in and be part of that vision process. Right, it's a visioning meeting. And then the next step will be for the board to select men to pass a resolution. We expect to come to you in about a month, within a month. We have to have the public meeting first. We have to sift through everything. And then when we're ready to present the application, the last step will be the resolution that needs to come from the board. And we have, we got your blessing or well, I guess it has to pass through town meeting to add to more members. So we want to strengthen our capacity because we have been very busy. We spoke to you about that last time we were here. And then to hopefully be successful with that cultural plan application with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. We have another opportunity to apply in June for a slightly different grant, but with the same organization. And we've been encouraged to do that. So hopefully between one or two or both, we will be able to start that cultural planning process. We'll look anywhere for funding, right? Yep, and then I could just continue to advocate for arts and culture in town. That's our mission. That's what we do. So is there anything else you would like us to be doing that should come up in our coming year? You're allowed to tell us later. I think your plates are full. I'll include myself, but anything else, Mo? Anybody, Joe? I mean, this is a very active and proactive commission. It's very hard to believe that you've only been together for three years. Tell you the truth. I mean, you actually, I was gonna give you a throw when you already put in a plug. I think it is very important that there be good community representation at the March 30th public input session for the cultural district. It's very important. Initiative, and I think the commission members have done just a great job of bringing together the public and private and non-profit sectors in town to really sit at the same table, to push this initiative. As they mentioned, the library is a chamber of commerce, ACA, are kind of leading it, but it was all facilitated really through the commission's work. So thank you for that. And we'll look forward to seeing you when it comes time for us to look at what the results of all that public input was. And for this board to potentially adopt the resolution to allow the application to go forward to the state. Thanks, and thanks for all your support. Yes. Thank you. Exactly. I think it's a motion to receive, right? So moved. Second. Further discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Great job. Pleasure, thank you. Thank you very much. I should mention our fifth member, Ms. Mahan is at another event, but she will be joining us shortly. So article seven, item seven for approval, Center Safe Travel Project, request for use of parking spaces, Mr. Chapter Lane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So you have before you an email from JJ Phelan Company, the contractor that will be working on the Arlington Center Safe Travel Project. They are requesting use of six spaces at the railroad lot adjacent to the Uncle, yeah, the Uncle San Plaza and the tourism center for storage space during the construction project. And they're also looking to use four spaces for overnight parking of equipment in the Russell Common Lot. I know the town engineer has really worked this through with them and we think this is the least impactful space usage that they can use. I'll also quickly note, mentioned last meeting, but I'll mention again, this Wednesday, March 23rd, 7 p.m. here in Town Hall, we're having a public information session to really talk to people about the project and what it's gonna be like during construction, but would appreciate the board's positive action on this tonight. Move approval. Move approval. Second. Second. Yep. Discussion, comments, yep. Just one question. This did come up, I was with the center merchants this week and the question was, this is only regarding parking spaces. One of the questions was asked about some of the uses that this board already approved for the summer for the Jefferson Cutter Lawn. There won't be any need for the lawn for staging. Yeah, I heard that. I think there may have been a misunderstanding. There'll be some work at that corner to improve the ramp, the curb ramp. Yeah. But there should be no need to utilize the Jefferson Cutter Lawn. Lawn, okay, great, thank you. Okay. Further discussion? Anybody here to speak on this? All those in favor of the motion by Mr. Byrne, please signify by saying aye. Aye, I suppose. Item eight, for approval, authorization to draft an RFP for the sale of 1207 Mass Ave, new Adam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So as the board recalls, it had authorized me in cooperation with the town council to issue an RFP for the short-term lease of the building, formerly the DAV located at 1207 Mass Ave for the potential use as a co-working space or some kind of collaborative space. We had put it out to bid and did not receive any successful bids. We did receive some feedback that it was a short timeframe and that a lot of investment would have been needed to be put into the building. I think those were things that we had publicly discussed here at prior meetings of the board. So I don't think that shouldn't have been much of a surprise to potential bidders. That said, the outcome was no bidders. I think the board also knows that at the special town meeting earlier this year, included in the financing plan or the funding plan for the Stratton renovation project were the expected proceeds of up to a million dollars from the liquidation or sale of this building. So what I'm asking for from the board tonight is authorization for me to cooperate with town council and the director of planning and community development to draft an RFP with the only criteria that I'm asking for is a floor price of $750,000 to put into the RFP. And then if there's any other criteria the board would like to see included, we can discuss those. I talked with some local people in the real estate business. They think that is a fair floor without us doing a full blown further appraisal to update the appraisal we performed several years ago. I hesitated to put a million dollars as a floor in that if we didn't receive any competitive bids we'd have to start the process all over again. Yeah, Joe. I was wondering, legally when we received bids on the property, are we obligated to take the highest bid or does this board also have some discretion over the perceived community benefit? Any proposals for the use? So it would depend if we actually utilized an RFP where we could put in comparative criteria or if we just actually issued an invitation for bid. Got it. You're asking for an RFP? Well, so I called an RFP because I think we'd want to put in at least some qualifications for bid or some being able to support that they can actually purchase and back up what they would offer. Sure. But if there's some other comparative criteria the board wants to recommend, be happy to draft it and then bring it back for the board's consideration. Thank you. Oh, Steve, I think it was nice, yeah. Sure, thanks. So I just want to say I think that this was a good process that we went through for it. I think it was pretty comprehensive and I think what I'm not surprised that there weren't any respondents to the lease. I think with the co-working space opening up right down the street that definitely had something to do with it. And I think that now with the move to sell, I think it's probably will repay a more positive long-term solution to this property as opposed to potentially leasing it out for a shorter term. So I'm happy with it. Thank you. Dan? I think one of the things we talked about before if we put this up for sale would be the possibility that other places on that block would want to go and there might be benefits realized there. Does the town, I just, and this isn't something we do every day, would we talk to those neighbors, would we invite them into that process, would we work with people who are interested in the property, is there a fit role for us to play in that kind of facilitation or no? I think there could be a role for the planning department in that regard. I can say the two of butters both have actively reached out to me with interest in when the town was going to be putting this building up for sale. So there's certainly localized interest in it. Yeah, okay. Joe? Okay. So we're starting at 750, but the real estate people you're talking to you feel pretty confident we will achieve the mill? I know, to be clear, no. I didn't get that kind of feedback, but the feedback I received was that 750 would be a reasonable floor. I mean, my goal is to suggest that we are trying, the town is trying to get some financial benefits from this without going through a process that doesn't receive any bidders and have to reset the process. Okay, yep. Speaking of Mrs. Mohan. Sorry. Do we all get one? Yeah, but my account was too far away to- Or only the chairman may have? Yeah. So was there a motion here? Sorry, no. Anybody want to make one? I move that we go forward as described by the town manager, create an RFP for the property with a floor of 750,000. Any second? Second. So I'm just curious. We can't- Is this most likely some are going to purchase and tear down? I would think so, but I don't want to claim- I'm not sure. Yeah. Okay. PR. All right, so Diane, we're on article number eight, the old DAV. Do you want to ask any questions or anything you want to say? So what we're about to do is authorize Adam to go out with an RFP. All right, all those in favor, please sign- Oh, is anybody here on this matter? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. So you said aye? Yep, okay, five and oh, five oh, I'm all right. Number nine, for approval, medical marijuana, dispensary, community benefit agreement, Adam, chapter lane, and Doug Hyme. So I will briefly say before turning it over to town council, when the board voted its letter of non-opposition, it also stated that the letter of non-opposition was subject to the successful negotiation of a community benefit agreement. Town council's been working on that. We don't have a final community benefit agreement for the board's consideration tonight, but he does have an update to provide. Mr. Chairman, we've been in negotiations with council for the RMD applicant. They've agreed in principle to add the provisions that we wanted to see that would sort of provide us some more sort of safeguards and give us some assurance that we're gonna get all the information that we want and need from them going forward. So it's really just a matter of this point in time, us ironing out the exact language of how that will fit into the agreement. And I don't wanna say anything until the ink is dry on it, but I think that we've got the terms that the select and one is just a matter of us getting, coming to an agreement on the language. So no vote on this at this time? No. Okay. Questions to the board? Okay. 10, discussion, proposition, two and a half. Apologize for being a touch behind the discussion. My name is Matt Schofield. I'm in pediatrician at five Water Street. It came to me through my office that there's been some discussion of using the building at 511 Water Street as the site for dispensary. I just would appreciate if someone could kind of speak about where you are in terms of talking about sites and whether this is a considered a viable site or how you would go about the process of choosing a site. We obviously have a vested interest in this process. I understand, yes. So all we have done this board is we have issued a letter of what's called non-opposition. They have convinced us at this point that they're far enough along in the process. But I believe what you wanna do is wait until they go before the redevelopment board, although Doug, you might wanna, that is where, right? No, not necessarily. I mean, perhaps, I'm not sure of the full extent of nature of your concerns. I'd be happy to talk to you more about it offline, but this matter was, you know, before the selectmen several times, they have proposed a specific site. As far as we know, as of the time when we heard it, and right now it's a viable site under the Department of Public Health's regulations. The Water Street site. This is the Water Street site. If there are, there is additional process that has to go through DPH potentially once there's a special permit hearing with the ARB. But I don't think that necessarily speaks to your concerns about its general viability. When we're talking about security measures that might be in place. No, it's more the regulations around that such a facility has to be at least 1,000 feet from a school, for example. And yet this building has both a family practice office and a pediatric office. So we still, we do have on the order of 120 children passing through the facility every single day. Although we are not the size of a school, we are quite a substantial site for childhood activity. It seems entirely inappropriate that a building with a heavy pediatric presence would be considered for this purpose. So as I said, I'm happy to talk to you more about it, but the regulations are 500 feet and there is a definition by DPH about what qualifies as what can be within that 500 foot zone and what can't. And as I said, I'd be happy to talk more about it. It hasn't been our understanding through the various offices in town that have edited that there was a location within that 500 foot buffer zone. But I would be happy to talk more about it if there's any concern, because as I said, there's additional process to be had, but the Selectman's letter of non-opposition was based on the understanding from our town departments that there was not a site within that 500 foot radius. So we can talk about it more. Okay, has this been, I mean, I presume that this was something that was either sought or approved by the landlord in the building? I can't speak to that. I mean, I would imagine that if they're proposing to put a site in there, they've got some, you know, tentative agreements about that, but I'm not their attorney, so I can't tell you that. But I would say that, you know, there's been a number of hearings and processes both before the Board of Health, this Board, and otherwise vetting the site. So this is not the first night this is sort of coming up. Exactly, right on. So please feel free to follow up with my office. I'll send you an email or a review call. Yeah, absolutely. That'd be perfect. Thank you. So next item 10, Proposition 2.5 Override, Dead Exclusion, Mr. Dunn. So we had a budget revenue task force meeting today at six o'clock where a lot of this came up. So for a number of people, this is probably a rehash, but this Board is the Board that actually puts Proposition 2.5 questions on the ballot, so it's very appropriate that we put it on the agenda, which is why it's there. And just if there's any confusion, I didn't expect that we would take a vote tonight. This was very much us, there's a conversation to be had and there's no time to start it like the President in this particular case. So things that we need to think about in terms of the override are that the School Enrollment Task Force is meeting and it is considering both problems with enrollment capacity both in the middle school and the elementary school arena and it is evaluating whether or not it should renovate the Gibbs or extend the Odyssey and either one of them comes with a price tag that's on the order of 20 to 30 million or something in that neighborhood. Whether or not it should extend the Thompson and which would be perhaps something like three million which is something that has received some consideration already and whether or not there should be something done to extend the Hardy which has received much less consideration and is much more preliminary. So those are the middle school and elementary school considerations of if we were gonna pay for them, how much would we pay and when would that happen? Did I capture the task force correctly Adam? Okay. Other consideration is the Arlington High School where the high school, we're hoping to be accepted fully into the Mass School Building Authority in May and at which point in May we're gonna have 270 days to come up with the money to pay for a feasibility study and that would be on the order of a million and a half or two million, something like that and then of course provided that all that proceeds appropriately we would then be seeking to find funding for the full school itself which is a number that we can only speculate on but it would be whether it's 150 million or whether it's 200 million it's a big item. And last but not least there's the question about Minuteman and we have in correspondence received today we've got the official notice from Minuteman School Committee saying that they've approved the building project for $144 million and so that means that each town has 60 days to vote yay or nay and we will be considering it at our special town meeting on April 27th and should the town choose to pay for it and should it get approved or even should in some scenarios should it be disapproved or excuse me should we disapprove of it but it still gets approved we may be forced to pay for it under certain circumstances. So we have to think about how to pay for all those things. So should we do an override in June and if we didn't override in June would it include include money for Thompson such that the Thompson extension could presumably ready be ready for September of 2018. If we do money for a middle school it might be ready for September of 2018 but it's not clear that we'd be able to hit that target. I already explained the unknowns run. Minuteman we could definitely do that. We could definitely narrow down the feasibility the cost of the Arlington High School feasibility study. So that would be a scenario like pay for some of these things do it in one vote in June. Another scenario is to move let those things wait until the fall see the enrollment numbers learn more about what we the cost of what we want to do may or may not want to do about Hardy learn more about the cost of what the high school and the high school feasibility study is but then none of the stuff would be ready if we then hold that override vote in the fall September October November something like that. There's already two elections gonna be scheduled for the fall one for the primary for state elections and one for presidential. And then of course long range plan says that we will have that our current funding for operating budget says that our operating budget is currently good through fiscal 2020 but it has a large deficit for fiscal 21 and it has a gigantic deficit for fiscal 22. So we were going to need an operating override somewhere in the timeframe between now and 2021 unless we want to start kicking off some serious cuts. So all those things are out there and we have to put together a timeline that makes sense in terms of getting to the voters and choosing what we think is important getting it to the voters and seeking their approval. Did I miss anything? No, that was, that was sash. It's good that is. Yes, Joe, but well done. Thank you. Yeah, no, very well done. We've obviously discussed this extensively at long range planning as well just to give a sense of the magnitude. We talked about this and right now budget revenue task force, the near term Arlington school needs Thompson if we go with an addition there, three to $5 million middle school. We were given kind of an upper estimate of around $30 million could be less but and the high school feasibility study somewhere between 1.5 and 2 million which that has a time clock on it. 270 days after May. So that's about 37 million there that we have to find for our local school needs. We presume sometime over the next year. One of the things I just wanna put it out here now for us to think about that we've discussed at long range planning is debt exclusion is almost certainly gonna have to be the primary vehicle for financing this but the subject has come up at long range plan about us taking another look at the MWRA debt shift that we've done over the years. That was obviously that was instituted with 25 years ago or so to avoid rate shocks at the time that the Boston Harbor cleanup came in. We were quite a ways past that and our board as we're thinking about this we're thinking about impacts on taxpayers might wanna think about how much we subsidize that debt and whether we wanna redirect some of that tax revenue towards some of the other capital needs that we have in the town. I mean I think the philosophy on water and sewer rates here especially in the way that we've structured the rates has been to try to put more control in the hands of the rate payers and incentives to try to minimize their water use and I think that would be consistent with that if we thought about it. So I just did some back of the envelope calculations and there are just two things I think that we should think about as we're looking out over the long range plan. The first thing I looked at was when we look at our exempt debt service which almost exclusively went towards the previous school rebuilds. Almost a little bit for Sims but almost exclusively towards the current school rebuilds. As you look out towards FY 2022 you start seeing that rolling off to the point where from now, from FY 2016 to FY 2022 we're gonna be almost $2 million per year less that's going out to exempt debt because we'll have paid it off. We still have to go back to the voters to raise that, accumulatively and we're talking about 6.2 million which would actually be really a wash if we go to the voters, it's a matter of timing. So if we keep that in mind. I also did a back of the envelope. 2 million over six years, isn't that 12? So currently our annual exempt debt service in FY 2016 is 2.6 million. But when we go out to 2022, it's only 696,000. We will, it will have dropped. So the payments are dropping as we're paying off the debt. If you take all of the drops each year and you compound the effect over the term for the plan, you're looking about 6.2 million which we would then have to go to the voters to make up but it's essentially a break even. If you look at the MWRA debt shift which right now it's 5.593, 112 I think it's been that for a long time. If we considered, and obviously we're not gonna consider this tonight but we should think about it as we come up if we considered gradually rolling that off over the course of five years, let's say. The compound effect over that period of time would be 16.7 million dollars which is roughly equivalent to maybe half of the middle school needs, possibly more. It's just something to think about as we're coming up on this and we're gonna have a lot of questions about timing and I felt like the tide started to shift in our discussions tonight towards a fall date to really be able to button all of this up together in a facilities plan and give us the time but I think that this board probably, we probably wanna consider what our policy will be going forward on that as far as debt shift as well as going to the voters on tax increase to help buffer the potential tax increase. But on the debt shift, wouldn't we still have to go to the voters to do what you're talking about? No, we can do that, we can do that. Yep, that is. Sorry, just very briefly, I'm definitely in support of something in the fall. I met with, I think we've all had a shot at pretty much a co-chairing and override or debt exclusion. I met with one of my counterparts last week and one of the things that I feel very strongly about is number one, you need at least eight weeks to do the campaign, to do the education. Number two, you need to go in with firm numbers, there can't be any fluidity. I mean, in terms of whether you're talking 20, 25, 30, something becomes 20.5, that's different. And I think for the reasons that my colleague, Mr. Dunn cited, in terms of what the school enrollment task force is doing, we have a consultant that Mr. Chaplain has spoken about who's given us sort of, going to give us sort of a halfway through the project. We seem to have more of a handle on an estimate of the Gibbs, but for myself personally, I'm sort of at the beginning of hearing what Audison addition might look like and a cost might be. And I know going to the voters when we're very prepared as well as we've done everything similar to what Mr. Kuro has said in terms of trying to scratch the pennies, nickels and dimes, the voters have been very generous, but I think a lot of that has been in terms of the leaders of whether it's an override or an exclusion to be able to articulately say exactly what the package is, what it's going to cost. And I think maybe one of the, if we wanted to take a kudo, I think we've demonstrated to the voters when we, for the last override said, this is gonna be a five year override and we're up to a year and nine. It's a three. Three? It's a three. Three, oh my goodness. Oh, maybe mine was five. Mine was five, and it went to like nine. Five made six, so the three is now on six. So, but that's one of the pieces I'd like to do that. So for all those reasons, I won't, you know, beat a dead horse on that. I think June is just too ambitious and it really could set us up for quite an uphill battle in terms of success. Just on that, if I may, Steve, and correct me, you two who are there, but the issue with waiting till the fall to Dr. Bodie is the ability to either have the addition to the artisan or the rehabbing of the Gibbs by September of 2018. And I believe she felt that if we waited till the fall, we would not be able to get students in by September of 18. So, but I'm with you. You and I know how long these things take to convince voters. And if I can just speak, and I'm sure Mr. Chaplain has said this, I get a sense, and correct me if I'm wrong, from the school enrollment task force committee that, you know, given that statement by Dr. Bodie, I would say most of the majority is still of the opinion they really want to see the enrollment numbers in the fall to do the further projections out, as well as the fact that we have gotten, hopefully we'll get approval finally, but have put in place in the task forces in favor of modular classrooms, although I think the town manager or somebody else cited, that's really not a viable, fiscal, long-term solution, but could get us through that. So I think just from the school enrollment task force committee, you know, we want to see some more numbers, too. I'm sorry, I have a salad, what that means? Thank you very much, and thank you, Dan, for putting this on the agenda, because I think it's important that we don't lose sight of this, I know that we obviously talk about it a fair amount, but I think it's important that it's done in, you know, at official meetings. I do agree with Diane and the other colleagues that I think the summer is probably a bit too ambitious. I think, like as Diane said, it's important that we have everything very firm, and when I went to the, or when we, I think Joe and I and everyone was at the presentation for the school consultant for the enrollment numbers, it sounded like it was very important that we got the numbers, the follow-up numbers as well, to make sure that the study was going on the right track and that it was still valid. So I think it's very important that we get those numbers prior to taking a pretty overwhelming vote. I think this is, it's not something that can be done lightly or without having all of the facts in front of us. So I do think that pushing off to the fall is probably the right choice here. So, you know, if we look at the next 10 years, we're talking about debt exclusions related to the Thompson, the Hardy, the middle, the high school, the Minutemen, and then we're tied, what I miss, which one? Did I miss one? No, operating. I was gonna do that next time. By 2022, a $15 million deficit in the budget, right? And we're right, was it 15? 15. So, and this board has the fun job of putting all of those questions before the voters, but that is structurally the only way that money can be raised in this community as we turn it over to the voters. So, what would we all think about, you know, we have the, oh, did you wanna comment yet, Adam? First? No, no, no. So we have the School Enrollment Task Force working on this. We have Finance Committee, Capital Planning, we have certainly the School Committee, we certainly have Adam, we have the Budget Revenue Task Force, we have all of these groups working together on this. And what would we think about putting together something like Mr. Dunn, Mr. Currow, Superintendent Bode, Chairman Schlichtman, Adam Chapterling, Charlie Foskett, which represents all of those groups in terms of the coming back at some point to that Budget Revenue Task Force, or directly here, if you think that's appropriate, with kind of what are the kind of alternatives, options that we would have, because we need a 10-year plan, not about the fall. I mean, I agree with you, too, we have to probably wait until the fall to do this and I understand that's a challenge for the schools to deal with. But to get these passed one right after the other, or I mean, one of the options thrown in tonight was let's throw in the $30 million for the proposed, for the possible Minuteman Rebuild, cost twirling into our first debt exclusion. But if we could have plan A, plan B, and plan C, is that the right group to do it? Are you willing to do it? I was gonna do, I don't know. I have a feeling we might be saying the same thing. My feeling is that what you've just described is more or less a subset of the Long Range Planning Committee, and that the Long Range Planning Committee should probably take it on as a charge to try to lay out those, and that is kind of what we try to do, we vet these plans. So I think that's actually the proper place to do it. It's just about everybody that you've mentioned. It's all those stakeholders that you've mentioned, and I think that's probably the most appropriate way to do it, rather than the grand total. We're working to say the same thing. Okay, so I withdraw my idea, it was crap, but no, the idea was good, but it's already doing it. I know we have so many committees, so many people working on this, and we have a huge challenge in front of us. We often have, we'll meet it, we'll figure it out, but as we all know, things have to happen at town meeting yet, and yeah, Dan. I think that you stated this already, but I'm gonna repeat it, because I think it is really important. The cost of not doing it this spring is that it delays the improvements of certainly the middle school until 2019, and perhaps Thompson until 2019, though it may be possible that Thompson still gets done in 2018. So while I definitely understand the merits of the fall, I just want to be clear about what the cost that we're incurring by delaying till the fall. Is that true? Yes. I think, just as a counter to that, and I do see why that's the case, but I also think that if we were to do it in June, and please correct me if I'm wrong, then we would probably, we wouldn't have every, all of the other projects firmed up by then, so we'd potentially have to do two, correct? There might be enough knowledge that we can do, so we could in June put together, have reasonable numbers for Thompson Middle School and the high school feasibility. Like those numbers would be knowable. Minuteman would not be in a state that it's knowable. Hardy would not be in a state that it's knowable. And those moving factors just have me thinking that maybe, and you know, maybe by the time June rolls around, we will have a better idea, but I wouldn't be tonight be comfortable doing that, that's sure or not, yeah. And you said we're not even really sure about enrollment figures yet, right? What does it look like at six, eight, 10 years, right? Exactly. So I think one thing that should mention that was brought up right at the end of budget revenue task force tonight by Mr. Cole, who's the chair of our Permanent Town Building Committee, is that if there is a way to pull together the funds just for a preliminary design around the middle school approach, and he estimated about $750,000, which is not small change, but there were a way to do that. It could still be possible to push to a fall referendum and still maintain the date. So there may be a way forward, although admittedly that's a big chunk of change. And I think we walked away agreeing that the manager was gonna talk to some of the others at the table about what is potentially feasible there. I wanna just say on timing, I mean just one other thing just to throw into the mix. I've been of the mind over the last month or so, that June was the right time just because there's been so much momentum, so much organization by parents and so much attention on this. However, Minuteman is, to use our favorite term now, fly in the ointment here, and there's, sounds like there's a very real possibility that Minuteman is going to impose a ballot on member communities probably on June 18th, and I'm worried about voter confusion then, if we were trying to go for a dead exclusion within a week or two of a Minuteman vote. I'm just worried that it could turn into a big train wreck in that case. And I said over the next 10 years, it's really over the next six, all of these issues are coming up, you know. So, Adam, what's the solution? Just explain it to me. So then, should we have a motion that this board asks the long range planning committee to develop scenarios to present back here? So moved. Second. Second. Yep, Ms. Mohan. And just one question, and I apologize for missing the Budget Red Movement Task Force meeting, or if this is already, I haven't seen it come across, but just to that end, Mr. Cole provided at the Law School Enrollment Task Force committee meeting, he spent a lot of time on a matrix. Have you all received that? And if not, I was wondering if I could ask the town manager if you can get a copy of that electronically. I mean, what he did in there is for every issue, school-related that Mr. Grayley cited, all five or six of them, he came up with a matrix and for every school-building projects, he had a June, he had a September, he had a November, and he also took the steps out to, if you did it in June, you could open this time in 18, and here's your backup plan. You can open in September or you can open January 1st, so I was thinking maybe that might be something not to recreate the wheel, but just something just, so you all can look at a matrix also and just extrapolate from that whatever you think is appropriate, so you're not just double doing what he's already done. And I think it would be interesting, and I probably should have just grabbed this from the last meeting that Joe and I were at, because he put a, John. I have it electronically. Okay, so if you can, I mean, when I first got it, I looked at it and I went, oh no, definitely need the glasses, and here goes some more columns, gonna drive me nuts, but it definitely, every column was worth looking at, and he, you know, three steps out for every single thing, so I think that might be beneficial. So thank you in support of the motion, which I think was already. Okay, so move on Ms. Mehan, second by Ms. Mehan. No? Yeah, that's fine. Yes, okay. So final words, anything, Randall? Only that, the Long Range Planning Committee will set a meeting up very soon, and I think it's well-suited and ready to go through these issues and make a recommendation. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Next is rehearing the foreign article 24, Bailar Amendment Camping on Public Property. Mr. Hine. So as the Board will recall, we did have a hearing on article 24, where some of the issues regarding the proposed Bailar Amendment to prohibit camping on public property without a permit were vetted. At that hearing, there was discussion of how this would impact Arlington's homeless population, but I think there's universal agreement among town departments that following some inquiries and concerns expressed by residents, including Mr. Revelak, who is here at that hearing, the Arlington Human Rights Commission, a number of community stakeholders, including faith-based organizations, that some additional discussion of this was merited, and that at the very minimum, we should be putting the brakes on the proposal that was before the select and the police department, the health department, the town manager's office, the planning department, are all in basic agreement that rather than move forward with a lack of consensus on not only what we should be doing, but whether or not we have the information that we need to proceed under the Bailar as proposed, we should be taking no action on this and setting up a task force to examine this issue more closely so that we can best sort of understand from multiple perspectives the complex and varied issues, particularly with respect, or specifically with respect to how something like this would impact Arlington's homeless population. So the recommendation specifically from the town departments is that we would like the Board of Selectment to establish a task force of the Selectment that would constitute nine members that would be representative of different folks who have some important voice in this, representatives of the police department, the health department, the planning department, the rec department, the Arlington Human Rights Commission, and then perhaps most importantly, four representatives, two to be appointed by the town manager and two to be appointed by the town moderator, who would represent residents at large with the additional caveat that it would probably be wise to reserve two of those, one each, for town moderator and town manager positions on this task force for folks who are residents of the precinct that are most directly affected by the camps in the Thorndike field area. To try to balance the fact that there are concerns that police department and others have expressed that are pressing, but there have been a sort of wave of very concerns expressing concerns about whether or not, again, we understand the homeless population specifically in that area well enough to take the types of actions that we've been contemplating with this by-law. So I'm happy to answer any questions, but essentially the recommendation of the town departments that are all most influenced by this is that we should be re-hearing this, putting the brakes on it and making sure that we study the issue, but hopefully in time to make a recommendation about whether or not we should be pursuing any by-law changes on this in time for next year's town one. So what you're asking us to do is no action on this and then establish the task force. That's correct. Okay, motion of no action. So move seconds. Second. Discussion? Yes. Got it? You have to. The millions watching at home. Hi, my name is Eric Siegel. I live on Milton Street in East Arlington. I've lived there for 30 years. So right near kind of the area that there's a lot of concern about. I've seen over the last couple of years, obviously, there's more and more homeless people who are living right near the underpass of Route 2 on the Arlington side and on the Cambridge side. And my daughters walk through there all the time. I'm very concerned about it, but I still feel like the direction that the proposed ordinance was going was not a good idea and I'm really happy to hear that you're thinking of putting the brakes on that. I think that we don't, it's not right to punish somebody for who they are. If a barber committed a crime, we wouldn't say, okay, we're gonna round up the barbers. And in this case, a homeless person committed a crime last summer. But with the bigger picture, homeless people are much more likely to be the victims of crime, to be the victims of theft or physical violence than almost anybody else in the community. And to say that we could have an ordinance, I mean in New England, to say that we could have an ordinance where we're gonna take somebody's blankets away in the winter feels really kind of profoundly unkind to me. And so I'm very happy to hear that you may reconsider it and, I guess that's it, thanks very much. And you're volunteering for the task force? I don't know if you see me as well. If you'd like me to, I'd be happy to talk. Make sure Marie gets your name if you would. Eric Siegel, Milton Street. That's awesome, thank you for that input. And we agree with you, that's why we are putting the brakes on it. Nobody, we do not want to criminalize homelessness. Thank you so much. Thank you. So, so on the motion to table, all those in favor, please, anybody else? No action, no action. I'm sorry, no. The creation of the committee. Sorry, because we're not gonna talk it again. No action, right, right, right, on motion to recommend no action on this article, all those that favorably signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. And then a motion to establish the task force stuck next, is that right? Who's got one? So moved. So moved. Second. Another question. Yeah, go. Who in the task force do you, is there a vision of who the chairman would be and or who's driving the process? Is it the, like how do we know? Like typically, in my experience, groups like this reach their conclusions if they have a leader who is driven towards that conclusion, you know, getting it done. I didn't hear in that list of nine who the most likely candidate would be. I would, I mean, without running this by the staff, I would probably suggest the planning department as they have the direct tie to the Somerville's coalition for the homeless that can provide us a lot of access to resources. And I think they might be able to not necessarily be the boots on the ground that health and human services and police are in response and be, play more of a facilitator role. All right. So, Joe, let me, if I will permit a modification of your motion. Chair to be named by the town manager. That's fine. Which, with the understanding that it kind of, we're putting the town manager's office on the hook to get it through for next year. That's fine. Members of the board, if I may, I can develop this proposal and codify it into the board's comments so that it's very clear that the board is not just dismissing this issue, but the board is dedicated to establishing a body to study and report on it so that future action as appropriate will be taken, but at this point in time we need more information and we wanna make sure that all of the stakeholders who are most important are represented in that. Mr. Byrne. Thank you very much. And I'm happy to support this and I do think this is the right way to go. I do just wanna put out there that I think that when this was first proposed, I think it was going to be done in a much more compassionate manner than how it's being relayed here. So I don't want to give the impression that we were gonna go and round up all the homeless people down in the encampments and toss them out. It was gonna be a much more compassionate plan and I do trust that the town staff is always excellent in that compassionate manner. So I'm happy to read, look at this, but I just wanted to dispel that. Meth, thank you. Great. Thank you, Steve. Okay, so all of those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. That was Mr. Dunn's motion, correct? All right, second it. I think it was Mr. Carroll. Oh, Mr. Carroll, excuse me, Mr. Carroll. Okay, Warren, article hearings. What? Excuse me. First one up is article 22, bylaw amendment tree preservation bylaw. To see if the town will vote to amend the town bylaws to establish a tree preservation bylaw to preserve or replace trees over a specific size within the setback of private property in cases of significant demolition and or major construction, including providing enforcement measures and or fines for non-compliance or take any action related there to inserted at the request of the tree committee. Go. Good evening, select people. I didn't know if town council was gonna give a summary of his remarks concerning the bylaw first. No. Not normal. No, okay. We have from you first, yeah. Whatever the chairman says. So my name is Susan Stamps. I'm on the tree committee and with me I have co-chair Mary Ellen Arano and Sally Naish also in the tree committee. And the tree preservation bylaw is article 22 before town meeting. It would look to preserve trees as much as possible within the setback of private property during development. This is not about you, Mr. Chair, wanting to take down a tree in your backyard. This is only during major development defined as new construction, demolition, or increase in the footprint of a residence, or actually this applies to either commercial or residential real estate, 50% increase in the footprint. I'd just like to back up and give a little bit of history of why we're here today. This was not on our radar screen until January of 2015 when our resident of Olden Road, Larry Englisher, who's here today in the audience, came to our tree committee meeting and said, all these trees have come down in our neighborhood. Somebody's doing a development. The tree scape is completely gone. I like to go out and walk and it's just not fun anymore. What can be done about it? And we kind of looked at each other and said, well, we have no idea. And we started to hear from other people and we did a little research and we found that Arlington had no regulations at all concerning development. We have lots of regulations concerning development on private property, but we had no regulations regarding protecting trees. Trees just weren't on the radar screen of any of the development bylaws. So we looked around and we saw that actually a lot of cities and towns do have some regulatory role to play in the development of private property when it's concerning trees, including Lexington, Wellesley, Newton, and some other Cambridge and some other towns. So given that I think everyone would agree that the town of Arlington has been under increasing development pressure, the town's pretty built out, but everybody, most people in town have seen tear downs with bigger houses put on and that sort of development. Occasionally you'll have an empty lot next to a developed lot and the empty lot gets developed too. And all that's fine. We're not an anti-development committee, we're a tree committee. And unfortunately what's happening is that more often than not, the lots are getting clear cut. The trees are completely gone. We have pictures from Oldham Road. This happened just last week where a resident notified us, this little ranch house. Used to have all these nice trees on it. I'm sure it was very nice for the people in the neighborhood to walk by. And then this is the after picture where they took down every single tree on the property. Mature trees, 16 or 18 trees, every single one of them. Now we understand that it is easier to develop and they're probably going to be demolishing this house too. This is what our assumption is. And we understand that it's often easier for developers to take down all the trees. It makes development easier, but it's by no means necessary. And we have talked to developers in other towns who have learned how to develop property without taking all the trees down. So anyway, we did our... Can we look at those? Oh, certainly. They are in your packet. They're called Oldham Road. Okay, sorry. But there's a lot of attachments there. There are a lot of attachments, but it's called, what is it? I got it, okay. Yeah, do you see it? There's only two there. We also have another attachment with lots of pictures of before and after around town. So as we started to talk to people about this, we went to the redevelopment board in June. We had a discussion with them. It was clear to us at that point that the town should do something. We researched building permits and demolition permits. And what's happened is that the demolition permits have doubled in the last six years. I think right there, that tells you something. The redevelopment board was interested in what we were doing. We did more research. We came before the select men, you folks, last August. And we said, we think that the town needs a bylaw. We don't really know what else to say, but this is just gonna continue and there's gonna be more and more trees lost if we don't do something that is not gonna win the development. And in the meantime, at last year's town meeting, you may remember that the town meeting adopted the town's master plan, which talks a lot about trees and the importance of trees to Arlington's aesthetics, character, and why people love to live here. In addition, the open space plan was also approved by the, probably by the open space committee, perhaps by town meeting. They also talk about the importance of trees, not on private property, but just in general, people love living in Arlington, partly because it's a leafy town. So we felt that it's time had come. It was time to do something and so the board, you agreed that this might be the case and directed us to direct a town council to work with us to draft a bylaw, which town council is done. We've worked very hard together and the result is Article 22 on the town meeting warrant and we're here today to ask for your support for Article 22. Thank you very much, Ms. Greeley. Thank you for all your work on this. You know, last August when you were here, I believe it was me who asked you to go work with contractors and other people in town who this might affect rather than just individuals on the tree committee. Can you tell me a little bit about that process? Well, we have reached out to a lot of people in town at our tree committee booth at EcoFest, excuse me, a tree committee booth at Town Day and also just last weekend at EcoFest. We had a lot of residents of all different professions living in town and to a person, they were excited about the tree preservation bylaw because everybody had seen clear cutting throughout town. We have, when I was here last time, I talked about beginning discussions with a particular person in town who is, does a lot of landscaping, a landscape contractor who has ties into that community. He's worked with it in other towns. The, we have a person who is trying to arrange a meeting for us. We've been trying for the last three weeks to set up a meeting with the developers. It's very important for us to talk to them. We want to, they may not love it, but I don't think it'll be as bad as they think because it only applies to the trees in the setback, which they can't build in the setback anyway. But so did in the actual drafting of this article, you didn't have any, like you didn't sit down with them and say, you know, why don't we try to work out something that we can both agree with? What we used for the drafting of the article was mostly tree bylaws from other towns. Okay, so no is the answer. And I have talked to a developer who built a house in Arlington several months ago. He is from Lexington. He does some work in Arlington. This particular place on Kiplinger Road is the only property I know about. His name is Mark Barons. He's very bullish on the Lexington tree bylaw, which is much more complicated than ours, by the way. We tried to really simplify it. And he doesn't see, and he is very pro let's development harmony with the environment the way the master plan wants us to. And he thinks it's totally doable. And so as I said, we do, we have heard through the grapevine, through our contacts in the builders community that the builders are they're worrying about all the zoning bylaws. And I hope that we don't get sort of thrown into the mix because what we're proposing is something that's very bland to use the word that somebody on the FinCom used when I talked about it with him. The under the just to briefly explain the provisions, especially for those at home who wouldn't know or remember, it simply says that any trees in the setback of the property, which is the area that you can't build on. And typically it's 20 feet from the back, 10 feet from both sides, and 20, 25 feet from the front of the property. That's the only area that we're talking about. Again, you can't build there anyway. So you've got those trees there. Now, if you're the builder, you can take those trees down, but you have to mitigate. In other words, the town doesn't want to lose its tree canopy because they're in the way of somebody trying to build a house. The bylaw provides that the developer or the owner has to either replace those trees elsewhere on the property or they have to pay into the trees please fund so that the town can replant trees that equal the size of the trees that were lost. And so that way there's no net loss of the tree canopy, but we can still have the development we want in Arlington, it's kind of a win-win. Now, how much will this add on to the costs for people building homes or renovating their homes? All right, so that's a good question. There'll probably be some sort of modest filing fee. They'll be required to take the, anybody looking to develop the property will have to get a tree permit before they can take anything down. If it's going to be a new home or in addition that's gonna increase the footprint more than 50% or is it gonna be a demolition? So this is not somebody wanting to put like a porch on their house or something like that. They would have to file a, the same site plan they're gonna file for their building permit or their demolition permit and they're gonna pay the surveyor an incremental amount to locate the trees on the site plan which surveyor told us that they'd probably charge $10, $15 a tree. I mean, there aren't that many trees in the setbacks in Arlington. So maybe there are 10 trees, so that's $150, $100, $150 for the surveyor. Then they have to pay a certified arborist to submit a tree plan which will go with that site plan explaining what's gonna be done with the trees. This one's gonna be removed, this one's gonna be saved and this one that's gonna be removed, we're either gonna pay into the fund or we're gonna replace it somewhere. So as far as the cost of the certified arborist to do that, typically we checked with a couple of people in Lexington. Typically they charge about $150 an hour, estimate three, four hours, something like that to go out to the site, take a look. Our properties are not that big and then go back and decide what they're gonna do. So overall it would be like say around a thousand, maybe a little more for all this work? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I guess the only other thing that really stuck out to me is the role of the tree warden. It's greatly expanded under this. Potentially to the point where you kind of have to create a new position funded individually. I've been going back and forth on that since I've been reading it to see whether or not, it's even viable at this time. We just had a discussion about what we have to, what we're looking at over the next few years and it does give me some, I do worry about that. And the only other point that I saw in there that really stuck out to me was giving the tree warden access to the property at any time during construction. I just, I think that might be a little too much. You know, I don't think that town employees should be walking around a construction site at any point that they, you know, seem necessary. You know, I think that it has to be a little more straightforward if this is to go through. The, as I understood, this is the first time that I've come before you, before the board asking for support for a warrant article or to make it their own, I think. And the way the process was explained to me was that perhaps you would vote to support it with some amendments, with some conditions. If it's rewritten that way, it becomes your bylaw, your warrant article, and it's written perhaps with the restrictions on when and we would be fine with that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Ms. Maher. Try not to say something that's a pun. I see the beginnings of a good idea here. However, I have an awful lot of concerns in terms of this is something that we really need to fine tune, get a handle on. My first question would be having worked in development with unions, also on the legal side, but I would wanna ask you, and if you can just, you know, I don't, I wanna hear what it is, you all have an answer to the question, and if you don't, that's fine too. But when you go through a construction project and you look at the different facets of it, and I'm just gonna just throw any number in there, but what you do is you look at, okay, here's the cost of doing business. Permits this much, this is how much time that's gonna cost in the project. HVAC, this is how much I need, this is what the work encompasses in terms of time and money, that's what that's going to be. When I look at this proposed bylaw, if this were to take in effect in its entirety, and I know Mr. Burns just touched briefly on an estimate in terms of monetarily what it would cost, what is the time factor associated with getting this all done, and I'd like a to and from. The first time factor would be if everything was smooth as breezy, easy, and went through, it would be this much, if not, it could extend out to as far as, as an estimate. And I know in construction and development jobs you do that, so this would be another task, so what do you estimate the easy to outward end? Okay, well, excuse me, first of all, we're not really asking the developers to do anything new because in order, preparing for a development project, excuse me, one of the requirements of the tree bylaw is to mitigate damage to trees, so they should be protected, like what we did on Massive. Yeah, but you're proposing more steps, you are proposing more steps, more fines, and the second part that I wanna speak about is the extended conversation that we had for over a year, 15 months, led by Mr. Greeley and town manager and town council in terms of coming up with the Selectman's Handbook. I see at least nine different citations, especially in section five, five A, just about all of six, where you outline a particular course of action, and then you say a fine to be termed by the Board of Selectman rules, regulations to be established, determined, and promlegated by the Board of Selectman. So my second question is gonna be the same thing as this one, what are you talking about and how much time? So I would anticipate, and you're asking, just speaking for myself, I'm not speaking for the entire board, but you're asking me personally to sort of take this over, and I'm perfectly capable with you all doing that, but if I were to do that, and any one of us were chair next year, it's a viable question that I would anticipate that you all have sat down in terms of your adding another punch list item or whatever you wanna call it, a benchmark on a development plan, and especially if they were to encompass everything which I have read and everybody else has, but especially in section three, five, and six, taking out what you're asking the Selectman to do, how much time is that? All right, so the developer has to have a survey or draw the trees on the site plan and have a certified arborist prepare a tree plan. Now those are things that they can do any time. They can do that during the couple of weeks, two or three weeks, it takes them to pull together all the information they need for the building permit while the house is being designed, while things are being thought about. I don't see that it adds anything in terms of a timeframe, it's just something that needs to be done. Presumably there already would be thought going into, well, what trees do I wanna take out and how do I wanna protect the trees that are remaining there? So we're not really asking them to do anything new. We're asking them to put it on paper and talk to the tree warden about it, and if they're going to take out trees that for the first time, instead of developers being able to diminish the tree canopy in town, they're gonna have to replace the trees they take out, which I don't think is an unreasonable thing to do, it's not gonna add any extra time. They have, I mean, once a project is finished, normally a developer would be doing the landscaping last, and so the landscaping will be replacing the, include replacing the trees that they took out or paint into the trees please fund, and those trees, there is a timeframe in the bylaw that they have to be planted within 90 days after the occupancy permit, that's certainly something we're flexible on, but it actually is a process which, I don't see that it extends the development process at all. I'm gonna respectfully disagree. Okay. Because I spend a lot of time in this, besides the additional cost and hours of a certified operas, and my thing is for me to feel comfortable, I wanna have the answers to this, so when landscapers, private homeowners, developers come and say, well, what are you talking about, similar to an override or a debt exclusion? I can tell them that. Yeah. You have in here alone, you're talking about the certified operas has to come in, that they have to mock out all trees on the property, 10 inches, DBH greater than that, they have to mock protected trees, then they have to come up with a plan that for every, and correct me if I'm misquoting, for every DBH inch of protected trees that are removed, they have to come up with a plan. I believe it's 90 days after the issuance of another permit that they have to get from the town. So right there, I see a 90 day additional thing, I'll read it exactly. The certificate of occupancy, Ms. Mahan, is what we're talking about. You know what, let me just find it, because I just had my, exactly. So that's another 90 day task, in my opinion, that they have to add into this. Well, it's just giving them a good window to replace the trees, they can do it immediately. Right, but that's what I'm saying, I feel respectfully, you aren't prepared to answer my question, which is, how much additional time, if I say to a developer, not only this is what the estimated cost would be, how much additional time does this add to their development? And that includes a developer who's working on behalf of a private homeowner. And I'm just saying, my cursory glanced through that, I see a 90 day in terms of, you're talking about for every DBH inch removed, this is the process that you have to go through. So, what I would respectfully ask you all to make me comfortable, and not saying you have to do that, because it's, you know, what the rest of the board says, and I would like you, similar to the exercise we go through with other, to me, this is a really, a lot of steps in here, that you sit down and take the time to do that, as well as what the tree wardens position will look like in terms of expanded hours, enforcement and duties, so that we can evaluate similar, I think I'm sort of piggybacking on Mr. Byrne, so that we can say, is this a cost that we can bear, as well as the correct interface between the tree warden and the tree committee to make sure that that's, you know, a harmonious productive relationship, because I've seen history with that. And then my second thing that I'm uncomfortable with, which I'm okay with supporting this, but I want to know what I'm supporting, and I didn't, in my opinion, get an answer to that, and it can be done, and I don't want to sit down and do it, because, you know, this isn't my valley web. I'm not, you know, they could be disrespectful. This is something you all have taken on, and yeah, I'm just a court reporter, but I'm just a court reporter. But I know how to read this stuff. You're talking about adding, you know, a significant amount of days in terms of what developers have to do. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it. But then the other thing that I'm concerned about, and I'll try to be brief, because I know I've already overstayed my welcome, is I would like to see, I would like to hear, and if you can't answer it tonight, and I apologize, I hadn't posed these questions to you before, and maybe I should have, but I see many, many references in sections five and six, where it speaks to the board of selectmen, this close to a dozen that talks about, it lists different scenarios. It lists about eight or nine different scenarios. If this happens, if you remove a train, you shouldn't. If this happens, you removed a tree and you didn't replace it with a parper, DBH inches. You don't want me to stop reading it. It's in here, and here's my concern. Do you have, let me find one, when you, let me find section five, when you say, it's in here where you say the selectmen shall come to and promulgate rules, regulations, and establish any fines, which will then go to the tree funds, and you reference that a half a dozen times in different actions in here. What are the, what is that process, or are you asking this board of selectmen that we need to sit down and say, let's take all these six case scenarios. If this happens, this is what our, because you're asking, you use the words in here. We want you to promulgate, create and promulgate rules and regulations regarding this specific. It's all in section five and section six. Well, thank you for the question. It's a good question. We, there were some, like the Lexington bylaw, if you were to look at that, you would see that they probably don't have to promulgate any rules and regulations, because everything is in there in excruciating detail. I'm not gonna look at Lexington. We didn't feel that that was appropriate for Arlington. What do you want us to do? That's what I'm saying. Because, so that, for example, you don't run into, if we put specifically, well, here's X number of dollars that you have to pay to replace a tree. We didn't do that. We said, here's the amount of money you have to replace a tree based on labor and materials at the time. That's something that can be determined similar to the determinations for the tree removal hearings. Why did we do that? Well, if you look at the chapter 87, the public shade tree law, which governs public shade trees, the fine for cutting down an individual going out and cutting down a big, huge public shade tree without permission is $500, which is completely ridiculous. So we thought that instead of putting some of these time-specific numbers in here, that it made more sense for the board, and it doesn't have to be the selectman, if you want the tree committed to promulgate these rules and regulations, that's fine. We were simply being deferential to the selectman. We do know you're very busy. As far as the fines go, the selectman wouldn't be asked to determine if somebody violated the bylaw, but only determine what the fines would be. Now, we are perfectly happy to sit down and make a proposal as to what the fines would be. And if you want us to put them in the bylaw, we'll put them in the bylaw. We would have to, I think they might be in the stormwater bylaw. It's possible that there are some of our wetlands bylaws. To be honest with you, we haven't had a chance to figure out, we wanna do what the town does with other similar bylaws, which regulate activity on private property, and that includes the stormwater bylaw and the Wetlands Protection Act. So. All right, I think I've monopolized the time and encapsulated to my colleagues. Here's my concern. Reading this with my professional hat on, there are additional days, some could say up to 120 days, in terms of me looking at the different processes that have to kick in here, including the one that I cited, you have to fix it, you have to wait until certificate of occupancy, you have 90 days to do that. And someone can say, well, you know what, you're gonna do things 90 days afterwards. But what I wanna know is what it is we're doing and what it is we're expecting, because it's gonna be another 90 days. You're gonna put some of your HVAC guys off for others. And then it does site in here nine times, I apologize, it wasn't 12, that if you violate this, that we need to come up with the regulations. And it does site other ordinances in Lexington, Cambridge, Newton, Wellesley. But I don't have time to look at all that. I would feel much more comfortable if this was something that I was going to adopt and put forward to town meetings. I remember many years ago, while how did Citizen filed something and everybody in town claimed all building in Arlington would stop. And this is more far-encompassing than that particular article was. So I don't wanna walk down there. So I'm just not comfortable supporting it because I don't know what it is. May I just say one thing about the 90 days? No, I just don't know what it is, I'm trying to- Is it a misunderstanding? No, I'm trying to get to three of my colleagues and I may not, you may have it. That's okay. Sorry, yep. But thank you for being here and going through this and all the work you've put into it so far. But I would just like to ask one point of clarification if I may Dan, did you say something like, but the removal of a tree at $500 is ridiculous? Meaning it would be much more expensive than that? I'm not quite sure what your reference was. That's the fine under the public shade tree law for removing a big, if it was a big 24 inch old tree. And at the very least, the town would wanna replace trees to take its place. You're talking about quite a few trees. If they're three, four inches wide, you're talking about six trees, that's way more than $500 labor and materials. Plus for a fine, you wanna have an incentive for people not to violate the bylaw. Okay, I just wasn't sure what $500 was ridiculous worth referring to, too little or too much, but Mr. Dunn's been waiting. I think I probably have four questions. So the first one, I think you said something a couple of minutes ago that I don't think you meant. So you said that you're not asking the developers to do anything new, I think, but correct. I don't think that's, I mean we are, this bylaw, if passed, would be asking for additional work from developers, yes. Yes, I'm saying it's not a different kind of thing though. I mean, they do the landscaping, they already are doing that sort of thing. All right, but I think when we're talking about this type of thing, the clarity is really important, and especially, well it may be that the argument in favor of it is that it's within the scope and it's not too bad and it's the right thing, it's the right balance, but to say no is contradictory to just what's the black and white. And so I think it's important that we stick with it. All right, I don't think it does depend, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't depend. You have to file the paper, okay, thank you. I wanna explore a couple cases about what the bylaw does because I am seeking clarity on a few of the things. So the no construction case, I've got a tree on my property, I'm not planning any construction for the foreseeable future, and I want to take it down. This bylaw has no effect, correct, okay. I am planning construction and I have trees that are towards the edge of my property, which is specified in what's called the setback area. This bylaw applies to them, but all the trees that I would describe as the center, not on the edges, if this bylaw doesn't affect those trees. Correct. Now if I plan on taking trees that are, say, in the center of my property, but I'm not touching any of the setback, do I still have to file everything? You know, that's a good question because I think that you would need to talk to the tree ward just to make sure everything's okay because the bylaw, because of the clear cutting that's been going on, and yeah, I'm sorry. Doug, do you have the answer? So technically probably not. The problem is what happens if there's a dispute about whether or not you need to submit a tree plan. So if I were the tree warden or if I were a developer, I would want to basically at least have some idea of some confirmation that I don't have protected trees on my, within the scope of my plans. Okay. Yes, and actually I'm just looking at the bylaw again and you're right that unless the trees are in the setback, there's no prohibition against removing them, period. So no, they wouldn't have to go talk to the tree warden. Okay. So one of the things that you briefly mentioned just a minute ago, but I think it's really important because I think it helps us understand more about the bylaw, can you talk about the public shade law and the difference between public trees and private trees and what the public tree protections are that already exist? Because I think those are really important in the context of what this bylaw. Because to me, please correct me if my understanding is wrong, but this bylaw would be a supplement or a different tool, but there is already an existing of this public law. Yes. There is chapter 87, the public shade tree law, which everybody knows about the street trees. They are the trees on the street. I assume we don't. The tree, okay, so. This is actually a really good thing for us to talk about. Okay, great. Because it sets the, what is gonna be talked about at town meetings, so it's a great, let's start with the absolute basics. All right, so the town owns the roads, as far as I know, as well, except for the. Most of them. Private roads. Yeah. And also, as I understand it, and town council will jump in, I hope if I'm wrong, owns an easement into the private property for some, for a ways. The, and typically you have the road, you have a strip of green, then you have the sidewalk, and then you have the person's property. All the trees that are planted in that, what we call the tree strip, which is between the road and the sidewalk, those are all on town property, and those are considered town trees, and they come under the public shade tree law. That's why you see the town going out and planting trees there. And, an individual cannot cut down a public shade tree without permission from the town. And the town is not going to give permission to take down a public shade tree, unless there's a really, really good reason for it. Like it's hanging over the road and endangering someone, or it's diseased, or that sort of thing. And so Doug, correct me if I'm wrong, or do you want to? Go ahead. The tree, so it isn't just the strip, depending upon the road and what's going on, it's inside the sidewalk as well, as in the house side of the sidewalk, in an area without sidewalks, it's a number of feet from the center of the road, something like that. It's a complicated definition, but essentially it encompasses two things. One, trees that are considered to be planted in the public way, and that can be a little complicated, not only because of what constitutes public ways or as private ways, but because of some argument about how far the public way extends into sidewalks and cartilage and things like that. The other thing is shades that are planted pursuant to chapter 87, section seven, which are essentially when people agree that they're gonna have a public shade tree planted on their property. It's a little hard to keep precise track of it, but it's a fairly understandable set of trees. And if I could just go on for one second, there is a process by which folks can petition to have a public shade tree removed. There's actually a fairly, Mr. Rademacher could speak to this, there's a fairly heavy administrative filing fee associated with that, and then there's basically a hearing to determine whether or not the tree should come down or not. The town can take certain measures to cut down a tree, especially in an emergency situation if it poses a public risk. And then that determination can be appealed, and that's usually where the board of selecting would get involved. Thank you. So, I have a, just one, and so one interesting comment about the draft, Doug, is in the severability section, it talks about if this is overruled by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. I think we should probably say any court. Okay. Sure. So kind of in summary, I think one of the things that that set of questions helps clarify to me at least is the scope of what we're talking about, and like when does this kick in and when does this not kick in? And as for the cost, I think that it's worth thinking about the fact that we can make the fee for this, pay for the work that Mike Rademacher's memo describes. So we can make it revenue neutral for the town if we choose, but I do think that the, it's something you got at, Steve, it's really important, which is that it does increase the cost of the development, and that's something we have to think about. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. I think a lot of what I was going to ask has been addressed. I am curious about the costs and getting better handle on the cost estimate. I mean, I particularly, I think of homeowners want to put on an addition, for example, where trees fall into the setback area. I do appreciate the way you frame this though, because clearly this is not a bylaw that's intended to stop. Stop development, or demolition redevelopment. And, you know, from where I sit, also I mean, I think some of the discussion about the public shade law, I mean, we understand that trees do have externalities, negative and positive. Certainly neighbors have rights over a tree that's potentially threatening their property or their land. And likewise, they enjoy the benefits of those as well. So I understand the principle. One question I did have here though, I mean, as far as the tree warden drilling in on that, I think Mr. Dunn raised exactly what I was going to say is that I think that we would have to have a handle on what the permit fee would potentially be that we would have to promulgate. Mr. Rademacher gave us some information that there are probably about 35 to 40 permits a year that would probably fall under the bylaw. He anticipates it would take a tree warden staff member a day, every week, or two. So we have to understand what the cost of that labor is. I don't know if you have that, Mr. Manager, right now, off hand. That divided by the estimated number of permits would give us a sense of what each project would cost. I'll let you work on that, because I got one other question while you're looking at that. The other question I had though, so there's cost to the tree warden, there's also capacity. And I noticed that in the proposed bylaw that the tree warden is obligated to respond within 10 days. Now, in some other situations, I know some zoning board of appeal situations, if you apply to the zoning board of appeals for consideration, I forget what the clock is, but if there is no action taken within a certain period of time, it's deemed, the application is deemed to be approved. And I was wondering if there was any consideration of a similar mechanism in the proposed bylaw, here where if the tree warden does not have the capacity who's not able to act on the application within 10 days that it's deemed to be approved. Is that question for me or for these? Either, yeah. Well, we don't have anything in the bylaw on that. I don't know what the precedent is in town for that. You mentioned that you think there are some zoning bylaws that say that. I don't really, I don't necessarily have an objection to dealing with it in the fairest way possible, both to the developers and to the town, remembering the value of trees. I don't know if Town Council has something to say about that. Sure, so I mean, I think there would be some principles of equity involved, just to make a general comment, part of the tension with any bylaw like this is specificity versus flexibility. And so I do wanna give some support to the tree committee in the sense that I was tasked with working with them. And I think I recognize all of the concerns that the selectmen are raising is very important, but it's always difficult to strike the right balance on a first draft to spend like this between how specific do you wanna be so that every correction to a tree bylaw, if our experience is that it's not working the way we want it to, needs to go back to Town Meeting to amend it versus regulations, although as Ms. Mohan has highlighted, all that regulatory sort of burden has been placed on the selectmen. So I just, with that said, there's probably be some principles sort of of equity. If the tree warden doesn't approve a plan that's been submitted to them, would you have a pretty strong case to say you can't go ahead and find me? Let's say we determined that we wanted to find a certain amount of dollars per day of non-compliance. It'd be hard to make that argument if the tree warden didn't do their job. But I think that it's something that we could work into this if the selectmen were so inclined to favor action. I don't think it'd be that difficult to basically insert something that reflects. I think what you're talking about is mostly actually zoning law itself rather than, broader zoning law rather than specific bylaws that if you don't act on it within a certain period of time, you have a legal right under 48 to a permit. So I think we need that. Right, right. But I'm wondering if there is a reasonable way to work a similar mechanism into this. Oh yes. If the tree warden was hit with five applications in the same week, it would potentially be impossible to respond within the 10 days. And I think that having a mechanism like that may go some way towards addressing some of the additional timelines that are placed on projects. I think they could easily be done, yes. Especially taking out some of the potential uncertainty. That was a lot of my questions were actually already asked. I think that Mr. Dunn's questions kind of got at the scope. I mean, what I do like about this is that it really is not telling people that they can't take down trees. Right. It is recognizing the externality and the benefit. I also have to say that on principle, I do actually think that it's proper to keep the fees and fines with the Board of Select. Well, we do that in other cases. And that costs change over time and the value of money changes over time. And I think it makes sense when we come and revisit this that that's one of the things that we revisit. So thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I have 16 questions. Which I'm not going to ask. All those in favor? So I mean, really a lot of things have come out. You've done a lot of work and you've tried to do it. And you know, certainly showing deference to us and I appreciate that. But I just, so let's take the Oldham Road pictures you've shown us, okay? Is it possible that the tree warden would have said okay to those trees that have been removed without a tree wardens? Okay, is that possible? If the developer wanted to take all those trees out, the tree warden would have said, okay, it's just that they would have had to pay into the trees please fund for the town to replace the number of so-called protected trees of 10 inches or bigger that were in the setback so that the town can plant the same kind of trees that are going to end up with the same tree canopy as was lost during development. But meaning the same size tree, so if it was a 30 foot tall tree, that's what has that 30 foot tall tree has to be put in its place? Well, I've learned quite a bit about the way trees are measured in the process of this. Well, what I learned was that they measure them as far as I know more in terms of the width of the tree called the diameter of breast height. I didn't want to say the diameter. And that's the diameter of the tree. And so the, it's what other towns have done and what we do here is we talk about a 10 inch tree or tree of any DBH being replaced by any number of trees, the total of which is equal to what was taken out so that if you take out a 12 DBH tree, you can replace it with four smaller trees or three slightly larger trees or anything. Do we know what's happening at this Old Ham Road property? In other words, do we know it's coming in in its place? Well, we're assuming they're gonna demolish the house next. It's owned by a, But you don't, you're assuming. Okay, no, we don't know. We don't know. So, But it's not occupied as far as the neighbors say. It's what? It's not occupied as far as the neighbors are telling us. Right, see, I believe that whatever's gonna replace this is gonna be a lot better for the neighbors than what exists right now. I'd venture the taking down of trees if these people maybe intend to do so, but the design of what they're putting in there. So, my real discomfort with this is without talking to developers, without talking to those who built houses, I really wanna talk to them before, because this could be an example of after we put this whole thing into effect, not just before, do you know what I mean? It's possible, what was done here might have been approved in the new bylaw, right? Well, with respect, I do believe that some of those trees in that picture are in the setback, so they would be protected. They could still take them out, but then they'd have to pay into the fund to, for the town to plan elsewhere, or they'd have to put them elsewhere on the property. So, That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so they do that. No, they don't do that. During development, they might, but they're not required to. You're missing my point, so. Okay. I'm saying the bylaw is in effect. Yes. What I'm saying is this still could happen with the bylaw in effect. Correct. That these people remove those trees because of the design of whatever they're putting in, it's gotta be better looking at what I'm looking at in this picture. I know it tends to, you're telling me it's deserted, right? And they fully intend to meet that same inch capacity trees that, I'm sorry, I forgot to do that. DBH diameter and breast height, I didn't want to say the full thing. DBH 12 inches with four, three DBH inches. So what I'm saying is this still could happen in under the bylaw, correct? Yeah, but what we know under the bylaw will happen will be that those trees will be replaced, which can't happen now, which won't happen now. It can happen. We, it could happen, but only if the developer. What they're doing here, right? You told me that. You don't know what the plan is. Their plan might be to replace these trees they took down. Well, it depends on whether it's important for the town to know we want our trees replaced or it's up to every developer. Okay. And we don't know what trees in the setback were actually removed or if none of them, they're all, I'm counting some, so I don't know. Okay, so anyhow, this is a hearing. Are there any questions we've missed or anybody here who would wish to speak on this matter? Yes. No, you've got to come to the microphone slide. Millions at home listening in. Right, okay. Half are asleep at this point. Mom, dad, wake up. Speak right into the microphone. Okay, everybody can you hear? Yeah, so I think this is a really important bylaw and a lot of time has gone into thinking through this as carefully as possible, but of course leaving open in deference to the board of selectmen certain decisions. We looked very carefully at other towns who seem to have gone through very similar processes, developed very clear and thoughtful bylaws that are designed to balance the interests of the existing residents who have a concern about their community and to enable developers to come in and build smartly, sensibly, carefully and thoughtfully. What we've seen in our neighborhoods are developers who are coming in with no regard for the neighbors or the town, destroying all these very, we're talking very large trees. This bylaw was written for trees that are 10 inches in diameter at breast height or larger. We're not talking about little trees and the height of these trees, I can't even estimate the height of the trees that we have lost. They're way, way over the heights of the houses and so I think we've seen what's happened without a bylaw. So this particular property, everybody can, we can't say for sure what is the developer gonna do at that particular property, but we can say what's happened at other properties and what we've seen is that people come in, clear the entire lot when they are not building in the setbacks, they do it just for their convenience, it's easy and then people are left with virtually no trees in the neighborhood and when they do replace a tree or two, they put a tiny little tree in the front and they sell the house for over a million dollars. I think the cost of, somebody said a thousand dollars, I don't even know that it's that much, but if it is a thousand dollars, it is a tiny, marginal, negligible addition to the cost of development. The developers will continue to make lots and lots of money, but the purpose of this bylaw is to just introduce, to discourage removing trees that aren't necessary, but allow the trees that are necessary to be removed, to allow the development to go into place and then to make the contribution back to the community to improve the, to restore the tree canopy. I think it's very sensible, you've raised a lot of good questions and I think that the tree committee expected that there would be some, you know, little bits of fine tuning that would move forward, but it's really something that is, it's time has come and I would just urge you to give it the best consideration that you can. Okay, all right, okay, okay, all right, thank you, yeah. So I feel like I'd like the police on what's being said here today, but I do just want to say, you know, these, the people who are building homes in town, we're not talking about massive developers that are building high rises in downtown Boston either. A lot of these people who are building homes in town live in Arlington, they've also given quite a bit to the town. So I think that we're really kind of demonizing quite a lot of people who play an active role in our community as well, and I think that's important to note. And I will go on to, I don't think, I'm quite ready to vote on this yet. I know that a lot of work has gone into it, I think, and I know the three committee worked very diligently on this, but I think that we have to expand the scope of who comes into formulating this bylaw. And I think that it has to go beyond just the three committee. And what worries me is that, you know, I'm earlier in the evening with Sam's noted that she was going to, you know, she's in the process of setting up these meetings. Well, you know, since August we, this was on the radar to hold these meetings with people who are impacted by this, and it just didn't happen. And now we're here voting on it and something that is going to play a large, you know, we'll have an impact on a group of individuals and town residents that, you know, I feel like they should have a say in it. So I will vote, I'll move no action at this time. No action or table, no action. Either one, I'd vote for no action. I'll second that. And if I could just say, I'm not trying to discourage the process, but I liken this to when we had issues with snow plowing. I know I sat on a committee and we brought in the, and town manager, Mr. Rademaco was there and we brought in the people that were getting demonized on the streets, the big bad subcontractors and guess what? We came up with a great plan that worked in terms of cutting back corners and getting the bike path plowed. When we went through the leaf blower issue, I know Mr. Grealy and I and again, the previous people cited. I have to bring these things up. I have to, but what I'm saying is I see this as that sort of an issue and how do we get it so that in the end it's, we have the actual product that we want. So the reason why I'm supporting Mr. Burns' motion and also saying it's not undoable, and believe me, I know contracting, getting everybody down with the leaf blower issue, which really sort of got the town out, very strong feeling both ways. I think in the end that Mr. Grealy and I and others we came up with, first of all, we sat down with all those contractors, landscapers that we were demonizing, heard from them and we crafted the best possible compromise and I want to kind of replicate that. What we did with the big bad snow plow contract, subcontractors, big bad landscapers, I'd like to. And I'm not asking you all to do anything that I haven't done myself and I think it's a good thing. I think you'll all meet and I'm not saying you have to meet a lot, as Mr. Chaplain, I'm meeting subcommittee meeting phobia. I don't see why you couldn't get it done maybe in one or two meetings. So that's why I'm seconding the motion. Okay, Mr. Guerrero. I'm not prepared to support a vote of no action. I would feel more comfortable if we tabled this for one meeting and trying to get answers. Some of these questions, specifically a better bead on what the cost is to the individuals looking to build on their property would have to trigger the bylaw, the answer to the cost on the tree wardens time and what that would indicate for a potential permit fee. Potentially some recommendations around the fees and fines here and maybe a clearer timeline of what this adds to a project's timeline, which I think would probably have to be developed in conjunction with contracts as professional builders to have a good accurate one. If we could table this for one meeting and have that information in front of us, I feel like it would be a more balanced vote. I mean, we would have the information we're looking for to make a decision. Mr. Dunn. I assume we are not ready to vote no action at this time. I would like to get this done somehow. I would, I think it would be, I would love to hear more about what the, but what are the things that are standing between us and yes and seeing what, if we can ask the committee or other groups to come to them. I think that seeking the input from the developers or another affected people, I agree, is something that's really important and needs to be included in this. One thought that I just had is we just go through the last 15 demo permits and call each person with a five, say, do you operate in Lexington? Do you operate under this? What if our LinkedIn poll created a law like this? What would you think? And just try to figure out what flaws it's got that we can fix before it gets to town meeting. So I've actually even willing to give it more time, I think, Mr. Currow, then one more meeting. And then even, and I'm even willing to say, it could be something like we're not, it doesn't make the print deadline for our report and we issue a supplemental or something like that. If that's what it takes, this is an unusual enough issue. But I, and I'll tell you the things that really motivate me are the photos of, can you remember the name of the street? Is it Spring Valley? The one that's on Lord Mystic? Spring Valley, yes, with all the- That's just one of those things. You shouldn't build like that. There's just no reason that you should take down all those trees before you do that. Everybody on that lake is missing those trees for the water quality, for the visual aesthetics and all those things. And without demonizing, I just don't think that should have happened. And for those reasons, I wanna get it done. So I come down on the same, I wanna get this done. I think there's the root of- That's the one I didn't wanna say, the root. But you know, so, you mentioned that the leap lowers things, but I really wanna hear from a developer. So I mean, I really feel that's important. Those that this most directly affects or a homeowner as well, who's going through this process. But when we had the leap lows, we included those who wanted absolutely a complete ban against them. And the professional landscapers who use them the most. And that took us a year. I don't want this to take us a year. But so right now we have Mr. Burns' motion of no action seconded by Mrs. Mahan. So let me take that vote, which I think is about to fail. And then let me see if there's another motion. I see how this is going. I'll pull that motion, but I do think that it's important that we get all of this information as quickly as possible, but at the same point that enough work can go into it. So we don't just get this information hastily enact a policy. I think that there has to be a bit of a deeper dive before we do implement something. So you're completely- Can we move to table versus policy? Can we move to table, which means move to table, no time set. And if and when the time comes that we get all this information and we're ready to support it, we could take it off the table and support it. If we move to postpone, I don't want to give them an unfair burden of getting all these things done in two weeks. So if, can- I think that's completely reasonable. Can I second your motion to table? Is that okay? I think we are willing to take a two week deadline. Do you think what, Susan? I think we would reach a two week deadline. Table. So if you're ready in two weeks, you're ready in two weeks. We're just tabling. We're not tabling to a time specific, okay? All right. So all those in favor of the motion by Mrs. Mahan, seconded by Mr. Byrne. To table, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. The good news is the next one won't take so long. Don't say that. It could. It could. There's not any strong feelings on this one either. What do you call it to order if you could call on me after you announce what it is? On the next, the next article you're saying? Yes, okay. So, all right. So the next article is Article 30, the transfer of town property one Gilboa Road. So, just see if the town will vote to transfer the ownership and care and custody of the land and structures located at one Gilboa Road currently owned by the town of Arlington to the Arlington Housing Authority for the perpetual use of the same for affordable housing purposes and compliant with all terms and conditions such that the affordable housing developed and occupied their arm meets the Commonwealth's requirement for inclusion in the town's subsidized housing inventory and further to authorize the Board of Selectment and any other municipal entity required by law to seek the approval of the general court, all as required by Article 97 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights to remove said one Gilboa Road from the protection of Article 97 and as permitted by Article 97, authorize the placement of a conservation restriction or other instrument protecting an equivalent or greater land area for conservation purposes identified as a portion or total of the Arlington's Great Meadow and located Lexington, Massachusetts or rather sufficient land area identified by the town and further to authorize the Board of Selectment to take whatever steps are necessary to accomplish and fulfill the goals of this article or take any action related there to inserted at the request of John Belchis and 10 registered voters who I'll call on in a minute. Mr. Dunn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My house is within 500 feet of the Gilboa house and my back windows look out on the conservation land. I'm gonna recuse myself from this vote. Locked. How many trees do you see out that window? John. John. Tinglin with the anticipation, buddy. For those who have forgotten who I am, John Belchis, town meeting member precinct 18 and the author of this particular warrant article. I've been to two other board meetings. I met with the finance committee. I don't know if they've offered any opinions back to the select board and I've met with the conservation committee and I'm aware of the decision that they came to and provided to the board. You all know I have a thing about 40B. They say, well, what's this got to do with transferring land? Unfortunately, it has to do with our protection against 40B. I provided you a small package, about 20 minutes reading. You've been so busy tonight, I won't bother testing you on it. We just refer to it if you come up with any questions on this. So let's get to article 30 and what it brings to the board. I formulated this with the aid of a few citizens and thankfully town council and we are fortunate to have Doug as our town council because his involvement and willingness to participate, he really brings a lot of good to the town. Thank you. So where am I with this? First off, I gave you a lot of detail about my feelings about 40B. We're inheriting this because of a lack of participation by the state legislature, but that's something that we don't have total control of. Allington has probably done more than most towns as far as affordable housing. I met with the state inspector general about a year ago, gave him the details. We were working on another bill but gave him the details of what we've done here in Allington with the housing corporation. Bylaws were passed, which we can't get the legislature to get out of committee. We have perpetuity of all the units that are developed under a comprehensive permit. That's not in the state regulations. We can't get it in the state regulations. We offered inclusionary zoning as a means for improving our affordable housing performance. We can't get that out of committee at the state house either. Interestingly enough, I've placed the bill two sessions in a row now seeking to emulate what Connecticut has already done, which raises the ante on 40B and the developers will have to provide at least 30% of the units as affordable as opposed to the meager 20 and 25% that they currently work under. I guess it was about the fifth 40B type article before this board. You've always supported me in the past and interesting enough, the town meeting has supported me on those articles. Some of them get lost because they don't take effect right away. One of my interesting experiences at the conservation commission was after all the discussion about the impact of this article or how they felt about it, the last item that they came to after their vote that they provided to you people was a bylaw that we passed back in 2002, I believe, that would have gone a long way to helping some of this stuff in that it stipulated to the conservation commission when they receive a major project can nail the developer for, well, if we're not gonna have any problems with the wetlands, and this is very important down it. The Mugas site, if you're going to clean it up so we're not gonna have any problems, you'll have no problem posting a bond of 20% of the value of the project, which the town will keep for five years, and if we don't have any problems, then we're assured that your plan was right. If you do have problems, the owner of the property affected has means to recover the damages. I'm hoping, though they didn't take a vote on it, some of them seem surprised that it even existed. I'm hoping that they will take a vote on it when we get around to the Mugas project coming for the ZBA, because I think that'll be very meaningful in the process. A little bit about the SHI process, substitute these subsidized housing inventory. That's the process that I focused on when I get involved in this, and what led me to one Gilboa Road. I do, and I've provided you folks the numbers before you've supported it. You've even supported it to the fact that we've brought it before the ZBA and said, I'll let this surpass the 1.5 which we were able to deny a pyramid. Totally comfortable? No, because the thing has a lot of side aspects that we don't always know about. How I got to one Gilboa Road, part of my manual research, and this is going manually through all the records involved. Town assesses records, I look at what the state has, what the federal government has, registry of deeds listings, because there are discrepancies. And that's when I come up with Mount Gilboa and I go and look at the deeds that are recorded at the registry. The land of one Gilboa is our one property. Owned by the town of Allington. And here's where we run into problems. There is nothing on any of the related documents that indicate that this is protected by Article 97. And that's a concern. Doug, fortunately, when we were putting this together, my original article didn't have 97 in it. He said, look, this could be a problem. Why don't we come up with a process that expedites the ability to do this? And I went along with that, but maybe I'll be filing a substitute motion on this come town meeting, depending on what happens here this evening. I spent a couple of hours today talking with people at the Department of Environmental Protection. One of them was the author of one of the pieces in your folder about town obligations. In order to protect conservation land. I hate to tell you folks, and I hate to tell the Conservation Commission, we have not done a good job. This stuff is not recorded the way it should be recorded to keep it as conservation land. That's a scary thing. Because in addition, I have some other pieces, I think should be under conservation protection because we do need the land, we need the open space, and we should be protecting it. It's not protected, and there's been law cases about it. But the people at DEP are pretty emphatic that unless this stuff is recorded, one of the comments that came up and Doug brought to my attention, he said, well, if it was ordered a town meeting when they purchased this, that it was to be conservation land, so be it. Unfortunately, it never got in the recorded deed. Now, that's not a hopeless case. That can be fixed. I talked to the author of one of the documents in your folder that said, we can fix this. But when we talked about what I was doing and why I was doing it, she said, gee, you've got a win-win situation. You can, in fact, keep it as conservation land with the house on it dedicated as affordable. I think the words were, a conservation restriction can cover all or part of a property. So we can say, okay, this is our affordable housing unit. And what I was looking to gain was the acreage involved because that goes with the house and it adds to our base. Is that the end of the story? There's things that we haven't done here in Allington that we should be doing, and it's not just Allington. The state is also remiss. I went through Secretary Galvin's office. We got two very important aids from him. We've been trying for years to find out how many units of 40B housing were created in the state and they were reluctant to release it. Don't ask me why, but we've long had suspicions about the numbers that are quoted by the various agencies about how many units have been created by 40B. It's a sad story. They told us there's 59,000 units of affordable housing developed with 40B. When you look at the XL spreadsheet, they provided me. It probably could have been done by a high school senior. It was loaded with duplications, same property, over and over and over, contributing to this 59,000. You take that out, oh my God, we're down below 45,000. And in addition, they have all the rental property in there. People tend to forget the rental property has counted 100% as affordable, but only 20% of the units have to be affordable. So what are the other 80%? Why, their market rate. If I take that number out, it appears we're somewhere in the order of a little over 34,000 units in the 47 years of its existence. And if you annualize it, 40B has produced two units of housing per each city and town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 47 years. That's sad. And we can't get bills through the legislature. So right now the appearance is that- John, sorry. Thank you for all that. But what's your one article? What is it you wanted- I want- What we haven't done or what was, Dave, please. Sorry. Fair thing. You've been through a lot tonight. Well, I think there's a lot that also I've sent them to say. My point is, why not do the transfer? Why not have that available as part of our base? And talking to the people with DEP, it is with an outpower of the town. We still have our hands on this. We can move it any way we want. We in no way jeopardize the conservation aspect. So I guess I'd like to see us go forward with the transfer of, we still own it as a town. Hopefully we can work with the conservation commission and make sure they understand what has to be done to protect all their conservation property, which is not protected today. Thank you for the time. Hopefully a consideration is favorable. So two questions I'd like to ask. Does housing authority want it? Have you spoken with them? It was kind of a chicken and egg thing. I got to find out whether you people, how you feel about it. Could they have a different opinion? I don't know, I'm perfectly willing to go to them once I have a sense that this could possibly happen or we'll get to town meeting on the basis that it's something that we're very much interested in doing. I know there are issues about the house. It needs a lot of work. How do we fund that? I don't care whether they'd even want it. It's rental property right now. Right, yep. Okay, thank you. Whether the individual layer qualifies for an affordable, that's another issue. Okay, thank you. Doug, what about the issue of does it not protect the conservation land? So I think that John, I don't know, especially this agreement here, the town meeting vote reflects that it was meant to be conservation land, very specifically. I think you may be right that it's not recorded. Mount Gaboa was acquired actually over a period of over 25 years, it wasn't all acquired at one time. Some of it was acquired by eminent domain. Some of it was acquired by third party negotiated transaction. In this case we acquired it from the Arlington, we acquired it from the trust for public land. And the town meetings vote is pretty clear to me that it provides enough evidence that an article 97 specifically doesn't say anything about deed restriction. Article 97 just says property acquired for this purpose falls under article 97. Now there's a case that John I think is aware of that references the issue of what happens when it's not recorded. But in that case the acquisition by that town meeting specifically said that it had to be recorded and it wasn't. So I think there might be some dispute about it. In my mind it's at a bare minimum. Well I think it is article 97 protected. Respectfully I think that at a bare minimum you wouldn't want to proceed with this type of transaction without following all the steps required by article 97 because you'd be prone to litigation about it and a lot of uncertainty for the Arlington Housing Authority for us. So I think that it's protected by article 97. I understand that there is some legal dispute about this but in my opinion we would want to follow all the steps in order to make sure that article 97 was complied with. Okay, all right. So first of my colleagues, questions, comments, anybody, nothing? I think I'd like to hear from the proponents. Okay. Okay. All right, thank you. As long as it's not repetitive for each proponent. Right, so who would like to speak on this matter? One person. Well hello, who would like to speak on this matter? Please come up and stand in line behind the microphone. Give your name and address and if you would, your position. Hello, good evening. Kristin Shown, 93 Madison. Thank you for hearing all the sides. I understand it has to be Wade. I just want to be crystal clear that woods and open space are crucial. It's like Frederick Law Olmsted Central Park in New York. I know that Arlington's a far cry from Manhattan but it's important to protect those spaces. So I respectfully request no action for tonight. You know, it wasn't actually Frederick but you know the Olmsted agency designed the gardens. I know, I know, he's all over, yeah, no. Shout out. Thank you. Next. John Gersh, Kipling Road. I'd like to say this does seem like a win-win situation to me and that I don't think any harm will come to Mount Goboa and could stand to protect Arlington from 40B development which has been sort of a blight as far as I can tell on the whole town, the entire town is all. What, whoa, whoa, what's the blight? We don't have any 40B, what's the blight? You don't have to look any further than the development that's like at the bike path and Brattle Street that is, I mean, the nature of the development that I've observed is you shoehorn as much in the 40B by the, yes, Brattle Street. Yeah. Okay, no, thank you. No, no, I forgot that, yeah. Yes. My name is Charlotte Oswitch. I'm with Precinct 21. I'm on Westmoreland Avenue and Westminster. My children walk through the woods through Mount Goboa, a two minute walk to Pierce Elementary School if we lost the conservation land at this point. It's a loss for the town and for the next generation. Thank you. Okay, thank you, bye. My name's Genevieve Oba. I live at 42 Summit Street. My kids also go to Pierce Elementary and I'm in Precinct 21. I'm in those woods every day as are my boys as were they this afternoon. I really, when I first moved to Arlington 12 years ago, one of the things that attracted me to Arlington is the amount of green space that is in this town. And I certainly decided to stay in this town and move closer to woods because of their existence. The current structure that's there is very unassuming. It sort of blends right into the woods. I just don't think that it makes sense to transfer it to affordable housing. I don't think it makes sense to pit these two against each other. Conservation and affordable housing should, it doesn't, it just, yeah. It's upsetting to me. So I really hope that you vote no action. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sue Dockrow. I live on Westminster Ave. I wrote you a letter. I'm gonna try not to repeat it. Just first of all, as a resident, obviously I wanna protect the conservation land that I see from my house. But I have broader reasons for opposing this. I did wanna say that I really admire Mr. Belsk's commitment to this issue. I know his intentions are good, but I feel that this just isn't the right solution for our town. I feel like removing even just this 1.7 acres from conservation protection will make the character of the woods vulnerable. I understand that the proponent has no intention of removing the house. But I think he can't promise that when the land is removed, when the protection's removed, anything can happen, really. It's been unclear to me too if the state would accept a 1.7 acre lot with one house as evidence for commitment to affordable housing. Because I mean, my house is on a lot that's a 10th of that. And that's a lot more typical of the density of the community. So I'm concerned about that. Whether it would be a questionable claim, one house on such a large lot. The other thing is that I think the effect of this transfer on our 1.53% would be pretty small. So I'm using these numbers, 3.41 acres of affordable housing divided by 1893.9 acres of allowable residential land. I think those are the town figures. And that's how we get 1.53%. So if you use those numbers, 1.7 acres is 0.09%. So it's not really increasing it a lot. So I would oppose this plan even if it were 5%. So I'm really speaking, it doesn't really matter if it's only 0.09% to me. But the prospect that would have only add 1.09%, it just makes a justification even less convincing. And then the last thing I wanted to say is that at the conservation commission meeting, Mr. Belskis explained that our affordable housing percentage is fluid, property can be taken out of affordable housing. It could drop back down. But he also said that there's several pending projects that aren't included. And I hope I understood correctly. I think what he said is that he thought those pending projects could bring it up to about 2%. So, and I know that there's a development on my street, Westminster, which was not included in the 1.53. So I guess my point is that given that we've achieved 1.53 and that we have other projects, kind of lined up to contribute to that, I would hope that adding 0.09% is not considered important enough to justify a loss of conservation protection because this is really a unique wooded space in our town. So thank you very much. And I hope that you'll consider a vote of no action. Thank you, Mr. Belskis. A completely new side to this argument, right? No. That's, I wish, I'm sorry. My name is Jean Diaz and I live at 79 Crescent Hill Avenue just two blocks away. Just two blocks down from Mount Gilboa and the house and the conservation land. And I moved to Arlington specifically because of the trees and I appreciate the conversation about the trees and the conservation land, specifically being right in the midst between Great Meadows and Mount Gilboa and the reservoir. And I have a deep appreciation for what that brings to the quality of life in Arlington. And therefore I do appreciate also, Mr. Belskis, concerned for, and your concern on the board for the affordable housing in Arlington. But I also am very concerned that this article would put into jeopardy the land that is conservation land there right now. And so I recommend not supporting this warrant going forward. Thank you. Sorry, I got into the line, but I'm hearing a lot of the same arguments that I'm probably gonna make. My name is Elizabeth Costa-John. I live on Westminster Ave. I think I was surprised to hear that Arlington would consider changing conservation land into housing of any kind. And I was really disappointed and surprised because I think we have such gems of green space. You know, Monotomy Rocks Park, Mount Gilboa, they're just gorgeous spaces that some towns don't even have. And I was just surprised to even contemplate putting any changes or additional housing in such a valuable asset. And then I also wanted to reiterate, I think Mrs. Doctorow's point of the, how little this would really make a difference to housing, but how big a difference it would make to Arlington because again, working with the numbers that Mr. Belskis provided, I came with the calculation that it would increase our percentage by six or actually seven hundredths of a percent. Point zero, zero, zero, six, seven. So it's so marginal and it's not really making a huge difference in effecting housing, but where we're putting it is really gonna affect town, I think in a really negative way. So I just wanted to point that out. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Dr. Brenda Phillips. I live at 82 Orient Ave. I'm a developmental and cognitive psychologist, so I approach this from a personal level in that I live only two blocks from the park and utilize it on a daily basis. My daughter attends peer school, so we walk the adjoining space of the park to school every day. And so I'm concerned, I attended the conservation committee meeting and I heard the argument and certainly support affordable housing. I think it's an issue that we need to address. At the same time, it concerns me greatly, but we're talking about one unit. And as the argument has been made, it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to move on this to move the conservation land or remove that status given that. And given also that the housing authority has not supported this warrant. I mean I haven't, that same question was posed at the conservation committee meeting. And I'm surprised that there's not an answer on that question this evening. That being said, from an empirical standpoint, there's about 20 years of good solid research, tightly controlled studies that show having access to trees, having access to nature is very important for children's development and adult development as well. And what's particularly interesting about this research is that it's not about being immersed in nature, but simply having the access to that landscape. So the fact that children at Pierce School look out onto that hillside every day, I guarantee has, I don't have data to back that up. I'd be happy to run a study to look at that, but I guarantee you it would show that they are getting some benefit because there are studies that show that children who play outside at recess at schools that have access to views of trees perform better in school. So it's not only about their social-emotional development, it's about their cognitive development and cognitive gains in the classroom. So I know it's late, I will stop there. So, Doctor, thank you. What about the social development of the members of this board here that you've observed tonight? Well, I'm actually, you're her favorite. You're her favorite. I will say one thing. I'm surprised you're not drinking coffee because I believe it's going to be late. Coffee? We love this water, and you're buying it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Actually, you know, my father served at this board for 19 years, actually 1974 was the last year. But you can't see, but up here we have cabinets. Literally, they had alcohol in those cabinets. They smoked. So you'd imagine as these meetings went on with that, I mean, sir, sorry, please. Rob Carter, residence at 31 Summit Street, which is on the slopes of Mount Gilboa. I moved there, bought my wife and I bought a house there because of that conservation land. And that was 1988, which was a while ago. And we were dues-paying members of the Mount Gilboa Neighborhood Association. It was instrumental in obtaining that top parcel. And we support that. And I'm a firm believer there's a reason in 4DB for trading off units for land. There's one land area and units get traded off because if you have the land area reserved, it's possible to build on it in the future. And so I voice that concern. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Yes, hi. Good evening, Allison Norton, Six Crescent Hill Avenue. I'm sorry, where which? Six Crescent Hill Avenue. Thank you, Crescent Hill. Yep, thank you. I will be repetitive, I apologize, but I will be quick. I live one house away from the woods, so it's very important to me that these are conserved. I also work with a lot of disadvantaged people, people who are homeless, don't have a lot of money for housing. So both these issues are very important to me. At the end of the day, it just doesn't seem to be a great benefit to the people who need the affordable housing to potentially lose the conservation status. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Suzanne McLeod, I live at 61 Madison. A lot of the thoughts I have have been spoken. I'm impressed with the amount of research that's gone into both sides of this and have been reading and reading and learning and learning. It doesn't seem to me that the benefits of transferring the property outweigh the costs. It appears to me to be short-sighted. It does encourage me to think more creatively and I hope everybody about how to do kind of the kinds of projects that were done at Westminster earlier this year. Existing properties, existing developed land be made into affordable housing. I don't see that the Mount Gilboa land will benefit affordable housing as much as it will cost all of us emotionally and also wildlife habitat, it's part of a corridor. I see a lot of coyotes, turkeys, raccoons, fisher, cats, hawks, owls, it's important land. So I urge a no-action vote. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, good evening, thank you for your time. My name is Chris Rowell. Actually moved to Arlington about a month and a half ago. We live at 88 Westminster Ave. We're really excited to be here in the town. Certainly not excited to hear that we're gonna lose conservation land as that was one of our major reasons to move here was the balance to have access to public transportation, the Arlington Heights shops that are in walking distance as well as a balance on the other side of the street of having conservation land, we can take our dog and take our seven month old daughter who will soon be toddling around up there. So I support all the comments from my neighbors. I also wanna point out that hasn't been discussed yet is that the transfer of land potential from Arlington to another community of Lexington seems really awkward and don't see how moving something from here to there benefits our community. So again, I am against the article. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome to Arlington. Thanks. Hang around, I don't believe that land is going anywhere myself. I'm an Arlington resident for almost 10 years and have the same reaction and the extreme concern about this property being brought out of conservation. And one of the issues that came up in the conservation commission, and forgive me if I don't voice this as articulately, is that it's the parcel in the middle that's involved with the potential movement out of conservation and what could happen to that parcel of land once it's out of conservation is out of the control of conservation. But it would affect the surrounding parcels as I understand it. And so you would maximize the, it would affect the parcels around that property. So to get one piece of, to get one more unit of affordable housing, you're affecting and in effect fragmenting this continuous piece of land. So I certainly vote for no action. Okay. Thank you. Hi, I'm Pam Hallett. I'm Executive Director of the Housing Corporation. I also happen to be tenant at the Gilboa House. But I don't want to speak about that part of it. What I do want to say though is I find it a little bit underhanded to try and keep layering all kinds of vacant land into to be able to defeat 40B. We have a thousand households on our waiting lists that are desperately looking for affordable housing. We were talking earlier tonight about the fact that we have homeless living in Arlington. What we ought to be doing is looking at how we can create more affordable housing in areas that need to be redeveloped because they're underutilized at this point. And I think that is really important to take to heart here in this discussion. I also want to say that the house does need a lot of work and that I know from experience, particularly in last year's winter, that being stuck up there is really difficult. I have an all-wheel drive vehicle. Anyone who has to walk down that driveway or drive without all-wheel drive will be really in a difficult situation trying to get out of there in a bad storm. So putting a less wealthy family there would put an undue burden on them, I believe. And I also think that people need to know that the neighborhood sort of walks through the land every day. I must see minimum 50 people, dogs, children. It's wonderful, elderly families, but they do walk right up the driveway, right through my backyard and right down into the land, which I don't have a problem with. Sometimes people complain that they can see in my windows, but that's their problem, not mine. So, but I do think you need to look at this in sort of a holistic way is it is not appropriate for someone that doesn't have resources to live there. And I think you need to just be careful about sort of trying to solve one problem by messing up a really beautiful resource that this town has. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Hi, good evening. My name's Jennifer Brown. I'm at 51 Orient Ave. I think my stance on the issue is that I moved here in August, and the reason why I moved here was because of the green space and access to public transit that's available within Arlington. For me, I don't actually have children in the Arlington school systems are fantastic, and that's a huge draw for a lot of people. But for me, the draw was actually the reservoir and Mt. Gaboa, which is why I chose to move to that neighborhood. Additionally, as I've come to appreciate, it's just a fantastic neighborhood. I have amazing neighbors who I am getting to know very rapidly. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for choosing Arlington. Roy Goldstein from Westminster Avenue. I don't want to be repetitive as to what has already been said. I wrote you a letter as well, which outlined some points, but I wanted to bring up just one, one really important issue that keeps coming to mind, which is in Arlington, we are a little scarce in our open space, and that which we have is so much of it is parcelated, and Gilboa and Turkey, he'll exist as the largest parcels, about equal 10.7 acres. So if we take a piece of it away, we were this detriment to it, and I think it's rare that we have these large parcels still in existence, and I think that's a really important point that we just leave it be as it is. I've been appreciating that land for about 36 years. Even when I lived in Somerville, I used to come over and it was the reason I came to Arlington. I looked at topographic maps for open space, came in, so Gilboa, I actually live on adjacent to it now, but it's just purely by just seeking it out, and I'd hate to see anything happen to that parcel at all. So you were trespassing in those days? Well, no, no, because the seven and a half acres are out of the world. It's public, it's public, it's public. So just so you know, I'm sure I received more than 30 emails and letters and stuff, so apologies that wasn't, I knew we were coming to this hearing, but apologies, I couldn't respond to them all. My colleagues probably did, but Mrs. Mahoon. I'm just gonna try to see if I can go on and try to territories here. I would like to first make a motion to table and then just explain the background behind it. Oh, second for discussion. I totally understand that. First and foremost, what I've been hearing a lot of is that does the housing authority want this? Have they discussed it? I spoke with somebody informally who didn't give an opinion either way. It said they would be happy to consider it. The reason why I would want that discussion to table it, I mean to have that discussion to see A, if the interest was there, B, if they could come back with what we're going to do is take over the property that's there, leave the land that's there, and perhaps upgrade Mount Caboer that's there or not. They may look at it and say, you know what? We can take it. We could keep the conservation land, but we can't afford to do the upgrades. So I'd like to hear from the housing authority and that could probably be done with it before our next meeting in terms of if this is something they would consider, what they could legally say what they would or would not do with the conservation land. And as well as I'd like to give town council in Mr. Belsk is time to explore whether this is an article 97 procedure or whether there's the road of further defining the conservation restriction to protect the affordable, designate and protect the house on Mount Caboer as affordable housing as well as the conservation restriction to protect the open land. And the reason I say that is why do I wanna go through this exercise? I'm not trying to tax everybody and come to more meetings is that looking at where we are, I think you'd be hard pressed to find and I wanna be really careful what I say about my remarks. I don't think you'd find anybody on behalf of the town that will tell you any specific number that we're at whether it's above or below 1.5%. We do have a very serious issue down in East Arlington, same issues, homeless, people walk through there, kids walk through there, that if that development goes in there, I will say that it's gonna have a detrimental effect to 1.3 of Arlington itself. If this is an exercise we can go through and everybody can come out that housing authority wants it, they commit to keeping it the way it is in terms of if that's doable legally, as well as perhaps looking at what needs to be done to the house. And I just wanna say not to be a stickler, but in terms of anyone who could rent up at Moncoboa, I grew up in low income, I grew up in assisted living, I grew up in the projects, didn't know it was a manor. We didn't have a car, we didn't have anything. And we got around, including up and down to, my parents were able to come up and secure and walk up the hill, not only when we were born, my sister was born in Sims Hospital, but I remember going to Moncoboa. So I don't, I'm gonna respectfully disagree that you need a Toyota 4Runner or anything to be living up there, I think as long as you qualify. So the reason I wanna table this, I wanna hear from the housing authority, they may come back and say no, we have no interest or this may be something doable and I think that can be done within two weeks. But I would just like to table. Okay, Mr. Guerra. I think in the interest of fairness, I will go along with the motion to table as we gave the same consideration, I think to the proponent of the last article and we asked for more information. I will say that I'm very skeptical about this article, though. I'm a little bit confused because actually in the presentation of materials that we received up till tonight, it appeared that we were talking about the entire property and it sounds like we're actually talking about the home itself and the land around it. But I am concerned, I'm the term parcelization, I'm concerned about that. I think the other question that I'd like to see answered, though, is that currently we do rent out that property when it becomes vacant, we put it out for bids. We have in the past, I know we've housed refugees from Katrina there. So is there any reason that a transferer would have to happen for that to be considered in our stock of affordable housing? Mr. Chairman, there's been a couple of questions that I'm hoping that I can curtail. There seems to be more issues floating in the air than maybe there really should be with respect to a few of these things. So the answer to that question, Mr. Currow, is that in order to qualify as affordable housing for the subsidized housing inventory, which is relevant to the one and a half percent calculation for 40 B purposes, it has to be deed restricted. Doesn't have to be in perpetuity, but does have to be deed restricted for that specific purpose, which is not something that is currently in place now. And in my opinion, is not compatible with its current status. In my view, respectfully to folks, I don't think the article 97 status is going to change with more research. I think it is, in my opinion, it's an article 97 protected land. It may not be recorded, but the vote of town meeting was extremely clear that it was voted for conservation purposes and that absent a litigation about it. I don't think that we'd be in a posture to assert very comfortably that it's not. I don't mean that. I just don't want to leave anybody down the perverse path. I think that in order to make Mr. Belski's vision for what he wants to do with this parcel happen, you would have to have a vote of town meeting. You would have to, at a minimum, get the legislature's approval as well as the conservation commission's unanimous approval. So, and I'm sorry, one more quick thing. So, there are 1.5% calculation was done just for everybody to have clear on the record. It was done by the planning department. It was submitted to the ZBA and the ZBA took a vote to assert that they had that 1.5% safe harbor status. What I think Ms. Mohan and Mr. Belski and a lot of the folks are noting is very true. Is that that 1.5% is subject to ebbing and flowing and that Mr. Belski's proposal is about ensuring the town's long-term status because the calculation for 1.5% is extremely complicated. It's not, the math of it is not just a simple adding up of the total amount of land. There's a lot that goes into it that I won't put Mr. Krawski on the spot to discuss but it probably would have an impact on it but that doesn't, but the policy discussion that folks are having I think is the really central issue. Do we want to assure the status of the property that Ms. Mohan's making reference to which is in jeopardy of development in fit by removing this property from conservation restoration. I'm sorry that's a long way to answer and everybody's been here for a long time tonight but I just wanted to at least try to make sure that a few points that I think are beyond dispute at this point in time. No, thank you. I have two follow-ups with the chair's permission. Firstly, if it is deemed conservation property, why are we permitted to operate a rental property there now at all? So when the house was acquired, when the property was acquired, the house was already there and I've actually combed through the transcripts of that town meeting discussion. The fact that it's conservation land and there was a pre-existing house there doesn't necessarily preclude that pre-existing houses continued use and there's been a lot of discussion over many town meetings over the last decade and a half about what to do with that house. There's been talk about lifting that house up and moving it somewhere. There's been talk about demolishing the house so that it's just an open park without that house there but it's in somewhat, I wouldn't say it's a unique situation but it's because the house was already there when it was acquired for conservation purposes that were allowed to essentially rent it out as a rental, doing something more with it, especially something that required a change to its deed status is what in my mind triggers the Article 97 protections. And to that point in the issue that Mr. Belskis raised, I understand that we can assert our Article 97 rights around that property. Would it not be advisable though to pursue the deed correction to strengthen that? Absolutely, so all these other issues notwithstanding, if it's not recorded in a deed there's actually a relatively straightforward process for any parcel that we're concerned wasn't properly de-restricted. Part of what probably happened, this is just a guess because this was quite some time ago, is that because it was passed to us from the trust of public land, there was probably an assumption that that was clear enough that it didn't require a conservation restriction to be recorded especially given the vote of town meeting. That's my guess, I can't really be certain of why that wasn't ever recorded there, but it is advisable that we do that with that parcel and any other parcel that we think is conservation land but not clearly coming up in a deed search, a title search. Thank you, and given that, I mean, I will support the table for the reasons I said, I'm still very skeptical about this and unless we have some really strong answers and something to sway me next time, I would expect that I would be voting no action if given the opportunity the next time but potentially also including that vote or request of town council is for the recording of the deed. You have to come to the microphone. That's a question. Thank you, it's a quick question. What is the process for ensuring that that goes through the deed is updated? I just don't wanna leave any. That's what we're gonna try to find out. Okay, perfect. That's why we're moving the table we're gonna look at what does the housing authority and what we can do and what we should do in terms of clearing up that deed. Right, I mean, regardless of the Arlington Housing Authority it's from my concern. We can't tell you that now but that's why we're tabling it so everybody else should. That will be done, that will be invested. I'm sorry, can I just make one other point? Is that nobody should be in a panic about this because town land can't get sold without town meeting. So nobody's gonna go and put in a proposal to sell all 10.7 acres of Mt. Goboa tomorrow. We can't. The only thing that's on the table and I'm not saying this to squash conversation about this but the only thing that's on the table is the 1.75 acre parcel that is one Mt. Goboa. So there's nothing else that can be changed right now. We should record it. We will for all the other parcels but absent town meeting voting to get rid of Mt. Goboa we're not gonna do it. I actually don't have much interest in voting the table at I'm willing to vote no action now and I'm gonna be voting no action at the next meeting regardless. And I don't think that the issue here I think one, two things come to mind in this discussion. One is that we're already at 1.5 and two, I don't think that we should be having an argument about adding more to it tonight. We should be devoting our efforts into getting DHCD to actually do their job and realize that land area over 1.5 is valid because they actually just are not doing that and they don't seem to be really doing that in any community and kind of accepting it at the current time. So I think that this is really a misguided approach to stopping the 40B. We should be working with the state which I know we are through the town council and our outside council. And I think that's where we should be devoting our efforts. Not really creating schisms in town over two important groups that I think that we all agree it's each are equally important. So that's where I'm at right now and so whether I'm voting no action tonight or next time, that's where I am. That's what I'm gonna do. John, I'm gonna allow you a minute. Thank you, sir. Well, frankly, then I'm speaking. We probably wouldn't be here this evening and you wouldn't have this article and there's no one here from planning. That's the issue. They're the keepers of the records. You know, I've already found out this piece is missing. We had the Arlington Corporation here speaking. I've lost a piece of property and maybe two pieces of property. Again, the proper paper didn't go forward. This was a property that you paid for or you initiated with community block grant money. I wanna see that protected. If we can get planning to commit to taking all the information I've sent them, which seems to go into a black hole that balances these numbers and we get those answers, I wanna see Gilboa protected and I've already given you the lead-in that it hasn't happened because past mistakes. So there's your decisions to be made. Mr. Chapter Lane. I'm sorry, with all due respect to Mr. Belskas, I can't let him besmirch the planning department in that regard. Every piece of information that Mr. Belskas has provided to both Town Council and I has been, if appropriate, included in the 1.5% calculation so I can't stand by that report. Mr. Chairman. I pass. No. No, I mean, Mr. Belskas deserves a medal for what he has dedicated himself to for years, but I am absolutely opposed to this warrant article in any way, shape, or form. So I would absolutely wanna go for no action right now but out of respect for two colleagues who feel they wanna wait and to gather more information, but I will lie on the ground in front of a bulldozer before we let anything happen there. We have to protect that over there. There are those I would like to be driving that bulldozer for, but no, but you know, I understand you're just looking for it and so let's. Well, the two issues, including it's not recorded correctly and you all not protected. Right, but with it not recorded correctly. Well, I'll let him. But with it not screams for us then not to support this at this point, we have to take care of this first, in my opinion, before we'd ever make any changes up there. So I mean, I. I know. Channel Council made a good argument for what you want, but I didn't ask for it. I'd like to. Yes. Oh, doesn't it also fall into the Historic District Commission purview? So they would have to also decide on the house because it is part of the house. The house, so it would have some restrictions as well as to what you could do. Right. So, yes. Another layer that I just thought. Right. No, you're right. Yes. So, go ahead. Come on. No, no, no. Please, please. Uncle. Come on. I'm fine. I'm fine. So we have, we have done on this. We have the motion to table, which has been seconded. All those in favor of tabling, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. I. Nay. So, it's a two-two. What happens? Status. I move no action. Status quo, right? Status quo means he's not approved. That's right. So either way. So I'll move no action. Okay, so he's gonna move no action. Second. Second. Do you wanna say anything? No, I just, I really feel very disrespected personally as well as with the previous article concerning all the people with the tree community that I probably would have voted no action, but it's a very strong constituency that you all have. And I, at the very least, but am used to not being afforded the same opportunity to take the same case scenario, case in point, and have the same process. So I just wanted to make that statement. And I'm really disappointed that town council, unfortunately, you know, gave his discussion that in my opinion led to the fact that I've once again not afforded the same opportunity. So, and I'll do my best in the future to work with my colleagues that you afford me the same opportunity that I afford you all as well as the people who support you. Well, I believe you've had the same opportunity. My position is I'm against this. So I vote for no action. I'm not, okay, okay. That's all I'm saying, okay? So we do now have a new motion on the table for no action, seconded by Mr. Byrne. Yes. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye, all those opposed. Abstain. Abstain. So three, zero, and one. Good night, Uncle Bower. Article 33, Revolving Funds. This is a routine, right, Mr. Chapter Lane? Yeah, I have to apologize. There was a, I'll, I, I, quietly though, quietly, yo, yo, hello, we're still going. Please, hello, please wait till you're in the hallway. Mr. Chapter Lane. I apologize, Mr. Chairman. All the materials are prepared, but there was a miscommunication between myself and the comptroller, and they didn't find their way into Novus agenda. So we'll have to slip to the April 4th meeting. I'm sorry about that. Can I try move to table again? Yeah, go ahead. Second. Further discussion? Nope, sorry, what are we on? Oh, sorry, we're on Revolving Funds, but we don't have the info in front of us, so he's asked us to table. Thank you. All right, all those in favor of tabling, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. Next is Article 59, hold on one second. Article 59, Resolution, Handicap Parking Spaces to see if the town will resolve to support policies that encourage the inclusion and designation of at least 5% and no more than 10% overall, Handicap Parking Spaces and any on-street public parking located in any business district, B12345, so as to facilitate access for people with disabilities or take any action related there too. Thank you. Good evening. First of all. Thank you for waiting so long. I should tell you one caveat. I had said to someone a couple of days ago I'd love to run for Selecman, and I've changed my mind. I'll just say it. You know what's funny is so have I. Anyway, good evening. I'm Cynthia DeAngelis, and with me tonight presenting is Darcy Devney, and Adam Karelsky is gonna help with our visual mapping. We are the working subcommittee representing the Disability Commission and submitting this warrant article before you that establishes a standard of 5% to 10% Handicap Parking Spaces in the business district of Arlington, Massachusetts. Our vision for doing this is one of inclusion and accessibility for our community, as well as for visitors and for our elderly population, which I learned today is called the Silver Tsunami. I did not know that before. Anyway, Darcy will review for you all the data that was collected and researched for this proposal. I do have to just make a note that it really took about 100 hours. You probably figured that out when you read it, but we did speak with everybody in town. I know that's important to you all. I've been hearing that through all of these. We poured over maps. We went through state data. We went through the town data. We consulted with every stakeholder we could find. And hopefully this has been, it took a little bit of a village to get this proposal in front of you. So Darcy. I was nervous, but now I'm just exhausted. Okay, data. Thank you, Adam, who's been doing the, did the map tool specifically for us. We could show everybody this. I don't know if everybody can see that's the website address. You can go to it yourself if you wanna look at it on your smartphone or something. So first let's document the need for Handicap Parking. In Massachusetts, just under 10% of licensed drivers have Handicap Parking placards or plates. The Census Bureau estimate in 2013 for ambulatory disabilities in Massachusetts, 6.2%. And rising because of that silver tsunami we just talked about. Of Arlington residents 65 years and older, 16% have an ambulatory difficulty. So then we said, okay, but Handicap placards go with a person who goes with a car. So there are approximately 35,000 cars registered in Arlington. That's how many excise bills we send out. And there are about 2,400 active Handicap placards in Arlington as of January 2015. So that makes 6.9% of the cars. Part of the reason the Disability Commission did this is because you may have noticed in the Vision 2020 survey in 2015 the Disability Commission got a whole page of questions they could ask. And one of the questions they were asking was about Handicap parking access. Specifically, if any members of your household use HP parking in Arlington the past year, how often could accessible parking be found in different areas? Didn't matter what neighborhood it was, East Arlington Center, Arlington Heights, at least 27% answered that they could never find an HP space on street or in parking lots, which is a huge percentage. How many respondents were there? Well, I knew you were gonna ask me that and it's over in my book. Don't worry about it. It might be on your page in your packet that we included, I'm just not sure. So 27%, so we said, okay, why is that? So we started counting. If you count in the general area of the business districts of Arlington, which is almost all of Mass Ave, we went from Trader Joe's in the Heights right down to the Cambridge line, that's all Massachusetts Ave, then there's some right around the center because that is the business center there. We're gonna kind of ignore this lower part of Broadway in our calculations right now because if you put it in in terms of street space, we would never ever get a decent percentage of handicap parking. So it's almost all of, it is all of Mass Ave. If you add that all up, both sides of the street, it's about seven miles of street. And the supply of HP spaces in that is totally inadequate to the need. We found 23 handicap parking spaces out of more than 1,000 on-street public parking spaces. So that is a 2.3%, 2.3% percentage. And Adam is going to show you, I hope this would work. That's what they are. The blue ones are all the current handicap parking spaces throughout Arlington. So we have mapped all of them, but there's only 23 of them in the whole town. So we're not talking residential. I want to emphasize it's all just business spaces. So if parking seems scarce for you when one in 35 cars can find a parking space in the business districts, imagine you're a person with an HP placard, you have a one in a hundred chance of finding because 35,000 cars, et cetera. Okay, so this is an aspirational article, a resolution, and that's because the ADA laws don't cover on-street parking specifically, but the Massachusetts Office of Disability does say they recommend a minimum of 5% handicapped spaces for public on-street parking. And we have 2.3%. So we said, okay, what if we took it up to five? What would it look like? So we went over the map, section by section, curb cut by curb cut, and tried to find the best plan of how to arrange them, what it might look like at 5%. So if you add 27 total on-street handy-pack parking spaces, the 18 primary spots are gonna show up in red, and those are the urgent ones, that really, really we gotta have. And nine secondary spots, which we also really need to even get up to barely 5%. Those are the ones that are showing up in orange. So that's the minimum it would take just to get us to 5%, and we should be doing better than that because of those statistics we read to you earlier where we're over 6%, we're over 7%, et cetera. You read the placement specifics. It's very complicated, and you have to go through each space, kind of each block of cars is different, and your criteria include curb cuts, nature and accessibility of the businesses. So we went through address by address and saw what those businesses were. Did they have takeout? Did they have delivery? Did they tend to have a lot of handicapped people or elderly people? Winter and plowing and bump outs, overhangs because the vans, handicapped vans for trees and lights, bus stops, because you can't have one in a bus stop, and especially in the New East Arlington Project, the street furniture because people have to be able to get their walkers out onto the curb. So out of all of these, there are some very easy low budget ones. So nine of those right away could be done by doing nothing but putting up one blue sign because there's already a pole right there. So you don't actually have to paint the curb blue, you don't actually have to paint the pavement blue. So that's nine of them that could go in, well, Mike might not say tomorrow, but he would say that it would be probably fairly easy, and some of them are a little more complicated. So we've shown you that there are only 2.3% on street handicapped spaces in the business district of Arlington. We've shown you that we need at least 5% because we need that for our population. This map is our proposal to add the 27 streets at a minimum to achieve that better access for people with disabilities. So Cynthia's gonna talk about the outreach that we did to try and confirm that these are the optimal placements. First of all, we wanna assure you that we really wanted this to be a transparent, and I'm glad that we get to tell you that we talked to everybody. So it was outreach inclusiveness and transparency. So we did enlist the help of the Arlington, all the disability commission members, the Mass Office of Disability, community volunteers, specifically Darcy Scholl family did this whole research, the GIS director, the Economic Planning, Town Council, Town Meeting moderator, Michael from the DPW, who really drilled us and grilled us several times on perspective and really got us to think about things a little differently. The editor of the Arlington Advocate and the town support staff, namely Marie, who I was going to cite as the phenomenal resource who kept pointing us in the right direction. Additionally, we did have a detailed schedule of what we were gonna do. So we got several articles in the local newspaper for folks to be able to read it. We had emailing of all local businesses we are also planning. So what we did is we've divided up Mass Ave in three sections and we're going to walk it. And we're actually going to tell the business owners that we're coming so that they can come out and talk to us about where we're thinking of putting it. But we also feel like we have to have eyes and feet on the ground. Because I've been walking it the last couple of weeks from just about, I've only done the Bishop School to the end of by Cambridge. So I've done that about four times. And what I found is where we thought we could put spaces sometimes we can't because there's either a bench now or a planter or a light pole, especially down in the East Arlington section. So what we wanna do is walk it as well. This was our best laid plan. We laid out all the maps, we met with everybody and we put them where we thought. Now we have to do that second tier which is to make sure that we talk to all the business owners and make sure I have talked to I'd say six to 10 so far. People have given us, some have said yes, I want a handicap space in front of mine. Other people say we're take out all day. So if you put one in front of mine, my truck can't come in. So those are the perspectives that we're not gonna know unless we actually talk to business owners and do the walk. So hopefully we have succeeded in reflecting the great need for you to support our warrant to increase handicap spaces in our community. And this helps you as a committee to make an informed decision this evening. You are the parking commissioners for the town, I'm told. So we thank you for your time and consideration and hopefully we did it in eight minutes. A couple questions? Yes, please. I'm kind of colorblind, so I am here. He is colorblind. Let me give you, sorry, the big version. I don't know, well, no, those are colors, right? He's not size blind, he's like, no, I don't want you to. No, just let me tell you my question, which is, I'm curious whether it was East Arlington better than other sections of town since that's the one we've just redone recently? No, actually it's worse. She's been contacting us about that, yes. It's actually a little bit worse. There's a whole section by, I want to say it's 190 Mass Ave where the bank is and the building, that whole section has no handicap parking at all anymore. In fact, that's one of the things that happened at our commission meeting was the, I'm going to forget now, it's a vision, an optometry or something. He actually came to us and said, I need my handicap parking space back because we have folks that can't. Yeah, Arlington Vision Care. Yeah, Arlington Vision Care. So he actually came in several times and I went down and checked it out with him and we, lo and behold, he doesn't have one anymore. So that's the kind of thing we're trying to work out right now, so. You think there was one in front of Arlington Vision Care? Vision Care, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. One in front of the bank, CS Bank. Right. They wish, like, shared, it's like half and a half, you know what I mean? Yes, okay. You're based in Arlington, right. Because just excellent work and whatever we can do and I want to confess, I have a handicap placard but I would tell you, I would say 50% of the time I am able to find a space. So you said, it was that never. 27%, it was actually 27 to 31. It makes me angry when someone is in there, I'll tell you that. We took the lowest number, but it was 27 to 31% came in as the data. It said never. It said never. Yeah, okay. Anyhow, I'm with you, whatever you want us to do. No, I don't because I'm now living it. I know. I'm really tough on me walking and I, you know, I love, it's the only benefit of my handicap, it's handicap spaces. So go in some more, please. I probably took the one you two might have been looking for tonight out front here, so. But does that mean you're gonna vote yes? Yes, I will affirm the importance of this. Thank you. Yes. Okay, Ms. Maher. I don't know, we'll see. Oh. Yeah, Ms. Maher. Nope. One and I stopped because I was gonna make a motion but I think we need to hammer it. Oh, questions? Oh, I was just gonna say, I mean, thank you for this. I mean, you have been sitting, you've been listening to us all night, I think you saw us hang up on the rocky shoals of a couple of other articles. We already felt that maybe there hadn't been enough outreach and consultation with stakeholders in the community. And clearly you've done that. I know you've done that because I met with the, you know, some of the merchants in the center over the Chamber of Commerce, they had been, they had this right on their agenda because you had reached out to them, which I think was very important. So, you know, as you know, this is a resolution, we ultimately make the decision but I really like the process that you've outlined and the materials that you've given us as to how things would be surveyed, assessed, brought back to us and then brought forward. Thank you. Mr. Dunn. I just had one question and Darcy, I think you actually answered it in your speech but I missed it, which was, I wanted to know how you came to the 5% and you listed a state agency or something that recommended, well, who was that? The Massachusetts. The Office of Disability recommends a minimum of 5%. We've been trying to, what's the word, revise the ADA for years now to try and get it to cover the on the street parking spaces as well because it says you should have them but it specifies no number whatsoever. So they're still working on it and the Massachusetts Park of Access Board, is that right, MAAB, is communicating with Massachusetts Office of Disability because sooner or later the state will probably do it. I think you've got a memo in there from Mike Rademacher who says that he also believes that the state will get around to it sometime but you know, our theory is that this town meeting will be the time to do it because he can take another three or four or five years and problems just getting age and demographics that we don't want it to be disabled but it does mean that our stats are kind of creeping up every year. Thank you, okay. Yep, Ms. Mohan. First I want to move approval to the proposed resolution and I just kind of want to piggyback on what Darcy said there in terms of individuals with handicapped placards. There's a very rapidly growing constituency of autism spectrum, children, young adults and I always think of them as kids even when they're in their 30s and 40s and if you've ever been in that situation and I don't have a handicapped placard or anything like that yet but if you've ever been in that situation sometimes it's the fear of going someplace usually not a medical office but a place of business and you have that handicapped placard and you have someone perhaps who's afflicted is healthy otherwise but is very young and has a severe flight risk and I can tell you sort of personally the stress and burden that most other people would be like I'm going to Toys R Us I'm going to the supermarket I'm going to pick up my prescription and you get there and adequate safe parking is not there for you you really go through the ringer and so I don't mean to kind of melt that one but actually that gets me to a point that we didn't say which is that our plan is when we finish to actually have this uploaded to the website for the town so that people will know where the spaces are so that they'll be able to kind of plan for themselves around what's accessible and what isn't for them so we're hoping to do that as well I want to say my right now favorite Adam that is fantastic because there are you know sometimes people hear things and like who do you have to plan who the heck is no I'm who the heck is really going to use this but people and I'm not saying people who are over the age of 50 or 60 but I can tell you that constituency you literally sit down for the most mundane trip that you need to make and to have some kind of information like that that someone could go online and say I need to do this there's two or three different businesses and oh my gosh, you know this one has a spot and the other two don't I think that's fantastic and it really will be utilized and I thank you and I'm sorry Mr. Barnett yeah I just want to note and I'm happy to support but I do want to note that this is a resolution so these you know all the spots and all like that's that might not be implemented right away and that's subject to change so I wouldn't want to rush to put this online but maybe after we go down the road and we decide where the spots are and where they're going to be maybe that will go online but I just don't want to yeah I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves tonight but thank you there are ones that are already there yeah yeah that's fine I just especially with folks that have children with wheelchairs and they need to get to a specific place they plan yeah of course you know they have to go and either take a trip there themselves first to see okay where am I going to be able to park or how am I going to navigate this in what time am I going to go exactly so so and I'm glad that you're going to do this walking it and talking to business owners and really identifying where these can go but I am curious whether or not or what if there's a formula for our public lot so for example how many handicapped faces should we have in the rest of the economy I mean to make you I'm not a future study but apparently she's ready to answer me but sorry at all so there's none to put it in sort of Arlington there is behind the that bank and that block it doesn't necessarily count as public that's the thing so I think park there to go to the optometrist right you can only go right only park there or the apartments supposedly no no no I've gone to the optometrist frequently from that one no it is a sign and I'm Arlington we got to change that all those Arlington Center you know they did the two parking studies tack and and Nelson Nygaard which didn't exactly agree on their counting but close enough there's about 500 on street 11 or HP and then off street there's 13 so and Arlington Heights there's nothing from from the mill street on the only off street parking public parking that's handicapped is the three straces at the Arlington high school which doesn't really count because either you're at the high school or that's too far for you from anywhere else so so we would try you know it'd be great if we had the five to ten percent that's one of the reasons why we said five to ten percent is that there are clearly places where they need to be more concentrated like right in the center places where you can be a little more sprinkly about them and just put them in front of the business blocks as opposed to the residential blocks but you're coming back with that with the on-street with the off street no the on-street say it again we're moving forward yes yes she explained how you're going to walk mass Avenue and talk to the business owners and identify specifically where spaces should go yes we're hoping to do we show them what we're proposing right and then hear from them their perspective right because you don't know what you don't know but you have to make sure is there a planter there is there a tree there exactly okay I think we're all set on the motion by mrs. mine seconded by mr. burn yeah all those in favor please say the five I say nine we just haven't done this longer than a while so final votes and comments articles for review twenty one twenty three and sixty is there a motion to approve so moves second second all those in favor please say the five I say nine hi all those cards fine it's received move receipt move receipt is there a second second discussion do we want to where we want to send no parking here to corner say in no parking here to corner all right I think I think I go to the parking subcommittee or a quarry quarry I say yes and not yeah okay yes okay so moved is there a second second all those in favor please say the five I say nine I heard quarry the other two move receipt somebody anybody yeah move you see second all those in favor please say the five I say nine I suppose we have to do new business because we do need to hold an executive session so let's get new business out of the way before an executive session is just for the purpose of releasing minutes from other executive sessions so it should be very quick Marie new business just nothing you can talk about Thursday night you want so the rehearsal are you going to talk about the rehearsal party Thursday night density is not well I don't think Diana singing with us although they're always welcome Doug no new business mr. Chairman I'll pass I'll pass you sure you have nothing else to say 1050 no new business only because I have to I was down at the as you all know the basketball banquet for the freshman JV varsity boys basketball team fantastic season and I just want to congratulate clock Ewing Ewan who received the Paul J. Leone scholarship and award something that we're all very familiar with and one of the things that a request that was made and I said I would first speak with the chairman and he can perhaps speak with the town manager I'm not sure if it's the treasurer but in terms of getting the Paul J. Leone's award sort of more status and I have to find out exactly what John Leone meant about that so I don't know if it's a town request or a school but that was a congratulation to clock and end the team for their season okay great thank you just just one I just want to acknowledge that firing an emergency I believe this is your last meeting chairing this board before we reorganize and so we will smoke thank you for your your service once again with the gavel ending it in a marathon session and thank you Joe you don't want to give the guy we may change the rules after the job I did tonight I don't blame me if you want to be rid of me dance nothing so I'm sorry I got three quick ones first of all so we got the board of select and handbook friends so very fitting for your last meeting right there thanks to I've been through it before but all of the people helped us so we're recommending we put them right in our drawers and now we have them all to refer to and as Joe points out already you know potentially we have changes to have to make to it secondly I was very proud yesterday to compete in the Arlington Education Foundation trivia be a contest with Mr. Adam chapter Lane and Mr. Joe captain Mr. Joe Curell but here's an interesting piece of trivia for you so it was there were things like science sports history right facts about Arlington not our group but another group that was up was asked this question five teams right of three individuals each how many members are on the Arlington Board of Select Wow here's your answer here are your answers nine seven six and two of them got it right at saying five is that phenomenal they think we do the work of nine people okay then the final thing I have before executive session is Adams evaluations you all got them to answer me oh no I sent it to you by email so would Marie also have that I didn't copy or I sent it directly to you okay today last night okay so I guess I haven't seen you yet okay so I'll tell you why when we're off the mic is I don't want to yeah no problem so let me ask you though if you would get them to Marie as soon as possible but well yes I will do that but to me I guess to me because I have to get them to I have to get it right so I guess electronically it's fine how did you do that you go to the PDF you say edit and sign and it'll let you edit a PDF okay all right so that's it for me for new business make a motion we go into executive session for the purposes of discussing and or approving oh I didn't even I'm sorry to review and approve executive session minutes for February 4th 2016 and February 10 2016 meetings of the board of select men and to release such prior executive session minutes pursuant to master general laws chapter 30 a section 22 f as appropriate and when we come out it'll be for the purposes of taking a final vote is that right sure yes yes so move second yeah Marie yes yes yes yes yes yes okay I'll say what I'd like to make a motion oh sorry that's right so we're now back at the March 21st 2016 meeting of the board of select men we have just come out of executive session vice chairman Mahan what's up I'd like to move that we release the executive session minutes of February 4th 2016 and February is a 10th yeah 10th I'm doing it by memory from 2016 for public release so second second further discussion all those in favor please signify by saying hi all those opposed move to adjourn move to adjourn second all those in favor signify by saying hi next meeting of the board of select men April 4th good night Arlington