 All right. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Rachel Zenberry. I'm the chair of the Redevelopment Board, and I'd like the other members to please introduce themselves. Starting to see. Good evening. Eugene Benson. Shayna Corman Houston. Kiddalow. Thank you. And we have from the Department of Planning and Community Development, Director Claire Ricker, and Assistant Director Sarah Swar as joining us this evening. So without further ado, let's move to our first agenda item, which is a review of the meeting minutes, the many minutes that we have to review today are from February 26, 2024. And we'll see if there are any additions or corrections from the board, starting with Ken. He is one on page three near the bottom of the page. This is Mr. Lappapost on that paragraph. I just want to insert a word at the last sentence. This is accurately showed the surrounding buildings. I want to ask the word massing, accurately show the massing of the surrounding buildings. Show the massing. Yes. Earlier I was talking about the details not required. This is the massing. Okay. Anything else? All right. Shana. I have none. Gene. I was not at the meetings, fine. Fantastic. And Steve. No amendments. Great. Is there a motion to approve as amended? So a motion. Is there a second? Yes. We'll take a roll to call vote, starting with Steve. Yes. Gene. I have the same. Shana. Yes. Ken. Yes. 9 a.m. as well. The meeting minutes are approved as amended for February 26. That closes agenda item number two and we will now reopen the public hearing for the warrant articles for 2024 annual town meeting. This is the second of our nights of hearings as published in the schedule. We consistent with the past, the ARV will be hearing from article proponents and public wishing to speak on each of the articles as scheduled. This evening we will be hearing articles 30 through 34. Applicants will have up to five minutes to address the board. The board will then pose any questions to the applicants followed by a period of open public comment. Note that the board will reserve final discussion and voting on each article until the last night of our hearings which will not be this evening. So with that, what I would like to do is move to article 30. Give me one minute. I will open our document here. And for each of these articles, what I'd first like to do is turn it over to Director Claire Ricker to see if there are any items of introduction, starting with article 30. Great, thank you. So we are moving into our five SIDS impetition articles this evening. Beginning with article 30, which is shaded parking lots. This was proposed by Susan Stamps and 10 committee members. Great, thank you very much. If you could sit right here, that would be fantastic. And again, we'll try and reserve the front seating for the applicants and people speaking so that they can be picked up by the microphone for ACMI. So what I'd like to do, if you could please introduce yourself. Name, address, and please go ahead and introduce the article. If there are any slides you'd like us to show, please just let Claire know when we can advance. Right, so you can advance for me. Thank you. All right, I'm Elizabeth Carjones. I live at 1 Lehigh Street here in Arlington. And I'm here representing Green Streets, Arlington. I'm here to present article 30, Shaded Parking Lots. Which would require the shade in the form of trees and or photovoltaic entities being provided in Arlington's parking lots with more than 25 spaces. As the board knows, we originally championed this idea last year during the MBTA community's process. Oh, you're in advance. Thank you. There, that one. Okay, thank you. As a community, we recognize the benefits of a more livable environment. Green Shady Streets, great quality of life and welcoming local businesses. We also recognize the importance of climate change resilience and seek out ways to reduce excess heat and flooding and improve our air quality. Arlington was designated one of the first green communities in Massachusetts way back in 2010. We've been weaving sustainability into the fabric of our community for a long time. Next slide, please. Now let me stress the urgency of now. Global temperatures are rising at an alarming rate, as illustrated in this ground from 1880 to 2020. And this ground level temperature map of Arlington from Mystic River Watershed Association's Wicked Hot Mystic Project shows a pattern of higher temperatures in red in areas with more pavement and fewer trees, and the lowest temperatures in our few areas of forest. Next slide, please. We're proposing that the town amend the zoning by-law that pertains to parking lots in more than 25 spaces. This section currently requires landscape areas of at least 8% of the paved area that are at least four feet wide. Our proposal adds that shade be provided by one or both of two methods. A is one shaved tree for every eight parking spaces, each space within 20 or 30 feet of the tree. Or B, solar canopies over parked cars to cover at least 50% of the paved parking lot. We found each of these amendments surprisingly close to home. The tree regulations are from Lexington's zoning by-laws. One tree for every eight spaces is a simple way to balance the area of the tree canopy with the pavement and the 30-foot distance requirement to distribute the trees on the lot. The provisions are also included to provide for the success of the tree and preserve existing ones. The solar panel or photovoltaic canopy language is taken from Arlington's zoning by-laws. It appears in the heat mitigation requirements for parking lots in our industrial zones where solar panel canopies with 50% coverage are an available mitigation method. Both of these requirements are set up to provide for design flexibility and simple compliance calculations. Alright, that's the next one. Thank you, Claire. As an example, let's use the Whole Foods parking lot. On the left is an aerial view of what we have. With our current zoning, 81 parking spaces, zero shaved trees and zero solar panels. I'll note that the perimeter trees you see are growing on adjacent properties. On the right is a visual simulation of what we could have had with this by-law amendment. In this case, we've used a 50-50 combination of trees and solar canopy to get 80 parking spaces, five shaved trees and 192 solar panels. We're grateful for the board's substantial guidance in getting us to this point where we believe this by-law amendment would be beneficial and easily executed and we respectfully ask for your support. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you very much. Anything else before we open this up to the board? I know you just arrived. I was going to talk a little bit more about the specifics in case you wanted to know more about this. She's given us five minutes and I think I may have taken the call. You still have about a minute and a half left. So I sent you the memorandum which explained that we switched out the treaty to be proposed to plan a parking lot speed care for under a USDA Forestry Service standard versus what you have in a couple of other sections. And then I sent a copy of the main motion. And since that time, did you mention about Steve's changes? No. So we have consulted with, Gene's been very useful, Steve has been great to work with and they've helped us shape something that we hope will work well or at least the majority will go for. We have lots of questions. Steve had some technical amendments that he felt were necessary, not sure Gene disagreed. You guys can talk about that. But we did, did you bring that memo? We did have a memo of there were like five technical changes to like the use, the use tables that if you want to put in the solar panels are allowed. Great. And is this one of the documents that was submitted? No. We just did this because we just talked to Steve this week. Yeah. And we can provide it. Okay. If you could please provide it. Electrically. Yes. Yes. And we'd like to publish that with the meeting materials. Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. And we are in time. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. So what I, I know that you joined us just recently, what I'd mentioned was the board will, I'll ask you to the board members for any questions or clarifications. Final deliberation and voting will be at our, at our next hearing night, not this evening, but we will certainly make sure that all of the board members ask any clarifying questions. And if there's any discussion to be had after public comment, we will do so. Okay. So Ken, actually, why don't we start with Steve since it sounds like you have had some questions around some of the technical items. So Steve, if you could start us off with any questions or points of discussion. All right. So I'll start off with a technical point for discussion. Great. Back when the industrial district regulations were rewritten, one of the things that we was added to the bylaw was the definition for a ground-mounted solar motor, solar voltage system. If you go to the second slide, there's a picture of one. Right. Right. Yeah. And along with the definition was an entry in the use table that's a, this use is allowed in the industrial districts. Now there is a different section in the bylaw that basically, I'm sure my colleagues on the board, this is 522C. That basically says if anything in the use table is not designated with a Y or a special permit, is prohibited unless otherwise authorized by this bylaw. So my, you know, in order to make this more generally applicable, my sort of technical feeling was that there should be use table entries declaring that the use is allowed in the districts where it's feasible and they propose R5, R6, R7, D2A, D4, D5. Or there needs to be some language that satisfies the unless otherwise authorized by the bylaw. But I didn't see anything in sort of like the 611, 6.1.11 tree that were these changes or proposed that would, you know, expand on what's in the use table in an obvious way. So my suggestion to the proponents was to add a couple of entries to basically the existing row of the use table. And that was the memo that we brought to you. If you, as a board, decide that that's necessary in number two. Great. All right. Let's see. Steve, why don't you run through your items and I'll keep the running list here if there's anything else. That's really the main one. Okay. Great. Gene. Well, I saw this and I said I thought it was unnecessary for us as Steve pointed out. 5.2.2 says anything that's not designated is prohibited unless otherwise authorized. And what the proponents do is basically, is basically authorize the solar canopy panels in parking lots. My concern with changing the use tables by putting the Y everywhere is it goes way beyond parking lots. Exactly. It would be the entire, every one of the zones. And number one, I think that's beyond the scope of this article. But I think maybe more important is we haven't talked about whether that's a good idea, whether there should be standards for it, et cetera. So I think we're better off not having that, the Y, in there, unless we're going to put in parking lots greater than 25 spaces, each one complicating it. I think it's better not to have it in the Y in 5.2.2 because this authorizes solar panels. So that's where Steve and I have a difference about how to accomplish this. Yes. And just as one possible way of addressing that and keeping the limitation to parking lots, perhaps, for consideration, in the last section of the main motion, 611B6B, simply adding something to the effect that this provision is applicable in the, in part, applicable for parking lots in the business and residential districts. To me, that would satisfy the, you know, unless author, would satisfy the unless authorized by this by law. It's like belt and system. Yeah, exactly. So I don't think it's necessary. But, yeah. That's all. Thank you, Senator. Okay. Jean, any other questions? No. Great. Sheena. So I just want to make sure that I'm reading the interplay between trees and solar properly. Because I know originally there was conversation about 50% shade from one or the other. And with that taken out from, on behalf of, or from the perspective of trees, could you, could you speak a little bit to the interplay of the combination? You know, if you're going to do a combination of solar and trees, how does that work? What are you, you know, are you trying to get to 50% shade coverage or what are you trying to do? So we are planning to produce every eight parking spaces, which we graphed out and it looked like if you take any given area of parking spaces, that is about 50% shade coverage. The thought with having solar panels mean do the same thing. I have the same questions like how does that work. But it seems that if it's a whole parking lot, that's easy, 50%. But it's going to be, but if it's a part of a parking lot, it's going to be some part of the parking lot. So whatever part of the parking lot it is, if it's a quarter of a parking lot, then 12.5% of that quarter of the parking lot would be shaded. I think it's actually, I think that works. So, so the notion. An example. Yep. And then the trees every eight spaces of the rest of them. So the notion is essentially if you are not achieving it all with solar, then you go do the trees. It, to me, didn't quite read clearly that way. But I follow you entirely with the idea. I don't know if it needs to be reworded a little bit for clarity, but I'm with you on concept. The one other piece I had a little, so I had a little concern about the 30 foot requirement I think a tree for every eight parking spaces is fine standard for argument's sake. I tried to sketch out where a tree could go to be within 30 feet of eight parking spaces, and there's really only one location that a tree can be. It would be essentially if you have four parking spaces and then another, if you have parking spaces like this, which you would have to be right there, which doesn't allow for flexibility in the layout of your parking spaces. So might be something to consider that 30 foot. Increasing that. That makes sense. Increasing it or just looking at it to which you think it, to allow flexibility for the location. Possibly in the discretion of the idea behind it, though, is to distribute the trees on lots so they're not all planted in one place. Yes, yes. So that's the thought behind it. That's right. My concern is not, again, the concept behind it. It's the actual technical, based on the size of parking spaces. I think it may end up limiting the layout of parking lots in a way that is not intended. I'm sitting in the front room. I can't hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. No, not at all. Is it time to have electrification in the 21st century? Maybe so the people in the back could hear you. I have been told I have a very soft voice. I'll try to speak up. It is the ARB needs to have proper microphone. We are working with the resources that we have. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I'll do my best to speak up. Anything else, Nina? That's all I have. Okay, great. Ken. Yeah. I'll go back to my original question when you first came up here and presented this idea to us. I had last time asked how many properties would this zoning affect? You're saying only the large properties with 25 or more parking spaces. I find it hard to count it on my hands how many spaces there are in Arlington that has 25 parking spaces. I actually did a rough count. Perfect. It's not precise. It's somewhere in the vicinity of 70 parking lots in Arlington that I could count from Google Earth. It's in that vicinity. I won't say it's exactly that number but I did go along. Business spaces. I'm not just residential. I mean this is... Parking lots with 25 spaces. They're including residential. There are six or 70. It also includes like the schools. 70. Yeah. Wow. It's a lot of pavement. I didn't think it would be that much. That's existing. That's fine. Well, I gave you my feelings earlier how adding trees to parking lots do add an extreme burden on fostering businesses developing in Arlington. I think we're trying to balance between the two and making it on a mandate of having all these trees puts an extra burden on it and may stifle businesses. I think I said... Well, I said I'm personally a supporter of trees but can we find all the areas where we can find low-hanging fruit where we can put trees? And I did mention that let's look at some street trees or in public areas where we can do that where we can offset parking spaces and have tree islands or having vegetation at corners for stormwater before it goes into the store. All that stuff is something that if we are really, truly concerned about heat islands I think we should start with those first as an agenda as opposed to let's look at new development and let's put more criteria on it so we hinder that. That was my opinion and I expressed last time and I still have that. And that was one thing. And then when I look at this illustration right here I count four trees. You added, not five. There's actually one in the corner if you look carefully. It's down by the could. It's in the corner, yeah. Okay. It blended in. I'm not saying you didn't have five trees. I'm just saying I couldn't find five trees. Okay. When you guys did that I know you guys are not professionals and all that. Did you guys do a solar study on this? Because the way I look at all those trees surrounding that solar field you got in the parking lot there there might not be enough sunlight coming down on the solar panels to make it feasible. I'm not saying it is or isn't but I'm just saying can you take I think that's something you take a look at. Recently I just had solar panels in my house and the first thing they added is they asked me was what kind of shade trees you have around your house because if there's too much shade trees it doesn't make any sense with solar panels there. So if we're going to do this combination that you talked about we've got to look more carefully about that and say hey that's the whole food right on Mass Ave and if we put those let's say the trees I'm not going to say the numbers with those then existing trees shaded for so many hours it doesn't make sense with solar panels there so you're making a request of someone to do something that doesn't make any sense. That's why there's an option I'm just these are all questions I have right now I'm not saying I spring this up as that I think that's all I have for now I'm supportive of the notion I'm just not supportive of putting an extra burn and also the fact that the combination the two that goes there it complicates not a low hanging fruit which you can get for shade trees and get rid of the heat islands that is not focused on it's one commercial or residential development here I think it's a way of discouraging future growth and I'm sure I'm not that sure I think your call here is good so that's why I have great thank you Ken the question I have for you is around the selection of the standard that you have set the USDA Forest Service Tree Owners Manual standards and I know that we had when you came with this pre-proposal several meetings ago we had talked about whether or not we should include a specific standard or refer to other standards that may be set in town for example the tree warden and the reason I ask the question around this particular selection is that we do try and not in the bylaws specifically cite references because they change and are updated so regularly so my question is whether this was done in concert with the tree warden or if there was any discussion around potentially referencing standards which have been set by the town and if there is a way to do that without putting a specific standard into the section on the new zoning section requiring the street trees planted every 25 to 25 developers it says there will be a care pool for 36 months pursuant to the American standards of nursing staff standards and I thought I just carried that language over two hours being okay well that's what the ARB wants to see and that makes sense to me but then I looked it up and I saw that citation actually applies to pre-planting choice of stock in locations and things like that and so we talked to the tree warden about A did he agree that that's what this said which he did agree and B did he have suggestions to what we could use instead of that assuming that we'd like a standard since you had the opportunity in this other section and he came up with the USDA Forest Service Tree Owners Manual which is an amazing document and it's been around I think I think it's first there's an old version on the website it was 2008 it's been updated I think it was maybe so it seems to be a very he likes it I'm going to use it in my art and also we have written in there or other standard as the ARB managed to use so we kind of did the best we could there if you want us to take out that specific standard it's in multiple places and I think the or other is cited once and again I'm trying to make this as simple as possible so that's why I asked the question and I had suggested in my memo it's probably too late but it would be nice to amend that language in the Tree Every 25 feet to the Tree Owners Manual standard versus the nursery and again they change regularly so this is why I asked the question great any other questions from the board before we open it up for public comment okay so at this time I will ask any member of the public joining us this evening who would like to address article number 30 to please raise your hand once I call on you you will have up to three minutes to address the board again these are questions that will come to the board or you know your personal observations or opinions they will not be directed directly to the applicants the proponents of the article what I will do is collect any questions that may come up this is good for all of the the articles and we will then pose those to the proponents at the end of public comment unless there is something that starts coming up regularly that we feel would be helpful for clarification so any member wishing to speak you will have up to three minutes and I would ask that you begin by introducing yourself first, last name and address with that anyone wishing to speak on article 30 please raise your hand I think Chris did have his hand up first so if you could please join us here in the front thank you Thank you Madam Chair, Chris already Adam speak you know in general I support this I do have a number of questions though and would like some clarification you know before voting on this this is a town meeting number first to Mr. Aviles question about how often this would apply I think the question is over the past 20 years how many parking lots would this apply to how many developments would this apply to does anyone know that the answer I won't take the time to give you know to listen now I would guess maybe only Sims because this only applies to outdoor parking spaces as I read it and you know the trend now is to build underneath the building whenever possible and related to this since it only applies to 25 as I read the zoning bylaw those developments are already going to be before you for environmental sign review any residential development or more than 6 units is before you any non-residential residential development of more than 10 units 10 parking spaces is before you why can't you require this now also I'm not sure that's the reason not to pass this but I don't think this imposes really any more additional burden upon the developers unless you're requiring more area for the trees to be in as I again as I read the proposed change you're not requiring more area set aside from the parking lot area than is currently required it's just a matter of the type of vegetation that goes in there whether it's trees or some other types of vegetation so I think that covers all of my comments I'm a little confused so on the solar aspects of it how the requirements in the parking lots will relate to any requirements on the roof of the buildings and I wouldn't want to see the requirements that if they do use the option of putting solar panels in the parking lot I don't want to introduce the requirements on the roof of the buildings I don't think it does but I think it does which is clarifying because there was some parenthetical comment in the proposed language about referring to the solar requirements in the industrial district how those two would relate thank you very much alright we had another hand raised John Leone this would only be applied forward not retroactively correct so if we're in this example they're losing this parking place would that negatively affect any of the other aspects of the potential building such as square footage or floor area ratio of anything like that if they have this current square footage to do it but with this new bylaw would they be given a dispensation for that that would be a question that I would have that would be my only question great thank you very much any other comments or questions from people joining us this evening okay with that we will close public comment on article 30 and I will see if any member of the board we did answer that this would be going forward and not retroactively applied the question around how many parking lots this would apply to from projects over the last 20 years I don't have the answer that I don't know if the applicants have looked into that if not we can certainly for the deliberation look into that through the planning department but I'll see if you have the answer to that I mean if there are 70 ish parking lots of that size 25 or more in town how many have been built in the last 20 years I don't know but we do know that for example the CVS parking lot is around like maybe 27 spaces right so I think honestly that would be a helpful we have some similar questions around is this the solution in search of a problem when we chatted the first time that this came up and I think that some of the comments were in that same vein as our initial discussion how many projects recently would this have applied to and given that this is in front of us any of these scale projects come in front of us one of the items we did speak about previously was the fact that one thing that developers are very willing to typically work with us on are the landscaping plans specifically the species and the the inclusion of trees etc we rarely seem to have pushed back when requesting those items. Not saying that we shouldn't have this in here to just recognize for people who may not have been able to join us when this was originally in front of the board that was a discussion that we did have and I think the question around would this negatively impact anything else like square footage you know there are there is a requirement in terms of the number of parking spaces that is calculated off of you know many different many different areas such as the building size and again I think that there are several different methods of reducing parking space requirements in terms of the TDM plans etc so I think that this would be one of many one of many parts of the calculation around the actual number of required parking spaces. I wanted to see if any of the members of the board had any other comments related to public the questions that were recently raised or final thoughts for the proponents starting with Ken. None of this time. Great, Shayna. Hi Jean. As I read this I don't think it substitutes for the requirement for solar use. It's an addition not a substance. Anything else Jean? No. Okay, Steve. Nothing here. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right so at this time we will move to the next item in our public hearing which is article 31 a zoning by-law amendment related to adding five to seven winter streets to the MBTA neighborhood district and I will turn this first over to Claire to see if there are any comments that you would like to make on behalf of the Department of Planning and Community Development. Sure, thank you. I only have one comment and that is that in our MBTA three A compliance letter we are required to notify EOHLC of any changes to the district and so EOHLC has been notified that this is a potential change, a potential warrant article and we can move forward as far as the city is concerned. Great. Thank you very much. And with that I would like to turn it over to John Leone and our other proponents. I'm John Leone. I'm here. Sister Suzanne Leone. Before you begin referencing the challenges of some people in the background. Speaking of that would be appreciated. John Leone. I'm here with my sister Suzanne Leone. Suzanne and I together are the trustees of the AML Realty Trust. The AML Realty Trust is a family trust composed of myself and my siblings. My grandparents originally bought this house back in 1956 and it's been in our family ever since and Suzanne actually lives there. So it's not an investment for our family home. Five to seven is one of the largest parcels in East Arlington being over 18,000 square feet. It's right now surrounded by a neighborhood multifamily district as you can see on the chart it's the house in yellow. The dark shaded parcels are all now in the multifamily district. The light blue is the summit house and over to the right kind of purpley color is the Fox library which as we all know the town is now exploring to rebuild with the multifamily multi-story building above it. It's feasible. So our contention is we should have been included in the multifamily district on the first time around I brought this before town meeting last year and it failed by six votes. I spoke into several town meeting members who voted against it and they now can see what our thought process was. If we, if all of the other buildings around us built to the loud height of four or five stories and on Mass Ave that row of stores which are basically taxpayers went to six stories. We would be surrounded by multifamily apartment houses and we would never be able to do anything to the house not that we have any plans to do so but it would be forever precluded from doing that and if the bottom of the L if the other property owners on the street or Cleveland approached us and wanted to buy that little portion of their lot size it would be of no benefit to them because it's not in the district if we wanted to we recognize the house is on the National Historic District list but so is number 13 and 15 those big parcels down Winter Street that are two houses down from us. They're also included. I asked both the Arlington Historic Commission and the Planning Department if they had a comprehensive list I don't think we really have one of all the buildings on it so for all I know or for all we know other buildings may be included in the multifamily district I think that might have been the original reason to leave us off but I don't think it's a valid reason just because two other houses on the same street are on it. So we appear to ask that we be included within the district again not that we have any plans to do anything we like the house we like the barn out back but we want to preserve our rights for the future and if we ever decide to sell it as a family that whoever buys it would have those rights preserved. Great. Anything else? Well you talk none of your neighbors Oh none of my I guess the notes went out but no one has approached me to ask about it 164 cards went out to the neighbors we haven't heard anything back all the butters everybody in the summit house because it's condo now and I think she said it was radius of 500 feet so we had to send it to everybody well actually the players department did we just gave it the stamps but we've heard nothing from anybody either pro or con I don't really think there's much pushback from the neighbors Great. Thank you very much Alright we'll turn it over to the board for any questions or comments starting with Kim To answer your earlier question Yes we left your property off because it was historical We were going guidelines we did the MBT communities that we were going to leave historical buildings alone and so that's why it was left out I realized brought up at the last meeting that there a historical building down the street we missed that one okay so is this just dark screen there was quite a few properties we're looking at at the time trying to get this going and the boundaries were going in and out from Mass Ave and a whole bunch of other things that we're trying to deal with trying to address everybody's issue as best we could and I'm just letting you know what our initial intent was was to reflect you guys at all by giving you guys out it was not our intent but as far as giving you guys the ability I have no issues with that I think it gives you relief especially the business districts which are really shallow there there's really not much you can do there it actually as a deterrent for doing anything there but what's there now the way it's situated because the front spaces along Mass Ave is so shallow you can't do much mainly there you need to combine spaces to actually do something which may or may not happen I'm not saying that so I have no issues with that it's just commission I spoke to Julian Robinson and what was her comments back on this she just made me aware which I already knew that there is a anything that happens in that house not the property of the house has to go through them and they would have to approve any changes if anyone in the future ever decided they wanted to knock it down or demolition delay that sort of thing and being on the National Historic to register there's overlay of additional requirements to keep the house nice which we have and we can actually just put in a roof on it so we're not going anywhere can I ask another question was it historic or was it already historic registered when you bought the building or if you came that way while you owned the building so you had the option to do so or not do so no my grandparents bought it in 56 and I think it was around the mid 70s I think I provided the registration materials to the clearance of the department and I remember discussing with my dad prior to his passing and he just said when it happened it just happened they were never really told it was going to happen and it just all of a sudden one day they were informed you're now in historic register there wasn't no public hearing or discussion it just got submitted and approved it's on the historic register because it's a classic shingle style queen and Victorian so it's for architectural purposes not that someone historic lived there or something any other questions okay, Shayna so so Claire I appreciated the information about submitting information to the state and a just quick feedback question on the follow up question on that does the state need to approve any changes to MBTA communities of this nature or is it simply notification? it's simply notification I think what the state is looking to preclude is any minimizing of the district or anything like that honestly I think they're probably thrilled or ambivalent about adding properties thanks I have nothing further that Kent hasn't already touched on thank you very much Jean I have no problem with your proposal I do have some questions about the process so the zoning by law requires two types of notice and I just want to make sure they were both done the first says and we haven't seen this the petition which is in the file show the copies of the petition have been sent by registered or certified mail to all owners and immediate abutters of the land referred to in the petition and then the department sends it out by first class mail to the wider group what I would need to see to vote fairably on this is the notice of registered or certified mail to all the owners and immediate abutters of the land referred to in the petition so that's it's a two part requirement I mentioned this when you were in a few months ago that this is important so I have a question we send basically you want to send the proposed warrant article to the abutters what this says is when a petition for a change happens filed which is what you're doing such petitions shall show that copies of the petition have been sent by registered or certified mail to all owners and immediate abutters of the land referred to in the petition so that's one then before this hearing the department sends out first class mail to a much larger piece so I'm feeling like we need to see the registered and certified mail piece as the first piece of that so I just have a question regarding that the summit house we send it to the condo association or to each of the individual owners it says to all owners and immediate abutters of the land and you know someone came in a couple of years ago with a petition to rezone I think two or three parcels on Massachusetts Avenue and he complained a little about the requirement but he did that we have no problem doing it so I need to see that we have no problem sending it out to the abutters but the you're looking for the definition that's something that perhaps we can have Mike Penningham clarify for you very quickly to make sure that we get that done correct anything procedural absolutely we have no problem sending out the petition to the abutters it's just a procedural piece I would like to be done for that that's it from a town council on there it is no association or individual owners this looks this is pretty straightforward I have no further questions I don't either I appreciate that you spoke with the historic commission as we discussed so thank you for doing that okay if I might just address Ken's point those front property owners on Mass Ave they're built right up to the property line I think I'll walk that side don't the back doors open onto your property no there's windows but they're all written up except for the oldest yeah the oldest alright so with that we'll open this item article 31 for public comment anyone wishing to speak please raise your hand please I'd like to come forward and we could just make space one chair for anyone coming up thank you as a reminder you will have up to please three minutes to speak please introduce yourself by your first last name and address my name is Shelly Dean and I live at 7 Cleveland street and I have mostly questions and in general I am supportive of increasing the density of housing options in Arlington some of my questions have to do with and just in terms of comments that I've had from some neighbors they're not familiar necessarily with what is allowed under the neighborhood multifamily sub district so some neighbors mentioned to me oh they're getting it approved as a two family and I said no I don't think that's right so just there may be some information that would be helpful to explain to neighbors my question really had to do with the fact that when I went online and I looked at what I thought was the most recent MBTA communities map it differs slightly from the map up here so that on the L shaped section those two sort of short parcels which I don't know how to describe better be exactly those two we're not we're not on the map that I saw we're not designated as neighborhood multifamily sub district and similarly I think the lot right next to the Fox library on Cleveland street is also not on the town's map for MBTA communities is not in gray so my question is whether this is the accurate map or the one on the town's website is and just my concern was that this is not my personal concern because I'm not immediately abutting the site I'm on the other side of Cleveland street but if I was in fact either living at what I'm speculating is 9 and 11 winter street and what I'm speculating is maybe 6 or 8 Cleveland street I'm not quite sure what the numbers are that there would be a tall building on one side an allowable neighborhood multifamily sub district on the other side but the property in between would not be so I just want to if you can clarify that that would be really helpful this could be the most updated map that we have if there's a map that does not match this on the website and it will change okay because the map on the website does say final so I was like huh we will ensure that that is aligned I'm sorry that you discovered that well I just feel like the neighbors should really understand what's happening and I guess just the last comment I would make which is neither here nor there is I agree with the comment earlier that that you raised which is the properties on Mass Ave are just so shallow that it seems really unlikely that those will be developed as taller buildings unless they're combined with the properties right next to them but in general I think density makes sense so I just want to make sure that we're not going to create these valleys between taller buildings thank you very much any other members of the public looking to comment on article 31 I just have some procedural questions about this I was one of those town meeting members who didn't know how to vote for it vote on it so I voted with the board but the and the reason I did that is the board on the 11th hour dropped all of Mass Ave East Arlington Community Take Communities district and the rationale was that that was all going to be rezoned to some other for some other purposes and my assumption was that the reason this parcel was dropped is that it would have been included with that rezoning for the rest of East Arlington given the shallowness of the lots in front of it and yet I haven't heard anyone talk about the rezoning of all of that part of Mass Ave and I'm wondering if my question is is that going to occur and if so should this parcel be part of that rezoning rather than part of the MBTA communities so that's one question the other question is everyone's talking about MBTA communities by law change the done deal but it has not been approved by the Attorney General and if I've read the legal notice and the advocate recently correctly it may not be approved if anyone objects to the defect in the hearing notice that the Attorney General wrote about so I'm wondering is it even possible to amend the zoning by-law that hasn't yet been changed it's not on the books I don't understand how we can amend it so I'll leave those questions up to you but it seems strange to me that when the by-law has not yet changed so we can go through this process again and it doesn't even exist in an approved form yet thanks thank you any other comments I just have a quick question please I'm Jerry Gray I live in 11 Winter Street this is more of a question and maybe this is not the right format but I'm trying to understand I know you guys don't plan on doing it but if you did sell it I guess I'm trying to understand what could be done if it passes and it's re-zoned what are the implications of that in terms of what the options are and we can certainly again top-line the MBTA neighborhood district for you any other questions keeping a list of all the questions height and stuff like that anything else? thank you any other comments or questions okay so with that we will close public comment for article 31 Claire it seems like there are some questions around the status of the the submitted MBTA community's article so perhaps if you could give an update on the approval status and the EL so Mr. Lourie is correct there was a procedural flaw related to the notification of the Warren articles last fall the Attorney General's office is working through that right now going through their process and they're working with the town clerk to come up with resolution great thank you very much let's see so regarding Steve if I could ask you just to give a quick recap of what is available on the properties for the neighborhood communities the neighborhood multi-family districts would be if my memory serves me correctly they would be multi-family homes which is three or more dwellings per building at a height of three stories with setbacks of I believe we remember if it was 15 or 20 feet in front 15 feet in front 20 feet in the rear and a total of 20 feet on the sides thank you very much roughly not too far out of scale with what's there it's a big two and a half story thank you very much we're not here to debate the piece excuse me we're not here to debate we are giving a top line summary excuse me we are not here to debate we are here to the top line summary thank you let's see and then the last item that I'll mention there's a question around when we are looking at the rezoning we left out we decided to omit the business districts in Arlington Heights business district and East Arlington as well as Arlington center we will be starting with the redistricting of Arlington Heights business district the target date for that is the Springtown meeting of 2025 and East Arlington we'll follow Arlington Heights great so any other questions for the applicants or comments from the board starting with Steve nothing here nothing with that we will close this portion of the hearing for article 31 thank you very much we will now move to the zoning bylaw amendment excuse me article 32 the zoning bylaw amendment related to traffic visibility and I will first turn it over to Director Ricker for any comments great thank you no comments on this article 10 registered voters just taking a look at corner lots and visibility related thank you very much and we'll turn it over to you for up to 5 minutes of introduction great thank you I'm Caitlin Monaghan 43 Highland thanks so much for giving me the chance to talk to you can you speak up please I'll try just in the interest of full transparency mylaw is one of the ones that would be directly impacted by this warrant article 8 past next slide please so the goal of warrant article 32 is to amend section 5 312 which ensures traffic visibility by putting restrictions on the placement and height of buildings, fences and vegetation it does this in two subsections one section A which ensures visibility in corners and section B where it ensures visibility from driveways in section A the way it does this is it defines this triangle that's 20 feet by 20 feet so basically a 200 square foot area in most cases and it says that nothing above 3 feet can be there except for the next slide please for the section 5 312 B it has a similar sort of structure in that it has a zone where there are limitations in this case the zone is the 5 feet in front of the property and the limitation is a limitation of 2.5 feet in height however section 5 312 B also adds one additional element that's absent in 5 312 A which includes the possibility of exception which this limitation is in place unless it can be shown that the vegetation or structure will not restrict visibility in such a way as to hinder the safe entry of a vehicle from any driveway to the street and if that's the case you can go above 5 feet so I think we can all agree that there are a lot of types of fences and vegetation that would be completely unsafe if you put them either next to a quarter or next to a driveway next slide please however there are also many fences that are in adequate height but don't really include the view of traffic and under the current bylaws you would be allowed to put these next to a driveway but you're not allowed to put them next to a street corner next slide please this is a problem in my opinion because it discourages the use of fences that are in adequate height to actually protect children and pets so if we look at what the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care stipulates for child care centers in the state they require that there be a certain permanently installed barrier on the busy street if we look at our own Island Townsend bylaws there's a requirement that if you have a hazard like a swimming pool that needs to be surrounded by a fence that's 5 feet high next slide please so my proposal then is to update Section 532A with language that's adapted from 532B in order to just add the words unless it can be shown that the building structure or vegetation will not restrict visibility in such a way as to hinder the safe transit of a vehicle through the intersection I think we can completely preserve the original intent of the bylaw but also allow fences that are tall enough to protect children and pets thank you that's all I have thank you very much I will turn it over to Steve to start with any questions or comments that was a good observation you're right there is there are two sections of the for those two sub sections the sense we deal with traffic disability that has a provision that makes exceptions if you can demonstrate maintaining sight lines and the other doesn't I think your proposal is entirely reasonable I have no further questions I'm just curious who makes this decision I mean if you're going to put up a fence that's 4 feet tall or bushes or whatever who gets to make this decision who's in charge of this I couldn't figure that out and if we're going to add and I'm not necessarily opposed to the concept but if we're going to add something to the zoning bylaw that says unless it can be shown such and such I want to know who gets to look at it and say yeah you're right and I think we need to know that and I don't know Claire whether the building department has to approve fences and bushes because if they don't we're in no man's land here as to what to do about this alright so the question is does the building department it's not planning that I know so I think it's important to know that because if we don't know the answer we need to write something that indicates how this is actually going to be processed Jean isn't it a zoning article it's zoning issues that it's the building commissioners right to enforce that well we just need to understand that we should probably so we can follow up with inspector champa unless you've already spoken with inspector champa no I figured you all would know much better than I do because whatever it is in section 5 through 12B that's what I'm envisioning for 5 through 12A okay we can do that before our next meeting figure out how this would work because you don't usually need a permit for a non-structural fence under 6 feet and I think Mike needs to understand this is coming and what it would mean for him that's all I have good observation thank you Shayna I guess my only other observation or question is is there is there a distinction between fences and vegetation that would need to be or that should be made just because the visibility with fences and vegetation are by nature very different and it's very easy for vegetation to get out of hand pretty quickly potentially we've done a lot of talking I think about inspectional services inspectional services and compliance and can we hire someone to do compliance work and come to the conclusion I think that someone walking around looking at the height of bushes is unlikely to happen which is probably where it may have originated from this was a challenge that's right Ken I also just want to add one more thing where you say that let's prove that the fence has an appeared vision that's so subjective going back to Jesus who's going to view this but also that person may change from time to time and now all of a sudden it's been 24 and it just has to work now so I would suggest tightening up a little bit anything above 3 feet it needs to be 50% viewable I'm not sure what the word is but something like that along those lines I think they have that I also would encourage you to maybe if you're concerned about safety in residential corners to maybe hook up with the tree committee there and look about some of the adding some storm rain gardens at the corners are you aware of that would also help the safety of the corners there because now you're shortening the crosswalk on the street and now there's a garden up just lower that would allow more visibility and more safety because now I'm not saying no to that but now you have more of that chamfer and the sidewalk and the rain garden is that much more I'm just encouraging you that's something you're serious about I would say might want to champion I was trying to keep this as completely narrow as possible by changing almost no language and directly copying from one region to another I agree the likelihood of there being vegetation or a structure that is transparent that seems very unlikely like a plexiglass shed what would that even be but I wanted to just stick to I assumed that the original language was acceptable actually there's a hidden slide at the end there are a few things okay it's just it's too hidden alright I think there are several things we could tighten up in the language of the zoning bylaw there is the way that the corner is defined it talks about the intersection of tangents in a way that perhaps I don't remember calculus but I don't think that means what that seems to be it means also some language about you know above the plane of the curb rate but there are things that I think that you said a little bit more clearly as well as things to find like I love idea of 50% transparency because right now with the drag ways it's just completely subjective and enforced by who knows what you are not moral anything else before we open up for public comment I'd like to ask you to think about this it seems like the thing you're interested in is being able to put a fence up and you can have fences that you can see through so rather than what you've done and I understand you copied it from somewhere else in the zoning bylaw that was done right now but we won't go there it might be easier if you said except for a see-through fence then we wouldn't have anybody having to make a decision or anything like that and you could put up you know a see-through fence or a fence with X percentage or more visibility and it's just and you know that might be a really easy way to fix this sorry to you it might be a lot easier if it just said instead of what is in here now if it just says except for a fence that you can see through or 50% transparent or something like that then we don't have to get judgments made or anything like that and the reason it's helpful is if you look at the zoning bylaw structure is defined to include a fence among other things so that's why I'm suggesting just saying except for a transparent fence we can figure out what the line would look like and that might be the easiest way to accomplish what we want any other comments? like I said I don't foresee any transparent other structures or vegetation we can figure out how to do that would it be possible for us to also fix 5 3 12 B in the same way or is that going to be like that has the same let's look at the language let's look at the language of your main motion yeah you referenced 5.3 .12 A in your um in your article so I don't believe that 5.3 not that I don't think it should change but I don't know that we could raise a great arbiter of this I don't know that 5.3 .12 B would fall under within scope is how I'm reading this Adam Charo would be inclined to agree with you yes me too okay I appreciate that okay any other comments before we open this up for public comment maybe I can share a proposal with her would you be open to working with email you in a few days yes great and would you also be able to reach out to inspector champa or would you prefer that if we just do the transfer I think it would be good to let him know as well okay great thank you any other comments open it up to public comment okay great so at this point we will open up open this up for public comment for article 32 related to traffic visibility anyone wishing to speak please I see you anyone wishing to speak please raise your hand you will have up to 3 minutes to speak and please begin your comments by introducing yourself by first last name and address please thank you madam chair and members of the board I'm Carl Wagner 30 Edge Hill Road and a town meeting member I put a fence up at my house when I moved into it it is not on a corner and I learned some of the rules for fences I would make an observation that these nice fences that may be on the recording or maybe folks here could see I believe they're all 3 or very close to 3 feet or less so they're not representative of a fence that is high certainly not on a corner either you can see it in some of the cases anyway so I'd like to make the observation that I believe the rules the town has seemed very sensible and they are my right at the moment which is you don't need a permit just have to follow the rules I believe my house was 2.5 feet in front of my house to the street and then on the side you can go up to 6 but you have to rise up if you want to go around those rules I believe you come and see the ZBA or the ARB and that also seems to be a very logical and appropriate way for an applicant such as the one who has this article to make changes to ask if it's okay and when one takes the needs of the applicant which may be measurable about dogs or whatever other reason that's important but it's very important that thousands of people who use the streets sidewalks, bicyclists, children pedestrians, other drivers also have their needs met and so I hope that you'll consider that we already have good laws for how you put a fence up in Arlington including on the corner and that the applicant can come and get a variance potentially if it makes sense for the applicant's needs versus the needs of all the thousands of people who live here and safely have to use the area around our houses thank you Is there anyone else who has a comment or question on article 32? Thank you Madam Chair Crystal Reddy and I'm seeing again Claire could you bring up the slide that shows the triangle for the area that this would apply to this one? So if you look at the slide on the left I believe the applicant has presented in a way that is not the way that the bylaw is interpreted or at least has been historically interpreted and the bylaw uses a weird language that talks about between the property lines of intersecting streets traditionally that has been as I understand it has been the curved line of the street not the street right of way which is shown there the inner lines of the sidewalks and if you go back to the zoning bylaw before it's been quantified there are a lot of illustrations about the apartment and if you look at the illustration that corresponds to this it's pretty clear to me that they were measuring that 20 feet not from the right of way but from the curved line and once you do that that triangle becomes a lot smaller than what is shown on this illustration and for that reason alone I think this change is not necessary As for the question of enforcement I've had experience with that as an inspector I objected once when the stockage fence was put right up to the sidewalk next to a driveway and he went and had the people reduce it in accordance with the bylaw I don't think the exception of bylaw to my knowledge has never been applied because once the building inspector gets that objection you don't say well maybe you could show that it doesn't affect anything it just enforces it without even considering the possibility of inspection so I don't think the change is proposed would actually do anything anyway I think the bylaw as it stands as Mr. Bygner said is correct as it is and I appreciate that the applicant may like their dog I think the importance of safety to pedestrians far outweighs the minor increase in area that the dog would have to run around in a fenced place and my own writing but the other thing I was going to say is certainly if you oh I don't want the supply to buildings either and the way that the change is written you would allow buildings in that area based on the exception I don't think that's appropriate certainly if somebody is just sticking a plexiglass band on top of the fence to raise it up another foot or so it shouldn't be objectionable but in general I don't think there's anything wrong with bylaw as it stands now and certainly as a town medium thank you any other members of the public wishing to speak on this article okay with that we will close we'll come back and if you wanted to I just wanted to respond to Mr. I wanted to ask her a question sure let's start with Jean's question and then we can Miss Silveretti says that your triangle is not in the right place why do you think that's the right place for the triangle I'm sorry if you could please come up here I need the microphone to be able to pick you up thank you so much yes I agree that the intersection of the property lines I don't know why you it says the intersection of the property lines of the street I couldn't tell if that meant parallel with the street if that's the case why not say parallel with the street and so I deferred to asking Steve which of it I gave him two vectors and said which one is it and just went with that great thank you and Steve my interpretation is shown on the left and by virtue of the language property lines property lines don't intersect the street but they do intersect the sidewalk so it was whatever I interpreted as the triangle formed by where the property lines intersect thank you I will ask Inspector Chapman thank you great thank you very much and did you have the clarification you were hoping to make that was one of them and then to Mr. Wagner's point my intention my primary intention is not just to fence the artwork because if I wanted to do that there are a gazillion non-compliant fences and I would just put the fence my intention was to make a bylaw that would be fair and equitable and applicable to everyone thank you very much any other questions for the applicant or comments from the board starting with Steve I do know that in terms of non-conformities fences around the corner is happy to be a common one thank you and you can never get a variance to filing this when you happen to come Gina nothing further and Ken just one comment yes the chamfer that's shown in that corner there the yellow line there I thought that's what she wanted I know the line of sight in the past I believed was and that is the viewpoint for traffic and not blocking it so I thought she just wanted to increase that which makes it be larger I might be wrong again I think this is what Jean is going one of the things Jean is clarifying with Inspector Tampa any other comments all right please I would as just a counterpoint to Mr. O'Ready's excellent point that yes this triangle would almost not even intersect the yard if it were at the corner I think that would in a lot of ways make a lot more sense because why would the safety margin be dependent upon how big the sidewalks are that said I do think there is a need for something along the lines of this word regardless because there are plenty of streets that don't have any sidewalks at all and it would still be necessary to do something to treat those comparably different properties I could understand the objection potentially that by putting up a fence if there is no sidewalk then this might also be a hazard for pedestrians I think that if that's the case we should consider why we currently allow fences up to that line as long as they're less than three feet and I don't think in the cars coming that I want to dive into a three foot hedge that would be particularly safer than having the fourth offense that we will end public comment for article 32 and move to our next article which is article 33 a zoning bylaw amendment related to rear yard setbacks in the business districts and I will turn it over to Dr. Ricker for any initial comments no comments from the department on this amendment great thank you very much if you could introduce yourself first last name and address you'll have up to five minutes to present your proposed article my name is Andy Greenspun I live at 89 Palmer street here's the for an article language just for our friends to adjust rear yard setbacks requirements for use as a forum or stories in the business district next this is the actual change this is if you recall it the special fall town meeting last year we simplified the ways to determine the setbacks that used to be for rear yard setbacks in the business district that used to be some sort of formula involving length plus height divided by six among other things so it was simplified to this sort of these sort of definitions here but at the time I noticed a little too late that if you go from with the current existing language if you go from three stories to four stories the rear yard setback for all the stories has to go when the budding residential has to go from 20 feet all the way to 30 feet so the proposed motion here is just that for the first three stories the rear yard setback stays at 20 feet and then for four or higher stories the rear yard setback has to be 30 feet for those stories next here's the most basic image to sort of convey the point this is the current zoning so if you have a three-story business building next to a residential if you go up to four stories you have to pull the entire building back next this is what the languages I understand that I'm proposing would change to so that just the higher stories have that setback since for the first three stories you're already at the 20 feet so why would you then suddenly shift all those back next the reasoning has to do with economic feasibility of the construction especially since Arlington has a lot of small lots especially in the business districts if a parcel is zone to allow four or five stories already and they're separate type and story restrictions that are in other parts for different types of business districts if you're already allowed to go four stories if you have to then shrink the entire footprint of the building an extra 10 feet in these small lots it may prevent the economic feasibility and harm the ability to grow small businesses so the example here is you have a parcel that has a width building that has a width of 100 feet a depth of 60 feet for three stories that would be 18,000 square feet with the current zoning if you wanted a fourth floor you have to decrease the depth for all the stories so you'd only get 20,000 square feet so you'd only get a net increase of 2,000 square feet for all the construction costs to go to four stories and that doesn't even include you know points of egress maybe elevators things that would take up more of the space with the proposed amendment this would change to allowing you would be able to get 23,000 square feet totals so you'd get an extra 3,000 square feet on the top floor relative to status quo it could be economically feasible next slide I think I stated this basically already but we want to make it so where extra stories are allowed in the business districts already we want the floor plate to be useful and economically financially viable existing zoning already sets different story heights for a reason and this change shouldn't have any impacts on shadows since for three story building you already are allowed to have just a 20 foot setback if you're adding the extra higher stories that already in the existing zoning are 30 foot back I don't think it should change shadows towards the adjacent residential next just for comparison in Summerville's forum zoning code they do basically the same thing mid-arrives as the equivalent to our business district or mixed use districts and their neighborhood residential is similar to our R0, R1 and R2 and they have the same thing where the first first to third story is about neighborhood residential is 20 foot setback, rear setback and then everything higher is 30 foot setback I think that's it yes thank you very much with that I will turn it over to the board for any questions or comments starting with Ken I generally don't have any questions I'm supportive of this I should be very much supportive of this I do have one suggestion graphically would you have your section right there see the vertical line we measure off 20 feet and 30 feet just rotate some text there just makes it easier it's just minor just so people realize that pole is not really up it's the proper line between residential I when I first looked at it I thought it was different pictures there's a house in it great thank you Ken Shayna I think this is very thoughtful I have no questions Gene Steve I appreciate that this is likely to offer some more ground space ground floor commercial space and excuse it I'm supportive I concur with my colleagues so at this time we will open up the floor for public comment for article 33 anyone wishes to speak please raise your hand thank you Carl Wagner 30 Edge Hill Road and town meeting member I'd like to read an email that came from an engineer who reviewed this if one were to apply the horizontal scale to the height of the supposed buildings it would lead to the amazing conclusion that a typical story is only five and a half feet high the blue business district four story buildings should actually be about 50 feet tall more than twice as high as they are shown and the unlabeled side yard setback for the house the left to right horizontal sideback is drawn at essentially a generous 13 feet rather than the 5 to 10 feet that is typical for East Arlington I would ask Madam Chair and members of the Board that the diagrams and graphics as well as all information that are supporting the proposal be given to you in proper scale that's the first thing that one sees I would also point out that in this very room prior to the special town meeting the major changes that resulted in the status quo that the proponent is hoping to make even larger those changes didn't have any public input after the spring town meeting before there was no chance for the public to weigh in why is it so important well if you have business district next to business district or business next to business it's not so important but the residents pay the taxes they're the ones who come home from jobs here the residents are that red house on the left they're the people who are going to be incredibly inconvenienced with solar panels and shading if we get this wrong the application has given you a deceptive perhaps unintentionally deceptive graphic and the situation deserves to be studied better by us and the people who might live in these houses and buildings that are next to business districts thank you very much any other comments please I'm going to leave my mask on totally fine if you can just please just project as much as you can sure I want to actually echo Mr. Wagner's comments I we had quite I don't know the town meeting last year the special town meeting dealing with the MBTA communities act was a significant effort it caused significant consternation it came to a settled conclusion unlike Milton but it did happen and I'm thinking that continued work of this manner chipping away at the various current zoning rules relative to height, setbacks and the pressure between business interests versus residential interests that were just laid out I'm thinking that probably this is too quickly re-engaging on issues that were already discussed at last year's town meeting and brought to conclusion with significant discussion I'm not sure why we're engaging on this again so quickly these sorts of issues so quickly after just having settled what was a somewhat divisive situation and I think we need to have a bit of a safe harbor approach to changes for a bit after last year I'm not I know that there are certain things that we need to continue to do year after year and continue to work on evolving things but this sounds an awful lot like what I heard last year and I would recommend that the board perhaps not consider taking a vote of approval of this so quickly after last year's special town meeting Thank you Any other comments? Please I think one thing about zoning changes in Arlington so much of Arlington is non-conforming and I question this in areas where the rear setbacks of the abutting residential property are not the required 20 feet for instance my backyard which does not abut a potential fee district but my backyard is about 14 or 15 feet deep on a very very small lot and there are many many lots many parcels like this in town particularly in East Arlington and to point out the scale on that is a little bit off because a four story building business building will probably be closer to 50 feet and for a residence with a short less deep backyard that's going to be really alluming presence that's going to be all you see when you look out of some of your windows so I think that without taking non-conforming lots into consideration this needs quite a bit more thought Thank you very much Any other comments? Please Dr. Wernanke, 21 Adams Street I'm speaking in support of this amendment I think it's a common sense amendment it clarifies the bylaw changes that are already made last year that's one and two I think as the government already explained as the applicant's saying it gives further scope to add commercial space and we need that Thank you Any other comments? Thank you Madam Chair Crystal Reddy, 26 Adams Street Just a few comments on this one I thought when we adopted this change in time meeting last fall it was the Somerville regulations and I'm not sure for which it's only districted somewhere more than before I'm not sure why they need to change that's my first question if they were good enough last fall, why aren't they good enough now second is I appreciate Mr. Lager's comments on the scale if you're going to do a drawing you need to get and put dimensions on it you need to make them scale both in a horizontal and vertical dimensions the other thing I would add is that typically the backyard rear yard in the business district and typically the side yard setbacks for existing homes is only 5 feet and that's way smaller than what is shown on this drawing and I think the buildings themselves in the business district should be shown at their maximum height not some artificially lowered height another thing this introduces is inconsistency and the terminology in the bylaw what is now being referred to as a upper story setback you call a stepback in other contexts and I think you need to deal with that issue as well you get two different you get setbacks and stepbacks and you're going to cause a lot of confusion as this is written and then finally my final comment is the same as I had for the MBTA Communities Act bylaw change and that again as far as I understand that this bylaw change for last fall has not yet been approved by the Attorney General again there was a defect in the notice for the hearing on it and if I understand the procedure correctly if anyone objects to the town clerk within a couple weeks she can't approve it so again can we approve a bylaw change for the bylaw that hasn't yet been changed so I'll leave it at that thank you thank you very much any other comments alright with that we will close public one second we'll close public comment for article 33 and I'll see if there are any questions from the members of the board then we'll allow you to make any clarifications you would like to starting with Steve nothing here Sheena nothing Ken yeah just a few things I consulted with checked with member of our ARB about the language regarding step back and step back I'm pretty sure it's consistent there's just different terminology because there's no step back for rear yard so it's a setback so it's consistent as far as I know regarding the question of relative size I can change that for the diagram but at the end of the day currently you can build to the 20 feet with three stories already so whether it's looming or not that exists in these areas status quo so this is just letting you have the higher part of the building be step back to what I think is good for being near residential I think I'll leave it at that thank you for the clarifications alright this point Jean did you have anything else okay at this point we will end comment on article 33 thank you so much can you take up that yes I have a request for a quick quick we will reconvene in five minutes perfect thank you very much please we're going to get started again please thank you alright so at this time we'd like to open the public hearing for article 34 the zoning by law amendment related to residential uses and I will see if Claire Ricker from the department of planning community development has any introductory comments thanks very much no introductory comments from the department this was submitted by JP Maliki alright and 10 registered members great thank you very much we will have up to five minutes to introduce the article okay thank you very much I have put a lot of prepared materials so hopefully we'll get to all right here first of all I would like to thank the board for their guidance when we met last time I think that's helped us refine our proposal I appreciate that again for the benefit of everyone we're proposing to allow two family and three family dwellings by right throughout Arlington and to do that while keeping all the existing dimensional requirements in place so existing setbacks etc etc so if you actually go next slide what so we were a little unsure on our approach last time there's kind of been a question on the quantum of vote for tau meeting and we found your comments very persuasive that it wouldn't make sense to go ahead with three family without allowing two family in those districts so that's our list of the effect with the quantum of vote we're going to keep that in there also we found your comments on second plan review likewise persuasive we'd like to incorporate it however at the point when the current draft language of the article was submitted we didn't have a proposal of language for that but if you go to the next slide we were considering going to approach like this where there would be an asterisk or something in the use table and there would be a note that site plan review would be required I know there was some discussion in some earlier meetings about rules and regulations for site plan review should be and allow that to be used in other circumstances in the zoning bylaw we think this would be a good approach but we very much would like to be guided by you and what language you'd like to see and in our opinion it's something that makes sense to include for kind of new two family development in r0 and r1 and new three family development in all three districts unfortunately the biggest question by far for this has been the question of quantum of vote the state's housing choice law is intended to kind of make it easier to have three family by right ruled out throughout the state it's been a little bit unclear to us whether that applies to two family town council is consulting with the attorney general's office on it and so far as we are intent to withdraw it if it comes back as a two thirds requirement and we'll be the first to let you know what we hear so I can go more in depth on the projections but basically I tried to do an exercise similar to what Steve put together for every community's last fall to kind of go through the parcel level and similar development kind of most trying to use similar assumptions around the basic development rate would be twice the rate for existing tear downs, complete redevelopments with a variety of other modifiers it's kind of a little bit of a I've got it all working but the difference between Steve's projections and these projections is that there are so many fewer parcels for the MBTA community's district that the brand of this is the draw really provides the spread and outcomes so there's a slide a little bit later on showing kind of the expected developments by year and it's just a straight line and that's just a product of the fact that you've got so many thousands of units to draw from in reality we expected to be a noisier basis and also that the you basically get very close to the original assumptions that I think it was like 0.46% chance as a base assumption and after all the modifiers and after everything else you got like a 0.48% chance so it's kind of I thought it was interesting I was kind of assuming I think probably more would be so basically when I was going to the projections we were assuming do you want us to show the results slide would that be yeah probably we have questions we can get into that no no that's really fine and I know we're at five minutes already I know that a lot of these are answering questions that the board had during our last meeting so I'm inclined to allow additional five minutes if the other board members are in agreement is there any objection from the board members any objection okay please go ahead so this again is kind of off of those assumptions you get 560 parcels total redeveloped over that 10 year period 726 new dwelling units etc I think the important takeaway from this is that if you want to have a different assumption on the pace of redevelopment okay hey that twice the conservative this is a smaller fraction than redeveloped that you can actually just multiply by whatever rate you think applies so if you think okay well you want to go full 10 times or whatever that you can just kind of extrapolate from here yeah I think we could question some projections later on but probably better take detail once Andy talk a little bit about the conversation with Dan and the Assessor's Office and similar to the conversation I had with him about multi-family housing in general last year it's really clear that if there are more units in the building the valuation goes up and the tax revenue goes up so a three family of the same size is going to have more value and therefore going to produce more tax revenue than a single family what he can't predict what the town manager can't predict what nobody can really predict is what will the effect be on expenses most of our expenses don't increase as headcount increases but there are notable exceptions of those notable exceptions are schools and trash collection and both of those are expensive items in the building that is the best answer anybody can give you similar to NVTAC is that there's going to be some effect but there's no way to calculate whether or not we're going to be at a tax advantage or we're going to be neutral or we're going to be at a tax disadvantage thank you and then I can express kind of your trust in seeing how this works I think first of all the fact that we're allowing two family throughout Arlington if you have a law where floor plants and such wouldn't work for three family there's a certain amount more flexibility but we did try to find some examples of existing three family units as well as potentially how a larger single family could be adapted a couple pictures on the next few sides we have 16th Water Street there's an existing three family unit so I think it's eight bedrooms kind of can be done in keeping and again you'll note this with two and a half storey like third floor it's a half storey so it's kind of possible to do it out of full third storey the next one 9 Russell Terrace yeah I guess one of the questions with all of these is sort of whether you can do it within the existing setback I mean this is a little bit short but again it's very much in keeping with the neighborhood I biked by it a million times realizing it was a three family house and finally five Old Ham Terrace Old Ham Road sorry this is a larger single family that it would be possible kind of a larger law with a larger building to to do three separate dwelling units in a harmonious manner that matches the neighborhood so yes then we have a plan for public engagement that we've been trying to wait to get the guidance to the bottom of vote before we go and tell everyone this is happening for sure but as soon as we get the board we'll be doing early outreach to all town meeting members we'll try to send a newspaper coordinating an event that's open to the public we'll also make sure that we've got coverage of the different precinct meetings to hear resident concerns and to work with the articles about and I mean I guess I would just say overall to like we would love to hear your concerns about the article and how it should be drafted and even if it's not something that you kind of support currently we would love to hear either what changes the language or what kind of process around this would make it something you can support in the future great thank you very much let's see let's start with kin for any questions or comments I appreciate showing some examples of what you think the buildings will look like falling state within the setbacks so the examples you set you've shown meet all setback requirements they're not existing nonconforming so those buildings are meeting all setbacks and all size ramifications and those are three families right now that's much appreciative with the exception of five old hands which is just an 8000s perfect single family I think we just showed that example as this could easily be modified to meet your requirement without really noticing because it certainly has a flow plate to do it and already has a three-car garage that's around the side make mansion basically well it's one of I could have pulled ten of these but it seemed like pulling real three families was a better idea no I agree again we honestly have a little hesitant right now just because NVA community just passed or will pass Kristen but I just want to see how that develops and the fact that there has not been very much public engagement and I realize your knowledge of the fact that you're waiting I think we should have that because when you're doing everything there was quite a bit of public engagement heated yes but there was a lot of it and I think that will help craft this thing so that's my little reservation saying that I would just wait if you guys could wait because you guys don't even have a decision this is going to be a super majority or just a majority right now right and I would just wait to see what that decision is and then start your public engagement and see how that with the public engagement how that alters what you're planning NMA enrich it and I think it will you can Sheena so so one of the things that I noticed was the description of R0 and R1 talked about discouraging intensive land use and hearing the ear and so I'm wondering I'm wondering if that is something that would need to be revised with this if going to a three family house would be considered an intensive land use another question I had was where the physical overlap with MBTA communities neighborhood districts are I think that might have an interesting impact on on unit count on magnitude of unit count are we so you know if are we talking about the 50 units a year the MBTA communities estimated plus 72 units or is it 50 plus 20 and and then I would echo can the public outreach or lack thereof I think is going to be very important those are my three thoughts thank you Shayna thanks for bringing this to us so we can discuss it I'm going to ask a couple questions about your analysis of the results then go through some pieces of your draft and ask some questions about it and then give an overall thought about it so on the results you indicate that if nothing happens in 10 years 560 parcels will get redeveloped but if this goes into effect there will be 726 additional so can you go to the results page that that one that one the summary of the results that one 26 units that's unclear wording basically so in all of the stuff so this slide and the previous slide I'm referring to additional incremental units that's stuff where it's saying additional per year on top of the 506 no so if you actually these figures are just taken from the previous one total redeveloped parcels that means parcels that were redeveloped due to this change and that we're assuming move from R0 R1 to that move from single family to two or three so if these are just those even if the 560 all became two families probably with the math 1120 how do you get to 726 so if a single family becomes a three family then one parcel could become two dwelling units in that sense in the vein of MBTA communities this is a new units only created so a single family is one so you know 560 if they were all two families they would be new dwelling units and you're assuming that a certain amount of three families so they're adding two instead of one so this is on top of the single family that already exists okay thank you I found this confusing to admit just might be neat and not huge helpful to talk through it I appreciate it it's interesting there was a report that came out I think the end of last year looking at and as you know Minneapolis got rid of single family zoning and the report basically said getting rid of single family zoning had almost no impact in Minneapolis and all of the increased housing was exactly what we did with MBTA communities on the main fellow fair, larger and not just getting rid of single family zoning so on the one hand numbers may be too high if we are similar to Minneapolis on the other hand if we're similar to Minneapolis this may not really be necessary to do it all so I'm mixed about what to do about that I agree with Shayna if you're going to do this you need to rewrite the R0, R1 and R2 definitions as opposed to just crossing out a few little things about them so why does the number of units in the building equate to more intensive land use if the dimensions start to sink I don't understand that well alright so I'm not getting out of that if you look at these three there's virtually no difference now between R0 and R1 that's not that or the minimum lot size but it doesn't quite line up there and pretty similar with R2 so I'd say you could do better in rewriting these three on let me go to the next one I like the idea if this is going to go forward with site plan review my suggestion is rather than put an asterisk because there are too many asterisks already just create a new thing SPR and then you put SPR and then add SPR to the the table where it says what each of these things are then you don't have to have one asterisk two asterisk it's just I think a cleaner way of dealing with that one of the things when you came a few weeks ago that I mentioned and I'm still interested in it I spoke to a couple of people and said what do you think about this idea that you're proposing and they said I'd feel better about it if they all looked like single family homes right so I wonder about the utility of putting something in here that says they have to resemble single family homes so I'd like you to think about about that also and now I'm getting to where I was which is what I said last time I just wonder whether this is premature in that we haven't even implemented MBTA communities yet so I want to see what that looks like for another year or two maybe it makes sense to wait and see what is the development in the neighborhood district would that influence what this looks like you know so I think it might be worth not saying no never to this but making some of the some changes and waiting to see what happens in the next couple of years with MBTA communities and whether this makes sense under those circumstances so that's why I'm at the moment thank you Gene Steve first I'd like to express some appreciation for what I felt was a good effort towards answering all of the questions that we asked you about last time I appreciate that as a note regarding the you know the variability between the runs I kind of I see why you ended up that way because there's a lot less variability in what you can this would allow versus what the range of partnerships under MBTA communities would allow so that totally makes sense the one substantive suggestion I would make site plan review do not be required for two family and I believe if I remember the discussion the previous discussion it went something to the effect of well we require site plan review for multi family in the MBTA districts so it would make sense for for three families so it would make sense for multi family elsewhere so I would ask you to consider the requirements for two but Keith you can I agree I forgot can I mention one other thing please go for it this is your big opportunity to change three family dwelling to a Y in the R3 district and you didn't do it well we totally would have made that change we appreciated that input we had unfortunately already set the warrant article language by the time we came before you but yes very much would have any other comments questions from the members of the board okay so at this point we will open up discussion for article 34 for public comment anyone wishing to speak please raise your hand and I'll ask you to please come sit in the seat right here so the microphone can pick you up please I really love this idea I think it would be great but one thing I think it might be helpful in terms of giving people an idea of how much it would change things is if there were some way to analyze how many houses how many current single family or two family houses actually go all the way to the limit they're allowed to according to the setbacks versus how many they actually have some logo room because I think depending on what those numbers are it might give us a better idea of whether it is likely to be a bunch of development or if it will be more of a Minneapolis situation great thank you very much and anyone else wishing to speak this evening thank you Carl Wagner 30 Edge Hill Road and a town meeting member this article looks similar to the article that proposed getting rid of single family zoning a couple years ago I'm distressed to see that it is back so soon at the time the proposal to get rid of single family and this would get rid of two families zoning by adding three in both cases was saying ostensibly that it would improve affordability it would help our green efforts our climate resiliency and it would add to diversity in town meeting it was shown that it would do none of those things and this would probably do none of those things also green trees open permeable spaces are lost to a desperate effort to get cars or vehicles any place they can be front yard side yard back yard we would see the loss in affordability as you probably know in all cases when single families were turned into two families where they were allowed in Arlington the total unit price of the two units was more individually than the single family that was knocked down to do that we care about affordability for diverse people for people who are coming in and looking for the affordable solution for them and diverse people are not looking to pay more for one of a three decker than they would for a single family let's also talk about choice housing choice was the name of a recent bill that was put in place they should have a choice we should have a choice to stay in Arlington as we move from multi units big buildings to two units like condos and then to single families potentially people want two and one family units and they want to keep their kids in the same town if they can as they change their income or as they get married they might be able to afford two family or a one family they might be able to just move directly to those in Arlington not to put radical choices out so quickly after community we owe it to at least have a vote on such a major change and especially before we get rid of the diversity housing stock affordability and the green efforts that we're already making to keep our open spaces open thank you anyone else wishing to speak on this item please Steve Moore I'm clearly learning that I probably shouldn't follow Mr. Wagner since he takes my thunder sorry no I just want to echo what he has just said much like I did on the last article I thought it was just last year we discussed the removing of the R1 zone in town and not a couple years ago and as the board has already mentioned a number of times this is following very quickly on the heels of that before we have the chance to even see what happens with what we did last year which was radical change for the town a lot of people think it went the right way a lot of people think it went the wrong way but be that as it may I think this is premature I think it's tone deaf considering the discourse that we had last year so recently to come back and do this so quickly again I'm not sure why that's occurring it just I think again I use the term safe harbor I think we need hands off for this for a couple years and see what happens and I think the board should consider that in any position they take thank you any other comments please Susan Stamps 39 Grafton street I do agree with the idea that when we just did MBTA so maybe we want to wait a year or two but I do love the idea of being able to make these regular size houses in between three families we're already tearing down small houses and building McMansions in Arlington and it just it's maddening to see that this is for one family it's happening anyway we need to be able to stop it and so we might as well give developers the opportunity to make a home for three families in one of these monstrosity but large homes rather than one I think it's a great idea I do worry about is this going to mean more paving over driveways but there may be something that can be done about that maybe there's permeable pavement maybe there's a limitation on pavement I don't know I think it's it's definitely where you're maybe just have dirt driveways how about that for an idea or gravel so I think it's definitely an exciting idea I don't think it can happen too soon this is a very different attitude than I had when the two family by right came up a few years ago it's still paved over and everything but I see what's happening and I think it's a great solution to providing more housing yeah so thank you Grant Cook you mentioned the Minneapolis situation of eliminating single families only you were right they said the single family change wasn't that much of the impact what was an impact was eliminating parking minimums something you all fought to keep in the MBTA discussion and I think at some point you said you would deal with so I guess I'm looking forward to you actually dealing with it not this I mean I assume not this year but it is something that had a great impact in Minneapolis and I hope that's something you guys take seriously when you said you would address it as a consideration the larger buildings I mean I know the details of Minneapolis but to talk about the impact for eliminating parking minimums was the biggest thing they felt and yeah I mean we have to argue with the change versus the status quo there was a small house that went on sale in the center single family on a posted size piece of land I think half the house didn't have heat and it priced at $800,000 I mean that's for a single family that's going to need significant work that's the status quo now do we change this now but the status quo is pretty bad so I hope we act steadily to improve things thank you thank you any other comments I'm Gersh Kippling Road I would just like to say I would feel way better about this if there was a safe way to present this that would garner a two-thirds majority if you could make a persuasive enough case if a case could be made for a two-thirds majority that would convince a two-third majority I would feel like way better about something like this then if the system is sort of kind of being gamed to play the 50% majority thing that's all thank you Wendy Richter Rattle Place I am a portable housing advocate and I feel that this particular proposal will not feed into increased affordability and I see that from a couple of different angles I think that perhaps if existing houses were allowed to be turned into multi-family and there was a process to do that that would be not what this proposal is but if there were a process for that I could see that providing some affordability I'm an architect and I know what developers do in terms of if you take a property land is very expensive here and you max on it and you make the biggest units you can and I see that as building out lots for three families you can end up with very expensive three family units I think the idea of being able to have the houses still appear as single families but that doesn't usually happen when it comes down to design because people want their own front door they want their own house and I think that if you're converting an existing single family that's large it's going to look really different than a new building that is built on a lot that maximizes the footprint and minimizes the open space. Thank you. Other comments? You had your hand up. Hi, I'm in support of this article and I hope it makes it through. I beg to differ from some of the members of the board that this is too soon to the MBTA communities because I think we don't need to limit ourselves and give a quota of only one change or one bylaw change every five years or so if that benefits the town we don't need to limit ourselves and and two more importantly I think we need to use all levels possible the MBTA community was one level we need to use all levels possible to A resolve the housing crunch but B more importantly to better the town's finances this is very very good for town's finances three units 1,000 square feet produce more property taxes than one unit of 3,000 square feet right so we need to remember that so three units of 1,000 square feet produce more property taxes than one unit of 3,000 square feet right two renovations and changes obviously will not be subject to property 2.5 and that will be added to new growth so this is by the way have been struggling the town has been paying was paying 4% of the median household income 15 years ago as property taxes now we pay 7% of the median household income as property taxes the reason why we ended up there is because we don't have new growth so this is very very beneficial for the town's finances so we shouldn't stop ourselves from using all levels to improve town's finances another reason why this is important why we should do this is because this actually opens up house in choice rather than curtailing house in choice another number I would like to give is the average household size in Arlington in the last 50 years has reduced from 3.3 to 2.2 so back in 1970 US census an average household in Arlington had around 3.2 members now it's only 2.2 household sizes have reduced which means we need more households to house the same amount of people which we haven't been doing so people out there in the market want for the reduced household they want more units, more the family units and we need to respond to that as well and as a result of that the town's population has reduced from 54,000 in 1970 to just 46,000 now in the town's population while the commonwealth's population has increased 24% so we haven't produced enough houses and as a result our population has reduced and the town's finances have also reduced so what I'm saying is a summary is that just because we did something last year in MVTA communities shouldn't stop us from doing something else that will be beneficial for this town for all of the current residents and town finances and in the process help those businesses, thank you thank you anyone else, please hello Evans, what's your place just a brief comment I hope that all of you if you have not will take the time to read the op-ed in the blog today by state senator Lydia Edwards and James Jennings who is a professor of environmental and land use policy at Tufts in which it is excellent point that production does not equal equity and that if we are going to create truly equitable housing we need to do a lot more than simply produce more units and my objection to this proposal is that it focuses entirely on production and as others have pointed out developers who are in business to make money as they should be are going to build the highest priced units they possibly can within the limitations that the town imposes this is not going to aid affordability it is not going to give choice to the people who are struggling right now to stay here or to be foot into the real state market so for that reason I would definitely vote against this as a town meeting member and I think that in general we need to really consider much more broadly how to make Arlington welcoming particularly a matter of production there is not more we need to be thinking about thank you so much thank you when I read that editorial as well I read it to understand that production is good but not enough so we have to do both I want to bring to everyone's attention 149 Pleasant Street it's a very dilapidated ranch it happens to be R4 and so the proposal that I saw go to the historic district commission is for it to be rebuilt as a three family so there's appetite on this huge lot to replace something that's pretty darn ugly the plans look lovely they look like they fit into the aesthetics of other buildings on Pleasant Street that are some of them are two family and some of them are single family and I think that it's a shame that it's only that corner that a three family can be built on not on every lot that has the size and the space to do so thank you any other comments great thank you all for your participation in that public comment close public comment for article 34 and I will turn it back to the board for any other questions or items that they'd like to convey to the proponents of article 34 starting with Ken no I won't say Shayna nothing Jean I think this was a really good discussion it reminded me until I was 13 my family lived in what had once been a single family home that was converted to three units crammed into one of the three units it's true you know until my parents made enough money to move out and buy a single family home so I definitely appreciate this and I'm really torn on what to do about this I'd like you to consider some of the things that I suggested I also wonder based on a couple people said if a short term step would be to have this for conversion of existing homes as opposed to new homes as a first step and see I'm not suggesting I'm just suggesting to take a look at it and see whether it's an interim step that I think did you want to reply to that I didn't want to reply to Jean if I could make a general comment sure if you don't mind I'll ask Steve for his comments and then we'll invite you to make any comments we'd love to discuss the language for what that could look like with you I mean it might not be I think with amending uses in the Warren article we may not be able to cover that in our existing Warren article but it's an interesting idea I have nothing further madam chair okay did you have any clarifications that you would like to make well okay stand up because I don't talk very loud unless I stand up so I would like to say that in terms of the question of it being too soon to bring an article you know we're fully aware that it can be losing on town meeting we're both town meeting members we went through that bruising well I am and you're going to be soon JP so get used to it and so hence our concern about fighting for a two thirds vote and I think from the feedback that we put from the board tonight it feels like maybe we need to do some more cooking and maybe we need to do some more public engagement and so on and so forth so I'm not going to be surprised when you take your vote one way or the other I'm not going to be upset about it but what I would like to add is some thoughts about this question of community impact and affordability okay so no this is not an article about affordable housing I worked for youth bill for four years I worked for the housing partnership network for four years I built with Habitat for Humanity for 20 years and I have many many clients in my current information systems practice that are affordable housing organizations I know what affordable housing means that's not this is about this is about production and filter yes somebody could buy a little house across the street for me for $800,000 they're not going to do that the next house across the street for me that gets bought the nice little six room ranch is going to be bought by a developer for $800,000 and we're going to build another $5,000 that's going to house one family and going to sell for more than $2,000,000 instead of two or three units that might sell for $800,000 or $1,000,000 a piece that is more affordable than what is being produced in my neighborhood people talk about the changing the character of the town if you lived in my neighborhood you would have seen what changing the character of a neighborhood means in the last 10 years my neighborhood doesn't look anything like the neighborhood I moved into because there are our conforming lots all around me and every time a house turns over it gets knocked down and turned into four, five thousand square foot house and that's fine I'm just saying there should be an option for more units and therefore more families and the families that can afford a $1,000,000 house they can't buy Arlington because the price is $2,000,000 they're looking for where they can afford and in some of the places they're buying they're buying houses that are more affordable and maybe they're renovating themselves but those are houses in neighborhoods where somebody's being displaced so the idea is that if we produce more housing here yes, expensive housing for more housing here less displacement happens in other places where housing is naturally affordable it's a regional system so that's the effect on equity. In terms of the environmental effect there if you put back up the picture of five old Cam Road if you'll indulge me Rachel I appreciate your letting me go back to the slides that house was built on a wood lot and it was built on a wood lot and next to it was a small house that at the same time, same developer was turned into two large colonial and then there's of the colonial that had always been there and then a hill from that are two more large houses built on wood lots so this doesn't preserve the environment what preserves the environment what makes this look lovely and means it has green space around it and trees and so on and so forth is the thing we're not changing which is the dimensional requirements and the setbacks I fail to understand why it's more of an environmental impact if there are three families living in that building instead of one and I hope I'm not being insulting to the folks who live at five old Cam Road I'm sure they're lovely people so that is the point is give more people more choices allow for a greater variety of housing stock in town and make it easier for people who currently couldn't buy a house here to buy a house here so they're not buying a decrepit single family in Bata Pan and renovating it and gentrifying yet another neighborhood that's displacing people who've lived there for generations but have never been able to afford to buy a house but Annie, every time this is not a back and forth this is an answer excuse me excuse me I appreciate you answering I appreciate that she is answering the question about equity which I think you have done were there any other clarifications that you were looking to make before no those were the big clarifications I was looking to make and I feel like this is a collaborative effort and we've gotten a lot of feedback from you and you know we'll move forward at whatever pace feels right to us collectively I do have one additional question for you whether or not through town council you have gotten any feedback on the timing for the AG decision we have not I've sent you emails twice I could try to call them in the morning I know they're backed up so yeah okay great thank you any other comments from the board before we move on Steve Jean nothing thank you very much that closes our discussion on article 34 and brings us to the conclusion of our topics under the public hearing for warrant articles for 2024 meeting for this evening we do have one other night of our hearing schedule for March 18th of this month and we at that meeting will be deliberating on all of the warrant articles which we have heard and voting to recommend action no action on each one of those articles so I would like to see if there is a motion from the board to continue the public hearing to the next scheduled date on March 18th, 2024 so I motion we'll take a vote starting with Steve Jean, Shayna and I may ask as well we will continue the hearing for warrant articles for 2024 meeting to March 18th thank you all and we will now move to the next item on our agenda which is open forum and I would invite anyone who if you could give everyone a minute or two who would like to leave so that we can hear anyone who is interested in speaking at open forum and I would ask anyone who is interested in speaking if you could please indicate so by raising your hand without we will close open forum agenda item number three and now move to agenda item number four which is new business and I will turn it over to Director Ricker thank you very much there is no new business at this time any new business from board members starting with Steve no no I don't have any tonight as well and therefore I will move to agenda item number five and see if there is a motion to adjourn so motion take a vote starting with Steve yes Sheena, yes and I have a yes as well thank you all for coming this evening this meeting is adjourned