 It is 733 p.m. on Tuesday, January 9th, 2024. Happy New Year, everyone. Good evening, my name is Christian Klein. I am the chair of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals and I'm calling this meeting of the board to order. I'd like to confirm that all members and anticipated officials are present. So from members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Hanlon. Here. Elaine Hoffman. Here. I am here as well. We do have three members of the board who are unable to attend this evening. So we do have four members. So we can still conduct business and vote on things with four members. But the rule that a positive vote does require the vote of four members does still apply. From the town, we have Colleen Rawlston, our zoning assistant. Here. We have you and I don't believe Mr. Cunningham is joining us this evening. Okay. Appearing for Docket 3764, 212 Pleasant Street. We have Nellie Akinhead. Here. Not only good to see you. Appearing for Docket 3776, 49 Dixon Avenue. We have Verma Sudir. Let's see you. Appearing for Docket 3777, 95 George Street. We have Jane Youngren and Marianne Henley. Make sure one of you is here. Let's see. So Jane Young and Erling, her name is on here. Okay. And then for Docket 3780, 96 Jason Street. We have Mark and Brandy Hoffner. Yep, here. Great. Have you all with us. So this open meeting of the Erlington zoning board of appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with enact making appropriations for the fiscal year 2023 to provide for supplementing certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects that are signed into law on March 29, 2023. This act includes an extension until March 31st, 2025 with a remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law which suspended the requirement to hold all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Public bodies may continue holding meetings remotely without a form of the public body physically present at a meeting location so long as they provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. Public bodies may meet remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. An opportunity for public participation will be provided during the public comment period during each public hearing. For this meeting, the Erlington zoning board of appeals has convened a video conference via the Zoom application with online and telephone access as listed on the agenda posted to the town's website identifying how the public may join. This meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcast by ACMI. Please be aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means. Some attendees are participating by video conference. Others are participating by computer audio or by telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name, or another identifier. Please take care to not share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you please maintain decorum during the meeting including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials that have implied members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda and as chair, I reserve the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting and ordering the meetings. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting as chair, I make the following land acknowledgement. Whereas the zoning board of appeals of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts discusses and arbitrates the use of land in Arlington, formerly known as monotony, Nalgonquin word meaning swift waters. The board here by acknowledges that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous peoples from whom the colony province and the commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. We do not have any administrative business to conduct this meeting. So we'll move straight into public hearings. Before opening the public hearings, here's some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of tonight's business. After I announce each agenda item, I will ask the applicant to introduce themselves for themselves and make their presentation to the board. I'll then request that members of the board ask what questions they have on the proposal. After the board's questions have been answered, I will open the meeting for public comment. At the conclusion of public comment, the board will deliberate and vote on any matters. Any vote taken at this hearing will be preliminary until the written decision is approved by the board at a subsequent meeting. All votes will be conducted by a roll call vote. So with that, the first item is item two on our agenda, docket number 3764, 212 Pleasant Street as a continuance of a former prior meeting. And I would open the floor to Nellie Akinhead to tell us where we are today. Okay, hello everybody. We actually sold that property in December. We're no longer the owners. So we are no longer pursuing our permits and we would like to withdraw our application. Good. So I think it's clear to the board what is happening here. The deed, I believe the deed was passed in December, is that correct? Correct. Yep. And so whereas the applicant is no longer in possession of the property, the board should accept the request for withdrawal. So with that, may I have a motion to accept the withdrawal of the application for 212 Pleasant Street? Mr. Chairman, so moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Second. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. So as a vote of the board to accept the withdrawal of the application for 212 Pleasant Street, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. And I'll chair votes aye. That application is withdrawn. Thank you very much. And thank you for all of the time that you put into this. We really appreciate it. Oh, thank you. You're very welcome. With that, we'll move on to the next item, which is, excuse me, item three on the agenda dock at 3776 49 Dixon Avenue. And so if I could ask the applicant to introduce himself and tell us what they're proposing. Hi, everyone. This is Sudhir. Thank you for the opportunity to take our project. And so basically we have a Cape House, which is built in 1954. We have been living in this house for almost eight years now. We bought it in 2017. And we really liked the neighborhood, but as we grow as a family and being an old house, we wanted to add some space and to know where the existing house. So we are proposing to extend the house in the backyard, which we have plenty of, I think, space and also go up in the height. What is allowed by the tower and all, I think that is five feet. So make up a three-story kind of house, two, two and a half. So I think the variance is because of, there are some laws regarding the total area that needs to be added, which is coming around more than, I think, 50% and then some 750 square feet addition that will totally add. Basically it's a Cape, so it's a shed on the top and then you have a basement where we have garage also, for one car. So I think the current area is around 1700, including the basement. And then it will go up to some 3,000 or 4,000 something total numbers. It's in the file, but I don't know the exact numbers. So I think that's the proposal. The front of the house remains the same. And the side remains the same. It's just extension in the back in the backyard and on the top. In fact, the deck is also being changed from right now, it's on the, if you stand in the front of the property, it's on the right side. So that deck will come off and give on the left side of the property, which is the other open side of the property because the property is open from the three sides. Thank you. We need to do this. Do you know, I think that's good. I know you had an architecture involved in the project. I don't know if you're architect with an attendance and if they wanted to show the plans or if they wanted us to show the plans. I think our architect is Rob. He has joined us kindly. So maybe. Yeah, that's me. I'm happy to show the plans if that's easier for you guys either way. I can go ahead and pull them up. Okay, great. Okay. You should be the D1 sheet, I think. Yeah, so these are just the demolition plans of the existing house. So the hatched walls, the darker walls and the walls that we're taking down. So we're basically demolishing a considerable portion of the existing structure. All of the upper floor is coming off, a good portion of the first floor and all of the rear exterior wall is coming out for the addition. And then the basement, we're taking some walls out and we are removing some of the rear foundation to extend the garage. So yeah, if you wanna go to the next sheet, I can just walk you through the plan real quick. Okay, so the basement plan. So what we're planning to do overall is basically do an 18 foot addition off the back. On the basement level, we're going to extend the existing garage. Should create some tandem parking down there. And then just reconfigure some things at a laundry room and a bathroom and a bit of a playroom in the back. At the first floor, we're looking to do a small guest suite in the front there where the car is located with a bathroom on suite. And then the living room area on the left is actually existing, so that's going to remain. So yeah, that's existing. But we are adding the kitchen in the back and then a large rate room dining room area. Yeah, exactly. And that's where the addition is going to be placed. We're also, as Sidir had mentioned, where there's an existing deck on the right side, which we're going to take out and just put some access stairs in. We're relocating the deck on the left hand of this plan, which is where those double doors are going out in the back there, correct. Yeah, and then we're just putting a small front porch on the front entry to kind of make that look a little bit nicer and give a place to stand when you're walking into the building. So if you can go to the next sheet. So the second floor, currently it's a three bedroom house. So we're looking to expand it to a four bedroom house. So we're really doing a whole new second floor. The rear of the house is where the new master suite would be going over the addition. So there's a walk-in closet, a full bathroom. Exactly, yep. We have two other bedrooms on this floor and then a small office. One of the bedrooms has an ensuite bathroom and then there's just a common bath to kind of round off this floor. And then the upper floor, we're just looking to add some storage in the back. We're doing a cathedral ceiling over the master bedroom. So that's where that X is showing. That's an open ceiling space. And then we have some kind of small bonus rooms that we added in. Some of the ceilings here start to get pretty low. So the area of a seven foot ceiling is fairly limited basically to the center part of this floor plan. And then lastly, we have a small, small little kind of seating area, exterior seating area to call the porch on the left-hand side. Yep, exactly. And then the last year we have elevation so I can just kind of walk you guys to see that real quick. So the proposed front elevation. So we have a small shed dormer at the top to just give a little more headroom to that upper floor. And we're doing basically all new finishes, all new windows. So it's almost a new structure in a way as far as visually looking at it from the exterior. So double-hand windows, things like that. And then showing the roof overhangs. The garage, as you can see, is located below the first floor. So there's a bit of a gray drop into the garage. And then similar in the other elevations, just trying to create some clabber siding. We did a little bit of a different siding at the upper floor to kind of differentiate that from the lower level. But kind of your standard new kind of modern look but trying to keep it pretty residential to fit in what's in the neighborhood better now, so. So just to confirm. So on the, so this is the front elevation. So this is the Dixon Avenue side. Correct, yep. This then is on the side street. Yep, exactly, yep. Yeah, so you can see on the left-hand side there, the lower left-hand side is where that new deck would go. Okay. And so this is essentially a 35-foot high wall. Yeah, we're right at the other end, yep. Well, I should say it's slightly less than 35. It's 35 from the average grade to the peak. And the average grade is slightly below where the actual grade is, so it's maybe like 34, but. All right, and then this is the re-relevation that's facing the back and then this is facing the abutting neighbor. Exactly, correct. And those, I just grabbed the stairs. Mm-hmm. Okay, so, and then I did just, do you see the plot plan now? Yeah, yeah, so this is the plot plan. Yeah, so the proposed addition in the back is 18 by 32. We're showing the proposed deck there on the side. One thing I did notice that the deck on the left-hand side, that's actually an error, that's gonna be gone. So we just said, have the proposed landing at overhang. So that deck would be removed. And then there's also, are you contemplating this change to the driveway? Yes. There's a, the driveway is right now, I think 10 feet wide, so we are planning for, I think 16 feet something because you can't open the doors of the cars right now. They bang on the walls, which like, because the driveways are sliding down the line, so you can't close properly actually the car. So just to increase the lid, basically with the little bit, so you can don't bang the side walls by opening the car. Oh, okay. And so would there still be a retaining wall on this side here at the edge of the driveway? Yes. Okay. It is currently there, but I think it'll be pushed out some, maybe six feet because we are in some space there. Okay. So the application that came to us, it's taking relief under section 542B6, which is the large additions portion of the zoning bylaw. So if there's an addition outside of existing foundation of 750 square feet or more, or more than 50% of the volume of the, excuse me, the area of the existing house, then a special permit is required from the board with a couple of additional findings, which we'll review. And also under 539, so 539 is the section that deals with porches and decks that extend into the setbacks. And then while we were doing the review, there were a couple of other things that came up. So the bigger one, I'm gonna go back to the side elevation here. So in order to be a level in a house is considered a story. If the distance from the average grade to the ceiling is four foot six or greater. And going by the dimensions here on the drawing with the basement at level 112, average grade at 113.79, and the basement height being six foot eight, the exposed height of the basement is four foot 10 and a half which qualifies it as a story, in which case this is a three and a half story house and the code only allows up to two and a half stories by right. And so we wanted to bring that to your attention right away and to see if that was your intent. No, that was not the intent. I think that's where I think we got the call from, like getting down in founders to apply for that also and that we did, but right rock. Yeah, that's one thing we did miss that that was off by a few inches. So the town said, they got in touch with us and said, hey, you're over on the stories. So that's why we submitted the application or submitted the additional variants for consideration. Do we lose a connection? Maybe. I think, yes. I think I don't think there's, oh, here he is. He's back again. You're muted, Christian. Hey, Mr. Christian, we can't hear. Sorry about that. I thought things were awfully quiet and then all of a sudden my screen went blank. So I apologize for that. That was an explanation that really knocked you over. It really was. But so basically, I just wanted to confirm that were you aware that this is drawn as three and a half stories at this point and is that what you're intending? No, we were made aware, we weren't aware when we submitted it and we were made aware. So we submitted the variants to try to seek relief for that as well. Okay. So yeah, it's off by, like you said exactly, it's worth telling you. So it's off by a few inches and it's an existing condition. So we're hoping that you guys consider that as something we could proceed with. Okay. And then the expansion of the width of the driveway, it's less than 20 feet, which a driveway can be up to 20 feet. And so just wanted to confirm that. But there's not a difference on the drawing. Yeah, I mean, either way we'll keep it 20 feet or less for sure. Okay. And then I was looking back over on the, so the porches and decks. So if porches are under five, three, nine A, so I think that so that required setback is 25 feet in this district and there's two front yards. So I think that this porch is the one that requires relief, but I believe this deck is actually compliant, but we'll make sure that whatever decision we make that it includes both the deck and the porch in whatever decision we have. And then the other thing that often comes up is usable open space, but the surveyor has nicely indicated the area of the usable open space here on the site. And so the property is compliant with the usable open space requirement and the usable landscaped area. So those are the usual site constraints we see. Are there any, I see on here that the trees are marked out. Are there, I visited the site over the weekend. I don't believe there are any trees in the area of the proposed addition, is that correct? Yes, there is no trees. They are all on the boundaries of the property, but not on where we are planning. Okay. Okay. So what then what the board is going to be reviewing, we are reviewing the front porch and the side deck. We are reviewing the large addition and the request, those are both special permit actions. And then the other would be a variance for an additional story, which would need a separate set of findings. So with that, I'll turn it over to the board if there are questions from the board. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So this is actually directed, I think, to Mr. Pachone. The variance is required under is governed by state law and there are several criteria for it. The first of which is that the need for relief must stem from the unique characteristics of the property, particularly with respect to topography, soil. And Roger helped me with, I'm blanking on the third one. It's something earthy. Lot shape. And so here we have a topography that is an extraordinary. The lot shape is pretty much a rectangular. And there's nothing that indicates that there's anything special about the soil conditions. And it doesn't really look any different to me when I went out there from the various other lots that are going on. And all of the conditions in state law, including this one, have to be met. We can't just ignore one. And so I wonder if you could take your best shot as to why it is that your need to relief is unique and to this parcel and arises from soil topography and shape. Well, I would guess I'd have to say that it's an existing condition that we're very close on. You know, we're very close on, you know, isn't this a unique situation? You know, it's hard to make that case. I mean, maybe a question for the board, since we're so close on that measurement, is it permissible to just raise the grade around the building? Well, that would, you have control of your application. And so if you have a way of avoiding this problem through that way or any others so that you are within the bounds of the zoning by law or something we can grant a special permit on as opposed to a variance, then you're obviously are somewhat better off because state law is not very congenial to the reasons why it is that you would like this relief without seeing a proposal. I can't tell you what we would do in particular. I don't know of any particular reason why you can't change the grading is the way in the way you want to do it. But obviously a variance is a steep slope for you to use a topological metaphor and it would be better to find some of the way of compliance probably. Yeah, okay, understandable. Yeah, I think we might have to go that route done. But yeah, I'm not familiar with the hardship laws. So I understand where you're coming from. Are there other questions from the board? I'm a little curious if you had referred to the town's residential design guidelines at all in your proposal. Yeah, I believe we looked at those a while back. Okay. You know, could I cite them to you right now probably not, but yeah. I think we use that when we started out originally and you know, once you're here and I first met. Certainly, so the house would be considered single family medium lot, which are sort of like the single family houses lots that are between 5,000 and 7,000 square feet. This is a fairly good example. A lot of them have the garages under which is sort of correct for that type. Others of them will have a driveway that runs up the side of the house. Usually if there is a garage, it's usually under or the far back of the house. The guidelines do sort of discourage having a wider driveway and they do sort of discourage more sort of small scale pieces. So this house does, you know, I'd asked before about the single vertical plane. There definitely are some places in here where there are canopies that are added to the different sides of the house. There's the deck, there's the porch, there's the side entrance steps on the opposite side. The house seems a little out of context for the neighborhood. Can you just talk me through the roof shape? I think that's what's causing me the most reservation. Yeah, did you want to bring up the elevation again? And I can kind of show you what we're thinking there. Okay, so it's essentially, so the front elevation, we have a gable over kind of the front entry area and then a shed dormer. So that, you know, we used to kind of break up the front elevation. And then if you look at the side elevation with the deck, so that there's the plane of the roof that runs, so it's kind of a soft side gable, I guess you could say. The front plane at the front of the building runs back and there's a peak over that door to get out to the third floor porch area. And then there's basically like, you could say like a shed roof that runs all the way to the back. So, you know, we designed this roof, especially the back part, just to give a little more headroom up at that upper floor. You know, it's pretty tight up there right now. And just to give them a little bit of extra bonus space was why we kind of designed the roof the way we did. And you know, the house shape was a little tricky to work with to try to do, you know, a full kind of gable roof that you might see on a, you know, more of a typical colonial home. So that's kind of the direction we went with this. Okay. This is that upper floor. So as you pointed out before, this is that section that's open to the master bedroom below. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that'll be a cathedral space. You know, we put some, some trans and windows above the windows in that room. So there's a little bit of extra daylight getting in there. And then, yeah, so adjacent to that, just some unfinished storage space. And then those two bonus rooms that we have. Do you know what the ceiling height is here at the back edge? It's fairly low, I can tell you in one second. Say it's about three foot nine roughly. Okay. The tag out here says three seven. Okay, yeah, that's, yeah. So that tag should really be towards the back wall. Okay. Otherwise it's six, four, and then is it seven, no at the ridge? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the ridge is seven, no. I consider that a flat ceiling. So the ridge is above that a little bit. Okay. So I tried to, you know, it's best I could kind of highlight where those seven foot ceilings are. But yeah, that would be a flat ceiling in that area. Okay. And then beyond this line here, are the ceilings essentially cathedral? Yeah, so that's a bit of a tricky area there. So it's, you know, at the size of that room are very low. That's like a two foot, you know, knee wall there, basically, and then the center part would be close to seven feet. Okay. So it's pretty awkward space, but we figured, you know, just leave it open and it could be usable to a certain degree. So what do I get towards? So the, right now it's indicated the attic living area, which is 275 gross square feet. The criteria for a half story is that it's the distance from the finished floor to the underside of the roof structure. So it's not at the height level, it's at the structure. Just as well as I was asking about the cathedraling, is I think that you're very, that the areas at the front, this area here and this area here beyond the shed, and this area, these areas here at the back, none of this has, the distance to the structure is probably less than seven feet. Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I believe that the number we used to, you know, consider that as to the structure. No, and 275 is definitely significantly smaller than the number that would be half the area, the floor below, especially given the cathedral section here that's walled off. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Go ahead and stop the share. Are there any other questions from the board? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just out of curiosity, I've never really thought about this before, but suppose it happened that it was redesigned within that top floor, the attic, so that there was zero square feet that actually met the definition of being seven feet to the understigary of the building. Obviously that involves a certain amount of reconfiguring of the roof and so forth, but just grant me that hypothesis. Would that make it not a story? Can you have a story? It would become pure attic at that point because it would have no habitable area. And this is historically, this was an issue with the way our bylaw was written in the past that you could, state law allowed you to have habitable space at seven feet, but our half story definition was seven foot three. So if you had a flat roof at seven foot two, you had, it was not a story, but it was fully habitable. And so that was changed at town meeting to the definition we have now, so that it's only the portion that is seven feet that counts towards the story because the other portions, you could not legally inhabit. So the way that the house here is drawn, the area, I'll go back to the share. So this bonus room area here where it's seven feet, this is habitable area, so this is allowed to be used. And this bonus, this portion here, you can count as habitable space, but like these portions here, you can inhabit them, but they're just not, they're just awkward spaces, essentially. Right, and the cathedral ceiling itself is what, what I'm trying to explore is whether there's an alternative way of making the attic a non-story by, the amount of living space that is being contributed by the attic to this over is 275 square feet out of approximately 4,400 square feet in the house. So it's not like it's a huge percentage. And certainly the cathedral ceiling will be important for the amenity of the floor below. And my question is really whether there's any way to reconfigure the attic so as to avoid the attic counting as a story and get around the story problem that way. Well, at that point, they would be down to three stories and not two and a half. Oh, that's true, unfortunately. Yeah, all right, I missed the second half story. Okay, well, if there's no other questions from the board. Mr. Chairman, one more question. Mr. DuPont, please. So as there was the suggestion by Mr. Paccioni, if that's how you say it, sorry. Paccioni was closing up. But the question, so the question about raising the average grade on the basement level, and I get tangled in this each time we sort of run across this, but does that mean that by definition it changes from basement to cellar? I believe so, yeah. So the definitions are slightly different. I think the basement and cellar depends on where the midline is. And so, and I, yeah, I could go to, I could go look up the definition, but residential both basements and cellar count towards gross floor area, but the story definition is very specific with the dimension, whereas the boundary between a cellar and a basement just depends on what percentage of that lowest level is below the average grade. And that's half. It's either, I believe it's half. Yeah, if it's above half, it's a basement. If it's below half, it's a cellar. And the reason it prompts the question is because as to the suggestion that the average grade be raised, and I think Mr. Hanlon said the same thing, that it doesn't necessarily mean that we would favor the proposal. I would have to look at it more carefully anyway and perhaps do a little bit more research, but I just wanna make sure that the applicant would be clear that what they're doing is shooting for the story definition based upon the fact that the basement, it has that, is it four foot six inches, half beyond above the average grade? Regardless of whether I'm quoting that, right? I just think that it needs to be clear to the architect that he's shooting for the right target, if that's allowable. Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead, sir. I was just gonna say, my understanding is, yeah, but we would need to raise the average grade, five inches or so in order to make this structure go from a three and a half story to two and a half story. So that's what I would be trying to achieve by changing the average grade, sir. So just with the discussion, quick question. Is this house considered, I was looking at the old records at the town site. It listed the house as 1.5 stories, so that was not, like that was different at that time in the lawsuit, because there is some settling of the ground that is causing this half or five inches or six inches, whatever you're talking about is causing the change in the definition of story. Yeah, no, unfortunately for us, it's very crisp and clear in the documentation, so we do have to follow it in the submitted information. Oftentimes the assessor's information is sometimes doesn't necessarily hold to the same standard that the building department records do, so there's often a discrepancy between the two. At this point, I would like to open the meeting for public comment, so public questions and comments will be taken as they relate to the matter at hand and should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing its decision. Members of the public will be granted time to ask questions and make comments. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the reactions tab. It's gonna confirm it is on the reactions tab these days. Yes. So can digitally raise their hand using the button on the reactions tab and the Zoom application. Those calling in by phone may dial star nine to indicate you'd like to speak. You'll be called upon by the chair, you'll be asked to give your name and address and you'll be given time for your questions and comments. All questions that should be addressed through the chair and please remember to speak clearly. For anyone wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing, the chair will allow those wishing to speak for the first time to be called upon first. And once all public questions and comments have been addressed or the allocated time has ended, the public comment period will be closed. So it is now quarter past eight. This will give up until 845 for public comment. And the board staff will do its best to show the documentation being discussed. So with that, we do have a caller who has raised their hand. So if your phone number ends in 644, if you could please name an address for the record and you are muted, let me see if I can unmute you. Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. I was unable to join you by Zoom tonight. I do have a question or two for the applicant. I know that it may be premature, but I haven't seen a tree plan that would be required to attend this. My guess is that would be required in the subsequent documentation. Is that true? It should be. The applicant earlier stated that there were no trees that were impacted by the work that is proposed, but would ask the applicant, I don't know if you have submitted anything to the tree department. No, not at this time, because I think as I said, the trees are not, there are no trees in the way of the construction. Everything is on the boundary of the property, so nothing is okay. The, you go for a permit. My understanding is that the building department will require that exchange would have taken place. Sorry, Mr. Moore. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually, for a work of this magnitude a tree plan will be required, not just in it being exchanged with the tree warden to talk about how all the trees around the periphery of this property, which it looks like that's where all the trees are, how, where the construction is going to happen and construction vehicles are gonna enter and concrete is poured or whatever has to happen, how they'll all be protected from their critical root zones around each one of the trees in it. And Mr. Chairman, it does look like some of the trees will, their root zones will be significantly impacted. Like for instance, if I look a street view, I can see on the right-hand side of the property, there's a tree which isn't huge, but it looks sort of like an apple tree or something. And they're talking about, I believe expanding the driveway into the root zone of where that tree is at. And that is in the setback. So I'm wondering, I just am wanting to caution the applicant that they are gonna need to think through their approach to protecting the trees as part of this project. Sure, we'll do. You know, I think that's a dogwood tree, which is, I believe you are referring to, which is right next to the deck right now. But in fact, the deck will be taken off. So, yeah, I don't know how much is that, like, yeah. I think when the construction or the building permits you will, like as Mr. Cleen said, that you'll have that all the tree plant involved in that, that part of that. Right. Yeah, you'll have that done. Can do the assessment. Yes, Mr. Chair. It's just that in expanding the driveway, I know that that means usually digging down and tree roots are not well impacted. The deck probably sits on top of the current grade and it doesn't really activate into it. So I just want to caution that they need to think that through when they draw a pull the permit. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Are there other members of the public who wish to address this hearing? Seeing none, I will go ahead and close the public comment period for this particular hearing. So what the board has in front of us, we have two special permit requests. One is for a large addition. One is for the porch and the deck that extend out towards the property lines on the two front facades of the building. In addition, there's currently the need for a variance due to the number of stories that the proposed house is currently documented. Is it three and a half stories? And there was the statement from Mr. Moore from the tree committee about just the question about the tree and the adjacent to where the proposed expansion of the driveway is. So I would turn to the board and I believe it was Mr. DuPont who had said, or Mr. Hanlon who has said it before, that it might be advantageous for the board to see if the board is concerned that the variance criteria cannot be met on this property. And with that, the applicant has before that they would be interested in raising the grade so that the average grade is increased so that the lowest level no longer qualifies as a story. And I think the request that was made by the board member was that we see what that looks like before we would move forward with any votes to the matter because that would certainly impact what we need to approve and what the scope of what we need to approve will be. So I would ask if the applicant would be amenable to a continuance to allow them to explore raising the, what their options would be for raising the grade and how that would impact their need for a variance. So we can go back. Okay. Can we go? Yeah, yeah, that sounds like the right path for sure. Great. So the board has, we have hearing scheduled for Tuesday, January 23rd and then another for Tuesday, February 13th. Would either of those two dates work for you? January 23rd, let me take a look. That works for me, you know, do you think we can do it by that time? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, whatever you want to guess, I'll be there. January 23rd looks good. Okay. How soon would you be able to provide revised documentation? Unfortunately, that's going to depend on our surveyor because he's the one that's going to run the numbers. So I don't really have a good answer for you. When do you want it by? I guess maybe. I mean, ideally we would want it nearly a week ahead. Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. So if Thursday, if you think Thursday next week is going to be difficult to make, then I would encourage you to consider the February 13 instead. Yeah, I mean, I can't promise you guys that we'll get it to you by then. Can we come back to you? Like a once we check with our surveyor that if he's able to accommodate this in this much time. So we have to continue to a specific date. So if you want, we can continue to the January 23rd and if you're unable to make that date, just let us know. And then we'll, you'll have to come briefly before us and we'll just continue again. Yeah, yeah, that works for you guys. That would be ideal. Okay. Yeah, we'll try to work with our surveyor and see. Okay. Do you have any additional questions for the board? I don't, do you have anything wrong? No, I'm good. No, I think we got clear direction. So I appreciate that. Is there anything else that the board would like to see from the applicant when they come back? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I don't actually want to see anything as complete as a tree plan, but it would be helpful to me at least to have to make sure that the applicant has looked at what is likely to be required in order to save the trees on the site and make sure that they at least have taken the first step towards analyzing this with the understanding they're going to have to go before the tree warden and get the approval of the tree plan. I was impressed. They have, well, it's true that not much of the addition, none of the addition is going to actually happen where there are currently trees. The backyard is largely devoid of trees. There's nevertheless a series of trees that are some of which are the one further back is quite large that is potentially affected by construction activities. And I just like to be certain that that is front and center on the applicant's radar and that they have a clear sense of what problems that would pose and what the solutions would be. It may be they've posed no problems at all, but at this point, I think that it would be helpful to know that they've taken the next step of thinking about it and coming to a recent conclusion about it. Thank you. Yeah, I think that's, one of the reasons we actually bought this property is because of the trees. So we do want the trees. That's why it means we are like beings. I think we have eight trees in our property. Nobody else in our neighborhood has that many trees. It's all our properties, almost it. So yeah, we will, if I understand your request, you don't need a tree plan, but for our next meeting, right? Or do we need a tree plan for the next meeting? I wouldn't, from my point of view, you don't really need to have a tree plan. We don't get to approve tree plans anyway. The tree warden who knows much more about this than we do, we'll do that. I would just like to have a first step of saying in general, this is the strategy we do. We thought about the potential construction impacts and what you think as your basic outline is a tree plan before you actually go final on it, just to be sure that the first step of analyzing it has taken place and you're aware of any problems that might exist and that we can have that degree of assurance. Yeah, we can talk to the tree warden and have our surveyor also maybe make some suggestions. I do think that tree weather driving is gonna be impacted looking at it now, so. Yeah, because I think it's the first tree maybe a little bit, but I think on the boundaries, I think the advantage is we have a side lane or a side street, which is open and the distance between the trees is pretty big. I think it's one and a half, like it's a hundred feet. So each tree is approximately 25 feet apart from each other. But yeah, I think we do have, we will take into consideration to not impact any of the streets. All right, so with that, I would entertain a motion to continue the hearing for 49 Dixon Avenue until Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024 at 7.30 p.m. Mr. Chairman, so moved. Second. Mr. DuPont, there's a vote of the board to continue this hearing on 49 Dixon Avenue until the next board, excuse me, until the board's next meeting, which was Tuesday, January 23rd. So with that, a vote of the members present, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. Now the chair votes aye, we are continued on 49 Dixon Avenue. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Thank you everyone for your time today. Have a nice evening. Thank you too. So with that, this brings us to item four on our agenda for tonight, which is docket 3777, 95 George Street. So if I could ask the applicant to go ahead and introduce themselves and tell us what they would like to do. Ms. Jane Youngren or Marian Hanlonly here. See Jane Youngren's name in the window. Unmute. There you are. Hi. Hi, we live at 95 George. We've been here for oh, 20 plus years and we would love to build a bigger foyer for especially weather like this with having a dog. It's great to be able to wipe her off from the snow and the salt and the sand and everything. And for folks to put their jackets and things when we have visitors and a front deck I would love. I deliver meals on wheels with the amount of folks that I see that are isolated in their homes and there are people that will sit on their drive going to chair. I'd love to be able to just sit out on our front porch and say hi to all the neighbors when they walk by. So that's what we're proposing is a little bit larger foyer and a front deck. Okay, I'll go ahead and share the drawings here. So what you have here is the existing house. They have an existing small vestibule on the front side of the house with a couple of steps leading up to it and then walk down to George Street and what they are proposing is a larger enclosed entry on the front, a bigger stoop and then also having a section of roofed deck off on the side. So this is the existing condition and that's rendered here and then this is the proposed condition. So that this is the enclosed, the entry piece and then this is the deck that's beside it and that's the full extent of the work as I understand it. Yes it is. Okay, and then just a couple of the side elevation and a couple of structural details. And so this project is submitted as a special permit application under 539. So it'd be 539A and it requires the board to make a special permit finding that the, because the proposed entry piece is larger than 25 square feet that the board is required to make a finding with the special permit category in order to approve the plan. You go with, bring that book too far, I'm just starting to bring that up. The portion of the enclosed entrance is larger than the allowed above maybe extended into the minimum yard regulations otherwise provided for the district by a special permit. And the required front yard setback is 25 feet and this would be reducing that to 20 foot three. With that, we'll go ahead and stop the share and ask the board if there are any questions on this application. Being none, go ahead and again open the hearing for public comment. Public questions and comments are taken to relate to the matter at hand and should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing its decision. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the reactions tab and the zoom application. Those calling in by phone can dial star nine to indicate they would like to speak. Be called upon by the chair, ask for a name and address and given time for your questions and comments. Are there any members of the public who wish to address this application? We have Emily Reynolds. I'm Emily Reynolds. I live at 103 George Street which is two doors up the hill from Jane and Marianne. I just wanted to say that I think the porch and the bigger foyer are gonna be a really nice feature on their house. I can't think of any way that the small reduction in the setback would be disruptive to us on the block. We have a really friendly and sociable block. There's always kids playing and people walking dogs and everyone chatting. And I can already picture Jane and Marianne sitting out there with their dog or their friends and keeping an eye on what the kids are up to and chatting with us as we walk by. I think it will be a really great addition to our street. Thank you. That's lovely. Thank you so much. Next is Jessica Peska. Yeah, hi. I'm Jessica Paich. I'm at 91 George Street. I'm right next door to Jane and Marianne. And I think the plans look great. It seems like a great idea. I'm jealous actually myself. And Jane and Marianne are sort of like the captains of our street. So I think like Emily, I can already see them sitting out there on the porch and just like overseeing the whole neighborhood which we are all always very thankful for. So I definitely recommend approving it. Great, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public comment period for this hearing. So this is a very simple and straightforward application. It's a request for a farm porch and an enclosed front entrance. I'll say the only question I had for the applicant. So at the front door, when you've, the way it's drawn right now, when you get to the front door, there's not a covering on that outside door. And it's not until you get into the entryway that you're covered. I just want to confirm that that was what you intended. Yes, that's what we have now in our four year now. We have a door that swings out. And you walk into the foyer and that's what we're proposing. Okay. Because the area is the covered area. Very good. And so this is, again, this is under 53D9A where porches are enclosed entrances larger than 25 square feet in area. May extend into the middle yard by special permit. And so there are seven special permit criteria, which the board needs to make a finding on. So the first is whether the requested use is allowed or allowed by special permit in the district. And it is under 53D9A. Why the requested use is essential or desirable to the public convenience or welfare. I think the neighbors spoke very well to that, that this provides an opportunity for the residents to better participate in the activity of the street and to make it a more welcoming and cohesive community, which are definitely goods for the, for this and for any neighborhood. Number three is the requested use will not create undue traffic congestion or impair pedestrian safety. It will certainly do neither. It could possibly improve pedestrian safety by the additional attention being paid by those who would now have a porch to be on the front of the house. Number four, the requested use will not overload any public system. It will not have any direct impact on any public systems. Requested use will not impair the character or integrity of the neighborhood. The front entry porches are ubiquitous over Arlington as our front porches. And as the NAFIR stated that this is very well in keeping with that pattern. Requested use will not be detrimental to the public health or welfare. There would be no negative impacts and it will not cause an excess of use detrimental to the neighbors. So we're not do that. So I think the board could make those seven findings which would allow the board to vote on this application. Are there any other questions from the board regards to this application? If not, the chair would entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I move that the board approve the application making the findings that were outlined to chair and are supported in the record. Second. Thank you both. It occurs to me now that of course I have skipped over a step. So I have skipped over the all important condition step. So for applications such as this the board typically applies three standard conditions which I'll now read into the record. The first is that the plans and specifications approved by the board for the special permit shall be the final plans and specifications submitted to the building inspector of the town of Arlington in connection with this application for zoning relief. Should be no deviation during construction from approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Standard condition number two is the building inspector is hereby notified. They are to monitor the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures at any time they determine that violations are present. Building inspector shall proceed under section 3.1 of the zoning bylaw and under the provisions of chapter 40 section 21D of the Massachusetts General Laws and Institute non-criminal complaints. If necessary, the building inspector may also approve an Institute appropriate criminal action also in accordance with section 3.1 and condition number three that the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to the special permit grant. Are there any additional conditions which members of the board would want to propose? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. This isn't an additional condition though it used to be but I just wanted to draw the attention of the board and the applicant to the provision 5.3.9 D which now makes it clear that the porch does not become part of the sound foundation wall and that any enclosing of the porch beyond what is present today would require an additional special permit but that doesn't have to be any longer of one of the conditions because it has now been added to the bylaw. Thank you for that. So what's that Mr. Hanlon? I would ask if you would mind restating your motion. Mr. Chairman, I move that the board approve the application making the necessary findings and subject to the conditions that have been read into the record by the chair. So thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. Dupont. So this is a vote of the board to approve the special permit for 95 George Street with the three conditions. And with that a roll call vote of the board, Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Ms. Hopman. Aye. And the chair votes aye. The special permit for 95 George Street is approved. Thank you very much. Thank you. Enjoy your porch. Thank you very, very much. Thank you neighbors. Thank you. Have a nice evening all. Thank you too. That, that brings, there's our agenda. It brings the item five on our agenda which is docket 3780 96 Jason Street. So if I could ask the applicant to introduce themselves and tell us what they're proposing. Sure. This is a Mara Popner and my wife Brandy's on another column just on opposite ends of the coast here. And we have John Leone with us this evening who's going to help present our application for us. We are, I'm sorry, just briefly, we are renovating the carriage house that's on the property, the existing carriage house as part of under the AD law and are seeking a variance given the current layout of where the carriage house is with respect to the property lines. Brandy, do you want to introduce yourself? I know my wife has to step out real quick because she's got to go pick up her kiddo from hockey. Hi, I'm Brandy. I do have to jump off in a few minutes to go pick up my son from hockey and I will hopefully be back in time. But if not, Mark is here. And John, you are on the call, correct? Yes, I'm right here. Tony John Leone representing the Hofners. They're seeking a special permit slash variance under section 5.9.2 B1 is the corner of their garage is three feet from the property line, which is in violation of section 3.6 of the property setback requirements requiring a six foot setback. What they're asking for the variance is for that particular corner as it's an existing garage that already is there. What they're proposing to do is put a small addition, a renovate the second floor, put a spiral staircase up to that second floor, an exterior stairway for a second means of egress and add a small dormant area to the back of the garage, which wouldn't be visible. We submitted the plans and elevations which show that the dormant area that's gonna be added matches the character and integrity of the building itself as well as the main home. The building is already serviced by, I believe, underground water and utility lines and it has its own existing, I believe, storage line running out to the street already. So they just wanna put an ADU in there, about 781 square feet onto that second floor area and it's proposed, anticipated it'll be one to two occupants at most in there. Thank you. I just wanted to, oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ms. Hopner. I just wanted to add that. It's more of a restoration project because it's a historic property and it used to be an apartment and we did already get approval from the Historic Commission for the designs. Thank you very much. I was just gonna ask Mr. Lanny about that. Yeah, the historic district, Johnian Robinson has issued, I believe, and it's on, it should be in your file, a letter of approval. Yes, yeah. So we'll go ahead and share that. So this is the letter from the Arlington Historable Commission and essentially says that the plants of the restorations expresses what is in the drawings that are before us as well. That essentially is an existing structure. The only thing that's being added really is the dormer with the two gables to the shed in between and changes of windows and converting some louvered areas into windows. They plan on rebuilding the gupala match existing. And then there's gonna be an exterior stair and this has all been approved in December by the Historic Commission. So that is all approved. This is the plot plan of the site, so Jason Street at the front, Norfolk on the side. You can see that one corner up front on the garage, it's too close. And the rear corner is seven point, almost eight feet back. And on the other side, Christian, yes, there you go. Yeah, right there. Right. But this, this carriage house is entirely existing. There's no changes whatsoever to the location or foundation, correct? That is correct. I believe it's probably a contemporaneous with the main house. Yep. So then these are the drawings. So the front corner, so this is that corner that we were looking at that is both Jason to the side lot line. Right. The proposed entrance stair here on the side and the dormer that will face the rear. So the only other proposed on the front is that door way to the extreme right, the passage between door. That's the side that's against the property line, rear, you can egress door, windows, and that's the cupola. And then the side facing the house with the egress stair from the second floor. Correct. And then the garage level. So the door in, there's a proposed staircase to connect the two levels. Will the garage still be used as a for storage of vehicles? I believe so. I believe that's the plan is not Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne. That's correct. Yes, it will be. And then up above, this is the proposed living area on the upper floor. So 781 square feet. So it is less than the 900 square foot maximum for an 80 and then just framing plans section. Yeah. You can see the dormer area in the back. Yeah. We'd also had submitted some photographs of the existing. If you wish to see those or have any questions about those, we'd be glad to answer them. Oh, that's a download drive. Yeah, that will bring you to a file. It's a Google Drive file, I believe, or some sort. And it just was way too many photos to upload and download. All right, let's see if this works. And then we want to have some shares. Stop and then we share. There we go. There you go. Just one of the exterior photos. So I believe that's the existing door in the rear of the ground. I believe so, yes. Yeah. On the side. Oh, on the side, okay. Yeah, near the house. I believe that's the offending corner. So this is the side that faces that. Yeah, you can see the building is in need of repair. Yeah. Which is the renovation project they wish to undertake as well. Forge. That's what they're going, those stairwell, that stairwell and railing is what they'll be matching on the new stairway. Oh, okay. Yeah. And then this feet, this dormer features what they're looking as well, correct? Correct. Yeah, it's a mini version of that. And you can see where that new entrance doorway will be to, again, matching. That's where the stairwell will be located. Yeah. Then the new entry doors, so effectively here on that upper level. That's existing rear. One detail. Yeah, there's a lot of them. That's just an example of a Jason property. Well, I think that's more of an example of the cupola. Oh, I see it, okay. Yeah, that's an, our existing cupola has slats. This one is an example just up the street on Jason as well, using glass. I think we're going too much. Oh, okay. Great. Again, their house. Yes, and the view of the street, yeah. Okay, great. So this is coming before us. So apologies to the applicant for all the confusion over this. They were initially directed to the ARB on this and the ARB turned it back to the zoning board for appeals. It was filed as a variance, but this is actually under the ADU bylaw, which is section 592B1 paragraph five. The board may approve an accessory dwelling unit in a non-attached building that is within six feet of the property line by a special permit. And the board needs to make a specific finding in that regard. The finding that the board needs to make is that the creation of an accessory dwelling unit is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the use of such accessory building as a private garage or other allowed use. So that's what's before the board. I'd also looked at the residential design guidelines on this, but seeing as it has been through historic, we'll have done a far greater job of reviewing the exterior design intent than this board would do. So we'll defer to them. Are there any questions or comments from the board in regards to this application? Mr. Chair. Ms. Hoffman. I'll just know that I think this is the first or one of the first accessory dwelling units in a historic property that we've seen on this board. Is that right? I think so. We'll do the first. Yeah, it's just, it's nice to see it incorporated in a historic property. If I'm interested in this, this definitely appears that this was inhabited in the past. Do you have any sense as to when it was last occupied? From what we learned from prior owner as well as just looking at old drawings and if you look at the state, we have pictures, I don't know if John, if those are uploaded as well, you have pictures of the internal, is this internal? I mean, it's kind of destroyed now, right? Run over by raccoons and stuff like that. But it was clearly set up as a chauffeur's quarters. So I do believe it's original to the house. Those, like for example, those tiny windows that you saw on the right side of the garage, the old stall, horse stall windows. So I believe that is what it was for originally. That's the most context we're able to kind of dig up. We don't have like the original blueprints or anything like that, unfortunately. See, that would explain the sewer and water lines. Of course, the chauffeur quarters. Are there other questions or comments from the board? Seeing none, I will open the board. The board, excuse me, open the hearing for public comment. Public comment is taken as it relates to the matter at hand, it should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing its decisions. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the reactions tab in the Zoom application that was calling in by phone. My dial star nine to indicate they would like to speak. Are there any members of the public who wish to address the board on this application? I see none, so I'll go ahead and close the public comment period for this hearing. So as I said before, the board would need to make a finding that the creation of the accessory dwelling unit is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the use of such accessory building as a private garage or other allowed use. Certainly in this is a sort of a unique situation where it is actually being returned to its former residential use after a period of disuse. And to assist the board in making this decision, we typically review the seven findings that were required for a special permit. The first of those is whether the use is allowed or allowed by special permit in the district. And it is under 539B. The requested use is essential or desirable to the public convenience or welfare. So the increase in housing stock is very much a noted need in this town and in the region and the return of an unused residential unit to the pool of available residences is absolutely desirable to the town. The use would not create undue traffic congestion or impaired pedestrian safety. Definitely appears that the existing house and driveway are well able to accommodate should the resident of the unit have a vehicle and would not otherwise detriment anything with traffic or pedestrian safety, would not overload any public system. It is already connected and otherwise it would be sort of a de minimis increase in the use of those services, would not impair the character integrity of the neighborhood. Guys, you know, commend the applicant for their work with the historic commission on really designing something that is very much in keeping with the character of the house and the character of the neighborhood and certainly the historic nature of both would not be detrimental to public health or welfare. Residential neighborhood, residential use of residential neighborhood would not do so and would not cause an excess use detrimental to the neighborhood. And this is within the sort of the character and the intent of the zoning bylaws. So are there any additional questions or comments from the board in regards to the findings the board needs to make? Seeing none, I will remember to go on to the condition section this time. There are three standard conditions that the board would include. Those have been previously right into the record this evening will not read them in again unless anyone would particularly like to hear me read them again. But those are the three standard conditions. Are there any additional conditions which members of the board feel would be appropriate for this application? Seeing none, the chair will entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I move that the board approve the application subject to these three standard conditions. Second. Thank you Mr. Tupac. Thank you Mr. Hanlon. This is a vote of the board to approve the special permit for 96 Jason Street, which is to allow the conversion of the upper floor of an existing garage to be an accessory dwelling unit at that address. So we'll call vote of the board. Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. And the chair votes aye. That is approved. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. And Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, I have to say your board administrator is very efficient and helpful. Mr. Ragsdorff. Mr. Ragsdorff. Yes, which is most helpful. Well, thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Have a good evening everyone. Good night. Thank you. Good night. Have a good evening. Okay, so with that the board has, our next hearing date is January 23rd. There are three, there were three items on that agenda. And now we have a possible continuance of Dixon Avenue that may also occur on that evening. And then past that we have February 13th, which I believe there's two items on the agenda at the moment. And then February 22nd, 27th, excuse me after that. Those are things coming up. Are there any other items the board needs to discuss at this time? Nope. Seeing none. I would like to thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Earrington Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. I would especially like to thank Colleen Raulston for her assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting and also for all the other things she does in support of this board that don't get their due in the meetings. Please note that the purpose of the board's recording of the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of its proceedings. As our understanding, the recording made by NCMI will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the coming days. If anyone has questions or comments or recommendations, please send them via email to zbaatown.arlington.ma.us. That email address is also listed on the Zoning Board of Appeals website. And to conclude tonight's meeting, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, so moved. Second. Mr. DuPont is a rural call vote of the board to adjourn. Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. And the chair votes aye to the board is adjourned. Thank you also very much. Night everyone. Good night everybody. Night everyone.