 All right, good evening everyone. I'd like to call the July 11th, 2022 Town of Arlington redevelopment board meeting to order. My name is Rachel Zembery. I'm the chair of the board. I'd like to introduce start off by introducing the other members of the board, Steve Repelac. Melissa Tentacolas. Sure, thank you. Want to come closer to it? Yeah, please sit in the front row. Good, good suggestion, Ken. Eugene Benson and Ken Lau, and we also have with us the acting director of the Department of Planning and Community Development, Kelly Linema. So thank you all for joining us this evening. The first item on our agenda is a public hearing for environmental design review special permit, docket number 3704, 18 to 20 Belknap Street. So what I'd like to do is start with asking Kelly Linema to give the board an overview from the perspective of the Department of Planning and Community Development. I know that there were several items that were flagged for some additional study in the memo that was issued on Thursday. So I'd like Kelly to start us off. Then we'll move to the applicant who will be given around 10 minutes to present what you have prepared to the board. After that time, we will go through the members of the board, ask you some clarifying questions, we'll then open it up to the public for any members of the public who also wish to make any statements or ask any questions. We'll then come back to the board for a discussion before deciding whether or not we are at a position to be able to take a vote for approval or disallowing the approval that's requested this evening. So that's how we'll run the first hearing. So Kelly, I'll turn it over to you. Great, thank you. Kelly Linema, Acting Director of the Department of Planning and Community Development. I spoke with Rachel about this, but as part of the overview, I wanted to address a few of the questions that we received from the community. The first thing is that why is this going before the ARB? So this application is going before the ARB because a special permit has been requested. So special permits, applications that are in need of special permits are sent before one of two special permit granting authorities in town, either the ZVA or the ARB, and this is outlined in section 3.3 of the Zoning By-law. According to section 3.4.2 of the Zoning By-law, certain applications are sent to the ARB based on their location or their proposed use. So this application was sent to the ARB because of a core feat of the property above the Minimum Bikeway, and properties that are bought at the Minimum Bikeway are under the jurisdiction of the ARB as a special permit granting authority. The applicant is seeking a special permit essentially for residential renovation. The property, as we noted in our memo, has some pre-existing non-performing rights, both within regard to the use and with the dimensions. So first the use. Like a number of other multi-family buildings on Belknap Street, this building was constructed about 1910, and that predates the Zoning By-law. According to state law, anything that was built before the town adopted zoning, even if the zoning that was adopted afterward is different than what is already built on that property, whatever is built on that property has what we call prior non-performance rights. And so because a four-unit building was constructed on this property before zoning went into effect in Arlington, the property has a pre-existing non-performing use. Arguably, because it has prior non-performance rights with regard to the use, the ARB could determine that a special permit isn't even needed in this case, but there's a certain matter of history regarding the property in that around 1967, somewhere between 1967 and the 1980s, a prior owner of the property converted it to an illegal use. And I say illegal use because they did not receive or request, they never actually requested, but did not receive a special permit to allow for six family, for six apartments in this building. The current owner is seeking to return the building from its illegal use to its prior legal non-performing use. And so the ARB may choose under Section 8.1.2b of the Zoning By-law and under Mass General Law Chapter 40a, Section 6, that this use is allowed with a special permit if they determined that the non-performing use is not more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing use, in which case the existing use would be the illegal six apartments. The other reason for a special permit that the board may deliberate on tonight is that the applicant is seeking relief from the floor area ratio, the FAR. When we talk about FAR, this is really thinking about massing or the bulk or the appearance of a building from the street. So the building has prior non-performing rights with concern, as it concerns FAR, in that the building exceeded the allowable FAR for a other permitted use in the R2 zoning restrictions. In the R2, there are not FAR restrictions for single-family homes or two-family homes. You could have a two-family home that's built to 1.25 FAR if you met the other dimensional criteria. However, because this is a four-family use, it's considered an other permitted use, in which case the FAR is limited to 0.35. The prior non-performing dimensions of the property exceeded that 0.35. But again, that's a prior non-performance right. So that prior FAR, even though it exceeded the 0.35, would be allowed to continue. The ARB tonight needs to determine whether it will allow for an extension of that prior non-performance right. So will the question before the ARB is whether or not to allow for some increase, either the full proposed increase, no increase, or somewhere in the middle, to the FAR beyond what existed before construction began? The ARB, I spoke with Town Council about this. The ARB has some flexibility in interpreting the dimensional requirements of the zoning by-law because of the ARB's process, which is environmental design review. So they do have some flexibility. They could choose to allow the increase in FAR, but they could also choose to require a knowing present in FAR or somewhere in between. There is another issue that's at hand, and that's with regard to the half story. So staff weren't able to determine based on the materials that were provided whether or not the top floor of the building complies with the definition of a half story. Prior to construction, it appears that it did, and it also complied with the height maximum of 35 feet in the R2 zoning district. This is what the ARB may choose to ask questions of the applicant of tonight because there would be an additional, if the applicant is seeking to add a full third story or if they're seeking to go beyond that definition of a half story, then they would be introducing a new non-performance, which is likely not something that the board could allow. That would be something that would need to receive a variance, and that has different criteria than what the board is here to evaluate tonight. I do want to clarify there were some questions about pre-existing non-conformities, and again, pre-existing non-conformity with regard to use, the building frontage, or the, sorry, the street frontage, the right and left yard step backs, usable open space in FAR. Of those, the applicant is not changing the frontage, and they're not changing, they're only making modest changes to the side yard step backs. I spoke with Town Council for 8.1.8, those minor changes, because they have done an addition onto the front of the building. The ARB could choose to allow those and not consider those any increase in the non-conformity. They're proposing to bring the use to its legal pre-existing non-conformity, and they are reducing the non-conformance of the usable open space requirement by introducing usable open space into the rear. I spoke with Inspectional Services, and there was an assertion that there had previously been usable open space in the front of the property, and that is not the case. And then they are proposing to increase FAR, so this would be an increase to an existing non-conformity. And that, as I discussed about the half-story issue, this is a whole separate thing. I think the only other thing that the ARB may wish to clarify, as we discussed in the memo, is that there are some dimensions that we were unable to determine from the applicant's materials, so the board may want to see some answers with regard to the area, whether it needs a half-story, the roof slope of that third floor, the overall FAR, and how that was calculated. And then some additional details regarding the parking in the rear of the property and whether or not any buffer between the parking area and the property lines is to be proposed. I'm happy to answer any questions as we get further into this hearing, but that's basically a summary of what I have before me here. Great. Thank you so much, Kelly. Any members of the ARB have any questions for Kelly before we move to the applicant? All right. Seeing none, we welcome you to share with us what you have presented, prepared for us this evening, so if you could introduce yourself and any other members of your team who might be speaking this evening. That might be the longest part of our presentation tonight, the introductions, but... That is fine. My name is Don Borstein. I'm an attorney with Johnson & Borstein. We're located 12 Chestnut Street in the end over. Our practice focus is exclusively on land use and real estate issues. With me tonight is Gordon Glass, an associate of our office, did a lot of research for us on this. I see that at least one of the members of the table has removed their jackets, so I'm not putting on mine. That is fine. We are not a terribly formal group here, so... All right. And then with the United Casey, this half of the room, so I'll at least list off the folks who are directly involved in the development. We have Chris and Alyssa Mann, husband and wife. They're kind of spearheading the project. With them in the room tonight where they serve two of their partners, Reggie and Matt, right? And Mike Pinto, they're forming this as well. Carlos Pereira, the project architect. And Marissa Jackson, operations manager. Marissa. Marissa, sorry about that. And then some other folks supporting the project for us. I think Kelly did a great job, so we're giving us a snapshot of why we're here tonight. I'll flesh that out a little bit from my perspective, and I'm going to hand it over to the manlies, and they're going to go in a little bit of the details of the project, really talk about the property itself, because that's where we all want to get to. Sounds good. All right. So we're at 18 to 20 Belmast Street lot area, a little under 8,000 square feet, frontage of 50, two and a half storey. I'll cover that in a little bit more detail to respond to one of Kelly's questions. We're in the R2 district. It does a button the bike way, the very rear of the prop. It's a small section, rear lot line. If you haven't been to the property, the bike way is actually at a much lower elevation. There's no practical access to the bike way. It's probably 10 to 12 feet lower in elevation in the rear yard of the property. The property itself is fairly flat, but the bike way is sort of enough. They call it a beam in the back. Sight lines from the bike way, especially the structure are very limited. There's dense vegetation behind the property, and you've got that sort of steep grade portion of the bike. We've covered a little bit of the history of the use here. So a little interesting, an illegal six family. Somehow they got utilities for all six units. I'm not sure how they got that without building permits. And with the history of asking for approvals for six, but not getting it. But the short story is for decades, this has been an illegal six family apartment. Right up until when my clients purchased it, it's back on development. The overall project here is actually bring that back to its conforming use. It's legal use as a full unit building. They proposed a full gut renovation. And the most interesting part of this application, at least for me, maybe for the building, is that that renovation is substantially in process. So rough is basically complete. Exterior is substantially complete. Finish is started. Building permits, poor building permits, for the project back in September of last year, within Northern Elk from ISD, which is an architect. And the project went forward like a project would. And recently, late this spring, the Manly's were contacted by my Champa, Director of ISD, and asked to get really further from this board for the environmental design review. So that's really what brings us here tonight. Now I submitted a letter late this afternoon. I'm not necessarily expecting you to read it. It's mostly for the record. I wanted to make sure that Manly's reserved their rights and the SPI upon development reserved their rights. I'm not even entirely sure it required this release. But they very much felt they wanted to get in front of this board. They were asked by ISD to do it. They're happy to explain and promote and even defend their project. And there were some concerns and some different facts sort of floating around the neighborhood. This actually gives a great opportunity to get the real facts on the table and let people know what's going on there. So open up the door to this project. And the Manly's actually did that physical thing, I think, today. Open up the door to the project, contacted folks from the neighborhood, tried to get some conversation going. I had been doing that for some time and I think had some conversations today. Looks like we've got at least some people out tonight but we're hoping to engage the neighborhood as much as possible. So they know the facts of this project, what's going on there, and dispel any concerns. One thing I'd like to make real clear is we are not asking this board to approve changes from what was approved under the building permits. So this project is the same project as what was approved under the building permits. That's the intention. That's what we intend to complete. And as far as neighborhood contact, we do have, and I'd like to submit the record, we do have two sort of short statements of support from the owner and one of the residents on the immediate adjacent property of 14 or 16 now. So I'll just hand that to Kelly if that's okay. That would be great. Thank you very much. And we'll make sure that those are entered into the record in correspondence. Thank you. And then to sort of jump into just a quick response to sort of the two points that Kelly ended with in her memo, FAR increase. So I think, you know, certainly the FAR, as approved under the building permits as this project went forward on, is larger than existing, in its pre-existing state. It is important to note that four families really isn't dealt with under the zoning bylaw as it applies to this district. A single or two-family home could be every bit as large. Every bit, I have the same massive as this project. In fact, I could have a much larger massive than this project potentially because it's simply not subject to a fair. We're kicked into the FAR, what we call the requirement, because everything else is subject to this FAR. So I think we do have to put a little bit of asterisk when we say we'll increase in FAR because the way FAR applies in a two-family district really doesn't take into account the fact that you have pre-existing non-conforming uses. So we'd like to. And I think Chris and the project team will give you a little more detail about how this site maxes out what the property works like. And then on the half-story, the answer to that one is real easy. We do intend to do a half-story. We're not asking for any relief to do a full third story. If there's any sort of remaining questions. And I think this is mostly an ISD issue. If there's something, a zoning enforcement issue, if there's something about our plans, there's something about our construction that does not meet the half-story requirements, then we will simply change that. That's intended to be... In fact, those plans were meant to comply with the half-story requirements. So that is, there's some information that might not be entirely clear. We want to clarify that. But I don't necessarily see that as an ARP issue because we're not asking for relief. If the board wishes to specifically condition that in some way, we're not giving any relief from the half-story decommissioner limits, that's fine because that's absolutely the intention. So I've said plenty. I just want to hand it over to Chris. I think he's going to give us some extra presentation. This is going to talk in his ear as necessary. We brought some boards for you and we're going to get up and take a closer look. Chris, do you want to bring anything closer? Why don't you tell us a little bit about how we got here from your perspective and what you're doing on the proctor? Thanks for having us today. If you could introduce yourself. Absolutely. Christopher Manley, this is my wife, Melissa Manley. So four main points that I would ask that you consider tonight with respect to this special permit. Number one would be that we follow the rules like we always do. We collaborate proactively with ISD. We contact the building department. We have them out to the property. We walk the property. Reggie is our general contractor partner and Matt will walk it as a team and we'll ask the building department what can we do, what can't we do? We'll get preliminary data and information and guidance and then we'll have architectural plans drawn and that's Carlos's department. We'll have the architectural plans submitted and if there are any changes that need to be made, we make them resubmit as necessary, walk the property multiple times actually in this instance and we were subsequently permitted for the plans that we submitted. You know, it's always a collaborative effort and we do our best to work with the building department and ask in advance what can we do here because we never, I mean, we almost never end up in a situation like this and we never want to. We always want to be on the good list, if you will and we have a great relationship with the building department and everyone's been great and there's no animosity there, there's no adversity which is wonderful. I think that it lends itself to intention. I mean, we were proactive, we collaborated, we followed the appropriate process. The other part of it is that we relied on the building department for their instruction. The instruction essentially is a building permit. We get a building permit because of the plans we submitted and it was clearly discussed that this was going to be a gut renovation and an expansion. It was going to be converted from six units to four units. Everything was above board. There's nothing that we, Don said it well when he said there's nothing that we're asking for that we weren't permitting for. We've done a number of projects in Arlington and I would suspect that you've never seen us on the radar and that's the way we like to stay so we never anticipated being here. The second part of it would be that our projects are designed to be improvements and enhancements to the neighborhood and to the public good. As far as I can tell, the IRB is very concerned with public good and enhancements to the neighborhood and something that's not detrimental. We respectfully submit that a six unit illegal dilapidated rental unit, rental building with a crumbling foundation is more detrimental than the current use that we're proposing for which we were permitted. And some of the things that Kelly mentioned in her memo to the IRB one of the things that stood out to me was the table when it came to the massing of the property and how we fit right in the median. The median was 1.035 our building is at 1.04 and it's right in the middle of the 14 properties and I feel like I understand that the IRB we say that I understand that there are technical formulas and what not. My interpretation of massing is the overall structure and what fits into the cube so to speak, the imaginary cube around the property and what the observer experiences. And I feel like that was a great demonstration of how the property conforms to the neighborhood and it is not detrimental in terms of sites and shadows it conforms pretty well here. This is 1460 Belknap which is a six unit building it could be the twin of 1820 Belknap before it was constructed. This is 1416 here in real life. That's a six unit. This is 1315 this is the building that we did buy right across the street which is very similar in massing and overall experience. This 1420 Belknap here is our subject property. Not as pretty as we would love to show it to you but four units this is 22 to 24 Belknap. I didn't capture the entire building in the picture but that's a two unit building next to a four unit and I mean you can see how the massing is just I mean it's definitely not half the size of this four unit. I mean in a building it's overlapped. And this is what we propose this is the building in an artist's rendering relative to 1416, 2224 the two family and the monstrosity six unit 2830 Belknap. And so in terms of the conformity to the neighborhood and not being detrimental I mean there are so many things and I'll try not to list everything between the open space and the brand new foundation the four units from six the reduced load on public utilities we got rid of the all of not all of pardoning a lot of the asphalt the entire lot was covered with asphalt by two minutes impervious asphalt a garage that we raised were creating a lot of green space while still maintaining the parking we worked directly with ISD on this design and they approved and we tried to I mean my team could tell you that I have that productive paranoia about parking and experience I'm a real licensed real estate agent we don't practice but we're always thinking about the buyer experience not the real estate broker so we're always thinking about the end result and how the buyers are going to feel how the neighbors are going to either accept or feel in general about the project I don't want to get too far down you know tangent here but I talked a little bit about those projects and the conformity when we talk about when I think about public good I mean we submit to the board that public good just doesn't just need to be felt from a gigantic hotel on Mass Ave or a 20 unit building it's felt by the public the public are the neighbors who experience that six unit building with people drunk being loud partying drug dealing the mailman walking by and able to put his mail in a slot right at the street right at the sidewalk level he's part of the public he experiences that building the woman who's walking her baby in the stroller by the building who doesn't need to cross the street because the drunk guys are on the stoop again you know harassing people that's public good we feel like even a small building like ours if it's being addressed in this kind of capacity has every right to create public good I mean Arlington is very intent on creating open space and green space and impervious areas this project creates a ton of that I mean this is terrible by the way this is not drawn to scale this is huge the garage was here the entire thing was covered with asphalt it was nasty and there were bulkheads here there was a gigantic metal fire escape that came out and went down here it was just it was just terrible we feel like we've made such an improvement over the existing property so I'm just going to give you a time check you're a bit over the time that we typically a lot so I appreciate all the detail that you've both given us but if there are some other salient points you definitely want to make sure that we hear if you could cover those that would be great thank you so much there's a very real for lack of a better word I just won't sugarcoat it there's a massive financial hardship at play here we're permitted for this we counted on the town and ISD to build this building we did as permitted and as instructed we were financed for this building and we don't get finance to move backwards so there's no choice to move backwards the only choice is for us to move forward with the building that's why we're here to respectfully request a collaboration and to figure out some way forward this process has effectively pushed us into a recession with units that are still being built and not sold so I guess to sum it up all we are asking tonight is to build what was permitted thank you for your time thank you I appreciate it alright so at this time I'd like to turn it over to my colleagues on the board for any questions that you might have for the applicant and Ken why don't we start with you well I have a question but I'll reserve that for later we can talk about how much ourselves but as far as a question to the developer here I like your project it's a very nice project it's very handsome and I think it's a better than what you've said so far I have no issues with the only thing I wouldn't mind maybe you could consider is you have this green space in the rear yard it's definitely a bonus but I don't want that future to be parked over and covered I can see something like that happening easily enough so I was wondering if there's a way of maybe putting a curb there or some sort of pushes or some sort of structure there where it would just limit the amount of cars so to be honest with you I lived at 14 Belmack about 30 years ago when me and my wife first came to Ireland so I knew exactly what the backyards were it was a big huge asphalt parking lot that just went on forever from one property to another property there was exactly right there was fire escapes coming down everything was a mess and you didn't feel comfortable walking back toward the bike path at night it wasn't safe at least what my wife did feel that way so I think you're doing a better by doing this and I think what you're doing is fine just if you can commit to a green space I would like you to commit to a green space hopefully I'm not asking too much by putting some bushes or curbing or something to make sure it stays as that green space I did have a question about the half-story but you're saying that you will commit to a half-story whatever the requirements are for a half-story it's not going to be a three-story building so I'll take your word for that I also will take the understanding that building officials will enforce that and I'm happy with that and then the other part is you're asking a simple relief on this FAR fortunately I believe because this project is brought into this board here the ARB has much more latitude in granting relief for that and that's something I will bring up with my board numbers later because this project is brought for the ARB we're not viewing this as a zoning board at least in my opinion board members might think differently but since this is an ARB review we're going to review it as an ARB board not as a zoning board so we're not asking to check off these different things because the reason why this is in the zoning is if any property touches certain areas like Mass Ave or the bike path, it falls on an outdoor extension and we have our set of rules not the zoning board rules so that's how I'm going to interpret this project as that that's something we'll discuss later amongst my board members as I'm not sure they all believe in the way I believe I'm just stating how I see it Thank you, Ken Gene? Thank you we'll discuss that later I have a question about the half story I couldn't figure out and maybe some of my colleagues could from the materials I couldn't figure out whether what you have on the third area meets the standard for half story or not Can I actually weigh in on that? I did speak with Inspector Champa today and the revised drawings that were part of this application which are different than what was originally submitted do meet the half story he has reviewed it and believes that it meets the standard and believes that the height is higher than what is currently allowed so what we have here is something where I personally I'm not going to let you go ahead with what you got permitted obviously because the first drawing it sounds like did not meet the requirement for half story but the revised one does but as Ms. Zembury says so you know I'm not going to agree maybe my colleagues will disagree but I'm not going to agree for you to go ahead with what you got permitted if it's inconsistent with the height or inconsistent with the half story requirement so we'll have to take that later I have a question about how the FAR was calculated and I think this is very important for us to figure out and to discuss later if you look at the page of your application that lists existing and proposed in determining the gross floor area which is used to determine the floor area ratio it's if you don't know the page number on it if you can probably this one yes that's it Steve what page is that no no it's not it's a type page is anybody on the same page do you have it do you have it do you have it it's what it looks like this it's after that page there you go that's it you calculated it based on the first floor and the second floor and the attic and porches and balconies I have a question about the basement though what was the basement like but what is the basement like now in the building or when you bought it what was the basement like the previous condition was the basement was unfinished mechanical area just a mechanical area under our zoning bylaw gross floor area includes sellers and residential units and basements except not basement areas devoted exclusively to mechanical mechanical equipment uses accessory the operation in the building you have a lot of space in the basement for the tenants to use according to the diagram I believe that those spaces and I couldn't figure out the exact square footage needs to be added to the gross floor area of your building in the calculation and our zoning bylaw section on gross floor area is 5.3 .22 so I believe that you are under counting what the actual FAR is for the building and I don't have a calculation for what it is because I don't have a calculation for how much of the building should be added my guess is your probably FAR is probably close to 8 or 9 or close to 9 but I don't really know so we would need at least to have that resolved in order to decide what to do with consideration of the floor area ratio because you are asking for an increase from what was currently and I'm not sure whether I would give you one or not but the greater the distance the more we have to think about whether to grant it so I would need you to come back with what's the floor area the gross floor area in the basement and what's the new FAR would be as a result of that I have a question let me walk up there so over here there's a window and it goes out and what I don't know is whether a window should be trying for the setback or not so when you measure to determine the setback would you measure from the window window or would you measure from the window window based on the plans that were permanent the window well as far as I remember now anybody can let me know the setback was from the building itself I think as far as I can tell and I tell you I haven't dealt with window wells before but I look through the zoning by-law and I didn't see anything that excluded window wells do you know Steve so the section it would be in would be 539 I didn't see it yeah I didn't see it so assuming it's not in 539 I would need to see a recalculation to see whether those window wells go into the 20 foot setback or not because if they do that's a whole different problem bicycle parking so this is an apartment building under our zoning by-laws not the townhouse under our zoning by-laws and the apartment building requires 1.5 long term spaces per dwelling unit so 4 dwelling units you need to identify 6 bicycle parking spaces that meet the requirements of the zoning by-law in terms of where they can be downstairs things like that that's not in any of your materials so that would need to be added additionally it requires basically one bicycle parking space that's called short term which is outside the building which we can discuss whether that makes sense or not but if we just look at the by-law for apartment buildings you round it up and you need one bike rack outside the building so that's on bicycle parking on the parking area in back and I appreciate I appreciate you trying to put all the green space in one place and I agree with my colleague it would be really nice to have something there that has been run on it but the other piece of it is the surface area this is under the zoning area in the parking area the surface area tends to be back from all the lines of the bike parking and use for residential purchases will find people that cares of the wall and you need screaming I know we're just doing the right thing here you need to do something screaming on that side so you may have to move over there a little bit and for those of you running the citation for the zoning by-law it's 6.1 .11 on the screening for the parking let me see if I have anything else oh yeah I just wanted to mention one other thing to contradict what you said in your opening to be fair I walk the bike path almost every day right by the house now you can't see it because the trees are leafed out but when the trees aren't leafed out you can see it very clearly I saw it being built I saw this big thing going up I kept wondering how large it was going to get so yeah right now when I walk down the bike path I can't see it but in the winter after the leaves go out in the fall and before the leaves come on in the spring it's very clearly visible from the bike path you can look right up at it so I just did want to make that point depends on the season when you look at it that's it, thanks before we go to Melissa section 5.3.9 with regard to the window wells we're talking about unenclosed steps decks and the like I think the question becomes what is and the like and the window wells fall into that I don't think they do great, Melissa any questions for the applicant no specific questions I think coming from at least from my perspective on it I apologize for us bringing you back to this and I understand your statement about the financial hardship and we're aware of that and I want you to understand what we're trying to do is make sure that the permit and the process is followed to make sure the project is secure going forward and in terms of some of the things that have been mentioned I think with the ARB having some flexibility with the FAR that's one thing that I'll look to I think for us for at least from my perspective the FAR is within reason I think we have to be mindful of kind of the precedent in setting I think the project itself is a very good enhancement obviously a strong kind of investment in the neighborhood so I see the value there with regard to the open space along with Ken's comments I support that in trying to maintain that and see how we can ensure that doesn't become just paved over in the future and I think we clarified the half story so that was one area where the FAR is picked up aside from the basement is it mainly from the enclosure of the front or where are you picking up the additional FAR because it doesn't look like the footprint expanded at all beyond the front the footprint expanded as far as I don't know as far as the plants it has to be five feet to the front and five feet to the front so the long below if you will did not change the footprint did not change if you took a square and outlined it and it had all kids in this fire escape on the rear in the summer but we technically did expand the foundation of the two stories it's enclosure of unenclosed it's enclosure of unenclosed it wasn't an extension of the footprint this is right here five feet right here is where the building used to be and on the rear same treatment so when we worked with ISD they said it does help I mean we see that often in different kind of renovations I just wanted to kind of make sure I was understanding that right and then I guess I do have a question Kelly with regards to just our team's confusion ISD's confusion how it went forward and then there was reconsideration for it to come back to the ARB do you are you able to explain a little bit about how that happened or what we should be noting in the future about this I mean my understanding is that the building permits were initially issued in error and then at some point in that process it was determined that because of the increase to the ARB because of the prior non-conforming use it would have to go to a special permit granting authority it was originally routed to the ZBA because the ARB typically does not hear projects in the R2 but during the course of that during the course of those reviews and various individuals reviewing the documents it was realized that it was on the Ben and Ben bikeway in which case it was pulled from the ZBA so that we could reroute it to the ARB but overall regarding the building permits being issued in I mean that's not really part of what the board is I'm just trying to understand that for process because I think from the permits end result of producing good development throughout so we want to understand that a little bit at least from my perspective to help facilitate good development I think those are all my questions right now so thank you Great, thank you Melissa Steve Hello, thank you for coming tonight I have sort of questions and marks in four different areas so one Mr. Benson touched on earlier I was looking over the dimensional worksheets and there was zero GFA listening for the basement now per ARB bylaw 532 although addicts we make a distinction whether they're finished or not but we don't do that for basements and sellers we do have a seller in this building and it is explicitly included so I I'll echo Mr. Benson's sentiment and would like to see that at it now regarding regarding usable open space so non-conformity with respect to usable open space are very common in town this is something that was added to the bylaw in 1975 and there were just there's a lot of East Arlington that does not have usable open space and typically when treating a usable open space non-conformity if the applicant can show usually it's expanding GFA but not changing the amount of usable open space so the applicant will typically have to show that there was no usable open space beforehand there was no usable open space afterwards so no change to the degree of non-conformity you're actually adding some which is that's fine it's not increasing the degree of non-conformity but it would be nice to have a plot plan and where those dimensions are spelled out so we could just look at it and say okay so the front would be really clear that it's really just like the plan that's on sheet A3 you added in the front yard setbacks and the dimensions of the open space and maybe a diagram of what was there before you know to illustrate that it was you know illustrate that you know it was paved over so it's really just about providing documentation there for the half story I'm the general way usually the easiest way to show compliance with our half story regulations is if you take the floor plan for the third story and just sort of box in the area where there is a height of 7 feet or more from the floor to the finished rafters so you could just say okay this is the area that needs the 7 foot height limit and then we can look at the dimensional worksheet for the floor below and the determination of whether it's 50% or not the other thing that plays into half stories and you did is sort of like the side perspective this one the other criteria for a half story is that the minimum the slope has to be at least 2 to 12 so there's part of the roof that's shown here is 5 to 12 that definitely needs it but the sort of flanks at the end are too shallow so those are at least shown as being 1 over 12 the whole rationale behind that that slope requirement is to ensure that the reason it was added is to make sure that the half story didn't look like a whole story and this to me it does it does look like a full story but I do have I do have a little bit of a for me the 1 to 12 slope on the edge is a bit of a stumbling block and so finally a vegetated buffer around the parking lot so this was the provision I was actually looking at was section 6-1-N but it's close by in terms of the townhouse versus townhouse versus apartment to me this falls more on the side of the townhouse I had conversations with Kelly about this the definition of townhouse and the regulations is 3 in a row this is 2 in 2 I agree that it's a gray area but not a gray area at all we can talk about that later I have nothing further so the only other question that I have I think that my colleagues had some good questions for you and I also agree with Steve that I'm struggling a bit with the 1 to 12 pitch especially when I went out on site as well is the overall height because I did speak to the building inspector and he questioned whether in your table here of dimensions you show that it's below the maximum 35 feet but then there's this new section where the overall height is not calculated you have the height here to the bottom of the third floor so has that gone over the 35 feet okay so then I certainly will not make an issue of that if that is something that was intended to conform then that would be between you and the building inspector okay any other questions from the board before we move to public comment I just have one other question when I went today and the building did not look like it was being built the way the representation of the building looks like can you talk about the difference between the two the only thing I can think of is we made a de minimis change on the third floor I don't know if that's what it mean but it was a door and to make the floor plan better so we moved we made an improvement to the plans we actually shortened the building the building was permitted to be too tall and they started framing they actually said there's going to be framing and then we said wait a minute hold on time out we reduced the height of the building so I don't know what's inside on that let me just come over here hold on hold on wait a minute that's the rear that's the rear of the building no that was another thing that we realized Jean is there a page that you're referring to just so that for record I can let people know because the people thank you on page thank you very much I appreciate that for record so at this time I'd like to open up the discussion to any member of the public who's joining us this evening who might wish to speak if you'd like to speak please raise your hand I'll call on you in the order that hands are raised you'll have up to three minutes to address the board and I'd ask that you identify yourself by your first, last name and street address so anyone would like to speak this evening during our public comment please I'm Laura Tracy from 25 Mary and we're a couple things one I am on town meeting and I think just so that the board knows a lot of the a lot of times other town meeting members and myself feel like there's always like special permits and like oh we'll allow this much so I'm very concerned about precedent setting in terms of allowing like an increase in the AFR that's why it's hard to get I'm all for more density in our own terms but it's very hard to get anything past because everyone's you know can't be a member to say well it's yeah but if you just give them an inch and it'll take a month because there's a lot of there's some play with allowing so just so you know that that's hard for me and I feel upset that the permit was granted for something that didn't have any compliance and now it's a financial burden for the developer for the owners that follows me and I don't know how that happened and how Arlington can make that right at the same time I don't want something built that has like just minor changes inside setbacks or a little play with the amounts of the AFR I want it built to the specifications of the parking lot so it doesn't feel very good that we have something now that's a financial burden that Arlington is responsible for so it doesn't make any sense Thank you for sharing that this evening Thank you Are there any other members of the public who wish to speak this evening Please go ahead My name is Austin Brown and I'm one of the group of people that own 10 Belknath My father is the current owner and I'm in the process of purchasing from him I'd just like to say that my apologies for the poor planning I got off at 10am this morning so I'm a little out of it The slope height bylaw I wasn't able to pull it up right now but that specific part of the law as I interpreted it was not incredibly clear it said there was a slope it sort of just had a global slope but when you have an able roof it's not clear as to whether that slope applies to every single section of the roof or the roof in its entirety so I'd like to suggest that it may be worth clarifying that and if the decision is made that it applies to every single part of the slope that will become impressive and personally I think it should apply to every single part of the roof because if it doesn't then you could basically end up with two very flat roofs you could end up with a shipping pair which I don't think is very aesthetic so anyways let me misread that but thank you very much for letting me too thank you very much and Steve I know you spoke to that a little bit did you want to offer any further clarifications on the area with regard to slopes that might help with regard to I understand prior to joining this board I served on the ZBA for a third and a half section we always applied the 2-12 slope requirement to every single roof surface so if you had a shed dormer on the side of the house the top of that shed dormer had to have this slope of at least 2-12 thank you very much thank you are there any other members of the public who wish to speak this evening please hi my name is Ann Elinger and I'm at 21 Linda Street I've been here about 4 years it's just a few doors away a little louder no you're fine yeah we spend so much misunderstanding and confusion in the neighborhood so I feel like in the last 2 days we've had better communication than the whole year before and I feel like my core interest is that people in Arlington trust their government, their readers and I feel like this combination of like what Laura was saying it just feels really bad that it was like I understand mistakes happen but this combination of mistakes so that now we're just in the jam I would say the neighborhood never wanted the construction to stop they're only completed as fast as possible and if we're not to be stuck in this limo we want it to be rented and that people would be there and so I feel very caught between people like both of you did like let's not let not like we want the rules followed just to be able to trust even if we don't like the rules and I think we don't it's very upsetting in our neighborhood that there's a number of more and more small mental unit houses are being reconstructed and so it's just hard to watch the character of the neighborhood change but that isn't that's not what we're dealing with here so part of the rules being followed we would like them to at the same time it's not the fault of the developer that the plans were okay that weren't conforming so how do we resolve this as soon as possible I'm paying for any of the parties so it can move on but not become precedent that then more developers build more and more ever bigger things that aren't quite right thank you thank you so before we move on to any other comment I'll just address that because that's come up a couple of times and again I'm not going to speak on behalf of the building department that's not in a role here and I think we've already mentioned we do feel you're in a difficult situation and I think we all appreciate that I will say as an architect there are times when a planned reviewer makes a mistake and a building permit is issued for something that is not in compliance with a local state or federal ordinance and unfortunately as a design professional that doesn't recuse you of the responsibility of meeting those and so no matter when it's caught in a project if it's caught it's something that has to be dealt with and unfortunately it was just caught at this point in the project so if an accessibility requirement was missed doesn't mean that it's never going to be added back in it has to get added back in and this is not dissimilar in that there are zoning items that were caught and again we're going to as a board discuss in terms of what we can do to help this developer make this project work but no matter when it happens it's something that has to be addressed so I just wanted to address that I'm going to address what you said earlier that sometimes it seems like rules are sometimes enforced sometimes not enforced sometimes not followed I want to say that ARB is charged to help the curbs develop the talent and according to the master plan that was approved so one of our incentives that we have empowered is to give some relief to some of these requirements to help encourage this development so it may seem like we're wishy-washy on some of these enforcement of some of the zoning requirements or something like FIR or setbacks or so forth but we are as a board empowered to give some relief to that knowing the bigger picture of trying to encourage this vision to have so how does that help answer the question we have but that's how I always interpret what we can charge to do it I'm not here to say okay I'm really here I'm going to give you a little relief here it's not that at all it's how we see it and if that project is beneficial and we want to encourage that for example affordable housing if you add a few more affordable housing using this project we'll give you relief on FIR or the high heights or setbacks so forth all the people to do so and that's where sort of empowered to do and that's how I sort of see when I mentioned earlier to this project here this project now being shifted to us to ARB because it's on the bike path so I'm going to view it differently than the ZBA will view it the ZBA will say okay here are all the rules you have to follow we'll make it we'll prove it we'll get into that during the discussion a little bit when I heard that it felt my first so now it's going there so we're not going to have a back and forth about this but I appreciate you sharing your perspective but we'll save that for the discussion are there any other members of the public who are here this evening that wish to speak please I'm sorry if you could first say an address Thank you back some of the some of the so for example putting a fence around the lot while it's neat and so on it kind of pushes forward the boundary of the house visually and also bright colors like for example the middle house I should say that the house was redeveloped across the street and has wonderful people and is a large white area at the top on a sunny day really makes the house look a lot bigger than it is so there might be a set of things that could help Thank you I have a question I just want to make we're not going to do a back and forth do you have a for one of the public? I have a question about this so one of the standards that we will be looking at is whether the change they're doing to this building right is more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing building the one that they're getting rid of so I don't hear any of you saying that what they're proposing to do is more detrimental to the neighborhood can you tell me if I understood that correctly my personal opinion the house that was there before was in very rough shape so it was a really there's a continuum in our shape so this I guess my thing is especially because there is it's pushed out in the front it's like if there were ways to visually back it off there's any relevance in terms of zoning regulations thank you any other members of the public we're not going to do a back and forth okay any other members of the public wishing to speak this evening you're a petitioner so we're not going to entertain any questions during public comment for you but once we close public comment we will again re-engage in a dialogue any other members of the public wishing to speak I just want to say thank you all for your time thank you so with that we will close public the public comment period for this hearing and I will reopen it back to the board for us to discuss our thoughts on any items that we would either like to ask the applicant to return with more information on whether there are any revisions or further clarifications that we would like or if we feel that we will be able to move towards a decision this evening and I'm going to start with Steve so there are some things I would like to see to go forward okay namely taking the I'd like to see documentation to show that there was zero percent usable open space before the word started and I'd like to see dimensions added to the plot plan on sheet A3 to show the dimension proposed open spaces and the frontside back and in addition I would like I'm so sorry what sheet number dimensions on the plot plan thank you and I would also like to see documentation to show that the upper story conforms to the definition of PAP story so that would be that you know basically a forward plan with the area that was that seven feet or more from floor to wrapper and the pitches for the various group surfaces so compliance to the minimum two and twelve yes and when he asked that that may mean that that may be a potential change that you may need to look into but again we can't tell from some of the limited information we have so just want to make that clear it can't if you want to add if you want to add that there was a sheet with elevations on it somewhere and I did not and I failed to notice but yeah if you could put it on a drawing that would be great I could have sworn and maybe you know what I may have hesitated because I was looking for more information but Kelly did I submit an attic plan with the red and the purple you did but I followed up because there were dimensions on the areas that were included in the red and purple and the rules were always a shout them so Madam Chair? Yes so sheet A6 does have elevations but it shows the elevations of the floors but it doesn't show a final elevation of the if you could add it that would be great Anything else? Nope Okay while we're on potential asks for additional information any other members of the board with additional asks? Gross floor area including the basement I also like to understand how they calculated the first floor if you could show that also just so I can hear that correct how you calculated the other floors as well as the basement and how you calculated it for the gross floor area of the building and then a new total calculation and a new overall FLA FAR and we'd like to see where the bicycle parking is going to be shown short term and long term short term and long term and the screening on the left side of the parking where it's required next to the other property on the left side and I agree with Steve about the how to Kim any additional information clarification that you're looking for just how they can treat that open space to maintain open space So the curb or perimeter condition of the open space is it about the paved surface like bushes or some sort of transition elevation however they want to handle it Did they did you uncover the parking screening Yes I think Steve had his hand raised I'm sorry I'm still taking notes Please go ahead Did you get I don't think you got I think you said you didn't Did you have anything? No I guess I had some questions for the board or like Ken and yourself Madam Chair In terms of one of the public comments around looking at the front I was thinking about that one board down there in terms of design so now it's kind of coming through here but the wood fencing and some of that the other project that was completed to me it doesn't maybe as relate to as much to the house design and then so I was thinking with regard to it being you know bigger in the FR that is there an opportunity to use the fencing as an opportunity for more green so could we look at a different way to divide those properties through landscape design Is that something that I think we could ask the applicant to consider it but I would consider that outside of our purview but we could certainly ask them to consider it Yes because I think it would offer some opportunity to add you know just more planting to greenify the area maybe make it less imposing as you know as you're walking down there because if you imagine every project down that street redeveloped in such the same manner it becomes more of a wall of fencing and maybe we can think of how we can do something better to the stocking fencing So that's one thing and then I think everything else is covered Okay and then before we move to I think that there were a few other questions I want to come back to like the window wells etc where I want to make sure we give them an interpretation as to how we're looking at that as a board did you have any questions as to the items that requested for additional information for future hearing and what we can also do is follow up with Kelly can follow up with you for this list that we've been keeping as well to make sure that we're in alignment Absolutely so that person let me just make sure that he doesn't have any additional questions sure sure okay okay okay okay okay okay okay okay that sounds good okay okay great thank you Steve I just wanted to spend a minute talking about long-term bicycle parking so typically in an apartment the long-term bicycle parking is provided at great access and it's a shared space in this case every dwelling unit has its own accurate access and there is no interior shared spaces I'm kind of questioning whether long-term makes sense except the basement they could put it in the basement the basement is not a shared area no but each each unit has its own space in the basement so they could clearly put it down there okay and even though technically we don't like them to go up and down stairs we can allow that in this situation so I think I'm hearing their show or long-term bike parking that's possible inside the structure in the basement in the storage area in the storage area great so there was a question about the calculation of the setback related to the window wells and gene that was specific to section just had it 5.3.9B Steve is this something that during your tenure on the ZVA since these are window wells are not typically pieces that we run into in the ARB no all of the applications of 539 that I have personally dealt with involve porches and vestibules so never window wells this is how I read it so the issue too is I think the setback requirement is 20 feet they are at 20.7 I think so it's possible that even with the window well they'll still be within 20 feet we need documentation about whether the window well is in the 20 foot setback or not and then if it's in the 20 foot setback I'll have to figure out what to do with it but I was I didn't go out there with a tape measure so I couldn't measure it so I'm not sure whether it goes into the setback or not great great Joe, can I make a comment please I'm sorry I said yes I think I was talking as I was writing I wanted to say something if you say no these buildings aren't sprinkled right it is sprinkled that's why you get one means of egress and that's fine right I was going to if the unit wasn't sprinkled then you need two means of egress out of the basement because it's an occupied space but I believe you guys are treating it as a non occupied space that's why you're not counting it as your FAR but they have to count it I realize because of certain regulations but if it's not occupied if it's non occupied space then it doesn't count as FAR and the reason why it's counting as FAR is because you've got 8 foot height flare in there it was lower than 7 feet then it's no longer considered occupied space is that correct Steve? that's correct that's not how I'm going to let the architect look at that too have you looked at that? that's not how this is correct I don't have to look at that again but what I'm saying is occupied spaces has to do with height and if it's less than a certain amount of height it's no longer counted as occupied space anymore and it's considered storage so if it's storage because of its height you don't need egress you don't need to count as FAR because it's just plain storage we've determined that we need to count it correct Steve in the way that you've been calculating it as well with the CDA so my understanding is as long as it is 7 feet tall it gets counted if it's a crawl space you know if it's too short then it's not counting I'm going to give you guys options to look at certain things when you look at this I'm not trying to say what is what I'm not giving you direction what to do I'm just looking at the interpretation of what we have here and if Jean is saying this is occupied space because it didn't use all the criterias then it has to count as FAR but when you took an approach it was not FAR so you didn't count it in your schedule because so you're not building occupied space here I'm just stating that right now so I think what we're being asked is basically sharp on our pencil I did note at the beginning here I should have Bob and Nessie is their local council who you're familiar with with the anti-zoning by-law much more than myself so we'll be consulting with him he's actually very I'm so sorry to hear that it seems nice enough to do a phone call with us so I can manage please pass on our knowledge on the project so we'll contact him and we'll probably contact the building inspector as well sure great we can also ask the building inspector how we consider absolutely yep on the window well questions great any other questions or commentary from the board the early comment I had about how we interpret this project sure I mean if there's a question you'd like to pose to sure yes I'm just saying you know when I view this project I'm viewing it in terms of how ARB would view it that's why I talk about fencing bicycle parking and all the other open space not as terms of how the zoning board would view it certain requirements how they would give relief they give relief because it's definitely two of the requirements I believe by Steve non-conforming site or weird site is one way of giving relief it's historic is another way of giving relief and you have to make certain requirements to get that relief our charge is a little more broader than that and our charge is trying to follow the master plan with a certain way of encouraging so I just want to see if more projects come up this way here that we're more prepared to talk about this and you know I don't want to see this as a one-off this is unfortunate situation and I feel badly for it but I still wanted to set a tone saying how we should view things and discuss it now so in the future we have sort of a we'll see how we do things and it's important to me where we have to follow what we've been chartered with which is to encourage good development and we're empowered to give some relief to obtain that our opinions may differ for what is good development or what is what but I'm okay with that that's why I think it's a good community we have this difference of opinion and I value that but the fundamentals about how we view this is very important so I hear I hear what you're saying I think that this is a very unusual project given the fact that it is a four family pre-existing nonconforming use in an R2 none of which we ever would typically here so I think that we do need to we do need to align with the requirements to a certain extent while also again keeping our charge which is looking at does this building and to the point that you pointed out Jean create a basically a betterment to the community based on the definition that's in the environmental design review criteria and much like again we look at properties that create a larger area of open space and perhaps are required there is some given intake but there are some areas here which I think are I'm looking forward to seeing the documentation on how close or whether they do fall into compliance before I think we can really talk about what we would trade off I think we're still struggling a little bit to understand where our baseline is a little bit that part I totally understand and I'm with you guys I just want to a broader understanding of how we're going to be with you that's all so that's how I'm planning on looking at it is I think that there are anyone else want to weigh in Steve I'm sorry Melissa go ahead well I mean I think I think Ken I agree with what you're saying I mean I think what you're trying to say is I explain a little bit more of the scope and the purview of the ARB different than some of the other regulatory boards I think some of the public comment that we heard sounded like it was a little confusion and that where we do offer some relief the idea the relief is for the greater good the master plan that's our charge and it's supposed to encourage the best possible project design wise environment wise transportation wise that's where there's a little wiggle room or what you call you know relief for some of the rules it's not a black and white book check off check off and then it moves on so that's why the board exists and that's why there's also the range of opinion I think you hear from us and how where that wiggle room or how much of that we're okay with as a collective board so I just want to say I hear you Ken that makes that makes sense to me that's part of the dialogue right part of our conversation Steve? There's a question I'd like to pose to the rest of my fellow board members and to this line of and this is sort of a question of bylaw interpretation so in the dimensional and density regulations that specify a maximum at AR 0.35 that maximum at AR applies to quote unquote any permitted structure over the weekend I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the words permitted meant in this context and I came up with two possible interpretations and I'm wondering how you guys feel about them or which one you'd prefer or if it's something else so one way to I think to interpret it would be permitted as in a building permit and this is clearly a case that would basically cover pretty much everything. The other way to interpret the word permitted is permitted under this bylaw which would mean that a conforming building or a structure that conforms to the bylaw would be limited but a pre-existing non-conforming structure would not necessarily be this is sort of like the way we treat non-conformities with respect to usable open space so basically what I'm wondering I'm sort of asking in a roundabout way is does that SAR requirement even apply to this project? It's either a permitted structure or it's what? So it's either it depends on how you interpret the word permitted so if you think of permit as you know a building permit then sure it applies to everything but if you think of permitted as does this bylaw allow it well here you have something that the bylaw doesn't allow but is pre-existing non-conforming. That's what I was going to ask you Steve and I think you know what my opinion was I don't think we should apply it but that's that's just because I believe it's within our purview to do that because I really think this is a betterment this building is a betterment to the neighborhood. There's a few things we are going to tweak but in general it's a betterment for the neighborhood and that's how I view it as an ARB board number as opposed to a zoning board number. So my take on it is that it is another permitted structure and the FAR does apply to it because if it wasn't there were so many structures that didn't have applicability here and all the other sections that talk about what you can do to adjust the non-conformities wouldn't matter anymore so I think it definitely does my opinion it definitely does apply to it and and this is an interesting situation to me because if this didn't have just a few feet on the bike path you know at the back where there's going to be parking in a little green space it would have gone to the zoning board of appeals rather than to us and they would have made the decision on 3.3 and not on the design review so my thought is because it just happens to go to us because there's a few more feet on the bike way does that mean it should get an extra benefit that it wouldn't get if it wasn't on the bike way and my feeling is it should not that while we could apply the EDR criteria and we need to I would apply them very narrowly because I believe that it shouldn't sort of get something that it couldn't have gotten if it was in front of the ZBA simply because it had a few feet on the bike way that's the way I look at it so I'm unlikely to go beyond what is written here however what is written here does allow us to adjust those things because if you look at 8.1.8 which is what I was asking the public folks it's the one that you know specifically says not substantially more detrimental than the existing non-conforming structure or use to the neighborhood so it's not we don't have to go to 3.4 we are we can go to the direct piece of it what concerns me and I just think about this because I haven't quite made up my mind but it relates to something that some of the public comments were but concerns me about this with the potential of increasing the FAR or allowing the increase is then a lot of those buildings are non-conforming so what we're doing we have rolling rolling rolling increases of the FAR and it sort of becomes meaningless at that point the reason I brought it up is because you know buildings with no usable open space so normally on a conforming lot because open space is based on FAR it will constrain the size of the building but if you start with 0% usable open space there's a lot there are a huge number of properties that fall into this category you know there is no constraint whatsoever you know and that's you know that just happens to be how the how the bylaw works and how it's been interpreted so I mean you know I need to think just a little more and hear what the others you have to say but I'm leaning toward saying that they can't go beyond what the current building is when it comes to FAR because of the fact that I think it's sort of you know the slippery slope thing for Belknap Street and once we do this then it starts to become precedent for others and I wonder whether the ZBA has dealt with this because if the ZBA has a standard about what they do with this I would really like to know if that would really inform my decision precedent is a wonderful thing so do we know what the ZBA why don't we do this I will meet with Christian Klein and I will get a consensus from him yeah I agree with your points and I'm sorry Melissa did have a comment to make next so well I guess one thing Jean in your thinking as a one-off property I understand the thinking but if you're looking at the whole and assuming the other properties down Belknap I'm trying to gauge how many touch Minuteman bikeway would they come before us next time I think that side of the street they all touch Minuteman they all touch Minuteman bikeway so assuming 22 Belknap and again that's assuming that they are looking for relief if they're within right they would not they're not increasing they're not increasing it but if imagining another project coming before us touching Minuteman and along that I guess what I'm thinking is as a whole if we are able to do that and apply the EDR by my own son criteria each time it's not necessarily we are not the ZDA in so much that as a whole for the projects along Minuteman bikeway we would be improving them and we would have the ability to have that versus trying to emulate the ZDA all true but it just seems a lot to me that because one side of Belknap has the backyards has the backyards on Minuteman and the other side doesn't that they would be treated differently that's why I'm really interested in what ZDA would do with this I guess my sense is that just the way we oversee commercial properties is the same way you know it's geographic location based on what's important to the community the open space, the linear park that's Minuteman bikeway, the commercial districts and these are important to us so they come through this agreed excellent discussion did you have a comment Kim before we move on? No I think these are good discussions that I think we can table and talk more about that retreat we can talk about later on I think these are things that I think we should have a bit of discussion about this project does bring up a good point unfortunately I feel for you guys and most likely we're going to actually come back a few more questions I apologize to have to drag you through all this stuff because it's none of your fault but it is what it is it is a little bit a little bit so we have a list for you which we enumerated previously we will review that with Kelly what I'd like to do is request a motion from the board to continue the hearing and what I first need to do is coordinate a date with you and with Kelly looking at the future ARB meeting date so do you have those Kelly so we can give them some options yes so if they are able to turn around the board is not meeting in the month of August so if you are able to turn around any feedback or changes or responses by Wednesday we can have this being part of the hearing on the 20th July 25 yes otherwise we're looking at September 12th I believe you need to submit it before the 25th yes but it was twice on the 20th okay I can probably answer this without asking the mandates is there a better motion for the 20th okay sorry the 12th of September or the 26th so we're going to want to shoot the 25th and if that is who's impossible the 12th 12th of September or the 26th so if that date approaches and you find that you are not ready to submit on July 20th please just let Kelly know as far in advance as you can and we'll adjust what we'll do is we'll need to vote on the 25th in your absence and we'll continue the hearing again to the September date but that is not a problem if that turns out to be what that needs to what needs to happen I will confirm those deadlines when I follow up with the list of items so I'll move that we continue this hearing docket 3704 to July 25th 2022 I'll second that starting with Steve Melissa I'm a yes alright so that unanimously is continued excuse me docket number 3704 is unanimously continued to July 25th thank you very much for being with us this evening appreciate it we're very lucky to have Kelly so thank you very much for that acknowledgement okay give me one second while I get back to my agenda alright so the next item in our agenda agenda item number 2 is the discussion of the dates for the fall board retreat so we had identified that we would like to try and meet in September or October hopefully after the new um department head is selected so what I think would be a good idea now is to just try and collect a series of potential dates probably towards the latter half of September if we're going to be safe just knowing, not knowing currently what the timing is going to look like fully yet for the selection um so maybe what we could do is start by identifying the dates um that are not available so we know that town day is the 17th which is probably not a great day for us to do our board retreat because I'd like everybody to enjoy the first town day in a couple of years right um so I feel like the 10th 11th that weekend is probably a little early after Labor Day and the new um department head will probably still be settling in um so do we want to throw out either the 18th, the 24th or the 25th is there anyone who cannot make any of those dates okay let's take that one off yeah the 24th and 25th are probably better for me because I want to go away in September but earlier it was more likely okay September 24th or 25th that's a Saturday or Sunday yeah that's fine I'm okay okay I cannot do the following weekend but if we need to push to October um the next day it's actually what is Columbus Columbus Day is the 10th um but the 8th 9th 3rd before Columbus day would be the next weekend so do we want to take that off the table if the 24th 25th one of those two dates does not work or people find to meet on a Columbus day you can't do if that's possible usually we push it so far back that we don't get enough chance to do I'm just trying to give us options because again we don't know when the new department head is going to be selected okay I hope that we can do either the 24th or 25th that is that's my goal but I want to have a backup um and so maybe I think the 15th 6th we're going to have to look to October 15th or 16th if the 1st and 2nd don't work about October I'm going to be out of town okay okay that's all right okay so far October 15 16 looks like a backup okay um and as a date approach we can work on an agenda for that meeting alright anything else on agenda item number two the border treat yep alright next we'll go to agenda item number three which is open forum which I will invite members of the public but there are none here so we will go ahead and close agenda item number three which is the open forum um and I'll see if there's any other new business nope then I'll see if there is a motion to adjourn this evening so motion second alright we'll take a vote Ken yes Jean yes Melissa yes Steve yes and I'm yes as well you're now adjourned