 I have the floor. Me. I get to talk now. Hello? Sean, you ready? Okay, we're going. So we have clickers tonight, but we don't have an OTI guy. So our clickers are so much decoration until he shows up. He had car trouble. And I don't know where he is. He's not responding to my calls or texts, which is why you see me with the telephone. Obviously, we're going to have to talk to the company tomorrow and find out where our backup is if he doesn't show up. So we're going to go with the old fashioned way of doing it. We're going to have voice votes and five people can arise to challenge the moderate. Hello? Everyone should be quiet when I'm talking. I see you all up there talking. So if five people can arise to challenge my ruling on a voice vote, then we will do a standing vote. So you new town meeting members are going to get to do something we haven't done for three years. The old town meeting members will give you an idea of how to do it. So tonight we're going to have the Star Spangled Banner played by Eric Helmuth. All please rise. Nice rendition. Put him in the rotation. Are there any town meeting members who have not yet been sworn in? If so, please rise. Did you get sworn in yet? No, anybody who hasn't been sworn in, newly elected or old town meetings were re-elected. If you are a repeat from last year, you're all set. Okay. Oh, we got one in the back. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I will participate fully and fairly. We'll evaluate all matters before the town meeting and vote in the best interest of the town. I support free speech and will treat others with mutual respect and will conduct myself in a civil manner conduct myself in a civil manner that is becoming an elected town meeting member. I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon me as a town meeting member of the town of Arlington in accordance with the bylaws, town manager act, the general laws of the commonwealth also help me God. I've already told you about the OTI guys, so now I recognize the chairman of the Board of Selectment, Ms. Mahant. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Is requested that the members of the Board of Selectment and elected officials of the town, town manager, department heads of the town and staff, superintendent of schools and staff, committees, commissions, boards of the town, Minuteman regional vocational technical school district committee and superintendent, members of the general court representing Arlington and also any consultants who have been retained to work for the town relative to articles to be acted on by this meeting, representatives of interested parties of article one and representatives of the news media be permitted to sit within the special town meeting enclosure. Second? All in favor please say yes. They can so do that. So wait until you read that again as we're right into the special town meeting now. So we're going to deal with the special first so I have to go through my stuff too. Madam Clerk, do you have any reason to believe that this meeting was appropriately called by the Board of Selectment and that the constable made a return of service on the warrant in accordance with the laws. She signifies yes, she does. Ms. Mahant. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. It is moved that if all the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the special town meeting is not disposed of at this session, when the meeting adjourns it adjourns to Monday, May 2nd, 2016 at 8 p.m. Second? All in favor? So moved. Mr. Koshley. Oh, yeah amend that. I didn't catch it either when we did the agenda. Okay, the two guys didn't catch it, neither did I. Mr. Moderator, I'd like to make an amendment to if the business of the meeting is set forth in the warrant for the special town meeting is not disposed of at this session that when the meeting adjourns it adjourns to Monday, May 9th, 2016 at 8 p.m. All in favor? So moved. May night. Any announcements or resolutions? Of course. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve Decorsi, Precinct 2. Just want to announce that tonight the Allington High School girls tennis team they're waving to us now is here tonight for baked goods. They had a match this afternoon and they're here tonight and they've been working very hard and as one of the smaller varsity sports programs at the high school I know they'd like nothing more than to sell out of all their baked goods tonight. So that includes everybody in the hall. Let's see if we can support the team tonight. Mr. Maher. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. John Maher, Precinct 14. Just indulge me in a personal note. The moderator mentioned the other night. This is the 79th annual town meeting. I've done that more than half of those meetings. Pretty scary. In any event, I rise as I do each year to put the town meeting on notice members and anybody else watching that the Sims non-profit medical use committee has approximately just short of a million dollars which we consider a request for proposals each year for medical users in the community. We average about $40,000 to $50,000 each year for grants. Those grants request for proposal are being advertised in the community. If anybody has any interest in applying for them please see me at the breaker at any time. I'll give you much more details. I don't want to detain the town meeting any further. Thank you. Thank you. Sir. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. My name is Michael Jacoby Brown, Precinct 17. This is about early voting. I hate to get so personal so fast but let me first ask you how many of you rode your horse for a day to vote on Election Day in November? Okay, I thought so. Not too many. Tuesday has been Election Day in our country since George Washington's time so that white male voters who own property could go to church on Sunday, ride their horse all day on Monday, vote on Tuesday, and get back home in time for Market Day on Wednesday. Well, for most of us times have changed a little and now Massachusetts is finally catching up to 33 other states that will allow all citizens to vote in our state on 11 days and some evenings before Election Day in November. This early voting will only be for the biennial November elections so town elections remain as they have been. This also this new law also provides for Internet voter registration and pre-registration for 16 and 17 year olds although they'll have to wait until they're 18 to actually vote. So if you know of anyone who has trouble voting only on Tuesday, November 8th, please let them know that starting this year they'll be able to vote early, if not often, at two locations here. I'm serious, no, you can only vote once. Sorry, this doesn't allow for multiple voting by yourself. Of course you still can ride your horse to the polls, like George Washington did but if you do that in Arlington you will have to clean up after your horse. I think Arlington, I'm not sure, I don't know Chief Ryan's here, still has a pooper-scooper law for horses as well as for dogs. And if you have any other suggestions or questions about early voting, my name again is Michael Jacoby-Brown. I'm in precinct 17 and I'm sitting over there, I'd be happy to try to answer them. Thank you very much Mr. Moderator and all of you. Thank you Mr. Brown. Any other announcements? Hi everyone, my name is Mayor Ligera and I'm co-chair of the Arlington Cultural Council and this is actually our first time presenting here at town meetings, so thank you. But we just wanted to take a moment to go over that there are a couple of different organizations here in Arlington that support the arts and their acronyms can get a little confusing. So we have the ACA which is the Arlington Center for the Arts and they do have a physical space here in Arlington and have programming throughout the year. There's the ACAC which is the Commission on Arts and Culture and you may have heard them recently, they're actually the ones that are moving forward with the project to make Arlington a cultural district and then we are the ACC, so we're the Arlington Cultural Council and we are a part of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and what our mission entails is to take the funds that are given to us and give them out throughout the year. And basically we wanted to let you know that we have a lot of really wonderful activities happening in 2016. We were able to give out 17 grants totaling $12,200 for this year and they went to the Opal Ensemble, the Arlington Alltown Brass Band, The Tecura M.S., Creek River String Band, Old Schwab Mill, Powers Music School, Arlington Public Art, Arlington Center for the Arts, the ACA, Arlington Historical Society, the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum, Belmont World Film, Dance Calliente, Tappin Blues, Robbins Library, Pamela Powell and the Marble Collection. So all in all we're very proud of these events, we look forward to seeing them throughout the year and we look forward to seeing you there. So if you go to ArlingtonCulturalCouncil.wordpress.com we hope to see you. Thanks. Thank you ma'am. Any other announcements? Seeing none. Any reports of committees? Mr. Bonnell. Thank you Mr. Moderator. Good evening, Andrew Bonnell, Chair of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. I wanted to thank everyone for their votes on 6 and 7. Monday night I also felt it necessary to explain to Town Meeting briefly why the Arlington Redevelopment Board voted to change our recommended votes. You all should have received a letter authored by me. Hopefully it will take the time to read that. But it became clear throughout the public process of these warrant articles proposed that there was a great deal of confusion, a great deal of consternation about the articles being put forward and a lack of consensus about the way to move forward here on residential zoning articles. So with that in mind, I asked the board at our earliest possible date to reconsider those votes and having had that discussion, the vote was changed. Recommended vote was changed on our articles 8, 9 and 10 to no action. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Bonnell. Do you have a report of a committee Mr. Leonard? Thank you Mr. Moderator. John Leonard, Precinct 17. More so a bit of housekeeping if I could under committees. Seeing as how we received the report from the Community Preservation Committee, which will be discussed later on, would it be appropriate to eliminate the Community Preservation Act Study Committee under committees. Will reports of committees now? Seeing as how that committee probably has now been changed. So you want to make a motion to dissolve the Community Preservation Act Study Committee. Second. All in favor of disvolving that committee, please say yes. Yes. It is so dissolved. Second of all, Mr. Moderator, I wonder if we'll be receiving any kind of report from the Building Maintenance Committee. Anybody on that committee? Mr. Chaplain, do you know if that's an excellent committee? Adam Chaplain, Town Manager. I'm not clear if the Building Maintenance Committee as listed in the Committees of Town Meeting was the Building Maintenance Committee last year recommended the establishment of a facilities department, or if that's a different prior establishment of a committee. But to answer the question directly there's no expected report of a Building Maintenance Committee. The reason I bring the idea up, Mr. Moderator, is I have seen online reports from the Building Maintenance Committee, but they have stopped as of July 2014 and I was just curious if they plan to continue having meetings and putting their minutes on the website. We'll find out for you and report back. Thank you. Lastly, Mr. Moderator, I wonder for the 50 year in a row if we could address the fact that the Maintenance Study Committee is still being listed under reports of committees, and I for a fact know that the committee has not met in 13 years. We have a motion to dissolve the Maintenance Study Committee. This is the third year you've tried to dissolve it, Mr. Moderator, in a 50 year or bought it to your attention. Let's dissolve it one more time and see if it sticks. Maybe three times a charm. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. All in favor? Okay. Maybe it'll stick this year. Any other reports of committees? Thank you, Mr. Leonard. Seeing none, we now turn to Article 1 of the Special Town Meeting. The Special Town Meeting is on page 21 of the Finance Committee report. We have a recommended vote of the Finance Committee of no action on Article 1 of the Special Town Meeting. All in favor of no action, please say yes. Yes. All opposed? It's a unanimous vote and I so declare it. Yes, sir. At your point of order. We received their general report the other day which included all the votes for the special, so I think we can assume that we officially received it. Yes, sir? We can do it again if you want. Article 2. Mr. Tosti, if you want to introduce Article 2, do you have the recommended vote? Transfer $200,000 to the Special Education Stability Fund. Does anyone wish to speak to that article? Seeing none. All in favor of the recommended vote of the Finance Committee, please say yes. Yes. It's a unanimous vote and I so declare it. That closes Article 2 and opens Article 3. We now have Article 3 before us. Recommend a vote of the Finance Committee. They're going to report at this time. First of all, just to update the status, as I mentioned Monday, there will be a complete public hearing on the report of the consultants on the middle school options that will be here tomorrow night at 7 o'clock. The consultant will present their findings and they'll be open for any public comment. The task force would appreciate getting that. Then on Monday at 7 o'clock in the Lions hearing room, the task force will meet to discuss and make a vote. The Finance Committee will probably meet on Thursday to make a recommendation and we'll have that on your seats by the following Monday the 9th. So, therefore, I move to postpone this to May 11th or earlier at the call of the moderator. We have a second on that motion. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? It is so postponed by the unanimous vote. That puts aside Article 3 for now and brings us to Article 4. We have recommended vote of the first step of the, to go through the mass school building authority for renovation or rebuild of Arlington High School. Mr. Chapellein, you have a second. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Second my good business across the province in high school. Mr. Chapellein will go through this process in more detail and the superintendent hears the answer of any questions but this will be the first step. If you pass this tonight, and this is contingent upon a vote of the people for a debt exclusion form prop two-and-a-half, which I believe will be on Tuesday here on time. If it passes here and at the referendum, then we'll proceed through the process which will probably take several years. But Mr. Chappellain, we'll go into that in a little bit more detail. Thank you. Mr. Chappellain, what do you want the superintendent to speak first? Why don't you go first? Dr. Bode? Kathleen Bode, superintendent of schools. Mr. Chappellain and I are both going to speak to this motion. I'm just going to give you a brief overview and then he's going to explain what the process is going forward. I'm actually very pleased tonight to be here in person to tell you that in January the MSBA, Massachusetts School of Building Authority, board invited Arlington High School into the eligibility module of the process to begin a partnership with MSBA for the renovation or rebuild of the high school. Later in May, at the next board meeting, the board will vote to commence the work required to begin the work in this phase. A year ago, April, we submitted for the second year in row an application to the MSBA called a statement of interest outlining the reasons why Arlington High School was in need of renovation or rebuild. In 2013, the school was placed on warning status for accreditation by the New England Association for Schools and Colleges. For the poor condition of the facilities, which limits teachers' ability to implement curriculum, for insufficient size and design of science labs, for insufficient number and size and layout of classrooms, and the ability of the building to support a full range of technology. Many of the systems of the school are at or beyond their expected life service and are in need of replacement or repair. And there's a need for improved building security. So the scope of need was clearly very compelling to MSBA, which is why we are here tonight. And Mr. Chappellane will walk us through what the next steps are. Thank you, Dr. Bode. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Adam Chappellane, Town Manager. Good evening. So as Dr. Bode just mentioned, I'm going to briefly walk through the actual MSBA process that we're asking Town Meeting to vote on tonight and what your potential vote tonight will get us through. So what you see behind me is the actual MSBA process, which is broken out into eight modules. So you can see we have the eligibility period, which we are currently in. Move forward to actually putting together the project team, conducting a feasibility study, performing schematic design, then putting together funding for the actual construction of the project, moving into the detailed design or architecture for the project, going into construction, and then completing or closing out the project. But for the purposes of tonight, the vote before you will actually set us up to move through modules one through four. So through this eligibility period into schematic design. So I'll briefly walk through modules one through four so it's very clear what Town Meeting is being asked to do tonight. So module one. Module one sets forth the eligibility period and lays out seven steps that the town needs to take or milestones the town needs to achieve within a 270-day period. So I believe our 270-day clock will begin on May 25th when we expect the MSBA to actually put in writing our invitation into the process. And then after that we have to, as you see, certify the district's understanding of the actual grant program. We have to put together the school building committee, which the MSBA specifies the makeup of that committee and then have it approved by the MSBA. We have to complete an educational profile questionnaire which details the current operation and methodology of the district. We have to summarize our existing maintenance practices. We have to certify a design enrollment and then have that approved by the MSBA. We then have to confirm community authorization and funding to proceed. And that's actually very specifically what Town Meeting is being asked to do tonight with a favorable vote on this article. And then we can execute the MSBA's actual feasibility study agreement which puts forth our reimbursement process and our reimbursement percentage. And quick point on this, we will get a reimbursement percentage figure that you will hear, but then you will also hear talk about eligible expenses. And what that will create is a reimbursement percentage and then an effective reimbursement rate. And that's the reimbursement percentage being laid on top of what is actually eligible for MSBA reimbursement through the process. So for example, during the Thompson School Reconstruction, our reimbursement rate was 50.42% but our effective reimbursement rate was closer to 47 or 48% based on what was eligible and what was not. So moving out of module one, once we accomplish those tasks, we move into two, which is forming the project team. And that's actually pretty straightforward. Following the MSBA's standards and protocols, we will go out to bid and hire an owner's project manager or an OPM. Once they're on board, they will help us go through a designer selection process to hire an architect. And then once they are both on board and approved by the MSBA, we move into module three, which is the feasibility study. So we have them on board and then working together with the MSBA, the OPM and the designer, will document the existing educational program, generate an initial space summary. We'll look at existing conditions, establish the design parameters, and then we'll develop and evaluate the alternatives. And that's a key point. Going through this feasibility study forces the town to look at multiple options for what the best project is for Arlington High School, whether it be a complete reconstruction, a renovation, a combination of both, potentially even an alternate site, though I'm not sure where that site would be in Arlington. I didn't say that. And we look at those alternatives. And then what we do is recommend the most cost effective and educationally appropriate preferred solution to the MSBA for their consideration. Once they approve that, we can move into schematic design. And that takes us to a more detailed design that we can actually put together the scope and budget and schedule for the project. It allows the MSBA to put together a project scope and budget agreement that we can consider and sign off on once their board of directors has approved it. And once that's laid out, it will allow us to come back to you in the town with a project and actually request a project funding agreement and real funding for the actual construction of the project. So those are the basics of modules one through four and what we're asking for you to do tonight. Again, this is an appropriation to get us through schematic design and the appropriation itself is contingent upon the successful passage of a debt exclusion that's currently scheduled for June 14th. So I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Does anybody wish to speak to this article? Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison. I have two very quick questions. How does the Permanent Town Building Committee interface with this process? And the second question is we have lots of talk about capacity studies and the need for more space in all these projects we're going to be talking about over the next week. And I want to make sure that in that discussion we're taking into consideration our needs for participation in the lab school consortium. Mr. Chapter Link, can you answer those questions? Madam Chapter Link Town Manager, the Permanent Town Building Committee will have representation on the school building committee similar to what they had on the Thompson School Building Committee. On the second question, I'll let the superintendent correct me if I'm wrong, but all such enrollment questions will have to be considered through this feasibility study process to hit in on that actual design enrollment number that both the district will agree to and the MSBA will agree to. I asked the second question. I happened to have a discussion with some women in Lexington and they were discussing that a large segment of the lab school, high school population, which they try to put in corresponding grade levels is at Lexington High. And as the audience may or may not know, that population doesn't graduate in a four-year time period like most high schools. They're eligible for care up I believe till age 23. So you tend to accumulate and they also have space problems at their high school. So I just want to make sure that's taken into consideration. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you sir. Anyone else which speak to this article? Seeing none. So this is a bonding issue. It has to be a two-thirds vote. First we'll try a voice vote. All in favor of this article please say yes. Yes. Opposed? It's unanimous vote and I so declare it. That closes article five. Brings us to article six. Mr. Tosti. Just a little background on what's happening with this. Yesterday morning the select man's task force and study the Minuteman project met, had a full discussion of the issues. And that task force consisted of two members of the board of select man, two members from the finance committee, two members from the school committee. Town manager and several other town officials. And after discussion they voted eight to one to recommend favorable action on the Minuteman project with a vote contingent. In other words to pass it contingent upon a prop two and a half overwrite. Last night the finance committee met and what should I diplomatically say had a full and frank discussion of the issues. And voted ten to eight to recommend that we proceed with the building project contingent upon a prop two and a half debt exclusion. This is a tough issue. There's valid arguments on both sides. So we'll try to get as much material out to you. I think you've probably gotten some from the Minuteman already. And I'm sure there'll be much more. So I move that this article be postponed until May 9th. Second. That's the same date. Dr. Bokul, it's coming for everything else. So all in favor of postponing to five nine. Please say yes. Yes. It is so postponed. That this. I move that the special town meeting be adjourned. All in favor of adjourning the special town meeting please say yes. Yes. Opposed. It is so adjourned. That brings us back to the regular town meeting. And we go right into article eleven. We have a recommended vote of the ARB of no action. Mr. Oster. Thank you Mr. moderator. Adam Oster precinct three. I have a substitute motion under this article which I put on your chairs on Monday night. And I hope I won't incur your wrath too much when I asked to postpone this until after article ten. That was the original intent. And I really think that consideration of this will go better and make more sense and not involve a lot of head scratching if it occurs after there's been some discussion of some of these issues about new construction and lot size and all of that stuff. So that's my motion. Second. We have a motion to postpone. It's been second. Does anybody wish to address postponement? No. All in favor of postponing please say yes. Yes. Opposed. It is postponed. Until after we dispose of article ten whenever that may be. Right now it's scheduled for the fourth. That brings us article twelve and thirteen would dispose of on the consent agenda brings us to article fourteen. We have recommended vote of no action. Mr. Belskis. All right. John Belskis precinct eighteen. I rise to present a substitute motion to article fourteen. The substitute was placed on your seats last week at the rear of the hall copies provided to the moderator. The seat copies were in a package beginning with article eight amendment in case you missed it. This motion makes a modest change in the side yard setback for homes in the one and two families owning districts. Currently the minimum side yard setback is ten feet. The proposed change to keep the same minimum but also required at the sum of the two side yards be at least twenty five feet. Please make careful note that the language in the substitute motion is quite different than what you saw in the warrant. The side yard setbacks are measured to your property line independent of where a house is located in your neighbor's lot. This motion is a response to the redevelopment board dissatisfaction with the original article thirty foot setback distance to a neighboring home which may have resulted in the no action vote that the redevelopment board put forth. Early this year I joined with a number of interested citizens meeting with the objective of reviewing what would be the redevelopment board's implementation plan for the adopted master plan. During the many master plan hearings conducted in the Allington neighborhoods there was a consensus that the character and curb appeal of units in the arrow our one and our two zones should be preserved as it reflects the type of housing that brought people to own and reside in Allington. The citizen group had a level of expertise well suited for zoning issues. Mr. Loretty was a past member of the redevelopment board was a governor's appointee. Mr. John Warden is an attorney who for many years was the meeting's moderator. He's also on the lawyers real estate board. Dr. Patricia Warden for many years a member of our housing authority Elizabeth Pyle a newly elected town meeting member is an attorney with widely recognized experience in zoning articles and land use issues and Winnell Evans and Paul Parisi a citizen's activist supporting a local a number of local issues. And I as many of you know I'm a 16 year member of town meeting. No does the activist that compiled compiled Allington's 40 B safe Haber calculations and I'm also known as the state statewide as a housing activist. I'm a regular participant in related hearings before the legislature Department of Housing Community Development submitting testimony and filing bills. We were focused on the impact of the very active development trend that appeared to focus on unusually large homes replacing existing units. There was a sense that our current zoning laws had left too many opportunities for construction adversely affecting a butters and neighborhood characters and we evolved a number of articles addressing this concern. A particular problem this motion aims to address is homes with walls up to 35 feet tall being built just 20 feet apart or even closer than your home if your side yard is less than 10 feet. As a long time town meeting member I know how difficult these zoning articles are and most instances we come to final decisions that are in the best interest of the majority of our constituents in the town. We substituted this motion as a result of hearings with the redevelopment board seeking consensus as to the position between their articles and ours. Those offered by our group were heard in a cooperative atmosphere but they did not endure and our articles were designated no action. But we did retain a few of the articles with amendments to bring them before town meeting and I have some slides that I'd like to bring forth. This kind of demonstrates what we're talking about. The first slide shows you shadow lines that occur with that kind of separation the top one being the 20 foot separation and what we were asking for was the 30. That's changed a little but the significance is basically the same. Next slide. This is what the setbacks would look like under our proposal. Currently 1010 proposed we allow you 12 and a half on each side or you can actually restructure it so you can have 10 on one side 15 on the other. This makes it very flexible and adjustable and it kind of responded to what the developers told us at some hearings that you have 30 seconds to them. You have 30 seconds. Okay. This is something that was worked on very diligently by a group of people. I wish I had more time to go further on it. It's something we need it doesn't change anything very significantly it's very minor and I'm sure you will find it to the advantage of citizens in this town that need this kind of flexibility. Thank you. Thank you sir. Mr. Jameson. Thank you Mr. moderator Gordon Jameson precinct 12. So this is a preface I really wished we had that the proponents of these articles who are all in working with Mr. Warden who we kindly let postpone his article so next Wednesday I wish the proponents of this article and next to had seen fit to move them to next Tuesday so we could have done them all in conjunction and I hope that for the next two articles they will see fit to do that. We were polite to them it would be nice to have the meeting have a consensus and only zoning like next Wednesday. But let's push forward on this one. I want to speak to this article from just the perspective of the half block that I live in Arlington Heights. Many of the lots unlike the one in the information that was provided both here and we have a slide back up please. Suggest that yes I know that the least in my area of town the minimal new building lot is 60 feet and 100 feet to 6000 square feet 60 feet frontage and 6000 but many of you may or may not be aware that many houses in Arlington were built on smaller lots with 40 foot frontages and 4000 square feet including many in my little half block of about 16 houses. So as it stands now I don't know how it rules on the 40 but so I have a 60 foot lot and my house actually for full disclosure was in the middle of was in the middle lot of three 4000 square foot lots and was moved over a small addition that made to mine and yes the larger house was built next door. But the 4000 foot lots that are scattered throughout that my street are not buildable which is fine but there are the house across the street that a couple with their two children just moved into they're very happy to be returning to Arlington because he's an Arlington native it's a 4000 foot lot. So if they decided they wanted to tear that house down and build a conforming house to that lot this would mean that 25 feet I have it right of the 40 feet would be non-buildable and even even for a lot of 60 feet you're increasing by 5 feet 25% the amount of the house that's non-buildable. So I understand the concept it's great if you have a large lot to make this argument but a lot of the houses that people are moving into even the houses we discussed the other evening where they would have to have a special permit to take a cape up one floor those houses are built on small lots. Go into some places on the other side I live by Robins Farm Park but go on the other side of town and there's a whole bunch of houses that are on these teeny lots and so if someone decides that that house is I mean there are situations where houses are just not worth renovating and you have to start over on that footprint and if starting over on that footprint means you lose a large percentage of your buildable area which end up with the shotguns and those will look good either. So I urge a vote against this article thank you. Thank you Mr. Bernal. Hey hey hey hey no we don't do that. Mr. Bernal. Thank you Mr. moderator Andrew Bernal chair of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. The Redevelopment Board has not had the opportunity to discuss this article the substitute motion rather in its current form and therefore we have no opinion. I do want to echo the sentiments just offered by Mr. Jamison though and I would also like to reiterate that the board is concerned with development in town positives and negatives and again the reason that we've changed our vote is to allow for more time to study and research possible zoning and other changes to keep Arlington property values what they are to keep Arlington desirable and livable keep it open and welcoming to anyone that may want to move here. Thank you. Thank you sir. Over here on the right. First guy to raise his hand. Yeah he beat to your next. Thank you Mr. moderator Gregor Gregory Christiana precinct 15. So I tried to get information about the impact of this across the town because my house would be nonconformant according to these new this proposed bylaw change and this isn't even why it ran for town meeting and I'm one of my neighbors house would also be nonconformant I haven't actually counted up all the houses in town that would be nonconformant based on that sample it's like a hundred percent right so and the problem and the problem is that's the best data that I have and I've actually tried to get better information I've asked one of the members of the citizen group who contacted me over email directly and she was unable to answer what that percentage of houses or buildings in town would be that would be now non-compliant that weren't were not previously for me in particular I could tell you just a little bit about my house my wife and I moved here with our two young kids knowing that this house was relatively small especially the kitchen and on one side I won't get into too much detail but on one side we're like right at that ten foot minimum setback our kitchen is on the other side where we have let's say we have about 13 feet and really all we would need to make our kitchen big enough is a couple of feet of bumping out our kitchen that's all our plan and you know we wouldn't be so totally heartbroken if we couldn't do that but I'm wondering how many homes in town would be in that same predicament they had a certain expectation when they moved to town they don't have big plans to build a McMansion just trying to bump out a little bit this house that was built in the 1950s and it's a modest sized house and it would continue to be a modest sized house so I asked this member of the citizen group and she was unable to give me any sort of figure on this even an estimate I was unable to get I asked on the Arlington list and the email list when this discussion came up and I still was not able to get a specific answer on that even just a guesstimate I was unable to get and at our precinct meeting I asked there the representatives of the citizen group there as well and I was unable to get a specific answer on that so while I like the idea of it and it's unfortunate for me that my house would kind of be one of the casualties of this I'd be willing to go along with this if we actually had better information about it better than my 100% sample of two houses so if someone has more information on this it is discernible in theory from GIS information in town and I would hope that someone who is a strong proponent of this who I might be if I actually had the data or had the time or priority to look into this but I just have other priorities right now but if someone is able to present that they could sway my vote but right now it had to urge just based on the lack of evidence to reject this proposal thank you Mr. Moderator thank you sir gentlemen of the Blacksletter Daniel Ruiz, precinct 16 I'm against this my concern while I understand the intent of it is to try to retain the character of our town the concern that I have in addition to the one where there are lots that may not be conforming for any renovation my concern is more related to the fact that there is this uneven dimensional quality that's part of the article specifically my concern is that it will lead to an arms race between neighbors who can get to the 10 foot line first so I plan to vote against it for that reason thank you there's a gentleman in the way back yes you sir I'll put you on the list good evening Machlombad precinct 13 I have some PowerPoint aids here I thought a picture is worth a thousand words so I thought I'd try to boil this down for everybody and see what we're looking at here so I stand in opposition of this article I'm a lifelong resident father of three I bought this house in 2002 maybe next slide please and did our renovation in 2013 I think we all can agree that the second house is a lot nicer than the first house you want to talk to my builder then too I don't know why you wouldn't agree to that but my position is that it is we need to invest in our real estate in this town if I take my specific house as an example next slide please this is article 14 right that addition that's circled there master bedroom in this case would not be allowed because of the 30 foot setback 30 feet to the adjoining dwelling there's no allowance for special permit sir it's 25 is the proposal now okay well it wouldn't fit within 25 either it's 15 and 10 or 25 so go ahead let him take it this is how I interpreted the article if it's 25 it still would fit within the 30 foot we understand that the gentleman has the floor I understand 25 is fine but this still wouldn't fit I think this proposal proposed zoning bylaw does not fit in the town of Ellington why would we not be able to invest in our homes that I bought 12 years ago with the anticipation of making a renovation so I could stay in this town I think this is a very clear and concise example of why this article does not fit I strongly urge you to vote against this zoning bylaw thank you Mr. Cacovaro Thomas Cacovaro appreciate 11 Mr. moderator I'd like to ask the body if I can invite a homeowner from Ellington to speak on article 14 his name is Don Westwater town residents have a right to speak Mr. Westwater can come forward he's over here to your left yeah my name is Don Westwater and my property is 122 Thorndike Street and my mother-in-law who's a lifelong resident of Ellington her husband died about a year and a half ago and my wife and I intend to move into her basement when my junior in high school graduates I just found out that in order to expand the basement which is just above ground that we will not be able to do that and I understand that you have a letter that I wrote on your seats so this is a concern to us because my mother-in-law needs care pretty much 24-7 and we'd like to be able to move into the house and not be intrusive since it's her house she's lived there for 50 years so we'd like to keep ourselves in the basement yet be available to her when she needs us and we just discovered that the 35-foot rule will not enable us to do it 25 feet 30 feet 25 25 the proposal now is 25 feet 25 some of the yard setbacks it's very close to 25 sorry I was speaking to the first one so I'll have to get another measurement but it will be very close to 25 feet I believe the neighbor's house which predates mine is in the 10-foot setback irrelevant? well in any event we'd have to take another measurement I think it is very close to 25 feet but I can tell you that where I used to live on Thorndike Street we put an addition there when our family went from three to four people it was a 1,400-square-foot home we did add on 750 feet and we would not have been able to do that if the rule had passed thanks, appreciate your time I understand zoning is a contentious article people are on both sides of this issue don't interrupt please it's not civil, we all took a civility pledge we have people interrupting we've got people yelling stuff out we've got people clapping let's keep it on a calm level watch it Josh and don't be interrupting it's just not nice Mr. O'Brien, you are next who wants a point of information? it's a total between the two houses no so none of us on the evening with the sum of the side judge not less than 25 feet the sum yeah that means you add up between the two houses right? it's your motion tell us what it means please Mr. O'Brien this is not taking your time Andy O'Brien no Andy I asked Mr. Bell stay there because you're up next he's going to just tell us what this means so we all understand could you put that slide back up to show us this configuration is for a lot our objective at the time was that you got to look at it with two lots side by side if someone decides to tear down a house and the lot next to you this would apply in your favor because they'd have to keep that 12 and a half foot space or 12 and a half and the 10 so if I understand has nothing to do with the dimensions between the two homes is the 25 feet on my property I can go 12 with 12 or 10 and 15 nothing to do with the house next door thank you Mr. O'Brien Andy O'Brien precinct 16 so in my precinct I did hear from a number of homeowners and I guess I'll just relay just one story and so we ended up talking about our mothers were both in their 80s widowed and I was just thinking my own mother who lives in doesn't live in Arlington but like this person has a small Cape style house and during the financial crunch you know my mother had a good financial advisor and like a lot of people could no longer put money in treasuries to get the income she wanted and was advised to put money in bonds in certain banks and preferred stocks and as many as you might know not all these banks are around anymore and so my mother's had to eat into capital and so now she won't accept help from her kids but now she's thinking well the only value I have left in my property is my house you know she's deciding does she want to sell or does she want to reverse mortgage so a lot of our wealth is in our real estate and just as we probably gifted some folks on the other vote by increasing the value of property along MassAb any one of these in my opinion setbacks or height restrictions any one of these actually take away wealth from people and in some cases this will take away money that people might need to live and survive on this gentleman I talked to said that his mother who does live in Arlington is considering a similar type of situation so for this reason I don't like the looks of what's going on but plot lines have already been drawn a lot of these happened as mentioned many years ago and I think that we should really consider not taking away basically wealth from the remaining wealth that many folks have thank you Mr. Greeley thank you Mr. moderator Kevin Greeley precinct 11 I'd like to request a resident Steve McKenna address the body Mr. McKenna is the town resident he's allowed to address the body thank you Mr. Greeley thank you Mr. moderator good evening town meeting members tonight there are two words I want to speak about respect and confusion the name and address and I'm addressing article 14 precinct 13 upland road Arlington mass you're welcome Mr. Belskis so I'm here to speak about article 14 as well as all the articles that have been proposed before us in the past Monday and coming up this following week but first with regards to some comments that were made on Monday the Arlington redevelopment board I've been here for 30 years and there are times that I am on the opposing side of the Arlington redevelopment board or on the same side whatever we do in conjunction with those meetings we've held respect for one another we understand the positions and these are town meeting members that are here taking their own time away from their families to make this town better and I appreciate the opposing side Mr. Warden's group as well they're doing the same thing both sides are trying to make this town better we may not all agree with Mr. Warden's opinion with that comment I was very disappointed with the discussions that Mr. Warden had to say about the redevelopment board almost as if they were working for the developers I've worked with very different groups of my career with the planning board and so forth and I've never seen that happen and those boards and the planning board and the redevelopment board have nothing but the highest regard and respect for everybody and that said I've also been disappointed with some of the comments people have had to make about Mr. Warden and his house everyone has the right to live in a house that they want to whether he wants to live in a 5,000 square foot house is his right same as the couple that live in a 1,200 square foot house in Kelwyn Manor that they bought four years ago and they want to increase it to 2,000 square feet but these zoning bylaws will not allow them to do so or same for one of the gentlemen that previously spoke that is the family of Dr. Carey many of you may know that because their mother is ill they want to put an addition on their house but these proposed zoning bylaws will not help them out that's the respect we need to do we need to respect what the zoning bylaws need to offer all of us and provide each person in this town not every lot is created equal not every home is created equal and certainly not every person is created equal and we all need to be treated with respect and fairness with regards to the real reason why we here let's just be blunt about it the elephant room is the builder nobody appears to be happy with some of the new constructions and I will tell you that my colleagues in the real estate industry my neighbors we all agree that the builders could do a little bit better job in understanding so the builders need to have a little bit more respect in understanding what we're trying to accomplish here in this meeting we need to understand that we want to live and cohabitate in this town that we all love but there has to be a balance and what the ARB said on Monday when they opposed voted no action at 8, 9, 10 was after having those meetings and hearings they understood what we were trying to say my colleagues and I are not here to defend the builders we're here to defend every single homeowner who has the God given right to protect their property to increase their value to keep the family safe and to encourage the opportunity that they want to bring an elderly parent in to take care of them or expand their family they should do so how much time do I have I'm doing well a few other things is there's been a word calling around called McMansions everybody has a different definition of McMansion and you may all be surprised this is what my definition of McMansion is my family had 5 children my mother and father and we had dog and a cat we lived in for the first 16 years of my life and I'm the middle child in 500 square feet in a 4 room apartment when we moved to a 5 room apartment that was a McMansion to me so if someone is living in a 1200 square foot home and they want to move and create space a 2,000 square feet or add a living space on for their family that's not necessarily McMansion we provided a package to you earlier and there was a typo in that with regards to some of the information that's dated 2017 but if you look at that data from multiple listing which records sales since 2012 the sales have shown you that the average square footage is much smaller than you being told here finally confusion you can see from everybody coming up here talking there have been amendments after amendments of amendments because what has been written is absolutely confusing we've had attorneys we've had the greater Boston real estate board look at this they can't find a reason how to make these work if we in our industry don't understand what we've been doing for 30 years if the redevelopment board doesn't then how can you make a decision on these bylaws unless you fully understand them we need to recodify these bylaws we need to start from scratch and not piecemeal they affect everybody everything you're voting on today that you're considering has an action and unless you know the zoning bylaws from front to back you have no knowledge of how you're affecting homeowners these were manipulated creative calculated changes made to the zoning bylaws and they've changed them three times since we've gotten involved to protect homeowners rights please do not vote for any of these amendments to this floor and let's hope that we can put that community together that protects every homeowner's and their rights and their abilities thank you thank you sir Mr. Bearglu right behind you the staff of our Aglue Precinct 10 what are the words to call the question a motion to terminate debate in the article in all motion motion to terminate debate on all matters in the article in all articles just motion to terminate debate thank you we have a motion to terminate debate on everything seconded all in favor please say yes opposed I think it is a two thirds vote the debate is terminated we have a zoning article and before it requires a two thirds vote you all have the proposed language wait a second we have Mr first of all we're going to vote on Mr. Belskis' substitute motion order to order no my first phone call tomorrow morning and I think it's Mr. Chaplain's first phone call after I tell him what my first phone call happened not only that we should have a backup person so we're going to do it first we have the motion to substitute Mr. Belskis' substitute motion for the ARB's recommended vote of no action that's a majority vote then if it passes we'll take a two thirds vote on it all in favor of Mr. Belskis' substitute motion please say yes opposed no my opinion is not substituted that leaves us with the recommended vote of the ARB of no action all in favor of no action please say yes opposed it is a no action vote that closes article 14 and that brings us to article 15 this Evans yep we have recommended vote of no action Mr. Warden who's going to introduce your substitute Mr. Warden thank you Mr. Moderator I have a substitute motion which has been passed out to everybody and do you have a copy of it if not I'm glad to give you one yes I have a copy we're all set okay are my pictures up okay good alright John Warden precinct 8 I move the I move that we substitute the motion that I presented to you under article 15 for the no action recommendation of the redevelopment board we have a second okay the motion is on this this is the master plan a lot of you participated in it I hope all of you have seen it everyone should have a copy of it just about just about 11 months ago at the last session of last year's town meeting I stood before you and urged you to endorse it for the reason that it made extensive references to the need to take action to protect Arlington's residential neighborhoods from the epidemic of teardowns and mansionizations that was afflicting every part of the community you'll see that there are a lot of stickies in this book all different colors actually and the those mark the references to the protection of residential neighborhoods that were in the master plan I didn't find anything anywhere in the master plan I spoke about protecting the profits of developers and real estate brokers as one of the goals that were adopted in that plan when I saw that the Arlington redevelopment board was going for their agenda for the September 15 meeting was going to discuss zoning articles oh that's much better I attended when it got to the point that part in the agenda stated that I had some ideas and hoped that we could work together to bring them forward for the protection of neighborhoods they encouraged me to do so so I thought that they were serious about what they had undertaken as goals by adopting the master plan I was wrong after many meetings with the board and with staff they voted no action on our entire agenda article 15 the vote on which is substantially the same as what was in the warren confusion is the most important part of that agenda subsequent speakers will deal with some of the details but the basic concept is that when we buy a house we're not just buying an isolated building surrounded by many acres we're buying into a neighborhood indeed that neighborhood may be a significant factor in attracting us to a particular house it has become our neighborhood and we have it we have a stake in what goes on there change may be inevitable but when change occurs we should have some voice in that process under current law if you want to make an addition of more than 750 square feet or 50% of your gross floor area you need to seek a special permit from the zoning board that means a public hearing and an opportunity for the public to participate but if a developer buys the house next door and tears it down he can build anything he wants right up to the very minimal setback limits of the zoning bylaws which by your vote a moment ago shows that you think are fine with no special permit article 15 would close this loophole basically this article doesn't say you can't build a big house it doesn't say you can't build a new house it does say whatever you do whatever you plan to build must go through a public process so that the folks who have chosen and invested in that neighborhood can get notice have a voice and the zoning board can require that the new building fits in caught in the same net if you will are people who own a small one and a half story house and want to raise the roof many such houses are designed to accommodate just such an extension to deal with the needs of a growing family for example currently if they stay within the original footprint they don't need a special permit under this amendment they will that's not to say they can't do it they just have to go through a permit process two minutes oh dear well I'll try to speak more quickly if that was all that was happening in the foundation loophole we would not be here but it's being so exploited by developers that it needs to be closed the filing fee is something like $50 and there is some delay but the additional cost was minimal compared to the cost of the addition and I think is a fair price for keeping the whole neighborhood the way you like it and to put out by the real estate and development community much of it anonymously it claims that a bunch of and this is very important because several speakers have references tonight if you look at those pictures in the flyer and it says all these examples couldn't have happened if these zoning bylaws amendments were adopted every one of those is wrong don't be scared by that stuff and they haven't bothered to look at what the amendments are actually being proposed are put on now I see that my time is running out so I will see the best part of the speech is just coming you're not going to get the benefit of it but the two images behind me these are houses built what the redevelopment board thinks is fine zoning bylaws now when I stop speaking those images will disappear but please keep them in your mind and just think when you come to vote what I want something like that built next to me or next to the house of my neighbors my relatives or anybody I care about that is what's here tonight and all we're asking is that if you're going to build a new house from a tear down house that you get a special permit so please vote yes to substitute and yes for the article substituted thank you thank you sir good evening everyone my name is Elizabeth I'm a new town meeting member from precinct 10 I'm also a zoning and land use attorney I've lived in Arlington for six years and before that I was the chair of the zoning bylaw I've lived in Arlington for six years I'm asking that you vote yes tonight on the substitute motion for article 16 under the zoning bylaw that we have right now if you're a homeowner I'm sorry 15 that's right under the zoning bylaw we have right now if you're a homeowner and you want to put a large addition on your house you have to get a special permit you do that by demonstrating to the zoning board the other structures and uses in the vicinity but if a developer wants to tear down a house entirely and build a bigger structure in its place he can do that with no zoning board oversight at all and the new building does not have to be in harmony with the other structures in the vicinity this amendment simply closes that loophole tear down rebuild should be in harmony with their neighborhoods they often have just as much impact on neighbors than large additions so they should be subject to the same special permit requirement this is basic fairness this is not a proposal to ban tear down rebuilds or renovations there's been that flyer going around showing what are supposedly projects that would not have been allowed under this proposal that is false this amendment would not ban those projects it simply gives the zoning board a role in deciding whether the proposed new building is in harmony with the neighborhood just as it currently does for large additions of a similar size review by the zoning board is also important because it gives the neighbors notice of the project and a voice to be heard under this amendment people who live next to tear down rebuilds will be able to come to the zoning board to say how the project will affect their quality of life and to raise any issues the addition will have an impact on their property in terms of blocking sunlight causing drainage problems or any other effects the neighbors have that right now for large additions they should have it for tear down rebuilds too I know the effects of the special permit provision firsthand because the house across the street from me wanted to put on a large addition that would have made the entire structure 8,900 square feet this was too massive for our neighborhood they went because it was a large addition to the zoning board who properly reviewed it we all had input we all had a voice we could all participate in the process the zoning board made a determination that they should scale it back and they did so and they came back with the addition that would make the entire house 6,450 square feet however throughout it all but they would just tear the whole thing down and build the 8,900 square foot house which they could have done because of this current loophole people who live next to tear down rebuilds should have the same right that I had to go before the zoning board to explain how the project will affect them this amendment will ensure that they have that right, that voice there are additional reasons for adopting this amendment as well first the current bylaw creates the wrong incentive because right now it is easier for a developer to do a tear down rebuild than it is to renovate and expand an existing home a tear down rebuild doesn't have to get a special permit and it doesn't have to be in harmony with the neighborhood this is the wrong incentive in our zoning bylaw and it should be changed and you should change it here tonight it's also out of step with the master plan adopted by town meeting where residents stated they wanted to exercise greater control over new development and that they were concerned that new development was out of scale or character with the qualities that they value in their community second this amendment specifically addresses the concerns in the master plan by allowing the zoning board to consider the scale of new construction and the potential effects of shadow and sunlight and the impact on nearby properties third it will include the cumulative effect of additions from the previous five years when calculating what work qualifies as a special permit for a large addition and a special permit now there's been some suggestion by developers that this amendment will delay renovations on existing homes I have spoken with the member of the current zoning board who informed me that the projected increase in special permits would be manageable the zoning board can meet as often as every other week but it usually only meets monthly it doesn't have enough business to meet more often than that people can get on the board's agenda quickly and most projects are resolved in one to two hearings so this is a project that takes weeks and not months to resolve this will not be a hardship now an Arlington advocate review of town permits found that there have been 68 teardowns in Arlington permitted in the last five years in 2015 there were 25 demolition permits almost twice as many as the year before in 2014 there were 13 demolition permits and in 2013 there were 8 we are in a building boom here and reasonable controls like the special permit requirement in article 15 should be implemented now now I understand some people may want to further study residential zoning and if that's the case the study period should go hand in glove with this change in this amendment in other words any committee form to study residential zoning changes should study the issue broadly and if town meeting approves those changes and the changes that we're proposing it can study the impact of what happens tonight going forward that way if unanticipated issues come up with anything that happens tonight in terms of residential zoning the study group will have a vehicle to identify them but further study should not be a reason to delay this change if we wait to make this change residential construction will continue full speed and the historic character of our neighborhoods will be changed without our input finally as to article 15 we as town members town meeting members represent neighborhoods we all have an obligation to protect our neighborhoods and the quality of life of our constituents this amendment will do just that by allowing public participation and review by the zoning board for tear down rebuilds closing the loophole that exempts them now we don't have large lots here in Arlington all of our houses are very close to each other what your neighbor does affects you thank you thank you let's take a seven minute break we'll come back and pick up so I have to do something I forgot to ask the clerk a question on the special town meeting so right now I'm going to open the special town meeting for about two minutes and I'm going to close it back up and go back to this article so we are right now I got a motion to reopen the special town meeting Mr. Moore just made a second at all voting in favor vote in favor yes we are now under article 5 of the special town meeting Madam clerk do you certify that there are 87 members present and voting yes she does okay thank you very much motion to close the special town meeting Mr. Moore thank you very much thank you very much we are now back in this regular town meeting Ms. Warden you have the floor Patricia okay Mr. moderator Patricia Warden precinct 8 molecular biologist by trade and training long-time activist in education housing and land use conservation served as the chairman of the Arlington school committee chairman of Arlington housing authority and member of the permanent building committee member of the affordable housing task force in that group created Arlington's affordable housing zoning bylaw 16 years ago and got approval from town meeting despite delays unfortunate delays from the redevelopment board and some in the development industry which delay caused Arlington to lose affordable units just as if we don't get your approval on article 15 Arlington will lose more houses and historic houses Arlington was a leader in affordable inclusionary zoning and our bylaw which we created is one of the best in the commonwealth let's hope we can be a leader in softening the tear down damage article 15 approved here will assure you of notice of a tear down about to happen near your property and give you a voice in what gets built helping to remove the dread and helplessness which happens when the house next door to you is sold to a developer it will discourage tear down rebuild in favour of renovation Arlington's administration has left us completely unprotected against the tear down epidemic we have to be able to add and renovate our homes quality of average pre-war war two homes is usually much better than houses built today quality of the wood use is incomparably better median date of construction Arlington houses is 1931 average age is 81 81 years article 15 will encourage increase in value of these homes by renovation rather than surrendering to demolition much of our older housing stock including historic houses is marked for extinction by tear down operators and will never get the chance where we have realtors can make double commissions from these deals Arlington is the golden goose for them unfortunately some of our local realtors and contractors are not involved and don't do these tear down operations according to the master plan tear down and infill pressure is particularly bad quote in areas of smaller modest housing stock which are vulnerable to demolition for larger homes and multi-family duplexes built to the maximum minimum setbacks allowed under zoning end of quote increase in housing units and resulting population increases due to current overbuilding will give a brief increase in tax revenue for Arlington but in the long run increased expense of school and municipal services and particularly of new school building needs will far outweigh the little bump in revenue we get initially our schools will suffer in New England unlike most patients in the world we are lucky that town meeting members and only town meeting members have the power to control zoning Arlington redevelopment board not the board of select just you and only you and so if we do not give article 15 or two-thirds approval vote here tonight we and we alone will be to blame for the continued destruction arising from the tear down epidemic tear down rebuilds are gradually destroying Arlington's pretty streetscapes removing beautiful trees clear cutting lots building humongous houses which would reduce night and views for residents and reducing grassy areas for children to play there are building houses that are much too expensive for starting families or retirees destroying affordability young parents who would like to buy existing houses and do their own renovations may get more of a chance if we pass article 15 in favor of tear down some say that these houses are obsolete are inefficient and so need to be destroyed and replaced one of our sons some years ago just before getting married wanted to buy a house with a little extra land in Arlington he could not find anything he could afford and so he bought an old rundown house in a further suburb almost 200 years old he renovated it insulated it fitted it with photovoltaics and so on that house uses only very little electricity from the grid in winter and in summer uses none in fact pumps electricity back into the grid all summer I'm willing to bet that his old house is more efficient than any new house built in Arlington so much for the obsolete argument favoring tear down and article 15 will help make Arlington a more sustainable community by facilitating rehab rather than demolition it will decrease demolition construction waste which is the biggest contributor to landfill waste in the united states waste that's out of sight and out of mind waste we don't want to hear about or think about how can Arlington consider itself a sustainable community while doing nothing about well-made Arlington houses and their superior building materials being demolished and trucked off one after another to the landfill I do not think that that would meet with approval from any of our favorite sustainability advocates such as Bernie Sanders or Pope Francis here's Pope Francis little boot on the subject if anyone wants to borrow it and excuse the tear down tear down developers make for their tear down is often that older owners seniors like me need to get the maximum possible price for their home but what proof is there that these sellers are really getting the best price when some of these houses never even get on the open market or a snap top and they have scarcely seen the light of day article 15 protects the interest of carpenters and tradespeople who have served Arlington residents well in the renovation and addition needs and who are not part of any tear down operations as opposed to perhaps beside the point but the most famous person who ever lived just happened to be a carpenter about 2000 years ago what the tear down and repo problems are one minute and how to address them then if we choose to do nothing about it we in fact become enablers of the damage that is why I became involved in this project and why I respectfully ask for your vote for article 15 please just say yes for article 15 your neighbors will be forever grateful thank you thank you sir flexible legs Steve Revillac 111 Sunnyside Avenue in precinct 1 during the last couple of weeks in an effort to wrap my head around the zoning stuff well I've been trying to give myself a crash course and as the gentleman said the other night you know this is kind of tricky but if you like puzzles it's almost kind of fun I don't know what that says about me but the current zoning bylaws that we have were passed during a special town meeting in October of 1975 it was the fourth town meeting of 1975 talk about like but one of the and they replaced a set of zoning articles that had been put in place in 1924 and at the time at least according to some of the newspaper articles I've read from you know this town meeting was held the general feelings was well over the last 51 years our zoning laws have gotten they've gotten antiquated and they've been tweaked and tweaked over 50 years and they're very complex and they're hard to understand and they're inconsistent and let's just throw it out and start all over again so that's what they did and one of the two one of the two goals or two of the goals that they had at the time were to promote commercial development and to protect our residential neighborhoods which sounds eerily familiar but you know the original the 1975 version of our zoning bylaw was all of 18 pages and I think the current one is about 132 pages it's gotten slightly more complex and you know I think the sentiment of the folks of 1975 was sort of the sentiment of you know it aligns with the review of our zoning bylaws it's in the back of the master plan it's you know just gotten a little unwieldy over the years but one of the things that really impressed me about you know the what they did in 1975 you know there's an article from the advocate and it talks about the ARB doing a detailed survey of all 12,500 houses in Arlington at the time in order to kind of plan things out pick districts that were appropriate to what was there and even getting the zoning boundaries to match property lines which I guess they didn't all do at that case so with that I have really Mr. Moderator I really have just one question and I'd like to preferably direct it to article 15's proponents but anyone is welcome to answer now I the folks at the inspectional services told me that there were in fact 25 teardowns during 2015 so I'm wondering what out of that 25 roughly what number would have been required to obtain a special permit under article 15 that's all Mr. Byrne do you have an answer for that under 25 teardowns last year how many would have to come for a special permit under this proposed article the way I read the proposal it would be all of them thank you Mr. Bernal thank you Mr. Moderator Andrew Bernal chair of the Arlington redevelopment board the board has no formal opinion as to Mr. Warden's amendment however our original opposition to article 15 was based on the increased pressure not necessarily on the board of appeals but on staff inspectional services and other town employees who are already tasked with reviewing every special permit that comes through our opinion as stated during our public hearing back in March was that new structures should be subject to zoning's dimensional criteria not by what was there before we are committed toward working toward that as we go through our review and I want to say one thing about the master plan this is a document that we take extremely seriously we work very hard to get implemented over a two and a half year process and have been working on it since it was passed by town meeting last year we also recognize that not all calls to action should be done immediately zoning is tricky zoning is difficult zoning impacts every homeowner every resident in Arlington before you move forward on this you need to be very careful that you're not negatively impacting existing homeowners who may want to make changes who may want who may have families and may want to stay in Arlington those are the families that we need to be thinking about and protecting and those are the things that are in my mind as we make decisions here I urge you to vote against article 15 and all subsequent zoning bylaws thank you thank you Mr. Court Annie LeCourt precinct 15 I'd like to get some data on the table if I might do we have any information on the 68 permits that were pulled in 2016 in terms of the number of square feet that was built on average for those properties you have that Mr. Bern no would we be able to compile that information if we had some time what are the 68 permits I'm quoting Ms. Pyle who said there were 68 permits pulled for tear down rebuilds in the last year last five years okay even better do we have any idea how large many of those were not off hand I would not maybe have to go through all the plans for the 68 of them and maybe speak to the assessor's office and we could probably come up with something not easily but we could all right how many special permit hearings are held a year now by the zoning board of appeals last year there were 16 dockets so if we added the 25 permits that were filled we'd be tripling approximately the number of special permit hearings well I think we'd be adding a lot more than the 25 okay the 25 would be for the new houses if you take in the large additions which would be raising a ranch for second floor okay I was asked by one of the media outlets to look at 2015 if this was in effect I was over a hundred special permits okay so over a hundred special permits and on average do you know how long it takes to get one of those special permits processed is it one hearing two hearings presently once someone applies they generally get a hearing within 30 days okay and the board has 90 days to write the decision and then once it's written and filed as a 20 day appeal period that's assuming there's no continuances do they usually take 90 days they're close to that yeah okay so it could be 30 days to the hearing it could be 90 days to the decision and then there's a 20 day appeal period so even if they were very efficient and they were able to do the hearing in a few weeks and write the decision in 30 days we're still talking several months yes which could be half a building season sure yeah okay I agree with the master plan I think that we probably have an issue in town of needing to have tighter control on development I'm not sure we have the right answer either in this article or any of the zoning articles in front of us part of the reason is because I don't think we have a lot of data I don't think we understand as a community what it is we don't like I don't think we have use cases in front of us we don't have pictures we don't have something where we can say I like that but I don't like that okay and then I have another problem which is I'm thinking of my neighborhood so I live across the street from Stratton school I have this nice view of mountain avenue there are six houses across the street from me that used to be small ranches and when the first one of them was turned into a nice colonial went from probably a five room house to a seven room house that looked out of scale with the neighborhood but now four of them have been taught so now what's the scale of the neighborhood similar problem on Dixon Avenue behind that the first house that got turned from a cape into a colonial looked a little out of scale with the neighborhood but now there are six of them and none of them are what I would call a McMansion none of them are what are the kind of development when I wander around town I go oh my god that's not the kind of thing I'd like to see us building in Arlington so I'm not sure that we have consensus on what exactly we want what I'd like to see us do is task the ARB with going back and running a good public process to find out what people in neighborhoods are really concerned about have some good examples that town meeting can look at have some examples of the kinds of things that would still be permitted so we know clearly the effect on what is the major asset of almost every homeowner in town the property that they own if we pass a zoning by-life like this or the other similar zoning by-laws that we're looking at that affect the size of the home you can build on your lot okay and then I'd like to understand what the burden is on the process and I'd like to see as if we're going to triple or quadruple the number of special permits we're going to run through the system for us to improve the efficiency of that system and make those changes before we swamp it and we put people in the position of deciding in March that they'd love to add to their house this summer and discovering they can't do it because they're going to spend half the season waiting for a permit something they didn't know about till they started thinking about building the house because nobody checks the process until they're thinking about running the process and it seems to me that 120 days is unconscionable so in case you haven't been able to tell yet I'm opposed to passing this article tonight but I'd like to see the appropriate article or set of articles to deal with the agreed upon problem come back to us at next year's town thank you thank you very much Christopher Moore, precinct 14 I have a couple questions about the different processes that will exist for the special permits first of them is the difference between the ZVA and the ARB and the length of the process that a homeowner might expect from each I think from the last speaker we heard that from the ZVA we might expect 90 days plus 30 can we have an answer to what the ARB might take and what the difference in the process would be like the process is the same for all special permits it's set by Mass General Law Chapter 40A Section 9 can you tell us what that is it involves an application and again as Mr. Byrne said following the application there needs to be publication in the newspaper of record homeowners will have to wait for publication to happen and then to receive a date in front of the appropriate governing authority after that there is a 90 day limit on decisions to be written again that applies to both the ARB and the ZVA following the issuance of a decision there is a 20 day application appeal period that needs to expire before a decision can be recorded in addition to special permit time there's also the increased cost and construction delays and getting into the building season thank you thank you I'm generally supportive of closing this loophole because it seems strange that building in addition is harder than knocking a house down there's another thing here that I wanted to ask about as well and that's the the requirement that the ZVA or the ARB whoever it is consider the potential effects of shadows and sunlight on the properties I'm wondering if somebody from the ZVA could answer how they might go about doing that if they have a process for it now or if they will be inventing one is there any ZVA members here guess not okay can Mr. Byrne what oh Christian Mr. Klein sorry I didn't see you back there I forgot you were on it good evening Christian Klein precinct 10 member of the Arlington zoning board of appeals so we are we're a five member board with two alternates and we hear special permit in various cases that come before the town in specific relation to the question about sunlight and the way it affects properties we are beholden to the quality of the information that is provided to us we cannot direct people to perform studies so if there are cases where people do bring solar studies to us and we can take that into account but it's very rare that we do see that level of detail for packages that are specifically coming for special permit so would you say that the change in the bylaw that article 15 includes here to include potential effects of sunlight and shadow is something you already do if you have the information exactly but if it becomes a requirement then there is an additional burden of proof that's going to have to come from the proponents of it and then we will obviously have to review it as well thank you very much one other question a number of previous commenters have mentioned the lack of protection for historic homes and seem to suggest that this would help in that respect are there no other protections for historic homes being knocked down or to prevent historic homes from being knocked down the historic commission the historic district commission they have demolition delays the historic commission significant properties is a one year demolition delay on those properties but it's only a delay the historic district is in perpetuity as far as I could see but the only thing they can impose is a delay not a change thank you very much thank you chief jefferson it's bob jefferson precinct 12 I rise in opposition to the proposed amendment substitute motion by mr warden and I ask you to support the recommendation of no action by the voluntary development board for the arguments that were given earlier on the previous article article um thank you I think in article 14 there's a lot of information here I think it needs to go back to the redevelopment board who's been working on it for months and come back with some more solid information um I've been following it as best I can it's far from my area of expertise um but I think the redevelopment boards put a lot of time in I understand some of the concerns of the proponents but I am going to rise in opposition I will be voting against that you know living in town my whole life in the east end live up the heights now um in what I do for work I see almost all these teardowns most of these buildings that are going to torn down are old dilapidated small ranches and capes I see almost every one of them going to turn down I'm one of the guys that signed off on that demo permit may not be happy with what goes up by the contractor at a given point for the house but most of the property that's going up are an improvement to what was there and our improvement to the neighborhood and that's something we should be looking at Mr. Moderator I would request that my additional time um a town resident Jonathan Nyberg be allowed to address the membership Mr. Nyberg has the right to speak you up thank you he has 5 minutes and 48 seconds thank you good evening my name is Jonathan Nyberg and I live at 129 Lake street uh also known by many of you is the former Arlington home so I call myself a bit of a house missionary I too love to restore collect save older houses in Arlington and have probably done about 10 of them in the last 20 years um we thought if I may say with all due respect to Mr. Warden he recently just showed a couple of pictures of unsheathed unfinished homes large homes and I think to be fair to all of us it would have been nice if he had showed the finished product of the home uh the one at 17 Grandview which is the house on the left I recently sold and it turned out to be a beautiful classic colonial with some historical a reflection of historical details uh next Wednesday a new couple from uh Charlestown are moving into that house and we'll you know provide our community additional some additional resources new energy et cetera so I think we can't forget that piece of it also I'd like to yeah as they move in also they become part of the fabric of our community and one of the things I do love about our community is the diversity of residents religions and and and homes and I think that's a piece that we're also mixing up is it's it's okay in a neighborhood to have diversity of types of homes colonials capes ranches et cetera I like Mr. Warden though live in a huge house on a big piece of land and to be totally honest most of these articles won't affect us so my concern tonight is for the people who live in smaller house smaller lots smaller homes and I'm not making assumption but maybe have a smaller budget to work with and those are the people that I think these will eventually affect the most as I went through also to sorry also recently went through the process of getting a special permit sometimes people make it sound very easy it's not easy I just spent a year and thousands and thousands of dollars to get an addition approved it was approved at the end but to be fair to myself until you get to that final approval or rejection you're still in it for the same amount of money and for a lot of people that's not a feasible option so I sat down and I went through the article tonight and first of all it's not real straight forward so the first sentence I was kind of surprised there's 106 words in the first sentence with 3 commas and so I'm processing it I read fairly well and I can add up and I'm also you know have done additions etc and they think it is a little challenging so what I wanted to ask tonight quickly is if everybody could get out their abacus I'd like to find out so if I sold a ranch to a typical client of mine 3 years ago they could afford a ranch they want to be in Arlington they love Arlington now it's a thousand square foot ranch very typical 900 to a thousand in Arlington and their dream is to have a colonial someday they've always wanted a colonial so from what I understand about this article because it's only a thousand square feet they can't build up they can't build a colonial but they can have a cape because they could add on 500 square feet and that's only if they didn't do any little addition on the back of their house within the last 5 years because if you did anything on the back of your house in 5 years that would be a lot less so at the end of the day I do think it's more complicated than it needs I think the building department and the zoning board have good things other places where we could be better absolutely are there some projects that don't turn out as handsome as others absolutely but I don't think we should pick the exception and make it the rule so just in closing I want to say and suggest that you vote no on this article primarily honestly just to be fair to all the people in Arlington and not just a few so thank you thank you very much come on guys I asked once Mr. Jamison thank you Mr. moderator Gordon Jamison precinct 12 I want to echo the words I mentioned last night the words Mr. the moderator and Mr. McKenna I've seen people get emotional let's say and I I'm speaking against the articles I think the letter the ARB sent out is appropriate I have a couple things to run through here let me go through my little outline all over this page next one of the previous speakers mentioned that people shouldn't be able to build a larger home because they're afraid that they'll have children in our school population will increase I'm sorry we're not a gated community let's number four I'll jump around I'm very confused about what the proponents are trying to accomplish at Monday's meeting we very kindly permitted them to and I did vote against it but the body permitted them those articles until next Wednesday as I mentioned my first time up here for the previous article I wish that they had seen fit to argue all of these next Wednesday because what I heard tonight was in this article having lost the first one we're talking about shadows again in this article so it seems like from my reading and I'll ask a question about that in a second that they're trying to have many bites at the apple and this is exactly what I think I've heard from the ARB and others on the floor we do not want a hodge podge change in the zoning laws one of the previous speakers did a nice history lesson the first laws were in the 20s 50 years later we revised those and now here we are almost 50 years later and we're going to try to revise them again let's do it right to echo the words of Miss LeCourt if I understand correctly an existing structure increasing by more than 50% as the previous the most last speakers mentioned or more than 750 feet would have to have a special permit under this process we've heard about how long that might or might not take I have a question I believe for the ARB Mr. Moderator if I would be so fortunate to have a buildable lot in the town of Arlington would I need a special permit to build a house Mr. Bernal I'm going to defer to Mr. Bernal a member of the ZBA for that question so this is a de novo buildable lot in Arlington a clean lot nothing's been built on it again the proponents put this forward but I believe that would not include a special permit process and the process would be determined by dimensional requirements that's what I see and so that's exactly what I believe the ARB's comment on this original article as in their report non-report is that new structures the board expressed that new buildings should continue to be controlled by existing zoning requirements rather than what was previously existed on a lot and in this case nothing existed I'm sorry my notes are all over the page here I mentioned that and lastly I am a co-chair of the Arlington Recycling Committee and I do keep track of what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts does with construction waste we have very rigorous laws about what is done with that and 90% of the construction waste in this state is recycled it does not go to a landfill so again I urge I counsel and urge vote against this article let the ARB work the process in a greater scope and scale of public involvement and come back maybe next year with an integrated set of articles where we won't have this potential to nitpick here and nitpick there at the articles going forward but have something that we could all agree on that's unitized and useful to the town and the betterment of the town Thank you very much Mr. Moderator Thank you very much Mr. Wagner you're next on the list Thank you Mr. Moderator for getting to meet Carl Wagner, Precinct 11 I didn't stand up to end the debate unfortunately I did want to say though that it seems to me that these are not all the same these that we're spending a lot of time talking about that cover the density of dwellings that cover the difference between large house owners and small house owners whether people have the right to change their houses and many of us have concerns and have heard from other people in the town of their concerns about being able to expand or improve their houses I went to the meeting that was available for Precinct members last week and I like you was unsure about some of the other measures but 15 is different and I hope you'll consider supporting it although I sense a feeling in the room perhaps that you're not yet ready to and I think the simple reason is that somebody a few minutes ago said it seems like it's easier to tear down a house and put up a new one than it is to just expand your house and so let's come back with better regulations about how we expand or don't expand our houses later but let's seriously consider voting yes on this because the primary function that I can see in this is to make it harder to tear down and put something back or at least to hold it carefully to the boards that are appointed for those purposes to take a close look at a tear down and rebuild not many of my neighbors whether they're rich or poor are tearing down houses and rebuilding it happens in special circumstances maybe after a terrible fire and a developer coming in to put a completely new set of people in there and usually almost always in a very much larger building thank you thank you sir gentlemen over here good evening I'm Guillermo Baumann precinct 14 and I'm here to tell you that Arlington is a very exiled from Cambridge I was literally banned from Cambridge I bought a burnt house on Humboldt Avenue in Cambridge the building department told me or suggested that I should tear it down I rebuilt it everyone liked it except a neighbor across the street who was very upset that my architectural idea wasn't as historically correct as her architectural idea I was a registered architect I studied architectural history with the best architectural historians at Harvard and yet she was very unhappy so that she tried to keep the moving van from unloading our things into the new house and when she couldn't do that then she resolved I thought in making peace by sending a very nicely gift wrap in Christmas paper I opened the gift and it was human excrement so that's I love Cambridge but that's and I love Cambridge and I like to bring the story and so that through all those 30 years in Cambridge I'm an architect I have my own ideas I think that the best architecture is no architecture and yet I somehow I was under the impression that I was an Indian that escaped the reservation I did not conform to a Cambridge architect so I came to Arlington I bought a house on Oakland Avenue and all my neighbors and I'm still touched by all my neighbors brought a walk of wagon they brought pies plants cards and so on so I wish that all these zoning battles construction battles and fortunately right now we haven't even discussed aesthetics because here there are many things that could be built by right and they are ugly but I would rather have an ugly structure next to my house which is very pretty because I love my neighbors and I would rather live with a neighbor that has very bad taste than to a neighbor who just gives wrap presents that I don't think they are that nice so in conclusion I think that less gives time to the ARB it's a very difficult it's a very emotional emotional matter my neighbors in a prison 14 they go both ways and so that they have left it up to me to say just do the best to represent our wishes but we don't even know what our wishes are except that we want to have a nice neighborhood where we walk we say hello to each other we walk down to mass avenue we go to the hardware store we go to the dagustinos we go to the bank we go to the heights and even we still love each other so let's give it a few more months to the ARB just to present something that is going to be acceptable to all of us all of us are not going to be happy with what they propose because change is difficult but I think well let's see if we can have a better proposal thank you so much thank you sir it was the other gentleman there yeah Bill Kaplan precinct 6 I agree with a lot of what the previous speaker said I live in a neighborhood I'm Kellen Mann or adjacent where there have been a bunch of teardowns and the houses that weren't torn down and replaced with bigger houses have added second floors and I think there's been probably a dozen million dollar houses in my neighborhood since I moved there 10 years ago and I'm okay with it I like my neighbors if they want a bigger house and a lot of these houses were done by the people who live there they weren't all evil developers most of them were my neighbors who wanted a bigger house I asked one of them who replaced a little cape cod with a much bigger house and he said that he had priced it out and it wasn't about permits it was his old house and it was cheaper to tear it down and put up a new house than it would be to build an addition I think ideally we wouldn't spend so much time worrying that our neighbors are getting bigger houses I see the wording here you know it talks about addition isn't harmony with other structures and harmony is there a legal definition of harmony I mean that seems very subjective so again I guess I see houses going up and some of them I like and some of them I don't like I mean right now two doors down from me there's a house that's about to be torn down it's already been stripped and it was sold to a developer and two houses are going up and the space that the one house was in and I'm okay with it across the street from them is a pit where the house was a little cape cod was torn down maybe a month ago and I assume they're building something there and the neighbor next to him is halfway through putting a second floor in his house and I'm okay with it none of these things really hurt me in fact at the our precinct meetings on Sunday I asked the chair of the finance committee we have a lot of things coming up overrides and debt exclusions and I just asked him about how much how much did he think that was going to cost what would it add to the average tax bill can you can I ask you that what kind of scope well the scope is our taxes are going to go up a lot one way that our taxes will go up a little less is if the $400,000 house next door becomes an $800,000 house because they'll be paying more taxes and not only am I not only am I okay with that I'm happy for that I am ecstatic and frankly most of these this isn't like one person telling to a family of six this is a family of three getting a bigger house so it's not even going to cost us more so yeah I think every time we do anything we talk about maintaining our property values and increasing our property values well there's nothing that increases our property values more than building more expensive houses next door that raises our property values so I guess just to be neighborly I think we should let people build but it's also in our think about your pocketbook if they're willing to pay twice as much in taxes that's good for you so anyway I'm in opposition to this I'll be voting against it and I guess you each vote as you think is most appropriate Mr. Tully did you have your hand up Joe Tully Precinct 14 this has been awfully frustrating to sit back and listen to a lot of the comments and some of the rhetoric that have been forthcoming I think I'd like to make a couple observations one is that many of the opponents of this article have sort of lumped this together with a whole bunch of other articles and it's sort of trying to give the impression that there's an up or down vote to be had on all of these and in fact each of them are its own separate article and they should each be taken on their own merits all we're discussing right now is article 15 as I understand it it's a very simple proposition and when someone tells me something's confusing or maybe we should wait let's give it more time I mean you know these are all the same comments that people make they simply don't have a better argument to oppose something people that have often vested interest in maintaining the status quo like to convince us that this is too confusing for us we're not smart enough to understand it and you know the fear mongering that goes on maybe we should all just wait and step back and give it more time because the simple minded among us aren't capable of understanding it all if I if I understand this correctly you have a house we'll call it A and you can transform that house A into house B and you need a special permit to do that if you take house A and you want to knock it down and build house B you do not need a special permit for that it seems very clear to me that this is a loophole it's trying to be closed it's a very simple proposition it's not as difficult as someone try to have us believe it really does seem to me as if it's a loophole in need of rectifying if something requires a special permit you shouldn't be able to do an end run around the existing regulations and give us that same thing by virtue of a loophole now I'm not going to try to nitpick all the other arguments that have been made in opposition to this article but with respect to taxes new growth is exempt from proposition 2.5 so if my neighbor tears down his house and builds a bigger house that doesn't make my taxes go down nor do as I understand 2.5 does it make the aggregate tax levy of the town go down because new growth is exempt from 2.5 there was one other comment I wanted to make and unfortunately I can't read my own writing I will leave it at that this is not as difficult as it seems folks can give the folks that have done the heavy lifting and the hard work of trying to improve this oh I'm sorry it was harmony it was the issue of harmony a previous speaker spoke about the nuances and the fact that we don't have legal definition of harmony that word already exists in the bylaw today so again to my point this is not as confusing as some are trying to make it out to be a lot of what is being oriented on already exists under our existing rubric and by the way we don't have an unfettered right to build whatever we want on our property so you know despite the fact that at one point I thought Charlton Heston was going to walk in here and say we can have his home when we pry it from his cold dead hand we already have restrictions on what we can do with our property we already have zoning what we're talking about is what's reasonable and so when someone puts forth an article and I'm not saying everybody has to agree believe me I'm for spirited debate and disagreement but what I object to is the sort of the painting of some of these folks trying to sort of taint the proponents of this article as unwelcoming you know exclusionary as far as I can tell we're only talking about homes we're not talking about keeping certain types of people out of town whether religious or sexual orientation or whatever it might be color of their skin we're talking about homes folks so when we talk about this being a welcoming town and my neighbor Gamma who welcomed to the neighborhood I know it's been a while but you know this is not personal folks we're talking about homes and we're talking about what makes sense with respect to zoning so if you can have a permit if you need a permit to turn your house A into house B it seems to me eminently reasonable that you should have the same requirement to tear it down and then present the neighborhood with the same result of house B it's not a hard concept folks thank you sir Mr. McCabe you're next everybody keeps raising their hands you're on the list it's a long list I would like to have Mr. McCabe present to I stand to terminate debate on article 15 and all matters before motion to terminate the debate and article 15 and all matters before it's two third vote all in favor please say yes opposed that's the standing vote you know it's the standing vote of the two third so Miss Billaffur, Mr. Fisher, Mr. O'Connor Mr. Schlitman will be our tellers rise, they're going to count you. This is how we used to do it. Nine up, nine up front. Did you get, um, ten? Eleven up front. Who said thirty-seven? Mr. Fisher. Mr. O'Connor. Mr. Schlickman. Forty-one. Forty-one. All opposed, please rise. Mr. Schlickman. Nine, nine. Mr. Greeley. Zero. Zero. Mr. O'Connor. Mr. Fisher. Mr. Billifer. Ten. Ten. 162 in the affirmative, 42 in the negative. It is, vote is terminated. So we have a force, the recommended vote of the A.R.B. and we have a force, Mr. Warden substitute motion. First we'll vote on Mr. Warden's substitute motion. So if you want to substitute that, you'll vote yes. If that passes, then we will go on and take the main vote. If it fails, we'll vote on no action. So right? Yes, sir. Yep. So that's why we're going to substitute Mr. Warden's if you want to do that. So all in favor of Mr. Warden's substitute, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. My opinion is not a, it is a negative vote. All right, five people have arisen. Same tellers. Everybody who wants to substitute, please rise. Mr. Greeley. 17 in the left center. Mr. Schlickman. 21. 1 p1 in the left. Mr. Fisher. 18. 33. All opposed to the substitution, please rise. Eight. Mr. Schlickman. 28 on the left. 33. 33 in the left center. Mr. Fisher. 28. 28 right center. Ms. Filifer. 17. 17 on the right. It is a negative vote. 114 and a negative, 92 in the affirmative. The motion does not carry. We have now the force, the recommended vote of the ARB. All in favor of no action, please say yes. Yes. All opposed? No. It is a affirmative vote for no action, and I so declare it. That ends article 15. Ms. Delano. As it looks like OTI is not coming, why don't you have your team walk down all the aisles and start collecting the clickers. If the members would pass them down to the kids in the buckets, may as well let them go home. So you guys all start walking up down the aisles and collecting. Pass them down as we go. We now have before us article 16. We have recommended vote of no action, and it looks like Ms. Pyle, you're ready to make a substitute. Again, my name is Elizabeth Pyle. Again, my name is Elizabeth Pyle. I'm a town meeting member from Precinct 10. Disappointed about the way the last one went, but let's move on to the next one, which is completely different. I am asking you to vote yes tonight on the substitute motion for article 16, which brings consistency to the regulation of residential building height in the zoning bylaw. Specifically, it eliminates a provision that has allowed houses on slope lots to be much taller than the 35 limit that applies to everybody else. From my viewpoint, both the last article and this article were about treating people fairly and consistently across the zoning districts, and I hope that you'll consider that when you vote tonight. This substitute language that you're being asked to vote on is not the same language that was in the warrant. It's a new definition that you should have received by email that was posted on the town website and that was placed on your chair Monday evening. So what you may have heard at previous meetings about changing the definition of building height does not apply to the language of this motion. It was what was on your chairs. The substitute motion for article 16 will improve the definition of building height, which currently has the following problems and inconsistencies. First, for slope lots in the single and two-family residential zoning districts, the R0, the R1, and the R2, height is currently measured from the average finished grade of the ground adjoining the building before construction occurs. But when the house is built, the ground is removed and often the grade of the law is lower. This makes it difficult to verify that the new building height is calculated correctly because the original reference point on the ground is no longer in existence once the new house is built. In this situation, height can be easily manipulated by digging into the slope to gain additional height that would not be allowed if the average grade were determined after construction. In practice, the current situation has unfairly allowed houses that are much taller than 35 feet to be constructed on slope lots. The proposed amendment closes this loophole by measuring from the average finished grade after construction for all lots regardless of slope, which is the measurement that can easily be verified after the new house is built. Second, under the current bylaw, penthouses are not counted toward the definition of building height as they currently are under the bylaw. This amendment would make them count. It makes sense to count a penthouse in the height of a building. This is logical. It also implements a recommendation from the zoning board to the planning department last year to remove this exemption for penthouses from the definition of building height, which the Arlington redevelopment board did not act on. Now, some people have asked, how will this amendment affect existing houses? This amendment will have minimal effect on existing homes. It will not prevent people from adding a dormer or building an addition on their houses. Since the height limit of 35 feet is not changing, it won't affect anyone on a flat lot. For someone on a slope lot, it won't have any effect if the lot is the same before and after construction. If someone has a house that is now greater than 35 feet tall and they want to expand the top floor outward, it won't have any effect if they are not increasing building height. This is a modest change, people. Buildings that are currently taller than 35 feet under the amended definition, which would mean if you have a non-conforming building, they would just stay as they are now. The amendment would not require a change to any existing building. Also, if someone has an unusual situation that is a hardship, they can always seek relief from the zoning board. In zoning, the unusual situation should not govern all the other homes. That's why we have zoning relief. Where this will have an effect is on slope lots where the grade is changed during construction to gain the measurements. Now, what are the reasons for making this change to the definition of building height, you may ask? First, the most important reason for the amendment is that houses which are more than 35 feet tall have greater impacts in terms of massing and scale on a butters. For some neighbors, it's like a gigantic wall has been built right up next to their houses. This goes against the settled expectations of neighboring homeowners who rightly expect house height to be limited to 35 feet tall, part of the zoning restrictions that we all buy into. Zoning protects these expectations of neighbors and a butters to be free from the impacts of construction that is too tall, too massive, and too out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood. Second, this proposed amendment helps to implement the recommendations in Arlington's master plan. In the master plan, residents were concerned about neighbor impacts of new large homes constructed in existing established residential neighborhoods. This proposed amendment furthers the recommendations of the master plan to modestly control the size of new construction. Third, the amendment uses a proven way of measuring building height by adopting Cambridge's approach. This is how Cambridge determines building height. It's not a new method, but one that has been used successfully by a neighboring municipality. Finally, the proposed amendment would also benefit everyone by providing a consistent way of measuring height across all zoning districts and without regard to lot slope. The proposed amendment will treat everyone equally by measuring their building height from the average grade around the finished building. This amendment will control massing and scale, and it protects neighborhood character by regulating new construction that will be too tall and out of step with our neighborhoods. Thank you for your consideration, and I urge you to vote yes on the substitute motion substituting for the recommended vote of the ARB on Article 16. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Sear. And member of the Arlington Redevelopment Board, I wanted to rise to explain that our vote that was previously taken was done off of the old version of this, that we had no ability to take a look at that. But I think that the reasoning that we had fits on this as well, which is that Arlington is a land of many hills and everything else. And with respect to how things are calculated, this once again is something that we need to look at deliberately over the course of the next year, hopefully, and try to figure out exactly how this would actually affect people. I think there's definitely, when we looked at, once again, this is different language now, but I'm going to say any of the height things that we looked at, the concern was is folks in the heights on either end of the heights would be severely affected by this. So, and we need to figure out exactly how that's going to happen and what the ultimate results are going to be. So, that's why we went no action on Article 16. Thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Mr. Greeley? Thank you, Ms. Moderator. Kevin Greeley, Precinct 11. Again, I'd like to see my time to resident Steve McKenna. As long as it's new stuff and not stuff he talked about last time. Okay, Steve? Yes, sir. Okay. Steve McKenna, Precinct 13. He addressed all of them last time. Upland Road. In regard to Article 16, I propose that we vote in favor of the ARB saying is holding off on this. If you look at the current and zoning bylaws, there is no definition for mean average grade. So, therefore, how can we determine with the mean average graded if the, there is no definition in the current zoning bylaws for that? With respect to that, the only other comment is this is the main reason all of these emails do not work well with the entire zoning bylaws as we have them now. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yeah. You, sir. Green chair. Sorry I don't mean that. My name is Gary Tibbets from Precinct 5, and I'd like to speak in opposition to this and the other zoning articles here, mainly because the board that we have, the professionals that deal with zoning, are telling us that these articles are not ready to be voted on. So, they're very confusing. In the four years I've been here, I've never seen so many amendments and substitute motions as they're off of these. Nobody's had time to read any of them. Every time they put a slide up, they tell you it's not exactly this. We have another one, but we don't have it with us. So, for that reason, I think we should vote against it. For another, I've been getting, you know, calls in my precinct. I had a young family call me. They told me that they had made several offices and houses over like a four or five year period trying to move to Allington. And they kept getting out bid. They finally bought a smaller house and with their plan of, you know, expanding it. It took them a while to get their finances straightened out, get a plan drawn. And they just recently went to get a building permit and they can't get it because of these, you know, pending rules. And the guys really disappointed. You know, it's a mother and a father and two kids and they need a bigger house and they thought they could do it. The other thing, the other problem I have with it is, you know, everybody's inferring that these developers and real estate people are making a lot of money on this. And they probably are making a few bucks on it. But these two family houses and stuff around me in East Allington, when they're buying them and they're knocking them down, they were in tough shape to begin with. But the people that are making the most money on it are the families that owned them and paid taxes in Allington for 50 or 60 years. And that's their nest egg. That's what people in their 70s and 80s and 90s are going to use to, you know, to finance the last part of their life. And, you know, so they're the ones that are benefiting the most financially. And then the other people that are benefiting, especially by the duplexes, are the young families that can now afford to live in Allington because the duplexes are a little cheaper than a single. So, for those reasons, that's why I ask you to vote against this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tibbetts. Mr. Kaplan. Bill Kaplan, precinct six. I'm torn on this one. I'm not in favor of gigantic buildings, but, you know, I'm not against, you know, buildings that conform to our codes. And I guess I see the issue here with the possible gaming of the system where, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe people are going to like unload dump trucks full of dirt to increase the average grade of their property or something. But I don't know how likely that is. And I think the intent originally is, you know, if the house can be this high based on what's there. And that's that height, whether you dig down or not or dump dirt on doesn't really, I mean, that the height of the house is going to be the same if you actually are able to judge it by the original grade, mean grade of the property. So really it's only if people do some crazy system gaming that that's going to matter whether it's before or after. And maybe people will do that. But I think, yeah, this is still very rough. I do think that a better motion could be written and probably by, you know, the ARB and that next year maybe we'll have a little tighter motion that we can vote on. And, you know, I do think, you don't want skyscrapers going up next door. But I'm just not sure that this really is addressing the issue as well as it could be addressed. So I think I'm going to be voting against this. I do think, I agree with some of what it's trying to do. I just don't think it's the best solution. Thank you, sir. Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon. Jamison using 12. Prompted by Ms. Piles comment during her presentation when she said that the definition was completely different in their substitute from what was in the warrant is this substitute within scope, Mr. Moderator? I believe it is. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Again, I would urge the body to not rush into, again, we did the original article zoning 50 years and 50 years. Again, I would ask the body to respect the advice from, the body to respect the proponents being very passionate about what they're doing. Let's have them work with the ARB and everyone else and come up with a really solid set of things that won't, that will pass easily next year. Thank you. Sir, right behind Gwen. No, right in front of Ms. Monmone. Alan Reedy precinct 16 and moved to terminate debate on this article. All matters related there, too. Okay. Motion to terminate debate. It's been seconded. All in favor of terminating debate please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. My opinion is a negative vote. We have the force to recommend a vote of no action with the ARB. All in favor of no action with the ARP please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. in my opinion is a vote of no action with ARB. Vote of no action that close the debate on article 16 that brings us to article 17 motion to adjourn all in favor of adjourning, please say yes all opposed Okay, when we come back we're going to take up article 18. We've already disposed of 17 Thank you very much. We've well aired this issue Thank you. Any motions for reconsideration any notices of reconsideration No one has served any that would be on the special and the town Alrighty, we're done. Bye. Bye