 call to order the October 5th meeting of the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board. The open meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings, and as such, the Governor's order suspends the requirements of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of the public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. For this meeting, the Arlington Redevelopment Board is convening via Zoom as posted on the Town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating via video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to share your screen or not just screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the meeting. So we will now take a roll call of attendees. Start with Kin Lau. Present. David Watson. Here. Eugene Benson. Present. Katie Levine Einstein. Present. And staff, Jenny Rait. Present. And Erin's Wurko. I'm here. Great. Do we have any other staff joining us this evening, Jenny? We do. We have Kelly Linema. Great. Hi, Kelly. Hello. So we will now turn to the first item on the agenda. So the first item is stock at number 2717 as amended, number 2905, 23 Broadway. The board will open the public hearing to reopen special permit number 2717 as amended by docket number 2905 to review the application filed on September 3rd, 2020, by Escar LLC. Nine Wildwood Road, Middleton Mass, in accordance with the provisions of MGL, chapter 40A, section 11, and the town of Arlington Zoning Bylaw. Excuse me. Section 3.4, environmental design review. The applicant proposes to establish a marijuana retail establishment at 23 Broadway Arlington Mass in the B2A major business district. The reopening of the special permit is to allow the board to review and approve the development under section 3.4, environmental design review. So who do we have representing the applicant today? Mary Wynne Stanley O'Connor. Good morning, Mr. O'Connor. Would you like to begin on behalf of the applicant? Sure, thank you, Chairman Zempre. Members of the board, I represent Escar LLC. As you know from the documents that were filed in June of 2019, the board of selectmen approved them for a host community agreement with the town of Arlington. They require a special permit in a B2A major business district. This property is located there. And this comes with an environmental design review. Many of the EDR standards don't particularly apply, but the ones that do apply here that are relevant are the issue of circulation and bicycle parking and safety issues. And I have addressed all of those in the memorandum, the environmental impact statements that I have provided for the board. There are 16 spaces at this location. My client will not be the only use there. There is an office use there as well. They have secured 12 of the 16 spaces for their particular use. We've also provided the board with an extensive traffic impact study that addresses additional parking, offsite, and a traffic management plan, as well as some other improvements in the parking lot and as well as signage. This area of Broadway is one hour parking and is not utilized very much. With respect to safety issues, there will be internal video surveillance. And the applicant has proposed safety measures for outside queuing of vehicles as well as queuing of customers. This particular dispensary will create 30 new jobs in that area. And with respect to the special permit criteria, I have also briefed out in my memorandum this use requested is permitted in a B2A zoning district with a special permit. I would suggest to you it is essential or desirable to the public convenience of welfare as Arlington voters approved the question of retail marijuana use in 2016. There is also income generation. There's quarterly community impact payments that will be made to the town based on growth sales. The use will not overload any public water drainage through our other municipal system. The site is not within 500 feet of a public or private school. It is not within 300 feet of a town playground or recreational facility. And it is not within 200 feet of a public library. I would suggest the requested use will not impair the integrity or character of the district or our joining districts. This is primarily a business area. And it will not be clearly will not be an excess of the use that could be detrimental to the character of the neighborhood. The only other retail dispensary is in Arlington Heights. The traffic impact study that we've provided has projected the traffic out to 2027. This is a 3,000 foot dispensary. It would require 11 spaces for the retail use. The total number of spaces that would be required for the entire use of the property I project is 26. So this is a prior non-conforming use with respect to parking and with respect to open space and landscaping. The traffic impact study, I won't get into it, but if you have any questions, talks about the number of peak trips during the week and peak trips on the Saturday. And we would be requesting, as one of the transportation demand management practices, taking three spaces on that side of Broadway where the building is and restricting them for ride-share use. And as I said before, there was substantial and sufficient on-street parking. We would continue the one-way access and one-way egress from the site. Our traffic consultant recommended illumination at each of the driveways in and out, better pavement marking, stop sign controls, and on-site staff to manage the queue, and for the first month, sales by appointment only. Now, the two principals, Michael Aldi and Michael Honeywell, are on the call, and they can answer any questions you may have. They did speak with the Arlington Police Department about safety measures, as well as traffic controls. And they were told it is too early at this point. Then when this gets closer to opening, they will sit with the applicant and devise the requisite plan to put in place. So we would, unless you have any questions, I'll leave it at that. And you have extensive materials. The other thing is that we've submitted a request for signage as well. Thank you. Very much. Would anyone else from the applicant like to speak before I turn it over to the board? No, I think we're excited, and we're more than happy to answer questions from the board. Could we get the name and the company for the record, please? Sure. So my name's Mike Honeywell, president of SCAR LLC. I'm with my partner, Michael Aldi, also representing SCAR LLC. Thank you. Jenny, did you have anything from a staff perspective that you wanted to overview before we move to the board? Thank you, chairs Unbury. Yes, I just want to say a couple of things. The first thing is that when we last reviewed a similar proposal, which was approved in Arlington Heights, we talked quite a bit about traffic projections and the traffic impact assessment. We did a little bit of research about this and want to just note that the assessment is adequate from our perspective and is also using mass dot projections, which we confirmed is being used in many other municipalities as the standard for how to assess traffic impacts and that also you're to use the pre-pandemic numbers. So those are things that we just wanted to share with you and observed that this came up last time that we had these conversations with a similar use and the conflict of not having exact uses or similar uses to go about seeking projections for, but we understand that they are utilizing a standard best practice that's utilized in other communities throughout the state. And I can provide guidance about that if board members are interested in seeing that background or the applicant can discuss that further. The second thing would be that the, I don't know if this was necessarily clear from the documents that have been provided, but the amended ARB docket, which is the one that we have reopened through this process, is the one that actually deals with traffic and parking in the lot. And so it is a pre-existing non-conforming situation perhaps, but that is also something that was already previously approved by the board. Number one, and number two, if there are any questions about parking spaces that exceed the property line, for example, similar again to the Arlington Heights instance, if we're talking about parking in the public way, that is not under the board's jurisdiction. It is something that the applicant desires and is something that could be investigated, but it is of course not something that we can of course take into consideration in this permit process. Then similarly, the parking in the driveway and then just in general, the configuration there, I'm pleased to hear that there's the possibility of restriping and new signage and other features that will increase the ability for people to utilize a lot better. It is very tight in that lot right now and I have some concerns about that. But also I think we need to hear from the applicant about the interior circulation a little bit more, which again was something similar to what we discussed with the prior similar use proposed in Arlington Heights. So understanding the sort of the flow and the potential for congestion and the potential for how people would queue inside and outside of the building. So those are the few observations that we think are still outstanding, but also things for you to note in your review as well. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Mr. Honeywell, would you mind actually addressing before we get into the board comments, Jenny's comment or question about clarifying the queuing, the interior queuing and the way that customers will move into space. Yeah, I mean, so when we look at these divisions there divided up into typically these retail stores are divided up into kind of, I would say three major sections. So when we first enter the building, we have what we call the holding room. Typically what this area is is it's a room where two things can happen. One, those waiting to go on the retail floor can sit or create a line or people who order ahead of time can pick up their pre-order items. And even then we can, even in the pre-order process, we can actually add another layer through the POS system to two organizations who've actually got out ahead of the kind of the pandemic and the COVID situation is like Dutchie, for example, we'll be implementing a curbside notification or we can actually add in another layer if people are uncomfortable waiting on a line or in the holding rooms, they can wait in their car or they'll then receive a text message notification to please after the pre-order part of the building. That's an additional layer that we can now build into this process. But besides that, so when we look at the first section we enter applicants are IDed, there's security at the front door. So as they move, they move in a counterclockwise location, they're not here to pick up, they can then enter the pre-order, the retail floor, excuse me, which is now the second phase. So the retail floor will have obviously a front counter with several staff being able to directly take orders or eventually we'd also have, we'll have locked product on the floor where they can then, if people want to survey the various offerings without maybe having to wait in line, there's a ability for them to walk around the store front. Think kind of when you go into an almost like a Verizon store or a phone store, you have kind of the option to walk around first and if someone's ready to see you at the counter you can do that as well. From there, if they like to purchase any product they can directly in the retail floor and then they can exit the building through the east side of the building. And so this does a couple of things, right? This is important for crowd control. We typically don't want people moving in the other direction. If you notice in large crowd situations you move in either a circular pattern or in one way and out the other. We decided to have just the one direction in and out process notice. You'll also notice that all this is kept off from the common areas in the building. So we won't be interacting with any of the common area in the building so there's no customers will be interacting with property owners and his staff. And it also more importantly is sealed off from the last part of the building which is the security area. So you'll notice in some of the designs that we will have a back room where not only staff but deliveries can be discreetly brought in. This is great for security, disposal and product management. All of which will be sealed from the back of the customers. So customers will be able to move freely from these different divisions per a button from the staff. So as you move from the holding room to the retail floor, a staff member will press a button which will unlock that door allowing the staff or allowing the customer to move between the spaces as they keep moving throughout the store. Staff on the other hand will have key card access to the various locations within the store. The only other thing I guess to mention is there is a bathroom available to customers obviously through the in the holding room area. So if we wanna be able to make sure people obviously have access to bathrooms, that will be available as well. So I guess does that, is there any questions within the scope of that outline? We'll find out when we turn it over to our colleagues but that was great, I appreciate you taking us through that. No, and I will say, especially you brought up kind of the COVID, we obviously all hope that we're back to pre-COVID levels for any business. So we're obviously planning for that. In the meantime, a lot of our vendors are creating solutions that help kind of create a touch free, low loitering kind of experience as well. Great, thank you very much. So we'll go through the list of board members with any questions. We'll start with Jean. Thank you, and I have just a few questions. One is I didn't quite understand on the application where it talks about office space and retail space. Are you only gonna be occupying the retail space or will you also be occupying the office space? No, it'll only be the retail space, Jean. I put the office space numbers down as to how many parking spaces technically are required by the bylaw for the whole building. Is the office being used now? Yes, by the owner of the building. Okay, thanks, that's helpful. Maybe my colleagues had the same problem that I did, but I had a really hard time understanding the floor plan and understanding what happened to the existing elevator and the staircase. And I just found it pretty inexplicable to figure out how it's getting from the current way it's configured to the way it's going. Yeah, no, I think I understand the confusion given that we're showing a door in the design where there isn't a door right now. So what we're trying to, what we're gonna do in this plan is we're gonna, if anyone's been near the building, there's a ATM machine there. We're gonna actually create a double door for access through that point. And the idea, the reason why we're doing this is that allows the customers to specifically to manage flow into the building without going into the common areas of the building. So into our store directly without customers having to go into the common areas. And so if you look at the, I think Mary has it up, if you look at the upper left corner, you can see that access point that we're gonna be creating. So there obviously still will be the other entries for the property owner and his staff. And of course, there is a, if you look on the, there is a fire exit in case of an emergency that will allow people to exit the building. So the idea is in a lot of these retail situations you don't want people circling down the building and so in the holding room, yes, you can exit, but once you enter the retail floor, we prefer that the customers exit a separate entry point than where they came in to prevent, I guess you could say like bumping into each other, things like that. And it sounds silly, but in large traffic control situations, it makes a significant difference. So can you explain which is, you called something the holding room, which where is the holding room on this? So if we look in the upper left corner, we see the entrance, right? And so as we move there, we go through one door, we turn I guess to our left for walking in and that area you'll notice there's an open floor here. So this is what we typically call in the industry a holding room. And so it's because of retail floors have like a limited number and whether you have a certain amount of bartenders per customer, typically the density on a retail floor is less than a holding room. So to make sure there's less loitering outside, we create these spaces for people to sit, wait until it's their turn to enter the floor. And we'll even have options. We're looking to add options for, where we'll have tablets and media and also the ability if they don't wanna wait, they can order items directly through the same software that we'll do the online ordering. It also works as an in-house ordering system as well. So these kind of third party vendors like Dutchie work with the POS systems who've just typically someone like Lee Flogix. That will allow people to, if they don't wanna wait there, if it's too long, they can change to a order online and then pick up in the store at the pre-order window when it's ready. And as you can see from there, if you there's now an arrow that points, I wanna say right there, they're highlighting it, that enters the retail. That enters the actual retail floor. So there we can see the countertops, which is separated off from the actual customers themselves. Those dark circles are actually display cases will have various product and also along the rear wall will also have various product. All only on the retail floor and all when locked and all by per the regulations of the state all behind locked glass or a locked, it'll mostly be security glass. That's the good choice. And so from there, you can see there's a retail exit. And so at the bottom, you can see now the customers go out a separate entrance. And so this prevents people from going back into the holding room, which is obviously a security issue, a traffic issue. And so this, we thought we felt this met, so we're adding a door there. And we thought this method was obviously best method for all the actors that I stated before. Okay, that's helpful. So is there some distinction made between the people who come in for medical marijuana and the people who come in for recreation? So we're actually a recreational only. So some stores have the option of medical and recreational. So Escar is not pursuing a medical license within that store. Did you happen to see the planning director's memorandum to the board where she talks about the parking and queue management in the parking lot, which I think is essential. I agree with her. I've had a chance to look at that. No, we haven't, Jean. Okay. Let me just say, I think, I would agree that I think that's something that is going to be necessary. On page 27 and 28 of the traffic report, your traffic consultant recommends things like stop signs and a few other things for the parking lot. Are you intending to implement those recommendations? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're not in the business of making our location unsafe for our customers. So I think, you know, things like the stop signs and the recommendations from the traffic mitigation, I think it's, I don't see, there's no major, there's no major changes. So I think it's something we definitely will be accepting. Yeah, so it's on page 28 of the consultant's plan. It's exit driveway into summer sign app should be placed on your stop sign, pavement markings, illumination, a few other things like that. So you're going to do all of those? Yeah, that's our intent. Okay, I was pretty disappointed in the very low lead score. Do you think you could go back and talk to whoever's going to be doing the design and the construction about getting a much better lead score than the small number you've committed to at this point? Yeah, I think we can certainly go back. I have to look into the lead score comments a little bit more on what drove that number. So, I mean, Mary, do you have a comment on that? Well, I would have to go back and look at it too and talk to the professionals on that and see if they can do any better. Maybe my two colleagues on the board who have more experience in actually building and designing can comment on that when it's their turn. I guess the other thing I'm curious about is, I think Mary mentioned the total number of employees. How many will that be? Well, I think 30. 30? Yeah, so we're estimating 30 employees at this point. And how many will be working at the facility at any one time? It's, yep, go ahead, Michael. I would say anywhere from six to eight per ship, but there'll be multiple shifts per day. So you'll have management, blood tenders, back-of-the-house staff, security. So you could have roughly up to 10 to 12 at one shift on a busy day. But do the shifts overlap or the most you'll ever have on site at one time is 10 to 12? The most would be 10 to 12 because we're also offering employees, you know, transit passes and other things for public transportation to help mitigate the park. Okay, I guess the other point I'll just make is would have been helpful to see what the bicycle parking is going to look like. And at least I think one of the spots needs to be brought indoors to meet the long-term parking requirements. My colleagues will tell me if I got that correct or not. Jean, they're going to have bicycle parking for their employees inside the premises. It would be helpful to show where that's going to be on the floor plan. Okay. As well as how it's going to be configured. Yeah, Mary, I get an architect's mark the floor plan for them and show where we're going to store bicycles inside. So, you know, there's multiple mechanical rooms and existing rooms that aren't being used. So in the common area, on the first floor, no one's using it. So one of those closets can be used for bicycle parking. Yeah, it would just be helpful to know and to know that, you know, you have an agreement with landlord to be able to. Yeah, I think that's not a problem. We can show, we can provide the board where we'll be providing that. Okay. And that's all I have at the moment. Thank you. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Jean. Moving over to David. Thanks, Rachel. So just to follow up on Jean's question about the bike parking, in addition to knowing where it's going to be indoors and that you do have an agreement with the landlord to use that space, we want to see the detailed design of that space. And I would direct you to look at the town's bicycle parking guide, which gives you very detailed guidance on how to provide both long-term and short-term bike parking in a way that complies with the town's requirements. Okay. We'll do that, David. Thank you. I also echo Jenny and Jean's concerns about parking and queuing and we definitely like to see a more detailed plan on how you're going to manage the customer flow. And I think that's even more critical now that we're dealing with COVID for potentially a considerably longer time. And that will require even more attention to how people are queuing to make sure that everybody's being safe. And I think when we had the hearing for your competitor up in Arlington Heights, we did also require them to have a detailed parking and queuing plan and down to the level of where people were going to queue, how parking was going to work, how staffing was going to work outside the building to make sure that there was compliance with the plan and that people weren't parking or waiting where they weren't supposed to be. I think also, if you do expect to need more parking then you have available in the building's lot to satisfy customer demand. While I do recognize there is a considerable amount of on-street parking available on Broadway, I think I'd like to see more of an effort made to preemptively secure overflow parking, perhaps in some of the neighboring lots if that's a possibility. David, I'll say this, that an extraordinary attempt was made to secure parking. The two Michaels reached out to numerous surrounding businesses all with a negative. I personally walked several blocks knocking on every door in that neighborhood looking for parking. Okay, well, I appreciate the effort. No, I mean, we understand that it's important. So we get parking feedback from every store we're opening in from the board. It's something we've looked at. Luckily, that spot has an abundance of street parking, which is why we're more than happy to implement and pay for the safety features. But we'll obviously keep looking. And again, as Mike mentioned, we'll encourage commuting and subsidizing some of those costs, but we'll obviously continue to look for parking as it becomes available. Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. And I think if we do get to the point of issuing a permit, perhaps a commitment to revisiting the parking offsite would be a condition of that. I do think it would be nice to see an analysis to see an analysis of whether you think the existing parking that you have is sufficient, or maybe how insufficient it is to manage your expected hourly customer flow, just so that we get an idea of what the overflow into on-street parking might look like. And I think that the traffic engineer can do that. I think all the data is in the traffic report. So you could probably. Okay, yeah, if that could be kind of called out to us, that would be helpful. There was obviously a lot of detail in the traffic report. So my understanding was that the plan is to create a new exit onto Sunnyside. Yes. And is there an existing curb cut there or none at all? Currently, I don't think there's a curb cut. You really have to make a cut in the curb. Okay. And we plan on adding three entrances or exits. The one on the rear of the building where the old teller window was in the credit unit, one vest of the old double door entrance on the front of the building where the ATM was, and then an additional exit from the retail floor on Sunnyside Avenue. Okay. And I do have with all of the customer vehicles exiting onto Sunnyside, and presumably most of them making a right turn to go out to Broadway. I do have some concern about whether that might cause queuing during peak periods, which does happen on some of those side streets entering Broadway already, because they do have trouble making particularly left turns when there's more traffic on Broadway. So I think there is that analysis. There is analysis of the turning movements in the traffic report, and I do wanna look at that more carefully, but that is a concern. Similarly, and related to that, if there is difficulty for customers to get out onto Broadway, either because of traffic on Broadway or queuing on Sunnyside, we'd really prefer that they not make the left turn on the Sunnyside and try to wind their way out through the neighborhood, which they might do if there's trouble getting out onto Broadway. So I- You would wanna know left turn sign, is that what you're suggesting onto Sunnyside? That's certainly a possibility, but I think I'd like some assurance that there's not gonna be queuing to the extent that it would encourage people to make that left turn, whether or not there's a no left turn sign there, but certainly a no left turn sign would help. I mean, just so I understand, would it just be easier if we just make it a no left turn out of that exit point? I mean, it's not like there's a lot of, I mean, that goes into a residential neighborhood. So I mean, with the exception of like an employee who in the rare chance happens to work, live right there. Right. I don't really see a reason to, I don't really see a huge cost to implement that. No, I don't think there's a huge cost and I would encourage that. But I'm just trying to make clear is that aside from putting a sign there, I would just like to dig into the traffic numbers a little bit more and feel some assurance that there's not gonna be so much queuing on Sunnyside or difficulty making left turns onto Broadway that people might make the left on Sunnyside regardless of whether there's a sign there or not. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. All right. One thing I wanted to just point out and I was a little bit confused about this too on the plans which is that if you look at the site plan, it's oriented in the way that we might expect with Mass Ave, sorry, not Mass Ave, Broadway at the bottom, Sunnyside on the right, like you see here. But when on the floor plan drawing, the whole building's actually rotated 90 degrees. And that was part of my initial confusion in understanding the floor plan because the orientation of the two plans was different. And I don't know if perhaps that confused Jean as well. Yes, it did. All right. I do have a question just to confirm and maybe Jenny knows the answer to this. Has the town independently confirmed that this location meets the buffer zone requirements? I'll answer. Yes, it has. That's part of the HCA agreement and it also was confirmed at that time in order to have the HCA, the host community agreement. It's within the 2,000 foot density buffer or outside of it, I could say. I just wanna clarify one point, Rachel. Yes, please. There is an existing curb cut. I just want to make sure that's not confusing to anybody. There's already an exit onto Sunnyside right now. That's not new in any way at all. They're reconfiguring some of the pedestrian escape a little bit. There's some new concrete walkway that looks like they're adding is from my understanding. But there is an existing curb cut. There's a driveway apron there. You drive through the property because what they're doing is they're taking, right? I think there was a little confusion there. I just want to make sure that we're all... There is an existence. They don't need any access for, or to request a curb cut from engineering or none of those things need to happen. There's a preexisting curb cut there to drive out onto Sunnyside. There is not a sign, of course, noting turn left or right or don't turn, et cetera. But I just want to make that clear. The other thing I want to make clear is some of the things that you're raising about the parking analysis is in the traffic impact assessment already. I do think it would be helpful to tease that out, perhaps for the next, should this hearing be continued or when? But it is the information you're looking for is in that analysis. Thank you. I suspect it as much, but having it pointed out to us could be helpful. Certainly. We can ask for a clear summary and I have those points listed, David, for the end. Okay. So, okay. So I'm just looking at the site plan and I guess it shows the building pretty much right up against the sidewalk on Sunnyside. And I guess one other concern might be site lines for drivers looking to the, I think they're definitely the right because the corner of the building might obstruct their view of approaching pedestrians. I'm not sure what's on the left side there. Is there a retaining wall or something? I don't know. Do you know, Michael? On the, so which, can you point to the location on here? I think, so I think along the edge of the property, I think there's like a chain link fence. That's a little bit. Well, yeah, but I think, I don't think it's, because is that where the law is that they're, that's trying to be redeveloped? Or I think, I forget, but and then along the building actually, it's actually the, on the building that, on the part that abuts the closest to Sunnyside and also the closest to the edge of the property that we were just describing. It's actually a dry, that's where the loading dock is. So I think there's, I'm just trying to think if it was ever, I mean, I've driven out of that spot probably 30 times at this point. I don't know if there's necessarily a blind spot to the right, but I mean, I can't comment from firsthand experience. Well, since it's a change in the use pattern of the parking lot here, where you're going to have a lot more cars entering and exiting throughout the course of the day than has been historically true for this building, I think we just want to make sure that there wasn't a potential pedestrian safety hazard. Yeah, that's understood. And if there is, there are mitigation steps that could be taken either by installing mirrors for visibility or a pedestrian warning system so that people would be aware that a car was about to exit. But- And you're referring to like the type of systems you see pulling out of like a parking garage, something like that? Yeah, potentially, if it were needed, I just without actually going and looking at it right now, I'm not sure whether there actually is a sight line issue, but it's just something I wanted to raise as a potential concern. So- This may I, Rachel? There's no retaining wall right there and there's no, it is adjacent to the driveway. There's also no sidewalk there right now. The chain link fence is a butt adjacent to the basically the garage building that's next door at 10 sunny side. But there is not any sort of retaining wall or block at the exit of that driveway. There is a slope change down, but it's very gradual that then goes into the street, just to clarify the streetscape without me having to go into changing my view here, but I just want to clarify that. Okay, well, I guess my only other comment right now just coming back to traffic is, I might want to ask if the Transportation Advisory Committee has any concerns about the additional traffic that would be expected, but I'm not sure whether we should ask them to look at the entire very lengthy traffic report or wait until we've been pointed to the areas of concern that we've raised. Jenny, I'll ask you if they have reviewed the plan. I would assume not if we don't have a report from them. No, they have not. But it's something that I can share with our senior transportation planner and members of TAC and get their feedback. We did actually have our senior transportation planner review some of this just in a preliminary way, but can provide more information in time for the next meeting. That would be great. Yeah. I think that was all I had at present. Great, thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you, Rachel. I want to talk about a few other things that my colleagues haven't touched upon. Is there a designated loading zone where you would be loading your product from? Yeah, it's in the rear of the building. It used to be a tele-window for the credit units, so it's now converted into a delivery entrance and there's two parking spaces directly in the inlay of the building. So it's actually cut out. The building currently has three parking spaces in the rear and the wall actually shadows that. So the wall comes out about 10 feet, so you can pull in and then walk in the rear of the building to get into the bolt or the back of the house. Yeah, but right now it's just marked as two parking spaces. Right here. Do the arrows in and out with the stairway? Yes, I know, I see it. But a loading dock is usually, no, it was signage that says loading dock. So is it going to be part-time loading or people can park there and then if someone's parked there, what's going to happen if someone needs to unload? No one's going to be allowed to park in those two spaces. Those are solely for delivery. So I would mark it as such and not counted as part of your parking numbers. But you got to understand deliveries won't be during store hours. Deliveries will be before the store opens. Okay, I did not know that. So that's just that's just from that's just a security standpoint. You just prefer because it's it's it's no different kind of. I mean, at the value of this product at this point, it, you know, per the state, they had to be in security vehicles. So it's it's just best practice to keep it off hours. So are those your designated parking spaces or is it for the office people can park there or are there designated office parking spaces that they. The office people aren't allowed to park in those spaces. We we we work with the property and make sure that is open for delivery. I'd have to double check if if we if it's counted towards our total parking spot. Um, but I get to Mike's point. Technically, most deliveries won't have deliveries tend to be before and after hours. OK. And they did by hand trucks or something you just carry in. This seems to be a level there seems to be a level change there. The I'd have to go back and see the design there. I think it's it's I think it's it's carry. OK, it can I have to go back and look at the at the because I can't see from this design. Can look I'm looking at the site plan and it looks to me like there are I think 16 other spaces marked on site. Yeah, from what I got, there was those two plus an additional 16 is what I counted to. OK. My other question is, there seems to be only one unisex bathroom there. So your employees would have to lift up the flip counter and then go through the retail space to use the bathroom. So that is unisex for for customers. There is an existing women's and men's bathroom that the employees have access to only. And how would they get there? So they can either they can either go through the holding room and outside the building or through that door that's outlined. Through that Mary's highlighting with the cursor right now. OK, and again, this is all this is all key card access. So they'll just be able to, you know, each employee will have a different level of security loaded onto their RFID card. They can just click it. But in the event that there was an emergency, those doors would unlock. For all people. OK. So there are there are separate bathrooms for employees. There are there are separate bathrooms for for staff, fair enough. I know I see your arrows for queuing. In the retail space, you have one way traffic. Correct? Yes, that is correct. How do you plan to handle someone who's disabled? In a wheelchair, crutches. Is the. Mike, do you know if the exit is that handicap accessible? No, it's a double door vestibule right in. It's a double door vestibule right in. It's a double door vestibule right in. It's handicap accessible right through right into the retail floor and then drag it down, please. And then you could come right out to retail for right on the side. There's no. How do you get out? Right here, street level. Was this retail was was this retail exit? Yes. Those are not stairs? No. What is that then? That's ground level. That's ground level. That's that's first floor ground level. The building on the rear side actually has a slope. So that's why the stairs were needed on the back side of the building. My drawing shows four steps. And what you're pointing to right there shows four steps. That's four steps. Well, you tell me. Not to my knowledge. It shows it. See, there's a little there's a lettuce as D N and then there's an arrow pointing down. Then it shows 11 inch treads and his hand rails there and everything. Those are steps. And the risers at Anish Maximum three treads at 11 inches. Those are steps. So if that's the case, we'll we'll have to go back. So thanks for thank you for pointing that out. If that's the case, then we'll we'll go back and look at that. We'll talk to the architecture team and either see if that's handicapped, accessible or not. If it's not the case, then we would just provide an escort from one of the staff to walk them back out, which is perfectly acceptable. Get with the double doors on that and the security door into the retail space. But we'll we'll address this to see. I'll get I'll personally get clarification on that. OK, and then this is more of an aesthetic thing I have right now that I really don't like is where you put the glass blocks in. Up by your front entrance there. Can you push the drawings down a little more as you see the front entrance where you double doors are? You guys are putting a new glass block wall there. It's vertical and on the draw. Yeah, right there. That is to separate the office entrance and your entrance, but it creates this kind of alcove that's kind of hides the office space entry. I mean that that lozier that was always there was for the office building. Now you just put this barrier there and I can see it separates the two. But now you got a space back there that's not friendly to use. And I was wondering if you guys were interested in getting rid of the glass block. And if you want something there, maybe something a low planter or something of that that discourages people to walk back and forth, but still have a visual light or some sort of visual access to the entrance to the office building because you're not the only person using this building. Yeah, I think I think that came from specifically from the so that it just so happens that the owner of the building also works in the building. And that was kind of some of the initial feedback. He didn't want, you know, he anything to mitigate cut, you know, his staff, seeing, interacting with with the customer base. So we that was that was something he was kind of looking forward to. It are if he doesn't. I mean, I would I would certainly like to get rid of the giant glass wall. If that's a if that's accessible, we would just have to double check with the property owner, but that was where that decision was coming from. I mean, most of the staff actually park on the other side of that glass. Most of the parking is is beyond that. So I so, yeah, I think it's something we can we can try to see if the Jimmy's open to it. I mean, I'll leave it up to, you know, see what my other woman was thinking about. I just think I just I just view that as something that's, you know, just walks off the other entrance. You don't you never see the other entrance into the building. And that's ever going to be used in the future. It's just hard to see. No, I understand. We, you know, and we again, the reason is we don't want customers use it going into that part of the building. So yeah, I mean, the idea is that it stays ice. It's purposely isolated like that. But if it's an aesthetic issue that we can try to revisit it and try to come up with an alternative, you know, maybe like a visual link, but maybe not a physical connection, you know, right, like a planter or something like that, that maybe we can green up the space a little bit. Well, I was just laughing because I'm thinking of a planter in Boston. It's in the cold. But we'll we'll figure we'll take something out. We'll make maybe we'll get like a fake plan or something. We just have to make sure it makes sense, you know, he more or less was trying to have us prevent people from walking into his entrance of his office space, which is understandable. But I think the nice some greenery there or whatever. Maybe even smart work there. Yes, just so, you know, when you're driving by or walking by the street, you can actually see the yellow entrance. That's all. Understood. Um, Jane, this is a question for you. This is more like an interior fit out thing. Do we do we have any? Ability to make a request on the parking lot drainage. Right now, the parking lot slopes and drains right out both driveways. It's not required under this. The scope of their work wouldn't trigger that kind of change. OK, in the driveway at all. They're not doing any work in the driveway, except for changing around some plantings, I believe. Enough applicants and confirm that. But they're not doing any other than pavement markings. There's nothing happening in the driveway. Correct. OK, I just know what it rains. It just rains right off the driveway and right off to the street. Well, if that's the case, then I won't mention anything to do with the parking lot and drainage or anything like that. I'm going to. Relate my other board members request, but that I just is an additional one to like to add. All right, thank you, Ken, Katie. Thank you. So I think the other board members have covered a lot of what I would have asked about the one thing that I wanted to flag as you guys work on your queuing, queuing analysis is to really be attentive to the issue of pedestrian safety. I've heard a lot about sort of traffic issues and cars queuing up. And I want you to really think intentionally about what that means in a busy pedestrian corridor like that particular neighborhood in East Darlington, how to make sure we're keeping pedestrians safe and cyclists safe with additional traffic. OK, but that's all. So thank you. And I look forward to hearing Rachel's comments. Great. Thank you. I just have a couple more that weren't covered by by my colleagues, mostly related to to signage and then to to build on a couple of things that that can brought up. So I'll start with with signage first. I'd like to see when you come back a few more details about the actual signage as as its plan, you have, I believe, the the width shown, but not the the height of the sign on the building. Can you talk a little bit more about the actual design of the sign itself? I believe you said it was a stainless steel backer panel and metal letters. But is there a coloration to the letters? What what does that sign going to look like? Generally, it's backlit. So it'd be metal letters back to the LED light. So so you're going to have the same color on the face of the letter and the backing panel. Yes. So traditionally, when I do my restaurant signs, you you choose a basic color. So the exterior of the sign will be white, metal, black, and then it's hooked to an LED light that's built into the letter. So you really don't see any of the lighting. It just illuminates the outside of the light or outside of each letter. So I would question how you're actually going to see that during the during the day if you have, you know, the same the same coloration on the face, the face of the letter and the and the backer panel where the illumination from the light isn't actually going to be as prominent during the day. So I'd just like you to take a look at that. And again, I'd like a little bit more detail on the the actual size of the sign itself and the signs in the parking lot for we need to see detail of the the design of the signs for it that that mark the parking spaces for your customers. Basically, any signage in the parking area, we need to see a detail of. I know that you have one for the exit only area, but we also need to see the other signs as well, please. OK. Great. I can even supply you guys with shop drawings for a sign, if you like. I mean, yep, we can certainly read the shop drawings. That would be fine. OK. Thank you. My next question is about the the windows. So this building has a lot of ground for windows. Can you talk a little bit about how you're treating the windows themselves? I saw a note about a metal fabric. Yes. So our architect shows the, you know, I don't really want to say too much because I haven't seen the actual material yet, but it was supposed to supply protection for the windows so they weren't able to be open and stuff like that. So I'd really like to understand what that looks like for our next meeting. One of the things that we know, obviously, is that we are to discourage people from being able to see into a cannabis establishment. But we also need to think about the what it presents to the pedestrian as they're as they're walking through this space. So there is a way to treat the windows, you know, whether it's through, you know, a patterned film or some some other way, other than just backing them out to create a vibrant streetscape while still maintaining the the lack of visibility straight into the retail space that we know is not acceptable in a marijuana establishment. So if you could have more details as to what that would look like for the next time you come see us, I'd really appreciate that. In one of my new restaurants, and that was one of the things they asked because it was on the beach of the beer and they didn't want the students from the tea station walking by and seeing construction. So I had to get creative and do a mural and put it in the window. It was more of a vinyl product, but it was more appealing. I let the board actually choose what they wanted on it and I could put it up. Great. So I think we just like, again, we'd like to see something that's that's more than just blocking out the window. So if you can come back with a proposal for for that, that would be. Absolutely. So maybe I can have my designer come up with something and we'll hopefully get your approval. Wonderful. Thank you. And I think in that same vein, I echo what Ken was mentioning, where you have the glass block divider panel at the exterior. Again, if you can get creative with I'm fine with the divider, you know, if it's more of a screen, you know, whether it's a metal, you know, design screen or wood screen, you know, perhaps there is a whether it's a pattern or a design that also works into some sort of a motif that that works into your windows. You know, it should feel cohesive. So I feel like if you're going to have a divider that are simply glass block, doesn't seem like the best choice for this building. So perhaps you could find another material to still do what you're looking to do. Not a problem. Might go back, you know, in the past, I've had my mill workers do, you know, metal or wood and we can come up and create this. Great. That sounds great. And let's see. I think the only two other items I have, Jenny, while we're on. Actually, it's the other actually, if you could go to the plan where we were talking about the steps at the retail exit. I know you're going to double check this with your designer. If you could also double check the amount that these are projecting forward from the face of the building. The face of that building is is pulled up very close to the to the lot line. So we also need to make sure that that's not extending past the the actual line of your your property and into the public way of that sidewalk. Yeah, I'm going to have a discussion right after we get off the call with that. OK, you know, it's to be handicap accessible, obviously, because we prefer people not walk back to the store. So this is important to us. OK, great. Yeah, like I thought I thought in the original design, it was a ramp out. So they were at level by the time they entered the street. And block this up. But, you know, now I'm alarmed by it because I deal with this all the time in restaurants. So I mean, we'll be able to figure something out. Great. Thank you. And then the last item I just wanted to address, Jean, when when you first had your comments, you had mentioned, you know, wanting to talk a little bit more about the lead scorecard and whether or not anything anything greater might be able to achieve be achieved. You know, I think you can certainly take another look at it with keeping the existing HVAC system that certainly makes it harder to achieve any of the energy points. So I would guess that it's not going to be significantly higher than than what we're seeing here. But again, if you could take another look at it, that would be that would be great. But but we certainly understand with maintaining the existing HVAC system, that you'll be limited in what you can do. Great. Are there any other questions or comments from the board before we open it up for public comments? I had one other thought. Sure. And that was just I appreciate that you have provided a transportation demand management plan. I had a couple of thoughts about perhaps beefing that up a little bit, which could potentially help with the parking issue by encouraging your employees not to drive. One would be actually subsidizing MBTA passes for your employees. And that is in our plan. That's in there. Yes. OK. OK. That's good. The other would be and I don't know if this is possible, given the layout of the existing building, but providing like a shower and changing area can also be very helpful for encouraging employees to to bike to work. That may be more difficult. Yeah, I'll have to we'll have to go back and see what the space looks like. It's it's pretty tight, but we'll certainly take that comment into into consideration and see what we can do. Thank you. And I do have one more question. Is there going to be a break room or some sort of common room where the employees can sit and have lunch or and or maybe also use for for meetings? There if you can scroll down, Mary, a little bit more. I think it's actually Jenny who's who's Jenny's doing. I'm not that sophisticated. I've been responding. Conference meeting one on one. So we we will probably on the I mean, we can we can probably make some room. You got to remember where it says packaging because we don't cultivate yet. We will not be packaging our own product. It will be prepackaged. And so in that packaging, there is a sink and a sanitary station. We definitely would have the space to put a table and or dining area for our staff that take lunch or sit down from it and do what they need to do. And to to kind of add to Mike's point, something like cultivation would be several years away in our development plan. So there's there's something like this is certainly realistic for a long term solution. Sure. If you just add added into the plans, just like just like the bike details and stuff like that. Yeah, it's helpful. OK. Thank you. Yeah, we should make a list of this and I'm going to get back with the designer architects tomorrow. And you know, I'll carefully mark it up for you guys. Great. Thanks. We'll we'll recap after the end of public comment. We'll go back through and we'll recap all of the major points that were that were captured. Understood. Great. So with that, we will open this up to public comment. I remind everyone, if you members of the public would like to speak on this, please use the raised hand function, which is under the participants button. In in Zoom, we will ask you to identify your your name and address. And each person who wishes to speak will have three minutes in order to address their comments. So we'll take comments in the order that they're received. First person I have is Don Seltzer. Thank you. Don Seltzer Irving Street. First, I'd like to compliment the applicants on their traffic study. I don't think I have ever seen such a detail one presented before this board. I'm just going to throw out one idea for you. And that is what if you were to reverse the traffic flow through the parking lot, have cars enter from sunny side and exit on Broadway further up from the intersection with Route 16. Next, I'd like to call the board's attention to the adjacent property at 10 sunny side. It was recently sold. The new owners are the same ones who own a medical facility at 339 Mass Ave in Arlington. Until recently, this was a clinic for treating substance abuse patients. It's now in the process of being converted into simply an office building with, I guess, business headquarters for this practice. And that makes me guess that perhaps the new owners are intending to put in a medical clinic next door for substance abuse. And I leave it up to the board to consider whether there's any sort of conflict between having a recreational marijuana store next to a substance abuse facility. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. Do we have any other members of the public? I don't see anyone else with their hand raised. OK, so with that, we will close public comment. Let's see. Before I recap what we've heard. Are there any other comments from the board? Great. So I just I just want and that is how will the customers know that they're supposed to be using the parking lot? Customer, the parking lot will be identified for where the customer parking spaces are and where the property owners remaining spots will be will be theirs. And there'll be something on your web page that yeah. And we can actually add it to part of the text message notification for the for the for the pick for the preorder folks. We can we can roll that capability in there saying like your pickup will be ready. They'll get a text message notification. Your pickup will be ready at this time. Please note the parking here and there and also and also we have bike racks and there's the 87 bus, so it gives them the old right had a plea of options. That would be nice. Yeah. Thanks. All right, so I will run through, first of all, thank you very much for the thoroughness of your of your application and for answering all of our questions so thoroughly. I guess I'll ask the the board. We most likely will will need you to come come back again and address these these questions. So. Before we we vote to. Identify a next meeting date, I think, Jenny. Do you want to to talk about what options there are available? Sure. The next meeting is October 19th and we would need material by the Wednesday before that. So that would be next Wednesday, the 14th. But I think the other option would be November 2nd. Is the next hearing date, but maybe after so those are the two options, but maybe after we run through, you heard everything, but we'll we'll recapture everything that is needed and you can tell us if which date would work and then the board will continue the hearing to that date. Yeah, we would appreciate that because, I mean, it really comes down to, you know, for example, like if there is something that we need to change, how quickly, you know, is it is it nominal? Is it or is it a major change that our architects need more time? So that's really the biggest part of the that would do that. Especially with the entrances, if it's a large architectural change, I don't think we'd be ready with it. But yes, and but to Mike's point, sooner sooner is always better. So, you know, the sooner we get that feedback to the quicker we can we can come up with a decision. Great. So why don't I run through the the list that I have and then my colleagues to chime in if I forgot anything? So looking for a more detailed parking and queue management plan. Looking for more details on what's proposed at the windows. Looking for a new design in lieu of the glass block screen. Looking for more details on the building signage and parking lot signage. Looking for details on the civil drawings. That illustrate the transportation consultants recommendations, such as showing the stop sign and the stop. Lettering on the asphalt at the egress from the parking lot. Take another look at the lead scorecard with an opportunity to increase any points if possible. Looking for more details on the bike parking, both interior and exterior. And whether or not and the feasibility of adding a shower and changing room. Looking for to pull out of the traffic study. More specific items related to the impact to queuing on on this on the street on sunny side, turning on to Broadway. And whether or not a no left turn sign out of the parking lot would be advisable during the peak period. And the Department of Planning will have this senior transportation planner review the study as well. And lastly, I have take a look at the steps down at the new retail exit. With regard to the lot line, the property line, rather, and accessibility. Rachel, can we also add in indications of a loading dock? And also indicate the loading spaces, the spaces. OK, doesn't it for loading? And then also just a quick little detail for a break room allocation or something like that. OK, Jenny, you had something else as well. I already said it. OK. Now, Rachel, did you get the window treatment that you mentioned earlier? Yeah, I did get that one in the list. Perfect. There are motion from the board to continue the hearing. So motioned. Do we have a date? They're going to decide. We need a date first. Oh, we need a date. I think we need to go with the November date. November 2nd. Yes, because we won't be able to get all that in a week. Don't you, gentlemen, agree? No, I agree. I mean, we're going to have to look into a lot of these things. So it's going to probably take more than a week. So we would be materials by the 28th of October. OK. All right. Some motion. I'll second the motion to continue to November 2nd. And we'll take a roll call vote. Ken. Hi. David. Yes. Jean. Yes. Katie. Yeah. And I vote yes as well. So thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yes, thank you. You look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. Thank you. Bye bye. All right. So the next item on our agenda is a committee appointment of Alex Bagnall for the Envision Arlington Standing Committee. So I'll turn it over to Jenny. I believe Alex is on the call. So this board, there he is. This board has the one appointee that serves who serves on the Envision Arlington Standing Committee. Our prior designee, I think, left the committee a couple of years ago, actually. So it's been vacant for a little bit of time. And so Alex applied and we would like to recommend that he be appointed so that he can serve as a board appointee. What we've done in the past is at times we've had some of our designees return to the board and provide updates or things of that nature. I don't know how many of you were on the board with our last designee. That was Jennifer Tool, actually. Yeah, I think it's been some time she was designated and came back to the board a couple of times with updates. So that could be something here. But Alex provided his letter of interest and his resume, which were posted. I'll let him introduce himself and talk about why he's interested in serving and you can take it from there. Thank you. Thank you. Alex, would you like to give us an introduction? Thank you. My name is Alex Bagnall. I live on Wyman Street. I've been a town meeting member for four years now from Precinct 7 and I got interested in housing a little while ago around some of the Densey articles and there's obviously a lot to cover there. But my short bit is shelters, a fundamental human need and housing policy has helped create and perpetuate structural inequalities. And this is an area in which we as a town can and should do better. There's a lot of public outreach and discussion to be had and thank you for the opportunity to help with Envision and ARB's efforts on this front. Great, thank you very much, Alex. I appreciated reading your resume and your cover letter. I can certainly tell your passion so I'm excited to have you. We'll run down the list of board members for any questions for Alex, starting with Ken. No, I have no questions for him. I welcome you to this and we'll enjoy your enthusiasm. Thank you. Great, David? I don't think I have any questions. I appreciate the involvement you've had in the community over the last few years and I think you'll bring a valuable perspective to the committee. Jean? Hey Alex, I'm delighted you're going to do this and hope you have a lot of fun at it too. Thank you, Jean. Great, Katie? I thank you for doing this and for serving the town. Great, so I will see if there is a motion to approve Alex Bagnell as a new member of the Envision Arlington Standing Committee. So moved. Second. Great, so we'll take a roll call vote. Ken? Yes. Jean? Yes. David? Yes. Katie? Yes. And I am a yes as well. Congratulations. Thank you all. All right, Alex. All right, so the next item on our agenda is the presentation and discussion of the residential design guidelines and design review process for our zero, our one and our two zoning districts. So I believe in addition to Jenny, we have representatives from Harriman and a few other representatives from the Department of Planning and Community Development who will be making the presentation. Thank you, Rachel. So I'm actually going to very quickly hand it over to Kelly Lanema, who's a senior planner in the Department of Planning and Community Development. We also have Emily Innes and Phillip Hugh from Harriman and they're gonna be making the presentation with Kelly. I've given Emily and Phillip the ability to run their presentation. We have 45 minutes allotted to this and we also actually have, I'm sorry, Winnell Evans is on and she's a member of the design review working group who helped with this process. You'll hear more about that in a moment. I wanna sincerely thank, first of all, Kelly and Erin for all of their efforts on this project. It's still happening, of course, and working with Harriman has been excellent. I'll be looking forward to hearing your comments and your questions about the product that you're reviewing tonight and we'll hear about the next steps as well. So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Kelly and Emily, I think you should be able to share your screen now. Yeah, you're getting up. Great, good evening, everyone. Thank you for inviting us to come and present on this project tonight. As Jenny mentioned, my name is Kelly Lanema. I'm the senior planner for the Department of Planning and Community Development and also with us tonight are Emily Innes and Phillip Hu of Harriman, our consultants on this project. Before they present on the draft guidelines, I wanted to provide you a brief background into how we got to where we are on this project. So back in 2018, the Department of Planning and Community Development worked with the residential study group to develop a report on the demolition, on demolitions and replacement homes in Arlington. This was a research driven report and was developed as a way of understanding whether a request by residents to expand demolition delay was the most appropriate response to residents concerned about residential development in town. One of the key recommendations of that report was that we develop residential design guidelines as a way of addressing community design preferences in our lower density residential districts, so R0 through R2. In 2019, we received funding for this project. We established the design review working group, as Jenny mentioned, when Evan is here and she is a member of this working group, along with members from the ZBA and Andrew Badell was a member as well, and then several other community members who are very design focused in their work. We issued an RFP for the project and we selected Harriman as our consultant. We kicked off the project in December. And then we spent most of 2020 working on the development of the residential design guidelines, and I'll get to the schedule in just a second. On the next slide, you can see our project goals. We are working with the community to create residential design guidelines in our R0, R1 and R2 districts for residential projects. And these guidelines should address several things. So we're looking for guidelines that address the interest of neighborhood residents as well as individual property owners reflecting the individual rights of property owners to do what's allowable up to the zoning bylaw. And then also addressing the interest of the broader Arlington community as a whole. These guidelines should also strike a balance between a number of different needs. And these are tensions that we see playing out all the time in Arlington. The needs between what the community wants to see in the neighborhood versus what the needs of an individual property owner has for making changes to their home or building a new home on a site. Trying to balance aesthetics for design with costs of a project, the economic needs of somebody who wants to expand their home or the cost of developing a new single family or two family on an R1, R0, R2 district. And then the guidelines should also strike a balance between flexibility. We want to encourage creative and personal expression. Our goal with the guidelines is not to create guidelines that are so restrictive such that new construction is a pastiche of Arlington's historic homes. Finally in this project, we are looking to recommend an approval process that will allow us to incorporate these guidelines into an existing review process. So when we look at where we are in the schedule, as I mentioned, we began in December. Harriman spent a lot of time in late winter working with the design review working group on existing conditions. We turned that around into a community engagement period. So we issued a visual preference survey online for which we received about 1,200 responses. And then we did a community virtual workshop in the end of June. Harriman then took the responses from those engagement periods and crafted the draft presidential design guidelines which we're going to hear about shortly. And right now we're in a public review period. So we're presenting to you the design review working group that received a copy of the draft guidelines last week. So the draft that you are seeing does not yet have their feedback incorporated primarily because of special town meeting schedules but we did want to have a chance to present this project to you. We'll be doing reviews of several revisions of the final guidelines and then bringing it back to the community in December and hopefully completing the project by the end of the year. So with that, I'll turn it over to Emily and Phillip. Thank you very much. I hope you can all hear me. My name is Emily Annis. I'm the director of planning for Harriman and I'm here with my colleague Phillip Wu who's an urban designer planner. Phillip has immersed himself into this project. So although I'll be giving the presentation, he is here to answer any of the detailed questions you may have. So as Kelly mentioned, we started off with a fairly detailed existing conditions analysis. I'm going to give an overview of that today but there's far more detail I believe in the packet that you've been presented with. And we really took a neighborhood approach to this, understanding that what people were objecting to or concerned about was changes to their neighborhoods. So if we could get an understanding of how Arlington's different neighborhoods function, it would lead us in a reasonable direction for considering design guidelines for private homes. And it's not a common thing to see design guidelines for private homes, except perhaps in a specific village district. It's one of the things that intrigued us so much about this project. And so we really wanted to spend some time getting to know Arlington. So we were looking for those key design issues and patterns that really had the impact. I'll talk about what those are. What differentiated the different neighborhoods? How did you know that you were working, moving from one neighborhood to the other? Where were the edges? And then a discussion of the current permitting process which was ongoing and how these guidelines might fit into that current permitting process. We were not looking to add barriers to homeowners or to contractors, builders to do residential guidelines. So in talking with the working group, there were a couple of key existing conditions that were known to be problematic. And as Kelly mentioned, we then used the design process to get more to part of it. But we started off on this idea that there were additions that didn't fit the design context of the neighborhood, whether they were inappropriate housing style or too massive or in the wrong spot relative to what other buildings were in the neighborhood. New construction that was just overall out of scale, whether by height or general massing or in some cases, a style that was so different from the others that it threw everything else off. And then a big one, a big discussion we heard was about parking. So here we're showing parking that dominates the principle of facade. In other words, the entry of the building is subordinate to the parking and the vehicular entry. But there was also concerns about how parking was dealt with in a front yard setback and what that did neighborhood in terms of physical identity. And so we were looking at, as I mentioned earlier, those elements that were distinguishing different neighborhoods. So what was the history of the development pattern in Arlington? How did it move to streetcar suburbs, supposed to a war suburb? And how did those waves of development change the connections of the two and the edges among neighborhoods? We were looking for specific landmarks and open spaces and how people center their identities around. I live near X park or I live near, you know, Y trail. And then thinking about the pattern of street layout, the width of the streets and how those define the lots. Is this a curvilinear street? And the lots are very irregular. Is it more of a grid? And so the lots are very regular, which can make development and dimensional standards a little bit easier. And then just thinking how the age, the style, whether or not it was in a historic district also how that contributes to the other components of the individual buildings, the mass things, the density and height and as you'll see the architectural element. So we use this fuzzy boundary as we called it. This is not meant to be scientifically precise in any way, shape or form, but it did give us a good guide to how the neighborhoods broke out. It allowed us to find those edges of transition and then to think about what's going on inside each neighborhood. And so we used online research. The planning department had already done some ideas around neighborhood identity. So we were able to draw on that. And then also a thorough breakdown from your assessor's data to consider a lot size and age, FAR style. Fortunately, your assessor's data was fairly complete. So it was easy to do. And you'll see a lot of heat maps in there that show the gradation of changes among the different neighborhoods. You go through the whole document. We also did a lot of community engagement. In fact, I believe you won the most involved community of our year this year with 1,200 responses of all of the online engagement we've been doing this year to date. You guys definitely stood out. But that was great because it gave us fantastic data in terms of visual preferences. And we asked a lot of non-quantitative questions as well and people's affection for and love for Arlington really shown through the responses. So that was nice to see. But as I mentioned earlier, Off Street parking, perceived size of new houses, and I would add additions to that, were really the top concerns. And we also in our second community workshop, an online workshop, which did not get 1,200 responses, but which did get an excellent response, we tested the idea of how restrictive or unrestricted the guidelines should be. So we went from, here's a general summary statement of what it should like all the way to, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna put an addition on, it has to be exactly eight feet back and it has to be exactly why percentage of the overall massing. And what we found is people did not want that level. But they wanted something a little bit more. They really went for the middle of some guidelines, some sort of image that could help them understand what was happening. And then of course we've mapped out your existing approval process and we're looking still and still discussing the right place for this to be, again, to make sure that it's not onerous. So in looking at this, we're basically tonight going to give you a guide to the document and then there'll be time for you to really spend your time with it and let us know. We welcome all comments and questions that you may have, but in terms of the audience for this, first of all, the homeowners. We recognize that people who are expanding their homes are doing so for a reason. They don't want it to be onerous to do. Maybe they're accommodating a new family member, maybe they just need some extra space for that home office. So the idea that this is a pattern book where a homeowner can learn about what the components of the building are and just maybe point to it and say, this is what I'm trying to do. And so it establishes that common language and intent. And then for builders, architects, people who are in front of town boards more often, it gives them a sense of what the town is looking for. It makes that journey through getting permitting process a lot easier because they can understand what a neighborhood is likely to want based on these. And then finally, four-town staff for the ZVA, providing those clear standards. This is a set of communication where everybody walking into the room understands what it's trying to do here. So we've organized it into three sections. And if you think of it from starting from the widest possible scale and then zooming down to the smallest, we're starting with the street-state design, which is really how people see their neighborhoods that cohesive whole and thinking about how new development, whether it's a new building or whether it's an addition, fits in with that whole. Then we narrow it down to the building itself and you'll see some overlaps here. And then finally to the elements on the building, the relationship of the doors, the windows, other architectural elements. And then you'll see in terms of recommendations, instead of saying you must do X or you must do Y, this is encourage or discourage. This is a voluntary guide, but we're trying to make it easy for people to use. So you'll see the principles here. In terms of streetscape design, it's really thinking about what the neighborhood is and how this new structure is going to fit into the overall context of the neighborhood. You don't want it to stand out in a negative way. So how does somebody who's doing this read the neighborhood, learn to understand the neighborhood and then having that building fit in? And we want, as an A4, we are looking for creative solutions. Not all of the lots are easy to develop. You've got a lot of topography. You've got a lot of irregular lots. So how do people creatively fit into the neighborhood? Then we scale down into the building itself. And so now we're thinking about the new building in relationship to its neighbors in terms of its location on the site and its massing. And you see here, the word rhythm is underlined with that little squiggly line. That's because in certain areas of the plan, we're calling out terms that a homeowner may not be familiar with or they may be familiar with in a different context. So they may be thinking of rhythm in terms of music rather than in terms of architecture. So we've defined that out. And then finally, those building elements I mentioned earlier, how do they relate to each other on the facade of the house? But also how do they relate to the facade to their neighbor? So we've defined it to keep it relatively simple. You'll see that there are four neighborhood block categories here starting with the two family in the town core and then three different levels of single family on small lots, on medium lots and on large lots. And we define the primary characteristics, what the lot size are and some of the elements that you might find. So for a two family, there's likely to be balconies and porches on single family on small lots. We're talking a little bit more about the height of the building. And as we move over medium lots, the building gets higher and now we're starting on the large lots. We're seeing much larger lot sizes and a change in the style of the building. And you see all these components in green here throughout the document, we're calling out different components so people understand what we're talking about and why. So this is a basic layout. You have the design principle at the top and a page heading letting you know what sub area of each principle you're talking about. The annotated diagram I mentioned earlier that relates to this particular principle. You see here the definitions so that people know what you're talking about. Some examples and I'll show you a close up of what those are. The encourage section and the discourage section. And then if there's a specific recommendation for this particular neighborhood block, it's on this page. And so here's a sample graphic. We're talking about parking. So you see that we're suggesting that the park under garage is subordinate to the primary entrance or it's set back from the primary bulk of the building. The plus sign means that this is a recommendation for an encourage. In this case, the garage door is integrated with the colors of the rest of the building. It is set back from the main facade. So this is a good example. The exclamation point is an example that we would discourage. In this case, this is the entry where the vehicular entry into the house is much more prominent and takes precedence over the pedestrian entry or the human entry into the house. And then here's called out the encourage and the discourage. And so you see that we focus on particular elements. This is at the streetscape. So the elements that we're talking about here are focused on those that have an impact on the streetscape. You'll see that actually prominent garage doors and wide garage doors is also emphasized in the building principles as well because those now affect the facade. So here's an example of the building design guidelines. And so we're showing the relationship of the width of the building to its lot width and to each other. And then calling out some of the components of the building and how the massing can be related to other areas or other buildings around them for both additions and for new buildings. You see the garage doors appearing again, but now we're encouraging entrance elements and thinking about half stories to reduce that massing. And then finally onto building elements. And you can see that we're calling out those things that really create that sense of a welcoming neighborhood, that create a human scale with the residential buildings. So on a contemporary entryway, there's a suggestion of an overhang. You might have something a little bit more elaborate on a traditional, but something like this where the two-story entryway is not really going to fit in with the other housing options that we've seen in Arlington, that's an exclamation point. Again, the entrance tucked away from the garage, that's an exclamation point. With the building elements, this starts to get into terminology that many homeowners may not be familiar with. Some are, some aren't. So we try to define, so you see the pediment of our high-lessers of the Portico, we try to define them with the element that they're looking at. And then again, encouraging the specific elements that create the sense of design that we'd like to see. So with that, that's a general overview and a guide to the document. As Kelly mentioned, our next steps are the sort of comment period as we're hearing back from the working group, from yourselves, from the ZBA. And then after town meeting, we'll be making a final public presentation in December and then making any changes that are necessary as a result of that presentation and moving forward with it from there. So happy to entertain any questions. Or comments. And also looking forward to more detailed comments. And Kelly, I don't know if you want to give them the timeline on that. Sure. So right now, the design of the working group has until they will be reviewing the document until October 12th. And then we will be presenting this to the Zoning Board of Appeals at the end of October because unlike the ARB doesn't necessarily review a lot of structures in, I think any at all in our zero, if any in our one and our two. But you do review properties that about some of those structures. So we wanted to make sure you had a chance to comment and review. And then the ZBA will also have a period of time where they can comment and review. So I think we would be looking to have comments from you by sometime in that first week of November. Great. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the presentation. I'll run through the members of the board and ask for any comments or questions before we open it up to the public. We'll start with Katie. So thanks for this. This was really interesting. I was one of the people who took this survey and thought it was really well-designed and just well done. And yeah, I just appreciate your hard work and I'm excited to see some of these changes in our link because it seems like it's a lot of really pedestrian-oriented inviting recommendations that will fit our neighborhoods. Great, thank you, Katie. David. I appreciate the work that's been done and I look forward to digging into the draft in more detail. I had one question and maybe one comment. My question has to do with the public engagement. And obviously it happened during a time when we were doing things very differently and I was curious how that went because it seemed like you did get a significant amount of public input and I'm curious as to whether there were any particular challenges, how you changed the original plan and whether you think it got more public input, less public input or really no difference given the change in circumstances. That's a great question. And in fact, we were really nervous coming up to, because this was one of the first public engagement pieces we were doing after the shutdown and we delayed it so we could make sure that we were putting in at the right time. Originally we were scheduled to go out March or April and with the projections of the surge we wanted to wait to make sure that we weren't being tone deaf and reaching out to people. I have to say that had we done this in a room we would never have had 1,200 people. And so what we see is this and it's been borne out in lesser numbers but we've been seeing a lot more people engage because they can do it on their own time. Certainly the visual preference survey which was released in May was a do-it-yourself workshop so people could do it whenever they wanted and I think that was part of it. The town did a fabulous job in getting the word out that it existed. So you know, huge kudos to your staff. But we are also cognizant that not everybody is going to have internet access. And so we just try to think of different ways of getting the message out. But for something like this with 1,200 people coming in that would not have been possible. And I don't remember the exact number on the second one in June, Philip. I don't know if you've got it at your fingers or not but I know it was more than we really thought in person. So you know that was the nice thing to say. That was definitely my impression that it was perhaps more participation than you would have seen in person. But I am always conscious of people who might not have as easy online access being able to participate. So on the one hand I'm thrilled that so many people did participate but I do still have that lingering concern about people who may not have been able to. But you know, I think we're all learning how to do this because we'll probably be doing it this way for a while. But I thought this was definitely a good start. I would like to, I'm sorry. Oh no, go ahead Kelly. No, I just would like to add that we, so we promoted the visual preference survey widely. And then with the sort of recognizing the challenge of a 7pm meeting, 7pm community workshop in the end of June we kept, we recorded the meeting and then Harriman prepared a sort of companion survey and an opportunity for people to sort of do the, to participate on their own time. And we kept that open for another two weeks after the event in June, just to try to encourage more people to participate. And then the one other thing I would like to know is I think when Harriman looked at some of the demographics of individuals who'd responded to the survey we had a much broader age range than what we usually see participate in traditional town hall style public meetings. So we were really happy to see broad participation across the community. That's great. So as I mentioned, I haven't had a chance to really dig in deep on the draft yet, but I did have one thing that struck me right at the top level as I was looking at it, which is when you went through it in the presentation about what the three sets of principles are and then the sub-principles within them, that makes sense. But when I just open the document and look at a page and it says, principle B3, I don't have any context for that. And I found it a little bit confusing just in navigating the document a little bit so that I'm not sure there's a better way to do it. I'll have to think about it a bit more, but it was something that struck me immediately. That's really helpful. And I would encourage all of you if you were trying to make it as easy to use as possible. And I think it's very relevant to, somebody's just opened it up and they're looking for something. And it doesn't strike them. If you find anything like that or have any suggestions to make it clear, we're all ears. So we want it to be usable to the person who's never thought about architecture before. And it's just, I need more space at my house. How do I do this? So that would be really helpful here. I appreciate that. Great, thank you, David. Kim? Sorry about that, I couldn't unmute. I found this amazing. I think this, you guys did a great job. I really appreciate the fact that you guys took a look at these guidelines as not a inhibitance so that it becomes so daunting that economically challenging that a regular homeowner couldn't stay here and live here by having a house grow a little bit as their family grew. I think that was, I applaud that. I do have one question and I know that parking requirements have changed over time. You can see the demographics of how houses developed over time and how we have to adjust to that. And I wouldn't mind saying, maybe we can help out a little bit and is there a way of maybe making some zoning changes that would encourage less garage door fronts? I guess that's the best way of saying it for now. At least I can understand. Where maybe we can talk garages or parking in the back and how you might do that with somebody tight spaces but making some zoning changes where maybe we can encroach the building for a little bit more, but for the two, which allows you to be able to talk a garage in the back or maybe some reduction in open space in the dimensional fashion, but not a square footage faction, you know where you had to have maintained 25 feet. Now maybe we can drop it down to 20 feet or something like that. No, not wholesale and maybe move the building up a foot or two, which allow you to put parking in the back. Those kinds of recommendations and looking at that may be helpful so that we can make changes to encourage better architecture. So that's all I have to say. That's very helpful. First of all, I wanna call out the working group or recognize them for also being very firm on we need to make sure that we have options in there that aren't going to be cost prohibitive, that we're not forcing people who are really wanting to stay in Arlington and wanting to modify their home so they can do so, not making a cost prohibitive for them to do that or so onerous in terms of the process and they were far on and we certainly followed that direction. The issue of the parking and the zoning changes. So one of the challenges of this was that it's not changing the zoning. And so we are 100% working within the current zoning to do that. Now, whether as people apply it over the time, they do exactly as you just suggested is fine. Well, maybe there's another way of doing this rather than the design guidelines. I could see conversations happening around that, but I think for now it's really what can be done without changing the zoning. Take this first step to think about how you discuss, design for residential private homes in a community. And then maybe at some point the zoning changes come out of that as people talk about it more, but it was an interesting challenge as we said, oh, we'd like to do this, but wait. So we had to be creative in how we thought around it for now. You did a good job. Well, my colleague here fell up. I want to give a lot of credit to him. Great, thank you, Ken. Jean? Yes, I'd like to echo all my colleagues. I think it's terrific work. I like the graphics. I like how it's laid out. I love you have the fuzzy neighborhood lines because I always knew they existed. I never was sure where they were. And now I can at least point somewhere that says, oh, this is the fuzzy neighborhood line. I'm really happy that you did the encourage and discourage and guidelines are not prescriptive. I think that was really the right way to do it for the town and for people who want to add on to their houses or build new houses. So now are the things that I would suggest thinking about. The first one, I think, is probably not in your mandate. So I understand how you might not have done it. But design guidelines relating to the environment, whether it's to allow solar, oriented towards solar, things like that. I don't know if that was in your mandate, whether it's possible to fit it in. Second is I like how you made, which I think is the right distinction between a garage that's sort of at the facade and fits in as opposed to a snout house. Because I have walked around my neighborhood and a few years ago I did this and I'd be happy to send you the link. I walked through my neighborhood. More than 50% of the homes have the garage doors in the front facade. But they're not extended forward. I think they fit into the neighborhood and look fine. So I'm glad you made that distinction between snout houses and ones that appropriately fit into the facade. One of the things I think it wasn't really, it was mentioned. And I think Kelly might have mentioned that in doing, in the introduction. But I think should be called out more is this isn't intended to end up with cookie cutter houses. I think it's really important to make a distinction between, and maybe people disagree with me, you can have different styles on the same block in the same neighborhood that fit really well, that really help as opposed to the scale that's all wrong. And I think you use a wonderful example somewhere where the foundation is so much higher than the surrounding foundations just so they can put the garage underneath. I think that was a good example. But I think too many people could easily take this as, oh, the styles will look the same. And now when I walk around neighborhoods, I see all the houses almost are like foe neocolonial. And they sort of drive me nuts to see people doing that. I actually like the few modern houses that have popped up here and there that from a stylistic view, they don't look like the houses next door. But I think they complement them perfectly. So I think if there's a way to talk about that a little bit more, to make that distinction and emphasize it to me, that would be helpful. And all the talk about the neighborhood context, I think, could lead to all that leads to the look like the house next door. So I think we need to think about the use of those words and what they mean and how people will take them. I actually agreed with what Kin said. I guess it's not in your mandate. But it would be interesting to know what are the zoning barriers that lead to new houses with the garages pushed forward? Are there some really simple fixes to that that could be done so that there's no longer the need from the developers to push the garages forward? On the other hand, I must say, getting back to the environment, I'm not one of the biggest fans of putting the garage in the back of the house. Because what you're doing is you're adding to impervious surface with the driveway. You're taking away some open space. So personally, I would not necessarily favor put the garage in the backyard because it does have some negative environmental impacts as compared to putting it appropriately into the facade or the basement of the house. So I know some people disagree with that. And I know you got a lot of comments that that was the best look. But I'm not sure from an environmental point of view that makes the most sense. The other thing from an environmental point of view, I'm not sure how you do this about the rhythm of the block. One of the big critiques of 20th century American residential architecture is the big front lawns within people have to grass and they have to fertilize. And you do have something in there about find something other than grass, which I thought was excellent. But if somebody wants to be a little bit closer to the sidewalk, it may not be too bad. Those are my overall comments. I found one, I think, an error on page 31. I think you, for one of the little captions of the house, it says Brantwood Street. But I think it's actually Brantwood Road. So you just might want to check the street atlas and see if Brantwood's a road or a street. I think it's road because I live right around the corner from it. I see the sign that says Brantwood Road all the time. The other interesting thing about Brantwood Road that's part of Jason Heights, I don't know if you want to call it out or mention it, but it was actually unlike Jason Heights, it was actually developed in the 1890s, not in the 1930s. And it was developed as a place where people would go for the summer to get away from Boston. So the architecture on Brantwood Road is somewhat interesting and different than some of the other architecture in the neighborhood. I don't know if you want to mention that or not. So I think it's great. I think it's going to be a great, great resource for the town. And I'm looking forward to seeing it of all. Well, thank you very much. And I think between Philip and myself, we got most of your comments and we'll have another look at it. I think to both your points on the idea of zoning, if we see some particular things that we think might could be looked at a little bit more closely, we will certainly pass that along. I think there are a few things that came up already in our discussions and happy to. And we'll have a look at the environmental considerations. We were trying to stay away from landscape because we really wanted to focus just on the buildings. Although, as you noted, we've tucked a few things in there. Just give people the option of not having all grass for their front lawn. But we could see if there are any other things that we could look at on that. And I agree with making it clear that we are not prohibiting or in any way discouraging contemporary homes from the neighborhoods. So people should be flexible about their styles. That's just fine. We want them to just simply consider the relationship. I should have mentioned two other things that I forgot. One, which probably should be in that they shouldn't be shading somebody else's solar panels, which I think is part of the environmental thing to take a look at. And the other is sometimes, if you just have some sort of plantings and screenings between the two houses, that helps with the streetscape and the rhythm. And I don't think that was mentioned at all in the report, which I think maybe is something that you might want to mention once or twice. Great. Thank you. So I'll just add a couple other things before we open it up for any public comments. I echo all of my colleagues in that I think that it's very, very well done, very easy to use for the layperson. I love the combination of the visual and verbal vocabulary, the history of the waves of development. I found really interesting. And I feel like I learned a lot myself, so I appreciate that component. It was just really layered and built on the visual preference survey, which I just thought was so much fun to take, and I really enjoyed it. And what I just wanted to throw out to the board was that I also think that this is something that we could really use from a commercial development standpoint. I think that what we have to work with right now is very broad. And this type of specificity and that type of visual and verbal vocabulary is something that would be really interesting as we reschedule our goal-setting session for us to potentially talk about. I just want to throw that out there. So thank you. And with that, I will see if there are any public, any members of the public who'd like to ask any questions or provide any comments for the guidelines. If so, if you could please use your raise hand function in the participant section of Zoom. Seeing none, I will ask the board if there are any other comments. Jenny, you had mentioned, I think actually, Kelly, you had mentioned a timeline for when you would like any comments from the board. And I'm assuming we could just send those through to Jenny. That would be fine. And then I'm accumulating everything, aggregating it all into a single document for Herriman's review. OK, great. And that was by the first week in November, is that? Yes, yes. I can look up a specific date here. Great. Well, thank you all for the documents that are already provided, correct? Yes. By November 6, would be really helpful. Thank you. November 6. Great. Well, thank you to Kelly and Erin and Emily and Phillip and everyone in the working group. It's just really phenomenal work. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great. All right. So moving on to the next item, which is meeting minutes from the meeting on the 20th of July 2020. Let's see if we could bring those up. I will run through a roll call to see if anyone has any comments. And Jean, I will start with you. I actually have just one comment on page two, the top paragraph, where the next to the last sentence says, the chair said that refiguring the fourth floor would lose one of the affordable units, which is where we should be focused. And so affordable housing is in short supply. I had said in response, which is not in here, which was removing one of the units would not reduce the number of required affordable units. And I'd like that to be edited in. So Mr. Benson said, or whatever we're being called here, removing one of the units would not reduce the required number of affordable units. That was my only suggested change. Great. Thanks, Jean. Let's see, Ken. That should be affordable units, Jenny. One of the last unit. No, no, affordable at the end of this. That's it. Yes. Thank you. Jenny on page one, the last paragraph. Mr. Laos suggested a common space in the back of the building for the tenants to gather. They had common space in the back. I just wanted them to add amenities back there that it could be used as common space, not just a squared off lens lots of like a barbeque grill or a picnic table, some of that where they can use the space, not just have a space called open space or common space. Would that be OK? Suggested amenities to be added to the common space in the back of the building. That'd be fine. For the for use by tenants. Yeah. Great. Anything else, Ken? No. All right. David? I didn't have any comments. Great. And Katie, I don't think you were with us yet. So I just had one, Jenny, and it was on page four. It's actually the last sentence where instead of planting, or excuse me, instead of planting, it should have been planting. Although it might be on the next page in other way added some things. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah, that's it. OK. Is there a motion to approve? So I move to approve as amended. Second. All right. I'll run through the roll call. Ken? Yes. David? Yes. Jean? Yes. Katie? Yes. Katie, yes. I'm not sure I can vote on this. No, I'll just mark you as abstained. And then I'm going to guess. All right. Those are approved. Let's see. So at this point, we will need to move to have open forum. Oh, I'm sorry. I have open forum. I'm moving ahead. I might have done it too far. The next item is open forum. So if any member of the public would like to speak, please use the raise hand function. We'll open it up at this time. And any member of the public, we have three minutes to address the board. Give it a minute to see if anyone raises their hand. All right. Seeing none, I will close the open forum. And the next item on our list is the executive session. And in order to move into executive session, which will be together with the board and town council and members of the planning department, we will need a motion and a vote to move us into executive session, at which time the recording will, the public recording will end. I'll move. Wait a second. Second. All right. So we'll run through a roll call. Doug wants to talk. Doug wants to talk. Sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could just clarify two things that we should note in this vote. One is the vote should note whether or not you intend to return to open session or whether you will close the meeting following the executive session. The second is that we should state the precise purpose of the executive session, which is to discuss the pending appeal, that is Darlo, the redevelopment board, an appeal of the board's decision with respect to the hotel lexington special permit. Great. Thank you. So I would like to suggest to the board that we close out the session, since this is the last item on our agenda, directly from the executive session. Any discussion on that topic? Makes sense. OK. So we would need to amend our motion to open the executive session to discuss the pending legal matter regarding the hotel lexington property as cited by town council and note that we will be adjourning the public meeting directly from the executive session. What can I have a new motion? Thank you. In a second? Second. I can. Great. I will take a roll call vote. Ken? Yes. Jean? Yes. David? Yes. Katie? Yes. And Ayn yes as well.