 This is the development review board meeting for Burlington July 2nd. I am going to keep it pretty simple since we have an agenda with two items one of which has been withdrawn. Am I right? No. No. 366 North Avenue has been pulled from the agenda by staff because it remains incomplete. So we do have two agenda items. We'll take them up in the order they're here and you're the lone representing the entire community tonight. When you come up, I'll call you a minute, but you can sign in on the sheet over there. But the first item on the agenda, do we have communications on our desk? Okay. Here from June 4th and June 18th. Look at those afterwards. We have any comments? So the first item on our agenda is 366 North Avenue. And that is pulled from the agenda. Is this right terminology? It's pulled from the agenda because the application is incomplete. I wouldn't call it deferred because as it remains incomplete, we can't schedule a date for it. I have given the applicant a deadline to make it complete or it will be denied as incomplete. So it remains in his court. Can I ask a question? Yes. Since we have opened, have we opened a public hearing on the item? No. Okay. On North Avenue, we have not. Okay. So at this point, it's an incomplete application. It has no clock ticking on it. It has no clock ticking on it. So we'll set aside 366 North Avenue and go to the highlight of our evening, which is 51 Stanford Road. This is an exciting year already. I see the applicant is here. This is a public hearing. I'm gonna swear you in. Would you raise your right hand? Do you swear to tell the truth and whole truth on the pain and penalty of perjury? This is an appeal. Does that mean the city, I think the city will present their position and then you can present yours. I'm afraid I'm the poor representative for other staff who were staff project managers for this, but I do understand the reason for the denial. The applicant has proposed a mudroom addition on the front of the house. It lacks an entry door that faces the street under section 622 of the ordinance relative to site plans. The language is that the entry shall face the street and it's the excuse me. The project is being reviewed under design review standards because it is a non conforming lot. Although this is generally a non design review area because the lot lacks the required frontage. It's non conforming and therefore design review applies. And when you're in design review, you fall into article six where the site plan design standards become relevant and the language there is that the front entry shall face the street and the plan as submitted and denied lacked an entry that face the street. And the fact that the size of the lot triggers design review. Otherwise, article six would not apply to this. If it were a conforming lot and it were single family design review would not apply. And the issue of having the entry face the street would not be discussed. If it were a conforming lot. Thank you. Any questions for Mary on this application? It's really the orient. It's that orientation of the door, right? I mean, the idea is that the mother needs to have a door that faces the street. Give or take. Although there is an entry it faces towards the driveway and not the street. Do you know if there's already I can ask the applicant this, but that's the only front entry. I've seen people with double like if there was also a door facing the street, would that satisfy the city? Well, the staff report indicates the existing condition is conforming. The main entrance faces the street. The addition of the mud room creates an entry that does not face the street, but faces the driveway and that's where the conflict replaces the existing correct. But you could have two and you could have one that faces the street and one that faces the drive in the city would be okay with that. If you have a principal entrance that faces the street, you would be compliant. Just for clarity. So further encroachment into the front yard setback, even though the lot front, the frontage is not conforming, isn't an issue, correct? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the whole question. Okay, so encroachment into the front yard setback, even though a lot frontage is not conforming, is not an issue, correct? The orientation of the addition with frontage? Are you sure? No, the addition itself, even though the lot is not conforming. It's encroaching for a setback on the front. Oh, the front yard setback. Yeah. I have not done the calculation myself, but the staff report indicates that dimensionally everything else is compliant. Okay, thanks. Surely. Because the setback is determined by adjacent properties. Right. So average of adjacent plus or minus five feet. I don't think you introduced yourself yet. So if you do that and then what was that? If you would introduce yourself and then explain what you want to. So I'm Adam Frohine. I'm a resident of 51 Stanaford. I own the home with my wife and yeah, we're appealing the decision given, I guess to our understanding, the biggest reason that we aren't able to have the door facing the direction that we would like is the 10 feet are a lot lacks in width. If it was 10 feet wider, we wouldn't have this issue today. And on top of that, the design of having a side facing entryway allows for more of a porch, which gives more of I think a community touch to the addition. It allows for not getting to a place where we would potentially need to have a front door meeting the requirement and a side door because then the doors would swing awkwardly given the size of the room that we're kind of looking to have. And you know, in the packet we gave to everyone across the street, there are two houses that have side entries. So in terms of the look of the neighborhood, I don't see that as an impact as well. Our architects either looked at city records and believes one house that is adjacent is a 50 foot lot with a side entrance and they are actually fully enclosed additions and they don't have an addition of a porch way which ours would add that dimension. Another part that wasn't on the memo is with our current design and added benefit of having the overhang in the porch is our overall goal is to add dormers to the front and split up the rooms in the top and it would allow for an easy fire escape for a child. And right now, you know, with a new design, the push out would lack that overhang over a window. And the other issue, I mean, and the other issue too is we have a U shaped garden space right now with a tree that's right on the edge of the perimeter and the concerns is the depending on what the final design may look like, there could be damage to the existing root network of the maple tree and depending on where the walkway enters, it would potentially have us to reduce some of an existing garden that we inherited from a previous tenant that is in great shape. So those are the main areas with just the overall flow, it's going to be a better flow for us. It's going to have everything facing the way that we would enter our home and wouldn't need any additional walkways constructed to kind of meet a front entry. Yeah, I a lot of good points. I have to say that I admit I am somewhat sympathetic to the zoning ordinance of having entrances face the street only because the alternatives have things facing the driveway or parking areas or other things that don't seem quite so urban, I guess I would say. How far do you know how far the maple tree is from the house? The maple tree, there may be a picture. It's probably with I haven't fully measured it, but kind of kind of doing a site. It seems like if we had the dimension, which roughly like a eight by 10 or a 10 by 10 front entry space, that it would be kind of getting right towards the edge. So it's, you know, it would be a little bit set back from the furthest point of the house. But if there was an additional stairway, then I think it would potentially add an issue of how to direct a walkway to a front entryway. Is this addition they're proposing under the drip line of that tree? Is it under the drip line? The the addition would be probably in the realm of the drip line in terms of the furthest edge of the maple. Is that, is that what, is that what you mean by the drip line? Yes, I would say that regardless of where the the porchway would be that the drip line is going to be impacted. It's already, you know, a drip line is getting close to the house already. Other questions for the applicant here. You do not live on the side of the street with the sidewalk, correct? We do not. So you would not have any connection to the public sidewalk and nobody would be restricted from accessing your house from the sidewalk or the front of the house if the door was to face the driveway? No, yeah, it's, yeah, there's no, there's no entryway. Did you give any consideration to doing a side entrance sort of in or off the driveway itself and leaving the main entrance where it is? I'm just trying to understand the options for leaving that front facing door. So the front facing door as as it exists right now, it's, it's a poor original design where if we, you know, if we didn't add any type of mudroom, there would be, you know, you basically open the door and it swings just enough to open up into the stairway. So having some way to change your main entrance to the home is something that's needed and the ice jam is just everything, you know, it's just got a bad kind of ice problem from all of that. So to add anything to like to the side of the home that exists would be right into the driveway. And that, yeah, so, so yeah, that way. What are the dimensions of the driveway? How long is it? I mean, do you typically park back here? I can't really tell where the street is. Typically the, I guess, the dimensions I haven't measured. I would, you know, a standard width and goes, I mean, probably three, maybe four cars if you cram them in. And it's pretty, you know, it flattens out towards the side of the house. So typically when we, you know, park, I leave my car and commute a lot, I usually pull all the way up. Yeah. And Mary, do we know would they even have distance with setback, side yard setbacks to do something off that side of the house? I'm not as familiar with the site as the as the project manager was. So I'm not certain I could answer that right now. Okay. I mean, but to answer your question, that's not something we would do is, is add that because that's a whole new layout that would be completely different. So I do have a site plan, Jeff, although it's drawn to scale because the image is reduced, I can't tell if there's yeah, enough room. The driveway has to maintain a five foot setback. If there is an ability to maintain a five foot setback on the driveway, and it could be altered a little bit, there's potentially the room for an addition on that side. Very narrow. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Any other questions for the applicant? Are you part of this application? You weren't sworn in. Do you need, do you want to add any? I don't know if you want to add anything to this, sir. You don't have to. But if you want to, you can. Come on up. And you do need to use the microphone and I need to have you raise your right hand. And do you swear to tell the truth and hold truth on the pain and penalty of perjury? I do. And then you can introduce yourself and pull the microphone closer. All right. My name is Hannah Loop and I am a neighbor of Adam and Annie. So I'm in full support of. Yeah, keep the microphone. I'm in full support of the plan that they've they've discussed with with us. They're great neighbors and I think it really makes sense to have the door facing their driveway instead of the front. And you're on the same side of the street as they are. Yes. And your front door faces the street. 47. So we're directly pardoned. You're on the same side of the street. Yes. So your front door faces the street. It does. Okay. Just curious. Yep. Can I ask a couple of questions of the applicant about? Sure. I understand the mudroom. There's a mudroom addition and then there's this little like portico and the door faces west in the portico, right? Yes. How big is that little landing area there? Um, I yeah, I've not measured that one out. I think that would probably be determined by the builder and how you know, how wide it is. I don't have the specs in front of me. I think our hope is it's enough to have a spot to sit and like like a little bench area or something. Yeah. Like something that would be like a social spot. And if I'm looking at the diagram and I'm on the street and I'm looking towards that and I'm looking, are there steps up into that little portico? There would be steps. Yes. So I mean, it looked like I could walk on the grass and go up and step on there. You know, I think it's just the doors to my left, but it's clear that that's the entryway. It's clear that it's an entryway. Yes. Where would your house numbers be displayed? The house numbers, um, on that design could be displayed. I mean, they could be displayed on the side of the house. They could be displayed. Um, if I'm looking at the diagram, could they be displayed right above where that entry walk in from the street is? Is there like enough space to put? What's the number? 51. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there would be space to put that in that, you know, overhang, which would clearly, you know, identify an entrance. There's space. Is there any way for you to make more of an overhang coming out towards the street? Um, and on off the front of the house? Well, just, you know, as you're walking that area, is that, is there anything that extends over that cutout? The, that extends like, so if you're entering from the driveway. From the street. From, from the streets, there would be, the way you enter now is you have to come kind of up the, the driveway. Right. No, but not. And then, then you take a left onto an existing, um, just kind of poured concrete that is the kind of the walkway that we would try to just maintain. And then from there, there would be the overhang that you would, you know, you're saying that we add a little bit to cover more of the. Well, you said there's some steps up to the, you know, there's the opening that faces the street. There's, yeah. And then the porch kind of area and then there would be a step up to that. Right. Is there anything above those steps up? Like any overhang or? Yeah. I mean, that would be, you know, ideally would have the overhang there, so those wouldn't be iced up or, you know. I can't really tell the design on the inside of the mud room. You've got a window that's facing the front. It looks like if that was a door, like if you extended the steps, so they were a little bit longer, you could walk up onto the porch, but there was also a door where that window is. How does that impact your usage? The, the door that would be, you know, so actually if we had a front facing door. Yeah. How would that impact the design? Yeah. Um, well, that's where, if we had a front facing door, I think the way it would impact it in trying to minimize, that's something that we have to continue to think about. You know, we hope we don't have to think about it, but if it is something on the street, you know, there's two options that we've thought about is one would be having something that would loop around the front and then try to have enough, you know, clearance to open the door so you're minimizing any traffic in the front area, because that's going to be likely, you know, having to either have a walkway that would kind of jut out and loop around. Come around it. To try to minimize, you know, the damage to garden and systems. So, you know, it would either have no steps, because you have a step, then you have to even bump it out even further. So, um, that's the concern is going to keep on, depending on what the code is, and I think it's four to five feet of, you know, a landing for an entry door. Like, I feel like we're going to continue to keep bumping this, the front out to where it's going to look, in my, you know, my opinion, look less appealing than not having it there at all. But yeah, that would likely be one of the outcomes or, depending on costs, how much it would be to have a whole kind of wrap around deck, which we're not really wanting to have. Yeah. Yep. Okay. A wrap around deck. Is that a maple tree? It is a maple. And what's the distance currently from the front of the house to that maple tree? That's, you know, I've not went out and measured it, but I, yeah, I mean that's, you know, like, I think from the bump out right now, we said it was about eight and then, yeah, maybe ten to twelve feet is a guess. And how your proposed mudroom, it looks to be, well, how, how, what's the width of the proposed mudroom? It would be ten, ten wide by eight deep, if I'm correct. And you're going to keep that maple tree? Yeah. Is that maple tree? It's hard to tell in the picture. Is that directly in front of the current front door? No, no, it's, it's to the side. So it's, it's not, it's kind of off-centered, you know, not directly in front of the home, but, you know, kind of closer to the driveway. And one of the concerns that you have is the aesthetics of a front door from the mudroom and its relation to the maple tree. Is that right? No, the concerns was, you know, having a maple tree and trying to minimize if we have a bump out depending on how a walkway is disrupting any more of the soil and the earth around it. It's not, you know, the aesthetics is more of the aesthetics of your house continuing to protrude forward, like out into the street. Thank you. I do want to point out that your mudroom is actually by the drawings, six foot seven addition, and then you're going to lose the wall. So your inside of your mudroom is only going to be six feet. Six feet? Yeah. Just, if you want a ten, you should probably tell your architect. What's that? If you want a ten, you should probably tell your architect. Well, it's ten wide. Yeah, it's, you know, yeah, well, that, yeah, I can, I can chat about that from the architect, but yeah. Pratt, I've got a question for the city. I don't know if this is the right time. Yeah. Mary, I think one of the things that AJ was suggesting, which is interesting, is that the entrance, the main entrance, as that term is used in 6.2.2, is actually the stairs up onto the porch, and that that's sort of indicating where you enter the building. Is there anything in the ordinance that suggests that's, we shouldn't interpret it that way, that it's the door, that is the entrance, that the door itself has to be facing the street? You're suggesting somebody go through a window? Well, I'm just trying to understand what the main entrance, so that is the door in your view. Okay. We're sympathetic, but we also have an ordinance that we have to contend with, so that's the part of the issue we have to look at. Any other questions for the applicant? Is there anything you want to add at this time? Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's everything on the street. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, it's been either brought up in questions or brought up when I first mentioned it. Yeah, that's, that's okay. We're going to close the public hearing. What's that? We're going to close the public hearing then, and given that this is the only item that we're really considering tonight. We'll probably deliberate after we close the meeting. We will deliberate and you can stay for that if you want. Okay. No, can't discuss anything at that point. So I see that we have no other business tonight on our agenda. Nothing else, just a hearty welcome to our new board member. Yes. Thank you. Welcome. Your predecessor was here 29 years, so good luck. He will get a real sign, won't he? We're going to see how, after your 20, I think it's when that. We're going to see how tonight works out. It's ordered. Okay. Well, with that we're going to adjourn.