 everyone to the July 24th meeting of the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board, Rachel Fenbury, I'm the chair of the board and I'd like to have the other members of the Redevelopment Board if you could please introduce yourselves, starting with Steve. Steve, we're a lot good evening. Steve Benson. Hello. And we also have the director of planning and community development department, Claire Ricker joining us this evening. We also would like to thank the members of the MBTA communities working groups who are joining us this evening for the second item on our agenda, which is a working session of the working group together with the ARB. So thank you all for making the time to be here and for all of the work that you put in to date on this exciting new venture for the town. So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into our first agenda item, which is a review of the meeting minutes. I believe that we have three sets of meeting minutes and we'll take them in order starting with the February 27th, 2023 meeting minutes. And I will ask if there are any additions or corrections. I know that some of them were received ahead of time and are reflected in the meeting minutes themselves. We'll start with Steve for any additional changes or corrections. Madam Chair, I have three suggested changes. Let's go. We're small. Page two, third paragraph from the bottom. The sentence, Mr. Rebel, I'd like the removal of the tandem part in space. I would propose changing space to spaces so that it's plural. The remaining two are on the last page. In the second to last paragraph, Mr. Rebel, I'd remind the board of the new section 5.42.b8. That should be 5.4.2.b. Just a missing period. Okay. And in the last paragraph, the chair asked for a motion to adjourn two town meeting. I propose striking two town meeting. I don't believe it was in session in February. You are correct. Nothing for the manager. All right. Thank you. Gene, any additional corrections or additions? Ken? No. I do not have any either. So we will take a vote to approve the meeting minutes from February 27, 2023, as amended, starting with Ken. A motion or a two? A motion. Yes. A second. All right. We'll take a vote starting with Steve. Yes. Gene? Yes. The meeting minutes from February 27 have been approved. We'll now move to the April 3, 2023 meeting minutes. And Steve, we'll start again with you for any additions or corrections. No changes, Madam Chair. Gene? No changes. Ken? No changes. And I don't have any either. Is there a motion to approve the April 3, 2023 meeting minutes as submitted? So motioned. Second? Second. We'll take a vote to approve, starting with Steve. Yes. Ken? Yes. Gene? Yes. And I'm the SSL. The April 3 meeting minutes have been approved. We'll now move to the June 26, 2023 meeting minutes. And we'll see if there are any additions or corrections starting with Steve. No changes. Gene? No changes. Ken? No. And then either, is there a motion to approve as submitted? So motion. Second. Okay, we'll take a roll call vote, starting with Steve. Yes. Gene? Yes. Ken? Yes. And I'm the SSL. The June 26, 2023 meeting minutes have been approved. Thank you all. That concludes agenda item number one. And we will now move right into agenda item number two, which is the MBTA community's discussion. I will note that we will see where we are in about an hour from this working session as per our agenda, if it looks like we need to expand it by half an hour. And there is time that people have available will do so. But let's take a time check and we're going to 840 and see where we are. So with that, I'll hand it over to Claire. Fantastic. It's being reported by ACMI, but there's really nothing stopping you from reporting it on your own if you'd like to. You're welcome. Great. Thank you. So I think we're going to start tonight. Ken Lau and I have been working to put together a 3D model for some representation of how this zoning might look from street level or potentially other reviews. And so Ken, I don't know if you want to present this model. Yeah. That'd be great. This model here is an existing model of Mass App and Broadway of a rough scale of all the existing buildings there that are great. Yeah. So it runs from Arlington, I'm sorry, from Somerville all the way to Washington along Mass App and Broadway. We had this done a little while ago and this is a rough start of what the existing buildings are based on Google. So we are thinking of using this as something that's a model of representation of what's happening on Mass App and Broadway as we approve buildings or as we use this as a study to see what kind of masses we can do. We'll be adding things to it. Like right now I want to process again the high school that will be done this end of the year. We're going to have that place on this right now. The old high school. We're going to go down a little bit. See the high school? That's right there. Okay. This is the old high school. That's the old high school. Okay. So we haven't got the new high school in there yet. We're in the process of putting that new high school in there and as buildings get approved and put in along Mass App, they'll be also put in there so people have an idea of how this thing is growing and how we can see things next to each other. So we're trying to be cognizant of representation of what's there. Okay. So we took this and said, okay, let's apply the MBTA communities on top of this. So G is one-on-one ahead and put Massing along here. Okay. Can you turn that layer on, please, G? Yeah. This is advanced. So if I, so this one, it's... And this is an early, early start. Okay. So it's going to just be patient with us since we're getting more more to this. So for instance, this guy's here. Yep. If I hide this, this is the existing. Yep. This is not where we're going to represent the next day. This, it would, it could be potentially in 50 to 100 years from now. Zoning does not happen overnight. All right. So these things that could happen along the way as it goes along, if it's built up to the maximum, they may not build up things to the maximum because it doesn't make sense. It's just a representation to see what make things, make it look like on areas that we planned to have some sort of growth there. Okay. So this is just a way of us discussing and talking about what we have here. So whatever's here, please don't take it as that's it. This is what we're presenting. This is the first time many of the board members have seen this. So it's a process that we're using, but we're just presenting it right now so we can see it. And I'm going to leave it now, see if any of the board members have any questions on what we're trying to do here. And she's represented a street view. Now is the overview view. So it's a way we can play with different things. And, you know, we can take off some of the buildings, increase some of the buildings, put setbacks in or bring it all into the street. Now you have the representation of what's there as opposed to thinking about or saying it and having someone's opinion on it. So it's actually there. So that's what we're working from right now. Okay. No more. It's going to be a wall. Well, if it is, it'll show here. I mean, it doesn't show every window. It doesn't show every corner. But you see the massive. And that's what we're trying to do here right now. Can I ask you a question? One of the things that may be helpful for people again, because we've talked about how this is something that will evolve over time. We're building the capacity and that this takes time as properties, change hands, et cetera. Um, you know, perhaps we could make some educated projections around, um, you know, this is at 10% build out in, you know, X number of years. This is what it looks like when it's 20% built out and then pick a few pockets so that again, I think it's, um, you make a really good point that this is not, we're not flipping a switch and all of these properties change over and, you know, in 2025, everything is built out to the capacity. So I think it might be helpful when this is shown during, you know, if we use this as a tool during some of the hearings, et cetera, to think about, um, having a few steps along the way shown. Here's what other people would think. I was waiting for you to go first. No, I think this is a really wonderful way to help visualize it and it does make it, it is a much more concrete way of presenting things than just, you know, saying we're going to allow the heights of this and setbacks of that. Um, no, I want to say thank you for the time you put into this. This is useful. Does it show us any actual recognizable buildings or just sort of the scale of those buildings? Um, yeah, there, when you see some of the towers along Mass App, those towers exist in Mass App right now. Um, but if they went into the street, if you went into the street, yes, there's the firehouse through the tower there. Can you put us down right here and do a street view there? So, if you put the camera... It's just to the right, it's back up a little more. Yeah, hold on, I'm just gonna move the camera. We have another model also, while she's doing this, a topo, and we have another model of some street trees and power poles. It gives you a better reference. But for now, to build that on, we're looking at a super computer right now. So, this is a high station, is it true? Yeah, in the street. So, we would have this, it's a firehouse. That's all the detail, that's the firehouse. If we get too close right now, it's a firehouse. Yeah, it's basically massing. So, it's not... So, this is... So, this is along the mass avenue. So, if I walk here... So, this is a new building, which is allowed for 60 stories. And this is all existing, we're not going to change anything. And this building is already 75 feet, more than 600. If I move in here, we walk along the mass avenue. That's the firehouse right there. Sorry, that's the cavalry church, sorry. It's not much change on that mass avenue, it's a few buildings along the Sixth Histories. Is it just going here? That's existing? Yeah, it's not so smooth, but it gets some idea. So, this is the wrong one, it's existing. And this one is a new one, which is allowed for 60 stories. That's with the bonus. We won't go into that quite yet. I don't want to get into the details of zoning and all the stuff that we're talking about quite yet. I just want to show you the model and what we're trying to do here. And then, we'll later on talk about what we're looking at as far as allowable. By right, some of the bonuses we're trying to add in and all that kind of stuff. We'll talk about it in the debate there, but let's not use the model for that right now. Yes, Steve? I was just wondering, what are the right... So, I understand the blue is what's, you know, currently underproposable, and what is red? Oh, does red exist? It's the same like this type. When we first did this, someone looked at the red with some really government buildings, or... Oh, okay. This model's been used for many things as we went along, and I'm just morphing it and running out of this. And we can change the colors. I mean, just give us a little more time. This is just... No, no, I understand. I just wanted to... So, red, in other words, don't pay too much attention to the red, just the blue. No, yeah. Okay. And right now, all the ground is flat right now, okay? We do have a model that sort of shifted us, so you can see the topo of the ground, of the street going up or down, and we're... Here's... Let's say, especially in heights, like behind it, the building's much, much higher, and it hits some steepness. We try to capture that, but it just takes so much to compute and, of course, put this thing right up. It's not quite there yet, okay? We do recognize that, okay? Just so... Yes, Sanjay? Is that... But you're able to do maybe, like, renderings of smaller pieces, including that extra detail. I don't know if you had... So, like, you're saying you have the information to do topo or... The topo's already in the model. It's a different version of the model. Okay. Okay. But in order to go through the model and put some of this massing in, you got to... You took that layer or whatever off, and it resides somewhere else, so you can still work within that. And my question is, for a town meeting or preparation for using this, we could then produce imagery that includes both what you're showing here plus the topo layer added back in. That would be... Actually, when topo is almost a flat, it doesn't make sense when you're making paintings because we want to represent this pretty much very close to the reality. No, no. But you want to talk about topo. Yeah. It deals with the surrounding inputs and mass effort is not flat. Mass effort is some parts of hills and sometimes it goes up and it goes around bends. If you look at the other model, it shows a great deal that way. Yeah. Okay, but we... We're not that influential right now, and I'm not even sure we can get them done for a town meeting, okay? I know just because they have this in Boston right now, but they have a crew of eight people and dedicate a department and a budget to do that. And all the developers use that as a resource. One other related question you mentioned. So I see a couple of trees there. You know, what are the possibilities in terms of including, you know, either trees that exist and or, you know, if we were to change the bylaw to require a street tree every 25 feet in all residential, like, okay, what does that become in 10 years or 20 years? In some of it, in the block, some of that was... I don't think it was completely done. Okay. This was a process that was... COVID. Really put a stop to this, okay? And then we have a shift of personnel in Claire's department. So it sounds like it's inconsistent, so it probably... It's possible, but it's not there. But it was always thought of having street trees along there. It really made a difference in how you saw, and it softens the edge. And then when you're down on the street level, you see trees, and then you see... It makes a big difference, right, G? I'll say one question for the trees. If you put a 3D tree, it's more of going to be huge. It's not going to move. But we can put it to these to get some basic idea of what this looks like, which is doable. I'm wondering if we could have, maybe, you know, in time for the fall, we wouldn't have to fly through the model or anything. Just instills that show the build-out, the 2D trees, things like that. Yeah. That's something that she... In my previous life as an architect, she used to do that really well by taking a sketch up a frame like this and then hand-drawing right over it of a rendering of the buildings and trees and street and put all the entourage in. And then you'll see an image of what that may look like. But I'm not sure we have the time of funding for it right now. So these are all great ideas, and we're just going to have to see what we want and what we want to pay for right now. Got it. And you know how tough that was just to get here. Sorry, I want to make sure Gene has a good question, then we do need to move on. This is my concern about it. You know, the thing that makes the street interesting and nice and new and scale are the windows, the storefronts, things like that. None of that is here. So when I look at myself walking down here, all I see is blank walls on both sides. And I sort of feel like if we take it to town meeting, and this is what it is, what a lot of town meeting members take away from it is oh, we're going to be building street after street of blank walls, which is not our intention and won't happen, but I think this could lead that false impression. I agree with that. I'm not sure we should be using it. Well, I think we use this for amassing, but then for example, since it's operating, you take this as a wire mold and by hand all the windows are cornices and setbacks and all that kind of stuff. It illustrates one view. You have to do something like that. That's what we present. This is what we have here. This is based off a model that has all this other stuff in it. I have to say this is to take a picture of a block of Masev where we know what it's like and put in what some of the buildings would be if they were masked with windows and storefronts. I think that will be a much better representation than what this is. This is a great start. Any other questions? Steve? Thanks. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just want to mention one thing here. On this model, so you can see we could be the setback on the top. This is making us more interesting. That's also related with if you do the zoning. You can always say maybe after four stories you have to setback ten feet or five feet from the sound. That's all can be done. The more things we have to put this will spend a very short time to give you a big idea here. Great. Thank you very much. Just turn it off. I'm just going to grab to make sure it's fine. All right. We have as I'm sure folks, I've seen a lot of you at our working group meetings before, we have an updated map. We showed a map on the 18th and we did a little tiny bit of refinement and Mutile was able to turn this map around to us again really quickly. There's not much new here. I think you can see as compared to the map from the 18th. This map from the 19th has cleaner edges to the south and north, especially on the Broadway corridor. And then also cleaner edges sort of along Mass Ave in the center and closer to the height. It's slightly different than the one we used in the working groups on last week, but it is still very representative of what we've been working on and what we've been talking about. What is modeled here are some of some of the votes and agreements we came to last week, at least in terms of the working group's recommendation, which is for the Mass Ave minimum parking requirement, a maximum of four stories that is not, we have not designated feet like a linear height. 10 foot front setback, 5 foot sides, 20 foot rear. And then you can see for the neighborhood again, no minimum parking, max four stories, 10 front, 10 sides, 20 rear. We also discussed a bonus on Mass Ave and Broadway for those, or for a developer who's willing to put in a first floor commercial. They could go up another story for a developer who's willing to put in first floor commercial and affordable units. They could potentially go up to six stories. We didn't get a chance to really dig into the neighborhood multi-family and discuss a bonus or an affordability a bonus for those areas yet where we ran out of time. But these were at least the votes taken and the recommendations made in getting on setbacks. So I don't know if the board would like to discuss this with the working group. I'm not sure how the board feels about the recommended setbacks or the recommended bonuses. Great. Thank you so much Claire. I appreciate the way that this is shared. It's great to see some of the some of the policy recommendations starting to be overlaid on this map. And I appreciate the work that's gone into looking to clean up some of the edges and make some of the parcels more contiguous. I think that that's very helpful. Just a couple questions I have as to whether or not some of these items were considered. One of the things that I think would be interesting again, along Mass Ave and Broadway we're very interested in trying to get to a condition where mixed use is certainly preferred by the board. Whether a combination of a maximum of three stories with a bonus of one story board. If there's one story of commercial on the ground floor and a bonus of actually an additional two stories if there are two stories of commercial is something that had been looked at. That was our point. One story commercial and two additional stories for something is giving one additional story if you build one floor commercial two additional stories if you build two stories of commercial. So we recently had a project that we permitted on Broadway that came in not with just one story of commercial but actually two and then residential above which was a wonderful project. For a total of state with your six stories and so the bonus wouldn't just be you get two additional stories if you have one floor commercial but step that so that you further and sense multi-stories of commercial on the first and second floor. We didn't think about the additional story in really okay and we go back and bring that into this we'll talk about in the discuss. What we thought about to encourage commercial we allowed projects that were on Mass Ave to have zero line setbacks if it's commercial in the first place and then we started when we did not finish talking about side yard setbacks reducing that to zero or right now we still have it at 15 we still haven't really talked about that yet okay we had a 10 we had a 10 but we're digging up maybe bringing that down to zero and with that encouragement we really wanted to encourage ground floor retail by giving the bonus of two floors of additional type to really push the fact that if you do ground floor and you push it up we're going to give you two floors of something that can be built similar to what they do right now I believe in Lexington I'm suggesting to add another option to that yeah we could talk about that but I just think adding another floor to that we talked about briefly but not really is if someone was going to develop they have ground floor retail and I suppose having second floor commercial or housing they're going to pick housing over commercial space right now but in the future they may so that's something we had to talk about I think it's something we can look into again I would try whether it's you leave it at a maximum of three and then you bonus two or I think you need to make it worth their while to take that option but I think it's something that would be really interesting to take a look at also the other sorry we also took an approach of of parking which is always a big issue and we stated that we're not going to have minimums we're going to say maximums and let the areas and let the project site having more parking we'll make the project work for well that's parking so we went some of the other towns we ran out and we were constructing parking maximums so those are the things that we did vote for and have as encouragement and we simply talked about second floor portion I would like us to come before the group gets to come was it specific to the height bonuses? I have a number of things if Sanjay is something specific to the heights that I mentioned why don't you go ahead and share that and then we'll move to Jean's one thing I would sort of say I did think about in terms of heights and thinking about what the base by right thing was one of the advice pieces of advice we got from Teal was make sure that you would be pleased if developers built the thing that you make by right and so would we be happy if we got a bunch of three story only three story residential development and a lot of mass app I think it's a thing to think about as you consider I think that that's a fair question and again if we're giving up this space and saying that we are by right allowing residential only we've already we've already identified that as giving up potentially an opportunity for commercial development we're adding that opportunity back in to try and make it as attractive as possible is the way that I'm looking at it one more on yeah I just think that we took very much to heart your goal to make sure that there was plenty of commercial space and what we started with was what was the maximum height we could allow and then we back out towards what incentives we could give so I think the impression that if we really wanted to incentivize commercial on the first floor we would have to give two stories for residential if your expertise is different than that I think we're open to changing our recommendation is that we're guided to believe that we would have to give that type of incentive two for one essentially to get into commercial on those first floors right, right, yeah and I'm in agreement with that I think I'm stepping it differently is the only thing that I'm asking yes sir I just want to add I'm Laura Wiener from the working group as well I mean the goal of the program is to and housing that that is what the region needs more and more office space and I think to give an incentive for more office space and at the cost of that additional residential is some I'm going to the goal of the program what we also need to keep in mind that the town needs and the town needs both is the position that I'm coming from Jean you had some you all start off by saying I agree that the town needs both I like the idea of a bonus of two floors in order to have commercial on the ground floor but some of the other things in here are disincentives in that direction and I'd like to have you reconsider some of them one is the parking minimums of zero I think are disincentive for people to do mixed use because mixed use requires parking and allows us to reduce but not eliminate the parking amounts so I think that it's a mistake and I'm probably not fighting for something that does away with parking minimums all together what I think you can do is to be very successful is say that for the residential they're subject to the same requirements that we now have for the industry for the commercial which is basically you can get a 75% reduction in the amount of parking if you have a transportation and management plan and I believe that we can do that under site plan review so that's a way to not disincentive people to do the mixed use and not result in no parking where we don't have our street parking so my suggestion is take a look at that and see if there's a way to flip it so that we can do site plan review and transportation and management plans to get what we want without disincentivizing people from going to mixed use so that's one the second has to do I'm only sort of talking about the disincentives and other issues I get to also the setbacks I have some problem with the front yard setbacks and here's my suggestion for the setbacks if you have a setback I'm not sure what should be some of my friends on the way and suggest a 15 feet if you have a 15 foot front yard setback for residential but if you do mixed use with commercial on the ground floor you don't have that setback anymore that's yet another incentive for people to do mixed use rather than residential and if you look at MESF most of the red not all but most of the residential have some amount of setback very few of the commercial have any setback so I'd like you sort of think about that and flip the incentive to make the incentive to go with mixed use because you don't have a setback but otherwise require the setback if it's pure residential Gina sorry just a clarification on that point are you suggesting that in the neighborhood district and in MESF MESF go to 10 or 15 Rezi and zero mixed use do we have time? she doesn't say that now that was her intention I wanted you to finish well if that was your intention great it just doesn't show up that's fine three days the other thing we've talked about before is applying the tree planting requirements to I'd say not only MESF Broadway but also the neighborhood multifamily districts too which we can do which is shaketree every 35 linear feet but it also requires within and between them irrigated plantar boxes which is now in Hoosomun bylaw which I think is another thing that we could do with MESF Broadway and the neighborhood I'll say my other things for later but that has to do with incentives and disadvantages to answer your question we did talk about planting trees we did talk about that we had lots of discussions about that we had lots of discussions about allocating enough space for trees along MESF we actually talked about removing some of the parking spaces along dog gear to actually give enough space for the tree to grow and mature I'm a little bit against irrigating any vegetation along MESF that's against weeds and against trees that yes I agree but the current bylaw says plantar boxes that have been allocated to bags which is the bag for the wall but we did have a long session but it didn't quite make it all here yet yeah and one thing I would say in terms of the street tree including of the tree trees I think the advice and Claire can correct me if I'm wrong the advice we got from UTO is that we probably would have compliance problems if we only did that for the MBTA communities yesterday if we do that as a extend what we do today for commercial and industrial to process all residential I agree but that would be a way to go and I think I don't think the working group has formally voted on that but I think that my understanding from the conversation that the working group would get on the support so we can't do it as part of MBTA communities proper we would need to do then as a redevelopment that would be a separate zoning bylaw change and I'll add that to very rapidly growing less buckle up y'all it's going to be I think we're up to 12 now so street trees requirements 35 or 25 and for folks I thought somebody might have 25 whatever the current is 25 thank you for the clarification okay I stand correct do you have I go to the right so what I like about this other than what we just talked about is that the zone would not be in any of the current business starting those streets as I was we're going to have higher 7 Broadway than on the side streets more Broadway is encompassed than on the previous more Broadway is encompassed than on the previous and it excluded the part of Arlington Heights where we're going to do rezoning so I think those are all terrific I have a few suggestions that were unclear to me from looking at the materials and I mentioned this to you Sanjay the idea of allowing townhouses in the neighborhood family district and I think it's possible to allow three to six unit townhouses where the the side setbacks and the back setbacks are the same as if they were one single family so we would have a six, three to six unit townhouse structure 20 feet in back 10 feet on each side as you're proposing and 10 feet in front and allow it a maximum of three storage we have I think you have to do something like that in the MPT communities because the current zone for townhouses are so crazy in the amount of side setbacks and open space that it doesn't work so I think something like that would have to be written specifically into this and I wouldn't put it on the essay of the Broadway but I would definitely put it in the neighborhood multifamily district so I have a few questions about the map I can go back to my computer for a second so there are many places where the district ends part way down the street that was a difficult decision so talk about how that decision was made so the model from do you want to talk about that? I can at least talk about this part UTL came in off the midline of MassApp approximately 325 feet to encompass any MassApp parcel and then the two to three parcels behind the idea is that the transect would be 60 feet, 40 feet down to the vernacular that's in the neighborhood right now so that is why there's the what looks like 3 or 4 there were 5 parcels there that is by design and there are some places that at least to my eye seemed a little bit of strange like at the corner of Allen Street and Andrew Street Allen goes up what does it what does it it's like one parcel it's two parcels more on Allen Adams but it doesn't get to the corner of parcel and that's one where right on the other side I missed that one right on the other side of Andrew Street it's the MBTA district it wasn't our intention that we should get that can you tell us again I'm sorry it's a kiddie included look at that don't worry about it um and um Bell Nap Street I'll just use that as another example because he used to live there the side of Bell Nap Street that's not in the zone is the one where we gave approval for a store in this building and I'm just wondering whether it makes sense to just get this side of Bell Nap Street so it's we can consider that it's just that when we first looked at it we did I didn't want to change everything to this occasion so I was mindful of keeping it to a certain square footage and then if things grow and things are moving better we continue this process but if I would I could suggest that because most of those buildings are already there already so why put it in there it's already that way well because if anybody wants to do work or build one then they have to go get a waiver and now if I rank so it would be easier if it would just be it's just that one block that's like that so um I'm curious about if we go back to this page where they talk about scenario one and scenario two scenario two being 50 units and 8 for max we already have one scenario oh you don't remember scenario two okay I would throw it to the screen it's not necessary what are you going to do about lot sizes are you having lot sizes and if so what are they going to do we are we have not we are not going to have minimum lot sizes I think Steve has a yeah in terms of I mean in terms of the dimensional regulation what we've been talking about is fairly similar to what Lexington did you'd have height building setbacks parking in terms of lot sizes we are limited by what's there and the size of the lot little bit cage to a fair degree what's buildable on it so no lot size yes front set back yes rear set back no FR no FR what about landscape open space and usable open space in our current bylaw because they're GFA days they've had the effect of inhibiting family development so yeah we decided we left those out as well setbacks are the setbacks are the setbacks and that's how the compliance model I believe handles that as well that's correct that's it can I ask another question about what potentially was considered as well we had an email from somebody with the I thought a really interesting idea around the the frontage road along route two between Pleasant street all the way up to Lexington right by St. Camilla's yes yes which we have talked about the potential of rezoning and given that those parcels phase route two is that something that the working group thought about including as part of this yes and yes we certainly talked about that I don't think we made a formal vote or recommendation on it I think um one of the things that Claire has mentioned which I think is actually pretty interesting is if you took the map of Arlington and overlaid all of the places that we've talked about you get almost Arlington oh I'm sure they're great ideas I'm really excited about many of the ideas that are coming forward and that's including ideas from working group members and staff and you guys and the public where we've heard lots of great ideas from lots of people to that specific idea I think we ended up deciding to focus more on our high transit rate our bus lines the quarter the quarter of a long message we decided to focus on we decided to focus there and yeah right my only thought in including the particular area is because of its easy access to ill life and the bus line that runs down there very regularly so yeah just wondering if that had been discounted for a specific reason it hadn't been discounted but it doesn't have the attraction also of commercial business just proximity that's fair so this obviously we're talking about change for this community and change is hard so you know focused on those changes that seem to have the most things we can check off and being in proximity to commercial districts seem to be a high priority as well as having access to public transit like that etc and I think or I would hope that part of what the working group does as part of our final report is talk about some of these great ideas that we've heard from various people and suggest you all to continue those conversations the master plan continue some of those conversations because there were lots of great ideas and the unfortunate reality is we can't do them all yeah one of the things I liked about this took to respond to that and I got that email also because it's really consistent with the 15 minute neighborhood concept and sustainability and that's I think one of the things that a lot of us have talked about I also and maybe I misinterpreted the email a little bit but I almost thought the one about you know do something on the Route 2 corridor and do something on Park Street I almost interpreted as it's too busy for single family homes or build family homes there instead which sort of seemed to me as not the way to look at you know and at least that was part of the message I took away from that which is why I only brought up the part of the email that you can use I'm sorry please I just want to bring up one thing to discuss amongst the board here which I want to bring back to the working group alright we talked about organizing our regulations on setbacks so I want to see what the board feels because I know me and Jean look at this differently on the corner lots okay when there's probably on a corner lot both sides of that corner is considered front lot setbacks okay so if you have zero lot setback you have zero lot back on both sides of that corner that's not the issue right now the issue is now the other two lots are considered side yard setbacks there's no longer a rear setback on a corner so let's say we have a mess app and it turns down to one of the side streets that side street is considered a front yard setback so then that front yard setback that's on a side street goes back to it becomes a side yard no that that's what is in our we're talking so both are front yards when it turns to a side street so that becomes two front yards then when that front yard comes into let's say it could have been the rear yard and now it's considered a side yard then it buzzes into a residential or a different type of zoning there that's the transition between a larger commercial space to a smaller residential space we've always talked about how do we transition that to be fair to the residential and we also still try to encourage how that commercial space and corner turns and I'm trying to see what your feelings are so I'd like to bring that to the working group to talk about that I didn't want to just bring that up yet until we had a chance to discuss it amongst ourselves did I make myself clear enough or no? to me? yes it's an interesting question I'm looking to see so that I speak correctly what we decided to do about that we already talked about what to do around these corner lots as part of our work for these zoning articles yeah we did talk about this with red one turns to corner but then one turns to corner again that's the side yard setback or this is not a red yard setback now you've got a commercial space full zero lot setback and full height and then you go to a front yard setback which is 25 feet for a residential so Kim I'm looking at that map in these parcels so if you look at the blues buildings between Trowbridge Street and Marathon Street that's an example of what you're talking about there's two corner buildings right there can you just decide that which supersedes so if it's we could decide that the blue building supersedes and that would be its rear setback or you could decide that the brown building supersedes and that would be a side setback I would have you got it right? no I'm trying to say wait for that discussion when we have our meeting I'm trying to get what their feelings are so I can bring it to our meeting to discuss it but am I right in what you're describing as being the problem? no never mind you're trying to get to a point where in a corner lot there are no rear yard they're both considered side setbacks that's the way it is right now I think I understand if you have give it a quarter of a lot you have two front yards and what we want to ensure is that the other two sides aren't right up against something else yes that's the general disc yes because the fact that it's no longer a resident or commercial or a long mass app we're turning it in now and extending up some side streets so I just want to get feeling for what sport feels and get their ideas so that I can bring it back to the working committee and talk about it and see what's there and you know it's a satellite and I just want to see what you guys think and if I could just continue my line of questioning this is really something that would in the blue districts apply if someone elected to do mixed use if it was straight residential it probably wouldn't be a big deal but with mixed use and having the zero foot sidebacks so what we really want I think what you're saying we should really think about is the transition from a mixed use building to a budding residential building yes yes I didn't accuse myself of it I get it so let me see if I understand so we have a building on the corner of mass app and a streetbed intersection they're both fronts one on mass app let's say has someone ever set that the one on the side street builds an entrance street and so once we learn that what's the setback question I'm I'm going to draw a picture yes so this is your corner yes you're saying it's mixed use you have a zero setback but you still have the side yard setback that's the zero side yard setback and this would be considered a side yard setback correct and then this is the side yard and then this has a 25 yard and now this thing here is really crushing a lot into that build there because we're taking this turn to get you see all those blues and all the other stuff and it's just the next step of evolution of talking about this I just want to see what you guys have been there I mean if you allow me to make my suggestion I would say these both are front yard setbacks we're going to claim this as the primary front yard setback which is consistent with what we were doing and then on the secondary front yard setback we still allow zero on that side there but as it comes approaches to the side yard setback we taper it and I would say we limit maybe three stories or something along those lines and so it's not because right now if this thing is true there are six stories or maybe four so we set back but we have an edge there so if we step it down that would be my suggestion but I used to want to see your suggestions that's actually the opposite of what we're suggesting in the zoning bylaw change which is to pick a primary facade and that's the facade that has the setback and the setback is not required on the secondary front yard setback we're suggesting not a setback but a stepback correct yes because if you set opposite of what we said because if you set it back that means you're eliminating square footage on the ground floor for commercial okay and I don't want that I understand but if we acknowledge the fact that there's housing there it's not that high so it's not a big massing next to another that's what I initially thought of and I just want to say I personally don't see an issue with it because I think that that's what any building on that side currently that's the condition that's the condition that it's created when you have a commercial building and a residential block right next to it there's no weird stepback for quite a bit but I can go up six stories right in that corner you can go in any mixed use project here yes but I was thinking that if we have that we can soften it a little bit and say you can't go up six stories on the secondary front yard and then bring it down on floor too so if it tapers down it gets back to the residential that's all by lowering the amount of floors there the entire side I'm just thinking about I was hoping we could have a dialogue I wasn't trying to keep you in answer that you said this or no it's a good question I want to play with it with an answer first I personally I personally I don't think it's necessary given again the condition that we see in other properties of that height when they abut a residential you sort of ran into that that holds our project again so we have site plan review if there's a we're looking at an incorporated site plan review and if there's an extenuating circumstance I'm sure that's something that can be reviewed it's it's counter to how we're looking at massing in other areas of NASA and I don't see the necessity it's an interesting discussion because it brings up the discussion we had last year do we continue to require staff acts on the second area to start and is it on NASA or is it on the side street that we do it you all liked the step back the step back is on NASA to vary the the street I feel like part of this I almost want I almost feel like in this discussion part of it is do we want to take the step back and move it from the primary facade to the part of the building that's opposite the primary facade great great because yeah, architecturally that doesn't there's a lot of precedent for that yes I agree let's, I figured we should talk about that and give the garden personal guidance well so if there's a 20 foot step back is there a 20 foot step back and the three-story building is behind it no well effectively yes because there's a 10 foot 10 foot so there's 20 feet between them yeah okay I'm talking truly from the spotlight so it's 20 feet between them yes is that enough for six stories or so three stories higher than the building next to it I think we should huh I just architecturally it does not make any sense to me personally so I would not be in favor of that I don't know let's I don't have to talk about that I'm going to FG to get a little block model of that yeah I'll set it around you there's possibly another approach is that you know this would involve changing well the basic just is saying in the scenario where we have two side guards and two front guards maybe we say that if you have two front guards you must have at least one backyard but you have the option of where you put it that's changing the zoning all of the other okay well there's this is right section 538 doesn't apply and this other part applies instead that's what we're talking about I've never I've always I've looked at the zoning if it's on the corner it's two front yards and two side guards but that makes up the four sides and that's what you have in the corner of life the reason I bring it up is there's so many of those corners and that's what I want to just talk about amongst ourselves before we get too far down it is a very good point and if we don't if you don't have any conclusion that's fine we can talk about that when I'll bring it back to the vacuum it sounds like we've come up with three options at least one is do nothing the second option is step down with that the third option is require a larger setback on that side those are the three options I put yeah okay so it's maybe you go to round level, second level commercial it's a no setback then start third floor and then show you a setback either way I just don't you wind up with these the link to the fight out of them I think you're misinterpreting that let me do a little bit I find it me you really seldom disagree on anything so far so I'm just finding that this is kind of awkward let me draw up a little block okay I'm having a look at it I just sketched them off I'll take it off the top alright next topic Steve if I could I'd like to just call out one thing that we as a group talked about last week made the decision not to do at our last joint working session we talked about basically eliminating some parcels around smaller business districts to facilitate you know, expansion in the future and parcel consolidation yes which this map does not do so it just leaves out the bidis or parcels that doesn't leave out stuff around them yep we were told that this was a task that was better suited to the re-development board so that's being kicked back to us yep so let's talk about how we will address that so I talked with Sanjay and Claire last week, last week, last Wednesday and one of the things that we kicked around was having Jean and myself because we're not of a working group to a bit of a walking tour along MassApp to look at some of these isolated parcels that are still included in the in the the blue parcels that are part of the MassApp Broadway sub-district where there might be one or two isolated, I know that Christian Anderson and some other folks have shared this might be zoned, residential but it's actually a business I want to go and take a look at some of those and with the most current version of the map and I think Jean and I were talking about time to do that this weekend so that we could get feedback sooner rather than later and I apologize, I would have done it this weekend but I was out of town ahead of this meeting so that's helpful that would at least give you some of our feedback in terms of any parcels that are currently included that we might want the working group to take another look at whether or not those should be included I think it's a good question no one would think it would have just been followed by ways I'm not suggesting that you do this but I'm asking if you are thinking to do this that there might also be random commercial plots that you might want to change to residential or there are no such plots that's what we need to we need to take this and walk it that's just what I was trying to find exactly I'll just add that I think if we put in enough of the incentives and the disincentives to make it very likely that people who rebuild will rebuild this next use then that makes it less likely that we need to be concerned about the high-side of the plots although it does for parcels in solidation because if I put that could still happen that's ultimately I think what we want to have happen is so that someone could potentially purchase multiple parcels and some in the business district where you can build mixed use and some in the residential and the MTA when you do mixed use you can solve it I do have one question I know that when we spoke there was some question around the recommendation of the neighborhood multi-family front setback whether that was going to be 10 feet or 15 feet currently obviously in the residential districts of 20 and we wanted to make sure that there was enough space that you could plant a tree or appropriately landscape and make that usable in the front setback so I'm wondering what if any conversation there was around 10 feet versus 15 feet in the neighborhood multi-family would you like to summarize to you or would you like me to go for it okay there was a lot of discussion about that you have the drought I have the drought I'm just looking to find the right spot where is it here anyway I think I can remember the discussion revolved a lot around not wanting to leave enough room that it becomes parking right and the fact that it's great we all a shared value is having the tree there but just having the setback doesn't actually necessarily get us the tree was I think part of what I heard from the working group overall as skepticism I think led to the vote that you see and I would add that UTO also gave us the sense that it's very hard to properly regulate what happens to that space and so they were cautioning us about having too much of the space that we would be able to ensure provided what we wanted which was shade green because I think it was a definite agreement amongst the working group that is something that we want but if we're doing a setback we want to make sure that we're actually getting I think that's where the conversation from the working group plays in is that helpful helpful answer any other color I didn't understand the answer the answer is that the working group voted for 10 feet because because they were worried about the tree you can plant a tree that would thrive in 10 feet the difference between 15 and 10 feet setback was not great enough to foster a tree there or such and also lack of control so having that difference wasn't the value of that and we thought that well no I would say we just thought that I'll leave it as I for now because it seems to be the minority there about if we want to let's put the trees out in the street make tree pockets out in the street where you have enough space for an actual tree that can blossom but that kind of digress because that's not really within a purview of WV communities so that's why I would say that's something we should consider and I'll talk about but we didn't want to blog it down with what we have in as far as WV communities also when we joined we just encouraged housing and tying this to everything you may not really answer but telling this so you've got 10, 10, 20 how many lots would not get built at 15 as opposed to 10 any idea like what's lost with the extra 5 feet okay let's say a lot of 50 feet 10 on each side we're talking 30 feet a little fun I'm trying to answer your question let me try it differently let's say 5,000 square foot lot people are a lot longer size 5,000 square foot lot what can't be built with a 15 foot front setback that could be built with a 10 foot front setback so you have 50 feet 10 feet on each side you should 30 feet so you have a 30 foot front setback I mean a width so 30 times 5 right 150 times 4 then that's your square foot that you're using like you can still build a house so we build a house but you're we don't have any FA or we don't have any we don't have any space requirements so all we're relying on I'm not opposed to this right is the front side and backyard setbacks that seems fine but I'm still wondering why the 5 feet difference is a deal breaker I don't think I want to be careful speaking for the committee as a whole I don't think that we said the 5 feet was a deal breaker they went through the evidence of what they had in front of them and decided that their recommendation was 10 feet well I think it was even we went back and forth and decided let's just say 10 feet for now is my change I personally like smaller setbacks that's why I voted 4 and I agree with Mr. Lau in terms of shade trees the best place to put them in my opinion is in parking lane it removes some of the pervious or black service that causes weed it gives them more space and it doesn't depend upon the sidewalk and one last point if we do want to take the position that trees are public infrastructure then this is something that I question leading it to the wind with individual property workers so the other way to think about is that trees do better if they're not in the plant industry trees do better if they're in the front north because there's more space for their roots to spread out and then I can find the sidewalk and I'm not sure whether we're going to narrow a lot of those narrow streets that run to Mass Ed to do what you're doing which would be a great alternative but how likely is that I'm going to build a three family house and the town is going to extend the sidewalk another 10 feet and take it out and take it out of all those narrow streets so and you're right we don't know what somebody is doing to the front yard although we could try and require them to plant a tree in their front yard the same way even now require people to plant a tree in the public right of way so I'm just asking because I'm trying to sort of understand between 10 feet and 15 feet well the quality is having a tree box or a tree island in the world of art it doesn't narrow the street there's no car there so it's just the street driving it's still the same you're not narrowing the street by putting a tree tree in the car because that's the word car so your driveway it doesn't change at all okay so we need to see if the town is growing well that's it I think we need to experiment as a town we want to do this and that's part of the thing I think what Steve said is look you're asking the public utilities you're imposing this will on to homeowners to do what the town wants to do and there's no way of us controlling them to do that that now mind you it's great when they do absolutely great when they do but you know I think it would be interesting to find out sooner rather than later whether the town is open to doing these tree extensions on a lot of the streets because if they are I think that's a really nice solution if they're not and that's not really a solution well I was on a committee where we talked about doing these dog ears and putting plantings there so the street water would not go directly into a drain and go into these little islands there yes and I think those are really successful and it narrows the the street crosswalk and it has planting areas I think stuff that we can control with a courage and fun and I think that's something if you push that on a homeowner I don't think that's going to happen you know you're going to say okay you have a certain type of tree you can have to maintain this tree this whole bunch of stuff I just don't think you're absolutely right what I'm also hearing is that you possibly would like the working group to go back and think about this a little more that's my part of that it was it was a very hot subject it was a subject of discussion and I think I think that all things being equal the working group would love there to be way more trees than there we just didn't know how to make that happen I just want to again thank the working group there's so much work that's been done here and I think we are absolutely it's great that we're getting down to this level of planusia now I think that's exactly where we should be and I'm excited that we've gotten to this this point and I'm certainly confident that we're going to get to a space where we all feel good about what we're putting in front of town meeting like I said I think we're getting into some pretty yeah some pretty good details now which is great it sounds like there's a consensus yes we want to amend zoning bylaw so street trees yes I now have that on so we've gone there so we're now we should the front yard be another place one thing we haven't mentioned I don't think explicitly as part of this that we did include as part of their bonuses was an extra story if they surpassed the minimum affordable housing requirement I think we've mentioned that today so for both for you guys and for the public that is a bonus that we I think will include in our recommendations we have not picked a a the amount beyond the 15% that would trigger that I think we need a little more pencil sharpening to do that but we indicated that we would like to include an extra story bonus for that so if we start four stories for a building and two stories for mixed use so we also voted about sacking so if we had not to exceed the maximum for the zone which is right 6 and 4 so if we had two different one two different one story bonuses right you could stack them together but because of the way that commercial bonus we talked about works you would choose you could either do the affordable housing or there was actually a third bonus oh yes yes so the ones that we had discussed were two stories you know we're starting with a base of a four story by right this is math 7 math 7 Broadway two stories for round floor commercial one story for extra affordable housing and you know specifics not work out yet but one story for providing publicly accessible open space you know kind of needs it but the height limit on math was we voted six stories and I believe Broadway for five so you can only stack but up to six or five stories on the respective board just a menu what you want so Broadway's five I didn't see that that's old that's what just came no we only got one so we didn't see it so if Broadway's five and we want to give two story bonuses for mixed use then is the base three well that's problem right it was a discussion amongst the working group of should Broadway I believe we had a somewhat split vote on whether Broadway should be five or not five or six so that's the history of how we got to where that was so what we left then with one extra floor art to do mixed use plus your ten foot set back yes yeah I wonder if it should be a base line of three on Broadway to get up to five no we might only get no then we'll get five you'll get five they go five with commercial and down four right but if they don't choose to take down incentive they can just which is essentially but they don't know that no they can build two and a half two and a half okay that dole or exception right I'd say another thing to take back so well let me ask I think the bonus thing in general is something that needs to be written down right and I don't know if that one just wasn't uploaded but the latest one that was uploaded was the two still has a scenario one and scenario two so I don't think we have the the latest one and you mentioned four stories but well we see here's three stories yeah they don't have this map which is fine I don't think they're moving fast nobody's upset I think we should just make sure that we follow up but that would be helpful for us so that we can give you better feedback that would be correct perfect so you're saying that we should have on Broadway three stories as of right and with commercial on a lower floor you still get two floors bonus so there's a total of five so we're still maintaining five floors because we don't want six stories on Broadway but we're still trying to encourage ground floor commercial on there so that as of right is three so that's what I'm just that's what I'm just want to be clear about the other question I would ask it the other way around right would you prefer us to make Broadway say right I think there was there are certainly again there was not consensus among the working group right right so I mean I think it's okay in some way the working group to give us something not now but here are two ways to deal with Broadway five or six you know sort of ARB but what I'm hearing is that you like the two story incentive for the next two I think we do so in modeling we need to make sure that that's what we represent and then the question is how high do you go is it a base three or a back six the other thing so what we saw was neighborhood multi-family dimensions maxed three stories and it's now four someone just explaining what happened is there a bonus for four or is it maxed four it's maxed four we felt like the existing is essentially three right in terms of height right and so we should be yeah so it's sort of in a big shape kind of way the idea was you're taking along the lines of having five or six stories on the borders then it steps down to the four stories of the neighborhood districts and then it steps down to three which is our two and a half stories going so you'll have stories still have stories do you have anything else Claire? I have nothing else to add I just want to make it clear the math that I handed out tonight is the map that you see on the screen is the map dated July 19th I think the board has been with it has been using a July 18th map they're not very different we can certainly have conversations about both of them at the same time but I want to want folks to know that the map that is linked in the agenda is the most recent map thank you Claire actually I think that the one you might have to have Jennifer update that the one in the agenda is different? the 18th map that will be up to you tomorrow great thank you I think wouldn't mind asking her to email that to the board so that Jean and I can start when we do our work okay anything else from the working group before we move to public comment no thank you very much this has been thank you really good to collaborate I said thank you for coming and we'll see hopefully some of you will make as well it's listed as you become my calendar town hall we're looking forward to we're looking forward to looking forward to hearing from the public great thank you so much this time we'll close agenda item number two and now open it up for open forum so any member of the public raise your hand when I call on you I ask that you please we'll use the chair right next to the board we do need you to be in the front row so that the minds pick you up you'll have up to three minutes to address the board we don't typically answer every question as they come forward we kind of compile them so we can answer them all at once and we'll ask you to please introduce yourself by your first last name and address we'll start with we know what heaven's portrait place a couple of comments I just want to address Mr. Benson's I'm sorry I want to address Mr. Benson's comments about the setback in the trees in amongst all of the discussion Utile's comment was that a 10 foot setback would not support a large tree it would support smaller ornamental trees but that you would have to have at least a 15 foot setback to support a larger tree so related to that I wanted to pose maybe a different way of looking at setbacks I don't know if you guys will have thought about it right now we're talking about no setbacks for the taller buildings and then setbacks for the lower density buildings I'm going to pass the Kenwood 990 Mass Ave this is an 8 story building but you don't really notice it I stepped off the setback tonight it's 30 feet it has large locust trees in it it's got shrubs it's got green grass by contrast when you walk past some of our 1, 2, and 3 story storefronts they have a zero setback but it doesn't feel oppressive because they're not so tall and you can see the sky I would say in East Arlington this afternoon so I was really thinking a lot about setbacks versus building height so maybe a different way to think about how those things interact and my final comment is I have sent an invitation to the working group to Director Ricker and to the members of the ARB to visit my street and once again I want to assure you that I'm not trying to make myself special but I'm really concerned about how non-conforming lots and private cities work in this because as we've heard over and over the point of all of this is to actually build housing so if we're including properties within the zones where development is not feasible where we're working against ourselves my side of the street every lot is 3,800 square feet and it is now the entire street is zoned for four-storey structures we don't have sidewalks there is an adequate parking already the house next to me does not have a driveway and because of the grade there is no way to put the driveway there so again I really really urge I understand the times and the straights I know that you're all volunteers with real lives but there's got to be some way to do a parcel by parcel visit even if it's in a part of the van that you guys all get together and drive down these streets but there's got to be a way to see really truly what is included in these districts thank you very much alright anyone else thank you my name is Susan Stamps 39 Grafton street Marlington member of the town tree committee and the Gasli test force and town meeting member from precinct 3 a couple of notes about what the consultants said of the working group meeting last week what when I said that you said you need a 15 foot setback for a tree the other thing he said was that you can prohibit parking in the setback so that should be a reason to not have a 10 or 15 whatever size setback you want I'm a member of green streets Arlington green streets Arlington is group week more recently to advocate tree canopies help these streetscapes of open space to be in the MBTA zoning package for town meeting in fall we support multi-family housing mandates and we want to help the cast town meeting however right now there are gaps in the MBTA zoning plans that there are no provisions to help mitigate climate change moderate heat islands in rich Arlington's natural streetscapes preserve or increase the tree canopy with accessible open spaces we believe it's urgent as the climate gets hotter wetter and more extreme that we fill these gaps in the most significant zoning that Arlington will see in decades for example we ask for much more work for trees in the MBTA zoning maps trees are not a nice to have they are a have to have for a healthy, livable community for decades to come why is that trees absorb carbon and other pollutants from the air and give up oxygen for us to breathe their roots hold water helping to prevent neighborhood flooding from heavy rains short of increase as the years go by they offer cooling shades so as the climate war as we can still enjoy being outside and seeing our neighbors they help to reduce energy use by protecting buildings from the hot summer sun and the cold winter winds they provide habitat for our precious birds which have already suffered loss of habitat they add grace and beauty to our neighborhoods and increase property values we ask that our town specialists who focus on stormwater management open space and tree canopy such as our town engineer and our tree warden be consulted in the drawing of the zoning maps we ask that in modeling the MBTA districts use the planters use time tools already in place such as the street tree inventory the tree warden list plantable and unplanned tree spaces locations of large volume gas leaks which kill trees locations of overhead utility lines which preclude planting of large shaped trees along the sidewalk and heat maps given town mediums impressive record of pro-environmental roads we believe the MBTA zoning package will pass town meaning only if it has the tree canopies green streetscapes and open space necessary for the environment thank you very much what else would you like to speak to C.P. please I'm Elizabeth Carr Jones speak up you're outside I apologize the agency is very loud it's hard to get over no I know I'll start again I appreciate it I'm Elizabeth Carr Jones one way high street co-chair of the open space committee increasing 14 town meeting number tonight I'm speaking as part of green streets Arlington a group advocating for tree canopies healthy streetscapes and open space to be part of the MBTA zoning package my role tonight is to speak to the fact that Arlington residents have consistently given high priority to the sustainable actions we're advocating the fact that it's reflected in our planning documents and ILS town goal Arlington's master plan needs the environment recognizing the fragility of our open natural resources we must ensure that Arlington residential areas, commercial centers and infrastructure are developed in harmony with environmental concerns goal number one in Arlington's open space and recreation plan needs to protect the natural environment to retain its important functions and values and help Arlington adapt to and mitigate climate change Arlington's tree protection and preservation by law needs preservation of the tree canopy and planting a replacement tree is essential to preserving the character and aesthetic appearance of the town and maintaining quality of life and the environment of the town Arlington's net zero action plan states by an overwhelming majority respondents view climate change as a serious crisis with 87% of respondents rating climate change as extremely important to them personally high priority measure for net zero buildings also promotes the planting of trees on private property Arlington housing Arlington's housing production plans five year plan specifies equitable access to shared green spaces and healthy living environment as a priority a recent report exploring Arlington's urban ecology that trees have been widely recognized as the main provider of ecosystem services in urban areas and in the town's own action plan for the MBTA communities project preserving and expanding the town's street tree canopy is listed as a non housing characteristic important Arlington thank you thank you but I hope everyone wants my hand out so Hello, I'm Brian McBride I'm a member of the open space committee and on a address to 36 he's been out in time so thank you to the working group all the hard work and your commise hours and my hands in my knees and we think we're proud of citizens for everything you've done and we think we're on the right track to a good plan. I think the addition that you're hearing from myself and my colleagues in Green Arlington, Green Shears Arlington is that the environmental habitat, the street canopy piece is still missing. So I think that is the addition. We are supporters of additional housing. I probably can't say that too many times because there's concern about the environment being a cover for nimbyism and that's really that the case. We really want housing to be built in Arlington. We just want it to be done in an environmentally adapted and sensitive way. My assignment for the group today is to talk about setbacks as you can see from the handout and I just maybe if we could just kind of flip through this quickly together. Anybody else need one? So we got on our bicycles the other day. We drove down Nassab and we took a number of pictures of different setbacks along Nassab primarily. And it's really interesting that Winnell also kind of stumbled upon the Kentwood because that was one of the first places we went to. Obviously it's got a big setback, right? 30 feet or more. Beautiful big tree green space. Lots of shade was hot day. It was much cooler walking past the Kentwood. Further down we saw other buildings that had only 25 foot setbacks and some of the great examples of this are the corner of Nassab, so called old bio-building. The system living facility and the heights. Beautiful 25 foot setback full of trees accessible to the public. Seminarized living. And there's also a similar building to Nassab which has a really lovely manicured 25 foot setback. In Brian's world this could be the place to live. It's got a lovely setback. It's populated with trees. It feels green. It's got public access to some degree. My deal. Maybe this is a challenge. As you dial the dial on setback further we're getting into the 20 and 15 foot setbacks. And this is where it becomes in my view fringe, right? You can see in these buildings they do have trees. Some of them are a bit clipped. Some of them are a bit small. They are providing shade. They're manicured and lawns and shrubs. But you're really on the fringe. And if you listen to our tree warden, this 15 foot mark here is really the minimum for a successful tree. It doesn't matter whether it's in setback or on the street think about a 15 foot parking space. That could be a problem. When we get to 10 and 0 feet it's a place I wouldn't want to go. This has a very harsh urban feel. It's not comfortable. It's hot. It doesn't meet the criteria. I feel which is incorporating carefully how the trees can be into our plan. I just finished with the story. It's funny that when I also went to Kent, we went there too. And as we stopped it was a very hot day. We stopped under the big shade tree. There were three people sitting on a stone wall on a corner of the lot. When we looked around they were pretty nice to me. We told them about setbacks and we started talking about climate change and temperature rise. We had a conversation with people we wouldn't have met and wouldn't have engaged with if it wasn't for this environment created by the setback of the tree. Isn't that what we want for Arlington? Isn't that how we want to connect with our neighbors and the community together? I think setback isn't just the architectural term. It's a way of life and I think it's important to include in the plan. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Please. Alan Jones, one Lehigh street. Tell me if I'm talking too loud. I understand I am talking to members of the working group and the board and the department that there are things that I think many of us would like to have but can't be required but could potentially be incentivized with things like extra stories or maybe FAR and maybe that's a relevant part. I'm going to suggest six things that could potentially be that I'd like the board to consider for incentivized or bonuses and only one maybe two are about setbacks. They all add to the natural spaces, reduce heat islands, manage stormwater runoff and to me most importantly is to try to encourage the new homes to not be second class developments. We want the new neighbors we're moving in to have the same quality of life that we all enjoy. We don't want the lesser. So number one, larger setbacks. I do want to say a 10 foot setback sort of says you can't put a decent shade tree there. You don't have the option. 20 foot setback you can't force them to put in a tree but it allows them to put in a tree and every developer knows the trees add value to the building. I just looked it up. Three and a half to 50% value by adding trees to the property. 10 foot says you can't have a tree there. Not a decent tree. So it's set up for larger setbacks. On the public spaces if there are setbacks and easement for public access to allow these mini parks, parklets, little pedestrian refuges, cyclist refuges, maybe a bench or two and a trash can and a nice big shade tree. But a place for people to stop and relax, a place for the neighbors to have little info and gatherings sit around and have a little picnic. Three, planning the maintenance of native trees, shrubs and other perennials particularly if they're in a designated wildlife or pollinator corridor which I know the town is working on to be able to define this is a wildlife corridor, this is a pollinator corridor. So those are particularly critical places. Four, green parking lots. Potentially require or give an incentive for at least 50% shade tree canopy to shade the parking lot or a footable tank permeable surfaces to control rain and storm water. Reducing the size of open parking lots to reduce heat islands through structured parking or underground parking within the footprint of the building and then set those bonuses for additional green space in the large developments just if they have no room let them do it in some sort of a sack. That's it. That's all six. Only one and a half of setbacks. Thank you. Anybody else? Please. Thanks. I'm Perry Ellen Carano. I'm at 22 Addison Street. I'm the co-chair of the Arlington Tree Committee. I'm also a town meeting member of Precinct 8. Tonight I'm speaking as part of Green Streets Arlington. As Susan mentioned we're a group advocating for tree canopies, health streets, days and open space to be part of these NMTA communities districts. Currently we see there's important gaps in the plan with regard to green streets, open space and tree canopy and we think the town must include these natural concerns when developing these districts. We ask the town to commit to expand current laws in place today which are already mitigating climate forward policies. We ask the town is mindful of its long-range plans to enhance Arlington's ecology and climate resilience and bring a package to town meeting in tandem with the new NMTA communities districts. The town can be successful at expanding Arlington's built environment with new multi-family housing, stand and hands tree canopies, healthy streetscapes and open space. A few current, a few zoning requirements which are right for expanding to apply to residential multi-use and planned unit districts. They're not just in the business industrial zones that we could apply today. The first is an example that you already mentioned tonight. The site development standard is 0.3.2 which are, we're added to the zoning in 2020. Shade tree coverage along math main corridors requirement addresses heat island effects, enhanced public health and walkability, the law provides for where there is no suitable location within the public way that shade trees may be proposed in locations within the setback as determined by the tree word. And there's currently programs in town where we do this. Another is the screening and space buffer requirement in zoning section 5.3.7 which require a screen of plantings to be maintained between properties. These and potentially other modest modifications in current zoning are examples which already include provisions to help mitigate climate change, moderate heat islands and enrich Arlington's natural streetscapes. Expanding these works toward filling the gaps currently present in the overlay district plan. It could be within a package to town meeting in tandem with the new MVA district zoning. The town could be accessible at both and you really thank people for all your work. Thank you very much. Anybody else? Please. Keith Schnebley, I live at 78 Webb Cowett Road in Arlington. I am the other co-chair of the Arlington Tree Committee. First of all, I'm pretty sure it's true of everybody in here. Everybody in this town except for some of the employees are very dedicated citizens, right? Like the tree committee is what you guys are doing. It's really impressive that the town runs on this, right? So I really appreciate the work. I'm on the tree committee because the mission of the tree committee is to promote the protection, planting and care of trees in Arlington. I believe in this mission deeply. So you know where I'm coming from to start with. I'm an IT guy. Like data really matters. Getting things right really matters to me. And over the course of the last three years I had a lot of opportunity to work at home. It was a tremendous storm in Arlington in 2021. I'm pretty sure it was. And I was wondering how much rain fell and I went on, you know, one of the sites and I could just get broken. It was like an inch and a half, but it was also trash day. And I had a barrel that had no top on it out in the open and it had four inches of rain in it. Turns out you can find weather stations that are very low in traffic. I've been doing them for the last three years. In 2021 we had 40 inches of rain which is about average year of rainfall. A lot of heavy rains over three inches. In 2022 we had a drought. We only got seven inches of rain in four months. Over the course of that time between that and this year we've actually lost 67 of our trees. This year we've had 13 inches of rain, 13 and a third in the last month and three weeks. And we've had last year 28 days of 90 degrees or more. This year we're up to seven. These things really worried me. And I really think that it's important to be considered this as we look to the future. Over where about 20 years it's coming into focus now. The atmosphere is warmer. There's longer dry periods. It's hotter when it rains. It rains hard. In our town, Claire, I don't know if you want to look at this, but we do have a GIS map that shows the heat islands in the town. If you overlay your districts it's a very close match. And the reason is because MASH has been built up over the years. There are not trees in that area. And what we want to do as tree committee is encourage the ability to plant trees in that area especially along where, you know, so that where you have pavement, macadam, sidewalks, buildings that are made of stone that are heat absorbing that you have the ability to plant trees in front of those and absorb the heat in those areas. So there were some really good ideas here tonight. You know, can we add big planters in front of these buildings? Could we have the setbacks? Well, now your idea about an eight-story building that's 30 feet back doesn't have the same impact. And it allows a lot of green, right? I think we need to do the housing. I think it would be really good if we had a clean plan that could pass town meeting so we can be on that, you know, fossil fuel cutting edge. And I think if we can also increase the tree canopy, these are all things that are going to be doing to enhance our climate utilities in town. Thank you. Anybody else wishing to speak this evening? Go ahead. I'm Chuck Carney to Kimball Road. First, thank you for everything that you've done and that you're doing. I didn't realize I needed to continue, so that's good. Thank you for the 3D map. And I know you're balancing a ton of different perspectives. For housing, just compliance, you know, the green space. And I'm here by two points. The first is to reinforce the green space, particularly the setbacks. I was there last meeting, as you guys may know, and the 10 foot setback wasn't sufficient for a tree. And I don't think that's the best move. My take is to make it sufficient for the tree for all the reasons that the tree committee and others have said. But I look at the number, the 719 map you're at 20,000 potential units. And I know the reality is going to be less than that, but that's 10 times what the base requirement is from the state. And I know we're going to do more than we're going to do more than the base. But my comment is if we've got room for 20,000 units in this current map to give a take, then that seems to me, just doing the math if it's a volume thing, that we may have some ability to increase setbacks and therefore include more of the green space. So that's my first point. The second point is on the incentives, there's three incentives is the mixed use, the affordable housing and the green space. So there's two points brought up, I think one by the committee, one by UTL, that I just want to emphasize. The first is that by the committee, these incentives may actually compete with each other so that a developer plays the game and then they optimize on one, I don't know which one, but more than likely the hype one. So that's something that I think merits some analysis or scenario planning or something. And then the second, and UTL brought this up and we've talked about it, the unintended consequences of some of these incentives e.g. empty storefronts. It receives some of this in Cambridge where if you go down to Sherman Street where Massey Hardaway used to be, it was a development with the first store that was a cafe, supposed to be a cafe for a good two years and never happened and now it's a preschool which is fine, but I think what we want to be careful of is just empty storefronts. So that's it. Anybody else? Seeing no other hands, we will close open forum and move to agenda item number four, which is a new business. I'll turn it over to you, Claire, to see if there's anything you have on your left-hand board. Yeah, so I do have one thing I'd like to talk about this evening and that is the timing of the town meeting, which seems to be, the Slut Court seems to be sort of circling around trying to land on a date and I think initially folks are thinking October 16th. There has been some change to that thinking and I believe we may opt for a date, perhaps October 23rd, perhaps something after the override election. It's completely up to the Slut Court, but again we don't have a date for fall town meeting at this point. What we do have is an opportunity for us to submit our zoning to the state early for a review. Pre-adoption review is what they call it for a certain amount of time before we go to town meeting. I think it is an excellent opportunity for us to get our ideas, to get our zoning, really our mostly baked project in front of the state to see how we are complying, if we are complying and how they are sort of viewing our district. So for us to get this pre-approval compliance will mean on the back end we can go that much more quickly through the MBTA community's process with the state for them to certify our plan and also with the AG's office for them to ultimately certify our zoning by February 11th, which is the deadline for us to participate in the fossil fuel pilot. That's really the only new business I have. I think dates are still a little up in the air, but much like we're finally closing in on some of the details and I will give any updates as I get them. Thank you. Great, thank you. Any questions? Yeah, I'll just go to the board for any questions. Sure. When do you think we'll be ready to get them pre-approval or whatever from the state? I am hoping to get to send the state a package by the third week of August. One of the things we didn't discuss tonight will be helpful to know to put that package together. I think is to what extent is the MBTA community zoning going to extend by itself? And what extent is it going to say? And other than this you rely on the current zoning plan. And we haven't had that discussion but I think you'll be helpful to know that sometime before either of us. Sure. I understood and this evening actually this afternoon I sent some draft zoning language to Laura and Steve on the working group so that we can get that piece of it under way, that drafting the actual language. And I did see your email to Doug. We will be going through and trying to figure out where we can take advantage of existing zoning by saying it does or does not apply or where we would have to write new conditions. Any other questions, Gene? We were going to follow up and see how this MBTA community has worked with inclusionary housing. Have we? Yes. Gene do you want to fill in the email you sent to Doug? He says we can do it. We need to figure out the best way to do it. By doing MBTA community's overlay then since we're not having a special apartment. We can still do it. We're still required because there are two things we can still require Doug is trying to figure out what's the best way to require it in the zoning body. But the other thing is our inclusionary zoning is 15%. The state only allows 15% unless we put in some sort of study that shows 15% work. So we can do it. We need the study and then Doug will give us the exact word. We as a board want to go with 15% and we're going to somehow try to prove that there's no dependence to development. Correct. And how do we do that? We do an economic feasibility analysis or we can do what Lexington did which is say we intend to use our inclusionary zoning unless DHCD says that it's not feasible in which case we will revert to the 10%. I do not want to do that. I don't think that we need to do that in our zoning but we do need to perform an economic feasibility analysis to ensure that 15% doesn't make anything unbuildable. Given the fact that we have 40Bs in this town where they do 25% we managed to successfully develop projects. I'm not sure that 15% will be so onerous but the economic feasibility analysis would determine that. And we've had a number of projects with 15%. Correct. Can I ask you a question around that? Is that something that the department can perform and that would be acceptable? Do they require a third party? And what are your thoughts on the timing for that? Is that a commitment to do an economic feasibility study or does it have to be complete? So that's a great question. I think it's a little of both. I think it's a commitment to do the study. I think that it is, I would like for the department to be able to certify on our own but I would have to see what the state requires on that. For me it's for the department it really is a slam dunk. I mean this is obviously developing and doing successfully for years and just I think evidence of that is more than enough but we'll have to see what they require. And just to clarify we're going to ask for the same AMI as we currently have in our inclusionary study. 70%? Just 60%. That's what we thought. Okay. The intent was to not change from what is currently being developed. Any other questions for Claire on the pre-approval or timing? So that's something that we'll keep in close contact with Eric from the select board about. So that the board knows I am going to send him the list that keeps growing of our non-MBTA communities or MBTA communities supportive separate warrant articles so that this board has a preview of those as well and I'll also again let him know that the 23rd of October is a preferred date of the board a little bit later so we can get the feedback from the state make any modifications, hold the hearings and then present to any other new business. Gene, Ken, I don't have any other. Is there a motion to adjourn? So a motion. This is the vote starting with Steve. Yes. Gene, and I'm going to guess as well. Thank you all.