 Good evening. I'm going to call to order the Arlington Redevelopment Corps meeting from Monday, December 5, 2016, recorded by ACMI. First on our agenda this evening is a continuation of the public hearing for EDI Special Bermont Docket 3519, which is a 19-hour park avenue project by the Housing Corporation of Arlington. I understand that we've got some updated bonds plans this evening, so I will turn it over to the departments and the architects to describe how things have changed since our last meeting. Thank you, Ms. Finnell. We also have an updated report from BSC concerning the Transportation Impact Report. So I want to have Mr. Bulmer and Mr. Warkington if they could talk about it. We'll start with the architectural piece. Thank you for continuing to hear us. All of us took copious notes and paid a lot of attention to the comments that we did get, and worked very hard to make changes that responded directly to the comments that we've got. The major changes that you'll see tonight have to do with both analysis and some additional, we think, help as far as impact on our neighbors on Wall Street Place, which is really the only street that's actually impacted by solar, shadows. And I'll go through that. We did a little more research, actually a lot more research, and we're going to add something to our plans. We looked at the design of the corner building. As we continue to hear comments on that, we did a lot more work on that as well. And I think we do have a lot to report. It's not strictly architectural, but there are some new news about the traffic as well. So I'll start with the shadow studies. So what we did was we expanded our study. What you had before was the solstice information, both the winter and summer solstice, which kind of showed a period of zero impact and a period that would have the most impact to the neighbors on the east. What we really wanted to quantify a little bit better was exactly what is that impact. Again, we know that it is primarily morning impact as the neighbors on both streets place are directly to the west side of the site. So we look very carefully at that. The diagrams that you have before, it is important to note that they both show existing shadows that are largely created because the site doesn't have a building on it, now they're created by landscaping and large trees. There are some large trees on the western border that are not on our site, they're on the neighbor's site. Those trees have no reason to leave those trees or going anywhere. But there is significant shadow impact from those trees as an existing condition on those homes on Wall Street place. But the way that I've diagrammed this, you can look independently from what the proposed building would do versus what existing trees would do. And what we discover now, quickly run through these, is that the only time of any impact, even all the way in the worst period, which is the winter solstice, is very limited to very few hours in the morning. And having looked at all year round at all times, and if you look through these diagrams, you can see that. So this is one of the new diagrams that you got, it's the autumn equinox that's in September. At that point, there are still leaves on the trees. So our shadow study, frankly, the shadows that are cast by our building are lower than the shadows, from the cast from the existing trees that are still leafed out at that point. And I'll show you a sectional drawing that demonstrates that. But as you can see in the early morning, that's when the proposed building is casting shadows towards the east, or towards the west. And I'll show you a diagram of where those shadows actually hit the adjacent homes on the street place. Once you're at noon on all four seasons, all four of the periods of the year, there is no shadow impact by noon on any of the buildings, whether on Wall Street or on Wall Street Place. So I think you can see that when you go through them. The other new study that we have is March spring equinox, which is roughly equivalent to the autumn equinox. You see again that blue shadow appears to come right to the backside of those homes on the Wall Street Place. And I'll show you the sectional diagram and show you where they would hit it. Spring is March 20th, so the trees would not be fully leafed out probably at that point, so it's more important where that shadow actually hits the building. And again, by noon, there is no shadow impact on those buildings, no shadow impact on those buildings, that same analysis continues all the way around to the evening, and the sun's all the way around in the west sky. Summer, obviously, sun's very high, very little shadow impact anywhere. You do get in a very late evening, the shadows pass all the way back onto the bike path. And then winter, this is the one that I noted, was the most impactful, but the hours of impact are very small by the time you're at noon. On December 21st, we're no longer casking any shadows on the Wall Street Place neighbors. At that point, those trees obviously have no leaves. So what we really started to think about, that our impact, actually, and even though this didn't come up at the last hearing, we started to think, well, there is another impact, and that impact is there is a building there, it's 63 feet away, I'll check that number as we go in. But we realized that there would be some impact from lights in the apartments from that building that didn't used to be there. So what we're proposing, and what's on the new landscape plan that you have is we're proposing to plant a screen of fast-growing conifers so that they would be an effective screen for the lights from the apartment building. That's a new addition to our plans, the landscape plan, and we're also planning. The plans that you have before showed fence, a new wooden fence that extended along the edge of the parking lot, but it stopped. There is an existing PVC fence. We'd also like to make it clear that we would extend that wooden fence along the entire western border that would improve the sense of privacy. This project is not likely to happen for a few years because in funding source, you've heard that before. And if there were neighbors who wanted to keep that existing fence, that would be okay too, but we do want to know that we would extend that fence so that there is privacy in those backyards and then cutting down on the impact with the conifers. This is, these are a couple other images so you can see here. The red is the imprint of where the building is. You can see the growth that already exists along this line. We are proposing 63 feet away from the neighbor's home. The homes on Lowell Street, it's even more at 76 feet away. In this area, those trees would go away because that's where the parking lot is, but we are proposing another planted screen along there. This, I think, is the interesting drawing. It's also a new drawing. This is not in your package, but I think it's up to the interest. These are the shadows that are cast during the summer and our, I'm sorry, during the fall, like equinox of fall and spring equinox. So you can see the shadow cast by our building, which is, would be overshadowed by the trees that are already there, but if you were to just strictly look at the shadow of our building, it actually, even in the worst case, doesn't hit even at the window sill height of the first floor on that building. So, you think it's really de minimis. The shadow impact is not of great importance. Again, given the existing trees that are there and the fact that even in the worst period, which would come after the fall equinox, by the way, after the fall equinox wrapping around to early spring, is when you would see some impact in the morning. The new landscape plan, Paul's gonna go back as he's gonna talk about the building changes. So these are the changes that we're proposing in the landscape plan. This is what we're proposing as a dense screen conifers, knowing that we're gonna be clearing all around there to build the building. We would like to do a screen there so that the neighbors are, the neighbors view directly into apartments and vice versa is blocked by that screen. Again, I think we're looking at hemlocks. I believe they proposed hemlocks for that. And then the fence, as I said before, stopped there. We already have a planted screen along the parking lot. So we're extending a taller planted conifer screen that goes all the way out to the edge of the property. So those are the changes we made from study of, I think, a very realistic and honest study of shadowing property. And then some new idea that wasn't brought up last at our live stream. But we think it would be a nice thing to offer to help cut down on the impact from these neighbors on the whole street place. And Paul, I'll go back to this hand gesture you want to start, maybe. So looking at the corner building, we had in our, some of the comments that we had on the road to this one. But some of the comments we had about the design as we had it last time were that it was a bit blocky, not a political plan. So we took some of that, took one of that up. That's a heart. And changed it up some in order to, and the first part of that, what we did there is we increased the height and the prominence of that corner element, so we would have, and we did that by, you know, part of the other things that we were reacting there to is that we also just didn't have as prominent as an entrance to the historic neighborhood. So we wanted to bring some importance to that corner. And we did that by changing up some trim elements, adding some color. We'd be trying to keep it in this similar color scheme, some of the elements we had on the larger building that we didn't have a lot of changes to. But it's clear. So, but also we wanted to bring that corner as high a little bit higher, so that it also adds to the importance of that on the edge. So also looking to change a bit to the detail of the cornice, we changed the type of windows, had to be a double-hung window with some montments and giving it a bit more of a residential appearance. So this is how we did it on this side. And then we would set that similar approach to the elevation that you have facing part out. And then brought the similar kind of importance to this end piece of the hero, which is... Sorry, we can't see anything. You know, we have it in front of us. We can turn it. Maybe in front of you. Yeah, you can turn it. We have it. Show us. Okay, all right, sorry. I mean, next day and everything. Yeah. I mean, just gross it out a little bit. Okay, all right. So you guys have your plans. So anyway, just for you. So, Paul, why don't you do the first page and then we can go back to the second page. Okay, so again, the corner element here, showing that I'm bringing a little more importance to it, having some trim, some added detailing, raising that corner up so that it's basically a more prominent entry piece on that corner that's facing down the square. But then we take that and we mirror that on the other side of the building and if one of the C's has an approach. Park, you see it here. On the end of the building, you can sort of match in those two. And again, having the trim pieces giving it a little more presence on the corner of the building will go on throughout its house, as it were. And then using that similar kind of language, we're going to use that for our entry piece. This is the view from Lowell Street and our driveway kind of runs right past this. But this is sort of our entry piece. You can use that same bit of added height at the corner, some of the trim elements of color in order to, also this forms the entry to the site for the other building as well. So, moving on to the elevations. You see, we pull together the lines of the trim, the windows, the double arms. Keep ordering that in a way that it's nice and rhythmable across the facade. This is sort of the most prominent one of these is the part down the elevations. That first element, the one you can see from down the square. And the backside elevation comes from Park Street. In order to achieve this sort of angle, then we actually trimmed our building back a little bit so that before it went out of these walls, actually came out to these corners. We shaved off these corner angles at each of these pieces in order to give it that shape and bring out that prominent corners on that end of that. If you have any questions about the changes in line, I think it's a good time. David, move on to traffic. I'll allow for public comment after the presentation is finished. I believe that you have the responses from BSC to the questions raised by TAP. The report has been updated. And it's worth noting that this type of use is probably one of the least traffic intensive uses for this site. There's virtually limited impact and the Housing Corporation of Rilington is prepared to accept the two recommendations made by the consultants that there be, do not block the intersection and don't let the turn out of the site. Those are two of the recommendations that were made. And we think that the traffic consultants report supports the grant of this special permit. I know we have two members of transportation advisory who made here this evening. If you could stand up, I can't see too far back here. Have you had a chance to take a look at this? Yes, we have. And generally, we think all the responses, we think they're at the appropriate responses to the issues that we raised. With one exception that we disagree with, that is, this state, BSC does not believe that this to be feasible option for the voluntary reasons, talking about park app Broadway. And the reasons they give are really reflective of assuming there would be left turning out. And I think in our discussion last time, the group was really focused on a right turning in and a right turning out, if there is a park app Broadway. So we think it's a great conclusion that it's not either right way or one way. It could be an exit only, but we still wouldn't necessarily want to allow right turn only, right turn only. And you could allow a right turning in. I mean, if it's the right way is too narrow for two way driveways, certainly it could be one way. But we just wanted to clarify that we feel it could work if that's the way it should be. I'm sorry, I could just have a stitch in here. Oh, I'm sorry. Our views, I'm the chairman of the TAC, and I would like to thank you for that. Thank you. The only thing that I would say, I appreciate TAC's response is that that's an operating gas station there, and that's a right of way. We have to look at the legal blockings to see whether that's even something that could occur. That could be an issue. Thank you. The only, I'm sorry. The only other thing I would like to restate is that this is an R7 zone, which is, the town has zoneness as a partner type areas. And we had our architects look at how many units feasibly could be put there under the bylaw with the zoning. And based on the FAR same type units, theoretically 57 units could go there. What the housing corporation of Arlington is proposing approximately 60% of that, those number of units. And I would suggest to you that it's reasonable under the circumstances. Questions from the board? I had one question and it was related to that question about a second entrance or exit on park air. Howard, did you see the comment from the consultants about a safety issue that they perceived from southbound park air traffic related to that drive? Yes, I did, and I'm not sure I see what the problem is. Right turn now it is pretty, one of the safest maneuvers you can make. I think, I don't think we've actually checked it, but I was at the site and I think you would have had a good sight of this since looking back towards dam and square. So, a car would be able to wait for a gap to pull out. I think their argument was the car would be coming out of dam and square and accelerate. But that would be true of any driveway near any intersection. I don't think there's anything unique about this. I don't share that concern. Any questions? Sorry, actually I'm sorry, just wondering. So, what is that now? That's an easement over for- It's a right of way. It's a right of way. It's a right of way. Did he put some snowblowers? Yeah, no, I just, because I did go down and take a look and I'm trying to picture exactly where that is compared to where the chain link fence is there. It's over the trucks and parks. Okay, okay. All right, answer right of way. It's a right of way. It is not our property. Okay. If I may, Mr. Hall, would you like to talk about the types of tenants that will be residing there? Because there are some, but who are the people that will be residing there? I think that's why, I think so. Okay, so I just want to make sure that everyone remembers and understands that we have 1,000 household waiting lists, over 300 of them are Arlington residents. That when we choose, we have to do a lottery for our tenants. And when we choose them, we have a 70% preference for Arlington residents to move into our building. So 70% of the households will be Arlington residents already. And the majority are, our typical profile for our residents are working individuals or retired professionals sometimes. We have social workers, nonprofit staff members, teachers, librarians, artists, musicians. We actually have two tenants that are members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I mean, these are the type of tenants we have as well as disabled and single parents and victims of domestic violence. So I just want to be sure that the community and the board really understand who we house and who we will be housing in this development. There's nothing further from the point of the board. I will open it up to public comment. Please raise your hand. I call on you to stand, state your name and address, address the board, and then either we can either attend to you to answer the question or you can like that at the moment. Yes, ma'am. Christine Gilbert, 56 Westminster Agamist. I am speaking both as a person who is a neighbor to this project and as a person who cares strongly about housing. And I felt like it was important to speak with both of those voices. I wanted first to thank the architects for their efforts to revise the plans in light of some of the feedback. I know that some of my neighbors have been concerned about the light and I'm grateful for some of the shading issues. We're all concerned about the traffic and some of the walking in particular. I'm always walking my son up to the Pierce School and down together to like to take the bus here today. So I guess I would want to raise a particular concern if there was that driveway out onto Park Avenue. How to make sure it was safe for pedestrians going down the sidewalk there is already a little bit icy walking through what's effectively the gas station parking lot to access the public transportation which is in some way so key to our understanding of how much traffic will be going in and out. So I want to thank you also for your efforts to give accurate numbers for the number of cars. There have been some kind of alarmist numbers out there. I feel like the ones you've got are more realistic but for that to work we've got to make sure it's actually easy for people to get to the bus and to get there safely. I want to make sure that this is done in a way that will work for the neighborhood because I care about my neighbors and I want to be a good neighbor to them. But I'm also speaking as somebody who's really conscious just how very thin the line can be. It's the nearest accident that I live on Westminster and I'm here at the neighbor rather than a person on the waiting list. And I'm so conscious it could be any of us on either side. So I live in the neighborhood and I want this to work but I also wanted to work in a way that works for everybody because I hope that's all obviously obvious but I feel compelled to come say all of this. I thank you for your efforts. Thank you. Sir. My name is Ed Sheeran-Lady, I live in the right street. Thank you so much. Can you speak up please? Can you speak up please? I live on the 76th right street. I'm just kind of curious about this, whether if people are just with a show of hands, how many people roll their bicycles here today? So we have two people out of maybe 40. How many people roll the bus? So we have three people out of four. So, but you're asking out of the 32 unit complex, there's only 20 parking spaces. You're asking roughly half the people in that complex to either ride the bus or ride the bike. And I'm guessing that the client less that Pam mentioned, a fair amount of musicians, they either ride the bikes, done something wrong, I'm guessing they won't. Maybe they'll be able to take the bus to that basic one. I don't, I think these projects should be built so that there's at least one parking space per unit. And that doesn't account for visits. If you have elderly or people with disabilities, and they're going to care to get this company, the artist or whatever, there's no place for them to park. I don't know if there's enough parking for those folks that have tires with handicap stickers or blades on them. So I was wondering if it would be possible to, and I understand why they don't want to go and dig out underneath the main building because there's a soil contamination issue there. But there shouldn't be much in the way of soil contamination under the rule. So it would be possible to put parking under that. And at least you know where parking spaces are. Another issue I see with this project is I don't see where we're going to put snow. We have someone once out of the year who has snowed in the sheet that may be difficult to ride bikes a little lower. I think he diaries it right over the long run. I recognize that for most people now. And you know, buses look quite handy, but I don't know if I can see the project. I thought, well, we seem to, I forget, one of the songs that we just changed in time, I mean we can't change the number of parking spaces that you have for the building. But I don't think it was a less than one video. Go ahead. It was, by special permit you could reduce it to 25% of what is required. And with transportation demand management, which they have prepared a plan. And it was required. Give me a minute, I can have that. How many people walked here? I don't know if I missed that. Let's not get off track. In the special conditions, when you'd like to speak please raise your hand and we'll talk about it. Snow removal is addressed in post-special conditions. I can ask Pam to go a little bit deeper into that but the ones at the border have here to accept that through snow removal from all parts of the site, including a budding sidewalks, pedestrian walkway from the sidewalk to the bikeway is the responsibility of the owner to be accomplished in accordance with sound by-laws to address how that will be done. So we do this on all of our larger projects. We hire a landscape and snow removal company that is out there as soon as there is more than half an inch of snow. And they put it on various parts of the site if there's no room they truck it out and it's removed. We do it every year. Thank you. So you don't mind hauling it away? You don't mind the expense of hauling it away? No. Okay. That's due responsibility in this. If they're committed to do it, that's for them to work on. Right. That's a question of parking. There's 48 spaces required in the by-law. The 25% is allowed, that's 12. So they have more than the 12 spaces that are required with the special permit. Oh, a special permit that allows you 25% of the allowable spaces? That's right. No? There were 25% reduction? No. 25% of the allowable spaces? That's such a big problem. That's what time the meeting passes. We have problems while we're on the panel. That's what time the meeting passes. Any other questions? In the back, sir. Here at Collision 24 North Street. First of all, it's probably not too long related, but I don't think anybody here is questioning the good intentions and who is going to be ranked in and how good people they are. That's nice to say. A bunch of things have sort of come to mind. I know I thought last time about urban versus suburban. I guess the corner as big and monolithic as it is, I know you guys have made some great changes. I appreciate all that. I don't see the screens up on top. We're talking about the mechanicals that add 10 feet. Number one. I'll make it there. I can't see them. You can't see them because they've viewed it. I didn't check as we talked last time, but I'm a solar installer. So if you didn't get 37 degrees and you would never lay flat, which is what you talked about last time. That's the top. I'm not sure what the total height is at what at that point. The size of that screen is 7 feet above all the ground. So the shadow plans take that into account? They do. They do? That's why I wouldn't check that. I think it seems to me, it's just my opinion, but what's all coming down is the scope and the size of this thing. I've been driving around looking at other projects similar when they look like homes for the people. I don't know about to the back of this thing, but I know a lot of people would do. There are plenty of ways to make them look like homes, even though they're not. Even as horrible as sunrise is, it kind of looks like houses. It doesn't look like you're in the city. So maybe that corner can be maybe not so huge. And you know the size dictates how many people they can get in to pay for the expense of the lot. And I know the comment was made last time, do you guys please hurry up because our financing depends on speed. I don't think that should be part of your decision. I don't think that's your problem. I really hate to say that, but it's not. It's not. Your decision is based on facts. Does it fit the neighborhood? Does it hurt the people behind you who are now living in shade? Whose drywoods aren't going to melt all winter long? That sort of thing. I think it needs to be looked at as a neighborhood, not as an apartment building because it is a neighborhood. All the other places that they talked about as comparison down the street this way, down the street that way, there's no houses around those. They're in blocks that have no real neighboring neighborhoods. So this is being plunked in when people here is backyard. And I think it could be made granted on its own if that's a nice design. Where it's going, it's a square peg in a round hole. And I'm sorry, the size is, you need to get that many people to pay for the mortgage, but that doesn't really cut it when it comes to who's already moved into a suburban neighborhood and now you're plunking an urban building on top of the lap. You know, 20 years from now, the campaign's not running the company. You know, who's taking the snow out? Whereas it's getting dumped in the Jerry's Brook, which is a wet land, it needs to be protected. I know you can say, great, we're going to do that. But we all asked last time, who's going to be culpable when the shadows aren't right, when the snow isn't pulled out? And you guys said, well, you can take it up with the board at that time. You guys aren't going to be there. So what kind of kids everybody kind of here have that the shadow plans are correct, all these things are going to be held, and who's accountable at that point? When everybody moves up next to it, this stuff is something that doesn't work. You know, scale, scope, and match the neighborhoods where they should do the corner. Maybe it's commercial, you can make it look commercial like that. But the other guys who live next to it, I don't know, I feel, they just feel horrible for most people. Thanks, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, John Lundit, child-beating member of 1517. Last Sunday, there was a story in the globe in regards to Brookline handling a housing problem. It took him a whole year to finally get to some kind of agreement. And it raised two questions in my mind. One, in a small paragraph that stated, another issue will be for officials to ensure that the deep restriction will present future development. Is that part of your application to make sure that indeed this issue, that once this is built, it will be in some kind of piece of paper that there will be no future development on how to own it? I don't have a good moment to answer that. Well, the deep restriction will be that it has to remain affordable housing and perpetuity. And in order to build more, we have to come back to, there will be no space on the site. We have to re-open this special apartment to build more. But I mean, when this is done, we've got to be stages in the paperwork. Yes. The second thing is that, I remember on one of the other hearings, one of you gentlemen came out and mentioned where a generator or transformer was going to be in order to supply the power to run the 34 units. And I believe if I'm not mistaken, probably in one of the packing spaces to accommodate such a thing that day. I think that was the Broadway project. Was that the premise? Okay. I guess my question here would be, have arrangements been made for the dumpster location at this particular site? This was discussed in the last hearing. There is no dumpster. We'll be using plastic bins for each unit. Oh, for the front building only. I mean, we are a larger building. So to understand that, I mean, I remember she mentioned the recyclables will be placed out on the sidewalk. But I don't recall anybody really talking about 34 units. Which to me would require a dumpster or some sort. I can't explain that in detail. It will be inside. The truck will back up to a door which will open, probably double wide. The dumpster inside will be pulled out and dumped. So the truck will go onto the property to get a dumpster? Yes. It's private pickup, a scheduled private pickup. Or it may be municipal, but we have that on our other properties as well. I think the board should be made aware as I stated before. I lived on in that area for 10 years. It went up so much as a care in the world. Dumpsters were being entered at 2.30 in the morning. Well, this would not happen. What I would like to say is where is the location of the dumpster going to be in relation to people who live in their houses down there now and will they be exposed to 2.30 in the morning? First, it's against town by-law to empty trash 2.30 in the morning. That is reflected in the... Mr. Chairman, another stop. In violation of town by-law. The answer I can give you is how it can explain to you where the access point will be on the property. Where is the dumpster to be located because the little street is right there. Yeah, so actually it's... They show the high house in the whole street. So the smaller receptacles for our smaller building would be here. You'd access it through the access aisle for the accessible parking. So they would pull those out, put those in the truck. The access to the trash room is down here off of our driveway. So that's fully screened off that way. So really, I mean, it's not directly adjacent to any of the adjacent buildings here. So if you mean as far as the time of day goes, it's a private pick-up that can be scheduled at any time during business hours. Right now, we have capital square to be picked up at about 9.30, 10 o'clock in the morning. Our general conditions also include trash only to be picked up on weekdays, only between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. I think it should be made aware to interview them. Well, I'm not going to allow any further discussion on that point. That's not what we're discussing here tonight, but thank you for your points. Okay. Lisa, hi. I asked at the last meeting about the conditions for the floodplain, and I would just love some clarification about what the curb elevation is determined at on the whole street. Curve elevation on the whole street? Well, I think that's what was discussed as the zoning law from 30 feet above the curb elevation, and that's, maybe I misremember, but I think that's what you were talking about. It was in reference to the overall height allowed in the buildings 40 feet above the average of the curb elevation at the street line. So I think that's... Yeah, can you just share with me what the average of the curb elevation is? It's not related to the floodplain. No, because the floodplain is lower elevation anyways. I understand that the curb is not in the floodplain, but the floodplain is at the base flood elevation at 149.3 feet, and at the last meeting you stated that you would use a flow-through foundation design which would require your first floor level, the bottom of your first floor level construction to be above the base flood elevation. And so I just wanted to have a better understanding of your map because your drawing showed the ground floor at level zero. Right, that's the height at zero is relative to the height of the building. Right, but because it doesn't relate to the curb, the floodplain... Okay, so the average of those curb elevations which range from a maximum of 156 to a minimum of 52.96 the average of those is 154.14 feet. Okay, so that's the top of curb elevation. Our top of slant elevation for our larger building which is located down closer to the floodplain down here. That would be at least 18 inches above the level of the floodplain, the floodplain is at 149 feet 5. Okay, so that puts our base of the building at about 151 feet. Okay, so the reason for the determination of the curb height, the reason that becomes relative because we use that to determine what the top of roof is allowed to be according to the biode. It's 40 feet plus, it's 40 feet above that curb average. So that, so 154.14 plus 494, alright, 1.4. So our building, since we're saying it's going to be 40 feet, that 0 to 40 per roof height, we're anticipating that being a good 3 feet below the maximum allowed under the zone bylaw. Even though we're raising it to the bottom of the building in order to keep it out of the floodplain. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Other questions, comments? We'll come back to you, sir. Yes. Welcome to the 27 Lantern Lane. I've lived in Arlington all but four of my 81 years as a former resident. I'm here to support this project and ask this board to approve it. In the last two years, I have volunteered for the food pantry in Arlington and have watched hundreds of people, need people to come in for the food. Even worse than that, I think, is the fact in my neighborhood, which is the morning sign neighborhood, I have watched over 12 houses taken down to the ground, replaced with 1.2, 1.3 million dollar homes. And they have sold readily. This town is pricing now at a very high end. There is very little room for those people who can bill before those type of prices. So I would ask the board to support this project. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Michael Best. I live at 113 Method Street. I just have an impact statement as far as what it's like being among Arlington and the housing court. I'm on a tenant. My wife and I endured some tough times. My wife Mary Lou, I'm like best. She's been a lifelong Arlington resident. And I just want to read something I wrote. We came here to tell you our story tonight. So maybe you can see from my perspective how much HCA has helped my family. My wife and I both work. I work with Comcast. And she works part-time for St. Agnes. But even with both our incomes, we struggle if we're not worth living in Arlington, if not for the HCA. We have four sons, Michael, Joshua, James. My son James is a cancer survivor. He's disabled. He was diagnosed at five months old. Has been fighting this battle his whole life. I've always been cancer-free since the age of 17 and has many disabilities. We have been raising our granddaughter for nine years. She's my oldest son's daughter, who became a single dad while in the military. He served 14 years, five appointments in Iraq and Afghanistan. My granddaughter, Ty, has been an Arlington school assistant since pre-K when she was currently a seventh grade honor student at Hardison Middle School. We have many difficult times. The HCA has helped us so many times. Mary had a massive heart attack in her life. She actually died at my mom's hospital, but they brought it back to life. Thank God. Two years ago, I suffered a catastrophic injury while on the job for Comcast. I've lost my left leg completely. I was out of work over the year, causing more hardship and financial distress. Even though we are behind on our rent, but the HCA has always helped us. We're very grateful. The HCA community needs to know that it's helping people like us. We're hardworking people. Just catastrophic things have happened in our life. I just want to say they help a lot of people. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sir. My name is John Deist. I have a long time being here. I've lived in Afghanistan for 40 years. And I'm a very close supporter of the housing corporation. There are some statements that may seem to the effect that HCA is not going to be responsible in one way or another for how well this place has maintained the territory and how well they will be accepted by the neighbors. The term was used that it's square tagging around a hole. If you look at that location right now, it is a hole. And what will result is a rather beautiful building in my opinion. So I hope you will think carefully about how well it is that housing corporations want to serve our community over these many years. It's likely to be just as responsible for the future. My name is Neil Monwell. I live in a 12-groud place. I'm also a board member in housing corporation Arlington. And I'm an architect. And I just want to a couple of points that I want to make. First, how difficult this site and how risky this site is to develop because of the contamination in the soil and the density and the water level and so on. I really think that Housing Corporation is doing a service to the town to take on this project to not only deal with a contaminated site, a difficult site, but also to provide much-needed affordable housing as you've heard from folks here. The second thing I just want to say is that I really appreciate the effort that the architects have made to listen and adjust the design, especially the corner building. I think it's really important that this building becomes a gateway to the Lowell Street and the neighborhood there. And I think that they have listened and will continue to listen to feedback from the residents and the neighborhood. Housing Corporation is committed to working with and trying to respond to any of the design suggestions that come from the neighborhood. So I think that folks should feel confident and comfortable that Housing Corporation will be responsive to any of the concerns or needs that they have. Thank you. I saw a hand in the back a few times. Yes, sir. Dave Bergeron, two of the more relevant to the folks. I've been listening to Sunrise facility across the way. I was promised there was someone who did sunlight studies and unfortunately, I was accurate when I was measuring the shadow at the solstice of the 30-foot pole near BTA lot and the after-tech that did the review gave me the information was wrong. I had to watch three hours at the end of each day starting from about now until, you know, middle of January when it starts to get lighter. So for those of you a big price and especially when I would say I was deceived you know, 15 years ago when that whole process was approved. So for each of you that thinks losing sunlight is not serious would each of you like to have what you're presently living a house put up behind you so that you lose essentially after you hear about sunlight during the course of the day. I mean, that's one issue and I think it's pretty serious because Wall Street Place is an entry in Gateway in the town of Arlington and my grandfather and mother had 1.22 Wall Street had two kids born there and then moved around the corner into Wall Street Place and had another child there and then they built a place in these towns. So it's been a gateway for a long time. The houses down are along the bikeway where it drops off near to get the name of that development that came in the multi-story unit that still gets flooded when there's a someone serious flood. Anyways, there's some inexpensive houses along the air and they too get flooded when things get bad and this area is getting developed. Unfortunately we'll speed a bigger flood downstream to those locations just because I've seen a bigger flood with the building in Lexington over the course of the past 60 years with a couple of comments. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. This is already 56 hours. A couple questions I was wondering if you could review the 2012 permit for the apartment building on this site. Anyone actually look at it? 2012? Yes. There was a permable permit for this exact same time in 2000. Obviously it was never built with permits prior. I've got some questions about what the setbacks are about. I had it here. It's filed with Registry of Deeds and I'd like to keep it apparently kind of looked at. I would like to mention that at that time the area permitted 22 units. Now we're permitting a little bit more. The reason I bring it up is the permit actually had a nice discussion about what the required setbacks were and I'm curious what are the setbacks for this both along the bike path and along the roadway. Laura, you have a question? I don't know. Okay, so there's a bunch of different setbacks of the apartment. Along the side lot lines we have a couple of 25 foot setbacks. There's a different setback and basically it steps and it's described in the byline a little bit of a complicated formula but basically there's one line that draws about 25 feet and then it steps back to another distance further back and that's where we have a separate section of the line across that back. So we've got this section and then we have another section filling that's why this jogs back and forth along there. Is that the bike path along the roadway? This is the bike path, yes. And along the roadways the setback along the wall streets we take an average of the buildings along there. So we take that as about 10.9 and 11 feet along that edge and then the other setback on here we even remember correctly it's 18 17 and a half or 18 feet from Park Avenue. So there's a number of different setbacks and we put both of the buildings within and in general these are generally affirmative and talk about a 20 setback so yeah, when it's 20 it's 20 setback. Another question is something you mentioned that broke was this the party capital for the conservation commission? Yes. So is that after? After. And then in regard to parking the board is still contending that they can reduce the parking was there something wrong with my copy of the bylaw change that was enacted last time? Because I can't see that it mentions the R7 zoning district. It mentions multi-family residential zones. In the text of the issue? In the text as well let me check. The zoning officer has looked at it and he agrees that the intent was to cover all the residential zones. I would suggest that you don't go by what the intent was you have to go by what the language says and I think if the board would adopt that position you're really opening yourself up to a potential appeal. I think there's a lot of neighbors and people who have received and noticed parties at interest in this special permit and I think you're actually giving them an excellent opportunity to appeal the permit. Clearly the board does not have the authority to go by what the parking in R2 zone and R3 zone at 25% because they're not listed in that section of the bylaw. Neither is the R7 zone. And again I would suggest you take a look at the old permit from 2012. I don't think the parking of the man or facilities has actually changed that much in the last thousand years and I'm sure they didn't allow that if you want. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Not yet. Is there anyone who would like to speak that has not had the opportunity to speak yet? Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Phil Turville and I'm an architect and sculptor here in Marlington in 165 R. I've lived here for about 10 years. I like to develop a lot. I support the Health Corporation of Marlington a lot. I think they're very, very competent developers and probably one of the few that would take on a site like this with the access and shape and environmental problems as it has. I like the idea of being a buffer between the commercial areas and the residential area behind it. I like that a lot. I think that's the reason it's an R7 zone. I think the intent was to mitigate between the neighborhoods close by and the commercial and industrial areas across the street. But I also think it's an economic development issue. I think that increasing a little bit of density in the heights is very, very good for the business up there. There are a lot of historic fronts there now. Businesses have been coming and going. I use a lot of the services up there myself and it seems like a really powerful idea to increase certain areas of density for residential use in an area where there are commercial services and small businesses available to residents. Particularly this is a population which may be walking or in Mexico's public transportation and that's all right there. My theory is that there is some wisdom in allowing this parcel to be an R7. I think that the benefit to the community weighs heavily on the value of this property. I agree with many of the comments about supporting the housing corporation Berlin. I particularly think this is a good project for this location. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. My name is Kate Carlson and I've been working in Arlington for about 20 years. I grew up in Burlington so I feel like I'm a pretty person here and I don't want to take a lot of time. I think this gentleman raised a number of points I wanted to say. The housing corporation of Arlington many people have spoken about it. It's made up of long-time residents people who have been on that for 20 years or better and I don't think that they're going anywhere. I think that some of the operational things that can be raised are the ability and there should be conversation in talk to make sure that the community is listening to and responding to and I feel it will be. I also love the idea of bringing density into the heights. I'm very concerned about the empty storefronts there and the services that are just disappearing. But the main thing that I care very deeply about is the need. Arlington can change and I love living here and I think probably many people do and I would like to keep the diversity of families and class that attracted me to this town in the first place one years ago. Thank you. Thank you. Others? Yeah. My name is Jusha Okana-Prindle. I live at 13 Port Street in Eilington. I'm what I guess you guys would call a carpet bag. I've only been here for 11 years. I've been in the housing industry or real estate for 35 years and I hear strictly because I support and have supported two towns for 20 years each. I was lucky enough to be able to pay $5,600,000 for a first floor of a 1917 two-family house with 1,000 square feet. That's what I'm saying. It's just gotten out of hand. People need you. I don't know what else to do but everywhere it is we've got to get so we have our we need the diversity and it's not either the teachers they look fireman. I mean it's just crazy. And I'm in the industry and it's wacky. I mean what the prices are. So I'm here to support anything that this town can do to give a break to somebody who hasn't had it as lucky as I have and I've been working since I was 13 years old so believe me and I've had a lot of tragedy in my life. Okay, that's the end. Thank you. Got it. So I'm curious about the elevations. We don't mention the elevations and so it occurred in Lowell Street that the entrance is what? 151 Lowell Street is about 154. 154, okay. And the elevation of the the top of the slab of the back door is about 151. 151, okay. Do you know what's there now? What the elevation of the ground is now? Is that I mean it varies over the over the area of that of that site so I mean I don't know that I can give you one answer to that. Let's take the end for the driveway. No. Yeah. I think it's back. It must be where are we going with this? Well just curious how they you know they keep talking about a possible second exit, emergency exit on the part you have. No. The idea of a second exit as we discussed. Well not that it's going to be an exit but there's supposed to be a way through there. And from looking at the drawings I don't quite see how that's going to work because the elevation of the gas station there is about eight, nine feet above the elevation of the back there. And if you've got a driveway that comes in and turns around. See I don't exactly know where the driveway is compared to where the tree lines are and what the ground is now which is kind of hard to visualize. It's not a state dollar. But I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around the whole elevation thing. The back of the gas station for instance has an entrance on the low level in the back and I don't know if that's going to wind up being everything. Just out of curiosity curious about the height seeing a couple of spot elevations near the back of the gas station which are around 151 151. So I don't and those are within the property line of the gas station. So I did want to point out because the site grades are extremely important both for traversability. We've committed to having an accessible path that goes all the way from Lowell Street all the way across to the bike path where we have environmental concerns we have flood plain concerns and there's a lot of process months frankly months and months and months of process to really arrive at the final grades of the site to ensure that it has zero impact in a flooding effect. So we don't have all the answers those are good questions but I can't answer them right now. Our civil engineer hasn't advanced the drawings we haven't met with concom yet there's a lot of work before the plan really gets nailed down. We're confident it's there the engineer has studied it thoroughly but we're really just at the beginning of that process and you know it's public process. Everything we do from this point forward is public process when it involves the same plan because of the environmental issues. So I invite everybody to keep watching it it's extremely important work. So we just I don't have the answers it's feasible what we have drawn and I know it's feasible after a lot of study what we haven't completely determined is every grade in every location ensuring that we're not going to have any negative impact in any kind of flood event. And a lot of those questions are beyond the purview of the report. It comes under the concom and state DPP. Yeah and I'm not I'm not thinking about floodplains or anything like that I'm just going to get my head right. Well I think I'll let you know that we're thinking a lot about it because it's all an integrated problem. It's all an integrated design problem. We know it's feasible. We know what the goals are and we have a path to solving them. We just don't have all of the answers right now. It's an ongoing process. I'm sure these gentlemen will be happy to discuss things with you after the years over. Other questions? In the back. I am all for any type of policy. It's the proximity and also the huge project that's going on less than an acre of land in the next corner. And the impact that will be on us as neighbors. I've been in a flood zone for a long time. But that project is going to put on even more of a flood only. I don't want to go off like that. Also the little lady directing the traffic with the kids crossing the street. She's going to get one down. 34 units added along with all of that traffic. I'm four of them composing for any type of housing to go there. But not such a huge project. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir. Tom, the 76th of BCA. It's going to be on this project that could be a good addition to that land as it has now completed all of it. Thank you. Thank you. I've heard a couple of people flooding in since I've lived in a flood and now that I've asked a couple of flood questions, that's permissible. We're not flooding questions are far beyond my time. It is going to go to the concom. Pam has talked to them already once and it'll be publicly advertised. I don't mean to kick the can down. That's not what we're here to discuss. Why is that inappropriate? Thank you. Yes, ma'am. I'm at the top of Mt. Nalboa so I drive through Downing Square a lot. I'm all in favor of the housing at that spot. I think it's needed certainly in the town. I think this is a big place for it. My first reaction is just aesthetic and visual. I've heard a lot of comments that I'm probably in the urban or the blockiness of the building somewhere to me wants it to even go more blocky and be more contemporary and maybe just really define itself architecturally. But not or visit go more towards sunrise and dormers and heat roof and pretend to look like a house in the neighborhood. I don't know that I can answer but I do know that what I see right now to me looks kind of like it was maybe it's kind of I don't know, I feel like I've seen it a thousand times in different places. Maybe there's something about the but anyway I'm sure it's an ongoing process and I'm not quite sure how the best reflect the neighborhood whether it's the entry into the Mass Ave the commercial part of things residential neighborhood it's between both I guess something more individual in some way but that's a problem for the urban class but I'm glad there's housing going to be there. Thank you. Others in the back? Plenia Berger I have two rest of our rows one comment is about the flow of parking into the local streets President Warren Norris adjacent to each other Norris has had three homes in the last 12 years that have gone from a single family to a blue park and that has impacted the parking on that street to the point now that only residents really can barely get on the streets and or maybe ask for them and if this project goes in with this the limited parking that it has I feel like we will get up the first thing in the weekends with anybody we know and who likes going over and have to block off parking so that we know that people that come to come down our street come and visit us or any of our neighbors will be sure to have some place to park when we get parking during the day where people are using the heights bus we talked about this at the park meetings but we asked Pam Allen to address transportation and plan the use and possession of automobiles by your residents and visitor parking I'm going to start with the leases that we will have which will restrict the number of cars that people can own we have 23 spaces we will have 23 households that allow the space that will be in the lease anyone else will be towed and so it really limits the number of cars that will be on site at any time in terms of visitor parking these are residents of Arlington visitors can park on public streets that is appropriate they won't be able to park for the night and if they park on private streets and you have the right to call the police and have them take it in and potentially tow it our transportation management plan is designed to encourage people to not utilize autos that is they hold trends in the industry we will be offering incentives to use bikes to walk to take public transportation thank you go ahead I want to think about these two bikes do you see this as a potential area that they would put a subway station in to make it more convenient for the residents to there are a lot of advantages to that location I think I can answer that I know that has been discussed as part of other projects and I think the starter cost for Hullway is extremely prohibitive particularly for this project especially since there isn't another one within close proximity it is a great idea but I just don't think it's possible thank you yes sir Tom Mansfield 11 Old Street Place I'd like to use an alternative design if this seems very large overall the volume seems large my concern is that you're going to we see it from the street but if you approach it from anywhere else you just can see a big model of the building anybody knows East Cambridge and the old state house that just looms there that you can see from miles around that was obviously a mistake I feel this is going to be well above the architectural style of all the surrounding buildings if you're approaching it from any angle this is going to stand out it's going to be not fitting with the style I think you could work the space better to kind of taper it into this surrounding neighborhood it's not going to go on right up to the neighborhood's old street build it down three stories down into the neighborhood more about a smoothing aesthetic feel to it so as you're looking at it from a distance right up next to it it's just not imposing like it's designed today I have a question about the process I don't know anything about the process so bear with me today is there a new period for those plots how does that work this is actually the second meeting when we've seen shadow plots we requested them from the architects and proponents after the first meeting which was held back in October there have been several public hearings all advertised all posted well in advance in the hearing I believe proponents held a number of open public meetings as well they've been yep I apologize it was not at the last time it was a very good one I didn't know they would present it then so are they available on public reference then we have a couple copies up here they're always available at the Department of Planning and Community Development and if we see something there that suggests it's not accurate I mean would we present that you can send an email to any of the members of the board or to the director of planning this is the director of planning we're always happy to receive additional content outside of the meeting thank you quick stand up please someone unrelated to this but also related in our respect anybody that would tackle a contaminated site like this but I think that everybody needs to understand whether they fix the site on their dollar or that's tax dollars the company comes in and fixes it on tax dollars ultimately that site was contaminated to a lack of enforcement of some rules to some agencies unfortunately that's not this department I know I'm just saying there's a perfect example of a failure that now has been resolved and there's no culpability well that's the responsibility of the State Department of Environment protection but I'm just saying it's not related to her or to this project I'm just trying to encourage you to be on scope other comments, questions, concerns in the board I want to congratulate you on improvements in the design here I think you've come a long way and listened to the people who have been talking here I think that's a very good thing that corner building is something that is very representative of that area I think what you have there with the bay windows and looking more like a brownstone or a triple-decker is good and the view from the bridge go across the new elevation looks really nice I really appreciate that I do have two minor questions there I just want to add on there one of your drawings there along the driveway side do you want to move the retaining wall Park Park the sound elevation the driveway runs alongside that building there the driveway runs here but then there's that retaining wall there this kind of goes to the item that Cliff was talking about in terms of us not having all of the site out this represents a worst case scenario if we had the level of the building at this point the level of park down the sidewalk here obviously we don't want to have it would be better for us to have that more gentle slope just in terms of the expenses that the house would retain this does this does this is where the building is we don't have to negotiate that highly but I would encourage to refrain from having retaining walls along the edge there and then maybe if you can firm it somehow we're planting so that maybe less of a hazard to people on public land we would never do that anything I have an observation you guys you talked a little about this right away for cars I would not encourage that I would just not have a right away for cars there I think that's not a good spot might personally I would encourage maybe having a walkway there or a pathway there because I can see people on any way maybe use that as a sort of a cut through and it could be very nice you're not drawn to the corner you just cut around the corner and get around it and it would make edge a little softer and I think any improvement to that gas station edge there would help to enable it so those are the two things that I would encourage a little more looking into yeah my only comment was going to be around that right away as well and simply say that I guess after our process I'd love to see I'm not sure if we can do a special condition but I'd like to see a pathway in on whether well first off, if it is allowable given the right way and what it is and what it can be well actually our agreement with the gas station owner is that we would not have cars driving in and out okay that's already good it may be appropriate to have it as a walkway yes we can have it as a walkway as well as long as there's no danger to pedestrians cutting across in front of the gas station because he has people pulling in and pulling out that's we just have to be careful okay so that is the answer on the right on that particular thing that's important so that one comes off of the third doctor basically and this word river birds that works like men and if they choose river birds and that was not going to be my point it was going to be more of do attack that thinks is best there so I think if that were a walkway that would be a good idea I agree with that David so seeing the changes that have been made to the design of the smaller building and how that fits in better with the neighborhood and listening to the concerns that expressed by some of the neighbors I'm struggling with the look of the larger building it's a perfectly nice building but now that I've seen what you could do with the smaller building I'm wondering can you bring any of that kind of treatment to the larger building to make it more consistent with the feel of the neighborhood I so I would say in response that this isn't necessarily the name I guess I didn't say well I'm not just looking at that view but that's the view that anyone would have anyone else would be looking into a six and a half foot fence and shrubs but is that the case because that would perhaps I'll do my opinion if the building isn't really going to well I mean it's a whole problem yeah that's an important view because that's actually the view that most people see the building from this right there like that if you're standing on the bridge you're screening the west end and screening the south end north end to the view from Wall Street lakes will be screened by shrubbery and you really can't see the whole street because it's you only have to go between buildings and we will have shrubbery and trees and a fence and then from the west from Wall Street lakes same we will have a fence and we propose tonight the understory screening but my understanding is that there will still be some involvement in final color selection material certification by the new guys by the sport and by the department that we fully expect and then we look forward to that input further revisions and plans in fact as well we are down a member this evening if we were to take a vote it would need to be a unanimous vote to approve a special permit in the past I've given the opponent the option of asking for a vote or if we had the option to continue we could continue to this coming Monday evening I believe that's up to the board if everyone that's a different date I know it's not the regulations but I know I understand the next regular December 19 however should you choose to meet prior to that that would be solely for the purposes of the vote all members could be present what about maybe he'd have to review the video you have two meetings for parents I think that my clients will be able to go forward to that okay I'll take a stab motion I'll move to approve the I'll move to approve the here it is I got a special permit docket number 3519 of Arlington when we read out okay so as follows I move to approve the following general conditions the final plans and specifications for the site including all building signs exterior lighting, landscaping locations and types of rack and sidewalk materials and dimensions shall be submitted to the approval of the Arlington redevelopment board prior to issuance of a building permit the board shall review and approve samples of exterior materials final plans and specifications shall include complete information concerning colors, materials lighting and other features that comprise the details of this final design to the applicant shall provide a state from the town engineer that all proposed utility services have adequate capacity to serve the development and that proposed site drainage is adequate three, the board maintains continuing jurisdiction over this permit and may, after a duly advertised public hearing attach other conditions or modify these conditions as it deems appropriate in order to protect the public interest and welfare four, snow removal from all parts of the site including the budding sidewalks and the pedestrian walkway from the sidewalk shall be the responsibility of the owner and shall be accomplished in accordance with the town by-laws five, all exterior trash and storage errors on the property, if any shall be properly screened and maintained in accordance with Article 30 of the by-laws of the town of Arlington six, trash shall be picked up only on weekdays and only between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday seven, no final or permanent certificate of occupancy shall be issued on this project until the project is completed in its final form and all conditions within this permit have been met eight, upon the issuance of the building permit the applicant shall file with the building inspector and the Department of Community Safety the names and telephone numbers of contact personnel who may be reached 24 hours each day during the construction period for the special conditions one, upon installation of landscaping materials and other site improvements the applicant shall remain responsible for such materials and shall replace and repair as necessary to remain in compliance with the approved site plan two, the applicant shall show evidence of agreement with Zipcar provide an alternative TDM method prior to issuance of a final certificate of occupancy three, the applicant shall continuously abide by the Transportation Demand Management Plan dated November 17, 2016 in keeping Section 801A3 of the Zilin Bylaw applicant shall conduct a survey of residents six months after the date of the certificate of occupancy in order to determine a baseline mode split for the project percentage of resident households using cars, bikes, transit or walking as their primary mode the survey, which shall be provided to the director of planning and community development, here and after the director, shall include questions to determine if additional resident households could be using alternatives to a car and impediments to increasing non-vehicle travel to the site one year from the date of the first report and annually thereafter a similar report based on survey data will be delivered to the director, if vehicle usage is increased from the baseline report to an extent requiring reconsideration owner shall work with the director to reduce vehicle usage report to the director shall include survey results and the following additional information number of households with one or more cars parked on the site number of households with bikes on the site incentives provided to households by the applicant and actual usage of incentives i.e. how many bicycles are usually parked on site, how many transit passes are purchased and how much subsidy is provided if subsidies are being provided to resident households how many and of what type and then as part of the motion as well I guess we would include the plans as delivered this evening dated December special time of December 5, 2016 from the day of the square of our contents I believe it's on the permit of the system here we have a little show as provided one change only one additional it was a general change this as amended by the one board I'll second that all in favor bye thank you very much good luck there's still a lot of work to do this board still has additional business things to do go out the back door take conversations downstairs thank you take care thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you good luck good luck you again I know I'll ask again the board to the 10- Mohammad You're up again. They'll be able to read it, but I'm gone. I'm here when I am. Oh, it sticks forever. I've been awful at that until... Take one of those. There's missing one session. I mean, I looked out my window this morning and that building wouldn't be blocking me. Take this and you can make additional calls. I do have to ask you to keep it. Oh yeah, so there are shadow plots in this? Yes, there is. Thank you. Close the public hearing. Public hearing is closed. Discussion in 2017. Tell me any more. Yeah, alright. We've got an audience of two. You're better. You're better. Close the door, you guys. Close the door. Close that one. That's it. It's important. So I'll just, if you don't mind, I'll just quickly open up. I think you have one thing in packet though that was prepared by Laura. That's like this? Yes. So I just have a quick overview. This is not like a formal hearing or anything like that. Basically, the warrant will open tomorrow, December 6th, and it closes on January 27th, as it's just closed to distribute it to all of us in town. So there's like basically four things that I just want to bring to your attention. The first one, you're already aware of, but I just want to make it clear, was comprehensive zoning bylaw changes. I've been talking about we hired the consultant, or KG, the kickoff meeting with them is happening tomorrow morning, but we don't anticipate any kind of comprehensive zoning bylaw update until maybe the projected timeline is next fall, 2017. So with that in mind, we don't want to delay other things that are currently in the works. Like for example, we've been working very hard with a subgroup of people through the residential study group, which is by the master plan implementation committee, et cetera, et cetera. And the residential study group has identified at this moment in time at least two issues that they're considering moving forward. One of them would be a zoning bylaw issue. The other one is like the town bylaw changes, which of course would not be under review of this board, but I wanted to bring it to everybody's attention. The first one on residential study that they're talking about is making amendments to, this is like a combined thing, not with a specific recommendation just yet, but addressing issues around garages, the slope of driveways, and just basically overall impact of some new housing on streetscapes. And I'm speaking very broadly because I don't have a specific change proposed yet, because that's something that the residential study group is currently investigating and will be discussing, I believe they have a meeting next week. I think we'll have something ready for the meeting before our next board meeting. And so we would go through, and any of these things just like always, we'd go through a public process where we'll have more conversations with the board to get your input way in and then have any formal public hearings as we meet. This would be needed as part of the one article process. The other, the second of them, so obviously that's a zone of by-law change, or maybe not so obviously, that would be a zone of by-law change. The second thing is in part addressing issues around construction impacts, and we're currently calling this sort of in quotes a good neighbor by-law, which would basically address things like dust, noise, duration of work, work zone, you know, sort of some of the details that had somewhat been raised at special time meeting this year under the rock removal regulated, but would go even further to address a lot of the kinds of construction impacts that we've heard as a group, the residential study group that is, and try to be responsive to those things. However, at the moment it's looking like those kinds of amendments would go, would fall into the town by-law. I think that's great. Many of the things that are- I thought it was ill placed in the zone. It may not work in the zone. The other advantage to this potential proposal is that it provides clear paths to enforcement, who to call, and when, and how, and how problems solved quickly. It's a couple of things that we're working on, but I think are really helpful. Yeah, so we're working with town council and the town manager on a draft or something, and again, that's supposed to be discussed next Tuesday evening at the next residential study group, which of course anything is welcome to attend. Hopefully we will talk about committee appointments tonight. And then the last thing would be just the amendments to what was adopted at springtime meeting this year related to mixed use. We'll have to talk about that because that's the spreadsheet. We're not the spreadsheet. We'll be out of here. We'll be out of this for about a year. So, I think everybody remembers what we had proposed last year to, I want to take a step back and talk about the master plan and the message from the master plan being that they wanted, that people wanted to see protection of the residential zones, but more development and activity in the commercial zones. And the mixed use was passed to encourage a new kind of development in the commercial zones. And so we have about six months of experience with the new bylaw, and the good news is that we've had three projects come in the door interested in using and developing some kind of mixed use. One on Broadway, which you permitted about two weeks ago, I guess, one on Mass Ave and Shuler Court, which is right where the high school is, and the third one is on Summer Street out past the Rec Center. And they are coming in on January 9th as a mixed use project. And Shuler Court is maybe the second meeting in January. It's not quite ready, but it's approaching. The feedback that we've gotten on the dimensional and density regulations is that they're too tight to truly encourage the kind of development that we've talked about. In short, our requirements allow one additional story of commercial, but the same amount of residential that was allowed before. So we haven't really opened that door to allow more residential, which you may remember one of the pluses of that is to provide customers for the business district. The problems are centered around two requirements. The first is lot area per dwelling unit. This requirement determines the number of units that can go on site. It's a hard and fast number. And what we have observed and what people have, the opponents have told us is that it pushes them to have bigger units. So that they can use the area, but they can't have more units. And at least two of the people have told us that they would have preferred to build more units of different sizes. To have some small, some large, some one big, some more family oriented. But that particular requirement is constrained now to the number of units they could have. I looked at a couple of neighboring towns to see what they do. I looked at Watertown, Somerville, Brooklyn, and Newton. I actually looked at a lot of towns, and some I couldn't find the right comparable kind of properties. But in all of those neighborhoods, the requirement for residential property in business zones, they had no requirement for lot area per dwelling unit. So my feeling after doing that little bit of research was that we should get rid of it completely. It's not serving our purposes. So what you're saying is let's say for every unit, there's a minimum of say, some like 700 here, okay? So you take the 700 divided into a lot area, that's how many units you have in that lot. That's right. And you're saying to get rid of that requirement and let the market or let that fluctuate to maximum density of units. That's right. The market and the constraints of the lot itself. And that's only as far as what you could build. Only in these particular zones. Only in commercial centers. And I didn't even touch the B1 zone. B1 is the zone that's sort of the most transitional from residential to business. And I just left that. Still subject to the height max. Yeah. All the setbacks and all the heights are still there. That's right. So we're not getting any larger buildings. We're just getting a little better density to make it more encouraged developers to develop there. Right. Well, getting rid of lot area per dwelling unit particularly allows more variation in size of units. So you're not. So before, and we're now, I should say, because People actually want smaller units to some extent. Right. And I think the owners want to have a variety. Right. You know, they want to have a variety. Well, the smaller units encourage more diversity as far as affordability. Right. And empty nesters. You have more diverse range of who can afford to live here. That's a good thing. That's a good thing. Because it's not triggered in many of the developments that we've been looking at because they're too small. Yeah. Which actually works against us. Okay. Yeah. We're putting up so many units available. I didn't know that. I was thinking that. What was that? What's that? Our inclusion zone requires you to have what? Six units? Yes. That's right. The threshold is six units. We're requiring 700 feet. You know, that's actually a bad example probably. But, you know, you may not get up to the six because you can't get up to the six. Once you get all the six units, you need inclusion, right? Yeah. And with the numbers we have here, we don't get there fast enough enough to the properties. So if we lower the unit, it gives us a better chance to have more inclusionary units. Right. More foreign units. Right. It's sort of more households in the same area. It's a better possibility right now. It's more challenging financially as part of, like because of the mix. Can I ask a process and administrative question more than anything else? Because I think there's a great discussion. But if it's because we want to make sure we have something in the warrant that we can, you know, put something for it that we want to, you weren't thinking that we'd do something so specific in the warrant. We would simply put a placeholder that says to amend the mixed use by law, you know, to, I don't know, we'd come up with a language. Yeah. Right. But I think in the end, this looks great from a, you know, to be discussed and out of hearing and everything else as to what's in, what's out, what's good, what's bad. But for the warrant itself, I think all we're saying is that we need to, we think some of the table of dimension that density requirements quite possibly for the mixed use that we passed last year with one year experience. Right. And I wanted to kind of put it on the table now early to hear whether you... Oh, I think it makes perfect sense. I'm interested in doing that. Well, my point is, is I think the education on this stuff is valuable and we should make sure that a placeholder warrant article goes in there. Whether or not we ultimately, with the help of the residential study committee, because I'm assuming that they're... Well, no, this is... No, this is commercial. This is commercial. Okay. So anyway, so as we kind of think these things, sorry, I was getting confused with the previous one. But we would have something. Yeah. More broad. Exactly. I would want to make sure that, you know, we are allowed to be in scope on a very wide range of things as we... So I guess I want to take a look at what we did for the actual mixed use last year and, you know, just kind of truncated. The language. Yeah, for the language. Yeah, the warrant article. Because usually they're like, you know, two sentences that say, hey, consider mixed use stuff. Well, I want to put that out there too. It gets you in... It gets us a place, but we can continue to talk about it. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. Exactly. We don't want to... Yeah, we don't want to have the hearing in December and that don't show. So you asked us to... Just start thinking about it. Yeah. Okay, good. Good. Okay. Just share your thoughts with me. And it's the political questions as well as the content questions of, you know, do we think we can get the support to do it? I'll just finish. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. Two other types of changes I was suggesting to consider. The next one is floor area ratio. A couple of people have said to me, you know, architects and engineers, that you can't attain the height that we're allowing because the floor area ratio is too small unless you were to build a very skinny building. Council. That just doesn't make sense economically. So again, I looked at other communities. How do they treat residences in commercial zones? And I found a pretty wide range from one floor area ratio of one to up to four. Coolidge Corner in Brookline is a three. But most of them were closer to two. And so I was thinking that maybe we should consider going to two. So these are your recommendations? So these are what? This is my recommendations. Okay. So what's there right now is 1.5. 1.5, right. And so like, for instance, the Broadway project that HDA brought in, they had 14 units. They could have done like maybe 18 units if the floor area ratio had been higher. And if we'd gotten rid of the lot area for dwelling units. And honestly, probably there would have been very little impact. Maybe the building would have been even a little bigger and would have like really held down that corner, which is, you know, in that area there's so little development. You probably wouldn't have either wouldn't have known the difference or would have thought it was fine. You know, so it's, we can do more analysis on what that would mean to go to two. But I thought it was worth considering that we have a, we have a maximum height of five stories, but it can't be attained without raising the floor area ratio. I kind of agree with you there. I like that. But I don't understand, I don't understand well enough all the different zones. The B2, B2A, B3, B4. That's the kind of thing like once, this is like just to test these. What we would get into like a lot more depth and study. We have examples. Okay. It would, you know, it would be a broader discussion. But wasn't there a group that was going to do? That's the zoning recodification work. That's part of that concrete, the whole zoning bylaw changes. But these are things that we happen to notice, like in practice right now and recently about to change that could potentially serve us well in the near future, more near term stuff. And also the zoning bylaw revisions are not dealing with policy changes like this. They're going to deal with cleaning up, you know, in quotes. Yes, because it's all spotted all over the place. Yeah. I think the organization of the zoning bylaw. I think just about everybody feels like we have too many business districts, though it's not productive. You know, it's just confusing. Yes, it is. And so I think whether we can do that in recodification isn't 100% clear, but we will do it in the near future. But this is what we have now. So, and I can give, you know, I actually did start to put together like Trader Joe's, what district is that? And, you know, looking at different things, but I don't seem to have it with me. So I'll get you that for the next meeting. Springtime meeting actually the report to town meeting had the description, I believe it, sort of remembering us, the description of what can go and what lives in every business district that we wet when we were at the time making those proposed changes. So I'll pull it out. Yeah, I'll finish tonight's meeting too, as well. Because I get confused myself. And then the last thing, the last thing is we had these provisions last year where we made the larger loss even more restrictive. And upon reflection, I'm not sure that makes that much sense. We haven't had anything come in the door. That was over 20,000 square feet. Two of the lots were 10,000 square feet and one was, I think, even smaller. Isn't sure if we're at like 7,000. Yeah, very small loss because that's what we have here. But I wanted us to also consider removing those. Is that also the contributing factor is because of the price of land. Because the larger the lot, that much more money. Is this not that much? There are lots there. Half acre or less. I think we were thinking of some of the bigger parcels what might happen to them in the future. But we weren't taking everything collectively as a whole. Because on average, the lot sizes are smaller. But when you look at strategically, some of the development that in many of the plans that we want to advance, those are our projects. So it makes sense, but not magical. Would you say anything? I said there were only a handful. Mr. Chairman, nice to question. I know a couple of people have talked about doing the Citizens Initiative article but they wanted to see what the board had in the plans itself. In particular, these would be ones that would be out of this board's purview, which is the prohibition of recreational marijuana, either buffer zones for medical marijuana or recreational marijuana on the board. Some communities are putting a moratorium on recreational marijuana on the sales as considered for medical marijuana. Is that something we'll be considering? Just a very cursory that one of those items would be out of this board's purview, which is the prohibition of recreational marijuana. But I do believe that's a moratorium. But that was done through a zoning change. That moratorium would be, that's a change that needs to happen in the Zephylla. That's why it would be a Zephylla change. Yeah, you mean just taking it out. Is that what you're talking about? No, what I'm asking is whether you're considering or planning to consider a moratorium for recreational marijuana sales as you did for medical marijuana sales. That's what I'm saying. My answer was correct. In the first case, was that the Board of Selectment? No, why is it the Board of Selectment? It's a zoning change. It's a change to the zoning bylaw. That's how I'm not saying it. That's what was done in the last round. Yeah, if there's the last round, I'm going to call the Board to add a moratorium in the zoning bylaw. I'm simply asking, are you planning in the zoning bylaw to do that for recreational marijuana? So at the moment, we haven't discussed that. No, the Board hasn't discussed that. So I think we can, you know, dance around who does it first. We haven't discussed it. We haven't discussed it. Nobody are being rude. And so for being rude, it's just... So why are you being rude? Because you interrupted when the answer was right. I was interrupted, sir. The question has been answered. Thank you. I appreciate your answer. Thank you very much. I will pass the information out. Rude is always correct. Thank you. Moving on. Any other comments or questions? No. Okay. The next item. So Mike is departing the Board as of January 31st. So we need to designate somebody from the Board to the Community Preservation Act committee to see back. I asked if Mike could continue and all the way to the state to find out whether he could. And they said it has to be a member of the Board. Right. It's written into the law. On the Community Preservation? It's actually very involved. And it's a great, great committee. Very collegial. And it's... But it has a couple of very busy periods around the applications for Community Preservation projects. So that will occur in the fall when the preliminary is in. And then as we go up to the spring and kind of agree on which projects we're going to put forth to town. So anyway, sorry about that all. I just have done that six years. So it was just time for me to say something. I actually said something way back my first year as well. So that would be the second time I've said something. So I apologize to my colleagues on board. So anyway, so Community Preservation is just a great committee, very collegial, but it is quite a bit of work. What will typically happen is there's nine members of the committee. You go and you kind of talk about the different projects. You give your opinions. You try to report back. You haven't done as much last year where we were really rushed as I showed up to this board. But with respect to time commitment, it's actually fairly time intensive. I've got to tell you that. So I will warn folks with respect to that. Was it man-ass? Yeah, sure. You were meeting like two or three times? I have two more meetings in December. Multiple visits with people who apply. Exactly, exactly. Consultations. Yeah, in consultation. So for example, one of the projects Jenny had put forth and I would speak to Jenny or someone. We all kind of had a project that we would try to shepherd through the process to some extent. So there is quite a bit of work. I will say I was very interested in it. So I probably, I think one would not probably have to be quite so involved. I think you could do a very good job and just make it known that you're the artist representative and you feel that it's more consultative back to the board, et cetera. I do think it's a shame that the statute is written that way because it is some of the time commitment. And I think it is tough to ask someone who puts all the time that we do as a board on something like that. Now, obviously you guys are also working on the recodification, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm not saying that those are any less intensive. But I guess it was just disappointing. So you could continue serving through the end of January? I was expecting that. And then you would just need somebody to take it out? If someone could maybe go to one of the January meetings so I could do an introduction and maybe have that kind of, maybe it's even if the new person, if we know who the new person is, you know, maybe I could even take that person. I kind of told them I'd try to get someone because it'll be a fairly busy time when I leave because all the projects will be coming on due. Are we sticking in a new way? Well, I don't know who we have not designated and we haven't even started interviewing people. You're probably going to need coverage. You're probably going to need somebody more unbelievably. At least for the time being. And I'm not able to add on another committee. There's only a partial list. I'll sit in temporarily until we find someone to fill in permanently. I can't make that commitment and I feel bad as if I make a commitment that I can't. It's just right now we're in a busy time. Yeah, and I can tell you Last year, last year. Are they evening or also daytime? No, evening. Because I wouldn't be able to do a date. Yeah, no, no. And actually they're amazing and good about knowing when the art meetings are and scheduling around them because they believe that the art is a very important member of the committee, which is very nice of them. All right, so let me know what. Yeah. We find a permanent replacement. Do you want to like, formalize that? I probably should. I can't. I can't. I'll move to approve Ken as my replacement on the community preservation committee until another person is designated. And maybe do you want to have that start? There's actually if you want to come with me on the 17th and then there's a meeting on the 30th of January. Selfies do a whole 31st I'm in Buffalo. You're in Buffalo? Okay. It's my last day as an official member of here as well. Okay, so why don't you plan on coming on the 17th? Where's it? It's usually It's the usual spot that we meet. Second floor. Oh, you mean it's in like that? Our usual spot that we meet? Yeah. Kind of like this room here. Plus a yellow people in this room. Yeah, there's something about it. Yeah, if I've done that. It's the painting. They get me angry. I think it's the animals. This is all being taped. Exactly. Oh, absolutely. I knew it was what I was saying. Oh, I know right now too. That's fine. If someone's waiting until the end. I love his hat. Is that it? Let's discuss any of these other Do we need to formalize David's appointment to the zoning regard? If you haven't done that yet. We kind of switched him in. He's been He was gracious enough to take it on. I'll move to approve David as the Arlington Redevelopment Board representative to the Zoning Reducatification Committee. I'll second that. Congratulations. All in favor. Somebody said to me that they think that they were the rep to the Arlington Tourism and Economic Development Committee. It may have been me. I think I may have been that at one point in time. I think I went to a couple meetings and then I lost track of it. Do we have this? We do. We'll be attending those meetings so I can have her report back with any clarifications on the board's role in relation to that committee. I wasn't. Arlington Tourism and Economic Development Committee. I think probably that's all to cover for now. We don't have the minutes. That's all to cover for that agenda. Support for community preservation projects. So there's two projects that the department is working on and advancing either on behalf of the ARP or in partnership with the historical commission and a number of other groups representing historical and cultural interests in town. We're wondering if you want to write letters of support for those two projects. The deadline is actually this right. If you would want to support any other projects just more in general. We've been asked. It has a corporation of Arlington has a project called Westminster. And that was mentioned in the housing production plan as a project that fit into the recommendations of the housing production plan if you wanted to write a letter of support for that. What are the other projects? What are the other projects? A formal housing project? Two projects that were being asked. Oh, I'm sorry. I think you said what they were. One is the historic resources working group and that is to update the inventory of historic resources and that was a recommendation of the master plan. And then the other one is Woodmore Park which basically making modest improvements to Woodmore Park which is technically an English property. The area is the park. It's the park. Which is basically removing the railing that's sort of the granite and metal. Sorry, I meant the rail road. No, no, I meant I was just saying which park it was. Oh, yeah, which rail road. We're talking about doing modest improvements. This is a long line. But not like all of the recommendations in that proposal. I know last year we were asked to take support to Woodmore or other projects. It was my position and I think my colleagues reminded me that choosing one project over the others was not necessarily there. That being said an affordable housing project is a wheelhouse. Although, I guess my point on that one and I believe it's the same one is because we had an affordable housing project, Kimball Farmer House last year. I think what we said was the permit is our endorsement and I think it's a little strange to go necessarily beyond the permit because we've got the additions in there and we've got this, that and the other thing. Personally I kind of do look at that. Having said that, if we actually own the property then I think we should not only endorse it but like that. But I think if I recall correctly, we kind of said the permit is our endorsement of the affordable housing project. The Westminster project had a comprehensive permit for the DBA so it's an unusual situation. Westminster is different, you're right. Denign me then, I want to forget about that. The last time we talked about this we did not issue a permit but I think we did wait in on Westminster and give it our support for the operating of the permit. So we have supported that in the past and I think that would not necessarily obviously carry the same weight as a special permit but I think it can be read as an endorsement of the project without going further in unfairly awaiting the scales toward any of these projects. So we could direct our representative to support it. Okay, I'll do that. I think we should advocate for improvement of property that is actually our property. The request is to have CPA funds but also use some urban renewal funds so it's not just a commitment of CPA it's also a sizable chunk of money that would come out of the urban renewal fund. One of these we'll figure out what's all the property because I have no idea. Maybe the historic registry would take care of that for us. I think the consensus is that we are supportive of CPA and its projects but I don't think it would necessarily be fair for us to weigh in on one over another. I'm just trying to understand you because I can draft a letter and then circulate it or however we want to hear that exactly. I'll defer to the board as to how that should be done certainly only to so are we the proponents? No. So I act as secretary of of this board and I'm sure that we can continue to build it on behalf of the majority of the people who do this. So it's not going to be happening. If you're saying a letter of support but you're saying we support this board, we're being done. Yeah. I think all three projects fall within our goals for lack of a better word. I think I can say that I would support the choice of any one of them but it's fairly important that we our way behind another. We are submitting I guess I'm heavy because I'm not sure what the answer is. Yeah. I don't even have a problem with a letter for the affordable housing. I think it's a little bit weird that we would give a letter to the board but we have also approved a special permit for it. It seems a little incongruous to me. Well in Westminster we did that so that's why we had to support that. Obviously we support two more on top. Yeah. Yeah. So we can either favor or we can have this on the ground. I've been also in like a color letter and just stated that it was discussed in this meeting and we were about to support or something. Yeah. I didn't think I could look at that. But consensus. We have several meetings to approve. The meeting is October 7th. I did not personally have any issues with the I don't have the point at first. I don't have all the I don't have all the any issues with the Identifier issue. I'm sure I would combine people yeah even if it isn't both the same thing but you maybe change You make the changes. and bodies. oh you're saying you got to us on Friday. Circulatively chose on Friday. Yes, yes. Yes, just one change. So, you want me to move the group up to the 17s in a minute? Second. All in favor? Aye. As far as November 7th, I did not have any particular changes. However, we did receive a complaint from Chris already for the email regarding his, how his comments were reflected in the report in the minutes. That's not an endorsement, actually. I would not suggest to move the amendment here. I just want to go on the record team and receive that email. I've been reviewed by the board. I've been reviewed and I'd like to see it. We've been through this before. The position of this board was the position of the Attorney General's Office. The meeting minutes are only to be a snapshot and an overview of proceedings and how to be a translator and how to be able to work for word, recitation, everything that's taking place. I also take care that we need to note that it's recorded by ACMI, which presumably does make it into the minutes of the meeting, and direct anyone looking at the minutes to another more substantive review. Should they wish to view the videos and give you that online? I'm sure do it at the ACMI offices. That being said, I know what the changes will be. That's okay. That's okay then. Okay, we're 21st. There are two BPs in the third line down. That's the only one. That's the only one. Third line down. One, two, three. Just a type of... Oh, third line. This is November 21st. 21st. I'm just reading the first text. Okay. The third text. I still don't see it. The third text. Yeah. I don't think you can miss that. But I know what the changes are. I know what's going on. I need to approve the minutes of November 21st. We've changed the venue. Also, I want to figure out... Our next meeting is... I'm going to do it just to redone it. And that's a question. I remember somebody... had expressed concern... security-related concerns about people accommodating on the bike path. Yes. On November 21st? That wasn't at the... No, that wasn't November 21st. It was at a bar. The woman lives on a street place who was concerned about... Residence safety. Residence safety. Was this expressed concern... about building the residence safety? Yeah. I would actually add in... a loan like that. Residence safety. Second page. Second paragraph. Third sentence at the bottom. Thank you. Thank you for building the residence safety... on the bike path. Right? Yeah, a loan like that. December 19th. Yeah, we have a loan like that. Right. We have a loan like that. No, we have to... I'll move the... November 21st. Second. All in favor? All right. The next meeting is December 19th. I just wanted to point out a couple of errors that I noticed in the next year's schedule that we just caught. Okay. One is... It looks like you have meetings for both of those in my minutes. So we'll have to... We have February 20th and April 17th. Those are the holidays that show those air in the minutes. So we're going to have to... We'll get back to you about what to do. We have a lot of people coming in looking for hearing aids. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. I'll just... I'll just... I think we... Yeah. We have a new cycle... a new cycle health club type place. Also right here in high school. Aren't you looking for... Oh, really? Like the station or something like that. That's true. That's true. That's what that street is just like before. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, that was... Too hard. All right. Now we can adjourn. I'll set it off later. Bye.