 is 731 PM on Tuesday, November 9th, 2021. Good evening, my name is Christian Klein. I'm the chair of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. I'm calling this meeting of the board to order. I'd like to confirm all members and anticipated officials are present. Members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Handlin. Here. Kevin Mills. Here. Stephen Revillac. Good evening, Mr. Chair. Good evening. Sean O'Rourke and Aaron Ford are unable to join us this evening. So on behalf of the town, Palarelli, our administrator. Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Good evening. And Vincent Lee, who's assisting us as always. Here. Good to have you with us. And just to confirm for the hearings that we have in front of us this evening, I believe Bruce McKenna and Jennifer Weaver are here. Good evening. Yes, yes, we're here. And on behalf of 31 Melbourne Road, Brian and Elizabeth Teldor. Yes, hi. Good evening. Good evening. Okay. So this open meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with an act extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16, 2021. This act includes an extension until April 1st, 2022 of the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, which suspended the requirement to hold all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed to continue to participate remotely. Public bodies may continue to meet remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. An opportunity for public participation will be provided during the public comment period during each public hearings. For this meeting, the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals has convened a video conference via the Zoom application with online and telephone access as listed on the agenda posted to the town's website identifying how the public may join. This meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcast by ACMI. Please be aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means. Some attendees are participating by video conference, other participants are participating by computer audio or by telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name, or another identifier. Please take care to not share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you please maintain decorum during the meeting including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda. As chair, I observe the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting, as chair, I make the following land acknowledgement. Whereas the zoning board of appeals for the town of Arlington, Massachusetts discusses and arbitrates the use of land in Arlington formerly known as monotomy. Now, Gunkwin word meaning swift waters, this board here by acknowledges that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous peoples from whom the colony, province, and Commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. Before we begin tonight's hearing, I would like to thank and congratulate Roger Dupont and Kevin Mills on their reappointment to the board. Greatly appreciate your willingness to continue your volunteer service on this board. It's great to have you with us. So we will, the first item on our agenda is the participation details. Then the next item will be a business item for us. So we're starting the evening couple of administrative items including the approval of decisions. These items relate to the operation of the board and as such will be conducted without input from the general public. The board will not take up any new business on prior hearings or will there be the introduction of any new information on matters previously brought before the board. After introducing each item, I'll invite members of the board to provide any comments, questions, or motions they may have. If members wish to engage in discussion with other members, please do so through the chair, taking care to identify yourself for the record. So item two on our agenda this evening is a vote of approval of the decision for five Chevy Outroad. So this was a decision written up expertly as always by our vice chair, Patrick Hanlon. It was distributed to the board for comment. I hope everyone has had a chance to review and provide comments back. And a final version was posted late this afternoon. So are there any further questions or comments in regards to the decision for five Chevy Outroad? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the final decision for five Chevy Outroad? Mr. Chairman, whoops, Mr. Chairman. Well, Patrick, I can't hear you. That's, there we are. There we go. I moved that. So moved, I moved that the board approved the draft decision in five Chevy Outroad docket 3670. Thank you. May I have a second? I can. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. Vote of the board, Roger DuPont. Aye. Patrick Hanlon. Aye. Kevin Mills. Aye. Stephen Revillac. Aye. Chair votes aye. That decision is approved. The next item on our agenda this evening, item number three, approval, decision for 1416 Edgerton Road. This is a decision prepared by Mr. Hanlon, distributed to the board for questions and comments and a final draft decision was issued later this afternoon. Are there any further questions or comments on 1416 Edgerton Road? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. As you were speaking, I just noticed that the cover sheet on this decision says 1415 and so I'd ask the board's consent to correct the title. Absolutely. So with that final edit, are there any further questions or comments on 1416 Edgerton Road? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the final draft decision for 1416 Edgerton Road? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Second? Second. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. The vote of the board, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. Revillac. Aye. Chair votes aye. That decision is approved. Brings the item four on our agenda this evening, approval, the decision for 43 Cuttrichill Road. Is a decision prepared by, oops, sorry, I got somebody waiting in the waiting room. What did I mean? The decision prepared by Mr. Hanlon distributed to the board for questions of comments and final draft decision released this afternoon. Are there any further questions or comments in regard to 43 Cuttrichill Road? Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the final draft decision for 43 Cuttrichill Road? Mr. Chairman, so moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. You have a second? I can. Mr. DuPont. Vote of the board, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. Revillac. Aye. Chair votes aye. It approves the final decision for 43 Cuttrichill Road. Brings this up to item number five. We're now turning to public hearings on tonight's agenda. Here's some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of tonight's business. After I announce each agenda item, I will ask the applicant to introduce themselves for themselves and to make their presentation to the board. I will then request that members of the board ask what questions they have on the proposal. After the board's questions have been answered, I will open the meeting for public comment and at the conclusion of public comment, the board will deliberate and then vote on the matter. So item springs up on item number five on our agenda this evening, docket 3668. It's a continuance of the hearing for 125 127 Webster Street and Mr. McKenna. Yes. My son Luke is gonna start with the... Yeah, so we're just... Ask for their help. Yeah, so we're just here to, we just wanna clarify like, so due to confusions on our original paperwork, we decided to enter two, one for the original design, which is we now understand as a variance. And then we have a, if this is our priority, but if that doesn't go through, we do have a second one that we believe falls under the special permitting. And we are just looking to add some extra space. And by the way the law is written, it puts us above the half story. So we're just looking for relief from that. And in order to make more living space for a three-generational home here. You're supposed to just do the... Yeah. So just my first question to the board is how did we wanna proceed? Do we want to start with a presentation discussion on the variance application? We move forward from there. Mr. Chairman. Ms. Hanlon. I would suggest that we have the applicant address the variance first since that's the applicant's primary thing. I would encourage, I mean, the applicant should be able to spend his time as he wishes, but I would encourage him to focus at the outset on what it is about the soil conditions, the topography or the shape of the lot that is unique to this property and is not the same on his neighbor's property that would allow a variance to be granted. Because no matter how good a case he has for a variance, he has to satisfy those highly technical things which we take very seriously because they're written into state law and the state courts take them very seriously. And as far, I'm pretty familiar with this property and it does not have an odd shape to the lot. It has the same soil as far as I can tell that everything else in East Arlington does and the topography is completely flat. So none of those things appear to work. If the applicant can't make a plausible, what the applicant considers a plausible showing there, he'd be better off spending most of his time on the special permit. Thank you. I will go ahead and share the variance package. So as Mr. Hanlon said, the rules for variances are established in state law. They're not open to the local amendment. It's four criteria that are required to be made. The first is that the variance has to be related to the circumstances relating to soil condition, shape, or topography, especially affecting such land or structures but not affecting generally the zoning district in which it is located that would substantiate the granting of a variance. So I'm building within the existing footprint of the house. So I'm not actually getting out into the soil conditions of the thing. It doesn't seem, I'm not sure how you would end up having unusuals asking for a variance for anything other than a new structure in this, the way this is written, the way that I'm reading it anyway. My house is on the corner lot and I'm trying to go for the variance in order to be able to expand my house so that we can have another room for another one. I guess if I'm not gonna meet that criteria, I don't understand why I don't fall under the new ADU specifications, which I thought that would bypass a lot of the requirements for different things in there. Is that incorrect? So my understanding of the new ADU ordinance and I would have to do a more thorough review to be sure, but it does not obviate the need to abide by the, basically what it does is it allows you to have an additional unit so that in a two family district rather than, you're allowed to have one additional residential unit per permitted unit. So in a single family district, you can add a second unit. In a two family district, you could add two additional units to a two unit building, but it does not give you the ability to expand beyond the height limitations both for height of structure and number of floors for the district. Those numbers still hold. Right, and I'm not going beyond any height district. Well, you would be going past two floors. You'd be going beyond two and a half floors. And so you're currently you have what qualifies as a two and a half story house, which is the maximum height in the R2 district. If you were to expand out the attic floor completely, then it would be a three story building, which is not allowed by right in the R2 districts. Well, I'm going for 61% apparently is what it works out to, but it just seems like it would be a good way for the town to be able to make it in perpetuity that it always maintains a two family house and not a three family, as opposed to I sent pictures of other houses, which obviously at some point, somebody could go through the square footage and show that they were more than 50% of the square footage of the second floor and therefore would be the same condition that I'm going to be in, except they wouldn't have the restriction of never being classified as a three family. So I just see that it as an advantage to the town to just let it be classified as in perpetuity as a two family. Right, well, I think it, I mean, the height of the building has nothing to do with the number of units. If you could use this as a single family house, you could use it as a two family house. You could, excuse me, specifically apply to have accessory dwelling units and go beyond that number, but the bylaw as approved by town meeting limits houses in the R2 district to two and one half floors. And that half floor is relative to the floor area of the floor below. And so, you can go up to that top floor can be 49 and a half percent the floor area of the floor below, but as soon as you go 50% and beyond, you're no longer in compliance with the zoning bylaw. And so I think that, so that's the reason that the plan that you had submitted for variance is being submit, it has to be submitted as a variance request because as you had said, it's beyond 60%. And so therefore it's something that is above and beyond what is allowed by right zoning. And as Mr. Hanlon has said, it's your right to apply to the board and to request a variance for it. But the variance requests under state law are intended to be few and far between and the criteria they've established are fairly rigid. And the first test that the board is required to administer is this question about soil conditions, shape and topography of the existing lot. So there has to be something about the lot that is precluding you from following the zoning bylaw. And in the description that you had provided, it's not a description about something on the lot that's preventing you from abiding by the zoning bylaw. It's that the zoning bylaw prevents you from having as much space in your house as you would like. And unfortunately that's not the criteria that we're allowed to accept as a zoning board. So the two families, the lesser, the lower income families in Arlington are not allowed to have an ADU because we can't expand beyond. You can subdivide your first floor into two units and your second floor into two units and you can have four units in your house. There's nothing preventing you from doing that. All it's saying is that you can't take, you can't add more than 50% of the floor area, the second floor on the third floor. It's just, all it does is it limits, because essentially what the provision is intended and it's demonstrated well in the residential design guidelines is a half floor is intended to be essentially space under the main roof that's built out to accommodate the additional living space. It's not intended to be an addition, a whole entire additional floor. And I can go forward in the drawing set. I appreciate that you have examples from around the neighborhood, but this is the existing house which is two floors under a primary roof. And what you're proposing is essentially a three, almost entirely a three-story structure which, regardless of whether we think it's the right designer or whether we think it's appropriate, because it is larger than 50% of area of the floor below, we have to consider, it has to be considered as a variance request because it is requesting something that is above and beyond what the zoning by-law currently allows. Yes, I understand that part. I don't understand the soil conditions, provision for the variance because there clearly is never gonna be a soil conditions on anything that is within the structure. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just there's that that might be that probably is true. And that's what the state did. So it may be the stages doesn't allow us to give a variance for anything that's entirely within the structure. This wasn't town meeting that passed this and the state that did it is operating against a framework of almost never granting variances. It is exceedingly rare that variances are granted. And a principal reason why they're not is because these three characteristics, soil, topography and shape of the lot aren't met. Now, shape of the lot sometimes is something that will justify it. And topography, especially in the western part of the county where you have various deep slopes and rock formations and so forth, often is a basis for granting a variance. But this is, we could agree and I am very sympathetic with what you would like to do. And we could agree that it would be a great thing to do. And it would still not be within our power to grant variance unless you could meet these first criteria. These are not things that we can weigh against each other. You have to meet them all. And that's why I asked you to start with this first because we can't waive that. We can't say, oh, but we don't have to do that in this case because it wouldn't make any sense given what you want to do. The state says we have to apply all of these things and have to say no. And typically that's exactly what we do. So variances are very difficult to come by. And that's sort of, it may or may not make sense and you can go to the state to get the law changed but we can't do that. Anything about that here, the town meeting can't do anything about it. It is entirely a question of state law. What town meeting can do is say that something is a special permit use and that sort of is the second part of your application if you comply with the two and a half story height limitation there is still an opportunity to get a special permit for a somewhat smaller project. And that is also what you're asking for. And you know, it's a persuadus that this was the greatest thing ever and we still wouldn't be able to do it. So I do have a question, I understand that. So I do have one other question though. How does it go about, do you make zoning changes for an area? So like if it was gonna be a three story area, how does the zoning changes happen? Or if somebody puts in a store or something where it wasn't commercial before they changed that. So how do they go about doing those things? Those would generally require a change in the statute and town meeting would have the ability to change the zoning map as they sometimes do or to change any of the requirements for that. The variance is really a separate procedure for when you cannot comply with the zoning ordinance and you're being asked because of a special hardship that's caused by one of these three things you're asking for relief. But the town certainly can change the zoning ordinance, change the map, change what the zoning ordinance requires. The town could if Tom meeting thought it was the town's interest to do so, eliminate the 2.5 story restriction altogether. Okay. But it has not done that. All right, so I guess we're gonna move on to the special permit because obviously changing the zoning is not gonna happen. Right. If I can just add, Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I think there, Steve Revoloch, I am sympathetic with what the applicant is trying to do in terms of making more room to accommodate a multi-generational household. And I think there are certain things that would be easier from an administrative sense if we allowed three stories rather than two and a half. But the bylaw does say two and a half and as Mr. Hanlon said, that's a requirement we can only waive under a fairly narrow set of extenuating circumstances. So the criteria for special permit are much more within the purview of the board. So this is a belief that this existing third floor space, the existing attic floor space and we're just looking for the, that's the second floor plan. This is the proposed plan for the attic floor? Yes. And what's the intent for the spaces? I'm sorry, just the one is labeled. Well, just the one is labeled because it still has a high wall on this side because I'm trying not to make the roof changes too much. So I was trying to split it. And so with that dashed line, it's an invisible wall there. That's where the roof pitch changes. Okay. And I needed the problem with the layout is that I need to be able to get in the staircase, the dormer and then the bathroom is in there. And anyway, so in the bathrooms in there and because the plumbing is, if these wall fixed things, I can't change and to try to get those three things in there and not have just multiple roof lines all through the, all around the place because they cause problems in the long run. Everywhere where you have sidewalls going down into a roof that creates a problem for water infiltration and we've gotten away with stuff for a long time because roofers did things differently and now materials are different, but no longer do roofers flash, step flash and counter flash because nobody appreciates the fact that 60 years down the road, it doesn't leak. They just, the house has been here a hundred years and I'd like to be able to build something that was able to last another hundred. Anyway, so the roof lines, the seven foot lines go across. You can see in the, towards the driveway and Hamlet Street side that is the, that's the seven foot 10 of that room is over seven feet. Okay. So this dashed line is the, approximately the seven foot elevation. That's the seven foot elevation. And then in the front, the pitch is different. And so the seven, it is the different distance. The seven foot elevation is at a different distance because I needed headroom at the top of the stairs. Okay. Is this the current location of the stair? That's correct. Okay. And is this floor is going to be a part of the unit in the floor below, correct? The only reason the attic space was important was if I had ended up being an ADU under the 900 square feet. I see, okay. It is going to be used as attic space, but. Okay, we have sections through. So I believe this is the area that you were, that the driveway ends on the previous slide. It's this end, is that correct? Yes, correct. And this is the section through the opposite end. Then that's the existing section. Correct. These are the elevations, right? So this would be the driveway. And here is the opposite side. That's the front, the Webster Street end. Thank you. That's the other street phase. This is the Hamlet Street side. That's the back side. Yeah, it's only 14 feet to the house beside it. Are there questions from the board? Just wanted to confirm. Mr. Valarelli, have you looked at the building code requirements for ceiling heights? Seven feet, Mr. Chairman, in greater than 50% of the space. Okay. And have you done a formal review on that at this? I have not. Would that come with the formal? Yeah, it's too soon. He needs to get by the board first. We're just so busy in the department. We can't take anything on prematurely. Yeah, and reviewing the plans, that was my only concern. It's just in the portions where the roof is set down lower. I was concerned that it might be too loaded to meet the minimum ceiling height requirements by state under the state building code. So I just want to make sure that we have that. It's a good point, Mr. Chairman, that will be picked up during plan review. Okay. So no other questions from the board. Moment I'll be opening the meeting for public comment. Public questions and comments will be taken as they relate to the matter at hand and should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing our decision. Members of the public will be granted time to ask questions and make comments. The chair asks those wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing to please be patient and allow those wishing to speak for the first time to go ahead. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the participant tab in the Zoom application. Those calling in by phone, please dial star nine to indicate you would like to speak. You'll be called upon by the meeting host. You'll be asked to give your name and address and you'll be given time for your questions and comments. All questions are to be addressed through the chair. Please remember to speak clearly. And once all public questions and comments have been addressed, the public comment period will be closed. Board and staff will do our best to show documents being discussed. So with that, there is someone who's participating by telephone whose number ends in 644 because they would please give their name and address for the record and make your comments. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. I'm unable to join you tonight in Zoom. So I'm doing it this way instead, which is less than adequate, but it's all I can do where I am right now. So I wanted to ask a question of you relative to the typical planning memo that comes out. I know that there had been a planning memo originally generated by the application for the Department of Planning that said they couldn't make a determination based on what had been submitted. Typically, does the planning department follow up that with subsequently a memo when the information is provided? I don't believe they do typically revise it. Rick, do you know? I do not, Mr. Chairman. I think in the interest of time and again, they are just inundated with cases. I have not seen any additional memos once the Perus ones have been issued. Okay, Mr. Chairman, thank you. That helps. I just didn't know what the process was because I know that they probably would weigh in on this normally just as the board has. The second point I wanna make is I wanna commend both yourself, Mr. Klein and Mr. Hanlon on laying out the situation as you did. It was quite clear and quite thorough and I know probably pretty frustrating for the applicant. However, it was quite, it's very straightforward and I think that sort of communication is absolutely necessary for what you do. So I just wanted to thank you for that thorough explanation. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, sir. Are there any further comments from the public? I don't think it's, I think it was what's in the prior one. The zoning variance package was in number of letters in support, one from Tracevon at 47 Palmer Street, Sheila and Richard Barry at 93 Warren Street and a number of additional signatures gathered by the applicant in support of the project. I think it would be fair to characterize the comments that if they applied to the variance request, it would also apply to the special permit request as well. Are there any further questions or comments from the public? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public comment period. So then the question before the board, it's a special permit request in regards to the third floor of the, excuse me, the attic floor of the structure, which will be converted up to the criteria of the two and a half story. And the principle reason for it being before the board is because principally in East Arlington, this property being a case in point, there is no usable open space on the property as it is today is that bylaw was passed after most of this neighborhood was constructed. And therefore the bylaw requires that with the addition of gross floor area, it requires an addition in the amount of usable open space, which this lot cannot allow because it already has zero. And so the board has standing precedent that going from zero to a larger degree of zero has no meaning in the bylaw. And therefore it is not considered a hindrance to approving a special permit in this regard. Are there questions or anything further from the board? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just wanted to say that I am pretty sympathetic with what they're trying to accomplish here and which we could have done more, but here it seems like there's no obstacle, whatever. The open space under our precedent is not something that we could hold against this application. And otherwise it seems clear to me and it seems clear to most of the neighbors that it is altogether compatible with the character of the neighborhood. It's my neighborhood. And so I see this all the time. And I personally, if I hadn't been on the board and Mr. McKenna had asked me for a letter, I would have signed one too. So I'm perfectly comfortable with this one. All right. Typically the board when they are looking forward with approval of, with a vote on special permit applications, we typically have three conditions that we would include in the record. So number one is the final plans and specifications approved by the board for the permit shall be the final plans and specifications submitted to the building inspector of the town of Arlington in connection with this application for zoning relief. There should be no deviation during construction from the approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Condition two is the building inspector is hereby notified that he's monitored the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures. At any time it's determined that violations are present and the inspector of building shall proceed under section 3.1 of the zoning bylaw under the provisions of chapter 40 section 21D and institute non-criminal complaints. If necessary, the inspector of buildings may also approve an institute appropriate criminal action also in accordance with section 3.1 and standard condition number three is the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to the special permit grant. Are there any additional, excuse me, conditions that the board would want to consider in regards to this application? Seeing none. May I have a motion? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hamlin. I move that the application before us on the special permit be approved subject to the three standard conditions that the chair just read into the record and that the application for a zoning variance be denied. Thank you, sir. May I have a second? Second. So the board is voting to approve the special permit for 125 127 Webster Street with the standard three conditions and also to deny the variance application on the same property. Mr. Chairman, just to be clear that the basis for the denial of the variance application would be the inability to meet the three criteria of topography, lot shape and soil conditions. So no, any questions with what we're voting on? Seeing none. So the board of the board, Mr. Dupont. Hi. Mr. Hamlin. Hi. Mr. Mills. Hi. Mr. Revillac. Hi. Chair votes aye. There's an approval for the special permit application 125 127 Webster Street. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, may I just say something? This is Jennifer Weaver. I just wanted to thank you for so clearly explaining everything and for all the awards of support. Oh, you're quite welcome. Thank you. Okay. We'll move on. Go ahead. Next item on our docket is item under our agenda is item number six, docket number 3679 31 Melvin Road. I will bring up the documentation and the beat time. I'll go ahead and pass that couple of seconds to go ahead and introduce themself and tell us what they would like to do. Good evening. This is Brian and Betsy Keldor, we're the homeowners at 31 Melvin Road. And we also have with us tonight, our architects, Paxton Sheldahl and Robert Stein. I think they might both be listed under Robert Stein there, but in the Zoom, they can answer any questions that we might not be able to. We are applying for an addition larger than 750 square feet to our existing residents to add on some bedrooms and bathroom to make room for teenagers that'll be coming at some point. And I think that's the gist of it. I think the main trigger we have here is that it's over 750 square feet. We'll go ahead, I'll ask the architect would like to just walk us through the plans really quick. Sure, good evening. This is Paxton Sheldahl from Bossierway. What you're looking at in this first plan is a basement level plan showing the addition, essentially, let's just call that the south side. Just for ease, which contains, as Brian mentioned, basically two bedrooms on the lower floor and a master bedroom on the upper floor, allowing for more space for the growing, kind of aging family, let's say. This is the first floor. The existing house is around 1,000 square feet total right now, so with this new addition, it'll bring them to just about 2,000 square feet. So they get to double their, essentially double their space, but it's not in an extremely large house as it is. It's important to not create steps between the house, which was one of the kind of primary concerns as people get older. They wanna make sure that it's, at least on the main ground level, we're basically aligning the deck of the exterior space with the interior space to provide some continuity of inside and outside, usable outdoor space. This floor has the two teenage bedrooms. The upper floor here is the master bedroom that you just switched to, Chris. Oh, no worries, I'm gonna keep up here. So this just has one master bedroom, one master bath and a deck off of that master bedroom. Like Brian mentioned, it's pretty straightforward. We're here because of the design guidelines. We wanna make sure we're conforming to those guidelines because we're over the 750 square feet. So that's under the purview of the ZVA. Here's our elevations. Again, we did nestle this house behind the existing house intentionally. It's also at a point and a height that we use that kind of the angle of the existing roof to set the height of the second floor. So it minimizes the impact from what you could see from the sidewalk. That's also a very intentional design criteria that was provided to us. And then the final two elevations, one from the deck and then one from the, it's a little bit of a section in elevation. I think we, the board had asked for additional drawings which we provided that showed that elevation, the street elevation with exact, from with the exact, the driveway, the front, the existing house and the new addition. And these are just two renderings that show at the different eye level from the lower portion of the site. The kind of gray box you see in the back would be the addition. And then there's two more views from the kind of centerline on the door. Questions from the board. The chair. Well, Mr. Hanlon first. Well, this is just a quick one. I noticed that in the photographs, there's a tree that is located just behind. There's one big one just in front which might be vulnerable to construction things but I wanted to focus on the one in the back and whether there are any other trees out there. What kind of, I mean, I'm sort of inquiring, I guess, is to the silver cultural status of the backyard. Yeah, so the only, so the, the, the oak you see in the front, we are going to avoid at all costs. We want that to stay. So the, there's a large beach tree you see in the back. We had initially thought that we would be going adjacent to that. And then when we had tree folks come in, we found out that that is in rough health as it is. So we're actually going to be removing that before. Which we would have had to do regardless. Yeah, which we would have had to do regardless. I actually had somebody from the front of the house say that tree's dead. But that's going to have to come down. So that beach tree you see in the back will be coming down. No other trees are in the footprint or near the footprint of this. There are a couple of big oaks that shade the backyard from more along the property line that we will stay well away from. So the only one that's involved is that beach. It's approximately, I think it's right here. Thank you. There's a lot of upset in our home about the loss of that tree. Is this the location of the? Yeah. That's the location of the beach tree. Okay. Soak is out here and then these are in the far back. Yeah. I'm not sure why the big oak in front didn't make it onto the plot plan but it is there, as you can see. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just one quick thing. I take it that the shed that is in the upper left-hand corner as we look at this is going to disappear somewhere. There's in the papers an 80% reduction and I assume that's where it is. The shed will be leaving. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Revillac. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two questions. The first one is more of a curiosity. When visiting the site over this past weekend, I walked up and down Melvin Street and I could see where other homeowners have done additions but they seem to be generally, well, 27 Melvin not withstanding, they seem to have taken the approach of just putting a second story on top of the original first story. I was just curious as to the motivation for building behind rather than on top. I would say mostly it had to do with, well, maybe not mostly but part of it was being able to live in the building while the addition was being built. That that was a large part of it. The interior of the house is such that adding a second floor would have required a staircase that would have taken up quite a bit of the existing house. So would not actually have yielded us a lot more space because we would have lost space to the stairwell. Okay, I was just curious. Yeah, it was sort of those two things. We can live in it while we're building and we can functionally get more space because we don't do a stairwell. Yeah, those are the two big ones. As I was surprised with the renderings, I was with the renderings in the one sheet that shows sort of the comparisons of the roof elevation. Very unassuming, it's not, it's a small, it doesn't look nearly, it looks pretty small from here, but it's clearly going to give you the space that you're looking for. So Mr. Chair, I was wondering if we could go over to plan A3.5, which is the side elevations. The sheet here? Yes, I was wondering. And if it would be, so on the left, so the left half, would it be possible to change the alignment of those windows, either so they're, because either so they're like centered, the two are perhaps centered above the four above or maybe the left edge is aligned. I didn't look, I'm not admittedly didn't, yeah, it's just, I was wondering if there's a way to just align them between the two stories a little better. Did these two lower, the first floor windows, you mean? Yeah, exactly. That's like, if you see the lower one on the left is almost, the left edge is almost directly under the left edge of the second floor, but on the one on the right, it's not, it's sort of in the middle. You know, they just, you know, to kind of make the two floors talk to each other a little more, I guess. I think I'm going to leave that to Paxton or Robert. It's certainly possible, of course, there's nothing structurally keeping us from not aligning that window, but I think if you look at the plan here, the intention is, of course, there's going to be a bed in either corner of those bedrooms and those two windows are trying to remain kind of functional with how those bedrooms are used. Okay, okay. So they're, you know, they're symmetrical about the window, kind of aligned with the door when you walk in. So that's really what was driving the alignment of those. We are, you know, when you look at that second story rhythm of those windows, we are actively looking at that, mainly because of the, right now we have a, you know, it's a study up there in Rob and I, who Rob's also the architect on this, have been looking at the rhythm of those windows in relation to the plan as well. So it may change a little bit, but we're not to your point, we're not actively looking to make alignments between the two specifically. Okay, okay. And I hope that's okay. I think it's okay from the homeowner's point of view, but I appreciate the comment. All right, that, thank you very much. And those were my questions, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Owlik. Are there further questions? Yes, Mr. Chair. Who smells? I'm just curious. I mean, it seems somewhat unconventional to me. I'm looking at the existing roof going into the, basically the side of this addition. Is it really a blunt wall meeting a roof like this? The morning with the water is going to go. There's a, it's pretty conventional to have, you have to have some transition when you have a higher element to a lower element. So we have a cricket on there, which you could see in one of the elevations that sheds water to both sides. Oh, I got you. Okay, so you put a cricket across the whole thing. That's correct, sir. Okay, I got you. If you look at the, I think 3.6 here, you'll see, you can see the cricket in that, we basically got you. Yeah. Ideally there would be a smoother transition, but I think given the space constraints and the open space, we're trying to remain pretty compact that it, you know, we will deal with it with the cricket. Thank you. Yeah. Anything further from the board? Excuse me. None. I'll go ahead and send her open for public comment. Just to review members of the public who wish to speak, should digitally raise their hand using the button on the participant tab and the zoom application. Those calling in by phone, please dial star nine to indicate you'd like to speak. And you'll be called upon by the meeting host to be asked to give your name and address. Can we give in time for your questions and comments? Questions to be addressed through the chair, please remember to speak clearly. So first, their hand up is Mr. Moore. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Steve Moore, Piedmont Street and a member of the Arlington Tree Committee to which I'm going to address my comments now. I appreciate the board bringing up the tree issues that are pretty clear on this property. That oak looks dramatic and that's wonderful to see. However, to do an addition of the size, I need to caution the applicant that they would not be able to use that side of the house to approach the construction in the critical root zone of that large oak cannot help but be impacted by the type of equipment that we are required to do this large addition. So they would probably have to access around the other side of the house. I'm not sure what's there. It looks like there's not a tree in the way. They can protect the critical root zone, but the protection for a tree of that size is going to move out dramatically in diameter from the tree trunk. And the protection would have to be pretty significant because of the equipment required to build this size of addition. So I just want to caution the applicant related to that. And secondly, it looks to me from what I could tell the plans that the beach tree to be removed is within the setback, which means it's a protected tree. And they're going to have to create a tree plan for this particular project that will have to be approved by the tree warden, which they probably have already done their due diligence and the applicant is aware that this has to happen, but it will be required in this case. And there will be a payment of a fee into the tree please fund for the taking of that protected tree based on the diameter of the trunk. So I just wanted to remind the applicant of those requirements and also ask if they have any questions about what I've just said. Thank you very much for that. We have not approached the tree warden about this yet. I knew it might be something we would have to discuss given the timing of this. I think the tree would be coming down whether or not we're doing the addition because of the health of the tree, but I do appreciate that and we will certainly reach out to the tree warden and do what we need to do. Great Mr. Chairman, that's very good news. The tree warden will help you certainly with what you need to do. And I did want to add one more comment. I had the same reaction Mr. Mills did to the connection of the addition to the roof line of the existing structure and thought I can't imagine what's gonna happen, all the snow that builds up in that shape because the water's gotta go somewhere and that's a disaster where it didn't happen. It sounds like the architect's taking care of it. So thank you Mr. Chairman. You're welcome. I wanted to thank him for that comment on the oak tree too, because I think that's an astute observation on terms of protecting those roots. We don't have a general contractor on board yet but we will make that part of the requirements when they start looking at this project to give us a work plan that avoids that sensitive area. Thank you. We very much appreciate that. Seeing no further public comments, public comments going once, going twice. Go ahead and close the public comment period on this hearing. So discussion for the board. Pretty straight forward a rear yard addition. We've addressed some of the questions in regards to the way that the addition works with the house. We've discussed some issues regarding the trees and the access to the rear yard. Now we've discussed briefly the placement of windows on the rear facade of the addition. Are there any further questions or comments from the board? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. In the planning commission, excuse me, the planning department memorandum, there's a reference to either the actual or potential need to consult, to do a stormwater management plan and to consult with the town engineer. And I'm wondering if the architect maybe could explain what it is they're planning to do there. This is something that we often put into the conditions as drawing the applicant's attention to the need to do this. And so I just wanted to follow up. This is under criteria number four. Yeah, we have not done the runoff calculation yet. So we'll have to, I mean, in other jurisdictions, they haven't done this there. We've done a number of different, let's say, preventative measures to minimize the amount of water going to the municipal systems. I'll have to get with your engineering division and we'll have to figure out the best plan. I guess I'm technically not increasing, I guess we're decreasing the amount of pervious surface. So we're gonna have to figure out what to do with the water that's hitting the roof that we're now adding. So yeah, we'll have to deal with that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to have the random location of the house. Again, that's the oak tree. So this pine tree, is this pine tree on your property? You said on the adjacent property. Yeah, it is on our property. Okay. And yeah, I mean, we haven't figured out the construction access needs or how we would go about that yet. Because we don't have, as Pax did mention, we don't have a general contractor on board yet. So I didn't want to jump to too many conclusions there, but we're clearly gonna have to figure out how to get back there. And I mean, the neighboring property, our neighbors have had access across their property. We haven't talked to them of whether or not we could work out that out or not without having to take other things down. That would be our goal. There's a pretty good swath between the two and we have a very good relationship with them. Yeah. Mr. Chairman. Jupan. Yeah, just because you have this picture up, is that tree in the back of the beach? Yeah. Yes. Just because it's green and I'm just wondering, I know that you've made a comment in the very beginning. It has a, yes, it's not dead. It has a fungal disease that's destroying the vascular system on the tree. So it's actually year-to-year. It is, the leaves are getting smaller and smaller and we're getting more and more dead wood falling off the top. And it's not very full at the top. Yeah, we've had two arborists come in and give us the same diagnosis on it. And the prognosis is not good. The prognosis is it's either extract it now or extract it surgically in a few years. Okay, okay, thank you. Okay. Mr. Chairman? Mr. Moore? Yes, again, as a member of the tree committee, I think probably what's being described is an athraknos, which is a fungal disease, which is common in Arlington. Many, many of the trees actually have this disease. And you just take them down when the tree finally passes away. That's how it works with the athraknos. So just some information. Thank you. Appreciate that background. Thank you. Any further question or comment from the board? So if the board was going to approve, we would have the standard three conditions, which we had read into the record earlier this evening. I believe it would be prudent in this case to add one additional that the board would recommend working with tree warden on protection, just staying open tree in front yard. A second would be to recommend working with the town engineer. Any other conditions or recommendations from the board? I think that was everything we addressed. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Under other circumstances, we've had conditions that say that the board notes that a tree plan approved by the tree warden would be required prior to allowing work to commence on the property. That doesn't focus specifically on the oak, but there are the trees there. And I wonder if it would be appropriate to be more general. Would the tree plan to be approved, would it be approved by the tree warden? Yes, prior to allowing work to commence on the property. I think that's what we've done in the past. Maybe Mr. Moore could comment on whether that's adequate language. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Hanlon, that's correct. That language does work very well. I believe now it is the new process for the building inspector. It had the tree plan to be submitted and approved before I believe demolition occurs on the property. We would strike the original number of four I had. Would you want to keep that number for Mr. Hanlon in order to protect the protection plan? Mr. Chairman, I might be able to help out with that a little bit. All right, yes, please. Yeah, so if you look at the special services website and download a copy of the building permit package for this type of job, any job that includes foundation, the tree warden now not only has to go out and visit the site, but we need his signature prior to the issuance of a building permit. So that's now a standard operating procedure. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, so the conditions we have the standard three, then it would be to request the applicant work with the town engineer on one or run off concerns and then require a tree plan, including protection of existing trees to be approved by the tree warden prior to allowing work to commence on the property. That sound correct, Mr. Hanlon? I think that's right. I must say that, I mean, we're not going to protect all the existing trees, probably the beach tree looks as if it's in a situation where it obviously is not going to be protected. And so, I wonder whether we ought not to have, I hate to overdo this, but if we had one general thing like we usually have about noting that the tree plan has to be approved, maybe one that specifically has to do with the oak that efforts, well, the board knows that efforts would have to be made to design access to the site in order to preserve the oak tree. That isn't very legal language, but that's really what the point is, is that so far there's no disagreement. Everybody wants to do this. And the idea is simply to, the oak tree makes it has a big root, a critical root zone. And it is not going to be easy to get access. And I think everybody tonight thinks that access just has to be done in order to preserve that tree. And I just want to capture that idea in a condition going forward. So we could then, okay, so we could then change it so that we still have the one about the town engineer. We could then request the applicant work with the tree warden on a tree protection plan for the existing oak tree in the front yard and then require a tree plan to be approved by the tree warden prior to allowing work to commence on the property. So those will be two separate items. Okay. Make sense to the board? Yes. Well, in that case, may I have a motion, please? Chairman. Please. I move that the application before us be approved with the standard conditions that were read previously into the record and the additional conditions that were just read into the record by the chairman. Mr. Hanlick, a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Jepont. Questions on what we're voting on? No. Seeing none. A vote of the board. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlick? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. Mr. Revillac? Aye. And the chair votes aye. The application is approved with the stated six conditions. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Good luck. Very welcome. Thank you. Let me bring up our calendar. So today is the ninth. So the board will be meeting in two days' time on November 11th at 7.30 p.m. It's not a possible continuation. It is a definite continuation of the liberation on Thorndyke Place. After that, we're scheduled to meet next on November 16th at 7.30 p.m. for a likely continuation of the liberation of Thorndyke Place. And then the following Tuesday, we do have on that Tuesday night, which is the Tuesday night of Thanksgiving week, we do have hearing, we're hearing four new cases. And we had discussed in the past the possibility about trying to deliberate Thorndyke afterwards. And the problem just being that we typically hold our deliberative sessions using the webinar format for Zoom. And we do our regular meetings using the conference format. And apparently we can't switch midstream. So it would be difficult to try to hold a deliberation on the 23rd. Then Tuesday, November 30th is the end of date, the 40 day deliberation period we had expressed to the applicant that we are best to be complete with our deliberations ahead of Thanksgiving. And so I think we'll need to discuss it at the end of the meeting on the 11th, but I'm a little bit concerned about how much time we have left. And I just wanna make sure that if we sort of think on the 11th about if we needed to try to get one more session in, when we would wanna try to do that. Knowing that unfortunately the 18th, I don't believe Mr. Havardy is available on the 18th. We'll have to find out. So that is our, those are our upcoming dates with that. Mr. Chairman, can I ask a question? Yes, Mr. Moore. In terms of what your board is intending to do on the 23rd and not being able to switch between the two modes of Zoom, I guess I don't understand why you couldn't just continue with the non-webinar kind and you just don't take any input period. And I don't understand why you have to switch to the webinar kind that ends up being just a listen-only session. Right, so the understate law of the board is not allowed to accept any additional testimony on- Right, right. So the only issue is in, my understanding is in the conference mode, there's no way to lock out people. And so people are free to unmute themselves, which has been a fantastic generation of meetings. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I thought that was a possibility by the meeting administrator to mute everybody. I thought they could do that. I apologize. No, that's a very good question. That's something we should consider. We will research that. Thank you, I appreciate that. No problem. Anything further tonight? Well, yeah, just on November 23rd, after four cases, depending on how they go, I don't know if, I don't know how much time we could realistically expect to contribute to spend on Thorndike Place. Of course, like I said, it depends on how long these go, but we could easily spend three to four hours on those cases. Yeah. I mean, I would like the board to have an opportunity after we do sort of the final set of edits to the decision to hold off on the final vote until we've had a chance to put it all in writing, have everybody have a chance to read it one last time and then vote on it. So I just was sort of thinking like if we met, if we were to complete the review at the end of the 16th, we would have a week to go back through, review everything and then we could just meet quickly on the 23rd, go through any last changes and close it out. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. The one thing that we should just keep in mind is that while part of what we're about is trying to perfect, I use that in a kind of a weird way to complete the draft opinion and to get it to say as best we can, what it is that we would want to say if we were going to approve the application, but there's going to have to be a discussion about whether we should approve it at all. There's still the possibility that we will just say, no, that is after doing all the conditions and everything that we possibly can, it just still doesn't adequately satisfy local concerns and just to go that way. And I don't know that we'll do that. I don't know what we'll do actually, but in terms of thinking about the time, I don't think that we can be sure that things will be go as quickly as just approving a draft without much discussion. I think that there'll be a considerable amount of discussion, not necessarily focused on the draft, but focused on our final action. And we need to be ready for that. I appreciate that. I know that's a very, very good point. Mr. Chairman. Mr. DuPont. So I think I have what's probably a bad idea, but I'll throw it out there anyway. I'm just wondering, because I know you said that Mr. Hoverty is not available on the 18th. Is that correct? That's my recollection. I'd have to look back to my notes, but thank you for discussing dates here. It just strikes me from, what we had talked about very briefly is that, we'll have the 11th and the 16th. So we believe that we'll be all the way through the conditions and we'll be into the findings themselves. Is that what people think we would be doing at that point? And I'm just wondering, even if we were to meet and on the 18th say, and be able to discuss conditions, and if there were those things that seemed like they might be controversial or we have a question about whether or not they might be advisable from Mr. Hoverty's point of view, because we don't ask him about every single little thing that we do. And perhaps that would change once we're into the actual findings. So I'm just wondering whether there would be any value in meeting, even if he wasn't there and essentially highlighting those things where we think that there might be a question. Because I do believe you're right that we're going to be running sort of against the clock. And I just throw it out there as a possibility is all. I appreciate that. And I mean, certainly if Mr. Hoverty was unavailable and we felt we needed counsel present, we certainly could invite town council as our council too. All right. Be present as well. Okay, well, we can discuss that much more thoroughly on the 11th. So with that, I would like to thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. Especially wish to thank Richard Dallarelli, Vincent Lee and Kelly Lanema for all their assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting. Please note the purpose of the board's recording the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of the proceedings. And it's our understanding that the recording made by ACMI will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the coming days. If anyone has comments or recommendations, please send them via email to zbaatown.arlington.ma.us. That email address is also listed on the ZBA's website. And so to conclude tonight's meeting, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. It's actually. Hi. Vote. Mr. DuPont, we've already said aye. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. Revillac. Aye. Your vote's aye. The board is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Good night, guys. Good night. Good night, everybody. Good night. Good night. My little colleague here. If you've noticed the tail cut that keeps coming up and whacking me on the bottom of the chin. Yeah, that's her. That's great. We have meetings with Kelly. We can usually see her cat walking around at the back. Yeah, yeah. Hey, we'll see you guys a couple of days. Bye. Take care, everyone. Thank you. Good night.