 Okay, it is 734 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021. Good evening, entry one. 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 from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Handlin. Here. Kevin Mills. Here. Aaron Ford. Here. Steve Revlak. Here. Thank you. And Sean O'Rourke is unavailable this evening. So from the town side, we have Rick Valerelli is with us. And Vincent Lee. And I believe that's it from the town side. I don't think anyone else is joining us. And then appearing on behalf of 190, 192, Mystic Valley Parkway, John Pavuso. Yes, sir. Fantastic. Persons appearing for 41, 43 Fairmont Street. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Yes. And persons appearing for 59 Mount Vernon Street. Yes. Fantastic. Okay. This open meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020. The order suspends the requirement of the open meeting lot to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. Public bodies may meet remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. An opportunity for public participation will be provided during the public comment period for each public hearing. For this meeting, the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals has convened a video conference via the Zoom app 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 telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name, or another identifier. Please take care not to share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you to 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 reserve the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. So we are starting this evening with an administrative item, which is just the approval of the minutes from the March 16th, 2021 public hearing. Item relates to an operation of the board and is such we conducted without discussion by the general public. The board will not take up any new business, nor will there be any introduction of new information on matters previously brought before the board. So the minutes from March 16th, 2021, those are distributed by Rick Valarelli to the board. I know I had submitted some comments. I don't know if anyone else has additional comments to provide back to Mr. Valarelli at this time. Seeing none, may I have a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Mills. Quick roll call vote. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. Mr. Ford? Aye. Mr. Revock? Aye. Chair votes aye. Brings us to the next item, which is a comprehensive permit hearing for 1165R Mass Ave. As noted on both the agenda, the applicant has requested a continuance to April 13th, 2021 to allow them additional time to review comments received from the board's peer review engineering consultant beta group and from the conservation commission. We will hear no testimony on 1165R Mass Ave this evening. The board is in receipt of the request in the form of a letter dated March 22nd, 2021. Are there any questions from the board in regards to the continuance? Seeing none. May I have a motion to continue to a date certain? So moved. Second. Thank you. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. Mr. Ford? Aye. Mr. Revolack? Aye. And the chair votes aye. So this brings us to the public hearing on 160162 Mystic Valley Parkway. Before I go into the rules on it, I understand, Mr. Bavusa, that you are requesting a continuance on this. That's correct, sir. I had some technical difficulties with my computer and I do not have all of the documents assembled for tonight's meeting. I apologize. How much additional time do you require? April 13th would be fine if we could do that. Does the board have any objection to adding this to the April 13th? Seeing none. May I have a motion to continue to the date certain of April 13th, 2021? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Second. Second. Thank you, Mr. Mills. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. Mr. Revillac? Aye. And the chair votes aye. So we are continued on 191, 92 Mystic Valley Parkway. Thank you very much. Thank you. So now turning to the first public hearing on tonight's agenda, there's some ground rules for effective and clear conduct for tonight's business. After I announce each agenda item, I will ask the applicants to introduce themselves and 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. So at this time, the first item is, somewhere in my stack of papers, number 3652, which is 4143 Fairmont Street. So the applicants can make themselves known and tell us what you would like to do. Hi, my name is Bill Nolan from Savoy Nolan Architects and I'm here representing Peg Briss Boyce and Eric and Ashley Briss Boyce. They're the owners of 4143 Fairmont Street in Arlington. And am I able to share my screen? Is that okay if I share my screen? I've got some images. Mr. Vellerally, can you take care of that? We can do that. Give me a second, Bill. Okay, you should be good to go. Okay, great. Can everybody see my screen now? Yes. Okay, thank you. So we're looking to do a renovation to 4143 Fairmont Street. This is the existing photograph of the existing front facade. You can see it's an existing two and a half story building, an unfinished attic and an unfinished basement. This is the front. This is Fairmont Street here. And this is the rear to be the parking lot there. Forgive me, I'm gonna jump around a little bit in my presentation here and just kinda the interest of keeping things brief as possible. This is the existing site plan, Fairmont Street here. There's an existing driveway that runs to the back of the building, a paved area back there for parking. On the left side, if you're looking at it from the street, this is a grass strip right here. The existing building noted here, a rear stair, a front porch and stair. Moving on to the existing, I'm sorry, proposed site plan. We're looking to do a renovation that exists entirely within the existing footprint. The exception of the front covered porch, which we're reducing slightly by about 16 square feet, sorry. And proposing to shift the stairs to a more central location centered on the covered porch, but they'll remain the same exact size. So the project is actually getting a little bit smaller. A proposed model here. We're seeking to do overall project description is we're looking to renovate an existing unfinished attic and also renovate an existing unfinished basement. Also include some minor renovation, interior renovation work to the two main living levels, first apartment and the first floor and the second apartment and the second floor. And lastly, a new porch with an office above it. So that's the goals of the project. Why we're here before you guys is because of the existing non-conforming nature of the property. It's non-conforming in a few things, lot size, frontage, side setbacks. But the reason where I were before you tonight is the open space, usable space. And it's an existing non-conforming with regards to the GFA of the usable space. The existing land, what's required is 30% based on the lot size would be roughly 1200 square feet of usable land. The existing property has about 20%. So we're at about 823. What we're proposing to do with the porch reduction will actually bring us up to 21%. So a pretty minor increase, but it's an increase the lot area. So the net total will be about 839 square feet. This site plan here actually demonstrates the calculations. The gray area, the light gray area is what we're considering open space in the GFA. Where most properties on the street, you have not allowed to include pavement, anything that a car can go over. So the driveway and the parking lot in fact, takes a significant chunk of the open space away. But we're not proposing to increase the footprint in any way. In fact, we're decreasing it a little bit on there. That's the reason why we're before you. That's a brief summary of what we're looking to accomplish. So I don't take too much more of your time. I'd be happy to answer any question. Thank you, Mr. Nolan. Questions from the board. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Under the zoning ordinance definition of usable open space, you need to have basically a 25-foot square on each side. And if I look at the gray area here, I don't see that. It looks like it's 13.1 inch or 13.1 feet. Back from the property line. And I'm not sure that under the technical definition of usable open, it's long enough on the side, I think. But I'm not sure that under the technical definition of usable open space, you have any. And I wondered if you can explain what you're thinking is in treating this as usable open space. It's not necessarily to your advantage for it to be usable open space actually. So, but I'm interested in seeing how you explain it. Yeah, so unfortunately this is, although I present before a lot of zoning boards in different pounds and used to sit on the zoning board in my own town, this is actually a new bylaw for me. So it was, it's probably just a lack of understanding the definition of the open space. We read it to be, and I was frankly more concerned with which wasn't included in open space, being obviously building area and anything that would have a car drive over it or give an area. Yes, I didn't look at it close enough to the nuances and the distances. With that said though, this is an existing condition. But I was basically highlighting anything that wasn't pavement or structure. And I apologize if it doesn't meet the true definition of open space, then that's just a lack of understanding. Thank you. Any further Mr. Hamlin? Nope. This Mr. Revillac, Mr. Chair. Mr. Revillac. Yeah, I do have a few questions. So yes, our definition of usable open space is a little different than what I've seen in the bylaws of neighboring communities. There is a requirement for that the area be flat, be free of parking and be vehicular traffic, and also to have a minimum horizontal dimension of 25 feet. And in addition, the percentage requirement is not based on the size of the lot. It's based on the size of the growth. It's based on gross floor area. Similarly for landscaped, what I see on the diagram that we're looking at that shaded in gray would, I mean, to me, meets the definition of landscaped open space. I'm wondering if you know the square footage of the gray area. Yes, I believe it's 839. Okay, and so the requirement there is 10% of GFA and it looks like your finished GFA was about 3127 square feet. Yes. So you're okay. So in that case. I believe we meet that. You would be well over the 10%. That was my question. About double, yeah. Nothing further, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. So I actually, I'm sorry, if I could interject just to go back to Mr. Hanlon's question. I think I understood that the 25 feet, we did read this and it's been a little while, we submitted this and I had some back and forth with the building inspector. So when we calculated this, it was quite a while ago but I believe I thought that the 25 horizontal was in either direction. So the front, the frontage, I think that's how I've read it and that's why I considered it open, open space but the board, yeah, the board certainly has a precedent that and because this is, as you noted that a constant essentially throughout East Arlington that very few houses actually have any usable open space at the time they come before the board for anything. And so the board has taken the position on multiple projects that if you have zero percent usable open space and you decrease that to zero usable open space that is not considered a change, making it more non, that is not making it more non-compliant than it already is. If you had a nice big backyard and you paved it that would be an issue but that is not the case before us today. All right, thank you. I was curious if anybody had mentioned to you the residential design guidelines that the town of Arlington has adopted. Yes, is this in regard to this half story? So, well, not necessarily to the half story definition which is in the zoning bylaw but there's a set of residential design guidelines that the town adopted at the end of last year that provides some guidelines for the city or redevelopment of residential property in town including dormer additions, including changes to the front facades and such. And this was, there was a memorandum that came out from the planning department that came out on March 18th. Have you received that? I did not. No. I'm gonna go ahead and share those with you quickly. The second paragraph I think you have addressed through some additional documentation that was presented to the board today. Go ahead here to the second page. So it's this question about the criteria six. Okay, so if I understand that correctly you're looking to push the dormers back. So I'm just gonna switch here to the, so this is the residential design guidelines document from the town and where's the one for sections D1. I don't care about the massing of, ah, dormers and refailments, that's what I'm looking for. So one of the things the town is looking to do is to sort of reduce some of the overall massing of third story additions, particularly ones that give the building more of a three story field than a two and a half story field. I did not receive these. We reached out to Mr. Tampa and I'm sorry if we are mispronouncing his name by the building inspector on a few different occasions. And on his last email, I was under the impression that we met definition of a half a story. I believe you definitely, by the documentation you provided today you do meet that definition. Okay. I think that the question that's before the board is, so the looking at the proposed structure, what used to be an open porch with a deck above is now infilled at the second floor level, which brings this piece of massing here out in front of the building wall into the front yard. And with the dormers being added to both sides, the full length of the building to the outside, face of the outside wall, I think the question is, does this level of massing, is this in keeping with what the residential design guidelines are requesting in terms of maintaining the portion of massing and keep trying to keep that within the context of the neighborhood. There are some shed dormers in the neighborhood. There are some shed dormers that are on both sides, but they really are of limited scale. They really are not the full length of the house. There is one other house in the street that has enclosed over the front porch. I would ask Mr. Valorelli if there are any issues with building this where it's in front of the front wall of the house itself. Mr. Valorelli? Hi, sorry, Mr. Chairman, I was muted. So if he's building on the original footprint of that front porch, then he's okay to go to second floor. Okay. He's expanding it, he is not. And then there's another, whoops, let's close the, one document I wanted. Mr. Chairman, before we leave that last picture, the report, yeah, I wanted to sort of, one of the things that the playing department report does is suggest aligning the windows on the dormer with the windows of the house. And that's something that we haven't talked about before either, but that also is one, would they recommend doing that or moving the dormers back some from the side? And I think that I'd like to hear what Mr. Pollan says about that recommendation. Yeah, no, I agree, actually I agree 100%. Sorry, if we could go back to that elevation, I could show it on my screen, yeah, that one. You can certainly align those windows. They appear to be off about a foot. I don't think that that's, it's too difficult to organize that so that they can stack above the windows. That's an easy, easy fix. Looking at the side, Southwest elevation, we could take another pass at walking around the building. I believe the ones in the front will align or complement. We go to a double window over a A, but it's centered in the same way that it's centered. If we wanna go from elevation to elevation, we can certainly align more windows than what we're showing. Yeah, in some cases we won't be able to. So for example, the side elevation at the bottom of the screen right now, that window to the front of the house we wouldn't wanna push that, the higher dorm or that close. And we intentionally held those, the larger dormers back. And those are just so that we can get egress windows into the spaces up there. So there was a design intent to reduce the scale of the dormers to their absolute minimum and for the majority of it. And then we punched up in certain areas just to allow for natural light into the spaces. But we can certainly do a go through it and shift the windows so that they align there in most cases. Does that answer your question, Mr. Helen, sorry? Yes. Thank you. And then sort of looking at the plan, so it doesn't appear that the addition is set, in slightly at the front, it's flushed at the back. Correct. I would think that the front would be more important to get it. We could certainly push that back a little further if the board has a specific dimension in mind and we certainly entertain that. Okay, stop sharing. Are there any further questions from the board? Seeing none, I will now open the meeting for public comment. Public questions and comments will be taken as they relate to the matter of hand should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing our decision. Members of the public will be granted time for their comments and they can have additional time at the discretion of the chair. The chair will ask members of the public who have logged in through Zoom who wish to speak to raise their hand using the button on the participants tab in the Zoom application. Those calling it by phone, if you dial star nine, it will indicate that you'd like to speak. It will be called upon by the host. You may unmute your audio and you'll be asked to give you our name and address. And you'll be given time for your questions and comments. All questions that be addressed through the chair, please remember to speak clearly. And once all public questions and comments have been addressed or the time allocated by the chair has ended, the public comment period will be closed. And if you would like the board or staff to show any documents, please let us know. Are there any members of the public who have questions or comments? I see Mr. Seltzer is waving his hand. Mr. Seltzer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Don Seltzer Irving Street. I'd like to call the board's attention to section 5.3.9 of the bylaw, projections into minimum yards. Am I reading of it? It seems that section B of that says that the existing unenclosed steps in the front are perfectly acceptable. But C would suggest that putting in a second story edition that protects further into the front yard setback area would not be allowed. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. Mr. Valaralee, I know this question has come before the board before as well. My understanding is that this is because there's an existing porch that has an existing foundation that that is the point that the building department considers the front, the start of the front yard for the purposes of construction. Is that correct? That's correct, Mr. Chairman. So if this porch did not exist and the applicant wished to construct the porch of this size, it would not be allowed. It would only be allowed by special permit but because it's a preexisting non-conforming condition, he is allowed to have a second story as long as he doesn't encroach any closer to the front yard setback than he already is. One other point, more positive nature. I'm wondering if the rear roof deck can be counted towards the usable open space. For the usable open space. I wouldn't think so because the area is too small. And I believe- I don't know all of it, but- I think it's a height issue. Because it's more than 10 feet above the lowest floor. That's correct. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. We did consider that. We did look at it. And I believe after speaking with the building inspector, it was a moot point because of the height. Yeah, I know it has to be 10 feet, no more than 10 feet above the lowest dwelling level. I wasn't sure if that meant the floor or the lowest dwelling level or the top of the lowest dwelling level. So you're saying the interpretation is that it can be no more than 10 feet above the floor of the first floor. Correct. Now it's the first floor is that elevation is considered elevation zero here. And the first, the attic that porch is at 18 feet above that. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Seltzer. Mr. Moore. Yes, Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. Quick question related to again, the front porch and the second story over the front porch. A question from Mr. Valarelli through the board. If these, if the front porch, if this was just stairs, meaning you have a front door and you have a concrete block with no roof over it, just you walk out your front door onto the concrete block down the stairs and you're in your front yard and on the street, on the sidewalk. Is that legal to build a second story on top of that when there is no roof or front porch over those stairs? Can I answer that question, Mr. Chairman? Mr. Valarelli, please. Yeah, so projections into minimum yards is split the two different scenarios. Open decks or open porches and enclosed. So to answer your question, no, would not be allowed. In a scenario like that, if you had an open set of stairs, all the applicant could do was create a vestibule no more than 25 square feet in area and no more than three and a half feet off of the line of the foundation. In this case, it's a little different because we're talking about a preexisting structure that exceeds 25 square feet and is clearly within the front yard setback. So in the eyes of the building department, they are not becoming any more non-confirming by adding a second level to that. That's always been allowed. Does that answer your question, Mr. Moore? Yes, yes, I believe so. I would direct Mr. Valarelli's attention to what's going up on Hibbert Street near the small park, which is within two feet of the front sidewalk and they've built a second story over what had been merely exposed stairs, no porch, no roof. Anyway, thank you. That should be brought to the attention of the special services, Mr. Moore. Say again, okay. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Any further public comment on this matter? We'll scan through the pictures. See if there's anybody waving. I see nobody waving. I see no raised hands. The public comment for this hearing will be closed. So questions for the board, we have made some recommendations to the applicant in regards to the layout of the building. I guess the question for the board is, do we feel confident in making a decision this evening or do we wish to continue to allow the applicant time to make revisions to the attic floor as we had discussed? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dupont. So relating back to the observation you had made about people putting dormers on some, in some instances, both sides of a third floor and while maintaining the definition of a half story, still, and I think you observed correctly that this looks to be larger because it runs the entire length of the sides of the building on both sides. And so I guess, and it's not something that's a requirement, but it does feel to me like this is substantially larger and it feels to me like it is more like a third floor at the same time, I understand that it does meet the requirements for being only a half story. So I'm a little bit torn to be honest with you about that because I think then what we're talking about is the character of the district. And so that would be where I think I would need to consider it more carefully and a little additional time and a little additional time for the applicant to consider all of those things that were raised in the planning department's letter might be helpful, but that's just for me. Other comments from the board? Mr. Chairman, I have a, so it's a procedural move to some extent we are in the position we are because neither the planning department memorandum nor I gather the design guidelines found their way into Mr. Nolan's hands in a timely way. And I wonder if as we go forward, we might be able to somehow solve that by having some sort of a procedure whereby that memorandum, I mean by now I think everyone experienced with us knows there usually is such a memorandum and it would have been easier and we would be less in a quandary right now if Mr. Nolan had not had to, not had to, but he did reply on this on the fly. The same thing is sort of true. I think that everyone knows that the design guidelines to be really effective need to be in people's hands and architects like Mr. Nolan are exactly the sort of person who really ought to be sure that he has this sort of thing. It's new and we're working hard at making sure it is in people's hands. And again, I think for us we need to be thinking about particularly where they are potentially involved, but maybe it's just routinely making sure that applicants know that, I mean they can download it from it's on the web, know that they should look at that. So we may want to consider our own procedures to increase the chances that people will do that and that the proceedings will fall into a sort of a hiccup because of the, because the applicants may not be playing with a full deck when by the time they get here because they haven't gotten all the documents. Mr. Chairman. Please. I should have noticed this before and I apologize for just not bringing it up, but when you calculate the area of the third floor, the area that I read correctly is calculated to be 500 and some feet, square feet that you've calculated is the, on the third floor. Give me a second, let me just find that, 554, yes. So if you go to the plans on the third floor and you just add up the measurements of the room, I mean, it does feel like more than a half story, but when you actually just add up the areas that you are calling for each bedroom, walk-ins, bathrooms and storage, I mean, those numbers don't jive. So I'm trying to understand maybe I'm trying to understand where the 554 comes from. I explained, Mr. Chair, please do. Yeah, so the, I pull up a, I'd be able to share on the graphic that I sent to the board earlier this afternoon. Is this one here? Or you can share, yes. So basically what's considered floor area on the second floor is the area that is in the seven foot of greater. So that's a bar down the center of the building that's about 12 foot six. If you're referencing the floor plans, there's usable space underneath those that technically don't classify as floor area because they're below seven square feet. So I think if you add up the numbers on the floor plans, they won't jive. I took a basic definition of the square footage based on the seven foot height limitation. Anything lower than that is, I think we declassified. That make sense? No, it makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. I think maybe it just lends to the credence that this does when you look at the elevations on the dormers, how they pop up, it does feel much, doesn't feel like a two and a half story where I understand how technically you're arriving at the two and a half story by the area by using the ceiling height of seven feet and not counting the area beyond that, but practically speaking, you're using all of that space. So Mr. Chairman, not to delay this another while, but it would be helpful to sit on it, continue it so that we can, and I'll look to you guys have a lot more experience on how this compares to several of the others that you've done, but it would be nice to at least have a chance to sit on it and compare that the fact that it's a practical thing versus a matter of just calculating a two and a half story but really they're using the whole story as a third floor. Yeah. Mr. Chairman, yes please. It just to be, it seems to me that we have to recognize that what the issue in front of us is the applicability of criterion number six, so zoning by-law has been met here or at least I'm assuming that it has been met. And so the question is whether or not this design and this use is would adversely affect the integrity of the character of the zoning district. And as a practical matter, I would like in order to come to a conclusion that it would, knowing what the massing is by itself wouldn't necessarily be dispositive for me. I think the key is what happens in the area. And my understanding is that this is not an established pattern yet on Fairmont Street, but we know that it is a pattern that exists throughout the neighborhood. And one relevant factor that I'm sure that we all are going to need to look at in order to figure out what we think about this massing issue is how it relates to the prevailing pattern that already exists in the neighborhood. If everybody is doing this, then the fact that it seems like it's large massing may not matter very much because it does meet the statutory requirement. On the other hand, if this is out of scale with what has already been introduced into the neighborhood, it introduces a separate set of questions. So I just wanted to focus that the nature of the criteria causes us to focus on that question. And we need to keep it on our minds. I did spend some time there today looking at the, at this structure and at some of the adjacent houses as well. And the existing roof line, which they're maintaining here is very prevalent throughout the neighborhood. There are a few houses that do have dormers. There's not that many at this point. There are some that have shed dormers. The one that have shed dormers, they typically are much more of a modest scale. And so this, so for this area, it does feel a little bit out of scale. I was concerned initially about the room over the front stair because I think it does really sort of make the building feel much more like it's encroaching over the street. There is one additional house further down about, I think it's about four doors down that has a smaller structure to it. I'm not quite sure how to, how to take. But I think based on the, I think the board, I would certainly find it based on the report from the planning commission with regards to the massing and with regards to the alignments on the, excuse me, on the side elevations and such. I think it would be worthwhile to have the applicant take a look at this memorandum from the town and the residential design guidelines and to consider if there are some modifications to the upper floor that would be more in keeping with the intentions of the residential design guidelines. Mr. Revelak, Mr. Chair. Please. Yeah, the Fairmont Street is a little, in terms of just like the overall massing of the street. In my mind, there is quite a bit of variety to it. For example, two or three doors towards Mass Ave is a single family, one and a half story building that the owner came before us a couple of months ago to do an addition. Next to that, there is a triple becker. A little further down the block, the other way there is a triple becker and there are a number of two and a half story, two family homes. So there is a bit of a, there is already a bit of a mix and the, perhaps that just makes it all the more subjective. Mr. Chair. Mr. Ford. Not to dwell on this height thing, but I feel, I guess my, maybe my comments mute because he qualifies and there's precedent, but if he had held the same ridge height and not changed the ridge, then I would feel much more inclined to not worry about this feeling like a full third story when he pops up the dormers. But the fact that we're raising the ridge, not quite two feet, and then taking advantage of the seven foot rule, doesn't feel in the spirit of what the two and a half story in my mind is, whether that's precedent or written in, that's the part that feels like it's being turned into a full third story. So. Let me ask Mr. Nolan, have you raised the ridge height on the. Give me one second. I know we're well within the maximum height limitation any case. So we're, we're about a couple feet low, what the maximum ridge height is. It appeared from the way it was drawn that it was the front, essentially the front building wall was the same as at the start. Yeah. I mean, we're going from a, a hipped roof to a gable roof. So that's going to add the just aesthetically, it adds more volume to the face of it. As in the existing building, it's tallying away. There's a small dormer in the front where this is now a gable. I'm sorry. I'm reading it, Mr. Chair. It's on item 16. It says height of 30.75 going to 32.5. Oh, I see. Okay. So yes, I guess we are. However, it is, I'd like to just point out that we're well within the maximum height limitation for about two and a half feet, I believe, sir. Here's that way. Yeah. Some of that has to do with, so it's a, it comes even more of a challenge with today's destruction with the energy by trying to meet the energy codes. The roof structures have gotten significantly larger so that we can accommodate the insulation requirements now from the energy code. So where, I believe this is probably a two by eight or potentially I can't quite recall seeing houses like this with two by sixes for rafters now have to go to two by tens and sometimes 12s in order to meet the energy requirements. So that's one thing that factors into using it up. Okay. So we're turning back to the board. If I'm reading the board correctly, it sort of sounds like we're looking for some additional work on behalf of the applicant before we're ready to make a decision. Is there any member of the board who feels we ought to, excuse me, to, is there anyone who feels we should not continue on this item? Seeing none. May I have, I think then we would ask to continue and ask Mr. Valarelli if he can provide the applicant with a copy of the memorandum from the planning department and a copy of the residential design guidelines which are available from the planning department's website. I most certainly will, Mr. Chairman. I'll do that right away. Thank you, sir. May I have a motion to continue? Motion to continue. I'm sorry, go ahead Mr. Mills. Motion to continue. Do we need to continue to continue? We, April 13th is at the, does that date work for everyone? Is that the next available meeting? We have a meeting, we have two other meetings, but just so we have a meeting on the 30th and the meeting on the 8th. Those are both tied with a comprehensive permit application for Thorndag Place, which is the new bar property and those are going to be very busy nights. Okay. If the 13th, I just asked to be on the next available one that's with the board. Okay. I have a motion for Mr. Mills to continue, which I would amend to. April 13th at 7.30 PM. Second. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin. Mr. Dupont. Hi. Mr. Hamlin. Hi. Mr. Mills. Hi. Mr. Ford. Hi. And chair votes aye. So we will continue that to April 13th. Thank you very much for. Coming in this evening. Thank you. And then the next item on our agenda. As item three, six, five, three 59 mountain street. Okay. If you can introduce your project, please. Hello, Mr. Chairman. Thank you members of the board. I'm David Whitney. I'm the architect working on this project. With the homeowners, Matt Pappas and Mona's Corfano. They're hiding here on the screen as well. They own a beautiful house at 59 Mount Vernon street with a very large lot. Zoning allows two units on the property. And so we'd like to expand their house. We'd like to add another unit. We submitted drawings. We submitted calculations. I think we comply in every way with his own bylaws, except for the fact that the area of the proposal. Is greater than 750 square feet. So we're here to seek a special permit that is required. Thank you. I will go ahead and pull up the plan. The existing. The site plan. The site plan. The existing house in the addition. Closer in that the existing. Level first level. The second level. In roof level or attic level, excuse me. And then this is proposed basement level. The two garages facing the rear. First floor. Second floor. And attic floor. Second floor. The second floor. The first floor. The second floor. The second floor. That's looking downhill. The rear. Up hill. Mr. Klein, let me note that the directions on the elevations don't reflect reality. Very conventional. Which north is up on the page. I didn't include the front street side elevation because the work will be invisible from there. Thank you. to those, just these questions here about open space. So on the site plan, this is the existing site plan. So is the area of the rear yard, is it essentially flat? It was difficult to tell. It's, it's, it's, you see there's a large paved area there. The area beyond that is relatively flat, but sunken. It's lower than the existing paved area. Is the area of the rear yard flat enough to comply with the requirements of usable open space? Yes. And then the change in the depth of the rear yard, so it's currently 72 feet to the detached garage, and that would be 72 feet now to the addition for your house, for the existing houses at 108. Yes. And then the setback, so the question I had, I think on the setback was, I think it's listed as 10 feet on the plan, on the submitted drawing, but it's listed as 9.8 on the side, but I don't think it matters because I don't think that the addition is within the 10 feet of the sideline. Is that correct? Correct. I'm going to blame the town for that. They're pdf rounds to the nearest foot. Then that would be me. Um, the setback, how much of the rear yard needs to be paved to provide access to the rear facing garage? So you had indicated that that's the one. So this space is sufficient for the U-turns to get in and out of the garage? Yes, they should be. Okay. And then we had asked about the residential design guidelines. And so you had addressed these. These have been distributed to the board ahead of the meeting on that tour. All the board members had an opportunity to see it or not. But there's no real impression upon the streetscape. Using materials and details that are existing, conforming to the rhythm of the streetscape, matches existing materials, details, and the configurations, etc. To the house. I'll stop the share here. Are there questions from the board? Mr. Revlak. Uh, just a few questions, Mr. Chair. When I, uh, I took a ride by this weekend and it looks, I see the retaining wall noted on the plans and it looks like the rear yard drops off after the retaining wall. And, uh, the retaining wall, it seems like, um, I forget which sheet it mentioned it, but the retaining wall is coming out. Yes. Okay. And so the, um, and there is, there is enough, there is sufficient usable open space on what basically is currently the far side of the retaining wall. Yeah. We call it the back portion of the lot. Okay. And, um, and the, the new second unit will be two floors rather than two and a half. Correct. Correct. And, um, yes, I think, uh, I think, I think that's all I have. I, I agree that, uh, from the front, it would, you know, this would problem. This is not going to be very noticeable. It seems like the, the front of the building is the facade is staying, uh, essentially the same. I also think it, I mean, it struck me as, you know, it will probably look similar to the, uh, building one down the hill. I guess it would be 51 where it's a, it's, it's a similar looks like a two family, but, um, you know, the same, same basic facade as other houses on the street, but just a fairly deep structure. Correct. No further questions, Mr. Scherer. Thank you, Mr. Black. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dubin. So I just had a couple of questions about the dimensional and parking information page. And I think some of them are just misprints, but I want to make sure that I understand correctly. So I don't know if you want to put that up, but, uh, in the height stories, a number 15, I don't know if you can enlarge that at all, but a number 15, it says proposed, or present condition, four stories and then proposed conditions for stories. And then it says maximum three, but then down the next line 16, it says it's 35 feet in height. So I just wanted to understand the numbers for that. Mr. Dupont, thank you. Again, that's, that's the PDF rounding on me automatically. I think that existing attic floor meets the definition of a half story, but it's already tall enough to count as three and a half. And we're not making the building any taller. And similarly, I just wanted to understand in 14 where you have rear yard depth, present conditions, 72 feet, and then proposed conditions, 72 feet. And I couldn't tell by looking at the plan. And it may be my lack of ability in reading these things all that well, but is it still going to be 72 feet? It is. I might have been unclear in that the existing conditions is the setback to a detached garage, 72 feet to the back of the detached garage. And this, this is in the written answers I provided this afternoon. It's actually 108 feet to the back of the main house. I see. But the addition will go no further back than the existing detached garage. And it looks like in a number 21, it just auto-filled. I think it did. Forgive me. I don't know where that came from. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to clear that up. It would be a big parking lot. Would be. Where did that pull that number? Oh, it pulled it from the lot size. I don't know why did that. No, that could have been. I see other applicants tonight filled out by hand, perhaps I'll do that in the future. At a minimum, it looks like I need to edit this form to get it to work correctly. Any additional questions from the board? Okay. So I will now open the meeting for public comment. As before, public questions and comments will be taken as they relate to the matter at hand. It should be directed to the board for the purposes of informing our decision. Chair asks members of the public who have logged in through Zoom who wish to speak. Please digitally raise your hand using the button on the participants tab of the Zoom application. Those calling in by phone, you can dial star nine to indicate if you'd like to speak. Be called upon by the host. You can unmute your audio and you'll be asked to give your name and address for the record. And you'll be given time for your questions and comments. So first hand I see is Mr. Moore. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. A question relative to the plan, I think I just heard that it was not going the moon structure was not going to exceed the depth into the lot beyond the current garage. I was looking at the aerial view and the various tree population that's on the site. I'm wondering if the owner or architect has developed a tree plan to deal with any trees that are going to be taken as part of the project. Mr. Whitney. No, we have not. Okay. Do you intend to take trees as part of the project? As required, I admit I haven't done an analysis of what trees will have to come down. Okay. Just to be aware that I am a member of the tree committee and there's obviously regulations related to taking down trees when there's a large scale addition under our Lincoln Tree Bylaw. So I suggest you get in touch with the tree warden when you do after you have made your observations and decisions regarding trees and approach him about developing the tree plan related to those decisions. His name is Tim Laquive. I don't have this phone number right here. I apologize. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Mr. Rosenthal? Am I unmuted? You are. Yes. I just want to point out. Sorry, I have to ask your name and address of the record. Yes. My name is Mark Rosenthal. I'm at 62 Walnut Street. This is the house directly in back of my house. Now, there was mention of the house downhill immediately next door that that house is just like what's being proposed. I want to point out that what's typical in an Arlington R2 district is basically a house with either a single entrance or entrances side by side that to the first floor and one of which goes to the second floor. And that's typical certainly on Mount Vernon Street. The house that's next door, I don't remember exactly when it was maybe 10 years ago, possibly as much as 15, but it was expanded from a single family to the current configuration. And I do remember having conversations with all the surrounding neighbors at the time, finding that feeling that this was really out of character with everything else in the neighborhood. So the statement in the application where it says that the use is in existence all around the property. I don't see that as accurate. This was an extremely unusual design that displeased most of the neighbors when the house next door was built. And now that seems to be being used as precedent to build the same thing next door. So I think that's pretty much what I've got. Thank you. This diamond, I believe you had your hand back up. Okay. This diamond? So I'm Alice Diamond and I live at 55A Mount Vernon Street. We're next door. And given that the size of the house is going to double, I'm wondering why the current requirement of two parking spaces and the proposed requirement, it says there's going to also be two parking spaces. Is that in keeping with the zoning regulations? Is, Mr. Vellarelli, can you speak to that? I can, Mr. Chairman. So the zoning regulations have changed. They've gone from two parking spaces per dwelling unit to one parking space per dwelling unit. Okay. Well, I just want to comment that this is like a unit with about eight bedrooms with two parking spaces. It just seems kind of questionable to me. Mr. Chairman, can I respond? Yes, Mr. Winnie. Perhaps Mr. Vellarelli can help me or anyone who can help me. I can't find a good definition of parking spaces in the typical residential driveway or scenario in the zoning bylaws. I know for commercial parking lots, they're very strictly and well-defined. I'm not sure what to call them in a driveway garage situation. I know we can fit more cars than one per unit, but since one per unit is required, that's why I listed on the table. Can I answer that question, Mr. Chairman? Yes, Mr. Vellarelli. Well, Mr. Whitney, I can send you those sections. What's applicable to, especially what you are proposing? Thank you. Ms. Goldstein. Hi. I live at 29 Albor Marl Street on the corner of Mount Vernon down the street from this property. I would like to echo some of what Mark Rosenthal said and more. This house is not in character with this neighborhood. Just because there's a front that will look the same along the street doesn't mean that this design is prevalent in this neighborhood at all. To me, it is not at all in keeping with the character of the district. I think Mark Rosenthal is correct that the house next door at 55 is an unusual and very large structure built one house behind the other, which you can see from the street. You see that large, long double house from the street. So for people to say that this house, you wouldn't see this from the street, I don't know that that's true. I really feel like this is a misnomer to call this an addition. This is a large massing stuck on behind a house. I'm concerned that this part of Mount Vernon Street has several large, long lots. I'm not sure what the origin of all of that was. I'm sure it's got some interesting history, but I would be very concerned if we're starting to view it like all of these long lots can now get a second house stuck behind it, which is called an addition. I think this really needs a lot more thought. There have been several things that have been brought up just now where there's no consideration of a tree plan. The architect didn't know what the definition of the parking spaces were. Some of these numbers on the sheets were not correct. Mr. Klein, you apparently had questions that you saw the answers to that I don't think were publicly available for the rest of us to see what those were. I think this really needs to be rethought and I definitely don't think that the fact that 55 has a second house built behind it means that we can now just build second houses behind the first ones. I don't know if there's an architectural term for this, but I think it's of concern. Thank you for that. As far as the difficulty in navigating the form, I will take some credit for that in the one who created the PDF form myself. I will take a look at it and get that if I can figure out what went wrong with that and see if I can get that repaired. The additional questions that I had posed to the applicant, those were posted today to the agenda, but they did come in late this afternoon. I know they were not posted timely. Additional public comments? Mr. Seltzer? Yes, Don Seltzer Irving Street. I'm looking at the package that was posted and it seems to be lacking in any detailed elevation numbers and I just think the board might want to I guess that under the table it said that presently it's 35 feet high and the new project is going to be 35. I think one problem you run into there is that the land is sloping off towards the rear, which you're going to build on, so the average grade from which you measure the elevation is now lower and you might find that the high point of the house is more than 35 feet above the average grade. So I just think that the elevation figures should be properly dimensioned so you could determine that. So Mr. Valarale, in terms of the with an addition of this type, the height of the building is average over the entire structure, not just the addition, is that correct? That is correct. Okay, does that similarly leave the question would be with the increased exposure of the basement level? Does that now count as a story? So again Mr. Chairman, this is the applicant's first step, he still has a whole list of other things to comply with that will not require board permission, either require that he adjust the plans accordingly to meet the zoning bylaw, otherwise he's going to be back before you. So tonight I think he just has to, his hurdle is the addition, the large addition exceeds 750 square feet, a host of other things too numerous to mention such as the tree one, stormwater mitigation, height of the building, all of that other dimensional and density stuff has to comply. Thank you Mr. Valarale. Mr. Valarale, if I can ask for clarification, it sounds like you're saying those are things that the project has to meet for the building permit, but what's most critical for the special permit is the 750 square foot rule? That's correct. Thank you. Mr. Seltzer, do you have anything further? No, I just want to suggest that he probably does meet the parking requirement easily because all of that driveway beyond the front yard counts as off-space parking too, so that along with the two garage spaces and they can probably park six or seven heat cars in legal off-street spots. Any further public questions? Chris, Mr. Klein, may I ask, is there a term for this type of development of sticking a second house behind a first house? The format of having two houses side by side, this is considered a duplex. I believe Mr. Valarale, is that correct? That's correct, Mr. Chairman. And is this addressed in the residential design guidelines? I see that they have things about additions, but I don't see anything about sticking a second house behind a first house. I didn't see anything specific to that. They speak a lot about things that are immediately adjacent to the street and sort of that kind of massing and the location of barrages and open space. And sort of at the front and running between properties, there's not a lot in here with regard to rear yards. Mr. Chair? Mr. Revlak? I mean, one of the things that and my apologies, I can't cite a specific section off the top of my head, but one of the things the residential guidelines did advocate for was for constructing additions in the rear yards of buildings to minimize the visibility of the additional massing from the street. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Oh, welcome. Just quickly scanning to see if I see that three block category, two case and design elements, creative solutions, creative styles, streetscape with them, elements, roof lines, dorm or roof elements, windows, deep buildings, and, unfortunately, I'm not finding something readily. Well, again, I would say that I find this not in character with this neighborhood at all. And I think it is something that needs to be addressed by design guidelines. Going to, so the memo from the planning department, sort of note that the proposal substantially increased the building, the structures massing, the addition will be completely within the rear yard of the property. Parents of the home from the street will not be altered. And the applicants note that the materials selected for the addition are complementary to the existing structure. The proposal is consistent with neighborhood character and is not detrimental to health morals or welfare. It's defining the planning department and their recommendations, need a determination for the engineering division regarding stormwater runoff. Mr. Chairman? One second, just looking through here. Sure. Then they mentioned a related document, related application, which is 20 Beacon Street, which was approved January of 2020. Who is it who had? I'm sorry. That was Whitney. Regarding the stormwater runoff, I just wanted to confirm that we absolutely understand that as a requirement and plan to do that as part of the general building permit application. Thank you. Anything further, Ms. Bolting? I guess I just don't understand really how, if there are zoning guidelines about the size of an addition, and this is like doubling the size of this house and creating a second house. I guess I'm just not sure how this is viewed as, just within the character of the neighborhood and the district and ideas for not massing. This seems like a large massing, even though it's behind the house, behind the house, which the house next to it also has a large massing behind it, which you can see from the street. Like what Mr. Rosenthal said before, it sounds like he has more to say. Just because it was allowed 15 years ago doesn't mean every lot on Mount Vernon Street should now get backfilled like that. That's my concern. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Board. Maybe one of the questions that we can help answer, and I would look to you board members, because I have a similar question, which that might help Ms. Goldstein and the others understand why this might be allowed. What is the intent of this zoning bylaw that limits the as of right addition to 750 square feet? So I think the intention in Mr. Valarale, you can correct me. So basically the zoning bylaw includes a provision for large addition. So if there's an addition that's over 750 square feet, it requires special permit approval. And I believe the intention of that was that if there was to be a large addition made onto a property that it would require the zoning board to consider it to apply the seven criteria that the board is required to apply to a special permit to determine whether or not. An addition of that size was in keeping with those criteria for the town. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. So, you know, one of the things that just catches my attention when I read through some of the requirements of the special permit, one is the requested use will not create under traffic conditions, congestion rather, and then the response is well changes to traffic will be inconsequential. But that's not I'm not I'm not seeing that that's based on anything other than just maybe an opinion and kind of the same thing with when you apply the when you when the questions asks why the requested use will not overload public water drainage or sewer. And it doesn't even say that it won't it simply just says as of right. So it simply hangs its hat on the as of right. So maybe I think I think I'm a little hung up on why this could simply just be allowed because it feels like it does it will add traffic and it does increase the drainage of public water. But but because it's as of right because it was a two story that it that it goes forward. So that's what brings me back to the question of the intent of the 750 square feet limitation. Mr. Chairman, it happened this happened to come up during public comments at last Monday's a week ago last Monday's the redevelopment board hearing so just take this is town here say but apparently back in the 70s there was a member of the garlington select board someone put a big addition not next to his house his next door neighbor put on a large addition the select board member didn't like it and soon afterwards we added a special permit requirement for large additions. So if that's probably a more direct answer you know again this is your say during the public comment section of a redevelopment board meeting but there you have it. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Hanlon. I have a comment but first I'd like to ask a question Mr. Valerelli. If the property owner here were to decide that instead of putting an addition on the property he would raise the property and as I understand that this is a conforming lot and so you're not dealing with any of the limitations we've talked about in some other cases if they took if they just raised the house that was currently there and built a house that was essentially the same as the one that he is proposing now could he do that by right? He could not Mr. Hanlon as the property only is contains 49.22 feet of frontage so by today's bylaw he would need 60 feet of frontage so it's a nonconforming lot. That's correct he does have the area he does not have the frontage. I see okay. Mr. Chairman I don't think that the way in which the zoning ordinance is set up in terms of additions it may be helpful just to look at it the other way around if it's under 752 then it doesn't propose it doesn't pose any change that needs to come before us. If it's over that it doesn't mean that there's anything illegal or indeed even that there is a presumption against it just means that we apply the criterion the criteria that we that are written into section 3.3 for three of the bylaw which is what we have here. It's not particularly rare it's not as common as in other configurations but front and back duplexes happen in Arlington and so the issue really is once you once you know that it is more 750 feet or more then you ask the questions on the on the criteria and the neighbors have made their case that they do not believe that this is consistent with their community whether or not this kind of format is used on other streets and other neighborhoods they don't feel that it's consistent with theirs and they're not very happy about the precedent that they posed a number of years ago being used to justify doing the same thing and a concern that it would be done on other similar things so that it would lead to a larger change in the neighborhood that's a point and that and they may be right about that and it's going to be up to us when we apply the criteria to decide whether the planning department is more nearly right or whether the feelings of the applicant are more nearly right but this is just what this is just what we do there and the the arguments that the that the miss goldstein has made that Mr. Rosenthal has made um diamond is made uh are i mean i we i think that they've made those those those fairly cogently and the question now is is just how does the commission come out on criterion number six i do think that in terms of increasing traffic one additional house on the street is is likely to be de minimis and i'm not very concerned about that one um i'm a little bit it's odd that we should be concerned about increase in stormwater management but we have a wholly other system besides the planning commission or excuse me the the zoning board of appeals for dealing with that so it seems to me that there's really one overriding consideration in this case and that is whether this is consistent with the character of the district or not and we've heard we've heard the positions of either side and we're going to have to make up our minds what we think is right thank you mr hamlin um may i just uh i've had my hand raised for a while no just turning to you mr rosenthal please i'm sorry thank you um i i just wanted to ask uh there's been mention of residential design guidelines and what is or is not in them and i don't have that document i would like to be able to review it myself do you know where i can get it it is available um from the planning department's website okay all right thank you certainly that's the document id number is five four five one eight that's um i'm sorry could you repeat that document id number sure it's five four five one eight thank you and um if using the search feature on the town's website uh with the terms residential design guidelines um should surface the document so mr chair mr revelak uh as as uh folks were talking i downloaded the document from the town's website and the the part i had in mind when i spoke earlier was principle a two uh which appears on page 20 and what i i think the way i was thinking of it the principle itself is because rear yards are generally not visible from the street they can be used and built to built into they can be used and built into in many ways so where you know the typical um you know where most sections in that document will focus on you know specific aspects and say do this don't do that or this is preferred this is not preferred you know the with respect to rear editions they just said well there's there's there's not more there's i i think you know the guidelines are giving flexibility and not really making a lot of recommendations mr chairman if i could just one thing that i think and i this was a concern actually in the committee that developed the residential guidelines of which design guidelines on which i served um but it's important to realize that these are a set of recommendations uh that are for people to consider uh they may have a bearing on our decision as to whether or not something is not consistent with the character of the district along with lots of other things but it's important to know that they are not and they are not intended to be a sort of substitute or additional right set of regulations that go beyond the zoning ordinance uh what we've been talking and so this isn't another place to comb to comb uh for here's a rule would they violate this rule here's a rule they violate that rule that it's not really intended to do that and it has never been adopted by town meeting it does not have the force of law uh it's a series of it's a way it's intended to create a common way of thinking and talking about design questions and that's the way in which we're using it and that's the way in which it's intended it's intended to be used that said it's very useful it seems to me for people applicants and others to be aware of what it says uh but it's important to know what it is and what it is thank you um Rosenthal did you have anything further yes i just wanted to respond uh given the section that mr rebelek just read uh the particularly the clause whereas rear yards are not generally visible from the street i would like to emphasize what uh miss goldstein said and what i know from having driven and walked uh up and down mount Vernon street myself this will be visible from the street maybe not look you know maybe not at a sit at a 90 degree angle maybe not if i'm standing in front of the house looking straight at you know looking straight at the house but if i'm standing in front of the house next door and looking at an angle i'm going to see it it will be visible from the street thank you okay and mr chair yes if with your permission um may i direct a question to either miss goldstein or mr rosenthal and just this is just for my personal understanding um in terms of what ass i'm just was would like to understand what aspects of the proposed change uh proposed addition you feel would not be keeping in the character um you want me to answer that okay my view um that the size first of all and the fact that it's a it this isn't an addition this is creating a second house that's bigger than the first house onto the back of a house so is every lot on mount Vernon street now going to capitalize on this and say oh i could build a million dollar house on the back of my house because i've got a deep lot that's that's one concern the size and that that is going to change the character of this neighborhood um and just while we're talking about the suggested guidelines you know on page 33 they are saying um encourage smaller size discourage oversized additions um so i feel like that is what you experts should be taking into consideration as well and mark perhaps has another answer to your question thank you um am i muted nope you're fine okay um yeah i'm basically it's i don't know how to articulate this uh clearly but it's the feel of when we bought the house and ever since then up until the what is it 55 uh 55 mount Vernon addition you know was turned from uh one family into you know basically a second house was plunked into their backyard leaving um you know the world's tiniest backyard um prior to that i could go into my backyard and although i knew i was in residential Boston um and yes i could see houses um at a certain distance from you know from where i was in my backyard um there was a feel a little bit of a feel that well i can get away from the city and be a little bit in the country um and suddenly with a you know with the second house in the backyard of of the 55 Mount Vernon property um the trees are gone uh you know it's it's no longer i mean it's not you know yes i can look in different directions and um you know i'm not see this additional house there um but if that happens to every other r2 in in the district um it's going to feel like basically northeast Philly where i grew up and not like Arlington where i chose to move to uh because to a great extent uh that it was halfway between city and country it was you know it wasn't conquered but and it wasn't downtown Boston it was something in between um it's not the uh you know yes you expect things to change over time but this i i see as potentially a very radical change thank you i just in the background here i'm looking at the zoning map to sort of get a sense for the neighborhood in terms of what would be allowed what would not be allowed um it's all very odd um so to the question about like all the other houses so the so this side of um let's go ahead and share this bizarre uh so the property here is um is highlighted this property here so the darker yellow is two family and the the lighter tone is single family so presently almost every single house that could be two family is a two family right now on this side of the street um and that's the only reason that they're able to proceed in this fashion is that they do have a single family house in the two family districts um so this is the house next door that's basically two houses on the lot i'm gonna sort of go down the street 53 Mount Vernon i'm not you can't tell if it's single family or two family um because it hasn't been condoed it's been condoed you can usually tell but 4951 so that's a double 45 47 so i in some respect i think this is sort of the last the last one of those that can still be converted at this stage and then the the few on the back side on walnut streets 58 60 is already a two family 40 54 56 is two and 50 52 so um i think this is sort of the outlying parcel in that regard um well it might be but if you look at walnut street i think you see a lot of deep lots there with single family houses so yeah but the only ones that can be converted to two family are two families at this stage all the other ones are unable to be converted because they're only a single family home i would like to suggest that you're not thinking like a very creative developer would think all the single families could easily or i'm sorry all the two families could easily be turned into single families just by eliminating one entrance and um and putting in an additional scare staircase that would then mean that you now have a one family where there was was previously a two family unit which would then if this precedent is set um allow them to plunk yet another structure in you know behind the current structure so the the tools that are in the zoning bylaw to limit the size of a structure on a property um there's a couple of different criteria one is lot coverage that you can only cover a certain percentage of the lot and the other is that you are required to provide usable open space which is an open space area which is a certain percentage of the gross floor area of the home which is the interior space of the home and those sort of limit the the density on the property so under the under the bylaw it is possible to build larger than this um i believe whether that's a good idea or not you know is not before us today um but i i think the board is as well informed of the neighbors opinions on this matter um and i wouldn't i would like to um to allow the board to move on so that we can discuss the um how we would like to proceed so in is the rosenthal unless you have anything in addition i would like to to bring the public comment that's fine okay thank you sir okay so i will bring public comment to expose so coming back to the board what we have before this is a large addition um where we have information from the planning department we have and we have information from there were abutting residents um and we need to come to a decision about the what we believe about this um addition so what i was going to propose we do is we look at the seven criteria um and just go through them in order and then after after that see where we are so the seven criteria are as established under section three three three in the zoning bylaw which parallel the criteria under state code um so criteria number one is the requested use permittable and yes it is it's permittable by special permit in the r2 district uh criteria number two the public convenience that's welfare um so the i'm looking at the planning boards i don't have the active question use that explain why the requested use is essential or desirable to come to the public convenience or welfare the the planning department does add the proposal would create an additional housing unit um i guess the question is does the board have any comments on that point seeing none criteria three undue traffic congestion impairment of public safety uh the question is explain whether requested use will not create undue traffic congestion or unduly impaired pedestrian safety um so we're not the applicant is not planning is not adding an additional um curb cut is not creating an additional driveway um there will obviously be additional cars because of the the second unit but it is in keeping with the of the current residential pattern of that neighborhood i don't think it's creating anything beyond the amount of traffic that someone would anticipate for a project like this uh criteria number four to explain why the requested use will not overload any public water drainage or sewer system or any other municipal systems to such an extent that the requested use or any developed use in the immediate area or any other area of the town will be unduly subjected to hazards affecting health safety or the general welfare and i think this is typically applied if the project was of such a scale that it would overwhelm the storm sewer system or it would um require additional sewer capacity by the town or additional water capacity by the town um the addition of one unit um will not create an undue burden um the planning department did comment that the addition will expand the footprint of the structure by 923 square feet into the rear yards which is currently paved with by two minutes concrete and has a garage part of the addition the applicants would remove the existing garage structure the engineering division should review storm water analysis report for the proposal to determine whether the addition will increase the surface water run operate relative to the pre-development run operate for article 15 so that's as mr velarelli had alluded that is a requirement that they will have to pursue as a part of the permitting process um criteria number five special regulations um describe how any special regulations for the use as may be provided in the zoning bylaw including but not limited to the provisions of section eight are fulfilled um so there are no additional zoning uh requirements as mr moore pointed out there are requirements under the general bylaws under the with the provisions for trees um and that will need to be reviewed by um by the applicant by the town upon the application uh criterion number six which i think is the one we're going to get hung up on here is explain why the requested use will not impair the integrity or character of the district or joining districts nor be detrimental to the health and welfare um and so i think this is the one where the massing comes into question the statement from the planning board of all the proposal will substantially increase the structures massing the addition will be completely within the rear yard of the property the parents of the home from the street will not be altered and the applicants note that the materials selected for the addition are complementary to the existing structure the proposal is consistent with neighborhood character and is not detrimental to health morals or welfare i think this is the the point that the board needs to to really consider as to what their opinion is on this mr chairman yes please i just want to emphasize just in terms of going through the the very next one i mean this one is critical as i think we discussed earlier uh the next one is also relevant potentially and that is uh the detrimental excess in a particular use here the use that is being challenged is a certain way of of essentially creating a two-family structure and part of the argument is that if we allow this then there will be several other places where you could have similar conversions and that that would mean that not only do you have this one structure to look at but that the nature of the whole street is is likely to change that we may or may not agree with that that that is a contention that would involve the criterion seven well thank you so then the brings the question back before the board is to is the requested addition in keeping with with the neighborhood or is it unduly large yes mr dupont so similar to the application that was before us tonight in front of this i think that the concerns that neighbors express about size about massing are worth considering and i do think that the neighbors have expressed their opinions cogently as mr hanlon had pointed out and once hearing them i feel in order to reflect upon them more carefully uh and again this is my personal opinion it would be helpful for me to have more time to take a look at the street again i mean i looked at it but then when i hear what the neighbors have to say i think that that adds additional information that i would like to be able to consider and i don't know if the rest of the board feels that way and i'm willing to go along with the rest of the board if people decide they want to proceed tonight but i do feel in deference to the comments by the neighbors and without prejudice to the applicant i would like to have more time thank you mr dupont how do other members of the board feel mr revlack mr chair would it be possible to put up you know as i'm thinking in in addition to the addition that's being proposed uh there's there will also be the removal of a garage that's um and the removal of a fairly big deck and i'm just wondering if it's possible could we just flip back and forth between so i'm looking here for i'd like two sheets one to show the you know the proposed changes and one with the you know as the existing site as is so i mean what i what i'm thinking is yes we're yes there is an addition but there's also stuff coming off and i'm wondering how that you know i'm trying to picture how that nets out essentially sure so the the applicant is so this is the existing site plan with the existing garage to be removed the applicant has indicated that this rear line of the garage is to be the the rear line of the new addition which you can see here so that's the i believe that is this yeah so this position here and then there's a the deck extends an eight feet beyond the that edge um so the existing so this is what's existing so the garage would sit closer to the downhill side of the property closer to 55 on the porch that wraps around on that side as well and then the addition here which peaks around the corner of the house in this position stays behind the the setback that our stairs that come out slightly on the side and then on this side it does sit slightly proud of the existing building that is there but it is slightly behind the that is hidden behind the bay or see the bow no it's a bay yeah and just um if if i may what's the distance so it's a hundred it's 72 feet from the rear property line to the back of the proposed addition that is correct and how what is the distance between the rear property line and the rear of the existing garage is also 72 feet it is also 72 feet okay thank you mr. chair you're welcome and then this is this line here which is where the transition between where the driveway is in the backyard that line is obviously moving back so that there's more paved area at the rear because the the lot isn't sufficiently wide to allow um parking to come in from the side the parking is coming is looping around and coming in from the rear looking again so this um just a question for mr. whitney um so it appears that the the walk-up entrance to the to this rear unit is is it from the deck is that correct correct those stairs lead up to the deck and then the door to the new unit is from that deck okay so you cannot you cannot find see the entrance to the back unit from the street correct mr. valorelli are you aware of any policy from the emergency services in regards to being able to locate units no what they will have to do again part of the plan review process they'll have to register with engineering okay creating a new address uh so that's a great point so in case of an emergency situation the emergency vehicle will have to know where it's going because it will not show up on the map until the project is underway and that's an engineering process okay but there's no requirement that it have an entrance that is visible from the street there is none to my knowledge okay mr mills i believe you had a i agree uh with mr. dupont's comment i'd like to have some a chance to consider this long up and actually take a stroll by the street take a look at the perspectives from the neighborhood and uh what this massing could appear to be like in a local perspective mr. chairman yes mr. handlin i think that with this number of people who would just like a little more time uh to consider it and i'm guessing to go and visit so this will certainly be generating a considerable amount of pedestrian traffic over the next week or two it might be helpful to i think that we'll be more comfortable with the decision uh there's lots and lots of variations and i usually find that what i have to think on my feet uh in this particular kind of way i often regret what i what i the conclusion i come to so uh it would be nice i'm not sure to what extent there are considerations that haven't been brought up but figuring out how they all fit together what what for example we make of the fact that there's still a 72 foot rear yard uh when we're talking about massing issues how important is it that to look at the vision view from the front rather than other kinds of views just just you mean to following up on the chairman's count of the number of uh single families available to conversion how much of an issue is it that this might spread in and cause a while a larger change in the neighborhood just this one property all of these things have to be thought about and put together and it seems to me that it would be helpful to us to be able to take a little more time go out and look and be able to reflect a little more deeply on the issues that have been brought up wonder mr whitney would it be possible to to schedule a time to go out there and actually be able to be on the property and see exactly what the extent of the proposed addition sure absolutely and i say that without consulting the homeowners but i'm sure they'll be able to i don't know if the homeowners on the call are not there mr pappas mr pappas would it be acceptable to to do that yes it would all right thank you mr chairman how how should you go about scheduling that um we could try to set something up now if people have calendars or we can um send around an email to try to work that out mr valarelli would it be acceptable for us to send an email to verify that emotionally would absolutely okay mr chairman is that an open meeting law issue so it depends on well i think we can we have to be careful about that um but i think if we were to sort of spread it out a little bit i think we could make it work but we would not be able to all go en masse but i think if we were to go sequentially and look independently i think that that's that's acceptable under the public meeting law but i'll confirm that mr chairman i i i believe that and just based on some other things that we've done in connection with with uh the residential study group and and other things a lot depends upon what you say when you get together so you know if we go if we all went there together and we all agreed to talk about nothing but uh caviar and champagne uh we would not be the new danger of violating the open meeting law but this is probably not an occasion where we can have a back and forth and actually discuss the matter we would have to hold our peace until we had an opportunity to do that in a public meeting okay um in that case if the board is amenable i will coordinate with mr whitney to find a time that people can come by and take a look and that but then we would still need so we would need to continue um tonight to a date certain so with that is the plan that i will coordinate um a time to visit the site with the applicant's architect and um would we want to continue to a date certain of um also of april 13th no objection objection is that date available for the applicant it is for me this is okay then um yeah i have a motion to continue so moved and continue to date certain of april 13th at 7 30 p.m moved by mr dupont was that mr mills who seconded yes okay uh taking the role of mr dupont hi mr handlin hi mr mills hi mr revillac hi and the chair says hi so we are continued on this until april 13th at 7 30 p.m so that moves us to the next item on our agenda thank you members of the board you're welcome welcome mr whitney you're welcome sir the next item on our agenda is the end of the meeting thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the arlington zoning board of appeals i appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting i especially wish to thank mr hella relliam's belief for their assistance in preparing for and hosting the online meeting please note the purpose of the board's reporting this meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of the proceedings our understanding 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 the zba at town dot arlington dot ma dot us that email address is also listed on the zba website and to conclude tonight's meeting i would ask for a motion to adjourn um mr chairman yes please mr morgan this is steve morgan um just one comment i'd like to make i've now participated in a bunch of these meetings and i just want to say uh you folks uh do great work and i don't think i'd want your jobs for the world um this is this is it's it's tough what you do you're trying to balance so much and and keeping your head so much to do with zoning which of course is never changing every morphing changing shape so i just want to thank you for what that you do this is this is hard this is hard stuff and i think a little more caviar and champagne probably is uh uh so thank you thank thank you mr morgan that's very gracious thank you appreciate that much more thank you um so we could have a motion to adjourn so moved don't move mr handlin second second nope mr rablak beat you to it all those board members in favor of german please say i hi i proposed we are adjourned thank you all very much for your participation tonight thank you good night everyone appreciate it good night all night good night gents