 Board just introduce you to Mustafa Baroglu who is a fellow town meeting member from precinct 10, but he is also going to be joining us along with Jennifer Seuss to talk about possible meeting formats going forward. They were instrumental in a group formed by town meeting last year to research this issue so we will be having them join us. Once we get up and running so Mustafa will get things up and running. We have a continuance we just have to vote on and then we'll quickly dispose of just a brief matter with another hearing and then we'll be on to you. The unmute and camera off but here so perfect working in the background. Great. Thank you so much. One of Christian one of the things that if we don't have anything else going on the 10th, it's, it's a long time between now and the next time we need to approve that the opinion and the case that we have tonight. And I'm sort of wondering whether there's a way of getting that out of the way without waiting for a whole another month on it. Yeah, I mean we could certainly need on the 10th and just have a very very short meeting. It would take five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. All right, well we're at 733. Let me go ahead and let everyone in. Oh goodness, a lot of people. Hey, it is 734 p.m. It is Tuesday, April 26 2022. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein I'm the chair of the Arlington zoning Board of Appeals. I call this meeting of the board to order. First I'd like to confirm that all members and anticipated officials are present for the zoning board of appeals Roger Dupont. Here, Kevin Mills here. Daniel Rickidelli here. Lane Hoffman here and then get Holly. Yes. Wonderful. Good to see you all on behalf of the town, Rick Pallarelli, our board of administrators. Good to see you and Vincent Lee here. Here as well. Hearing on behalf of four and four to six River Street. Dennis Lascaux and Wiley Brown. Hello. Good to have you both here. And I imagine most people are here because of 1820 Belknap Street. So we are, we will be continuing on this hearing this evening. We will not be, we will just be taking a vote to continue. We will not be hearing any testimony on this issue this evening. In our review, it was discovered that the property actually has a very small portion that abuts the minimum bikeway. And as such it is not under the jurisdiction of the zoning board of appeals it is under the jurisdiction of the Arlington redevelopment board for environmental design review. So while we sort that out and deal with the withdrawals and the transfer, we will just be voting to continue on that article this evening. Or excuse me that that case this evening. So with that, this open meeting of the Arlington zoning board of appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with an act extending certain COVID-19 measures signed into law in February 15, 2022. This act includes an extension until July 15, 2022, 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 hearing. For this meeting, the Arlington zoning board of appeals has convened a video conference via the Zoom application with online and telephone access is 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 others are participating by computer audio or by telephone. Recordingly, please be aware that other folks may not 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 reporting. 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, and the public is encouraged to follow along using the agenda. In its chair are reserved to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. And so, because most of the items this evening are as administrative nature I did want to move us immediately to the first, first to the public hearings. So I'd like to begin this meeting with the public hearings on tonight's agenda. Here's some ground rules for effective and clear conduct this night's business after I announced agenda item I will ask the applicant to introduce himself and themselves and make their presentation to the board. Other request members of the board ask questions they have. After the board's questions have been answered I'll open the meeting for public comment and at the conclusion of public comment the board will deliberate and vote on the matter. So the first bring up is docket number 3695, which is 1820 Belknap Street. As I mentioned at the start. People in the waiting room. 1820 Belknap Street in doing a more thorough review of the hearing and the information in front of us that was determined that the, there's a very small portion of the property that actually it butts them in a minute man bikeway. And as such, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Earlington Redevelopment Board as an environmental design review case. And so we will be just continuing on this this evening. And then the most likely it will need to be withdrawn by the applicant for the zoning board of appeals and then reapplied for under the redevelopment board. And so with that, are there any questions from the board. Seeing none. I would like a motion to continue 18 to 20 Belknap Street. To Tuesday May 10 2022 at 730 PM. So moved. Second. Second. Thank you, Mr Mills. And just as a, as a further note on this case. Mr Dupont has let me know that he has a conflict with us the ownership of the property and so he will not be participating in any of the votes on Belknap Street. So with that, voted the board Mr Hanlon. Yeah, I Mills. Aye. Mr Rickardelli. Aye. It's off me. Aye. Mr Holly. And the chair votes aye. So we are continued on Belknap Street until Tuesday, May 10 and 730 PM. With that move on the agenda, going back to article to item number 10, which is docket number three, six, eight, nine, four, six river street. It's a continuance of a prior hearing. And there was new information that was made available and distributed to the board. Last week, in regards to the roof structure and particularly the structure, which extends over the, the front porch at the upper level. And so with that, I will turn it over to Mr last one, Mr Brown. I will let Mr Brown speak in general, I just wanted to apologize for the confusion that happened with the plans. And I want to re confirm that the plans the board in front of them have that the board has in front of them now are the correct plans with the correct square footage. The only change to these plans from the ones that the board was looking at initially was the change to the trellis structure that we discussed. The square footage remains the original square footage which I submitted with Mr valiaris good advice at the beginning of this board process. So much. Yes hello. Thank you gentlemen of the board. I also want to apologize for that mix up. It was a bit of a snafu we combined them with some earlier version that we had submitted long before, and then there was a bit of a mix up we had lowered the knee wall to fit the zoning requirements. So I'm going to real quickly show my screen, just to kind of give everybody a quick, quick reminder, can you see my screen there. We can look at great. So again, four to six River Street. I think I think I probably don't need to go over too much we've seen this twice before. So, but here's the context, the street context is a brick building among a bunch of wood frame buildings. And our intent is to put a 660 square foot, our half floor piece on as a, as a kind of a second or a second and a half story. And then, you know, combine that as we've seen here and the rendering from from last week. Here's the existing and then with this kind of trellis structure. We've now submitted this with with the plans and specific dimensions. And we look forward to you being able to vote on it. And so nothing has changed. Based off what we spoke about last week with the exception of now we've submitted the full set of plans for the preferred proposal as requested. Thank you very much. The board is in receipt of those drawings and as Mr. Laska mentioned, there was a bit of confusion on those, but the current set that that is on the town. On the, the nose agenda is the current and accurate set and reflects having the appropriate area on the top floor to comply with the town's two and a half story by law. And then, and just to sort of recap for the board. This case came before us, because it has zero usable open space existing in the rear yard and the addition would require additional usable open space, which is unavailable. And so the board needs to make a determination that that is not significantly more detrimental. So that the applicant can proceed. Are there questions from the board. Seeing none, I will take. Excuse me. So take a comment from the public. 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 chair will ask those wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing to please be patient allow others to speak in front of them. 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 to be called upon by the chair, asked to give your name and address and given time for your questions and comments all questions are to be addressed through the chair please remember to speak clearly. Once all public questions and comments have been addressed public comment period will be closed. So with that. We have one person with a hand raised Mr Moore. Yes, thank you Mr chair Steve Moore Piedmont street. Just one quick question for the applicant. I know there have been a series of meetings on this and this visualization is quite helpful and in the, the ultimate outcome of what do you expect it to look like. But I wanted to confirm one thing. I see with all of the trellis structure I think you called it in the visualization. The intent is to provide a sort of deck space I assume for the eventual owners or, or inhabitants of the building, and the trellis is a bit of an artifice it's nice I like it but what the intent isn't to hang or mount anything on any of this trellis structure. Right. That's correct. It's just anything going okay go ahead. Yeah, the trellis structure just kind of adds a little form to the structure and makes it look like a continuous and single plan structure, it might provide a little shade, especially closer into the building where the ribs are a little closer but yeah, for the most part this is probably not a heavily used deck as we will use our back deck more but this kind of is a place to come out for a couple people and talk or, you know, take a take some evening air. Thank you and thank you Mr Chairman know that's a, I mean I very much like the concept is kind of imagine to that I know that the board was intending, I think they were calm positive comments from the board as well. But is there anything to keep the inhabitants or owners from doing what I suggest. When I say suggest I mean, I'm postulating this might happen hanging stuff or covering it or making it now an enclosed deck once those ribs are there and the building is built and everything is done five years down the road. So, to address that question. It actually brings us back to town meeting so there is an article in front of town meeting this year, which would require that the enclosure of an open porch requires a special permit. And so hopefully that that will receive favorable action from town meeting. And therefore would be. Yeah, if that was to be proposed it would need to come back before town meeting, but currently if they were to enclose it become it shifts from being open, you know, from being just open space to being enclosed space and part of the gross floor area the building and the building would be in violation of the two and a half story, and would also not be allowed without further action from the board. Okay, well thank you, Mr. Chair that helps a lot and I'm glad to know that the owner of the building will be fully aware of that. And we'll hope for the passage of the article in the town meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Moore. Mr Chairman, could I ask a question. Please. If the the way in which we normally make sure that the that what we what is done is what is approved is by comparing it to the drawings. And would it if it would it be the case that apart from what you've just described in terms of with the violation of the zoning ordinance that would be caused if this was was brought in, but that that would also be a violation of the final plans and therefore a violation of condition number one of that would probably would be in any special permit that we offer that would be the case. Yes. So I do not see anyone else with their hand raised with one last opportunity for public comment and I'll go ahead and close the public comment period. Okay, so the public comment period for this hearing is closed. So the question before the board. So this is explained at the start. This is existing two story structure with zero usable open space they're adding a half story to the top, which requires additional useful open space but as they have none presently. The board needs to make a determination that it is not significantly more detrimental to the neighborhood to have that extension of the existing non conformity with regard to usable open space. Any further questions or comments from the board. Mr Chairman, Mr Hanlon. I do want to point out that that ordinarily we also apply the special permit conditions of section 3.3.3 in addition to the finding of no significant no increase detriment. And I assume that we'll continue to do that we, we may want to reconsider as time goes on whether that's necessary in cases of the sort but that has been our practice. Thank you, Mr Hanlon and bless you Mr Mills. So should the board act favorably there are our three standard conditions which we would apply. The first is that the plans and specifications approved by the board for the special 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 will be no deviation during construction from approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Condition number two the building inspector is hereby notified he is to monitor the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures that anytime is deemed that violations are present the building inspector shall proceed under section 3.1 of the zoning bylaw and under the provisions of chapter 40 section 21 D of the Massachusetts general laws and institute non criminal complaints. If necessary the building inspector may also approve an institute appropriate criminal action also in accordance with section 3.1 and condition number three the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to this special permit grant. In addition to those three are there any other conditions which members of the board would wish to consider seeing none. May I have a motion in regards to this application. Chairman. Mr Hanlon. I move that the application be approved subject to the three standard conditions that the chair has just read into the record. If I could add just a second. This is this is one of those cases that is sort of zero going to a greater degree of zero. And we have always viewed those with a considerable amount of death of deference and in dealing with them and that would be the major issue here. I think that we have done a fairly probing inquiry as to the design of the building and whether that was in some way would be a violation of the special permit conditions. And I think we've come to the conclusion that with the changes that the applicant has made in the additional plans that they are consistent with the zoning bylaw. Second. Thank you for the second. Thank you, Mr Hanlon. So with that, are there any questions as to what the vote entails. And then I'll do a real call vote of the board. Mr DuPont. Hi. Mr Hanlon. Hi. Mr Mills. Hi. Mr Ricker deli. Hi. The chair votes. The motion to approve the special permit for four six river street with the three standard conditions is approved. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks so much. Mr Chairman, just really quickly. Besides submitting a building permit set, is there any other kind of formal. Finish into this process that I need to do to. If you coordinate with Mr Valorelli, we'll make sure that everything gets filed correctly. It has to the decision we so the board will write the formal decision. And when we meet at on May 10th, we will vote to approve the final language of the application. Excuse me of the decision. And at that point, Mr. It'll be signed. Mr Valorelli will have it. Sent to the town clerk's office to be certified. And then there's a 20 day appeal period. If anybody wishes to file an appeal. At which point the decision becomes final. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you very much to, to you and to the rest of the board. For the guidance and. And making this a great, great process. I appreciate it. With that, back to our agenda. So I'm going to take us to item number five discussion of formats for future meetings. So we are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm lucky to be joined by. Two members of the remote participation study group. Who were founded by town and active town meeting last year to look into. How boards. And other commissions in town could meet. Sort of moving into the post COVID era. And so with us, we have Jennifer Seuss and the staff of our glue from that group. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about that in the evening. And to tell us what their, what their group findings have been. Chairman, can I have a point of order? Mr. Hamlin, please. I wanted to say that so that it could demonstrate that I knew what one was. But we have skipped over. Two, three and four in our agenda. And I would like to remind us to come back to them in the appropriate time. We absolutely will. Thank you for that. Mr. Hamlin. Good evening. Hello. Hello. What we agreed on, let me, we'll just talk to you. So there's a couple of things that we need to talk to you about. And it, the situation we're going to talk about are still evolving frankly, which is why we've been reluctant to come back to the committees to give them more information. So we can fill you in on some of the technological issues and issues that are in town. And Mustafa is going to do that. And then I can talk about sort of the structure of the pilot. And what, how we see it going. Unfortunately, we'll get to the room and tech issues. Might sort of take precedence in terms of, you know, how this looks or whether ZBA can be involved in this. Thank you. Okay. So Mustafa, why don't you talk about that first? Well, let's, I'm not sure just take one big step back. I know Christian has been following this pretty closely. I mean, I think I got an email after, I think when our meeting, our very first meeting was announced. Very nice detail. It was actually very helpful to lay out the plans. So for the rest of the, the ZBA. Our, our study committee was tasked to see, it was basically hybrid meetings. So a mixture of participants all together in one room. Perhaps the ZBA would gather in one space. A few people from the public would be in the room with you. And many other people would dial in video conference in whatever else they would do. So that's just in a very high level goal. We're trying to study that. And we've done quite a bit of work, which I won't get all into the details of it, but it's not, it's, you know, it's more challenging than remote and it's more challenging than everybody in person. So we're looking for solutions and, and trying to make that possible because we've also heard through some of our work that people are interested in being able to access town, you know, meetings in the town from home for a variety of reasons. Health, you know, health, childcare, time, weather, so on. So, so we're kind of moving forward with this. And. So fast forwarding what we have done and Jennifer's really been driving this is we've done a lot of detailed things, but basically the outcome is that we're proposing a pilot program. And we are looking at survey results that we did. I think many of you answered that survey of the boards and commissions and of the public. And the ZBA was one of the, one of the peer boards. That was of higher interest. And we also looked at all the other, a lot of the other meetings that came and we broke them into, we sort of categorize them to be, you know, you have the select board, which has ACM or ACMI filming it. You have five people sitting in front of microphones, a very formal meeting with a lot of participants. We have at the very far end of it, some smaller meetings, generally very little public participation and fewer people. So sitting around a table, the technology there is much simpler and we have in between. And the ZBA is in that in between space at the higher end of the in between. And so the ideal technology that we would picture for the ZBA, which likely may or may not be available at the time of the pilot, but will be a challenge to have available at the time at the beginning of the pilot would be two flat panels, a couple of cameras, presentation on one video and other people on the other. And then we are looking at some technology. I'm not sure if people have seen these in their workplaces or other places, something called a neat bar or probably at this point a neat bar, which is a camera in the room or a camera that is able to take each person's face and put it, even if you're sitting around the table, take your faces and kind of create the grid that we're used to on zoom as we are now. So even though you are side by side by side, it's not one of those poor video effects of everybody near the front of the table, very large and everybody at the back, tiny. Each face is roughly equal as we are right now. And so we're looking at that technology. What we're going to do is try that technology in a smaller room. So in that in between space, just for label sakes, we put the ZBA in the type B type rooms. It's the two big screens, the video and so on. What we are going to pilot with some initial funds and some initial smaller meetings are a type C room, which would be a large screen, but a single screen, maybe not as many microphones and something like the neat bar so that when you have people in that room, they are in an array. But we haven't figured out quite or we haven't, we don't want to commit to the technology and the costs of the second screen and the bigger setup for the presentation view and the more complicated microphones. Without trying some of this technology at a smaller space and obviously a little more flexibility and lower costs. So I think sort of in a nutshell, I think just to kind of, the bottom line message, we would, with the ZBA's enthusiasm, at least from Christian's letter and staying in contact with us, we would love to have you as the first wave of piloting, but we would love, if you'd like to try the type C room and see if it works for the committee or maybe have a few people from the board, excuse me, from the ZBA board, take a look and see if you feel it's feasible. But right now that would be the type of room we could, I think, offer. And that's not, that may not be ideal for this format or you may even want to make it work. There is another possibility which is that the select board chambers, one of our conditions, the select board, was to use their chambers for other meetings. And they agreed to that in principle, of course, there are always logistical things and figuring out whether it works or not. The select board chambers are only usable as for hybrid meetings if ACMI is involved. So, you know, traditionally you haven't been filmed by ACMI. ACMI might decide that you're a group that they'd love to add because there's a lot of interest in this committee's work or they may decide that there's interest in the committee's work for some of the meetings. And so that's a possibility. But unfortunately in that room right now without further investment technology, which we likely are going to recommend, they can only be done with ACMI's involvement with the physical person sort of in that closet hanging out doing things. Yeah, certainly right now, you know, Sean Keane from ACMI does record our hearings and their broadcasts, but it's not anything that requires sort of constant supervision. Right. And I just, I mean, you know, I've noticed that that DBA meetings have gotten a lot more interest. I mean, you certainly are, there are more 40B type of applications. There's more things that the public is really interested in. So, so when we talk to ACMI, it might be that they decide, Oh, yeah, we'd love to do that. But, but again, it would sort of depend on them and they might only do it half the time. Yeah. We had one committee that we spoke to you that said, you know, maybe we don't want to go with this hybrid format. So we should kind of maybe do some definitions right now. Remote meetings are allowed until July 15. We don't know if the legislature will extend those or will be in person. The pilot we're proposing for with a, with a build out of a couple smaller rooms is really going to kick in. I mean, we're going to do things all the way to the end of summer, but it'll probably kick in and, you know, the September timeframe when a lot of meetings get back to a normal cadence and continue through to, um, just the four town meeting next year in 2023. Um, so even that's a seven month pilot. It's not a very extensive pilot. So we can, um, I just want to give some, some frame of reference for, for the timing and so on. Um, so what we heard from some other committees is, you know, when there's a very high interest meeting, maybe that would be a time that ACMI would want to, um, it was the park and recommend anything with a higher interest. Um, you know, you know, if you even want to pilot it in small doses, you know, not as a, you know, regular commitment, um, we could learn a lot. You know, our goal is to learn to make a recommendation to the 2023 year. Um, those are the kind of meetings that people are engaged in and maybe some higher interest. Um, you know, items on your agenda would bring out a bigger crowd and that might be a time to try that. Of course, you wouldn't want to try it probably for the first time in the next year. Um, but it's not going to be a recommendation to the 2023 town meeting of. You know, what it seems to take to get all the various breadth of boards and commissions and committees, um, to work, or at least we hope to work. Um, so any information we can gather from. You know, anything you'd like to try would still be very helpful, even if it's not a full commitment to every meeting or not possible to do that. And I can talk a little bit about the pilot and, as Mustafa mentioned would start in August or September depending on both meeting schedules and technology would go for six or seven months. We would have check-ins at every meeting that are very quick. So a quick Google doc where we invite members of the public and members of the committee to sort of quickly fill out, you know, were there any problems? What were the benefits? You know, very quick, you know, less than five minutes type of thing. Not completely required if a member of the committee or a member of the public doesn't want to do it, they don't have to, but it's sort of quick get quick information. We would then have sort of a longer check-in twice, once in November and once in February, where we would meet with each of the committees in the pilot and sort of have a quick discussion, you know, what worked, what didn't, what are you frustrated at, what are you hoping for, you know, that kind of thing, sort of a check-in. And so that would be the sort of the structure of the pilot. Before the pilot happens, there's a bunch of stuff that we need to do to provide to each committee. One is that we need to give you really clear instructions and have use the technology in the room, right? So that's, you know, we need to work with that. Two is we're going to offer a series of decision points. So every committee who's involved in the pilot has a bunch of decisions that they need to make about how they're going to run their hybrid meetings. What happens if technology were to fail? Does the meeting get terminated? Does it, you know, get, get paused? Does, you know, what, sort of, that's, that's one of our questions. How does the public participate? You know, we want, as best as possible for there to be a party between members of public who are in the room and members of public who are not in the room, but how does that look? And it can, variety of committees can make different choices. It can be anything from, we only have 10 minutes at the beginning of a meeting and that is it. The public doesn't participate after that. Other committees are more informal. You know, any member of the public can sort of raise their hand in this sort of informal discussion and say something. I don't, you guys are much more formal than that. But I mean, that, some committees that works well. So we'd have a series of decision points that a committee would have to decide. We'd also have some recommended language that we'd want you to read whenever there are members of the public who are hybrid and it would be recommended. So each committee can choose to sort of tweak it to fit their needs when we're not dictating how committees operate, but we're just sort of providing some tools to help you out. See if I'm missing anything. I'm gonna let me just quickly go through. Yeah, that's, that is basically, those are basically the stuff that we would, we would provide to the committee. So again, there is this question of whether it's going to work for ZVA during the pilot. But if it does, that's how it would look. Thank you so much for that. I had been speaking with, with, with both Jennifer and Mustafa about this, because, you know, the board has been, you know, we've been trying to sort of figure out what works for us. And that, you know, we, we liked meeting together. It was nice, you know, spending together in the room. But, you know, in talking with, with Pat and with others, you know, it became sort of apparent that there are certain things that we did when we were meeting together that were not as, as open and for the public to view. So that, you know, we would be sitting around a table and somebody would bring out a sketch and put it on the table and we would look at it. And then certainly nobody else in the hall could see it, but we would be discussing it and it would end up being a part of the record. And that, that when we were forced to go online, all of that sort of went away, like everything that people could see anything was all there. You know, from a technology standpoint, it took us a little bit of time to get up to speed with Novus and making sure that, you know, all the documents were available. And that side of it, but now that we sort of have that handled, we sort of hit our stride with, with meeting online. And so now the, you know, with the, this looming potential deadline for the state coming up mid-July, excuse me, it really sort of raises the question as to, you know, how we want to go forward, which is why I had, you know, sort of put forward the possibility that the, you know, the ZBA might be an interesting case for a pilot study because we, we have recognized there are strengths and weaknesses to the, to the different ways we meet. And it might be interesting to, to sort of consider how that would work with the board. Right. Right. I mean, if you're interested in the pilot, you can certainly, you know, try out the sort of lower level technology that we don't think is ultimately appropriate for you just to, you know, stress acid, you know, does it work? I mean, people who join the pilot, if, if something just doesn't work at all, you don't have to stay, right? We won't insist that, you know, totally not working for you. But yeah, you sent it for seven months, so you have to stay. But I mean, you could try it out. That could be an option for you. We'd want feedback from you, you know, obviously, because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to stress test both protocols and the technology. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I was wondering, one of the things that is being done tonight, because we're on Zoom, is that we're recording this meeting so that everything you say will last forever. And we will then review that recording and at least in the public hearings, that will be part of the basis for writing our opinions. And my question is, if we're doing this during the, during the pilot, would it be, would that involve our being able to continue to have a recording that could be used to develop minutes and, and the various other things that, that we need to do during that interim period of time? Because if, if we have to go back to the way it was before, which, you know, we were using at the kind of tape recorder, not video that my children used when they were six or seven. And there's no way that an adequate recording can be made with, without, with that technology. And anything that, that enables continuing that would be, would be valuable for us to, to get over to whenever the, we get past pilots to, to, to the final solution. I can answer that. At least I can talk about the technology. So if we use a device like a neat bar in the public, in the room where everybody's gathered in person, and we have this grid-like faces and so on, that's all on Zoom still. So the hardware does the fancy stuff with putting you on our faces, but behind it is a software that's normal Zoom and Zoom has the ability to record. And, and the neat bar also can bring in, not the neat bar, but Zoom and, you know, Zoom in general will bring in the remote people on those dialing in from their homes or wherever they are. So you would basically be capturing a Zoom session as you are now. And that recording would be there. And that would also, then we could share screens and things so that the, that's what we're going to learn. Right. Honestly, the difference between what we would recommend for you, which is sort of what we're calling the B technology and what's likely to be available initially is the C technology will be an audio. Right. So the B technology, everyone was going to have, you know, a device in front of them, as well as cameras. With the C technology, there is going to be a device in the room, but it won't be individual. And so in terms of recordings, it might be, have some of the problems that a single tape recorder has, you know, and that some of the things aren't copped in the same way. You will have the face of speaking, but you'll have to figure out who spoke when and so. Right. And some people might be more audible than others, depending on where that device is, and depending on the room dynamics, right, where you're located. One of the options for the type C technology is a new community building, the senior center. So that's great. It's brand new. But the way it's set up is that there is a divider that between rooms to make, you know, to make a meeting smaller, which means that there might be some ambient noise somewhere else, since that might affect audio auditory stuff. The level B that we're reckoning, we would probably recommend for you is going, would be at the community safety building. So an enclosed room with sort of better control over auditory stuff. Let me just follow up for a second. You saw earlier, well, you may have seen earlier, I don't remember when you came in, whether you're here the whole time, but you saw the original hearing. The bunch of things were put up by the shared screen of the applicant, so that everybody is looking at the same thing and can see that. And obviously, that actually is one of the huge benefits of Zoom, because for the reason that the chairman mentioned before, is there an equivalent of that that can be used so that people can all see what the board is seeing and what the applicant is presenting? There should be, because it's a Zoom functionality. The shared screen is a Zoom functionality. Who wants the presenters using that, you know, that on Zoom? Yeah, so that's, again, the software side of it. Yeah, so I think what we're trying to avoid to the extent possible is, if you've been in sort of some of the older video conferencing where you have a long table, as I said, you know, the first two people take up three quarters of the screen and successively smaller all the way back and the audio starts from the front and is lost by the back of the table. So we're trying to find ways around. We think we have technology, at least on the video side, but without maybe a lot of microphones on a table, we may not have that on the audio side as of, you know. Right, the presenter could be on a Zoom screen, basically, and share screens in the way you see it now. And it doesn't necessarily need to be in the room because there's no requirement by law presenter be in the room. So one other thing when you tell you is that the another thing that's in flux is the state of legislation. So there are a couple of bills, one to allow remote participation by committee members, which isn't currently allowed. So after July 15th, the only way for committee member to be remote is is under the old rules, which is you're out of town, you're traveling or something else has happening, or there's some medical issues, medical emergency. There's, you know, their convenience is not, according to Doug Hyme, our town council, is not sufficient for allowing remote participation. There is, so there's a couple of legislation making its way through the state house. I've been assured by Dave Rogers that the final result will look nothing like the current legislation. So there's going to be a lot of negotiation. It's not moving very fast. And so if I just had to wait for a guess, I would suspect that we're going to go back to the old rules starting July 15th, and that the legislator might eventually get their act together next fall. So I have a question. So when you say going back to the old rules, you mean meeting in person? Yes, for committee members. So is the impetus for all of this just the fact that the legislation is going to lapse to allow us to do these remote? Yes, right. That's why we need, we can't have an all remote, right? Because all remote is fairly easy. Because the reason that we're looking for hybrid is that that legislation allowing remote participation is lapsing. Now you all have to be in the room. But what happens with the public? Do they have an opportunity to meet with you or to hear the meeting or participate in some way remotely? Because I'd be really curious now that we've been doing this for so long as to whether or not this really would benefit the members of the public. Because honestly, when we were doing 40B, we had so many meetings our eyes were crossed. And you get to the point where it's like, oh, I've got a meeting tonight. And it's like, you know, you have other things you've got to do in your, you know, your life. So you've got to get to a meeting. And the idea of having to do something like that in the same space, you know, just continuously seems to me to be fairly onerous, you know, and I don't mean to be the Luddite in the room. But it feels to me like this is where we're at. It's like as much as I enjoy meeting with the members of the board, and I do. I mean, it feels to me like one of those, if it's not broke, why fix it sort of situations. In terms of the remote doing the remote and maybe there are advantages that would, you know, come from it ultimately that I'm not aware of. But right now this seems to work. And I guess my real question is at the very heart of this. I mean, we had so many people involved when we were doing 40Bs. And they people were just, you know, flooding in. And I am wondering if there's anyone who wouldn't be able to be in attendance at a Zoom meeting and would have to attend a meeting physically. That's sort of something that I'm trying to, you know, understand. Because maybe it would be a benefit to have a space where people could go. But ultimately, it just seems to me that the way people do things now is this way. So it won't be allowed after July 15th. So if you want to continue with remote meetings, and that's certainly a possibility that the literature might decide, I urge you to write to your legislators. I mean, that's, we need to put pressure on them. What I think is going to happen is that the old rules will come back screaming. And at that point, the constituents will say, wait, you know, that's when the pressure is going to be on the legislators. Right now everyone's like, oh, it's fine. So that's why if I was betting person, I would say nothing's going to happen until after, you know, the session is ending this year, but they can come back and revisit this in the fall. Okay. Thank you. May I ask a question? Absolutely, Dan. So if we don't, you know, just thinking about that July 15th deadline, where we all go back to the old rules of meeting a person is the is the idea that, you know, if we set up for the pilot, we have the opportunity to try the hybrid format at that time. And then if we don't, it's fully no remote access for any members who would want to join those meetings. If you're not in the pilot, you could try on your own to do a hybrid, but you wouldn't have access to the room set up with the technology, frankly, that's what would happen. You could set up a computer in the corner or something. I mean, you could, you could try that if people have done that in the past, but no, I, you know, I think I am echoing what Mr. Dupont just mentioned, but I think if if we're forced to, you know, go back to the legislative publications in person, it feels like we wouldn't want to lose the accessibility of having, you know, members of the public be able to listen in via Zoom with good technology, so they could Yeah. Can I ask two questions? The first is following up on that. So it's, it seems like we would want to be part of the pilot potentially if we have to go back in person anyway, but there's still a gap in time that we're dealing with if the pilot doesn't start until September. Is that right? That is frankly a technology issue. Technology is being ordered now, so it depends on how long it takes to get here. There's been some reports that there's a bigger lag than before because everyone's rushing and then to be set up. So we have the money actually, the money for the initial pilot is coming from the grant that's already been acquired. Okay, so there may be, it's possible that the only real option in the short term would be fully in person on July 15th until the technology arrives, possibly. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And then my other question is going back to hybrid mode. Just about public comment and sort of a hybrid nature where you have some members of the public in person and some remote. I mean, I think I've only been participating while even remote. And I think it's very easy to establish an order, right, because it's just the order in which the hands are raised. And I guess I don't quite know how the meat bar works, and if it would be kind of possible to have that same thing happen in a hybrid way. But I'm just curious if the topic has come up that members of the public that are there in person might sort of get precedence over those who are remote or if there's a way of sort of leveling that off. That is a fabulous question. And I will add that to the list of sort of decision points that people have to make. I know, you know, many means I've been to there fully in person, there was a signup sheet. But as you point out sort of at the moment, you could cover topic and then at that moment, start seeing hands rise. And, you know, that's not quite the same thing as walking into a meeting and signing your name up. So I do think we have to come up with some models of how that looks. And that's a great point. One of the things that I think from the surveys or discussions kind of all around is I think we've recognized that whoever is chairing the meeting, so to speak, that person really won't have to end with a capacity to also manage remote and local or in person attendees that want to speak. And the technology, if there's any shifting to do around with the technology. So there will be an additional burden on the committees or the boards to assign somebody or have somebody to basically carry some of that load, which is a challenge. I mean, this is all part of what the pilot will help us understand. But we really don't believe that a chair or whoever is running the meeting formally will also be able to manage crowds or people in two different locations. One of the biggest concerns that came up and we agree with this in the surveys is that everybody wants equal access and everybody should have equal access. So those in person shouldn't have precedence over those remote or vice versa. And that's probably going to need to be actively managed in some situations. So we're figuring that's really the pilot will help address some of these questions and like very broadly across all the meetings, all the scales of the meetings. Yeah, so actually one of the things we're stress testing is can we do this without adding additional personnel? I mean, what the town wants us to come back with is here's let's buy some equipment, but don't need to hire anyone, right? That's what they would like. So that may or may not be possible. One of the things that we are stress testing since we don't have extra people right now is to see if this can be done. Do without stress testing are Rick our board administrator by forcing him to take all this on. That's right. We're going to stress test. There are other questions from the board. Mr. Chairman, just picking up on this Hoffman's question, which I thought was really terrific. It seems to me that it would be there will be a gap. We can adjust our summer schedule somewhat and we used to do that more than we had did last summer when we had the 40 Bs. But there will still be a gap. And it seems to me that because of the problems that we've just talked about in terms of being able to learn to manage the meeting and manage two rosters and that sort of thing, the quicker we're able to develop experience and ways of doing that, the better off will be that there'll be a learning curve. And it would be nice to be able to get with it as soon as possible and establish our chops early on. It seems to me. Absolutely. So I had sort of volunteered the board to be in the pilot program. I would like to just confirm with everyone that they're okay with that position. I think that this board is a good model for a board that has various hybrid. We do so many different kinds of things in the course of a meeting that we are in a position to really sort of test out a lot of different things. And especially because our public participation happens at several points during the meeting and it's not something like the ARB where they often will just have a public comment period that people can speak during. But we actually, it's a little bit more of a flow. So I think a lot can be gained by working on the pilot program. I just want to make sure that the board was comfortable with doing that. Yeah, a couple of thumbs up. It's all good. I would agree. Thank you. Great. Well, you'll hear more from us. Hopefully the report is being still being finalized. We'll send it to you when it is. And many of us who are sort of working on this are on time meetings. So after time meeting, we're going to in earnest go back to sort of working on the decision points, protocols, statements, stuff like that. Okay. So the next thing we're going to be taking on tonight, we're going to be talking a little bit about our rules and regulations and sort of procedures and things. Is there anything you think we should keep in mind? Or is this something where we really have to wait until this is sort of up and running before we think about how we might want to sort of incorporate some of this? You know, as I said, we're going to present to you what we think are the decision points. Certainly, this will be a give and take if there's things that you that, you know, we haven't thought of, it would be great to hear from you. I think because of now, we're still serving this dialogue point and we'll go back and forth on this. Okay. We'll present what we think is sort of the right decisions that need to get made. And then you can come back to us and say whether that works for you or not. Perfect. Yeah. There will be recommendations and they meet, you know, one size won't fit all. So, you know, you may pick, you know, seven out of nine recommendations or something like that or morph them to fit yourself. So I agree dialogue. I mean, right now it's time to go back and forth. Great. Any other questions from the board? I don't want to thank you both for taking time out, especially between nights of town meeting to bring us up to speed. It's really appreciated. Okay. Good to thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you. So with that, I will, going back to our agenda, I will bring up, go back to the top again. So item number two on our agenda was the approval of the decision for 25 Highland Avenue. So, Mr. Hanlon, I don't know if you want to sort of explain some of the challenges you had sort of discovered in writing this and how we came to the final draft that we have today. Mr. Chairman, I'd be happy to provide the background. In the opinion that I circulated earlier today and encouraged you all to look at the footnote on page 16 is really sort of where it's all kind of concentrated. When we had the hearing in March, it was the third hearing really on this case and the second one that related to the variance issue. The first one occurred in November and after that, many of the members of our board left the board and many of the people who are now on the board came afterwards. And the number of people who are currently, who were on the board and who participated in the hearing on March 22nd omitted two of the people who heard the first hearing, Mr. O'Rourke and Mr. Ford. Mr. Mills was not at the first hearing but was a member of the board and was capable under Mullen of reviewing the video of that and he has done that now and has submitted the certification that he has done that. And I'm assuming that his vote tonight will indicate that he either does or doesn't reaffirm what he voted on at that time. Mr. Rickidelli was not on the board at that time and there's a serious question is whether you can sort of mull in from the time before you were actually on the board when you wouldn't have been able to have that hearing at all. But we have a quorum of four under the circumstances and particularly for a denial that should be enough to make a decision and as the board will remember the decision that we took in March was unanimous. So that was the hard part. The reason that came up was that we were under the impression in November that the application had been withdrawn and refiled which was what we had thought was happening in this and some other cases as well and came when I began looking for the documents to put in the record showing that we couldn't, we didn't really have the documents to show that and it's not clear what exactly happened but we decided that we would proceed in a way that avoided any question emerging about that sort of thing and that would nevertheless enable us to come to a timely decision. Thank you very much that was your handlin. So that so with that the decision the written decision was passed around to the board over the weekend for comment and then as Mr. Handlin noted we've made the further further revisions today and that has been recirculated this afternoon to members of the board. So are there any further questions on the draft decision or any further comments? Seeing none, I'll take a motion to approve the decision as written for 25 Highland Avenue. So moved Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Handlin. Second. Second. Thank you Mr. DuPont. So then a vote of the members who were present at both the November and the March including the Mullen position for Mr. Mills. So Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Handlin. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. And the chair votes aye. So the decision is approved which is a the denial of the request for a variance and so you'll be we getting an email probably tomorrow from Mr. Valarelli looking for signatures and then that will go ahead and get filed. That would go to item number three on our agenda the approval of the decision for 88 Glenburn Road. So this is the decision I put together at the end of last week. It was forwarded around to the board. Comments were incorporated and that was sent back out earlier today in its final version. Are there any additional questions or comments on the decision for 88 Glenburn Road? Seeing none, we'll take a motion to approve the decision for 88 Glenburn Road. So moved Mr. Chairman. Thank you Mr. Handlin. We have a second. Second. Thank you Mr. DuPont. Vote of the members who voted on the decision at our last session Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Handlin. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. Riccardelli. Aye. And the chair votes aye. That decision brings us to item number four on our agenda approval of the decision for 18 Brantwood Road. This was put together by Mr. DuPont and circulated for comment. And then the final draft was released to the board again this afternoon for final review. Are there any additional questions or comments on the decision for Brantwood? Seeing none, I'll take a motion to approve the decision for 18 Brantwood. So moved. Second. Aye. Thank Mr. DuPont. A vote of the members who voted on the original hearing. Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Handlin. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Mr. Riccardelli. Aye. The chair votes aye and that decision is approved. Mr. Chairman. Yes sir. As we just took the vote I realized that the draft the decision that was approved in 25 Highland has Mr. Riccardelli's name in the signature blocking on the title page and I'd like unanimous consent to remove that since that isn't that isn't actually the list of people who voted just now. Absolutely. I don't think we need to take a separate vote on that administrative. So this brings us up to so I'm gonna skip around again. I'll just quickly follow up with I don't number eight which is the town meeting update. So I had submitted on behalf of the board six warrant articles to town meeting in which dealt with things that we have been coming up with routinely on our as we move forward with our actions. So they were go to my warrant. So articles 32 through 37 one dealt with the rules and regulations for the board. So there's a set of rules and regulations that are written into the zoning bylaws. So it's trying to get them out of the zoning bylaws. We actually control our own rules and regulations. One is a further clarification of the definition of past story the clarification on the definition of porch and how we're allowed to approve porches within yard setbacks. Number 35 is on yard encroachment and that is trying to limit the ability to infill porches without a special permit. There's a number 36 is on large additions and just clarifies how the how the bylaws applied and then a number 37 was on unsafe structures and that just dealt with who can declare a structure unsafe. So those were all put on the consent agenda at town meeting. The consent agenda allows the town meeting to vote on a whole series of articles at the same time just cut down on time and to remove through the time that that's often taken up by discussion and but board members of the of town meeting have the ability to take things off of the consent agenda. And so five of the six were taken off the consent agenda last night. So they will all come up in due course in town meeting. So my guess is it probably won't be until end of you know probably Wednesday of next week is probably the earliest they would come up. But I was interested in the discussion on those that those five will five of the six will be heard at town meeting. The one that will not be heard is article 35. That one is was approved by the consent agenda. So that that is the one that deals with with yard encroachment and the enclosure of porches. So that one has already been approved. Mr. Chairman. Yes Mr. Mills. You're very optimistic about it's going to be done by Wednesday. Well I am unable to five Wednesday's hints. I'm unable to attend the session on the 18th. So I'm kind of hoping that things move along enough that that's okay. So that was I don't number eight. So I had wanted to specifically set aside time tonight so we could talk a little bit about sort of the way we do the way we handle our procedures both within the committee within the board and between the board and inspectional services and talk a little bit about our rules and regulations and how those work. So I will sort of combine those those two agenda items we can sort of discuss them together. I had forwarded some documents earlier today or I guess really late last night which were copies of the we have two sets of rules and regulations. One deals with comprehensive permits which is the 40 B document and then the other is just sort of our regular rules and regulations for everything else we do. There was also the application packet for a special permit application packet for a variance and there was I believe I put some draft checklists in and I may have put in I can't recall if I put in a draft of a application for a determination for an appeal from the decision of the building inspector. So you you did okay oh good okay so part of the impetus was of this was that we sort of realized on the Lowell street case that it was very difficult to determine when an appeal to the decision of the building inspector had been filed and partly that was because there was never really a formal decision put forward from the building inspector. The building inspector just kept saying you know we can't we don't have the documentation to support what you're saying and there's a there's a specific clock that is set in under state law for that you have a hundred days from that determination for the board to act and that clock is partly set by the application being sent to the town clerk who stamps it and that says the formal date. So I'll go ahead. So this so we sort of I sort of created this new because there currently isn't sort of a form for doing it. That sort of includes the section the chapter out of section eight. Let's put a C in there and it talks about exactly how a little bit about how they need to go about filing it and then sort of getting the basics of the what's response what's required and then I had put in I had attached the procedure directly to this and that occurred to me afterwards that I don't know if is it helpful to have this as a part of the application and if so is this something that we should also try to do for our other applications for special permit and for variance. Mr. Chairman. Yes sir. I think A I think it is helpful. I think it's the reality is is that people aren't don't pay much attention to the rules and they know what the usual procedure the usual practice is before the building inspector they're comfortable with that and the but the result is is that when things go wrong as they as they occasionally do then we're procedurally in a position where we have and sometimes where we have you know jurisdictional defaults that can happen because people don't pay attention to what they need to know until too late and it seems to me that it's quite helpful to just have it the original thing that here's a piece of paper people would review that they at least get a chance to run their eyes over it and notice that it's there and I think it's I think it is pretty helpful both in this context and in the other contexts as well I mean for people to begin to comply with state law starting with their appeals for example with something that with a document filed with the clerk is it's a major change from the way that people have been doing it and everything that we can do to get the word out that that we're going to be turning square corners here and complying with state law is is something that people are going to have to be trained in and I think we need to not let any opportunities pass to provide that training to the public thank you mr chairman mr jupan so could you go up to the top for me please to the top inform so um one and this applies to the special permit and the variance and then the appeal so I don't know what we're calling these but one of my pet peeves is when you call things by different names so these are all as far as I understand it applications so there's an application for special permit and application for a variance and then probably an application for an appeal of the whatever and so it strikes me that in the heading we call them requests or appeal and you know for purposes of clarification because I know I get hung up reading stuff all the time where I'm thinking where there's an internal reference in the body of whatever form you're reading and it makes reference to what you're reading but it uses a different name it sort of it always sort of triggers a red flag in my my mind I would like to suggest that we have something where it says application for appeal to the permit granting authority application for special you know request for special permit or fit it in there somewhere so that they know that this form is in fact the application itself very well taken and then if I may make one other comment and it's specifically but I think that they you know these sorts of like little sort of I don't know if you'd call them caveats but I mean it's really important for people to understand that their rights in large part depend upon being timely and what they're doing and I don't know if it's worth having a blurb somewhere and maybe it's it's too duplicative but having a blurb somewhere that says you know please be advised that you know your rights with reference to this appeal are you know are dependent upon you know following the you know the you know the timing requirements or whatever you want to call it you know strictly you know in order to preserve your rights or something like that and so maybe that's overkill so but it just occurred to me that you know if we're educating them about what the law is by quoting section 15 is it worth adding something down there saying you know you know don't mess this up you know you're gonna you're gonna lose just you're gonna get timed out the other thing that occurs to me too is especially with variances I don't know I mean I always feel like people who come before us for variances unless it's an attorney or unless it's a contractor you know who does these all the time people just don't understand what it is and I didn't know if you know if they're I forget what in your instructions maybe you've already got that in there for variances but again you know to stress to people that these are highly technical and dependent upon you know following chapter 40 is it 40 or 48 you know section 10 and and that you know that these are very technical requirements and that the board has no discretion you know as it would in a special permit this is way too much verbiage but I mean I'm just wondering what other members of the board think about sort of trying to stress the people you know without saying go get a lawyer which may not be a bad idea but I don't know if you can direct people to do that but to tell them that their legal rights are very much dependent on a very technical reading of that particular statute. Chairman I had I've been thinking about the same thing and and actually I'm afraid that that just lists of points is I'm not going to ever really actually solve what Mr. Tupont is raising and I think it would be helpful for us and some other towns have done this actually it would be helpful for us to develop a two or three page document just going back and explaining what a variance is and what it isn't it's not just a way to do something that makes good sense and you can't figure out and a special permit isn't available and you know just to get it across because we've had cases where people just refuse to believe they they've read it and they just they fill out the application which we have a form that that quotes directly from the statute and they just they just don't get it and it seems to me that having something like an instruction form that's separate and that is a little more discursive it gives you more background that at least you've got something out there that somebody could read and say you know uh I better have a second thought about this I would Mr. Valerelli um so when you have these conversations with the applicants when they first come to inspection services with these kinds of requests how I guess how do you currently sort of counsel them on these issues and then do they listen? Rick are you there? Are you listening? Oh we lost Rick. Rick are you there? He may have stepped away. He may have stepped away. Um Mr. Chairman yes I think both suggestions of Mr. Hans and Mr. Depart are excellent um in something a little bit more informal descriptive of the process with an admonition that people should read these documents carefully and in order to preserve their rights to appeal for a variance or whatever they must be very mindful of the details in the timelines outlined in the documents and I think that would be handy you know a sheet that inspectional services can hand out and point out to these people and you know with a raised eyebrow if you don't get it you may want to get an attorney now and you know if I may add to build on what Mr. Mills said you know you might even be able to have just one sheet of paper yeah you know where you say you know you say special permit variance appeal and a paragraph you know without having to make them go to law school and and have them just be able to you know read so that they understand sort of the gist of what each of these things is and each of them would contain the caution the admonition that you referred to. Mr. Chairman I had a step away for a minute on back did you have a question for me? We do so we were talking about um you know putting together sort of a one or two page guide document for um people who are considering a filing an application before the zoning board of appeals that would explain to them you know sort of what the different what the different categories are and what's involved and so my question was you know I'm pretty sure that you when applicants come to inspectional services that you sort of have a conversation with them and run through this so by by sort of two-part question was one is you know sort of what kinds of things do you explain to them and then the second part was do they actually listen to you because if we put together a written document that they're just going to blow off you know how do we try to avoid that and make sure that they pay attention to it? Let me answer the second question first no um the first part we we take them in I explain everything to them what we need um in off they go and submit everything uh when they can't so everything that you submitted I I looked at everything I think that is tremendously helpful I think Pat is absolutely right um if they know the process going forward we can smooth this thing out and hopefully um quite selfishly it'll be a lot less work for ISD yeah the problem is that they are novices at this generally speaking uh today for River Street he had an architect which was fine most people try to wing it on their own and it's it's it's difficult right mr chairman I just if I can just add to that it is even when the applicant is not winging it and the architect is with them we frequently have people who only occasionally practice that in Arlington and and they don't they don't make it their business to refresh themselves as to what our rules are and and we've we've had many many experiences where perfect we're quite competent architects so on but they just they don't remember or they don't know what a half story is or how we define uh gross floor area or how we apply our you know some of our rules of of usable open space things like that the kinds of things where we're different and and those are people who especially ought to be encouraged to listen because they don't listen in part because they think they know or that if they don't know mr Valerelli will tell them and so they they they get in they can get into hot they can get into deep water faster than they think yeah because I sort of asked that question to uh to Dan and Elaine and then get sort of you know as as architects are there talented or other jurisdictions you've found that sort of handle this well or that you know provide better documentation than others that we could look to for some examples I can think of much worse ones but I was going to say mr Sherwin I think I'm trying to remember I think I did a project in Cambridge where they had sort of a cheat sheet to the process that was I think sort of what mr Hanlon was referencing sort of a explainer about how the process should work with some definitions and I think to just maybe build on whatever one's been saying if you go through the zoning bylaws for Arlington and you put the definitions for say a variance it links you to the mass the mass general code at section 10 with a really long you know legal definition which is I think hard to understand if you're not well versed in that sort of language maybe having some easier to understand explanation of what of what the various questions really are Mr. Chair I do recall seeing a few other zoning regulations and found the architecture zoning regulations here much more clearly explained like they have story one at least to me as an architect probably it's very clear the diagram that's shown more of that kind would actually you know like an example of how you calculate the open space that is shown is this very very clear you know very nicely illustrated so more of those you know picture speaks 1000 words it's probably more helpful to common folks I feel no thank you most of those were done by former zoning board member see red light who is now on the ARB Mr. Chairman what one of the things to follow up on what Mr. Holy just mentioned is um for some of the time frame things it might be helpful to just do a diagram you know a time series diagram of showing the flow because you know a person's eyes even when you do it really well the person's eyes kind of glaze over and reading a description of an administrative process but it's a lot clearer it can be made a lot clearer you know somebody who has a better instinct and drawing than I do but we have architects on this board can lay it all can lay it out in a way that people can take it in a in a glance thank you I know there used to be back in the 75 1935 version of the zoning ball I think they had actual flow diagrams using the the proper computer symbols symbolism for for all the different stages and decision making processes and that's something we should look into as well chairman yes sir can I offer a more please uh you might want to adopt those flow diagrams but I would suggest that you stop any adoption of the procedures that went on in 1975 no absolutely um are there any other uh questions comments recommendations on the applications Mr. Chairman Mr. Hanlon um two things actually one is I think that we might benefit from putting into our work plan at some point maybe even at some point when we don't have when we all have to sit and swelter in a building in August when we don't have the pilot program going yet or something but just encourage you but have a it's a bit not quite really a public hearing but a public comment I'd actually I mean there one one of the things you want to do is make this process work better but another thing you want to do is to find out the ways in which our process either are not transparent or are troubling to the people and causing unreasonable delays and so forth and we don't really hear much I mean you know people usually thank us for our time which I see which is usually what they do when they lose I suppose but the the thing is is that if we're doing things that are really problematic for people uh we don't always know that uh because we we're not in a position to monitor it and I just think that having having some ideas out there and and getting ideas from the from people who appear before us either occasionally and so forth might be a helpful thing to do it might be a helpful thing to do like any businesses do and and just have a uh you know how is your experience and have five questions that give us some feedback on what's going on uh because we'd like to make I mean we can't we can't give people everything they want but we could at least give them a good process and we don't always know enough about how to do that um and that was the first thing the second thing I wanted to say is that when we look at the checklists one of the exercises I think that we should be going through ourselves is figuring out how it is that where it is that people get things wrong uh I mean sometimes because you want to avoid later on the well you you report to have a calculation of the half story but actually you can't your your paper doesn't show that and it needs to show that and somewhere there's got to be some place which says we really really mean it and uh so figuring out where the choke points are where people go astray and that causes delay later on so that we can front load and encourage people and underline that you think that you can get away with doing something but you can't uh would be would be helpful in expediting things and avoiding the delays later on that you know sometimes can kick you over for a month or six weeks when it when it really is a small thing that 10 seconds could have figured out or at least 20 minutes and doing the papers that's a good transition to thinking about the about the checklists so we had I had started putting these together gosh two and a half years ago now um we've never sort of formally adopted them but we've sort of looked in looked into doing them a couple of times as to the sum of the documentation that's listed here is specifically called out in the rules and regulations is the things that people are supposed to be applying and I'm sure as as Rick can tell you a lot of the you know people don't provide these things and it would be very helpful to in special services to have you know checklists that you know they can put in front of somebody and say you know until you can check off all these boxes I can't accept your application because a lot of a lot of the problems that the things that eat up Rick's time and eat up in special services time or people who come back time and time again they still don't have the documentation together and we sort of end up you know situations where somebody you know comes before us and you know as you know as Pat said and just don't have what they need to have for us to really be able to make a real decision so to the point that that was making before are there things that we are there specific things that we think we should be requesting that we're that we're being requested now but also are there better ways for us to ask for things that would you know probably elicit a better response Mr Chairman yes Mr Mills I think one item we could put on there is a checklist for a tree plan completed we often ask that Mr. Moore is requesting that and if it's done a priori we don't have to worry about it Rick what are some of the things that you notice that are most commonly missing Mr. Chairman I review this I thought it looked great the only question I had was should we put that the applicant has to take the complete package to the town clerk and have it stamped Mr. Chairman yes sir so that raises actually a larger legal issue because the notwithstanding the practice that we do now legally an application for a special permit is filed with the town clerk first and so if somebody is strictly following the procedure required by state law they're coming to Rick after they filed something with the clerk and we need to figure I mean and I guess I don't really logically you would be able to say well that you're the timing toll tolls until you have something that meets the regulations for a filing but we'd have to figure out how that and legally how that can be done uh but it's very useful because what you want I mean the the best way to get someone to focus is if Rick looks at this stuff and says here's the checklist here's what you did you didn't do enough your time isn't running I'm not schedule scheduling anything you're not going to nothing is going to be granted by operation of law your application isn't really complete until we say it's complete and I'm not saying it's complete until you filled in everything and I'm satisfied that you filled it in and in the way that's really called for and so yeah I think that you would need to start with the I mean everything starts with that stamp paper from the clerk but then you need to be able to have a fairly definite process so that you know when it's complete from Rick's point of view and from our point of view and that's way and up until that time I hope the law is that that the timing will toll for constructive approvals yes mr chairman can I comment on that yes please that that's a great observation so it's a little bit of a conundrum so before I get the complete package it's supposed to be stamped by the town clerk the packages are never complete there's always something missing so if it's stamped at the town clerk then it's submitted to me and stuff is missing it also tells me somewhere that the clock does not start until the package is complete then it's telling us somewhere else that the clock is starting once it's stamped at the clerk's office do you think that I can with the applicant can stamp it at the clerk really should come to me first but anyway let's say he doesn't he can stamp it at the clerk come to me and then we can kind of backfill the missing pieces as the clock is ticking I think that's doable what are your thoughts on that mr chairman yes mr hamlin could I just it seems to me that there are two things that are going on one is sometimes there are things that have to get fixed when the clock is ticking like the additional information we had in the river street case is something that emerged in the hearing and you can't sort of say no we're not going to listen to anything anymore but some of the things are things which the clock shouldn't start ticking until as long as those things are incomplete and that's I think what we've been talking about the things that that if you don't have everything on the checklist in appropriate form then then your your clock shouldn't be ticking during that period of time so there needs to be some sort of a certification when that period stops that you know rick has to sign something or give a receipt saying that this is that that that the application is complete and I looked at bumbrowski who's supposed to have the bible and like a lot of things in the bible it's sometimes subject to interpretation and he suggests that if you don't have a complete application you're running the risk that your time is not going to be running but he doesn't really he doesn't cite anything or or explain any about how that actually works and I think it's kind of fundamental and we may not need to work with mr. heim on structuring this and giving everybody notice that the time doesn't really begin until they've actually met the requirements of the regulations for something filed with the board I guess I mean we should be involving mr. heim you know beginning to end to figure out exactly the way to turn square corners here but in principle we need to start off with the down clerk and but the time time really shouldn't start running until rick is certified that there's a complete application and maybe we could include on the you know sort of on the bottom of the checklist just a you know place where you know the building inspector can sign off saying the application is complete and ready for submittal to the yeah that's a possibility too because remember rick does sign he does sign some of the papers right I mean some of them of the forms have that that's been reviewed by the building inspector and rick will have his name there on a date but that's only particular papers and there are many more papers that are here than he actually signed so ultimately you want to have some sort of certification completeness that deals with the entire checklist and not just one any particular document on it we need like a meta checklist for all the different forms and then you can sign off on the bottom of that one on the right mr. chairman you raised a good point if they bring the package into us we can say okay it's ready now to be stamped at the town clerk it's only beneficial to them really yeah right mr. chairman could I ask a question please mr. more um why is it required that the town clerk stamps something when someone presents it to them because why could the town clerk not be willing to stamp it until mr. valorelli signature is on it unless that's a matter of law I don't know just tell the town clerk not to stamp it until mr. valorelli signs something he won't do that unless it's complete I had thought the same thing and I think that that's a question for Doug hind but I think it's a good idea because it strikes me that the first stop isn't it right rick that the first stop is that people come to you that's correct roger and so if they're coming to you in the first place I mean you know like you know everyone said it's to their benefit if if you say look you've got to do all of this before you can you know really bring it to get it stamped although that may not technically legally be true as mr. more has just sort of asked the question but it strikes me that you know there's no impediment for sure in you being the first person to comment on it and I suppose if ultimately we could say you know to the town clerk you can't sign off on this until until you get it or stamp it until you know we have our signature on it I mean that would just make a hundred percent sense I think you're absolutely right and the chair has presented a very reasonable list of our requirements prior to filing I mean we need this stuff yeah we need this stuff for the board to make a reasonable decision and yeah I think that ISD should say okay it's all right now to take to the clerk and get it stamped and then the clock starts you should recognize mr. chairman that it's not really just stamping it it's the actual filing is with the clerk just as in in a court you're filing with the clerk of courts and she's keeping the record so forth and and that will be that will be critical and I mean I agree that it's a question mr. hyme exactly how to structure it but what makes sense is easier to figure out than what we can do sometimes mr. chairman one other question I didn't see the bottom of the form and I don't know is there a line for other because I don't know Rick if there's ever an instance where you know there's something in addition to all of these things that you might say well you know for your particular case I'd like you to do this or that and I don't know if that's something that you'd even need to consider but um well I think mr. mills raised a great point about the tree warden signing off or at least that they need to touch base with him and if there if it's not applicable then fine but at least he signs off on it and what I raised with the chair before you know ISD approval then the applicant is to take the application package to the town clerk and have two copies time date stamped return one to ISD and leave one with the clerk right now we're doing that ISD is doing that once we feel the package is complete we have not always done this in the past but since we are trying to get things right I think that the board will notice that the newer applications have been stamped with the town clerk but ISD is is taken the applications to the town clerk so Mr. DuPont to answer your question if we could get some language in this explaining to the applicant basically that ISD is to sign off that the application is complete and worthy for lack of about a term to be taken to the clerk to be stamped as well as the tree warden signature good other than that it's it's it's it's absolutely it's perfect really good mr. chairman yes sir can I ask this sort of shifting away from the process one of the things that we've been in a recent conversation about I think with mr. Valarelli is that we don't have contours on plans that sometimes you need that and when I look through the site plan here and the proposed site plan there's nothing that is clear to me at least or that would be clear to just about anybody that what you need is is to have a contour you know contours drawn on on to the plans and I was wondering a if I'm right in remembering that that should be on the plans on a routine basis and b if not whether we think that it's important to say it out specifically for fear that people won't say landscape feature me me to some people mean that but not necessarily everybody can I answer that mr. chairman please mr. Hamlin absolutely so I don't have the viola in front of me but open space is a great example 75 percent of the open space cannot have a slope greater than eight percent so I need a contour to make that calculation I always ask for contour if I'm unsure of the terrain especially but I always ask for topos okay it's not only usable open space but that's how we determine the height of a building no sure yeah so it seems to me that on a checklist we need to be explicit about that so that's ideally somebody should know what he needs to do reading the checklist even before they've had a conversation with mr. Valerelli right mr. chairman more yeah I I appreciate mr. mills's input on that the tree checkbox yeah one way to make the appreciation for tree concerns is to have it appear in multiple places and this would be an excellent one that comes up a lot so so so thank you for that suggestion can I make one more suggestion one of the things I've noticed through the many meetings that I've sat through is that you have to do a lot of continuances because as you folks have pointed out the packages are not always complete or you have some questions that do come up during the meeting which we're not considered by the apple which makes complete sense but oftentimes the figures on documents are wrong they're badly calculated they didn't follow the regulation for open space on a half-story issue or that kind of thing I think it might make sense for you to incentivize the behavior meaning that if a package comes forward and has bad figures whatever you don't offer that person to continue at your next meeting you say all right two months delay and make some pain back on the applicant we're not having been a little more careful in putting a package together thank you for that I know it sounds a little punitive and I'm not sure that it's the way you want to go that's this is not that you're bored but it would definitely engender better behavior now putting these together by not not letting someone come back two weeks later or four weeks later say no if you mess this up it's a two or three month delay for you do you really want to do that or are you going to try harder to get it right the first time anyway to mr chairman I'll shut up now I you know in the ideal world we wouldn't even need that but the the fact of the matter is is that some that there's such a variety of people who are coming before us some you know are just when you saw it they just they put arbitrary numbers there and you can tell that I mean they have the same number for proposed and and present and you know that can't be true and that sort of thing um and so they're just scoffing at it and figuring out this is not serious and as long as I fill in and sometimes they don't even bother to fill in fill it all in for other people they just didn't get it or they didn't understand or they didn't understand the technical aspect of the of how you make the calculation or they're used to it and and sometimes that's just an ordinary person looking for a dormer and he's doing it all himself and he's totally or she is totally intimidated by how hard all of this is and sometimes it's people who want to know better and they're they're just it's it's really hard to have a one-size-fits-all sort of response to having those things having those things wrong and I you know I'm really sympathetic with you with the ordinary person who's coming in a dormer who doesn't spend a lot of time appearing before committees it's a to us it's not a scary process usually although some 40 bs it's a scary process to come to a meeting but you know to a lot of people this is not what this is the world they live in and and uh I I I I'm a little bit reluctant to to be too punitive I'd much I'd much rather have a gatekeeper in the beginning that would warn them when they've got it wrong than than for the board in its initial hearing to be the gatekeeper and then to and then to put them in the line depending upon what we what we think of them but mr. Chairman mr. Mills yeah following up on mr. Moore suggestion and pat suggestion you know it really does seem there are two pools those that are innocently making mistakes and those that are cavalierly ignoring the rules and I think it's usually fairly easy to discriminate those two groups I would say on our cover sheet where we describe the various materials and types of permits that's something on the bottom says you you need to pay attention to the timelines you also need to pay attention to filling out the forms correctly failure to fill out the forms correctly could we could result in significant delay if you have questions please consult uh with that can you know you can consult inspectional services to make sure your forms are complete and you know then if somebody comes back and just you know is putting bozo numbers in and ignoring us oh fine too much see you later but some of you know honestly making a mistake it doesn't understand okay we can help them out and I'll see you in two weeks right I get insulted when people insult our time my time is valuable when people waste us I think they should pay a price yeah I'd like the idea of sort of including it's sort of in that cover letter we were discussing yeah it's an old gate you know you don't have to do it to everybody but if someone's you know just us well yeah I mean because the other side of that we have to pay attention to also is just the you know the statutory time limits we have for action on things that if we that's true too you know we don't want to get we don't want to put ourselves in the blind no have for god's sake leave enough time to write the opinion yeah um was there anything else on checklists that we wanted to discuss there anyone would like to discuss you know mr chairman yes sir I I had just had a question because I think I had text to do I I'm gonna have to leave here at 945 and I believe we have a vote coming up yes and I didn't know if we might be able to get to that sooner rather than later we could certainly do that now we're going to be running the risk of losing people um oh yes so with that I will go ahead I'm just going to go ahead I'll table this discussion for the moment um and move on to item number nine uh which is the election of officers um so this is so the board has two officers we have a chair um which is the position I hold and we have a vice chair which is the position mr handlin holds uh these are annual positions um and so we they sometimes have been longer than a year sometimes shorter than a year but I'm trying like trying to make them annual um in April so uh we would so we need to vote on a chair and a vice chair um and so I think the procedure we have used in the past is I will accept nominations uh first for the position of chair are there any nominations I would like to nominate the present chair mr quine for the position of chair second thank you very much for your vote of confidence I will accept that nomination are there other nominations for the position of chair seeing none um I will take a vote of the board putting cheat sheet uh so vote of the this so this would be a motion to um this elect uh christian client as chair of the zoning board of appeals for a period of a year um and so uh because we're meeting online we have to do both by roll call so mr dupont uh I mr handlin I mr mills hi look at ellie hi miss hoffman hi mr holly hi chair folks I thank you all very much for your vote of confidence um then that our other our next position is the uh position of vice chair um so I will accept nominations uh for that position mr chairman I would like to nominate patrick handlin as vice chair go second second thank you mr dupont are there other nominees for the position of vice chair seeing none and following this the same procedure um we do a roll call vote of the board for approval of mr handlin as the vice chair of the zoning board of appeals for the period of one year mr dupont hi mr handlin hi mr mills hi rickard ellie hi miss hoffman hi mr holly hi and the chair votes I congratulations to mr handlin being reelected by chair to chair thank you very much thank you both very much absolutely um so these positions don't need to be permanent in in any stretch so you know uh you know think around uh new year start thinking about you know if other people would like to to take on um some leadership on on this board that would just um you know it'd always be a great thing but I have greatly enjoyed my time as chair um it has been been a challenge getting thrown into it uh rather unexpectedly one evening um for those of you who don't know the story behind it our past chair um was indicted on federal embezzlement charges and uh we needed years on very short notice uh right at the start of the 40 b hearings for thundak place and so that's uh that's sort of how that came about and but I think the board has been doing because the board has done tremendous work um over the past two years and um I really appreciate the the level professionalism that that mr handlin has brought to the decision-making process the decision writing process um and our continual work to try to make this board more accessible to the public and to make our processes clearer and more succinct um I think it's it's been really great so I appreciate everyone's efforts and uh look forward to this morning as your chair mr chair can I add a comment please mr more um you've heard me say it before you folks work very hard and um it's one of the boards that doesn't always get a lot of appreciation because there's contention between you and the applicants regularly most of its civil sometimes it's not any guys do it very hard and and um I just want to say that I as a casual but regular observer have noted that directly and I think um it's one of the very important functions of town that you do um it's too bad that folks like you don't get appreciated more and uh mr chairman you know it's clear now how you need to exit when you've had enough uh the example is provided you always have your escape clause uh now unfortunately that that has moved on a sentencing phase now so I wish to avoid that portion of it just hope your sister likes you indeed indeed indeed um so thank you thank you mr dupont for for ask us to move this forward I know you you have a commitment this evening so thank you for that thank you um I would like to return uh just to rules and regulations I'm not going to touch the comprehensive permits stuff right now but those of you who did serve through the the 40 bs if you wouldn't mind taking a look through those and see if there's anything in there that you think might need need some uh some reconsideration that would be great um on our regular rules and regulations I in parallel with some work we had done on the town zoning bylaws um I do need to go through and um make sure that the documents gender neutral because that was not done in the past and I have a note in here that um under the application process that we need to add that the that the submissions need to be filed with the town clerk and so that is something we need to add um we don't mention the design guidelines in our I was thinking about that yes that might be a checklist thing too actually just just to certify a certification that you've read in some sort of thing and not that you follow them but that you've just paid attention to them you've reviewed yeah good idea pat mr chairman I got a couple of comments on the comprehensive permit regulations yes on page two and definitions it describes local boards and gives a whole list yes and following my previous theme you might want to include the tree warden so it should be the h2 item 2.0 definitions local boards but I think I would look to mr moore should this so this is basically our comprehensive permit rules this is a list of sort of under the generic term of local board what boards might be included and I'm wondering if it makes more sense to reference the tree warden or the tree committee uh I would ask mr chairman what you're looking for the board to do for the applicant in this case it's just we the so the the applicant it would it's typically it's things like the you know the applicant needs to or let's see that's a good question so what exactly it says we'll be obligated to provide notice to them then yeah they will have the opportunity but not the obligation to provide comments to us but beyond that we need to do a tech search for the word local board to find out where else it comes up but it's typically it's that the for comprehensive permits obviously all the decision making rests with the zoning board of appeals the board of appeals is looking for recommendations and guidance from local boards and I think that the question is who should the zoning board be reaching out to um my that is a difficult one because I know that I've been providing you input on 40 b issues for the past year or two um but I'm not doing it you know because I'm an ex officio I'm doing it because I'm with the public um the tree warden offers guidance on following the rules in terms of trees taking out trees what the setbacks are things like that okay the tree committee of which I'm a member is a little more involved with a policy making sure the tree bylaws are current and being followed and if they're not how to fix them uh encouraging tree canopy in town so I'm not sure the tree committee would necessarily be the group it depends depends on what sort of guidance the applicant is looking for the tree warden is the one mostly behind the rules if that's what you're offering the applicants okay I would vote for tree warden because you're looking for compliance with regulation yeah yeah I think I think you're right I think the tree warden is the way to go vice the tree committee because yeah three committees more policies so okay yeah and the list is definitely a mix of both boards and committees but also departments and um drug departments of one so uh next day on page three yes um at 3.2.5.4 there's a reference to trees with a 24 dbh which is diameter of breast height that sounds like a really big tree to be the minimum one you're going to consider um thinking the tree committee may want to weigh in with a different number on that or the tree roll did you read the whole phrase Mr. Mills um I don't have it in front of me right now I did read the whole phrase so basically what it's talking about a set of preliminary site development plans and it said set plan shall include the following information and then among those is existing significant environmental features such as ledge outcrops scenic views and trees i.e. greater than 24 inches dbh yeah Mr. Mills your point's very well taken in in my opinion because the bylaw goes down to eight inches I think it's eight inches currently and we're talking about changing the I was thinking that would be appropriate I mean I got a massive oak in my backyard that's not 24 dbh yeah no it's an excellent point um I do you need any action from the tree committee on that it's the so I know that there's a a warrant article before town meeting this year is that to reduce it to eight or is that to go from eight to six eight to six eight to six um but this is this is for a 40 b project six inches is pretty 40 b size lot usually well to be consistent with the town right now you go with eight because that's it so I would say until the law changes it's going by law changes stay with that in my humble opinion thank you Mr. Moore good catch Mr. Mills hey when you're retired you got time what else you got for us Mr. Mills um a minor formatting thing on page four three point two point one three it refers to a professional wetland scientist and it's all in lower case but then it puts up a case pws when you're going to do something like that the the profession that pws should be capitalized in the name if you're going to use any acronym afterwards just a formatting yeah on page five three point two point uh one six uh we should put in something about the residential design guidelines should be included and on page nine is a list of maximum things and again you should um a reference to adhering to the residential design guidelines Mr. Chairman Mr. Hanlon it might be better to put since the residential design guidelines are not compulsory it might be better to put in something like a statement of review or a statement of how this does or doesn't uh uh comply with the residential design guidelines so that it's information to the board rather than something that purportedly has a regulatory impact Mr. Chairman one of the things that I think that we are going to need to do um at at in when we get into the these in more detail um but you'll remember that we we sort of ignored these rules uh after a beginning because because essentially we started off with the applicant gave us what the applicant wanted to do and then you know theoretically at least over the course of many months they filled in the rest of it sort of and we were put into position where we we we were either going to have a procedural argument at the beginning about whether or not they comply with the procedure and then what were we going to do about it and the time was ticking or uh we were going to have to get on with the business of processing the application in which case what we were asked to do at the end of the whole process is waive compliance with our guidelines so the effect was to not have an effect um and it seems to me that if we want to make these work for us we need to simplify them and to provide a way of accommodating the sort of iterative process that actually happens while at the same time when we really absolutely need something or want something because for you know there there's obviously there's lots of things in here that we don't that just produce useless verbiage and other things that produce information that we really need to have to move forward and the current guidelines don't really distinguish between those things and we'd be a lot better off if we were able to have something that you know aimed at the stuff we needed to know and maybe avoided having uh 20 pages of how it is that what they're doing complies with comprehensive plan which ultimately turns out to be a selling job that cost the applicant a thousand dollars for the lawyer and that we don't I I suppose we did read it but we certainly didn't remember it okay so is it do you think it's more sort of setting us sort of like you know not not necessarily but like bifurcating what we're requesting between things that are more and less important or is it more sort of coming up with a way to encourage greater clients the key thing is timing right I mean the way these are written all of the stuff has to be filed the first day so some of those things are not that important and the app we could just say the applicant can if they want to I mean you know compliance with the comprehensive plan is like that that just gives rise to a selling document and you know I don't know that we need to be pushing anything particular about that but some things we really need to have the first day and some things we need to have over the course of the proceeding and sometimes we need to have this information at some point and at some point we would welcome the information but it's up the applicant whether to provide it and we ought to be able to make those two discriminations which gives rise to a four-cell chart as to where the stuff all goes because there sounds like something that we would want to try to handle and there's some kind of a pre-start conference with the applicant is to yes what we absolutely need now actually that would be a terrific idea I mean it's sort of like in a court where you have certain things that are filed but then you have sort of a pre a pre-style conference that helps that describes how when when it is that certain things are going to be done and and part of what we did really in both of the cases we had was a period periodic meetings that talked about what was going to be done like for the next hearing and so forth just the way a judge would do before he has a hearing and or she has a hearing and it seems to wish we should do that but anyway the point of the point is to try to figure out some way of structuring both the filing and the process to make it actually work for us and make it useful as opposed to something that we just ignore and then forgive at the end. Okay thank you. Anything else on moving regulations? Mr. Chairman? Yes, Mr. Chairman. I was just I'm assuming that this won't be the only time we have to look at that I was looking at our regular rules and regulations and beginning to have the feeling that I'm not 100% we really need to review those against the state state law and it's not completely clear to me where these I wasn't here when I guess I was here but I for example on the on 1.2.1 the second sentence at least is taken from the statute but parts of it of the statute are admitted like people who are challenging a enforcement and there's no real provision in here for the state provides for a butter appeals and our rules don't seem to be contemplating the butter appeals and I'm just why I just I saw that and began thinking boy when the time comes we really need to compare our rules against the requirements of state law and be sure that we that both that they're the same when there's a state law requirement and to make sure that there aren't categories of things like refusal to enforce that are in the state law I know there's an issue at town meeting about some other thing which is it's difficult but the thing is is that whatever is in state law we should be envisioning as something that we do and providing and providing guidance for it now it's clear to me that somebody decided to take that out because they're quoting the statute and then suddenly they they certain languages in the statute doesn't appear but I do think that that's an exercise we need to go through is to read this against the statute and make sure that we are not jumping over things that we shouldn't jump over well as Mr. Juven had to leave early we got to sign that to him as a matter of fact because he left early we could Mr. Chairman Mr. Mills I was just reading the rules and regulations and a lot of the numbering I found quite confusing okay you know you have a 2.2 1 2.2 2.2 4 but there's a not a 2.23 I think you've read up and down I had a hot time following the indentation okay in the sequencing minor-minor issue I may have no problem with the text yeah some attention ought to be paid to I mean there's only so far you go with the plain language rules but making these things you know more intelligible and having a numbering system that's transparent and that easily leads you through it is is helpful using typeface using you know there's there are lots of things that people who are good at this and I think that the town actually employs people who are good at this to to just make it more more user friendly by making it better by making the physical presentation work better this was obviously written by a lawyer or under the influence of a lawyer very good suggestion Patrick you're under the influence is that lawyer under the that's good so for for next steps then I have lots of little comments um I would you can take a look into the applications would somebody be willing to take a stab at a sort of a cover ladder sure I can do that well wait I'm a little bit unclear what the cover letter was if it's sort of as the set of instructions that I suggested earlier on that's fine if it's something that requires mr. Valerelli's knowledge I'm unsuited for the task no no it would it's sort of an explanatory document that would go on the front there was sort of explain the difference between the three processes and I could undertake to do that great would that include what Kevin was sort of talking about in terms of you know emphasizing that incomplete forms can lead to significant delays that be a part of that as well it would okay those are the ones that can sort of easily parse out at the moment but I will go through my notes here and send an email out to the board to see if if there are things that are you know we can we can parse out and people can take a look at and report back mr. Chairman I'd like to sort of reiterate again the the notion of getting feedback and doing things to consult the public and and figure out how we can be better but that leads to another thing and that is this was a good thing to have and we ought to have it ought to be in our work plan over the course of a year to either semi-annually or annually do this sort of thing because otherwise it's so it's so easy to let it all slide until suddenly you've got a bunch of adverse events that make you say oops I better do something and you know having something where you have to have that meeting every December or whenever it is means that you have something other than a disaster that leads you to have the meeting and that's always good well I think to that too I'm glad for your your reminder about sort of the the post-user survey if there's somebody who would like to take a stab at what kinds of questions we might want to to send out is to you know people who have appeared but in front of the board within the past half year to sort of get some information about their experiences and what they what might be helpful to for us to consider going forward Mr. Chairman I'll take a stab at that thank you Mr. Mills excellent sure I seems one thing that we might do and you know again this is sort of maybe up to Mr. Mills and but I have this feeling that there's somebody that the town manager would know about that is on our payroll who does things like that because I think that this kind of thing is done in some other context I may be wrong about that it's but it's worth a phone call to see if we have anybody on staff who can provide assistance with doing it because it's tricky because if you ask too many questions nobody will answer it but if you don't ask enough questions then you won't get the information you need so you kind of have to find the right way to to to deal with that yeah I know because I'm trying to think like who in town sends out surveys that's like a planning department sends surveys and vision Arlington sends surveys I'm not sure who else does yeah I don't know you might look at the economic development people that they're in the planning department also so that might do it yeah I might be wrong I just I mean it's worth it's worth a try it's only a phone call and if nobody has any information to give us then we just have to do it on our own um Mr. Chairman can I offer Mr. Moore um would it be possible then that that idea of an exit interview I think that was your idea Mr. Hanlon is a good idea because the only folks that don't have useful input for you are the ones that have gone through this process so if you could kind of require that you know they give you feedback require that but require that they have something to say like other than good process great time but rather you know this was good one suggestion I might have maybe not let them leave the process without offering at least one or two suggestions somehow you know you keep it light but those of the folks that are going to have input ones of all the different kinds from developers right on down to someone doing their own dorma they're the ones you want to hear from that's right so make a requirement for them to do that before they exit the process maybe I don't know that we can make them but but you could always encourage it yeah right and if there's anything the last question is there's anything that really pissed you off what is it and that'll get a response we'll have Kevin call them individually all right well I think we're in a good place on this stuff we have some some things sort of assigned out so we can touch base on this you know in a couple of sessions a couple of sessions after now that's for that's for for where we are and where we might want to put some more focus so I will move on from those so next to sort of preparing for the end of the meeting here um we have a meeting so we are trying to really sort of meet consistently now on the second and fourth of tuesday unless there's really nothing to do um so tuesday may 10th would be our next meeting and currently the only thing we would really be doing on that date is approving the decision for river street and so if people are not opposed I would like to you know essentially have the shortest meeting we've ever had to just do that so we can keep that that process moving along and then on the 24th there are currently four cases that are queued up for that date that would be our schedule moving forward is there anything else from the board for this evening being none I'm just reviewing our agenda here make sure I'm not forgetting anything all that stuff perfect well 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 especially wish to thank rick valorelli Vincent Lee um Jennifer Zeus and uh Mustafa Virgilow for their assistance um and presentations this evening please note that the board's recording the meeting to ensure the creation of an accurate record of proceedings to 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 to zba at town.arlington.ma.us that email address is also listed on the zoning board of appeals website so to conclude tonight's meeting I would ask for a motion to adjourn so so moved thank you mr. handlin second thank you mr. mills vote of the board mr. duPont is already left us this evening mr. handlin hi mr. mills hi mr. bellie hi this often hi mr. holly hi and the chair votes aye we are adjourned thank you all very much thank you thank you everybody good night everyone good night everybody good night