 It is 731 p.m. on Tuesday, November 28th, 2023. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein. I'm the chair of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. I'm calling this meeting of the board to order. I'd like to confirm all members and anticipated officials are present. On behalf of the Zoning Board of Appeals, Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Handlin. Here. Ben Ketholy. Here. Dan Rickardelli. Here. And Mr. Chair, did you let everyone in? Cause there's just the- Oh my gosh. Thank you. They're coming. Go to dry run. We'll do this all over again. It'll sound so professional this time. Okay. Well, good evening everyone. It is 732 p.m. It is Tuesday, November 28th. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein. I am the chair of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals and I'm calling this meeting of the board to order. I'd like to confirm all members and anticipated officials are present. Members of the Zoning Board of Appeals, Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Handlin. Here. Ben Ketholy. Here. Dan Rickardelli. Here. Elaine Hoffman. Here. And Adam Lulblank. Here. Good to have all of you here. On behalf of the town, we have Colleen Ralston, the zoning assistant. Here. And Michael Cunningham, the town council. Here. To have you both with us. I'm appearing for docket 3764 212 Pleasant Street. You have Nellie Aikenhead. Here. Good to have you with us. I do not believe we'll have anyone present on behalf of 4446 Amston Street, which I'll get to in a minute. And then docket 37554 Mary Street. We have Manish Gupta. Right here. Good to have you with us. So this open meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely, consistent with an act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2023 to provide for supplementing certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects signed into law on March 29th, 2023. This act includes an extension until March 31st, 2025, the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 of the executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law, which suspended the requirement to hold all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Public bodies may continue holding meetings remotely without a form of the public body physically present at a meeting location, so long as they provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. Public bodies may meet remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded so the public can follow along with the deliberations to 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 accesses 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 a telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name or another identifier. Please take care to not share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you please to maintain decorum during the meeting, including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials have been provided. Members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. Public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda. This chair reserve the rights to take items that are out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting as chair, I make the following land acknowledgement. Whereas the Zoning Board of Appeals of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts discusses and arbitrates the use of land in Arlington, formerly known as monotony, now Gunkman word meaning swift waters. The board hereby acknowledges that the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous peoples from whom the colony, province and commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. Moving on to item two on our agenda. This is the first of our administrative items. These items relate to the operation of the board and as such will generally be conducted without input from the general public. Board will not take up any new business on any prior hearings nor will there be the introduction of any information on matters previously brought before the board. So what we have before us is the written decision for docket three, seven, seven, zero, 4042 Dorothy Road. This was a decision from our prior hearing on November 14th. We had the decision was written by Mr. Hanlon, distributed to the board for questions and comments. And a final draft was issued this afternoon. Are there any additional comments on the written decision for 4042 Dorothy Road? Seeing none, I will take a motion to approve the written decision for 4042 Dorothy Road. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So moved. Second. Thank you, Mr. Dupont. This is a roll call vote of the board to approve the written decision, 4042 Dorothy Road. Roger Dupont. Aye. Patrick Hanlon. Aye. Ben Cahole. Aye. Dana Riccadelli. Aye. And the chair votes aye. That written decision is approved. That brings to an end the administrative items on today's agenda. So before opening the public hearings, here are some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of tonight's business. After I announce each agenda item, I will ask the applicant to introduce themselves and make their presentation to the board, then request that members of the board ask what questions they have on the proposal. And after the board's questions have been answered, I will open the meeting for public comment. At the conclusion of public comment, the board will deliberate and vote on the matter. Any vote taken at this hearing will be preliminary until the written decision is approved by the board at a subsequent meeting. All votes will be conducted by a roll call vote. So if that moved to item three on our agenda, which is docket 3772 4446 Amston Street, an appeal of the decision of the building inspector. So this item has been withdrawn at the request of the applicant. Essentially what happened, this was an appeal of an issuance of a building permit. The person who filed for the building permit has asked that the building permit be rescinded and the permit has been returned. And therefore there is no decision of the building inspector that requires an appeal. So at this stage, there is no matter before the board on this item, but I think the board should vote to accept the withdrawal of the appeal just so that we have it closed out in our records. So the chair would like a motion to accept the withdrawal of the appeal of the decision of the building inspector in regards to 4446 Amston Street. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So moved. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Cunningham has a point to make. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Michael Cunningham Town Council. I think the chair explained it very well. However, since this is a public hearing, I guess you could offer the public an opportunity to ask any questions that might exist. I don't think there would be, but just for the completeness that could be offered. Thank you. Are there any members of the public who are here on this, on the item for 4446 Amston Street? Who would wish to address the board? Seeing none, I will go ahead and close public comment on this hearing. The motion was forwarded by Mr. Hanlon. Do I have a second for the board? Those for Mr. DuPont. Thank you. So this is a roll call vote of the board on a motion to accept the withdrawal of the appeal of the decision of the building inspector in regards to 4446 Amston Street. It's a roll call vote of the board, Roger DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Holley? Aye. Mr. Rickardelli? Aye. And the chair votes aye. So that motion is accepted. That brings us to item four on our agenda, which is docket 3764 212 Pleasant Street. This is a continuation of a prior hearing that was open to prior meetings. And at the conclusion of the last meeting, the board had requested that the applicants try to work again with the neighbors on coming up with some solutions to some of the issues that were between them, to issue revised drawings that clarified sort of the boundary of the existing house and the expanded the proposed additions onto the house. And then to include a site plan that covered all the different parts of the project, including parking and retaining walls. So those materials have been received and those are posted to the agenda. And with that, I will ask Ms. Aikenhead if she can explain what has taken place in the last two weeks. Okay, so should I share my screen? That would be great. Colleen, if you could go ahead and give her permission for that. You are all set. Thank you. Can you see? Yes, we can. Well, that's not the page I want. Okay, so, yeah, is that what I'm just gonna clear off my screen here. Can you see the whole picture? Yes, we can. Okay, so basically at our last hearing, the ZBA did request that we show the size of the existing house and comparison to the size of the proposed home. This is the view that is the front of the house that faces 214 Pleasance Street. This is the existing roof line right here. This is the proposed roof line over the existing house. This is the proposed roof line over the addition. And this is a slanted gable roof. These are flat roofs with a flat facade. This is a gable roof that slants towards the front of the house. It's over at the existing house also. This is the maximum allowable roof height by a ride of a third floor or half store, 35 feet. We did, we did two sides with the two sides that are closest to the neighbors. This is the side on the left of the house that faces 210 Pleasance Street. This is the existing roof line. This is the proposed roof line over the existing house. And this is the proposed roof line over the addition. This is the maximum allowable 35 feet over a two and a half story home. We did speak to the neighbors about 214 Pleasance Street about what we could do possibly to make this better for them. We did say that we could talk to our architect and the Historic District Commission about lowering this roof line a foot to a foot and a half so it would be more like around here. We did discuss some other options of having hip roofs or gable roofs. I have drawings and diagrams that I can share but I will let you guys to let me know if you wanna see all that. We didn't come to any agreement on that. At the last hearing, the ZVA also requested and the neighbors requested that we show the location of the existing and proposed parking and retaining wall and steps to the pond and the house more precisely. So this is our initial rendering sort of informal in the interest of time showing these various areas. The existing parking or paved area, I should say, we agreed to delineate into three different sections which is parking, footpath easement on our land for 216 Pleasance Street and a roadway easement on 218th land for our benefit. We are proposing to add this in terms of parking and this in terms of a little bit more maneuverability space. We subsequently received, we put this out early. We wanted to meet the deadlines and give the information to the ZVA and the neighbors prior to Thanksgiving. So we put this out early. We subsequently received the architects plan which is very similar to our plan. It basically shows again, the roadway easement, the footpath easement, both of which are driveway maneuverability spaces are parking, this plan adds on the steps that were requested to be shown on an elevation plan by the neighbors and the ZVA. These steps are slightly different than the ones that were the initial architectural renderings. Since our last hearing we had, we thought productive and informative meetings with 218 and 214 Pleasant and we invested a significant amount of time and thought in supplying information, answered questions. So we were both surprised and disappointed to receive three to 10 page letters from 214, 216 and 218. But again, misrepresent our intent and conversations, twist recent edits that were made at the request of the abutters into quote unquote, inconsistencies and factual errors in attempt to disparage our relationships or reputations, mine in particular. For example, these steps at the side of the house, we were asked by the neighbors and the ZVA to map these out in the survey more precisely. We were also asked to prepare this superimposed rendering. We prepared this first because we're in charge of our own time and we're not in charge of the architect and it has the old steps. The architect subsequently reduced the steps from three to one and pulled them back off the easement. This was at the request of and to benefit the neighbors and it's now touted as an inconsistency in our submissions. The parking area is similar. The June, 2022 notice of intent showed our entire parking area, our entire paved area as parking. Now that the neighbors have localized their concerns about the easement and else not parking on them, we have voluntarily delineated these sections of the easements and agreed to park only here. Obviously our parking measurements have changed because of that. It's not an inconsistency, it's a response to neighbor requests. There are many other representations in these letters that are similar to this. I don't want to rehash them all, but I'm happy to answer any questions the board might have. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And so just a board is I had had, when I had initially received this, I had reached out to the applicant because I just wanted to clarify the extent of the parking. There is a small wedge between the existing parking and the adjacent property, which on this plan is to the right. And in the bylaws, there's required to be an area of vegetative buffer between parking in a side yard and the adjacent neighbor. And so I just wanted to bring that to their attention to make sure that they understood that that was a part of the bylaws. And so, Ms. Aiken had indicated that that portion of the parking area that is currently not paved would remain unpaved. With that, I would ask if there are members of the board who have questions on this, on our new information. Mr. Chairman. Okay. Mr. Deli, you go. I was just wondering if I could ask the applicant if you know the approximate dimensions with the additional paved area in the light blue here of the parking, maybe just the width. I know that there was a comment from the last hearing that there was a concern about getting two cars in there. So I was just wondering if you could provide, doesn't that be exact, but that rough to mention. Okay, so I believe, I wrote it out up here. The current is 20, this doesn't include the easement, but just the parking area, 20 wide by 15 deep, and we're proposing about a two foot increase. Okay. And a two foot in depth, which is towards our house, not towards the easement. Understood, thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Rikadelli. Mr. Hanlon. Mr. Chairman, the, this is for, I wondered if Ms. Aikenhead can comment on this. I'm going to go back to the standard that we have to apply here, because it's a large addition. The rules are not exactly the same as they are for most other special permits. And in particular, the binding that we are going to have to make is whether this alteration or addition is in harmony with other structures and uses of the vicinity. And this is after some lead in, which emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the dimensions with other butters. And it's really an extra burden that people who wish to put an addition on have to bear in order to sort of respect the acquired rights or the existing situation with respect to others. And the value that is particular here that is different from any other is that we're not talking strictly about the neighborhood. Here, we're talking about harmony with other structures that are nearby. And we're also not talking about whether the pluses outweigh the minuses. We're talking about whether it is as an initial matter whether we can make a finding that the building is in harmony with the abutting buildings. And so on that inquiry, a lot of the things that are really good about this application, the net zero, the solar, all of the environmental advantages through the proceedings through concom are pretty relevant if you get it to applying 3.3.3, but are less relevant to deciding whether or not you have a harmonious relationship between this and the abutting structures. And I would like Ms. Aiken to take the best shot she can at articulating what the basis would be for us to find that this building as proposed is in harmony with the abutting structures. So I'm going down here, there I have these aerial views. I think the building is very much in harmony equal to and smaller than some immediate abutters. So this is our house. This is 210, which is two stories, we are one. This is 214, and this is 218. This is under the deck is built out. This under the deck is built out. I have the figures I'd have to get through my files to pull them up for you, but I feel like we're equal to or smaller than any one of these houses. And if you look at the, I had to do this for the historic district commission. If you look at the waterfront homes from route two to the other end of Pleasant Street, where the district stops, we are very much in the smallest as proposed compared to all of those. I have the data, I can pull it up and show it to you or send it to you. I don't have it right here right now on my screen. I do have that picture. This is, this is another one showing the parking. We have a full set of aerial views of everything. This is our house. It's smaller than this one story versus two. This is our house, smaller than this one story versus two. This is our house. It's smaller than this. This is two and a half. And this is probably one. And this is maybe a lower level. So as proposed, I was under the, as proposed, you're not one story, are you? No, no. And I think the issue is why, how it is that if you, if you build what you're asking to build, how that is in harmony and not just in general to the neighborhood really, but other structures and uses in the vicinity. And so, so is it your claim that you are basically, you're basically doubling the square footage, not quite on the house. And you're increasing the height somewhat, although not as, not up to 35 feet. And I guess the question I have, the neighbors are obviously saying this is not in harmony. And I'm trying to figure out what the case is for saying why, why it is. And again, when we get to 3.3.3, we can talk all about what the, how big houses are on spy pond generally, but this inquiry is much more, is attended to whatever we think is the, are the structures and uses in the vicinity, which sort of this little, this little pocket here. Okay. So again, I'll get my absolute figures. I'm just looking right now at your views. If you look at this, double it, double on height, which would be the same as any of these. So the same footprint doubled in height. And add in the square to me visually, it looks like it's still significantly smaller than this, no bigger than this and smaller than this. But I, I'd have to get back to you with the data because I don't have it right here. But just visually, we're going to have a square this big two stories. This is a two and a half story. This is a two and a half story. This is a two story. Is that, is that basically- And then actually I don't have this area handy either, but up here at the top, there's a three and a half story house that's significantly bigger than any of these homes. That's two, one, six, present. Is there anything else that you'd like to add to this? I mean, I'm just- Well, if there's another conversation going on, I'll try and get some concrete data to add. Well, I expect it'll be a longish hearing. So we'll see, but if we take action tonight, I mean, this is an issue that I will expect everyone to address because it's the determination that is the hardest one for us to make, I think, in this case. And it's again, not the same as the determination we make in every case. Is there anything further, Mr. Hanlon? No, there's not. Thank you. Are there other questions from members of the board? Seeing none. So I will now be opening the meeting for public comment. Public questions and comments will be taken as they relate to the matter at hand. It 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. Members of the public who wish to speak should digitally raise their hand using the button on the reactions tab and the Zoom application. Those calling in by phone, made star nine to indicate they would like to speak. They would be called upon by the chair. You will be asked to give your name and address. You'll be given time for your questions and comments. All questions are to be addressed through the chair. Please remember to speak clearly for anyone wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing. The chair will allow those wishing to speak for the first time to be called upon first. Once all public questions and comments have been addressed or the allocated time has ended, the public comment period will be closed and board and staff will do our best to show documents being discussed. So it's 8 p.m. I'd like to wrap up the public comment by sometimes between 8.30 and 8.45, but we'll leave that a little flexible for right now. So with that, are there any members of the public who wish to address the board? We have as Isaac has raised her hand. You can go ahead and unmute yourself and address the board. Hi, I'm Isaac from 218 Pleasant Street. So my letter actually pretty much covered everything I wanna say, but one thing I do wanna point out is despite multiple emails and even face-to-face meeting, we keep telling 218 that our property shouldn't be including in-day permit application, but it's still including. And the layer easement is not overpowered as a property owner. We actually just learned that our property was included in the application on November 17th, which is the meeting I proactively proposed. Before that, she was guaranteed to me on the email like my property was not including inside any application. So, I'm sorry. And just now the picture she showed, yes, she have an easement over layer and her easement is only for passing and repassing. Our lawyer was checking and the research on that. And any other things she gonna do, she have to get consent from property owner. Again, her easement is not overpowered for the land of property owner. She didn't tell us and then she didn't get consent from us. Then she put our land to apply the permit. And this is to us is like disrespectful. I don't even know what to say anymore. I'm actually on the process of revoking the conservation permit with Tong agent David Morgan because it's including our property, which is surprisingly like we didn't know. And this is what she said to me on our private meeting is she forgot to tell me she's just a human. And at least it's been two years she forgot to tell me. And she's a real estate realtor. And I don't know what to say about it. I sent an email a couple of times, tell her strongly that I have to dig into if this land is like can afford this heavy machinery and expanding the parking space. Like in my later, I do show that there's no returning wall on the 218 garden or site that none of any returning on our property. And there's one picture to show that actually on the side of 218 property, the parking space already broken down and sinking. And again, I don't know if this space can afford any expansion, any other paving or paving, especially they are digging down 12 inches of the permeable paper. I also discussed this matter with the Tong engineer, Mr. Chunai, yesterday. And the result is actually more concerning because I don't know where the water going to go. I keep asking them to provide like a minus stone water management plan in sketchy. So we will understand what will happening because this is a, we are all on a slope. Just now, like we mentioned, there's a harmony of this community. Well, on a slope, like there's a reason why this house is building small is instead of like outer house as a big, as like two storey or three storey. And I don't know if the house is building over there. What will happen for the room water and stone water and especially she's also leveling the parking space. So again, I very discreet, our property was involved in and also including in the application. And I, like me and my lawyer was looking into it and there's nothing more I have to say. And I actually encourage Mrs. Arkinhead provide her date and our date, like to show she's not allowed to parking. She's only venerally and, sorry, passing, unrepassing in that property we provide as a right of way. She doesn't have a power to do anything without getting our consent as a property owner. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to open up revised sketch here. So I can just display this. So Ms. Isaac, when you sort of describe your property being a part of the plan, you're just with a... At the very top of the driveway. It's this portion here, correct? Yes, that portion is the driveway. And I have no idea that she's gonna modify it until November 17th. I send multiple emails to inquire, like, please let me know if any changes. I told her it's not about you taking my plan, you're stealing my plan, my property or not. It's about you have to communicate with me as a property owner before you decide to do anything to this land because I'm a property owner. I also have a right to understand potential risk and the safety happen in my land, especially the land is sinking. But she guaranteed to me in an email, my land is not including, there's nothing happening. But in my face, she does say that, okay, this is modifying and I forgot to tell you. And this is things I cannot accept it. So, and just to clarify, so this dashed line here, I believe that comes up this way and comes along here, this is the edge of the easement, correct? Actually, no, the dashed line is my property line. The easement is the solid line between, like, how do I describe it? This line here is the property line, this dark, heavy line is the property line. Yes, I actually have a video if I could show everyone and that was actually explain everything. Let me, before we do that. Mr. Chairman, before we go to the video, I wonder if it, could we try sticking a little bit more with the drawing? My understanding, if I'm right about, is that Isaac is saying essentially that she has a fee interest, the ownership interest in the area there that is accessing the parking area, the area that's called existing driveway. Is that the only place where there's an overlap between her property interest? Is that the only place where the easement that she has granted to the applicant is involved? No, she also have a right of way of our property between me and 214, which is the road here. This is also ours. This is the right of way. And the piece of, like, the rectangle area here is also belongs to 218. Again, on her deed, she have easement, she can pave and repave, but she have to talk to the property owner. My importance is not about she can, okay, not. It's about there's no more communication beforehand and there's no proper plan for the rhinestone water on our side, there's no, we don't have a retaining wall to support their modify. And I don't know what will happen to this piece of land as it already sinking down. So I do want to have more like town engineer to look into it and to understand what I, my part, I have to do instead of like, I just been notified, which is about two weeks ago, that my land was being modified and I'd have no idea what's going on. So again, this is the land. Okay. Oh, it's true. Is it true? Mr. Cunningham can help us on this. If we were to grant a special permit here, that would not in any way diminish Ms. Isik's right under her easement, but in other words, she'd still have to give the same consent to the same things then that she would have to do today. Is that true? That's correct. So it's not like we necessarily have to have all of the property rights squared away here, but if we were dealing with a serious question as to whether or not something that is proposed here would adversely affect her property, that would be something that we would want to consider as part of the special, as part of deciding whether we should grant a special permit. And I guess to me, that's the most important question. The question of sorting out the property rights is something that the lawyers can handle without our intervention. But I'm interested in knowing whether there's, what basis there is actually for the contention that if the proposals that are being made here, and some of this is an area that was taken up by with the conservation commission and already got some advice from the town engineer. I'm just sort of interested in knowing whether there's at least a colorable showing that we've got a significant harm here, or whether it's just simply an open question that private parties have to resolve under their own. So I do have a pictures in my later that show you the road is sinking and a breaking out. So if I may to show in here. Yeah, let me go ahead and stop my share first. Okay. Okay. So this tape is the line between two one two and two one eight. And two one two half. We don't have a share. Oh, okay. Yes, still do not see anything being shared. I have a screen here. Am I, can anyone see anything? Nope. Okay, so let me try to do this. Is it showing? Yes. Okay. So this is the latest submit and I need more time by the way, but this is the picture I'm trying to show. So the tape here is the property line between two one two and two 18. And the two one two half one retaining wall just in front of here. And the two one eight has no retaining wall. So as you can see, the road is already breaking out. Excuse me. Could we possibly look at a survey instead of this that is not our property line? I don't know if this is a... We have many surveys that we're turned in. Thank you Miss Akinet. Am I allowed to continue to talk or? Yeah, but if you could please try to wrap it up. Okay. So this is my side of the land is already breaking out. And again, if she tried to modify anything on this land without the retaining wall supporting, this piece of land we're filling out from maneuvering or parking or constructural trucks. And it will be my part of the land and what's the safety concern and increase the risk on my property. So I just talked to the town engineer to try to get a piece of mind for it, but I need more time to ask engineering to ask more professional job list to understand what we should do or what we should do in order to help this piece of the space. Because we just learned that this is being modified two weeks ago. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Next is John Garber. Let me just lower my hand. Okay, perfect. Thanks so much. I really appreciate the chance to speak. So I'm John Garber. This is my wife, Sabrina. I've been here several times. We live at 214 Pleasant Street. We're gonna just try to keep it very brief, not more than like five minutes here. I just wanted to, I think circle back to some of the comments that Mr. Hanlon had made about the question of harmony and harmoniousness with the neighborhood. I think at a very high level, I think the plans that have come across or each of our desks here have not really changed in any way since this all started. And it was I think a year ago and it literally feels like 10 years ago for all of us probably. But I just want to fundamentally state that what's being proposed, it really is just inharmonious with the character of the site. It's a small lot. It's feet from the water's edge. It's nine feet from our property line. So I think if that house there doubles and adds another story, I think part of the harmony of that neighborhood is how the house is in this very tight pocket kind of relate to each other and respect and preserve each of the neighbors kind of views, including sort of their access to air and light and sunlight and views of the pond. And I think that that's something that's very intentional and it's purposeful and it's what makes this cul-de-sac I think very special. And I think what we as the neighbors at least at 214 stand to lose, it's really something that's very precious to us. And it's one of the main reasons that drew us to our house to begin with and that is all of these things, the air, the light, the view of the pond. And I was hoping, what I could do is maybe just show it like if I could project my screen, just one or two pictures, if that would be okay, the chairman and Colleen. Only a few, go ahead and do that, please. Thanks so much. And all I wanted to kind of get across here was can everyone see my screen here? Yep. Okay, great. I know that most of the ZBA I think actually came down to this site and I think it was maybe like a year ago or so. And at one point, we all kind of walked around and we kind of crowded onto our, you have the small deck of the back of our house here. And I think we were kind of all standing there looking at the existing house at 212. And we were trying to kind of visualize what was being proposed? Like what would that look like and how would the impact be? And we kind of struggled a bit and we said, the chimney is this high and if we add a couple chimneys worth, what would the new roof height, where would that land us? And so, we put this together and this is essentially based to scale based on the architectural plans that have been provided. And essentially, this is what we would be looking at every day. And this is a view from our, again, from our living room, a family room where our kids spend all of their time and we'd see this from the kitchen, from our bedroom, basically from most rooms in our house. And I think one thing that we realized as we actually put this down and looked at this ourselves was that it's not really just so much the height of the proposed house, but it's also really the shape of the roof, I think that has a really big impact for us. And I think you can see like the existing house has this kind of hip roof where the roof kind of slopes on each side. And that ends up being really important for us. I think it really is important for us to actually enjoy the sunlight and the air and the views of the pond. And you can see that this sort of flat roof, it's really kind of this like monolith that kind of blocks those things for us. And it does that vertically on both sides all the way up to the height of the roof. And I think for us this really, I think makes it really concrete for us like what the negative impact will be on us from our house. And I think the other thing that Mr. Hanlon had mentioned is that when we were here last time, I think there was a strong kind of encouragement and like a real hope from the ZBA that we would like come together and actually had to have a discussion and not like force the ZBA to decide this matter for us. And so we reached out to Mark, to the applicant and we asked if they'd be willing to, so we had coffee and we've had a good discussion. Essentially we asked if they'd be willing to explore a couple of things. And the first was, would there be some openness to lowering that higher part of the roof over on the right side of the house? And underneath there, there's like a master suite and it has 10 foot, 10 inch, cathedral ceilings. And we asked, would there be an openness to like lowering that to make it maybe level with the left side of the house? I think that would afford us like a good deal of more access to the sky. And then the other thing that we asked was, would there be sort of an openness to kind of explore some of alternative roof shapes? And I think as the applicant stated, there was some openness to willingness to consider a slight lowering of that higher part of the roof like I think 12, 12 to 18 inches. I think where we got really stuck though ultimately is that really any change to the shape of the roof in the applicant's view was gonna result in them giving up too much living space. And then I think inherent in that, there's also this kind of a circular kind of reasoning where the applicant really doesn't wanna change any plans that would, change the plans in any way that would require a re-review by the Historic Districts Commission. So I think this really constrains the applicant's willingness to offer any kind of real compromise. And we're obviously like super discouraged that we're here again tonight. Like we wanted to find a compromise and we wanted to have a plan that we could support and just all of us could move forward. And I think if the applicant isn't willing to depart even in like a small way from what's been approved by the Historic District Commission, doesn't seem that there's a chance for like a meaningful compromise here. And then I think ultimately it's us at 214, I think we end up being directly impacted so that the applicant can essentially have like every square foot of that living space that they had originally counted on having when they developed and finalized these plans without any input from us, without any input from the neighbors. So I think what we took away from that meeting is just that we were discouraged. But I think we also just realized that this Historic District's approval it's created this kind of a false barrier to like even a modest compromise. And I think as much as we were hoping to find it's a middle ground, that would really allow us to support this project and just for none of us to have to be here tonight. Like I think we just have to remain like firmly opposed to the special permit. This is gonna really have a real negative impact on us. I had other points to make about the parking. I don't wanna get into the weeds too much with all of this. I do, we have concerns that changing the parking from one car to two cars, I do think it's fair to say it will change the traffic pattern over our shared driveway which traverses our property and our kids play on that every day. And I think it will impact their safety and our peace of mind, et cetera. And I think that's significant. That's really hasn't been acknowledged. So I want this to be an overly drawn out process. We've all been here, it feels like many times. Just wanna say we really do appreciate the ZBA's interest and kind of their appreciation for the fact that this has been a burden for us to try to piece together all the parts of this really complex project. And I think I hope it's not coming across as we're trying to find in poke holes and contradictions, et cetera. We're just trying to piece together all of these plans and it just drives us a little crazy when we see things like this new retaining wall that it's literally like the dimensions and the shape and its exact location. It's like the first time we've seen it in all of the plans we've ever seen. And it's just, it's been a real burden on us. But so we appreciate the ZBA's listening and trying to understand that full impact on us and the neighbors as well. So yeah, thanks so much. Thank you. And then also on our list, is that Chee and Sun? Yes, can you hear me okay? We can, thank you. Okay, great. Yeah, I would like to try to keep this brief as well. And would it be okay if I share a couple of slides and pictures, it's easier for me to talk it through that way. We can do that if you could just give your address for the record. Oh yes, so I am Chee and Sun from 216 Pleasant Street. I live here with my husband, Matt Dawson. Great, thanks. You should be all set. Okay, so give me one second to have trouble finding it so if you can give me. Is it the letter that you had submitted? Yes, I think that would work, but I do have an extra graph I would like to show. Okay, so I have the letter available if that's helpful. Give me one second to see if I can find it, fortunately. Okay, I can't share. So would you mind bringing up my letter with the first figure? That would be great, okay. So yes, so yeah, I think I share the sentiment feeling pretty frustrated, having to find out, having to really piece together the details. I don't wanna repeat too much what's already been said, but we've really only seen the location of the new retaining wall very recently. And I think this is what I pointed out in the letter that on the left is what the applicant has shown most recently and the dimension just does not match what's on the architectural plan. And that's shown in middle and the right. So it's really still hard for me to figure out what exactly will be built and how that will impact our easement. And I also want to say that I still believe the plan is incomplete, inconsistent, and some of them are incorrect in terms of the grading, regrading of the backyard. And in the newest letter, the applicant has said that since the historic district commission and the conservation committee has already approved the plan, they have to move forward with the existing blueprint, but what I really struggle with is that if the approvals were based on incorrect and incomplete and inconsistent information, like that logic just really doesn't is not very sound to me. So I think that's the first thing I would like to point out. And the second is really the parking area. So, Mr. Chairman, would you might bring up the drawing that you brought up before? Oh, sure. That was the misapplications. Updated parking and then shared area. Okay. Is it possible to enlarge it a little bit so we can see the parking area a little bit better? I think this is the... Here again. Actually zoom in. Where it says plus would do it. I was having trouble finding my share of the screen. That's a 70.8% so to me. I think this is great. Let's say I'm trying to scoot over, all right. Yeah, I think this is great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I think for us, for 216, we are particularly interested in the six feet easement. And that's really the blue dotted line, the second and the middle and the bottom, like that's that mark the six feet area to our easement. Our easement that's on 218s, sorry, 212s land. So since there's no dimension on this, I'm still having trouble understand the new dimension provided from the applicant 22 by 17, whether that include or exclude our easement. So I think, and we've been trying, I use the ruler on my desk, trying to figure out where it's 20 by 17. I don't think it should be up for interpretation, it should be marked clearly. So I think that's still something I struggle a lot with. And I think last time, the previous number just was way larger than what I see in our back, in our neighborhood. So I'm glad there's new numbers, but still it's ambiguous, it's hard for me to assess how that will impact our easement. And also, yeah, I think we have provided some information in the letter, how the parking just has been really challenging and the video the applicant has shown is really a very small car, a compact car and a sub-compact car. And I don't want to set up in a situation where we have to police what kind of car gets parked there so our easement wouldn't be obstructed. And I think another really important thing we want to, I want to point out is that there is a gray area on top of the light blue area. That's a really significant drop right now that will require a fill in. And also, I think in the area of view that the applicant has shown earlier, there's a pretty large, very large tree that was there and was removed about a year ago. And that we just don't know how the new addition with a tree removal, how this will impact water runoff. And I think that can have very significant detrimental impact to our easement and probably more importantly to the butters, to 18 Pleasant Street. So that's really the second point I want to make. And finally, in terms of the harmony of the neighborhood, I think one thing to consider is really how each neighbor can enjoy the access to the pond and the view to the pond. And while there's some aerial view that's shown how large the addition will be compared to other houses, I want to point out like two, 12 is really a smaller lot compared to other lots. So if you think of the lot coverage of all the lake from property to 12 would be significantly or twice as high as the neighbors, three or four houses down the road. And also I think what's kind of missing is also the aerial view was provided. And I think Mr. Henland mentioned that too, like how does this impact the other houses in the neighborhood. And I think if the view were seen from the perspective of the lake, I think it will be a lot different. Like you will not see, after the addition, you will not see 214 from the lake anymore. So I think those are just a few points I would like to make to the board. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Moore. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. I have attended these hearings and these continuations with interest and I continue to be amazed at the complexity of this particular piece of property and the decision in front of the board. I have to say I found the aerial views a particularly good addition to this to see the sort of relative spacing of these homes and the size of these homes and such. And I think Mr. Handel is correct in highlighting that the harmony with the rest of the neighborhood is probably the most complex and difficult issue. Just certainly the parking is also important as we've heard from a number of the butters. In looking at the homes about this property from the aerial view, it is clear at least to me that the homes near this home of interest are larger, newer or have been rebuilt or newly built, I'm not sure, all relatively somewhat of looks like a newer space than this small home that's looking to be rebuilt. And I have to, when we're talking about harmony, harmony with the other properties in the area, I think it is important to not have the word harmony be construed to mean no changes here. I have to think that the neighbors only purchased these properties, built these properties or rebuilt these properties with the knowledge that this home, which was small and not rebuilt or whatever, would potentially someday perhaps go through a redevelopment of some sort, which is what's being proposed now from what I can tell. And the other homes went through this or were large and built out. And I'm not sure that it seems right here to say that the current smaller home that cannot happen because it impinges on the larger homes around it. I just, I'm finding it sort of cognitive dissonance here that way. So I guess I would pose a question through you Mr. Moderator to Ms. Eichenhead about do they consider is what was said by some of the speakers tonight about the fact that the conservation commission has approved a certain design with direct dismissions done the same, is that truly the showstopper for making changes that would make the neighbors more amenable to what you're trying to do here? Is that true? I guess I would ask that first. Eichenhead, are you able to answer the question? I would say that we don't have any objection to the time and effort it would take to go back to either board. We are extremely fearful of reopening or restarting public meetings given what we're facing here and what we've been facing for all these months. So it is worrisome to contemplate a new plan that the neighbors can object to and the board could object to because the membership of both boards has changed. There are other, I mean, I could pull out the renderings that we did to try and figure out how we could accommodate the roofline request. So there are other reasons also, but for the highest roof coming down a foot and a half, two feet, that's our big concern. Okay, thank you, Mr. Moore. Okay, Mr. Chair, that's a big help to understand the issues that the proponent sees. And clearly the, I think the butters have laid out the issues that they see as important. And I don't know if these other boards have the ability to amend plans without opening things back up, but it sounds like there is still some accommodative space here that folks are willing to talk. And I think more of that is needed to make this work. And I know that probably comes, what I'm saying here, probably comes as not welcome news or welcome insights or whatever you want to call it perspective to Mrs. Eichenhead, because it sounds like she feels that she's already accommodated enough. And it looks to me like the neighbors feel some additional accommodation is needed, but it sounds like some more talking does need to happen. And that's all I have to say. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Were there any other members of the public who wish to address the board? Seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public. Mr. Chair. Oh, we have someone waving their hands. Yes. Tomorrow, Joseph? Yeah, just a, sorry, I couldn't find the little hand, hand raise. That's okay. Sorry, we need your name and address to the record. Yeah, at Tomorrow, Joseph, 210 Pleasant Street. The board has heard from me before and I will repeat those points. I do want to thank the board for your patience in examining this issue. I just wanted to, Steve talked about the relative size and age of the homes since I've lived in an area the longest of these neighbors. I just wanted to point out that both Ms. Isaac's home and Ms. Sun's home are significantly older than the property in question. They're from the 1800s, I believe. They have not been renovated. I'm sure they've been maintained, updated, but I don't believe any additions have been made to them. The home at 210 that I live in, I believe was built in the 80s and the home that John and Sabrina live in at 214, I think is the same vintage as the home in question. An addition was put on that there was not a variance asked for because the individuals who did the renovations specifically stayed within the boundaries and in fact, I attended the historic commission's review of that there was much discussion at the time about views from the Henry Hall House on Pleasant Street and an interest in making sure that this combination of homes stayed within that there was a perspective between them and that one thing that I do think about here is if the board allows this, what does that mean for future renovations I mean, just 214 then become larger, the Henry Hall House, which has been there for over a hundred years, does that then get some addition? I mean, that's not really what I think anybody wants five pounds aspect to look like. And I think that's something that the board should be considering as it weighs this concept of what is harmonious when one looks at these homes from the water, I spend a lot of time on the water and know each of the homes. And as I pointed out previously, there's kind of a tapestry effect of each one that are the lower ones have lower roofs. And as you go up, they have higher roofs. So I just wanted to point that out. Great, thank you very much. Was there anyone further? Seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public comment period for this hearing. So there are several questions that were raised by members of the public. And I did wanna go back to Ms. Akinhead on a few of these. One of them, she has already addressed to Mr. Moore. There was the question about the length of the parking space as it appears on your property. It looks to me from that it is probably about 14 to 15 feet deep until it gets to the edge of the easement. The easement, does that sound about right to you? I believe we measured 15 feet the edge of the easement. Then there's six feet of land on our property, which is 21, and there's six feet of easement on the next property. Okay. It's 27, which is the number that was in our original document. Yeah, so there was a question raised about the size of the properties. I just wanted to go to this briefly. So this is from the town's GIS site. So it shows the property lines, the houses. Now, it's the GIS map. It's not 100% accurate. That's like obviously this property line, the way that the site plan is drawn, it should be down the center line of the street. So there is some variation in exactly where it lays. But it does appear that the lots for 212 and 214 are relatively similar in size. But they're both combined, or about the size of 218 and 216. 216 looks about like one and a half times one of those sizes. So there is some variability in the lot sizes, but it's not overly grand. And I do appreciate Ms. Joseph's timeline on some of the renovations and changes. This does sort of help to figure out exactly when various parts of this were developed going in the past. And then there was the, there were a lot of questions about what it means to be in harmony. And I think that's something the board's gonna have to sort of figure out as Mr. Hamlet has sort of started that discussion that in order for the board to approve a large addition, which is an addition about 750 square feet or more than 50% of the existing building, there are three findings the board needs to make. One is that the alteration or addition is in harmony with other structures and uses in the vicinity that we're supposed to consider the dimensions and setbacks in relation to abutting structures and uses and to consider conformity with the purposes of the bylaw. And just to refresh everyone's on the purposes of bylaw, it's this section 1.2 in the zoning bylaws to promote health safety, convenience of morals, welfare of the inhabitants of town of Arlington, less in congestion than streets, conserve health, secure safety from fire, panic and other dangers, provide adequate light and air to prevent the overcrowding of land to avoid undue concentration of population, to encourage housing for persons at all income levels, to facilitate the adequate provision of transportation, water, sewerage, schools, parks and other public requirements to protect and preserve open spaces and natural resource, the conservation of natural conditions for flora and fauna and to service an urban amenity for scenic and aesthetic enjoyment and recreation use, conserve value of land and buildings, encourage most appropriate use of land throughout the town of chief optimum environmental quality through review and cooperation by the uses of incentives, bonus design review to preserve and increase amenities, encourage orderly expansion of the tax base by utilization development redevelopment land. So that is the purpose of the bylaw for that purpose. So with that, I would go back to the board on this question, on this first finding whether the alteration or addition is in harmony with other structures and uses and those. I know Mr. Hanlon, you had sort of raised this initially. I wasn't sure if you had additional comments on it. Sherman, I do and I'm going to take a risk here in at least taking a tentative decision at the outset in order to sort of focus, I hope focus in on the issues. To me, the issue of harmony in the basic finding that we're supposed to make is supported by the things that we're supposed to consider that come into the next paragraph, but the ultimate thing is the harmony thing. I've never found it very helpful to go back to the purposes of the bylaw because there's an old saying that the devil can quote scripture to his own purpose and everybody who comes before us can find something in the purpose of the bylaw that will support his or her position. So I'm going to consider that but consider it with a giant grain of salt. To me, the main thing is the relationship between the relationship between the buildings and it's true that the lots of 212 and 214 are quite similar in size, but because 212 borders on the lake, the buildable area is all scrunched up and right on its borderline with 214. So what could have been done if that was available for building, you could probably put this building in a bigger building there and not present a problem with respect to harmony, but that's not the situation that we have here. I agree with Mr. Moore that it's unreasonable to expect that nothing can be done. And I don't think that Mr. Garber or most of the other nearby residents are imagining that nothing can be done. And I wouldn't say that you have to keep it as a single family or a single story, tiny in order to preserve layering of the view from the lake. That's not the relationship between the structures that is being talked about by the zoning bylaw. But it really does come down to a fact that Mr. Garber highlighted. This, in my view, unreasonably obstructs the view from 214. There are a lot of other things. There are other complaints and other letters that the view is obstructive from some others, but ultimately the issue here is that that emergence as far as harmony is concerned is whether or not somehow this fits in in such a way as to reasonably at least preserve the relationship. We cannot preserve unimpaired the view from any particular house. There's a certain degree of accommodation that is necessary when something new has to fit in harmoniously with something old. But it has to be, I think, a little better than it has been. I'm very disappointed that the discussions about the shape of the roof and the size of the roof did not go anywhere. I think that if they had gone somewhere and we had a proposal before us that reflected what at least the attempt was of those kinds of alternatives that I might feel differently. But as things stand, and of course, this is the first of our members to speak and so I could easily be persuaded by my colleagues, but as it stands, I don't think I can support this application as it is. I think it could be improved. And I'm not particularly concerned to this. This is one of the most detailed applications I've ever seen. We normally don't get nearly this amount of detail and it works fine. We're not gonna have to get involved in the easement questions. There are property interests that the various people concerned are going to have to deal with on their own. But I think that the relationship that we have here and the degree of intrusion on the budding structures is violating the very interest that this portion of the bylaw is asking us to protect. And I think it goes a little too far. And if it can't be fixed, then I probably will vote against the application. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Are there members of the board? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dupont. I'll take a crack at this. I think this is really complicated as many people have said. And I do appreciate all of the thought that's been given to this proposal by the neighbors. And I come down a little bit differently when I think of harmony with the budding structures. I do understand what the Garber's viewpoint is in terms of what they see now and what they would likely see if this was constructed. But I also think that, you know, I've heard people over meeting, say light and air, you know, in sunshine and view. And, you know, and I take Mr. Hanlon's point actually. I mean, it is something that we can consider. But on the other hand, there is no view easement or right in our bylaws explicitly. And I sort of echo what I think Mr. Moore had said as well, which is when you move into a property, you know, the fact that you move in and you have a condition that's door in, that's one way does not mean that you are necessarily going to see that condition preserved. So as I look at it in terms of the budding structures, I am sympathetic to the point of view of the Garber's, but I remember the last meeting where we actually had a video that Mr. Garber had shown us. And I was actually a little interested to see that except, I mean, I don't think they see the lake or spy pond over the existing roofline as anyway. I mean, I understand that additional height is going to cut out a little bit more sky. And I think that, you know, the blockage would be over to the right. I didn't see in the picture that was shown today what it would look like if you were looking over to the right of that deck. So even though I think that there are a lot of considerations here, I tend to think that it is harmonious. And I think that the other issues that have been raised, such as the stormwater management, I assume would be dealt with by the building department in the event that this was granted. And then in terms of retaining wall, if that's the concern that 218 has, I'm not entirely clear quite frankly what the claim is that's being made by them as far as what the danger is that's posed. But I would think that that is something that can be and should be addressed if there is going to be some sort of erosion caused by this in terms of runoff. And I do have a concern that we keep coming back here and, you know, there are discussions being had among the neighbors and the applicants. But in my view, as much as it would be preferred for there to be some sort of an accommodation, I'm not sure for me that that is a necessary criterion. And I do think it's reasonable for the applicants to be looking at this in terms of, you know, going back and opening up some other process where it's got to be a whole new set of hearings. Now, if it were something that was less stringent and I think Mr. Moore might have also mentioned this and it was just some sort of an adjustment which would be looked at as, you know, de minimis and therefore it wouldn't be, you know, it would cause a rehearing and all of that. I could understand where you might gain some ground but as it stands here, I'm in favor of the project and I do think it's in harmony. Thank you. Thank you. I've been trying to direct my head around this question of the view. Certainly zoning is not intended to preserve views. If zoning is more deals with use with the ability to develop what the limits are on those developments. And with regards to the purposes as stated in the bylaws to preserve light and air and things of that nature, certainly the proposed project at 212, the owners of 214 are gonna be impacted more than anyone else. Both in terms of use of their easement to access the building but also more importantly is the facade of the building that's gonna be directly in front of them where they have to date sort of enjoyed a much more expansive view of spy pond especially over the last, probably the last year I think the removal of the tree that was at the end of the easement road probably also afforded them much more in terms of a view out onto spy pond. I've been trying to get a better understanding of sort of what the impact will be on their view. Certainly referencing back to what Mr. Dupont had said the video that we had seen at the prior hearing, the view straight out the back of their house has always been somewhat obscured by the house but also more by trees that are on the property line between 212 and 210. And their view has been more off to the right-hand side over the end of the easement and sort of going out between 212 and 218 in that path. And so the development of the house where it is getting a little bit wider and it will encroach as the had been shown in the slide prepared by the neighbor, it will certainly impact into that view. But I do think that the, and I do understand the idea behind the, if we could, if the roofs were hipped, if there were other places that there could be a little bit more transparency to see through it would improve that view that I think the roof form that the applicant has selected is trying to make that roof plane as thin as possible and to try to provide as much of you over the house as they possibly can. The heights, if they can bring a little bit of height down on the addition, I think that would be helpful but it will still be above a height that I think would be preferred by the residents at 214 in terms of their view. But I think it'll also, their view is more expansive off more towards the south than straight out of their property right now. I've been looking at a Google view, I don't think it's necessarily accurate, should one say. I wanted to show it briefly. So this is using Google view, so this is looking, so this is 216 at the very bottom of the image, 214, 212, 218, and sort of looking out. So you could sort of see along the axis, 214 straight out over 212. There is some obscure, there is obscuring by the trees and I think you could see that in the photos that were provided by the residents at 214. It is more open in front of 218 and I think that that's sort of the better view out of the property. But this is Google street view, it's only so good. I do agree with Mr. Hanlon. It's the question of whether the level of obstruction at what point does it become disharmonious and that I'm still sort of struggling with that question. I know the board has traditionally worked very hard to try to come to consensus on a lot of things. I fear that this is not something that the board is going to be able to come to consensus on. But at this stage, I think my greater concern is the existing development in the neighborhood, does that preclude someone else in the neighborhood from enjoying the full benefits of their property because others have already enjoyed the full benefits of their property? And that's the part that I'm struggling with right now in regards to this question. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just a quick comment on this, because I think, I mean, I don't think that there's a huge gulf between me and Mr. Dupont and you really in that. I think that there are things that Mr. Ducan had could do to satisfy my concerns, but I just want to emphasize that this isn't just a matter of view, although the effect of having a property of a certain size and shape located as close as this is to some of these other properties is manifested to a considerable extent by the view. But the way the large additions portion of the bylaw is a very strange position in a way, because what it does is it says that you can't do what you could do as otherwise as a matter of right because we are attaching a particularly important, a particular importance that isn't normally there to the budding structures. And if this weren't by a lake, if it was just somebody's backyard and suddenly you were having everybody keeping within the bylaws and so forth but had a substantial structure just a few feet away, minimizing the way, but leaning over the yard so that you could watch everybody on the deck and the kids playing and smell the delightful smoke of the barbecue in the summer and so forth, you would say under this bylaw, you would say even though you are meeting all of the legal requirements, it's too close. It's too concentrated. You're fully enjoying your property, but they're not enjoying their property either. And this provision of the bylaw is designed to give a little more weight than it would normally be given to the people who are right next door. Everywhere else in this bylaw and Sonalia, it's not about a butters particularly, it's about the neighborhood, but this is about a budding structures. This is about the structures in the vicinity and not in the general neighborhood. So to me, there is something more here than we usually have. If we were doing section 3.3.3 and just going through those criteria, I would not have much difficulty with this case, but I do have a difficulty. It comes down to view in some respects, but it also comes down into the, just the nearness of the shape and structure. It's not an unduly big house. It's not a huge house. There are many more arounds bypond that are similar, but it's situated in such a way in a very narrow community that it has in its current form, I think just over the line, maybe not far over the line, but just over the line to what I think is reasonable. And I know that people have talked about this. I would have been happy to have an agreement. I would have probably bought off on whatever it is the parties were able to come to. But I just think that, in some ways maybe the applicant, from my point of view, and we may not be unanimous on this, from my point of this, Ms. Aiken had sort of painted herself into the corner. She's got all the other approvals and now she doesn't want to reopen them. And she's there without the ability to make what otherwise would be perfectly reasonable accommodations to the values that we, as a matter of law, are attempting to protect. So I wouldn't say I'm getting tired of this case, but it has been exhausting. And I'm not sort of encouraging us to go any further, but without some indication that some further accommodation can be made in order to reconcile these interests in a way that is more sympathetic to the by-law that we're trying to administer. I still feel sad because I think that there are a huge amount of advantages to the proposal we have before us. And I'd love to see some movement, but at this point, I'm not persuaded. Thank you. Mr. Chair, could I- Mr. Chairman, really? Build off what Mr. Hanlon said. So I tend to agree. I think for me, this is a very unique site. It's a very unique neighborhood. This is not a case that's very cut and dry. We sometimes have large addition applications where by right someone could basically build the large house if they knocked everything down and started from scratch. That's the way it goes. And so then we have to look at this large addition through the lens of, well, someone could do this right next door if they just bulldozed the house and started over. This case is much more complicated because this house is nine feet from the adjacent property line. I know that myself, if I bought a house that had a neighbor nine feet away and it was a single story, I said, oh, maybe it's not so bad. And then that became two stories. I would say, well, they couldn't have built themselves by right. And this large addition by law is actually the only mechanism that's making sure that it can't be so tall that it really is detrimental to my own home. So I tend to agree with Mr. Hanlon. I think I'm sympathetic to all sides because a ton of work has been put in on this application, but going from that 25 feet front yard set back to nine feet, and then now bringing it up so high, I think it is detrimental. And I'd also like to say that, I think there was a lot, when we talked about if the structure is harmonious, people were talking about the size of the building. I actually don't think the size of the project is a problem at all. I think that's not a concern to me. It's really the relationship to the property line and to the neighbors, because for instance, if that second level was set back further from that closest property line, I think that we'd be having a different discussion about respecting that access to views and lights that you would have from that backside. So if we were to vote right now, I would not be in favor of approving. Thank you. Other members of the board? Mr. Chair. Mr. Hawley. Thank you, I'm torn between this. The clients have tried to do what they can. The portion of the building, which is low height, which is the existing is already impeding the views. I don't know what could be done to the new addition that could mitigate it. I'm not sure adding extra glazing, making it more transparent. I don't know if dropping the main roof by one foot, six inch. I don't know what the purpose it serves. I'm not sure if that brings down the view completely as it's thought about. Unfortunate that the house is stuck to location of where it is because of it being close to the water on the other side, it's restricted, but I think I kind of agree with Mr. Dupont that it came with it, right? I mean, buildings will be updated, the neighborhood will be updated at some point. So as Mr. Hanlon said, I wish there was some compromise made and we were not put in this position, but unfortunately here we are. And I don't know how much of this improvement that is being sought for would really help. It's obviously between the 214 and 212 unit because they are the most compromised in this case. And I sympathize with them. I really don't know what more could be done that could minimize the impact. I don't know if I, it's a tough one. I probably would vote in favor, just looking at it that the impact was already there to begin with. Great, thank you. Mr. Chair. Yes, it's happened. I'll speak up even though I believe I'm a non-voting member in this case. I share the kind of challenge of the rest of the board and determining what the sort of reasonable impact to the views might be. And I just wanted, I was struck by the drawings that were shown at the beginning of the hearing with the height of the addition shown relative to what could be done by right. Because I think it is worth noting that it is significantly lower and to the point that Mr. Holy was just making, it's not totally clear to me that the reduction in height of a foot and a half or two feet would result in significantly less impact of views or lighter air for that matter. Well, thank you. Do you want to go back to those sketches? All right, so what Ms. Hoffman was sort of referencing, so as long as you stay within the footprint of the existing house, you can go up to two and a half stories and it does not require a review by the zoning board. It can be done by right and you max out at 35 feet. So, with this being the 35 foot line, effectively someone could build out this floor, build a tall second floor, do a pitched roof with a half story facing the water and that could be done as long as it doesn't stray outside the footprint of the existing house. And Mr. Chair, and that could be done by right if it was under 750 square feet and they would not be in front of us at night. Well, as long as it stays within the foundation wall, it doesn't matter how large it is because it's only 750 square feet outside the existing foundation wall. To that extent, Mr. Chair, that the addition is set towards away from 214 to that extent intuitively towards the water, fair enough, but set away and the low height still happens to be already existing within the nine feet from the property line and is already low. So that's where the dilemma is that at what point it is hindrance to the approval, yeah. Right, because this portion, this would be the facade at nine feet would just be this portion here and then this portion here is set back additionally from the property line. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So I have a little bit of a problem sort of taking as the benchmark what would happen if you stayed within the foundation wall and then maxed out on the building height. That may actually be something that could be done as far as the zoning bylaw is concerned, but there are other agencies, particularly the Historic District Commission that would be involved in the decision of that kind. And if in fact it's a problem going back to the HDC in order to reduce the height by a couple feet, it seems pretty tough to go back to them to increase the height up to the maximum allowed. That isn't going to happen. And we've already heard that when the HDC did have a discussion, they were very concerned about protecting view sheds from locating uphill from the house. I don't think that we should be justifying what we're looking at here by the strong man of what might be built if we imagined that none of these other commissions mattered. They all do matter, which is part of the reason why we've got a problem. So again, I do understand that I was encouraged a little bit by the notion that a discussion was had in that Mr. Garber at least seemed reasonably happy about what could have come out of changing some shapes, changing the massing a little bit, dealing with some room off. I have the feeling that if we were to take a 20 minute break and to say it's now or nothing, the board is equally split pretty much and come up with something that makes this work that probably that could be done. But I think that, I mean, my view is that more can be done. Other people, I think, differ on whether or not anything more significant could be done. The people who count most seem to be a loggerheads on the issue. And there we are. The difficulty of this case is already reflected by the difference of opinion on the board. If the chair could remind me, what is the, by what majority does this have to be approved? So it has to be a vote of four members of the board in favor for a five-member board. So then for the board, I guess I would include the applicant this discussion as well at this point. So we have potentially two votes in opposition. We have potentially two votes in favor and a chair who is still wavering where you need a positive vote of four members of the board. I will sort of offer the question to you. Do you want the board to proceed to a vote or would you be looking to possibly withdraw and reconsider what you may want to do on the property? The reason I offer you that is that if the board issues a negative decision, it does initiate two years in which you cannot reapply without significant change to the proposition. Okay, so those are the two choices. Take a vote or withdraw? So the board can take a vote and if the vote is in favor, then the vote's in favor. If the vote's in opposition, then there would be a two-year period before this plan could be resubmitted. I believe there are some provisions for if it's a significantly different proposition you can reapply earlier, but if it's essentially the same, it has to be two years. If you had wanted to withdraw the application, if you were concerned about a possible negative vote and a possible two-year delay, then you may want to consider a withdrawal. But I sort of give you that option at this stage to sort of preserve your options. Mr. Chair, Mr. Chair, quick point. Mr. Moore? Yes. Only that doesn't, isn't there also an option for the applicant to ask for a continuance? They could ask for a further continuance. Yes, that's true. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Hanlon. I was going to make the same point that Mr. Moore did. I don't know whether it would, this has gone on for a long time now, of course, and there's been a lot of things back and forth. If Ms. Aikenhead thinks that there are some things that either could resolve in a settlement or to change a vote that might help, then she might want to consider doing that. I'm very sensitive to the fact that we've been going a long time and she's done everything that she's been asked to do in terms of more details and then more details are asked for yet. And I don't, I'm not interested in doing a death by a thousand cuts here. But if Nellie thinks that she can come up with something, whether or not it has the agreement of the neighbors that would persuade at least one more vote or two votes maybe to that she's done all she can and what she has is fully reasonable. That may be an alternative that's better than either of the other two. Mr. Chairman. Yes. So I just would like to say that, if the applicant decides to withdraw or to ask for a continuance, there should be a clear sense as to what it is would get her over the line. And my concern is, I do know that people have spoken in opposition and have a lot of valid concerns, but the ones I think that we have focused on more are the concerns of the Garbers. And I think that Mr. Garber had suggested and maybe I misheard, but suggested that some sort of a reduction in the height on that larger structure to the right of a foot and a half or somewhere in that area would be meaningful. And so I have the concern that if somehow that was managed and then brought back to us, that we don't have any commitment on anyone's part to say that's fine, that works for us. And so I do have that concern that this is not just this constant, go do something else, go do something else, that's not good enough. And so I do think that that's an understanding we should have. And I would think this is just editorial, but I would think that if that's the case, other members of the board should feel free to look at this and say, look, what can be done has been done and therefore it now is more in harmony. That's no guarantee. I can't tell anyone how to vote, but I do think that we are sort of at the pointy end of the stick here. And we got to figure out what it is that's gonna work. So I'm just concerned that this is just going to potentially just sort of spiral. So anyway, that's what I was thinking. A question while you're thinking about the next steps. Yes. So there was a discussion about the other approvals that the applicant went through historic and concom. If there were to be a compromise, a change in a design that would then trigger re-review of those, would that have to occur before we approved that new plan? Because I think from a timing perspective that may be impactful. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it becomes a card force question at that point where there's multiple boards. I know in our rules regulations, we do prefer that applicants get approval of other boards before they come to us. But this may be a situation where it might be helpful, honestly, it might be helpful to have a joint meeting with some of these other boards just for the purposes of the discussion on this point. Drew, I try to iron out exactly what would be, what the other board's concerns are and what would be amenable. I mean, I certainly have some thoughts about adjustments that could be made to this proposal that I think would address some of the concerns. But that would certainly be up to the applicant. I think part of the, my looking at it, if there's any way to, currently the addition extends 5.2 feet past the edge of the existing building to the south. If there was a way to have that be lessened so that it maintains that line of the existing foundation wall, that would also pretty much bring it under 750 square feet worth of addition. So that would remove the criteria as it being a large addition. So it's sort of one thought that would, the other thing that has been mentioned a couple of times, which is an existing condition, which is predates this application is the parking situation where the parking is only 15 feet deep. That's a preexisting condition. It's not something that is being made worse by this project. It is being increased in depth so it is being made more compliant, but still remains outside of compliance. If the house was pulled back, there might be a possibility of maybe making the parking a little bit better accommodated on the site. In regards to the, as Mr. Hanlon and Mr. Dupont said, the questions of the easements and the use of the easements that's beyond our scope of work and would need to be dealt with in other venues. I would like to think that there is a way that we could work with if the applicant was amenable of working with historic and conservation on coming up with some criteria that would be amenable to all three boards. I think that would be something that would be worth discussion. It would be something that if the board continued that it would offer us that time to reach out to those other boards and see what would be possible in terms of cooperation and coming up with some ideas for how we could provide better direction to the applicant in terms of what would be acceptable to the boards. So that, I would turn back to Ms. Akinet again. So as we discussed, we couldn't go forward and vote on the application that's in front of us or we could ask you to request a withdrawal or you could request a continuance and we can try again to see if we can come up with a proposal that's not only amenable to this board but would remain amenable to the other boards that you've had to appear before already. Well, I would say, I guess we're open to continuing even though I agree with all of you it's been a very long, very time consuming, very difficult process. We're open to having another conversation. I did draw up stuff, I'm not gonna show it now that kind of looked at the roof lines and how it impacts the interior. I feel like conservation is concerned with the footprint of the building which wouldn't get any bigger, would get smaller if anything. I don't think it's gonna be a big issue taking out permeable pavement and replacing it, putting back the impervious could be an issue, that's the thing. I think the historic we could probably work with if we were working all together. One of my bigger fears is that every time we have a continuance all of the neighbors gang up and write another letter and they put out a whole bunch more claims and a whole bunch more things out there that we have to rebut or ignore and I would hate to continue this hearing in good spirit like we did last time and we met with the neighbors and then just have another slew of that stuff and I don't know that we're able to prevent that. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Could I just, I certainly sympathize that, I mean this is one of those cases that every time we hear it it's just as complicated it was the last time we heard it. It's not moving towards convergence and I would like to be clear that if I come to the point I don't, I'm right now convinced that there's that reasonable people can make this better and that they should but if I come to the conclusion that we've done the best we can then I'm not going to be interested in a lot of, and I would be willing to vote in that way and I will not be interested in new issues that have been raised or speculation about stormwater management or whatever will let the whole system work but I had just said the position that I have now but I do wanna make it clear that it's not a fall on your sword sort of position and when we finally get to the point where we just have to say nothing can be done this is as good as it's gonna get we have to decide whether it's good enough then my vote could go on either side. I guess Mr. Hanlon to your point if the applicant feels that there is still some room for discussion with not only this board but with conservation and with historic on some possible other modifications which would still leave you with a project with a home that you can utilize as you would like then it would make sense to continue to try to get to that point but as Mr. Hanlon said if you feel that you don't have that option then we would need to we would it may be worthwhile to stop moving forward at this point and just vote on the matter. Mr. Chair. Yes, this is may I ask why? Hi, I apologize. This is Sarah Radigan from Trilogy Law. Yeah. Sorry, it's a little noisy background here for a minute. So just yeah, so the public comment period has come and gone. Yes. So you're speaking outside of the public comment period? I did wanna just pose a question to you Mr. Chair I'm counsel to John Garber and Sabrina Howe and to the question of the kind of the usefulness of a continuance and how we might be able to as the most impacted a butter kind of region agreement that again the goal would be to come back with a modified plan that my client could be on board with. I thought it might be helpful for the board members to at least weigh in on one of the things that has been holding back I think Ms. Eichenhead and a willingness to make some changes to the roofline which I think is what they were really hoping for. And it's that those changes will impact usable space in the proposed addition. And just to be clear, we've talked about some things that could be done without sort of specifying that modifications to the project are a compromise and that we would expect the Garber Howe family would expect that those compromises would entail some loss of usable square footage that she had hoped for. Just a sort of a request for a little clarity on that. Thank you. Thank you. So the question back to the applicant would you like to continue and have us and continue the conversation? I can certainly discuss, certainly talk to conservation, talk to historic about what would be the most efficacious way of sort of continue the conversation so that you can, so we can try to address the changes without going through multiple rounds with multiple boards. But in the end, you would need to be making adjustments to the plans that would try to reduce the front on visual impact and to try and I guess sort of rework what you can do within the area of the lot that's allowed to you by conservation. As one question I had, did conservation specifically tell you you couldn't extend the addition forward of the existing house line? They feel that this above the retaining wall is already essentially degraded site and it has nothing to do with the natural environment and the pond shore. So they were okay with the retaining wall back which is where the current house is already. I didn't ask for anything more than that because we're trying to be reasonable. Right, I'm sort of wondering if the addition portion, if it was less wide but deeper, do you think that would be something that conservation would frown upon immediately or? I suppose we can ask them. It's going into the, it's not the 50 foot step back so they care the most about 25, then 50 where that's outside of the 50. So maybe, but they seemed enthusiastic about the retaining wall foundation line and higher rather than lower. I don't know if they would say no. I will say that there's a formal order of conditions. This is recorded documents. This property is bound forever to that. It's not just the conservation commission, it's the MA DEP also. And I think it would be very difficult to make that kind of change. I feel like historic could be a little easier. Yeah. And I don't, I know you suggested that pulling back the addition might improve the parking, which would be fantastic, but I don't know if that would work either because of this drop off in the grade and those steps and all, I don't think we have a way to maneuver into that area. I see, let's see. Got it, okay. I mean, I think, I know it's getting super late. This is crazy. I have visuals that talk about Sabrina and John proposed. Maybe you could do a hip roof or maybe you could do a gable roof here and I made all the visuals. I think there are things that we could do to reduce things a little bit, but I don't think it's gonna be where they talked about us being. And I don't know if there's room on their side either. Like, if we have a gable roof like this, the one thing they suggested or a hip roof, you could make your hip roof steeper and have more living space inside and not compromise so much, but then you're affecting the views they want, which is on the outside of the hip, right? So I replicated the lines that we have now, put them up and put them down to see what would happen and it just wasn't workable. There's something that's workable, but it's gotta be workable for them too. And it's not gonna be basically a hip roof raised up to where they want. It gives us almost nothing on the second floor and be a waste to build it. There's something in there, but it's two-sided thing. And I also do wanna emphasize, we put that 35-foot roof line on there for illustration. We're not implying that we could build that or that we would build that or we wanna build that. We're just saying like, if we were there, we'd have a lot to give up. We're not there, we're at 26 feet and we don't have a whole lot of wiggle room to do something better. Okay, so. And I guess I'll bring it to the board because I know this is a huge time sink for you guys. I think if you've made up your minds and a little change doesn't really matter so much and you wanna vote it, you should vote it. If you think we can have some more conversations and see where it leads, I'm always happy to chat and I'm always happy to toss around ideas and I'm always happy to see if we can meet somewhere. So if the board was looking to continue, the things we would want to clarify, so I would reach out to Khan Common, I'd reach out to Historic to try to understand better what the impact, the implications would be so I can present that to the board. At the same time, I think we would be asking that the applicant to see if there's a way of, I would put it as minimizing the visual impact beyond the footprint of the existing house. I don't know, Mr. Hanlon, if you have another way of sort of stating that. No, I think that's right. I wouldn't, I don't know how much weight I would put on the beyond the foundation of the existing house but I think the general intent is what I have in mind. If somebody had a brilliant idea that didn't fall in there then that would probably be fine. I don't want to inhibit people's creativity but that's basically the point. So if we were to continue, we have a meeting December 12th, which would be a possibility. And then I think the next after that, we would be looking at January 9th, December 12th, I believe it's three weeks from now. December 12th would never work. It's like, this is extremely time consuming. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know. But we could go for January 9th. If you want to continue, I would recommend that we continue to January 9th or we go ahead and vote on the application that's before us. Can I ask one question? Yeah, of course. So we need the special permit not because of our second story, because that's why I write but because our addition is more than 750 square feet. Is that correct? That is correct. And we're counting the basement even though it's not a story because ceiling height? So we counted gross floor. Let me go to the definition. Oops. So for gross floor areas, the areas that are included, so basement areas unless they're for mechanical use. So basement would be an area that more than half of the height is above grade and then sellers where more than half is below. So sellers and basements are both to be included in the calculation of gross floor area unless they're dedicated exclusively to mechanical uses. And so that's why that lowest level is included. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon? I don't have the numbers that... I remember at one point, ISD took the position that this was a large addition because it was more than half, the increment was more than half of the gross floor area of the existing. And I don't have those numbers right in front of me right now, but I have to guess that even if it was otherwise and you deducted the basement from the gross floor area, it might be a major addition based upon the view that had been expressed by ISD. I think the second floor doesn't count into that figure. It's by right, the addition is the figure that counts. I think the ISD thing that came up initially was the declaration that our basement was a story because they calculated the average grade and then they recalculated it instead of wasn't a story. So... That was for the number of stories. Correct, correct. So I'm just asking because... Yeah, so there's... Right now it looks like there's three levels at each and about 320 square feet. Because the basement counts because that section of the basement... Yeah. What the rest of the basement is in. Right, so the rest of the basement, the part that is dedicated to utilities does not count towards the gross floor area but because it's within the existing footprint, it doesn't matter. It's only the portion that's beyond the existing footprint that matters. And if it didn't have a door, it was just basement foundation space. But we don't have to get into this now. That's all right, that's all right, don't worry. But if like, yeah, because if that was built as like crawl space foundation, instead of the indoor outdoor room, then it would not count towards gross floor area but you would not be able to use it for anything. Right, right, okay. So at this point, I would like to move forward with a vote on a continuance. Okay. So this would be a motion to continue special permit hearing 212 Pleasant Street until Tuesday, January 9th, 2024 at 7.30 p.m. Do I have a second on that motion? Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. So just for the board, this is a vote to continue the special permit hearing for 212 Pleasant Street until Tuesday, January 9th, 2024 at 7.30 p.m. Roll call vote of the board, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Holley? Aye. Mr. Riccadelli? Aye. Ms. Hoffman? Aye. Mr. LeBlanc? Aye. And the chair votes aye. We are continued on 212 Pleasant Street until January 9th. Thanks everyone. No. Thank you everyone. Good night. So going back to our agenda. Are you there? You are. Next item on our agenda is docket 377554 Mary Street unit two. I'd first like to thank the applicant for their patience. But if I could ask them to identify themselves and to tell us what they are looking to do. Sure. Chairman, thank you. Board, thank you for inviting us. I'm Manish, my wife, Risha. We're just looking to convert Balcony into an office. It's a small space. Nothing changes. It's just a balcony with a roof and windows. And that is largely driven by the fact that, you know, after the post pandemic period, we find increasingly that remote work is the norm. So while earlier we were, you know, both going into the office, now we find that our colleagues are not coming into the office. So it's like working four days a week from home. And it's becoming a bit of a challenge when, especially when we get on calls, it is going to bump into each other locally. So we just kind of get away with small space where we can kind of work individually. That's nice. And yeah, we love Arlington, you know, 10 minutes to spy upon 15 minutes to L. Y station. What else could you ask for? It's a great neighborhood. And as far as I can tell, you know, the balcony is already there. It's already, we're not doing anything special to it. It's just trying to make it usable so that, you know, if we need to work, we can actually do the work. And that's better than schlepping all the way into Boston. Absolutely. As I say from my home office, the, how long have you been in this house? Five years. Five years, that's great. So I've been looking over the, I'm going to go ahead and share the plans. So this is the existing view from the rear. So you see the sunrooms on the first and second floor and that's the balcony up above. The existing plan of this floor. So two bedrooms and then the deck. This is the existing, as they said, front side, this is actually the rear elevation here. And there's a, there's a, there's doors here, correct? Now onto the balcony as it is. So you see that again? There's, there's, there's sliders here, sliding doors out on the balcony now. Yeah. And then the side view is a little strange because this is actually a peak truth in this, should be a peak truth in this view. And this door is actually under the addition, but that isn't going material. And so looking here, so this would be enclosed, there'd be windows on all three sides. Correct. And then a new pitch truth, which would be a three seven, sorry, a three 12 pitch over the top of it. And then this actually meets up into the existing pitch truth. Right. The drawing doesn't have right. And then there's some structural plans and you're just this detail here. So this is the three 12 pitch that they're proposing for that purpose. And I know this was originally put forward as a variance application because it is in excess of two and a half stories, which is the maximum that's allowed. But this is a pre-existing condition. It's a little bit of a curious pre-existing condition because apparently it was constructed in 2016 on plans that were approved by the Inspectional Services Department, but did not come before the board when it changed from being below 2.5 to being above 2.5. But that is not material to us now. So the variant, because this is a pre-existing non-conforming, this board knows the board can make a section six finding that the change is not significantly more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing condition. And if the board can make that finding, then it can approve it by a special permit. So with that, the variance application is still technically before us, but it is not required. And so just to clear up the record, we would ask the applicant, if the applicant would be willing to withdraw the variance application, and then we can proceed with the special permit application, which is the only application you need. Sure, absolutely. Whatever facilitates the process. Okay. And I would just ask Mr. Cunningham, do we need to vote on the withdrawal or do we just accept it? A vote would be preferable. Okay. But that very well explained, Mr. Chair. So I would move that the board accept the withdrawal of the variance application. For 54 Mary Street. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. So vote of the board to accept, let me switch over to the other vote. So we'll call go to the board, Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holly. Aye. Mr. Riccadelli. Aye. And the chair votes aye. So the variance application is withdrawn that leaves us with the special permit application. So as I said, this is a section six determination. It falls under 813 in our local bylaws, which for non-conforming single family or two family dwellings. So the board would need to make a finding that the increase in the non-conforming nature of the structure will not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing condition. Are there any questions for the applicant before I open the hearing for public comment? Mr. Chair. Mr. LeBlanc. I have a couple. Okay. The first one, I was just looking at the Google view of the home and noted that there was some solar panels on the roof. And I was just curious if those were still there and if they'd be affected by this addition? They will not be affected by the addition, largely because they're offset alone. So they're back and we're just tying it to the roof, literally just going in a tiny amount. So they will not be, in fact, I wonder why more solar panels on the roof panel go off. I'm maxed out on this one. I got you on that. My other question is probably in the documents but I wasn't sure if this was a single family or if it was kind of a condo situation. It's a two-family condo youth. Okay. Have you been in touch with the other tenants and their owners in the condo and their town? They have no issues. I mean, it doesn't do anything. It's just a balcony with windows. Yeah. I only asked just because we've had a couple of these types of things come up and sometimes there's disagreements. And yeah, in a way, and the condo docs are written and stuff like that. So I just want to make sure I'm wrong. Yeah, I checked with my neighbor. Even before I filed the application, I didn't get the award, ever. Those are questions I had. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Mr. Chair. Yes, Mr. Ragedelli. I just have one question. And it's really not material, but I'm just curious. I noticed on the drawings, I was wondering if the applicant could clarify that the new roof of the proposed addition, the enclosed porch notes a membrane roof. Are you guys proposing that it would not be shingles on that new roof, even though it slopes? I will let, I think the contractor, Anthony, is here. He might be able to better answer that question. This is not something that I fully understand. Yeah, that's great. Hi, this is Anthony, contractor. We opted to go with a rubber with a flatter roof just because of any possibility of a snow buildup or ice or anything like that. We figured it's just a safer bed. Understood. Okay. Okay, thank you. It's a three to 12 slope. I think it says in the drawings, right? Yes, it'll be, with installation, it's going to be a cold roof. Oh, okay. There's a possibility of more snow possibly sitting up there. So we figured it's just a better way to do it. Understood. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Seeing none, I'm just going to go ahead and open for public comment. Public comment is taken as it relates to the matter of hand and should be addressed to the board to help with our decision. You can visually raise your hand using the button on the reactions tab. And we have with us Patricia Brown. Hi, can you hear me? We can. Okay, Patricia Brown, I'm at 49 Mary Street. I just want to, I waited all this time to support your position. It was really interesting hearing all the other stuff that I was hoping you weren't going to be going through all of that, but yeah, no, they're great neighbors. And I think what they're doing is helpful for them and is not going to make really any difference to the neighborhood. So I support their position. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any others who wish to address this matter? Seeing none, I'll go ahead and close the public comment period. So as I stated before, so this is false intersection eight, one, three, B. Oh, Mr. Moore. I'm sorry. I've been trying to figure something out based on the presentation and it took me a while to get to the handle button. I apologize, Steve Moore Piedmont Street. And I apologize if you talked about this already. In the presentation, this red box that is there is not the property, is this? No, no, but I think it shifted before they printed. All right, so you did talk about this already. All right, my one question is, has the neighbors that have bought the rear of this house where the porch is being removed weighed in on how they feel about this addition? And maybe, again, I apologize if that's something to discuss. Certainly. As that of the applicant, did you talk to the neighbors behind you? No, we haven't, but again, it's not something that we felt was any inconvenience to anyone because we do go out onto the balcony and we know it's just a question of opening a window now. It's not expanding the footprint or anything. Right, Mr. Chair, my one thought was, I don't know how close the property line is to the rear of this structure and that's what I was trying to find on Google Maps and we got all the message in the wrong place. So if they're not too close, then this probably is a non-issue. So they are close too. Yeah, no, they do have a pretty reasonable backyard and it's a solid line of trees between the houses back to back. Great, that's good news, thank you. Thank you, that we're really close on the public comment period. So as I say, so this is a non-conforming single family, two family dwelling section 813B of the zoning bylaw where the board would be defined that an increase in the non-conforming nature of the structure will not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing condition. And in making its termination, on a case like this, the board would typically go through the required findings for a special permit under section 333. And so just to review those, that the requested use is allowed or allowed by special permits in the district. As we addressed, this is an extension of an existing non-conformity, which is allowed under 813B. The requested use is essential or desirable to the public convenience or welfare. This allows an expanded use of the existing dwelling more in keeping with the change needs of the existing homeowners. The requested use will not create undue traffic congestion or impair pedestrian safety. There will be no impact to either. Requested use will not overload any public systems. There will be no change. Requested use will not impair the character or integrity of the neighborhood. As the applicants and as their neighbor has stated, this is a pretty minor adjustment to an existing structure, not causing any great change. I did take a look at the residential design guidelines for this type of area and the recommendation that the additions be maintained on the rear side of the house. Is a part of that and that will certainly be so the visual impact on the street will be negligible at most. The requested use will not be detrimental to public health or welfare. There will be no impact on either. And the requested use will not cause an excess of use detrimental to the neighborhood and that will not occur either. Are there any questions or comments from the board in regards to those findings? Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. Just as a gloss on when it comes to transportation, making minor changes of this kind in order to avoid having to commute is both good for the applicant and it's good for the transportation system as well. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So we're the board to vote to approve this application this evening. Are there three standard conditions that would be included? The first is the plans and specifications approved by the board for the special permit. Should be the final plans and specifications submitted to the building inspector of the town of Arlington in connection with this application for zoning relief. Be no deviation during construction from approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Number two is the building inspectors hereby notified that they're to monitor the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures that any time they determine 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 21D 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 standard condition number three is the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to the special permit grants. Are there any additional conditions which members of the board would want to include? I will say the only part of this I'm a little concerned about is there are some discrepancies in the drawings which are more representational than the content. As Mr. Moore had pointed out, the area of view was indicating though not where the house is and there are some errors on the elevations but the sort of the main portion of the project that the import is being closed on the upper level and the location of the roof line, those are represented correctly as the framing plan. So as long as the board is okay with those, we can proceed if the board feels that we need it that those drawings should be revised before a permit is issued, we can also request that. And the only reason I really bring it up is because our standard condition number one says that these are the plans that are gonna be submitted to the building inspector and that there should be no deviation. Mr. Scherer. Yes, Mr. Rickenelli. I feel pretty, with the limited scope of what's being asked I feel pretty comfortable with what they submitted but I'd like to hear about other people's decisions. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I agree with Mr. Rickenelli in this case. It's, but I do think it's important for us to be, this is a problem we need to work on as we discussed the last time. It's not okay for people to be thinking to themselves, my golly, I have a little project. I don't really need to invest in producing the right papers or making sure that they're right. And eventually, I think that we, I don't think that we need to get strict in this case but I do think the message should go out within the community. Maybe this should be addressed primarily to Mr. Adam but in general, I think that it should be clear that it does matter to us to get accurate papers and it may very well matter to the applicant. If we ever make a mistake and improve something and it turns out that the drawing isn't right and then you're stuck at the building permit, nobody is going to think that's a great idea. So with a little bit of job voting, I do think it's important for us to tighten up on this and for the people who deal with us to tighten up on it. And this seems so de minimis that I don't really want to be too much of a hard ass here but I do think that it's something that we need to be serious about. Mr. Chair, another minor one maybe. I noticed that the existing landscaped open space or the percentage of JFA has grown up. Am I missing something there? It's just probably a mistake there, right? It's on page three of the special permit application or page three. Or maybe page three. I'm sorry. Yeah, the very top one where existing landscaped open space percentage is 90.58, proposed is 93.5. Shouldn't affect us. Minor. Who have the best one? I'm sorry. I think mine printed with bigger line spacing. Oh, is that the case? I see. You're always existing maximum. I think it's just, here we go. It looks like a typo there. Yeah. So, Mr. Chairman. Not yet. While we're at open space, the usable open space, one document that we almost always have that we don't have is a plot plan here. Right. And I would be astonished from looking at the property from the front, which I did the other day. If in fact there was any usable open space, maybe there's more in the back there than I think. But I'm not sure that there's space there for the 25 foot square. And the chair always has got more insight than I do onto this, but I wonder if that's an issue. I don't think it's really an issue. This is really just a matter of zero to going to a greater degree of zero. And it's all within the building footprint. So it's not really a substantive problem, but I'm not sure that the application is correct on that point. If I may, we may have used that before, right? Mr. Hanlon, through the chair, if I may ask a question is the open deck being enclosed sometimes does affect the open space calculations if used in the calculations, right? Not a contiguous part, but. Yeah, it could do that. I'm just thinking to the, I mean, there is an increase in the denominator here that the gross floor area is 90 square feet higher than it otherwise would be. The question I have is to do with the numerator. I don't have that in front of me, but there's like a couple of thousand square feet of usable open space claimed. And it would be unusual to have that much here, but it may be. I just, we don't have the plot plan. So we can't check to see how much of the usable open, how much usable open space there is given the fact that it all has to have a minimum dimension of 25 feet. No. It may be enough. I just don't know. So I was going to recommend two additional conditions. The first was that the board acknowledges that there are certain circumstances, certain inconsistencies in the provided plans. The board approved the application based on the representations on sheets A103, A104, and the structural drawings. So just to clarify for the board, let me go back and share this again. So this is A103. So this shows the enclosed porch on the upper level. A104 shows it being enclosed and shows the windows and coming up on the roof. And then the structural notes, the structural plans. So I think that would sort of address some of the concerns I had about some of the other portions of the set. So this just sort of limits that. And then the other condition, would just say where the application does not provide sufficient information to determine the status of the usable open space. In this case, the board is satisfied with the existing condition being maintained. So we thereby acknowledge that we don't know what the status of the usable open space, but that we're comfortable with proceeding anyways. Don't say yourself short, Mr. Coulter. I truly believe that you can. Every year at Barton McGarney, Stu and I will help you understand. Anybody have any concern about those two conditions or having additional conditions? Yeah. And then what the board has before it is a, the application has a special permit under 813B with three standard conditions and two additional conditions. May I have a motion? Mr. Hanlon. I move that the application be approved subject to the three standard conditions and the two additional conditions which the chair just read into the record. Second. Yeah, thank you, Mr. DuPont. So this is a vote of the, a roll call vote of the board to approve a special permit for 54 Mary street unit number two with the five previously read conditions. That is put forward by Mr. Hanlon, seconded by Mr. DuPont. So are there any questions about what we're voting on? Seeing none, a roll call vote, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holley. Aye. Mr. Riccadelli. Aye. And the chair votes aye. The special permit is approved. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you for your patience this evening. Is it time for Scotch? Yes. Very much. But you should share some with Ms. Brown. Absolutely will. We're deeply thankful for her. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Colleen, do we have anything on the docket for December 12th? Colleen, you there? So you're on mute. Sorry, I thought I finished the thing. We have two that are in process, but neither one of them will be ready. Okay. I haven't sent out. So I've told them both they'd have to do the January 9th meeting. Excellent. All right. So then we do not have a meeting on the 12th of December because we don't have any business unless there's any business anybody want fills we need to bring. So, and we're not meeting on December 26th. So then our next meeting would be Tuesday, January 9th with the two cases that Colleen just mentioned. And in addition, we now have the continuation again of 212 Pleasant Street. And then just at the last meeting, the board did discuss some issues about some of the documentation. I know we haven't really looked into it too much. I've been kind of busy, but December will give us some time to think about those a little bit more and get some stuff into place. So can work on that offline. So with that, I would, there's nothing else we're ready to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, before you moved to adjourn, could I make a comment? Mr. Moore, please sir. Well, you say now we have, you know, now we've got some time on December to get some stuff done. I've been thinking, yeah, there's nothing going on in December. I'm not sure. First, I want to make just a request, which is something I spoke to you about a town meeting. I'm wondering if it might be possible when putting more reference material into the cover sheets and into the dockets. If there could be dates on them somehow that are more clear. I know that when you title something, you have to title it what the date, what the title is of the document and date is included often and often not. And the reason being that when something continues, it's really important to me to know what documents are new, particularly in case O, like 212 Pleasant Street. That would be helpful if there were some dates always there. That's just a personal request. And the second thing I want to say is, as we move towards the end of the year, and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to be part of the meeting on the 12th, is that I just want to recognize to you folks, again, publicly that the amount of time and commitment and professionalism that you all show on a regular basis on this board, the preparation, the knowledge of the regulation, the dealing with the various tempers and timbers of the inputs that we hear, particularly, I mean, an obvious case is 212 Pleasant Street. Just is, it's above and beyond the call. And really, of all the boards that I get exposed to, and I work with a number of them now, you folks are far the most sort of professional organized and keeping what could be issues that get very emotional and often property rights that people feel very strongly about, keeping that at a reasonable level that Kate about, I think it was brilliant how you've worked out 212 to make a continuance happen for them to have one last chance to make it work. I just want to recognize that I continue to be so impressed by you guys. So thank you for everything you do for this time. Oh, thank you, Mr. Moore. Thank you. Very appreciative. Well, I would like to thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. I would especially like to thank Colleen Ralston and Mike Cunningham for their assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting. Please note the purpose of the board's recording the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of the proceedings. This is 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 zbaatown.arlington.ma.us That email address is also listed on the Zoning Board of Appeals website. And to conclude tonight's meeting, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, so moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. Dupont. Vote of the board to adjourn, Mr. Dupont. Happy holidays. Thank you. Mr. Hanlon? Hi. Mr. Holley? Hi. Mr. Rigidelli? Hi. Ms. Hoffman? Hi. Mr. LeBlanc? Hi. Chair votes aye. The board is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Happy holidays. Thanks again to the board for the five words. Happy holidays, all. Thank you. Happy holidays. Bye bye, everybody. Bye.