 Good evening everyone and welcome to the January 22nd meeting of the Town of Arlington Redevelopment Board. I'd like to call this meeting to order. My name is Rachel Zenberry. I'm the chair of the board and I'd like to ask the other members of the board to please introduce themselves starting with Steve. Steve Revillac, good evening. Eugene Benson. Shayna Corman Houston. Can allow. And this evening we also have joining us the director of the Department of Planning and Community Development Claire Ricker. Thank you. And the assistant director, Sarah Swares. So thank you very much. Appreciate you all joining us this evening. The first item on our agenda is the review of the meeting minutes from December 18th 2023. Are there any additions or corrections? Starting with Ken. Is this one in this one here, 18? Yes. The 10-page one? Yep, so 18. Yep, I do have one. And I had one with this. Should have left it there. No worries. Do you want to come back? Yeah. Okay, great. Shayna, any additions or corrections? I had none. Gene? I have none. Steve? Nothing here. I have one. I'll give you another couple of minutes. So on page 9, the last sentence of the second paragraph where it talks about where it talks about what the board and the building inspector had approved. I only mentioned the board because I did not comment on the approval. We don't have knowledge of the building inspector. So if you could cross that out, that would be great. That's all I have. The one I had was about having them bring something back for our approval, not for our response, not to explain our responsibility. Is that also related to the same project, 882 Mass Ave? Yes, and I can't seem to find that. I had it there a minute ago. Is that also at the top of page 9? Is it this paragraph here? The last sentence? No. Okay, you also mentioned right there. Yes. I would like the board to come back and then explore me to explain what the developer is going to do, not explain our responsibility or our requirements. So flip it I guess. So the developer could explain their response to achieving compliance with the board's decision or with the special permit conditions. Yeah, I don't think we want to explain our requirements. We already did. Okay. That's all I had. Great. Any other additions or corrections? Is there a motion to approve the minutes as amended? So motion. Second. We'll take a vote starting with Steve. Yes. Jean. Yes. Shayna. Yes. Ken. Yes. And I'm a yes as well. The meeting minutes have been approved for December 18, 2023. Alright, we'll now move to agenda item number two, citizen warrant articles, and I will turn it over to Claire to introduce anyone we have joining us this evening. Sure, great. Thank you. So tonight we have two citizen petition articles looking for feedback from the board before the close of the warrant later this week. We'll start with, let's see, we can start with Three Family Everywhere by JP Lewick and Annie LeCourt, and then we'll move on to Andy Green's Pond's article about rear yard stepbacks in the business business. Great. If you'd like to present your article, that would be great. This is my first time here. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, if what I can ask you to do is just to come up to the front here so that we have a fighting chance of the microphone picking up your voice. You don't you could just sit. That's totally fine. Yeah. And then I'll get a thumbs up from you once he starts speaking as to whether or not we're able to pick you up. And if you could just please each state your name and address for the record. And we'd love to to hear your thoughts on your proposed warrant article. Thank you. So John Paul McGee 104 base state road in precinct two. Yep, so you're more than welcome to have the floor if you, you know, can have up to five minutes or so if you need more than that just let us know to explain. It looks like you have a presentation to take us through. Perfect. Thank you very much. So yes, during the MBTA communities process last year. There's a great deal of discussion about the best ways bringing more multifamily housing to Arlington. One of the suggestions that didn't make them to the final proposal, but that I thought was quite interesting and should be considered is to look at making three family dwellings by right option that's more available throughout town. So there is a little bit of uncertainty. We're in touch with town council about whether allowing both two and three family dwellings would qualify for the like 50% voting threshold language. So yeah, we'll be in touch with them. So it could be two and three family dwellings by right throughout Arlington or it might be just three family dwellings. So in terms of how we're, yeah, so our goals for this are to address the regional and local housing shortage. I'm sure you're all quite familiar with and but also in doing this, doing so to kind of not disrupt the nature character to do that by keeping existing dimensional requirements in place. So you know, change the setbacks, height limits, floor limits. So essentially, the buildings of the same size are currently permitted, could be constructed, but just with more dwelling units within them. So we have our plan for an article language here. I think Annie had reached out to us about that as well. I reached out to town council. I have not got a final determination back from him. I have a lot of signatures on trust at the moment. But I will be sure that the language is adequate for us to have a broad scope and a good discussion before I finalize it and take it into the selected office. Sorry, I know I'm not talking loud enough. But yeah, so this is what we have so far. So in terms of specific bylaw changes, we'd be amending a few things with the R0, R1 and R2 districts. So again, second bullet point, a little bit up in the air, depending on what we hear back from town council. We will certainly be adding three family dwellings as a yes in the table in 5.4.3 depending on what we hear back at all, some of the case that we'd be adding yes for two family dwellings slash duplex for R0 and R1. But more to come on now. Actually, if you just back up a little bit more. So yeah, there are also a few points there where when you look at the definition of districts in 5.4.1.a, it's like, oh, it's the single family residential district or a large lot single family. And it doesn't really make sense to kind of we're changing this fashion. It didn't feel like it made sense to kind of keep it with the no longer political definition. So we just be changing that to like remove the single family or two family aspects. We don't have a full draft of the changes yet. They get away on the town council for the two versus three question. But yeah, we did actually have we did also have a few things that we value your feedback on very much. A large part of it is that we want to leave the zoning bylaw hadn't been a good place after all of this to kind of not have corner cases or unforeseen situations that would be applied. So definitely if you think of anything or you see anything, we'd love to hear it. There were a few places that we weren't really sure exactly the best way to handle it yet. So the first point, it felt a little silly that you to kind of have the in the R3 district have that remain with a special permit when we're allowing by right in our zero through R2. I could see a case though that I mean, since they have different dimensional requirements, that there's definitely case for keeping the special permit process in that in those situations three floors, they've got smaller setbacks. Yeah, we're kind of we're open. I mean, also, I think they're probably very few R3 laws that aren't currently three family for that matter. So open kind of a thoughts or feedback on that. And then also how to handle existing separate dwelling units. It's my understanding that those are only permissible in R0 through R2 right now that R3 doesn't qualify. And I mean, I can certainly see case you don't want a situation where someone they they like you have to like a they go and they build an ADU right now. And then they're back here in six months or a year to convert to a three. But in their hand, it's about someone who currently built an ADU five years ago or 10 years ago. So yeah, what kind of um curious about what you think that should be best handled. And just anywhere else in the zoning bylaw that important to change or great. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Let's go ahead. And any did you have anything that you would like to add to this? Okay. Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and start with Steve for discussion and question questions from the members of the board. Okay. So just a couple of things to clarify. So you're when you say not changing the dimensional regulations. So R0 would still have a $9,000 square foot lot size and R1 would have a $6,000 square feet and your key and you would plan to keep the two and a half story height limit. Okay. And so regarding your open questions, regard as far as R3 goes, the word language doesn't mention it. So I don't think I think you would need different language to do that. Now R3 through seven comprises a very small land area, very small part of land area would be nice to make it consistent. But you know, R3 is basically where triple bankers existed in the 70s. That became R3. And as far as ADUs go, ADUs are allowed in all business and industrial business and residential districts in conjunction with a single or two family dwelling. So I think the only sort of corner case that you might run into there is if someone had a two family dwelling and converted say a garage to a detached ADU. ADUs aren't permitted in conjunction with a three family dwelling. They kind of stuck in that configuration. They would be able to go to a three family without discontinuing the ADUs. But otherwise if it were some there wouldn't otherwise they don't see any point step of potential interference. If someone had a two family and wanted to, it's it's another option that they could or they could do a two family with an ADU, depending on what they have in their sense. Does it sound like we need to disturb that? I don't think so. Anything else, Steve? That's all I have for now. All right, Gene. Yeah, just a couple of additional points in addition to what Steve had to say. I think the last time through town meeting we said no single or two family homes in the business districts. So at the beginning you said this was everywhere in town. Later on you're saying it's just the R1, R0 and R2. So which one which ones are your preference? I think I think everywhere was a literary flourish and that the typical bylaw would be R1, R2, R0, R1 and R2 because we weren't thinking of changing the business districts for when I looked at the other residential districts to make big changes to those. So it didn't make sense to me for places where we already have big multi-family development and it's allowed to then suddenly add three families as part of that. It's allowed already. Yeah, so why make the change? I think that's a good point though that I mean if you have a single or two family loud in those business districts it definitely would have been a good case to include those as well. Three families are allowed in the business districts. Oh, with a special permit. So I spoke with one of my constituents about this. It just happened to come up after I saw what you're proposing who had some concerns about it but said the biggest concern was they looked like two and three family homes and not like the single family homes in the neighborhood and that was their biggest concern and I think considering that we're requiring site plan review in the MBTA districts I would have a hard time agreeing to these without site plan review to give us an opportunity to say that doesn't fit in you know you can build a three but not one that looks like a three family in the single family neighborhood if you go through my neighborhood there are a couple of twos that sort of stand out but there are also a lot of twos that could be single family homes if you didn't understand that they were two family homes so I'd be interested in thinking about site plan review for these also because we are doing site plan review. The whole MBTA community district anyhow where people can build three family homes in the neighborhood or more for site plan review so I'd like you to think about whether it makes sense to do site plan review as opposed to no review. To me it would make sense to include the R3 district and site plan review and get rid of the special permit just so there's consistency with those. We're going to be talking about the potential of that later this evening. Stay tuned. So just think about I think the short answer as I see it is the big difference is they're as of right but they need to at least go through the board to make sure the board is comfortable with what they're doing to make sure that they're meeting all the zoning requirements and that we can look at things like landscaping where the cars are and things of that nature. Just think about that as an option. The other thing and I don't know what to do about this personally we just got MBTA communities cast and I think as you correctly noted one idea was let's do this everywhere but that's not the idea that got adopted by the committee and that's not the idea that we approved and that's not the idea that town meeting approved. So I just wonder whether this is too soon not giving MBTA communities at least a couple of years if not more to see how that plays out. And then if we're not getting any buildings I think you have a much better case to make that this would be an important next step. So I just like that's one of my big hesitancies about doing this. Just the other one is getting an idea about if this were to go into place over the next five years what could we expect in terms of changes. We had that come up in MBTA communities and Steve did some work to try to figure out a potential answer. I think we would have to get an idea about how big a change or how small a change is this. If this were to go in place. Right. I mean I see right now you know buildings in my neighborhood getting torn down and larger ones getting built in their place. I don't have any idea whether if this were to be in place they would be two or three family rather than one family. Or whether more would get turned over torn down. I think it would be really helpful to know that in terms of deciding what we want to do about this. Thank you Steve. All very good points. I mean I think we're definitely open to site plan review. We'll be thinking about it. I mean it seems like a very good balance of trade-offs between kind of having an extensive process. It takes a really long time. But with site plan review you've got the capability that you know. And I think you know we have guidance for single and two family homes now. I think we would need to figure out whether we could extend that to three family homes. So that there's at least some guidance about you know the door should face the street and not the backyard. Things of that nature. One question. I think we're thinking about that too. Just in order. Do you think the existing born article language would be extensive enough to allow us to add site plan review to it? Because we've got just a many definitions, expanding uses. Good question to ask the town council. Okay. Yes, thank you. Great engineering. I mean it doesn't even really say my right. Like so it doesn't exclude talking about site plan review. I'd ask the town council. Alright. Thank you. Great. Gina. So I also would be really interested to hear an analysis of potential development and anticipated or suspected development capacity here. I suspect my supposition is that rather than new development, rather than teardowns, we're more likely to see conversions of two family homes into three family homes or one family homes into three family homes. And in instances such as those, I wonder what does that mean for site plan review? And do you get site plan review if you do you have the opportunity for site plan review if you are not changing the envelope of the building? Another question that arises is parking. If you're not changing the envelope of the building but increasing the number of units, you know, we're moving to the MBTA communities process. And one of the concerns that came up frequently was the actual or appearance of parking in the front yard and front yard setbacks. Driveways that were so wide that it looked like. So some thought about the ability to park on site would also be, I think, useful. Initially, the plan just keep it with the existing one space per unit and space to stand. I think there's like a 20 foot wide driveway at the start up to a certain depth. So we're planning to keep it at that, but I'm very comfortable with that. And in terms of, yeah, maybe it's like, if you're going to have to change the parking for it, maybe that's a good site plan review opportunity. Okay, great. Ken? I echo the same comments as someone like my members have stated already. I just want to take on a different aspect of it. And you're saying simply you want to make it by right so we can get three families in the same shape as a single family and in the same lot size. Okay. So you're advocating for smaller units then because you're fitting three units in a would be a single family. So there'll be much smaller living. And have you guys done any studies on that? You know, I'm not asking you to draw the whole thing up. Let's say you had a single family house. There was that 12,000 square feet in this 5,000 square foot lot size R1. Now you convert that to a three family. Now what's that bringing to 650 or 8,000 square foot units? Because now you're jamming all the stuff in there. So I think about it in two ways. And probably I'm influenced by the fact that I've been recent, what's now recent 13. So to go back to the influence house across the street for me that drives me nuts. It's 5,000 square feet on a 6,000 square foot lot. It would easily accommodate three units. If you think about it, 5,000 divided by three is 1,700 square feet. No, which is fine. But that's not my question. What's the question? My question to you says you are not going to increase the size of the setbacks, requirements and everything else. So that gives your house a certain size. All right. From that certain size, you originally said a single family house in there. Now you're going to a three family house in there. So it normally means that each one of those units are going to be smaller. So what is that size? Have you looked at it like you would be putting three families in there that are 6,000 square feet or 1,000 square feet? I'm not asking you to look at some weird thing off to the side somewhere. But you know, we have a bunch of land. Our one is like 5,000 square feet everywhere. We have an average case. Yes. We have ready your setbacks for a fun year setbacks. We have two and a half story height of the building. So what happens when you put three families in there? What are the size of those three families? Well, let me keep on going. I'm pretty sure you haven't done that yet. No, we haven't. But these are questions I want to bring up and I want you guys to think about it. I'm not asking for answers right now because it's not fair. When you go from a two family to a three family, I think you need two means of egress. So there's now two sets of stairs in your building unless it's a new building that is sprinkler. Then you're allowed to use one set of egress stairs. So now you're sprinkling your buildings that are not sprinkled before or you're taking up more space for a second set of stairs. Have you thought about how that changes your parameters of what you come over here? And then you get to a point where if you look at one unit to build that within that space there, what's the cost per square foot for that unit? We aim toward affordable units, market rate units, or high-end units. I mean, these like New York condos somewhere out, and we're putting in there that the small compact units are really ritzy because they can afford to pay extra money for all that. Or are we trying to make it affordable where it's down, you know, not down there, but you know what I'm saying, that's going to be economic to build. I used to think about that stuff because there's other ramifications when you change what you just said, putting a three family as of right into a one single family shelf. Okay. And then something else, Jean, I thought Jean was going to talk about it, is if this goes to town meeting, Jean, if you might say that. No, no, you go right ahead. And when it's multifamily, okay? I think the law says all you need is a simple majority to pass the zoning ordinance. Yes. Okay, now if it's a two family, you don't. Two thirds. Yes. So there's a big difference how you formulate this thing here. Yep. What they ask us and what the approval is. Yes, no, we're very aware. Okay. And it's still very clear. I'm just, but you know, it's all right. Exactly. I'm not trying to. No, no, I'm with you. I think it comes down to what will we put in the recommended vote and will that be something that we get a ruling that it can be a simple majority or not? And so there is a possibility of foundering on the rocks there because we just don't know what is allowable under the was it housing choice law with regard to, or up to three units versus three units. To that extent. I'll go back to what I said earlier. I think if you guys have enough time, enough energy to think about that actually comes out in different configurations and what are else's and get, so the public has an understanding of what it would be like. You can say, oh, it's still within the, you know, it's going to be different. It's going to be three doors, you know, the parking, you know, storage, are you going to have, it's going to be all a bunch of questions there that we should at least think about and have some sort of response where that's all. I'm not asking for it now. I'm just breaking things up that I'm thinking of when I hear this and I just want it to be somewhat thought about and addressed. No, those are very good points. I mean, we're definitely hoping to kind of have that ready. I think the plan to actually prepare quite a fair bit of, because I think that throughout the MBJ community process there are so many different different types raised. So I'm hoping and planning to have a lot written to respond to kind of all those different areas of how we think it would fit into that. And I mean, especially, I think it would be very helpful, like I mentioned, to have, here's how we think the redevelopment of the single family into this could play out in practice. I mean, if it's simply taking a big single family house and just renovate all the insides of it, it's simple. It's outside, so it's the same. But if you're building a new three family, how's that going to look? And how's that going to take shape and form and what that can become? And that's two things I think I'd be looking for. I think my example, I used to live in a two family in East Arlington, and I kind of go back to that of one of my examples. There was kind of a three bed unit above and then a standard two family, sorry, two bedroom on the first floor. But I had a fairly large basement, maybe the kind of three family configuration of that is to take the existing common areas of both basements and you could have a single bedroom, studio type thing in the basement with the egress and so on. But like I said, that's just kind of my impression because there's a lot more to actually look at. Any other questions? I have a couple. Just one last one. Be careful how you lay the stuff out and if you put three one bedrooms in this one area or as you could put three bedrooms, there's a big difference is this due to families. Now you're changing the population here from a younger population to a population that may have families. So if you build a whole bunch of these, now it's not a family or a town or something. You gotta think about that kind of stuff. That's all I'm saying. I think we would love to keep the existing R3, some elements of that. If we thought it would potentially ever pass, we would be very interested in okay, but actually like full three stories instead of the two and a half floors, stuff like that. But it doesn't seem like it would. Great. I just have two additional questions. I think you've already had some really great questions and food for thought offered to you by my other board members here. I just want to make sure that I understand your intent. So if town council comes back and says that proposing two and three family dwellings by right would not meet the requirements of the housing choice, would your intent be to have an article that solely dealt with three families so that you could take advantage of the housing choice simple majority or would you go with the two and continue with the two and three and move forward with the super majority? I think I know what my perspective is on R3. My perspective is that if we can craft an article that ruined a greater variety of housing pipes and housing choice in Arlington that we could have available under the housing choice law and we had a 50% vote at the town meeting that we have a possibility of making that happen. If it's a two thirds vote, then it feels like a big fight for us to lose, which is what our experience was with two families. We came close to a simple majority but we did not go close to two thirds. Now I think the Overton window is shifting, but apropos of the genes argument, it's coming really fast on top of MBT and QE units and I'm not sure that that fight will be a good one to work with. So my feeling is I would have to decide that either it makes sense from a zoning perspective to proceed with three family and I would expect all of them to advise us on that. Okay, so we're not the zoning activists here. Or to say, no, we'll fight this battle another day. As she says, after we see what M-E-T-A communities does for us in terms of three family configurations in those zones and how do people feel about them. And then you might have a better opportunity to spread them out. Yep, so that certainly answers my question. And I think what I wanted to offer back, that was my understanding. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't misunderstanding is that I think the proposition of allowing for two and three family homes in the R01 and two districts is one thing that I think we would consider in one vein, skipping over the two family and just going to the three family. And again, I'll just speak for myself, not for my other board members, just to take advantage of the super majority to me feels disingenuous to what, you know, again it was intended for. I think that to me it would be one conversation. You know, if they're both allowed, you know, per town council, that's one thing and we'll discuss that if it winds up being just the three family and we again have one and three and we have to remain silent on two because we're trying to get something through in a specific type of vote. I don't know that that's something that I personally would feel comfortable supporting with my, so I just want to share my perspective with you up front. I totally get it. Right. Okay, and I'm not sure I just agree with you. Okay. And it feels like a little weird bobble in its owning by-law to do that and so. Yeah. So again, I'm just kind of looking at the continuity of the language and what we have to offer. If it either, however way it turns out, I think precinct meetings and speaking with people in these neighborhoods is something that's going to be really, really important. I think that that was really hopeful when we saw how many people who supported all sides and angles of the debate around MBTA communities came out and I think that you're going to have a lot of interest in this if it moves forward and the more types of people that you're able to bring to the table the better. So I would just say that this, again, knowing how much time and effort we put into as a town, bringing people together to debate this to make sure that we could come up with something that the town aligned on, I would hate to, I want to make sure that that same goodwill is echoed here. And I know that you both believe in that as well. I just wanted to make sure that that's clear for everyone that this would require as a public process. Yeah. We're definitely committed to doing kind of whatever we can to provide for our communities. Public input on it. Very willing to be kind of what you think the right venues for that are in terms of whether we'd like to have the development board meetings or special sessions or I don't know, yeah, kind of what under whose auspices or how you think that could be done we're glad to try to organize that privately if you think that would be helpful. I think, and again, I'll turn it over to Jean and Steve, both who raised their hands to discuss the challenge with it being, again, a citizen petition is that the Planning Department and the Redevelopment Board can advise and support, but a lot of this falls to you as opposed to the board. And so, again, I just want to make sure that that's something that you're keeping top of mind too. Thank you. Absolutely. Jean. I have a couple of additional thoughts. One was which will get assessed at a higher value, a 6,000 square foot single family home or a building with 3,000 square foot units. I think it would be really helpful for you to talk to the assessor and get us some answers about what are the tax implications of doing this because you would expect more people in a 3-unit building than a 1-unit building. Theoretically, maybe more kids, maybe not. So I think it would be helpful to understand if the town is going to have some of those extra expenses, are they offset at least in part by the additional tax revenues that would come in. So I'd be really interested in what that would be like. There's also, we do have some ways of looking at x square foot of 2. You might want to actually talk to some of the assessors to get an idea about how they would do the analysis for something like this in the R0 or R1 or R2 zones. So we get an idea about comparing a new single family versus this old single family that's converted into the two or three as Shayna suggested and what would it do for tax revenues for the town to be very interested in understanding that. And I'm sort of leaning where Rachel is on if there are no two families in the warrant article, it seems wrong to allow ones and threes in the R1 and R2, but not twos in the R2. And you know, the old theory of Euclidean zoning was in like the single family but a single family. In two families there are singles and twos. In the three families you have, ones and twos. So this would be not necessarily illegal but very odd to say there's a district where you can have one family and three family but not two family homes. Well, that makes sense. I think it kind of boggled all of our minds when we started hearing stuff like the housing choice wouldn't let you play. I mean, I don't think even if it doesn't allow it, I don't can't imagine how much sleet or what sleet should attend that they'd have a situation where you and three and it wouldn't apply but yeah, so we definitely got that. It is a little weird. Great. Steve? I just echo that allowing one and three but not two from a planning perspective to do doesn't make a lot of sense. So I would prefer to have continuity in the number of dwellings even if it then requires a higher threshold. Thank you. Any other comments on the board? Any other questions for the board? No. Thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate you guys. Absolutely. Listen to us. Hardly competitive. I thought it was a very thoughtful discussion. So thank you very much. Thank you all very much. All right. And I believe we have another citizen more critical discussion this evening. Welcome. And we have Andy Green spent 20 years this evening. So if you could just introduce yourself first and last name and address for the record and then if you would like to take us through the presentation you have prepared that would be fantastic. Sure. Andy Green's on 89 Palmer Street Precinct 5. This is about rear setbacks in business districts. You may notice it's nearly identical proposed word language from one in special town meeting because it's something I noticed as we were debating language that was a period for special town meeting. So if I'm wrong about my interpretation of the existing language please let me know after this. But my interpretation of the existing language was that when you go for a business district parcel that about say residential in the rear if you go from a three-story building to a four-story building based on my reading of the existing language the entire setback of the entire building has to go from 20 feet to 30 feet. And so this proposed language would change that so that for such a building it would be 20 feet for the first three stories and then above that 30 feet just for the fourth and higher stories. And I'm open to tweaking this language in a way that makes the most sense but this is just what I thought of next. So my understanding in their current zoning is if you had a three-story business district building and on the left is a two-and-a-half story residential building at the lot line you'd need 20 feet rear setback but if you wanted a four-story building the entire thing would have to be pushed back next. And I believe my language would make this the results if it was adopted which is just the fourth and higher story would be 30 foot back. Next. So my reasoning when I was thinking about this is if you have to decrease or increase the setback for every other story to add a fourth story in a business district it seems like it would decrease the economic feasibility of construction especially since a lot of Arlington's lots are small. So it may end up actually capping like what would be built with the current setback. So this is an example I have based on an estimate of what I think are some realistic lot sizes based on my own two family and walking around which is if you had a building that was 100 feet wide and the depth of the building is 60 feet because you need a 20 foot setback if there's a residential behind you ignoring stairwells and everything it would be 6,000 square feet per floor if you wanted to get 18,000 square feet if you wanted a fourth floor you'd have to decrease the setback or increase the setback of every story so you'd only be able to actually add 2,000 square feet in the construction of adding a fourth floor and with the proposed amendment you'd get an extra 3,000 square feet relative to status quo so it would be fairly similar you'd actually get that economic in my view economic viability of adding the third fourth story. Next. So given Arlington small parcel sizes I haven't talked to anyone, I'm not sort of free for you all, I'm not a builder but given the shrinking of floor plate, the depth of floor plate if you had added that fourth story I am worried that with the existing language there may be sort of a default financial cap of actually adding a fourth or fifth story in areas where that high limit is already allowed but it may de facto financially be really three stories which would defeat the purpose of existing use story limits in other parts of the business. Next. And I was trying to look at adjacent communities Summerville overhauled their zoning code recently so it makes it very easy for me to find the comparison and this is what I thought of when we were discussing this at town meeting which is they do sort of essentially the same thing mid-rise is close in Summerville to business district and they have four, five or six story districts but regardless of the max height for neighborhood residential it's the same as Arlington residential effectively for the first to third story but in residential it's 20 feet and for every story above it's 30 feet so that was the closest comparison I could find. Next. I did try to find like Medford, Walden, Lexington, Belmont, their zoning codes are much harder to read through so I couldn't find an exact comparison and they all seem to still use the old L plus H over 10 or 6 that we purposely simplified for so it's hard to make in apples to apples comparison but if anyone that isn't happy to sort of hear I think that's it so I'm happy to hear your thoughts. Thank you very much. Excuse me. We'll start with Ken. I agree with you. What you got here is fine. I think it does not make sense if you go another story push the whole building back we're trying to encourage business I think this is a good thing and you're not adding any more additional shadow to your neighbors while encouraging business that would win you aren't somewhat correct when you do the fourth story you have to evaluate the extra elevator stop and the two extra stair risers to the top what's that going to that premium you have to pay for is it worth that square footage most of the time in the shallow site plans we have along Mass Ave some of the areas is not it just doesn't make sense to add all that extra to it but where it becomes bigger plates it doesn't make sense so this might not apply everywhere but I think it's a good thing that we should modify it and I agree with you so yes we'll go with this hardly great thank you I am supportive Shayna I am also supportive I was looking for the language in the bylaw about front step backs I wonder if you end up getting the top floor squeezed above above three stories and having it be a further economic burden in the end it doesn't actually matter that much the square footage with the loss of back yard rear yard space or the increased rear yard space or the squeezed setback but I do wonder about that however one way or another I'm supportive I think it's a very thoughtful solution thank you I guess two thoughts one is we would probably also need to change a definition of setback so I hadn't looked at this before Andy but I think we need to take a look at not simply changing what you're doing there the definitions some other things to see if we need to do something with those two so we don't end up with some conflicting language to one part of the bylaw to another the second is right now all of the buildings you mentioned are going to have to come to the redevelopment board for environmental design review and environmental design review we are allowed to change the required setbacks already so I don't know if this is absolutely necessary to do but it's worth thinking about but I'm more concerned that if you're going to propose that one change to that one section that we need to look through the rest of the zoning bylaw and maybe adjust I'm not sure how to look at it some of the other things so unusual great, thank you Gene, Steve I'm also supportive in my lunchtime ritual of reading other community zoning I'm working on one that they don't do front yard setbacks it's all rear yard which I thought was I'm sort of warming up to the idea in terms of as a way to if you're in front of a building you have the street to provide some separation but you don't necessarily get so much of that on a rear yard and the setbacks provide a way on the back of the building provide a way for lighting in it but I do take your point about the point about by not requiring the whole rear facade to come in you are preserving more space in the ground floor and I think that's a good thing one other question some of the buildings are going to be taller than four stories so what do you do do they step back I mean as far as I know this change wouldn't affect the shadows because of the three stories like if you add those like shrinking the first to third story won't affect the I don't know what I'm saying it is for fourth and fourth and higher would still be the 30 foot which I think is the case in the existing language yeah it says fourth and third so I have a quick response on the question regarding the I think environmental review I understand you can sort of I guess I don't know what the rule is you're allowed to decrease the rear setback based on certain parameters I still think it's good to have sensible like baseline of the rear setback because if a bit of someone trying to build may not even consider doing the fourth story if there's a risk like it'll be denied and is not even financially feasible so I think knowing that at that rear yard setback they have something that's financially feasible and then environmental review maybe it will you all might choose to make it less but there's a baseline that is financially feasible sort of my thought regarding setback and setback I know both are used in the zoning and I'm not sure how consistent it is because I could have written this as like like a setback right instead technically like the top stories have a setback setback wait which one's the current one setback is on the the ground floor so I could have said like for the stories have a 10 foot setback right and it would have done the same thing as I said syntactically I don't have a strong opinion I just want to know what makes the most sense and I'm happy to take whatever language you all are with town council suggest yeah I can maybe I can talk later we should talk later I think it runs into a problem with the definition of setback so we may want to call this a step back so we should just figure out what to do yeah that's fine Gene would you be fine with Andy reaching out to you specifically okay great once your father's on the so yeah so but either way the language which I basically I could just use the same language as a previous article right the language I think is essentially the same as from the you can have the same article again write broad article and do something else right like I think I'm pretty sure I took this exactly from the one in special town meeting to ensure it would step back or setback or step back just to give you latitude yeah you're not allowing for a variable setback which is the difference so we can massage this a little bit okay okay that's fine yeah just yeah between now and friday okay great thank you very much all right let's see so that closes agenda item number two citizen warrant articles and we will now move to agenda item number three which is the redevelopment board warrant articles great thank you so we're looking at four warrant articles to be presented by the hierarchy suggested by his VA probably talked enough about those we did get gene did bring bring forward some proposed actual language related to the sorry I'm looking for a document in our agenda gene did offer some proposed actual article language that I sent around I circled it into the board to review and I think we can agree or we can certainly discuss the language as it relates to those four warrant articles still to be discussed as the reduced height buffer area can the language of that potential warrant article so I've included from gene two drafts one related to the three warrant articles minus the deletion of the inland wetland overlay district as well as reduced height buffer area which was draft from the former assistant director Kelly linema to be discussed by the group this evening can I ask you a question we had discussed the redevelopment board taking on the inland wetland article we did so what is the status of that would that be put forward then since we don't have that we do have that too we do have that so maybe I looked at an earlier version the inland wetland the potential we can look at the potential language for the warrant article and then the actual main motion is still to be drafted that's totally fine yeah I set on the one I was looking at okay so let's take these one at a time and see if there are any amendments to these and what I would like to do is to take a vote on the on them as a group unless we are not able to come to an agreement on a single one of them I don't know that we need to vote on them individually again unless there is one that we want to pull out specifically so let's start with the zoning by law amendment related to building definitions any revisions or corrections to the proposed warrant article language starting with kin talk with this one here right yes to see if the town will vote to amend section 2 definitions no no issues no issues jean no I ran this by both Christian Klein and my champion they both said fine that's what they thought we were doing okay great Steve looks good to me great and again I am at this point I think we're just looking at the article language not the draft amendment if there are any specific items that you do want to discuss regarding the draft amendment that's fine but for this time I think the majority of our discussion will keep around the articles the next one is the zoning by law amendment related to administrative clarification for section 5.4.2 a and I'll start with kin no no additions or corrections no issues jean I omitted a word when I typed this in the second line after zoning there should be the word bylaw so some found elsewhere in the zoning bylaw great we'll be able to add that in sorry about that no worries Mr. Benson already proposed adding the word I wanted to see as well perfect nothing further okay great the next one is the zoning bylaw amendment related to administrative correction and and that is to change the bullet points to letters for consistency and I will see kin if you have any additions or corrections no not that would change me to numbers but either way no changes jean no change and we were some of them I think we changed some of the numbers under the accessory building units there was a section that needed to be removed and we were just looking for consistency okay great sheena looks fine okay and then the one that I don't have on my screen the inland wetland overlay district I'll just read this out since this is not in the package to see if the time will go to delete section 5.8 inland wetland overlay district from the zoning bylaw which should be capitalized for consistency as it is redundant to the wetland protection act jurisdictional area governed by the conservation commission or take any action related there to take any other action take any other action that's fine so we get rid of related there to no we keep that okay is there a comma before or or take any action related there to there's usually a semi-colon semi-colon yeah some sort of punctuation alright any other additions or corrections is the board okay with this as it is redundant to the wetland protection act jurisdictional area governed by the conservation commission or should that be removed I was thinking that that should be removed because that's really what we get to in the body of the article I think it's just we're deleting the section so I guess the question is we're also going to renumber section 5.9 is section 5.8 do we need to put that in there or not because there's 5.8 which we're getting rid of and there's 5.9 so I don't know if so 5.9 becomes 5.8 do we need to put that in there or is that part of the take any action related there to put it in okay or can you just say and adjust the numbering of subsequent sections yeah you can say that too can any other comments Shayna nothing no nothing here alright so I think that those are our the ARBs weren't articles for 2024 Springtown meeting just get back to this here is there a motion to approve is there a motion to approve and submit the warrant article there were warrant articles as amended we haven't done the hype let's come back to that then let's come back to that then yes height buffer Jean go for it so I found what Kelly had drafted which is in the materials both the draft of what the warrant article was and then her suggestion for what the actual main motion would be with some alternatives and her discussion but I thought it was a little bit too limiting so I wrote on the second page three alternative suggested edits and the one I like is the last one that says to see if the town will vote to amend section 5.3 0.19 reduce height buffer area and the zoning bylaw to alter the height buffer area requirements or take another action related there too and I thought we should keep it fairly broad because we haven't not had any discussion about how we want this to actually go and I thought that was sufficient for a warrant article but gave us the most flexibility so I would favor my last of alternatives I would agree Ken any thoughts sure I think that's great the last of the three options the seat yep okay Shayna makes sense to me Steve all the supportive so you've confirmed I know that we had a question around whether or not that was the correct section right questions and the or take any action related there too if there's any other section that needs to be amended we're covered there yeah okay I think for me we'll get to this later the big question to me is how much this is needed since we just town meeting adjusted the rear set backs to make them more consistent with what's in back so you know there is a question about how much this is needed okay great alright any other additions corrections to this item now is there a motion to submit the warrant articles as amended for spring 2024 town meeting so second we'll take a vote starting with Steve yes Jean yes Shayna yes Ken yes and I'm a yes as well thank you for facilitating that submission alright let's move to the agenda item number four which is the warrant article hearing schedules so I went back we took a look there are meeting schedule and the close of the warrant to sort of flush out and forecast what sort of meetings we would need to bring these warrant articles to town meeting and so this is a proposed schedule we think that we can hold the ARB the regular meetings in February on the 5th and the 26th with the relative notice we can do hearing number one to do the ARBs and VA articles on the night of the 26th the fourth which is another regular ARB meeting would be hearing number two to do any citizen petition articles we can hold the 11th potentially for a continued hearing of one or two if necessary but we did think a lot about the affordable housing overlay and if that is advanced what we may need for a hearing related to that you know article so we held the 18th we are considering reserving town hall for that warrant article we think that if we are going to be sending a mailing to all 20,000 addresses in Arlington for a townwide overlay we should likely best for us to hold that hearing in a larger venue we would have regular meeting on 4-1 to deliver a vote the draft report to town meeting will be drafted and posted on the 4th and then the meeting on the 8th we would do any revisions in both to approve or be reported to town meeting as revised how folks feel about this schedule or about the idea that we would hold affordable housing overlay hearing in a larger venue comments or discussion I just have one question related to the hearing on the 26th we would need to or I guess it's more of a comment than anything else we would need to as a board have a really fruitful discussion on the meeting on the 5th regarding the reduced height buffer area so that we have the language ready to go for that which I don't think is a problem and we would also need to make sure and I think that they were really well down the path with regard to creating their materials to make sure that the conservation commission would have their materials ready for the inland wetland district piece for that meeting I'm still really concerned about the affordable housing overlay going to 2024 special town meeting if they decide to push forward with it that's fine I just don't think that there's been nearly enough public process for that meeting that's my point of view Ken this is a great job what you got here I'm a little concerned that we're shutting down development here for two and a half months are there room where we fit in other projects that may come up for for our review project anyone that would say you can't present anything until summer or until early late summer we sort of leave slots open I'm not saying there is any you probably don't better than I do this not right now even when we did MVTA communities we would start with any new development and then move into the warrant article for the hearings I think that happened on a couple of the non-NBTA communities so for example I don't think hearing number one is going to take long at all I'm not worried about one I'm worried about further down the line I'm worried about early march and late I think if we have two nights though for the citizen petition articles outside of the affordable housing overlay that I think we should be able to hear can we just put slash saying any projects that may come up yes just so we could notice I just want to make sure that we don't leave all that behind this is very important but I want to make sure we have slots available if any projects come up for our review sure we will prioritize that in addition to any hearings is there especially if we can get anything back from the one we talked about last project we did get an updated rendering back I think that's on our agenda under new business okay then I'll just keep on going just for temporarily okay Shayna looks great Jean yeah I think it looks good in addition to what we're organizing that who knows and maybe some special permit issues coming in I just wonder whether this proposal we heard about tonight to allow two and threes in the r0 ones and twos will have a lot of people come out and whether we need a town hall for that one so I just don't know a lot of people the question to what Claridge is putting in is I was thinking the exact same thing is do we do both of those on the same night we could restrict the timing on both of those give them each 90 minutes and yeah so that that's my only comment otherwise I think that's a good way to go actually I'll just mention when David Morgan and Chuck we're here on we asked for some information from them which we have not received understood I will follow up with Chuck and David great thank you Steve I'm fine with the schedule as posted but I do think there is merit in considering the three family article in along with the affordable housing overlay in the larger venue okay super thank you very much for putting that together sure I'll have a final schedule at our next meeting great thank you very much alright so let's move to our next agenda item which is the proposed changes to the board rules and regulations for site plan review great so I circulated and Jean was thoughtful enough to draft for us change to rule 20 in the ARB rules and regulations tonight is just a discussion of the draft we do have to advertise and hold a hearing for specific rule changes to the to the regs but I thought we could kick off the conversation or at least continue our conversation with this draft so Jean if I can just say a few things how it got to this point this is an amalgam and a synthesis of the draft that Claire sent to us a while ago along with a handbook from I think it was CTPC on site plan review literally borrowed pieces of that for this plus pieces that currently exist in the rules and regulations so and a little bit from chapter 48 of the general laws so it was my attempt in the first draft to put all of those together a couple things I think we can think about as we go through them as Claire had suggested in her draft a site plan review pre-application meeting would be required I am wondering whether it should be optional for very small projects let's say four and fewer units on the side streets and mandatory for everything else or if it should be mandatory for everything that's one sort of big questions about this second was in the first draft people couldn't file their application until they got approval of their affordable housing proposal which didn't make sense to me because I don't think you can stop somebody from filing an application so I flipped this around so that they would as part of the application they would have to get a letter from either the department or the affordable housing trust that their affordable housing proposal is satisfactory and and then most of the application timetable and review process is pretty much the same as the EDR process now so it was run on the same schedule as the EDR process the approval after three years is the same as the EDR process and the extension is the same as under except the CTPC suggested only allowing a one year extension but since we just allowed a two year for something I thought two years made more sense so we allowed a two year extension other than that it's pretty much copied from the guidebook and that's where a lot of it came from and a lot of what proposed to be discussed at the initial discussion came from a combination of what was in Claire's draft what is in the CTPC materials and what we're allowed to do in the settlement so that's it let's start with Steve for comments okay I have four comments three are clerical and one is substantive so I'll start with the clerical one in 20.5 so what does the applicant propose to build on the site where will the buildings be located what will the proposed buildings look like it suggests adding the word and after the last comment a second clerical change suggests in 20.b. .7 there's an open parenthesis if affordable housing will be provided DDCD may require the applicant to be with and it just stops it's used to you Steve I'm just kidding I was going to say the it looks like the material is covered in the last paragraph of 20B so maybe we don't need that part 20.b. .14 where does the applicant plan to put signed if any I'd suggest a comma before if any and now the substantive part so 20D deals with laps so an approval granted under site plan review shall lapse after three years from its issuance if some standard use or construction is not commenced within a three year period now the section we have for EDR which is 335B has two additional aspects one is excluding time required to pursue a wait determination of an appeal and the second is adding an exception for good cause so you couldn't start for three years but there was a good reason so if I can read out loud I have a proposed amendment please okay so an approval granted under site plan review shall lapse after three years from its issuance if substantial use or construction has not commenced within a three year period comma except for good cause new sentence this three year period shall not include time required to pursue or await the determination of a court appeal I just took that language out of the EDR section any concerns with that revision? Gene? no I think that's a good change so I think the only thing we would then do in the next sentence we would delete the phrase for good cause shown at the end because we put the good cause in the previous and I had moved it down there so we can delete one so that's a for a period not to exceed two years period we don't need for good cause shown yeah I think those are good changes okay nothing further thank you Steve Shana recognizing that much of this follows EDR I did I did have some concerns first about timelines in day one I think 65 days to start the hearing and then again day two and day three these are really long time periods 65 days 90 days for continuance and then another 90 days after closure for final action so again recognizing that this is in line with other regs this is I wonder if these time frames are potentially onerous so that was one one of my thoughts and the other non-administrative thought Steve you are incredibly good at picking up picking up the administrative changes so my other administrative thought was was essentially to the nature of site plan review I'm a little concerned that for projects that are of right reviewing we're doing really robust review and I know talked a little bit about this last time and let it lie but some of these things are sort of obvious that they ought to be reviewed right health and safety and things relating to health and safety and traffic and things like that but more discretionary items like landscaping or design I get concerned I get concerned about the extent to which we have discretionary review over proposals that are of right and how is that is there a point to be limited or advisory yeah great thank you I have just a couple items one is related to in section a where you define how site plan review will be where it will be applied knowing that we may want to use site plan review more robustly in the future is this hemmed in too much specifically with referring to it for parcels located within a family housing overlay district or should we identify on parcels you know in locations as or in districts etc as identified in the zoning bylaws or parcels that require site plan review or process it right so I guess my question is are we hemming this in too much only to potentially revise this in the future just a general question for us to consider also wanted to see if we wanted to require any documentation for the bonus height provisions or if we felt that that was adequately covered in the zoning bylaw there are very specific requirements and we do say that those are subject to review by the redevelopment board so I want to make sure we own that some place in the documentation and to the point around design I was actually really pleased to see that we included design review because when we decided to support the MBTA communities provision I know that I did so with the caveat that design review would absolutely be required I think that this board made the commitment to the town that we would ensure that what was being built was in alignment with the the the landscape of the town and the the existing vernacular the under section B I'm not sure is this implied or stated somewhere else but it asks for all these things one from one to 15 but in what form is it a handwritten note or is it a drawing you know a good example is where the bicycle parking where is tradition walk on the site I mean we should say something like drawings or something like that so let me sort of respond to a few things one was if you'll notice the next thing it says after B is site plan review application required we have not written that application my thought was the application is where all those things will be required similar to what we do with the EDR applications so it would be narrative or C drawing right so the missing piece that needs to be done is to do what the application is going to look like because that's where it would say you must include these documents then I'm fine okay that's what I looked at this saying well and Claire and I discussed this when I came into her office last week to discuss this in that I thought it was better to have that all in the application than in here because if we use the application for a while and decide we want to make changes in it we can do it we don't have to go out for public hearing all those other sorts of things like we would have to do with the rules and regulations so I thought the application was the place to put all of those all of those things okay could I just ask for a footnote in that if we ask if a 3D model is required it would be submitted to us for us to use in our model let's put that in the application Claire if we want to do a 3D model every little project I think if one is required for explaining this let's have it before we get to some of the other comments I did forget to mention one thing and that is I wrote that a majority vote of the five members is required so rather than the supermajority that's required for some special permits this would just be a simple majority three out of five that's required for site plan review on Shane's question about the timing I don't know how much we can tighten the timing because this requires the same sort of notifications that go out ahead of time so they have to be in the newspaper and then there has to be a notification so I'm not sure how much those things can be tightened up Claire may have an idea about whether we can or should tighten them up very much without sort of just falling over the deadlines too soon so that's why I copied this from the EDR because it works well and recognizing of course that this mirrors the EDR so it may make sense to have a mirror testing procedure it is you know the 35 days for the board for all of the departments to comment that makes a lot of sense to me and the other the other periods seem to some of them be longer than I've seen in other municipalities but again if that's what's in EDR it may be a much larger discussion than we're prepared to have here and easier for the staff I think to be on the same time schedule for both of these and what were the other ones Rachel you had mentioned something Yes I had a question around whether or not we hem ourselves in too much by referring to multifamily or if we should again identify that this applies as we're identified in the zoning bylaw as opposed to being specific to multifamily districts well you know the thing about the previous paragraph single sentence above it the redevelopment brochure review a site plan in accordance with section 5.9.3 that's also right there are a couple places there are a couple places there so I don't know if we're having ourselves in or if we're just amenities if there's another site plan review that comes through I guess my thought was trying not to have both point back at each other if this one already points to site plan review can we strike both of those is the question and still I think we can I think I just put something in you know redevelopment review a site plan in accordance with the zoning bylaw and we can leave out the next paragraph perfect and then there was another question around whether or not we need to include anything in here around required documentation for the bonus site provisions we would put that in the application application okay application is going to carry a lot of stuff perfect is that yes I think when we apply site plan review to the MBTA communities the neighborhood and other families et cetera that it is indeed the simple majority vote but if we are going to site plan review on other forms of development it may not be we might have to have a super majority vote for example if we were going to do two families if indeed that more or less a review of two families does that become well that would be our choice whether we want it to be a simple EDR right because if it's a special permit we don't need to worry about this right but if it's site plan review then we get to decide if it's three or four I think what I understand how we're planning on using the site plan review going forward is that these are for as of right into Shayna's point trying to pull back some of the the barrier which is where three makes sense to me and again I would say the same for again if two and three family goes forward for example if they decide to go forward with that and we decide that site plan review is something that we want to talk to them about is it part of the process of pulling back on the requirement maybe part of what's desired I mean I think that's up for discussion did you have other comments no any other comments or discussion thank you for doing this Mr. I think next time we're going to preview the other change to the rules and regulations which we expect to go to give the staff more discretion to approve signs so that's trapped and I think it's going to be on the agenda for next time so hopefully we'll go out for public hearing on both of the changes to the rules and regulations at the same time fabulous thank you so much and so we'll make the changes to this so people can great alright anything else on one thing we didn't discuss yes the site plan review pre-application meeting required do we want everything or do we want to have it optional for very small let's say three and four unit buildings so or is it neighborhood versus massive again well you could have a big project in the neighborhood theoretically if you combine multiple parcels if you combine multiple parcels or you end up with a big parcel that's why I was thinking making it mandatory on SF and Broadway but optional on the side streets for small projects but then we're getting back into what we didn't want us to do right you're absolutely right which is putting in something related specifically to that Claire what's different I'm wondering if we do it for anything over four units mandatory mandatory for anything over four units or we could even mirror well that is very different so I think mandatory for anything over four units is probably the way to go so we'll make it optional for a few units and mandatory anything else let's move to agenda item number six open forum see anyone to join us this evening in open forum so we will close agenda item number six and move to agenda item number seven new business and I will turn it over to Claire to refer to 882 Mass Ave great thank you very much so the board asked at our meeting with the developer on the date the board had asked the developer to provide a rendering that would show updated facade of 882 Mass Ave I did find that rendering I actually asked the developer to send and this is what was provided here you can see the white accents that we were concerned about painted out they did looks like fuzz over these the exhausts are still there still there looking is not removed as they were before yes I can give you an update that the architect is looking for as identified an alternate product related to the events or to change the events out but I have not received any material yet so so driving by it looks like they started painting and just stopped halfway up made a lot of sense because painting now is not going to work I wish they hadn't even started instead of seeing that halfway that's something I just I can't tell from this rendering they gave you that they did what I wanted they did they didn't they didn't turn the corner with the lighter material right here right yeah they didn't these it's still shown as dark I mean and can I add to that the white area below the cornice the midpoint cornice that looks terrible that needs to be the don't shoot that needs to be the same color as the panel I mean the whole point of the cornice is your denoting the tonk of one exactly so that needs to change to the same it needs to be the same color as what's below I just need to go back and look and see what we approved was this dark I think this was dark I think it was and then this over here is what dark so the sort of band carry all the way across and then right here this edge right here what turns the corner that color needs to turn because and then see this side here this side here but they didn't do it on this side here I don't know if the architect I truly did this it would have been a model I just haven't given the model so I can spin it when they give it to me like this I can't they just gave a certain view which I can't it's probably the best view and hides everything so is this what it looks like is a photo that they touched up not a render is that what this is this is the photo of the building which is they didn't use the architect they took the photograph themselves so color you know you can do the and did they submit any samples for the vets they have not are they going to and the only thing we wanted was for them to submit the spec what the paint didn't even use on the storefront and they're aware of that as well they haven't given me the spec yet for the paint but they did you know metallic paint right I don't want something that's like Benjamin Moore white that's not going to work it's a special finish that adheres to metal as opposed to don't say that because to have the architect submit the proper paint for them I don't want to be the architect and tell them which brand to use that's a brand that we just quoted and then where we saw some more paint coming off and I don't want to be the one saying that any other thoughts Steve the corn is between the third and the fourth floors of white trim underneath them I didn't notice it before but the fact that there are six window bays and the three trim boards and it's completely asymmetric that now that I see it it bothers me that's the only thing that bothers you well okay it's that to me that's the part that sticks out like a sort of okay so they're working on that so that's good news right yes that's good okay and they agreed to work on it they agreed to work on it can we talk about the affordable housing which we raised last time too so I've gotten some emails from a concerned citizen who tells me that the smaller size departments have not been approved for the inventory so can we find out what the status of that is? I do have a bit of an update on that and that is that it's my understanding that the concerned citizen did reach out to DHCD, VOHLC about those units and at the time VOHLC did not have the regulatory agreement that was worked out with the town and with DHCD at the time we just received back the regulatory agreement from VOHLC signed or to be signed? to be signed by the town and then re-submitted to VOHLC for acceptance so they are I guess a little behind I think where the town is or where the town manager is in terms of understanding the regulatory agreement but the papers are going back and forth to get signature and I think that VOHLC is just not yet updated on that agreement great and the agreement reflect the units as built or the units as does this the 500 whatever square foot units in the particular location they actually exist does the regulatory agreement contemplate what we actually have sitting in this building? Yes because it sort of seems to me that if there are no 700 square foot units and that was the issue that the affordable units shouldn't be the smaller units they should be the larger units so they get close to the 700 square feet I don't know which ones they've chosen in the building I think they were the largest medium he had that identified in the documentation that he gave to us last week or two weeks ago they were the average size units they're correct different ways to do it to make it comparable my preferred approach would be to spread it out different sizes to make it representative but putting it as an average is fine okay I won't defer to the affordable as an expert on the building I don't know if I'm an expert professional call myself the professional any other comments on the rendering or not that particular project anything else on your new business the project again my treat yes the spray probably not this week no it's right a bigger one a bigger one okay I mean the one they put in here nobody was only like maybe six feet high it was like a a drooping mate or something something with the light up here a little more okay any other new business none at this time does anyone else have any other items of new business nope nope fantastic is there a motion to adjourn second yes yes speaking as adjourned