 All right, so it is 731 PM on November 14th, 2023. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein. I am the chair of the Arlington zoning board of appeals and I'm calling this meeting up 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 Hamlin. Here. Ben Cahole. Here. Daniel Riccadelli. Here. Elaine Hoffman. Here. And Adam LeBlanc. Here. All right, welcome to all of you here on behalf of the town. We have the zoning assistant Colleen Ralston. Here. Good to have you with us and our newly appointed town council, Mike Cunningham. Here. Good to have you with us as well. And appearing on docket 3770, 4042 Dorothy Road. I don't know if Erica Schwartz is here or not, but I see Gabrielle Geller is here. Yes, I'm here on behalf of Erica and the housing corporation. Perfect. And I see Vika Sinti is here as well. Yes. Perfect. Good, glad to have you both with us. Okay, 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 with the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law which suspended the requirement to hold all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. 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 of the meeting. An opportunity for public participation will be provided during the public comment period during each public hearing. For this meeting, the Arlington zoning board of appeals has convened a video conference via the Zoom application with online and telephone access as listed on the agenda posted to the town's website identifying how the public may join. This meeting is being recorded and it will be broadcast by ACMI. Please be aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means. Some attendees are participating by the video conference, others are participating by computer audio or by telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you through your screen name or another identifier. Please take care to not share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you please maintain decorum during the meeting including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted, the public is encouraged to follow along using the public to the agenda. This chair reserved the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. So the first item on, the first several items on the agenda relate specifically to the board. And so I'm gonna go ahead and skip ahead to the hearings which brings up item five on our agenda which is docket 3770, 4042 Dorothy Road. So this is a continuance of an existing, of a prior hearing which was on October 24th. At the time we had discussed with the applicant certain changes that we thought would be appropriate and helpful in their presentation. And we have received revised information from the applicant. And so with that, I will turn to Ms. Geller. If she would like to have, if she has any comments, otherwise we'll have the architect present the changes. No, I think we're okay to go to Vikas. Yeah, no, we're excited about this. I get to actually live down the street from this. So I'm personally very excited. Wonderful, thank you. Thank you, Gabby. And for the record, I'm not an architect. Oh, bigger brother. I'm not sure how to reflect it. I'm part of the company reframe systems. We've been working with the architect who's revised this version of the design. His name is Andrew McHugh. And he's not on the call, but we've been working closely with him so we can represent the views there. If I may share my screen, I can walk the group through the changes we're proposing. I know there's been a few sets of documents on the docket. It should be the last three. You are all set. Thank you, Colleen. Thank you. Okay, just to recap for the audience, we're referring to the parcel at 4042 Dorothy Road. This is a corner lot at the intersection of Dorothy Road and Parker Street. Parker Street is a private way as it gets into the end where Dorothy is. And we're proposing demolishing this garage that's circling red to build a passive house zero. So it's a net zero energy ADU. And we'll be utilizing some modern methods of construction, we'll be fabricating a bunch of these components at a factory up in Andover. And we're building this for the housing corp of Arlington and this will help increase the affordable housing supply in the town of Arlington. Would it be helpful to recap where we started or should I just jump into what we're proposing? I think you can jump into what you're proposing. Okay, so we made significant changes since the last time we were here. We have since considered the feedback from the zoning board and have refactored our ADU footprint to be conformant in size and height. So we brought the footprint down to the ADU, subtracting the mechanical room will be 900 square feet and the height is at 20 feet. So we comply with zoning there. We also factor in the feedback to bring the front. So because this is a corner lot and we have two front yards, we are bringing the front setback to be compliant with existing conditions, which is at 12 feet. So we've updated that change. And we're also moving the parking spots from our previous proposal and utilizing section 61.10.10. A, because of the corner lot provision, we're utilizing the language there to propose that we park two spots parallel to the front yard as defined in the zoning bylaw. And our updated request to the zoning board is twofold. One we've had to, let me move to the next screen here just so we have a closer look. The first request is to be allowed to move the site setback, the existing conditions at five feet and five inches. Our updated request is to have the site setback move to three feet, 10 and a half inches. The property on the other side, there is no other structure in this corner of the lot. So we don't foresee posing any new fire hazards, but we will comply with Massachusetts Building Code and have a one hour fire rated wall on the side of the ADU. And our second request is to update the rear setback from the lot line. As it currently exists, the garage that exists actually is over the property line by five inches. We're proposing demolishing that and actually creating an average of six foot nine inches of a lot line setback, but there will be this portion of the ADU that'll be under six feet with the closest point being five feet and a half inch and seven feet and one inch on the other end. And to comply with Building Code, we're actually over the five foot limit. So we seem to be okay on that end. And let me pause there and take any questions before we move forward. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, so Mr. Hanson. No, no, no, please go ahead and I can wait. No, go ahead. I was just trying to understand the, with respect to the parking, the provision that you're relying on, Mr. Enti, is the one that says that if you are parking on a paved driveway in a corner lot of less than 6,000 square feet, which you are, and in the longer of the two front yards, which I think you are, that you could have a driveway of up to a maximum of 24 feet in width and park on that. And the idea here is that the two parking spaces that are parallel to the street basically have a, when you combine them, the width is 24 feet, they're 22 each and their depth is eight feet. So that's why they comply with 6.1.10a. Do I understand that correctly? That is right. And the reason we can do this with minimal issue to the neighborhood is the curbs already cut previously, like the curb actually ends right here on this private way. So we don't pose any further challenges to the neighborhood and we seem to comply with the language and the bylaw. So which is why we're suggesting we proceed with that interpretation. So this is basically an eight-foot driveway with a 24 foot width. What's the 44 foot width? 44 foot width. So we're interpreting the eight-foot width as the width into the property because it doesn't quite specify which axis to measure the width against. So we're interpreting it as width into the property and we're keeping it at eight foot wide and 44 feet long. Okay, got it. So I had a conversation with the building inspector about on this question. And his sense is that this is a 44 foot wide driveway because of the way it's oriented. And so I was looking around the site. I had a question. There's an area on the site here that's identified as a pad. What exactly is that? So I don't know, Gabby, if you have more history for it, if not I can relay what Erica's relayed to me. Sorry, Ma. Which part? Can you? So the concrete pad that's out here. Okay, that's Dorothy. So yeah, those, I mean, I live, it's, I guess it's a concrete pad. I mean, the garage, there's, you know, the property has a fence around both side yards. And then there's this, you know, like a cut, you know, pavement I would say. And then the garage. I don't think there's anything, if you have something from Erica, I mean, as far as I know, there's nothing special there. They think it's just like a bigger argument. My understanding is that a previous tenant actually had that pad installed. And as part of this construction project, HCA has requested that we demolish that pad so we create more green space for the principal building. So that should be removed as part of this project. And our plan for the parking spots too was to use permeable green papers. So that way it would still look and feel like a green space. And so far only one tenant seems to be using the parking spot. So in general, we again expect that we're still preserving at least visually as much green space as possible there. Because what I wanted to ask was, to the interpretation from Inspectoral Services was that having the two spaces be parallel spaces in this fashion wasn't, didn't meet the definition of a 24 foot width. But what I was curious was if sort of there's that corner of the building, sort of if you're between the pad. Yeah, so like if you had two front-end spaces at that corner, from the corner of the house, you could easily, you should have plenty, it's more than 18 feet to the property line. So you could have two just straight-end spaces there and preserve the rest of the site. And that would meet the width. So if you were amenable to making that change, I think Inspectoral Services would accept that change. Got it. We'll discuss this with HCA. I'll just equally agree that that is a more streamlined solution and we can update our, at least when we're going for permitting, we can update that aspect of the lot. So I think then our question for the zoning board would be on the two setback special permits requests. Would you be amenable to us in reducing the site setback roughly by one foot and six inches or so on the side and then bringing it between roughly 11 and a half inches to for one portion of the rear setback? So the side yard setback that is certainly within Mass General Law because it's already an unconforming side yard setback. And so the board by special permit can allow a reduction in that so long as it doesn't create a condition that is typically more detrimental to the neighborhood. That would be the test that we would have to apply. So that's within our right to grant. For the rear yard setback, we've been sort of going back on how to read the zoning bylaw on this question because there's two, the width, the minimum width is listed in two different places. Going strictly by the table of dimensions, an accessory structure has to be six feet from a side yard and a rear yard. And because the existing garage is being removed, the existing nonconformity there no longer exists. However, Mr. Hanlon has put forward a different, it reads in the section of the bylaw that deals specifically with ADUs that it allows a reduction in that below six feet with a similar finding from the Board of Appeals that it is not significantly more detrimental. So Mr. Hanlon, that was the interpretation you had put forward, correct? Yes, that's, excuse me, that's right. So with that, the Board could address both of those questions that you have under section four on your slide. We discussed section number three, we did number two is fine. I do have a question about number one and I'm asking if you could go to the floor plan. So this is the ground floor and then this is the second floor. Okay, so on the first floor, the shaded portion is what you are considering the mechanical areas and removing from the gross floor. Is that correct? That is correct, so we're accounting 42 square feet. So we're using the same interpretation for how we compute floor area. So we're accounting for the walls as part of that space. Mm-hmm. The only concern is that effectively a portion of that is a laundry closet. So the reason, sorry sir, sorry, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, this is sort of a question for the Board to, and we can review what the bylaw says, but the question is whether a laundry room should be considered part of the mechanical area of the structure or not. If I may add one reason for why there was also shaded. So when our architect Andrew was going through the plan, the water heater we're using is a heat pump water heater that has to be vented. And in this view, the vents would actually stick into, would be actually above the washer dryer. So that space is still, in this view, what was primarily serving. The reason he put the washer dryer there was because he saw the ducting for the water heater being above it, and he's found a unified washer dryer that would actually fit underneath that ducting. So if he had a 3D model that was ready, what we would actually see is this is an HVAC room as being repurposed as a portion of it as being repurposed to have a laundry function just because the space below the duct rather than a dedicated laundry room that's being subsumed to become part of an HVAC room. Okay, so it's not your typical stacked washer dryer units in their own separate space. It is basically a combined washer dryer standard height unit that fits in underneath the mechanicals for the hot water heater. That's correct. Okay. And this is required because this is a heat pump water heater and we have to duct it because of the space constraints we have. Okay. And then the mechanical unit, the HVAC unit, that's the other one that's there, that's just like a ducted split system unit. Is that what that is? And it's the ERV because if this is a passive house we need to have a ERV system that's living there and it has all the space for it's ducting to flow around. Oh, okay. And then for the heating and cooling, is that, are those wall mount units within the rooms or is that connected somehow to the ERV? So it's, I need to reconfigure which system they're finally speccing. We had a slightly different version for the previous design, that was a little bigger. But it's still, we will be ducting it from the central unit as my understanding because we couldn't find one that could be ductless. So it's not a room wall mounted mini split it's still a central system but we will have ducts running. So that will be connected to the ERV and we'll be sharing some of the ducting also with the bathroom exhaust fan. So they're all required to be co-located in that area. Great. Okay, thank you. And then there's something that, is that something indicated under the stairs? Is that a closet? Is that what that is? Yeah, so that's a code closet that we're trying to use on the higher end of the risers. Great. Those were the questions that I had. Were there other questions from the board? Mr. Chair. Hearing none. Oh, yes, Mr. Riccadelli. Maybe just two questions. So with the new rear yard setback, I know previously, Mr. Enti, you guys explained that you were locating a lot of the windows along the back because that was basically preserved land. Were you able to make that work? Now having that five foot setback with the opening percentage that's required by the code. Yeah, so the reason we're trying to stay over the five foot line, because I think that's where the massager is building cold pressure plugins. So with the way the current setback lines up, we're able to comply with the building code and have as many openings as we need. So thank you for flagging that in your previous review. That's great. I'm glad to hear that you were able to make it work. And the other question I had, maybe for you or maybe for Ms. Geller. You know, there only seems to be one real neighbor for this location on this property. Is there, have you talked with the neighbor on the side yard setback side? Is there any feedback on the location of the Sandy? So I know from Erica and I apologize, I'm sort of stepping in last minute. I believe they've spoken with all the neighbors and there haven't been any significant comments and Vikas, if you have any more to add. So I believe you were with Erica, maybe when you. I was with Erica when we spoke to the neighbor across the street. I was in Erica when she made contact with the neighbor that's adjacent to this lot. But I do have some pictures on what that, because Google Maps is not up to date. So there's, the site was updated adjacent to us. They knocked down an existing structure that we did the existing home. So basically it's all green space right now. So the picture on the left is what is our preexisting garage that we are proposing to demolish. So we'll be obviously coming in a little bit into the setback here, but given that it's all wide open green space here, we don't think we'll be intruding on the neighbors too. Thank you, that's very helpful. Thank you. So anything further from the board? Hearing none. I will be opening this meeting for public comment. So public questions and comments are 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 it by phone made a star nine to indicate they would like to speak. You'll be called upon by the meeting host as to give your name and address given time for your questions and comments. All questions that will be addressed through the chair, please remember to speak clearly. And anyone wishing to address the board a second time during a particular hearing, the chair will allow those wishing to speak first for the first time to go first. So with that, if there is any members of the public and the tenants who wish to address this application, they could please indicate that they are seeking to do so. So it's the raise hand on the reactions tab or if you turn on your camera and wave, we have Mr. Moore. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. First question, refresh my memory. Was the roof of this ADU going to be wired for solar panels drawing over something like that? Or am I making it up? That is great, Mr. Moore. We will have solar panels. Okay, Mr. Chair, what I'm wondering is if the modification to the mechanical spaces in the plan, how does that impact the wiring and, I don't know, the utilization of the solar panels? Is it all still fitting within the space? Because I know that solar panels often require particular requirements for conduit and spacing and things like that. And I'm wondering if that's impacted at all by the change in the mechanical space? Mr. Enti? We haven't finished the detailed design for it. My understanding is whatever conduits we need to bring down will be alongside the Metro Bank that we will need to have. And I think our expectation at this point is if we have availability on setbacks on at least in between the two building spacings, if we have to use that space where it doesn't impact that the neighbors. So that's an option if we have to go down there, but we haven't done the detailed design yet, so I don't know. Right, that does, Mr. Chair, that does make sense to use that space between the buildings. And also, I don't know if there's been any changes regarding the exterior cladding or siding that's planned to go on this ADU? That's a really good question, Mr. Amor. So we've basically gone back to the drawing board on the siding. The reason we don't have elevation profiles to share this time round is we decided to wait till we get the zoning boards okay before we start detailing it out. So at this point, our expectation from also speaking with our client, the Housing Corp of Arlington is to make it feel and look and comply with what's in the neighborhood. So it'll be cladboard siding, most likely we're waiting to get some color specifications from them, but I don't expect to be significantly different in what you see in the neighborhood. Well, Mr. Chair, that's helpful. That was one of the concerns I had last time was the siding was so significantly different than the rest of the neighborhood. I'm glad that you're working with trying to sort of make this fit since the setbacks are minimal here and also make it producible in a unitary kind of way which makes it more affordable for you as the person producing the housing, but also fitting in with the neighborhood, I think is important. So that's good to hear. And I would hope that you would to whatever extent you can with prefabricated building materials, follow the design guidelines which Arlington has and I'm sure you've been working and looking at already. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Just for a follow up on Mr. Moore's question, I know we had addressed briefly the space between the first floor and the ground. As Chris, Mr. Anthony, if you could just comment a little more on how that might be infilled. So we're definitely gonna have scouting around it. We haven't specified the material, but there should be nothing visible. I think walking into the unit, it should just seem like you have, there should be full coverage from the siding of the building to the ground, but nothing exposed. So I think we're definitely factoring that in. It's not gonna look any different than then units next to it. Okay, it's not that the siding is gonna be brought all the way to the ground, but the siding will end at the bottom of the structure and then like every other house in the neighborhood, you'll have a different surface hitting the ground. Exactly, okay. Great, thank you. Are there any other members of the public who wish to address this hearing? I mean, once, twice, I've seen no one else wishing to address the hearing. So with that, I will go ahead and close the public comment period for this hearing, which returns us back to the board. So what the board has before it, this is a, we have two requests in front of us. We have an application for variance and application for special permit. As we had discussed at the prior hearing, we had grave concerns that the board could find that the criteria required for variance could be met for this property. And we had asked the applicant to go back and to reconsider what they were proposing so that a variance would not be required. It definitely appears from the information submitted by the applicant that I believe they have addressed all those points and that at this point, a variance would no longer be required, which does leave us with the question of a special permit. And there are several points that the applicant would need to satisfy in order for this. The first is the reduction in the side yard setback, which is a section six determination. So the board would have to find that the change in the side yard setback is not significantly more detrimental to then the current condition. Similarly, we would have the same question in regards to the rear yard where, but that is instead of being under section eight, that's actually under in section five, nine for accessory dwelling units, which allow an accessory dwelling unit within six feet of the property line with a determination by the Board of Appeals that it is not significantly more detrimental to the neighborhood. And then trying to think if there are other, I thought there was one more thing that the board needed to determine. No, I don't think there's anything else the board needs to determine because the one for the accessory dwelling unit covers two things at once. Both the accessory dwelling unit being in an accessory building and also being within six feet, that's all included in the same determination. We did have still sort of the open question about the parking we have discussed an alternative to the plan. And I would, I think the board needs to discuss if that's something that we could approve by condition or if that's something that we need to see in a different fashion before the board can vote. And then the only other question that I had had initially was the question about the laundry room. I think that the applicant has explained that it is rather than being a laundry room, it is really just sort of a portion of a mechanical space that otherwise would be unoccupiable that's being used to house a laundry machine. And therefore it's not specific as a laundry room, it's more just a mechanical space that happens to have a laundry machine in it. And as long as the board is comfortable with that determination, then the gross square footage is under 900 square feet. So are there questions and concerns from the board things that we need to discuss further on this project? Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. DuPont. Just very quickly. So I just checked with Mr. Cunningham. So I think that it would probably be appropriate to withdraw the application for the variance so that that's clean on the record. And then my two cents on the idea of proceeding with the understanding that the parking is going to be redesigned along the lines that you had suggested, pursuant to your discussions with inspectional services, I would be fine with that as long as everybody thinks it's clearly understood what it is that needs to be done. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I just wanted to say that I agree with Mr. DuPont on both scores. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Like the only other question I had too was in regards to, so the board does not have revised exterior elevations. And the question is just if there are any members of the board who would want to request to see those before voting on approval. The board is allowed to take to consider the design guidelines as a part of its review. But obviously that we have 95% of it, we just don't have final rendered exteriors. Are there any other questions from the board? Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Cunningham has a comment or a question. Oh, Mr. Cunningham doesn't show up on my screen. Mr. Cunningham, please. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I just wanted to agree with Mr. DuPont. Although the withdrawal of the variance would be the prerogative of the applicant that would make it cleaner for the board of appeals. Whoever the applicant wants to withdraw that application for the variance that would make it so that the special permit application is the only thing for the board. Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. So then that would be a question for the applicant. So because we have determined that a variance is no longer required, but there's still an open variance application in front of the board. It would, the board either has to act on it, but there's really nothing to act on. So it would be cleaner if it was withdrawn and then the board doesn't have to make a finding. On behalf of HCA, as the applicant to follow the variance, we would draw that the request for variance 23-1. Right, thank you. Where it's done before the vote of the board, the board can accept the withdrawal. Mr. Cunningham, does the board need to make a vote to accept the withdrawal or is it just? No, Mr. Chair. Great, thank you. Okay, with that, then what the board has in front of it is a special permit application. So the board needs to make a few different findings. So the first is under section 592B, accessory dwelling units. If it's within six feet of a lot line, you need to find that the creation of the accessory dwelling unit is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the use of such accessory building as a private garage or other allowed use. And then under section eight, is it eight, which section is it? So under, I think it's eight, one, two, excuse me, eight, one, three, B, non-conforming single family or two family dwellings, the increase in the non-conforming nature of structure will not be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than the existing condition. So actually, now that I'm thinking this through, we don't actually need to do that because the accessory dwelling with the finding we make under 592B, that the accessory dwelling unit within six feet of a lot line, that would cover both the rear and the side lot line. So we do not need to worry about section eight at all. So this just boils down to 592B. And then the board would need to typically use the criteria for a special permit to determine whether this would meet the requirements of a special permit. The first finding is that the requested use is allowed or allowed by a special permit in the district. And it is under section 592B, an accessory dwelling unit is allowed within six feet of a property line in an accessory structure by a finding of the board. That the requested use is essential or desirable, the public convenience or welfare. The board's routine, they found that the addition of housing for its residents is a public good and is desirable for public convenience and welfare. The requested use will not create undue traffic congestion or impair pedestrian safety. This structure actually has no sidewalk in front of it in the area where this is occurring. And there will be no addition of parking spaces so it will not create any additional traffic congestion. Number four, the requested use will not overload any public system. This will be a minor addition to both the water sewer or excuse me, the water sewer and electrical systems but it will not be a substantial impact. It will not impair the character or integrity of the neighborhood. So this is the one where we need to, I think to put the most thought into. So this is something that's new, something that we've not seen before in a lot of ways. That this is, and I think the board should, my sense from the board is that they're in agreement that this does not impair the character integrity of the neighborhood in the way that it has been described by the applicant that it will be cited similar to other buildings in the neighborhood and is of limited space and is located in a rear yard adjacent to a wooded area. Then the requested use will not be detrimental to the public health or welfare. Again, this is just, this is a residential use in a residential zone. And the requested use will not cause an excess use detrimental to the neighborhood that certainly would not apply here. Should the board want to vote in favor, there are three standard conditions that the board would apply to a case like this. The first is that the plans and specifications approved by the board for the special permit shall be the final plans and specifications submitted to the building inspector of the town of Arlington in connection with this application for zoning relief. There should be no deviation during construction for approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Number two is the building inspector is hereby notified there to monitor the site and should proceed with appropriate enforcement procedures at 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 number three is the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to the special permit grant. We have also noted that we would want to have a condition in regards to the parking. Anybody have some proposed language for what that might look like? The applicant is to provide two parking spaces with the size of the permit, the zoning bylaw, be located within the front yard, they saying, which street is that? Parker street, I think. Yup, number three on the driveway, not to exceed four feet in width measured to Parker street. So as the applicant is to provide two parking spaces complying with the size requirements of the zoning bylaw to be located within the front yard facing Parker street on a driveway not to exceed 24 feet in width measured parallel to Parker street. That seemed to cover what we had discussed. Yes. So that will be addition number four. Are there any additional conditions that anyone when the board would want to consider? Seeing none. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So I wanted to circle back a little bit to the findings on the second finding about the public convenience and necessity, I think there's quite a lot more to say here that I sort of like to include in the findings. First of all, this is consistent with the town policy of using ADUs in order to provide affordable housing, which the town desperately needs. Secondly, it's energy efficient in a way that goes well beyond what is normally done in the town and it's a good example of the sort of thing that ought to be done. The third is that it is sort of a variation on that. This is passive house net zero, which means it's actually a full net zero proposal. It's not, and that is also something that is consistent with the town's energy conservation plan. And I guess that the final thing that at least for me is it's an innovative way using the prefabricated methods and to reduce the costs of providing the ADUs and this kind of housing. And at the same time, greatly improving sustainability. So when you get down to thinking about why this is in the public interest, there's quite a bit, both in terms of reducing costs and in terms of increasing sustainability, both of which are matters of great concern to the town. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Are there further comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, the chair would entertain a motion. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I move that the zoning board of appeals approve the special permit application subject to the three standard conditions and the fourth condition that the chair read into the record. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon and Mr. DuPonts. So this will be a roll call vote with the board on docket three to seven, seven, zero, 4042 Dorothy Road. It's a motion to approve a special permit with four conditions. So vote of the board, Mr. DuPonts. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holly. Aye. Mr. Riccadelli. Aye. Oops, sorry, Mr. Riccadelli didn't hear you. Aye. Thank you. And the chair votes aye so that the special permit for Dorothy Road is approved. Thank you all very much. Appreciate the extra effort that you put in between the two hearings. I think I'm really afraid of quite a nice proposal. So thank you very much for that. Good luck. Thank you so much. Thank you. We would love to invite you all to the open house when it's most likely happening in March. So thank you again. Thank you. It would be great. Okay, with that, we return. Back to the initial business on our agendas. So the first item is the motion to approve the written decision for 28 one of us to road. This was a case that we heard at our October 24th hearing. Decision was written by Mr. Hanlon, distributed to the board for questions and comments. And the final version was released this evening before the hearing. Are there any further questions or comments in regards to the written decision for 28 one of us to road? Seeing none. I'll accept a motion to approve the written decision for 28 one of us to road. Mr. Chairman, so moved. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. Vote of the board in favor of the written decision voting members who voted at the hearing, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holly. Aye. Mr. Riccadelli. Aye. And the chair votes aye. That written decision is approved. This brings us up to sort of discussion of procedural business and rules and regulations. So there is a new procedure for applying for special permits and variances, which is it's a new online system. I don't know if any of you have played around with it, I had played with it a little bit. Currently there's not a lot of guidance as to how to proceed on it. And then maybe something the board wants to take on to put together some things. I would ask Colleen if she could, she has anything she's noticed in particular about applications, changes in the applications coming through the new system. Hi, for the most part, people are having trouble a little bit with the calculations. It's not as clear I guess on this one. I've tried to find something that we could put up that would define each calculation for them. But there's nothing clear on that one either. There's a lot of things in the bylaws that say like how to calculate and lots of descriptions, but no clear how to calculate. And I think that's where most people are running into questions. They call me a lot and ask, I send them to Dave. If we could find a better way where they could just do it, it would be much easier for them. Do you think it would be helpful if they sort of did it on paper first and then transferred it into the system as they went? I do. I think that the paper system that we had had a little bit more guidance on it. But I think Christian, you and I talked about a lot of people are homeowners trying to do it themselves. And they're not architects and they're not building inspectors of our contractors. And some of them just don't know what they're calculating. Okay. I think it's something that the Board should probably take on to some extent of drafting some kind of a guidance document and whether in the past all we had given them was the application and they sort of fuddled through it, but they would come in with it and talk to the inspector as they filled it out. And it's unclear how much that is still happening. Yeah, most of the new program is, cause it's all online, even payment online. There's not a lot of people coming in to ask the questions they're calling. And it's hard to walk them through some of the calculations when you don't have a plot plan or a drawing in front of you. Sure. And a caveat to that is they can't submit the application till everything's finished. So they can't unless they email you pictures that you're trying to print to scale. It doesn't always work. So they can partly fill it out and save it, but they can't submit it to you until everything's complete. Yes, saves as a draft in their account until it's complete. Okay. But you can't go and see it when it's in that state. No, we can't see it until they actually submit it. Sort of ask Dan and Venkat and Alina and Adam if they've run into online application systems and have any advice. I haven't really run into one before. Yeah, I haven't come across it yet. The BPDA, the Boston one is online, but I wouldn't say that there is good guidance that accompanies it. So I don't know that we should use that as an example. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. So this is not from the voice of experience, the way you did the people who are actually dealing with other, but it seems to me that at least a logical way of thinking about it is for us to have a series of instructions, I think maybe separate instructions put into and put on our website so that it addresses the things that we think of as the key questions. To some extent, I think we can start with what we already have. And then instead of sort of having a sheet that they have to submit and so forth, we can just include something at the end as a worksheet. I do know that to some extent, we do ordinarily get, where it just says look to the way of calculating gross floor area in the bylaw, we may need to take that out and provide more specific instructions. I think that whenever you tell even professionals, but certainly ordinary people give them a cross reference that doesn't usually prove to be very effective. But I think if we did that, then we could at least create something where they've thought it through in the right way. And I think it might be helpful just from my point of view is to say, and I don't know how to deal with this, very often there are people who say NA and that's almost never the right answer, at least not without a lot of consultation with ISD. And so just because it's too much of a pain in the neck to figure it out, doesn't mean that you don't have to figure it out. And people ought to be encouraged to be careful, but we can put so much true words in it. I mean, frequently you see that in the very first thing on special permits, we say, where is it saying the bylaw that you can have a special permit? And typically many people answer that by just saying what the provision is of the special, of the bylaw that they want relief from and not what they're supposed to be saying, which is what is it that gives them the right to relief by special permit? And if we're doing a little bit more detail than we do in the application form, you can at least take commonly made errors and either stick them in as a new sentence to make sure that they get it or maybe do things in the form of a frequently asked questions to make it more pointed. But in doing that, we might be able to make it work a little better. And when they finally get down to put the application, the things in, they may have already done the worksheet and it may facilitate the conversation later on when inevitably there will be some cases where it isn't right and where your discussion has to take place. Very good. So if the board was to draft a set of a guidance doc, is there anyone who would like to take a first stab at that? Well, I'd be willing to try. Okay. Patrick, do you have a copy of the previous application that I can send or do you need me to send you one? Oh, you should probably send it. I think I have a copy of it. I think we get copies of it regularly, but I'd like to see what they see, which I don't know that for sure that I'm doing. Okay. I was also told that you guys can go in and create yourself an account and do everything and leave it in draft and never submit it, but that would give you an idea of what it's like to just go through the process. Yeah. Okay. The link is on the front page of the zoning website and the Inspectional Services. So in some ways there's a parallel thing that goes along with the variance application. I don't know what people are currently getting, but maybe with a little elaboration since people seem to get the topography a little odd, we could again use what we already have and emphasize the ways in which this is different. I mean, look at how many cases we get where people make a variance application and they don't really understand what the difference is between a variance application and a special permit. Right. No, absolutely. While I'm on a roll, we have a draft, I'm not sure that we've ever done it on the residential design guidelines and I would like us to take a look at that draft and as long as we're going to have a website with helpful guidance in it, I think it would be useful to put that on, which actually forces people to focus on what the actual language of the guidelines are and not just sort of say, well, in general it's all good and consistent with the neighborhood and so I'd encourage us to do that. We also say, well, isn't there voluntary? So obviously we can't just, but I do think that it's important to say that it may very well be that we can say whether you comply with the guidelines is perfectly as voluntary and the standard we apply is standards in section 3.3.3, but we don't think an explanation of what you've done is voluntary. In other words, we wanna see that you've gone through this analysis. You could, what your analysis could say is, we think the zoning bylaw should pound sand because we've got other reasons why we think we're entitled to this and maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but showing that they've gone through the analysis and would make them actually go through the analysis, which would be a plus. It's been particularly difficult since we don't get playing department memos anymore which routinely go into this. So, and I've noticed that since we stopped getting that, the, we've talked a lot less about the residential design guidelines than we did before and it would be helpful to try to tee that up procedurally so people feel it's necessary at least to explain their position on it. Yeah. Yeah, so what I have up on the screen, so this is something we had pulled together, I'm guessing a while ago now that I put a date on it. Nope. There was some concern at the time because it is voluntary that by making a form, we're sort of forcing, are we forcing people to abide by the design guidelines? And this does include the, although strict adherence to the design guidelines is voluntary, they express the design principles that the board will use in evaluating residential projects requiring special permit or variance for each principle listed below, please describe how your project responds to the design guidelines. So this is certainly something we could include as a part of the application guide. I don't know if this is something that we would want to have them submit electronically necessarily or if it's just something ancillary that they would either bring to the hearing or just submit independently depending on how we wanna do it. Mr. Chair. If it's voluntary, yes, sir. I don't know if it's appropriate for me to offer some perspective. Sure. Again. We're gonna end Mr. Moore. Steve Moore, Piedmont Street. We had an issue like this on the tree committee where we've got what's called construction guidelines for the protections of the critical root zones of trees, either on the property or on the neighboring property and such. And we refined it over time. They are guidelines. They're not requirements because we can't require that it happened. But what it works for us is it offers a point of leverage. And if you don't have them fill out a form like this you couldn't have a checkbox somewhere that says you've read them and that allows you as a board to leverage points in it that you want them to pay attention to. Not necessarily, I know again, you can't make it happen but it's a point of leverage for you to bounce their perceptions off of. And it's been useful to us. Even though, for instance, in critical root zones if they're not using the correct method for whatever work they're doing we can say, well, it's right here and we show you how, why did you not do that? Or that sort of thing. So I would suggest you do this. I mean, Mr. Hanlon's comments are well taken. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. No, appreciate the experience. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Hanlon. Just in terms of language I think it would be helpful actually to say strict to eliminate the word strict and the lead in because even general compliance with these is not really actually required. They're guidelines. And so, but secondly, I think that we ought to say that, I mean, this is not going to be exact language necessarily, but I think we ought to say that the guidelines often prove relevant to the board in considering such issues as neighborhood compatibility. Because that puts people on notice that sure they don't have to do with the guidelines. They can say, you know, I wanna make it look like crazy Ludwig's Castle. But we're gonna be looking at the guidelines in assessing neighborhood compatibility which we do have the authority to require. And so a sensible person might want to speak to our condition here and help show why it is that and use this as a way of making their point on the requirements of section 3.3.3. So anyway, it focuses more on just what we mean by you know, what's voluntary and what isn't, right? This is a help for the applicant really to understand where we're coming from when we do something, when we apply this and there's a specific provision and this could come up in other provisions too but there's a specific provision about neighborhood compatibility that this is almost always relevant to. And somebody who wants some help in thinking about how to persuade us should understand that showing what they've done in terms of the guidelines is helpful to them this. So anyway, you can sort of figure that around and what you've just done is right but I think it helps to sort of make to position this as not just another bunch of requirements but a way of showing that you've meet a requirement that already exists. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. So I'm just looking at the language, you know sort of trying to split the difference between a requirement and a strong suggestion. And I'm not sure what the answer is but in the third paragraph where it says the design guidelines is voluntary is voluntary or are voluntary but... Adherence to the design guidelines is voluntary. Oh, I'm sorry. They express the design principles that the board will use is used to soft a word upon which the board relies or is that too strong a word? I'm just wondering because you really do want to get them to focus on these even if they're not mandatory because it's for their benefit obviously if they do. And I didn't know so use is fine but I just didn't know whether rely upon is a little bit more, you know a little bit more pointed and tell some you should pay stronger attention. Just a thought. Yeah, no. So one of the other things we had sort of thought about earlier on and I really looked at in a while was putting together a checklist so that people who are applying know what they need to have and this could be something that we could adopt into a lead-in into a guide document. Originally this was when you were submitting everything paper so you would have to do it all but like information needs to be filed electronically. Applicants are advised to gather all the requested information before initiating the online permitting process and probably going to be pulled to the complete request. So this sort of these were the documents we had before. So I think as we were discussing what we might do is rather than handle things in this fashion we would do it a little more sort of line by line going through the information that needs to be provided. One of the things that often happens to us is that there is information that occurs on both the dimensional and parking information sheet and on the open space gross floor area sheet and the same figure will be entered differently on the two sheets. So one of the things we consider and the way that it appears on the website right now we ask the same question twice. So we could either have it be that we only ask the question once like what the gross floor area of the building is we just ask it one time and we don't ask again or we have it auto-fill the second time it appears so that we don't. But it seems if they're entering information maybe we just need to only ask them once for some of this information. Then before we were asking people to submit stuff electronically separately but now obviously everything has to be submitted electronically. So a lot of this now is just sort of general guidance in terms of what they're going to be asked to provide. So we can sort of clean this up with the other. So we have a similar thing for variances, which is design review, special permit checklist. Oh, that's the regulations, variance checklist. Yeah, so I think if we go through and sort of we can combine a bunch of these things into something and I can Pat, you and I can work on that. I'll come back up with a plan for that. There are a couple other ones I just want to bring our attention to one which I've already started doing the special permit conditions, standard condition number two it had gendered language. So I've been as I've been reading it I've been editing it and changing the he is to they are and the he determines to they determine that's the only bit of gendered language that we have in here. So I just wanted to pull that out. I'm just going to sort of do that going forward. I had started pulling together an application for an appeal but I'm not sure we necessarily need to have Pat, you and I had talked a little bit about this earlier. Typically when people are appealing their filing in a lawsuit more and so we don't really need an application and I had put together sort of the appeal procedure but the more I put more into this the more I got concerned that if something changes in state law or something changes that the town and we don't catch it here like where is that going to be a problem? Mr. Chairman. Yes sir. I sort of think I don't think I mean I don't think that is in itself a problem because the state does not change the zoning rate the 40A very often and if there's an amendment to section 15 we'll know about it. Mr. Cunningham will probably bang us over the head about it. I don't think that this isn't the sort of thing where little regulations happen from time to time and you have to be constantly watching the watching to make sure you catch them we'll sort of get that. I think that there is another problem though in that it's that kind of means that I think that we need to do some more thinking about that in the draft that we have here we have a partial statement of section eight which is where the appeal authority comes from but the actual language is more is murkier than the part that we quote here and it involves other kinds of it potentially involves other kinds of actions by the zoning administrator or not the zoning administrator by ISD than just the ones that are indicated here. I mean just recently for example we have had occasions where someone has attempting to appeal the grant of a building permit to somebody else and that doesn't really that certainly doesn't fit from the language that you can appeal failure to obtain building permit and none of the people who do that actually go through the procedure that you'd expect when it comes to requesting an enforcement action and that puts us in a situation where we're kind of improvising the procedures as we go along. So some of this is very, very specific about what has to be where and so on because section 15 is very specific and some of it is a little bit nonspecific and I think we need to figure out as I think we're going to be seeing more of this and I think that we need to kind of work on figuring out what we think the actual procedure is either the board may remember in some earlier cases we've had appeals where the timeliness is a question as it often is and the difficulty is is that we don't have a formal procedure that necessarily produces a paper that says this is a final decision, you have 30 days to appeal. So you get a stream of correspondence and ISD often way after the opportunity to appeal is over saying, well, the letter on August 8th, 2022 should have told them that they were marking up the wrong tree and that's where it starts and the other people say, no, this was just back and forth as we were trying to work our way through this and that's not a denial at all. So you need to know, just in fairness, we need to have some way of being sure what the starting gun is for any of these things and there are procedures in state law that we haven't really focused in on a lot but I think that this is one of those things where it's not a matter where we know exactly what we're supposed to do and it's a matter of explaining it clearly. This is a matter where we need to have some help probably for Mr. Cunningham and spend some time thinking about what the various possibilities are and how we can sort of guide people into doing it. So I'll just stop there because I don't know the answer to all these questions. Mr. Cunningham has his hand up. Please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I agree with Mr. Hanlon. I would like to be involved, especially in this portion of the public materials. I think it's good that the board wants to provide some guidance to the public and be helpful in terms of all processes, including the appeal procedure. However, to the extent that there are some items that might be a bit ambiguous or gray, the issues like timing, which can vary based on the factual circumstances of cases. We wanna be, the board wants to be careful not to drift into areas of legal guidance rather than just strict timing mechanisms or just general guidelines. I think that the board would wanna make sure that those guys that whatever is out there for especially the appeal procedure does not drift too far into or anywhere near legal guidance for a public person. Well taken. Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. DuPont. So at the risk of sounding like I'm making a joke, I mean, you can always put language in these saying, any questions that you have about your legal rights in this regard should be, you can refer to an attorney or something along those lines. I think that that sort of standard contractual language, which might also fit in here somewhere, just telling them that if they do, and then that may even underscore Mr. Cunningham's point that we're not giving them legal advice that should they want legal advice, they've gotta go elsewhere. The other thing I wanted to point out, and this may be a bit nitpicky, but it also refers to this application, the appeal as well as the requests for variance and for special permit. For clarity's sake, I think what these are is, this is entitled an appeal to the permit granting authority. I don't think that's what it is. I think it's an application for an appeal. And I think that one way or the other, this needs to be consistent and clear, because when you go down to the third paragraph, it says this application for appeal, number one. So you're referring to it as an application as opposed to an appeal. And then when you get onto the second page in number two, it says the application and copy of the order or decision. And then three says a copy of the certified application. And four actually also refers to application as does five. And I think it's important for people to be able to look at it and say, well, what's the application? Oh, this is what it is. So I don't know if you'd call it an application for an appeal or appeal to the permit granting authority application. But I think it's, it would help, at least from my point of view for consistency, to understand what we're referring to when we call later on in the body of this. You know, when we refer to the application. And I also think that that's true for the zoning, for the variance and the special permit, which are entitled requests, which seems a bit vague to me because it's not really a request either. It's really an application for, and you know, again, maybe I'm being a bit nitpicky and everybody knows what they are and what they mean. But I'd like it to be consistent. And I would also note that the attachments that you included, the file names are application for special permit, application for appeal and application for variance. So, you know, just a matter of clarity from where I'm sitting. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. So I think that Mr, that was certainly with respect to the applications for variance or so on that we should be using application because I think that's what the zoning by-law itself uses. With respect to appeals, I think it's different. The appeal actually is the application here. If you, ultimately the provision that allows for these appeals is section eight of chapter 40A. And the heading of that is appeals to permit granting authority. And the text of the section is also speaks in that language. So by the same token that Mr. DuPont's argument is, I think we should be sticking with the language that's used in section eight, which is basically the same as the language that is being used in 3.1.3, which says an appeal to the board of appeals may be taken by any person to grieve due to inability to obtain a permit or enforcement action from the building inspector as provided in section eight. So we got to be, I think, sticking with that language. I don't know, as anybody looking at this would immediately know the question of who a person aggrieved is, is not necessarily a trivial question either, but that's getting more into understanding how far one goes. I do think that it might be helpful if we are doing something along these lines to make it clear that the ultimate authority here is section eight for part of it, but section 15, which sets forth the precise procedures. And if there's any difference between what we happen to have and what section 15 is requires, then section 15, state law obviously prevails. So that point is taken if I may respond, but I just think that in third paragraph where it says this application for appeal, I just, I'm not clear that a lay person necessarily reading this knows that this document is the appeal. I mean, maybe they do, maybe they don't, but it's clearly an application for an appeal. And I'm willing to leave it alone. I'm just saying that it seems a bit inconsistent to me when you read the document. I don't think it's necessarily internally coherent unless you say very clearly that this is an application for the appeal. And I suppose it does that in this application for appeal. So I'll just leave it at that. I'm fine with what Mr. Hanlon just said. Yeah, I would just, I agree with the idea of consistency. I just think that this is not an application for an appeal, it's an appeal. Okay. In the background here, I'm going to the zoning board website and clicking on the online portal because I couldn't recall. I'll click on a special services. You can apply for variance. You can apply for a special permit. You cannot apply online and appeal. Similarly, you cannot apply for comprehensive permit online either. Well, we can look more into the, into this question, but certainly the other two applications, the one for special permit and the one for variance have basically been superseded by the online procedure, except that we can cannibalize the language for guidelines. The other thing I did want to look at was our regulations. I've been around for a few years, I don't know if anybody's had a real opportunity to look at it, there are a few places I had wanted to address some things. Basic stuff at the front hasn't changed at all, application procedures. This application process section, I think it's something that we would, once we have a guide document in place, we can either address it all in that document or we need to address in our rules and regulations exactly what the application process is because what we have now is no longer correct. But I can review this a little more with Culling and Offline and then we can come back to it. The coordination with other boards, the pre-hearing process, a lot of this is just capitalization things. So submission of applicable fees. So Culling, does everyone now submit their fees online or do some people still come in and bring a check? There is an option to bring it in, but most times they're still using their credit cards or e-checks. Okay, because one thing that has happened before is that people, they write a check and it's included in the pack, the photocopy is made and included in the package as a proof of having paid and the routing number and check number and the account number are not redacted and then it is just all to that number is then posted online. So I wanna make sure that we're not doing that. So all that information is captured in the application so you can find it, see what check number and what date they paid, but it won't be public. Yeah. Now it usually happens in comprehensive permit application packages. That's where I've seen it. So it's more the applicant doing it to themselves, but. And then we did have a section here on the preparation of the planning memorandum which is no longer happening. So I was proposing to call it a preparation of zoning guidance letter and the building inspector designate to provide a letter to the board outlining the request or request and indicating the sections of the zoning bylaw requiring action by the board. And that's something that Mike has been doing, Mike and Colleen have been putting together on some of our recent hearings. So I just wanna make that change because we're no longer getting a memorandum from the planning department. And as best as I could tell this was the only place that it was required. Under adherence to the decorum, according to state law, we are not allowed to stop people. They have to be the polite. So just pulling that thing else, I assume it's fine. And once we've gone through this, obviously Michael sent a copy to the legal department for review. A couple more capitalizations. So one thing I would draw this came up tonight according to our rules. An applicant withdrawing more than 48 hours before it was drawn without prejudice. But the applicant may further withdraw the application that's before the board up until the time they vote. But this shall, it says in our stuff shall result in the forfeiture of all fees, which would be a with prejudice. Does anybody have any care one way or another if we leave the word shall or should we change it to May? Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. I think that we probably should say may and my reason for it is that frequently the withdrawal of the application is something that is, we'd like tonight, for example, a major thing was that they were getting the relief that they needed and they didn't need to leave something in there for us to deny and then be feeling later on with the notion that the board has taken an adverse action. But occasionally we do when people withdraw an application do something with respect to fees. Sometimes it's preserving rights to come back to us when something is not very ripe. And I know this happens with some of Mr. Nessie's cases in particular and where it's in our interest that they do that as well as their own interests. And in order to make it all work better, we do sometimes waive fees. So I think that shall is more than actually is accurate. And but nobody should count on the fee being waived. Right. And are we the arbiters of waiving or not? I don't remember ever having a discussion where that came up where somebody withdrew. We've sometimes had the question about the question of prejudice or what exactly it means. And I think we've sort of decided in the past that if we say it's with prejudice that we're not returning their money. Mr. Cunningham. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In response to Mr. Dupont's question, I would interpret this as yes, the board is the arbiter. And I agree with Mr. Hanlon. I think that the use of the permissive language may protects the board's discretion in instances where it wants to require the fees be forfeited but not required to. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. If I may just to emphasize is that I don't remember a indication where we said you can withdraw it and we'll give you back the money you already paid. Usually this comes up in the future that you can withdraw it and you can file it without putting, you can refile it later on without paying the fees again. And that has come up. I can recall several cases where we've done that. I think that's more correct. Boarding reconsideration, that option. So. Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? Yeah, Colleen. I didn't see. So like in the case of the one we heard tonight Dorothy Road, they did a variance and a special permit. And then the new system that would charge them $400 each and they just thought it was one application for a hearing. So was there any place in there that says if you need more than one application you will be paying for bills? Or is that not a rule? I hope it's not a rule. Because the new system will charge them for each application. In the past there have been a lot of people who asked why they have to pay twice for one hearing. That's a good question. So is that something, is there a way in the system for the town to, I guess the town would have to reimburse on that $400 if that was the case? Right, there's not a way to just waive it. There is in the system, I don't have the authority but Mike does, he could waive one of them if he wanted to. I don't know if that's something that, is there a reason why we would do that? Or is that standard practice they pay for each application and then that's just how they pay? I'll be honest, I have no idea. Mr. Chairman. I'll be honest, I've been charging them for both. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. What bothers me a little bit about this is that somebody who applies for a permanent invariance, both is not necessarily asking us to do anymore than or the ISD actually to do anymore. It's strictly the legal accident as to whether or not they need a variance or a special permit. We have many special permit cases which have substantial issues, including somewhere, they get to us and we especially find a non-conforming structure issue that nobody has raised before. And they can be easily as expensive. The notion that because they're two separate legal, it was two separate legal authorities, that that should necessarily correlate with how much work is done or the town's actual cost of processing the application doesn't seem right to me. And to the point where I can think of some constitutional cases that raise a question as to whether or not something like that is a proper fee if it's not reasonably related to the town's cost of processing the application. So I would think that the normal rule is that if they're applying for relief, the fact that they include that some of the relief may be for a permit or a variance should not affect the amount that's charged. That said, I'm not sure that that's within our real house anyway, but it does seem unfair to me to do that. Yeah, I guess we should find out what the standard practice, so I know what the, Colleen, you said sort of what the standard practice is now that we're online and I'm curious what the practice was before. For the most part, it kind of depended on who took the application in. Some people at the front desk would take a check for each and others would take one check. And I didn't always go back for the second check on people when they did one, because most times when I said it, they were like, no, it's one hearing, why should I pay for two? Right, for you when you are doing the advertising, do you have to advertise the special permit and the variance separately or are they advertised together? They do get advertised together and it's a little bit more. It's like 280 to three something to do a regular one. You add the variance, the extra words or letters make it more like 340 to advertise. Okay, you almost wanted to pay like one and a half. All right, we can discuss what that should be. Once we begin doing this, we could if we were really going after money, say that if you apply for a special permit based on two provisions of the zoning by-law that you have to pay separately for each provision. Yes, absolutely. That also would increase the length of the notice and would therefore increase the cost. Yeah, as long as we're doing it all on one legal notice with two special permit and the variance listed, then it's much cheaper than doing two separate. Right, so I guess it's more that if the application for the special permit and the variance happens at the same time, it's one thing, but if they happen at separate times, then it needs to be something different. Right. I'll have to figure out how to try to make that work. The chair will note out remember one case in which Mr. Chairman, I remember one case up on Highland Street, which had a special permit and a variance that actually were instead of being all consolidated into one thing were actually processed as if they were two entirely separate applications. And we ended up granting one and not the other. And we never heard them both on the same night. I guess I can recall one night was the special permit one, the other night was the variance one. There it does seem to me appropriate. I mean, in some ways the applicants who say, wait a minute, there's one hearing as long as it's only one hearing, why am I paying two fees is sort of showing that sometimes it's mostly it's all one hearing, but occasionally it's not. Right, in that case specifically, the variance had absolutely nothing to do with the special permit. Like they were completely separate. Right, I'll talk to Mike Ciampa about that, to what he thinks. So the rest of this I can revise and get back out to the board if there's any more questions and then run it by Mr. Cunningham as well. Yeah, cause I walked through all those. Okay. Are there any other? Oh, so the only other, so that was it, I think for our documents. Are there any other questions about sort of the documentation we have or things that we need? Mr. Chairman, this is really more meta than that, but I would very much like after a certain disinherable say nine months after we do this to try to figure out some way like all of the businesses that we relate to of getting surveys back and getting a sense of what it looks like from the people who are, from the point of view of the people who are doing applications, how easy this is to work with, where people have problems if they do have problems and so forth, to get some feedback basically from the customers, so to speak, to see whether or not this is working in the way in which we attend to facilitate the applications and make everything work more smoothly both from our point of view and from that of the public. Certainly try to figure out how to do that. I know we've brought that up in the past. We haven't done much on it. Mr. Chairman. Yeah, no, especially now that we've got a whole new system that might be helpful. Mr. Moore, did you have a question? I was just thinking that you could, upon granting of a permit, or I'm sorry, an appeal of a permit or a variance or whatever, you could either make that request or make that a requirement. There's no reason you can't add that as a condition, a return of a survey on process and it would have to be kind of a standardized thing that everyone had to do, but it might wanna, I know force is the wrong word, but you might wanna make sure that happens because a bunch of months later, their memories are not gonna be particularly clear. You wanna get them having just gone through the process, what their views are on the process. So that might be helpful. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Mr. Chair. Yeah. A lot, a lot of the people that we have done stuff with this past year send emails and I could forward them. Most of them, thank the board, thank the process, glad that everything's happened so well. And so, I haven't been supporting them one at a time to everybody, but I'm more than happy to if they wanna see them. I can probably go back and find quite a few of them from this year. Yeah, that would certainly be helpful, especially if they have any pointers on anything. And then the last thing I wanted to talk briefly about tonight, so the town meeting warrant is gonna open in January and the process for that starts now in terms of the board starting to talk about what they might wanna include, if there are any changes to the bylaws. And so, Mr. Cunningham, hand up fast. Sorry, Mr. Chair. The warrant actually opens in December. I believe it's December 8th. Oh, it does. It closes in January. Okay. So, at the time that we were doing the Mount Vernon Street case, there was the whole question about whether the difference between a building being attached and detached and that sort of there being a gap, quite literally in the bylaw between the two. And we had flagged that as something we thought that the ARV should look at the ARV deferred past the fall, because the fall was already pretty busy, but I've asked them to reconsider this and possibly some other things. So the chair of the ARV asked if I could put together a list and come and talk to the ARV about it. So I had a few different items that I wanted to sort of put out there and see if there were other ones the board thought might be helpful. So the first one was that question attached versus detached and trying to make a little more consistency in that. The second one I had flagged is in the section of the bylaw on accessory dwelling units. It's the only place in the bylaw where there are bullets and things are not lettered and it gets difficult to refer to, oh, it's in 592B1 bullet three sub A or something. So asking them to possibly re-letter that section so that it makes more sense. And then subsequent to that, I had asked them to take, it had come up the average setback exception to the minimum front yards. So that section is written that it includes the word vacant lots. So it sort of implies that if you have a lot that's already developed, that it wouldn't apply. So I just want to clarify from the ARB whether that's the intent or whether it's supposed to apply to all cases. So that's something that I wanted them to look at as well. And then I wanted to, the she had written back and said that they're going to be looking at the Arlington Heights Business Overlay District to something they're looking at for the spring. But I wanted to see if there were any other things that the board, the members of the board have sort of come across in their research on the zoning bylaws or in our work here on the board. There's anything else they think that deserve the ARB's attention in terms of reconsidering in the zoning bylaw. The other one that I'd mentioned to them is the residential parking guideline, residential parking section is a horror show. I'm not entirely sure if we're going to get to that this cycle, but it's just definitely something that needs some serious consideration. If there's any other sections of the zoning bylaw that people think are in need of assistance. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I don't think this is quite ready yet, but in recent cases on a couple of occasions we've been, we've had our attention directed to the flooding provision of the bylaw, and which seems to me to have been drafted at a point where there was, we may not have had a sufficiently robust wetlands bylaw and the conservation commission may not have had the capabilities that it has today. And, but being in, after an issue has been decided as it was recently by the conservation commission to be sort of saying, well, that's okay for them, but the zoning bylaw is quite different and you have to do something else. Eventually those things all have to come together to support a single policy towards flooding at wetlands and actually I think in most respects the conservation commission is a more capable body to do that than we are. And I would like to see some thought may be given through joint work between the two commissions to come up with something that more clearly delineates whose responsibility is which and avoids the possibility of applicants or others attempting to turn one body against the other by interpreting them without reference to one another. I don't know, I have no idea what the answer to that is, but it just doesn't seem like it's a structure that is up to date or that is conducive to an effective program. Yeah. And so that would be 57, which is the flood plain district in 58, which is the inland wetland district. Right. Both sort of in that same category. Right. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Dupont. So very briefly and again, not to be too nitpicky. And I think Mr. Hanlon has addressed this correctly before when we talk about the accessory dwelling units and the reference to you can have an accessory dwelling unit. And if it's within six feet of the lot mine, then you can have it allowed by a special permit. However, the way it's worded seems to me to be if the building is located, it almost suggests that it already exists. And I know we did have this conversation a little bit. And I don't think that it makes sense to deny something because you want to build a new accessory building. But I would just point out that if you go into the zoning bylaw and you look at the district yard and open space requirements, you see accessory buildings. And it clearly says, you know, that there are side yard and rear yard setback requirements of six feet. Now, if you then go to 5.4, 0.2B, 7, where it's the garages and it says they don't they don't private detached garages need not conform to a side yard and or rear yard setback. So we know that despite what it says in those open space, yard and open space requirements, that there is the exception to build a garage, right? So we have that that's there. So you could go build a garage. And I think we talked about this before. You shouldn't necessarily have to engage in a ploy where you say, oh, okay, I'm building a garage. Now it's next to the lot line. Now I'm going to convert it to accessory dwelling unit. However, I don't think that the language maybe is clear enough in 5.9.2B bullet point 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5. I do think that, you know, we could tidy that up somehow to say that if such accessory building is located or is to be located, something simple to just try to, you know, address the concept that, you know, it doesn't have to be pre-existing, that it can be constructed. I don't know what the best language is for that. But, you know, also in the district yard and open space requirements, it's got just above that. It says C.5.4.2B for exceptions. You could also include in there plus 5.9.2 as an exception as well and sort of just try to tie it all together. So, I don't know, I just thought of it from the perspective of somebody who was looking at this for the first time and they started out with the, you know, the yard setback requirements. You might come away not realizing that if you want to build an ADU, you're allowed to do it. And again, you know, without belaboring the point. So maybe something could be done to tidy up 5.9.2. Okay. Any other thoughts? Mr. Cunningham has got his hand up. Yep. Mr. Chair, just for clarification on the timeline, the warrant for the 2024 annual town meeting opens on December 8th and closes on January 26th. And I'm happy to serve as a resource for the board on any of the issues discussed tonight or any others. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Yeah. So the ZBA is not allowed to put things on the warrant by itself. We have to go through the ARB or through the select board or attend voter signatures. So, right, the ARB is the easier way to go. All right. Well, if anybody has any other ideas, let me know and I still need to touch base with the chair of the ARB as to when they want to have this conversation. So, Mr. Chair, can I ask a question? We'll figure that one out. Mr. Moore. Thank you. Has there ever been consideration by either your board or the ARB more likely and appropriately, the ARB, a consideration of safe harbor guidelines for annual changes to a particular set of regulations? And I don't mean zoning as a regulation type. I mean specific aspects of the zoning regulation. I've noticed that now we're getting annual, I don't know, annual desires to change the regulations year after year. And the time we can take some up and vote some up or down or whatever on a regular basis. And I just, it might make sense for the ARB to consider some sort of safe harbor guidelines to put that off so it can happen annually, maybe every other year to reconsider certain things. And I know that's a little bit beyond your purview. So, but this just occurred to me when I was thinking of the regulations which guide zoning, this has been a big zoning year and I'm not sure where things might have gotten voted down or sideways or whatever that they necessarily should be taken up again next year, maybe the year after or something like that. But just a thought, I know it's sort of outside the, it's outside the box a little bit of what we're talking about. So, sorry. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Cunningham, my recollection, and I'd like to know whether Mr. Cunningham agrees with it is that if an adverse action is taken by town meeting, then it can't come back to town meeting for a certain period of time. I've forgotten exactly what it is unless the ARB allows it to come back. Is that basically right, Mr. Cunningham? I believe it is correct. I think it's two years, Mr. Hanlon. I'm not sure. I'd want to check that to be sure, but I think there is a safe harbor pursuant to adverse action that can't be brought up immediately. It might be three years or two. Okay. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. That sounds like it already is in place. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, you're welcome. There it goes. All right. Think of that. So, yeah, so if anybody has anything else they want, they think I should discuss with the ARB, just send me an email. Let me know. So, with that, that is everything we had on our agenda for tonight. Make sure. Oh, Mr. Chair, an additional comment. Mr. Moore, I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate Mr. Cunningham on his ascension to the council seat in a permanent kind of fashion. And that's all. Just wanted to recognize that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. All right, so we have covered everything on our agenda for tonight. The next meeting of the board is scheduled for Tuesday, November 28th at 7.30 p.m. We now are down to two items on our docket for that night. What is the continuation of 212 Pleasant Street? And the other is a new hearing for 54 Mary Street. And in addition, I'm assuming we will also have a vote on the decision in regards to the case we heard this evening on Dorothy Road. So unless there is any other business that anyone on the board would like to bring forward, I'll go ahead and close the meeting. Mr. Chair, just real quick. The appeal of the building inspector that was on the online agenda, that's no longer on our agenda for the next meeting. So we had talked about this briefly at the start. The appeal was to the issuance of a building permit by another party. That other party has requested that the building permit be withdrawn. And so we are figuring out exactly how to handle this as a matter, but it is our understanding that it will not come before the board on the 28th. Thanks, Alex. Okay, so with that, I would like to thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Euroneum Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. I would especially like to thank Colleen Ralston and Mike Champa and Michael Cunningham for their assistance in preparing for and hosting and assisting us for this online meeting. Please note the purpose of the board's recording of the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of the proceedings and it's 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.erlington.ma.us. That email address is also listed on the ZBA website and to conclude tonight's meeting, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, so moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Second. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. So we'll call vote of the board to adjourn, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holley. Aye. Mr. Rucadelli. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. Mr. LeBlanc. Aye. And the chair votes aye. The board is adjourned. Thank you all very much. I will see you all on the 28th. Happy Thanksgiving, guys. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you all. Thank you all. Bye. Good night. Good night, everyone.