 Okay, so it is 733 p.m. on Tuesday, February 13th, 2024. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein. I am the chair of the Earrington Zoning Board of Appeals. I am calling this meeting of the Board to order. First, like to confirm all members and anticipated officials are present from the Board of Appeals. Roger Dupont. Here. Patrick Hamlin. Here. Then get Holly. Here. Lane Hoffman. Here. And Adam LeBlanc. Here. And Daniel Rercudelli has a conflict, but he'll be joining us later this evening when he is available. Joining us officials from the town. We have Colleen Ralston, our zoning assistant. Here. Good to have you with us. And we have Michael Cunningham Town Council. Here. Thank you for being here. Then appearing for Docket 3779, 9 Morton Road, Kate and Anthony Gregorio. Here. Good to see you. Appearing for Docket 3782, 53 Lansdowne Road. We have Rebecca and Timothy Center. Here. Good to have you with us. Here. Appearing for Docket 3778, 11 Ronald Road. Catherine Alexander. She submitted a letter. So I do not believe she's in attendance this evening. And appearing on Docket 3781, 165 Franklin Street. They've Kristen Germano or Gregory Salamascus. Here. Here. Great. Thank you for joining us. So this open meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with an act making appropriations for the fiscal year 2023 to provide for supplementing certain existing appropriations and for certain other activities and projects signed into law on March 29, 2023. This act includes an extension until March 31, 2025, the remote meeting provisions of Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. So this is 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. 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 video conference. Others are participating by computer audio or by telephone. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name or another identifier. Please take care to not share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you to please maintain decorum during the meeting, including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website, unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda. In this chair, I reserve the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. As the board will be taking up new business at this meeting, as chair, I make the following land acknowledgement. Whereas the zoning board of appeals for the town of Arlington, Massachusetts discusses and arbitrate the use of land in Arlington, formerly known as monotomy, an Algonquin word meaning swift waters. The board here by acknowledges the town of Arlington is located on the ancestral lands of the Massachusetts tribe, the tribe of indigenous peoples from whom the colony province and commonwealth have taken their names. We pay our respects to the ancestral bloodline of the Massachusetts tribe and their descendants who still inhabit historic Massachusetts territories today. Moving to our agenda items two through six are administrative and I will be shifting those to the end so we can move directly to public hearings and tonight's public hearings will be heard in the following order. First we'll do 3779 Morton Road, then 3778 11 Ronald Road, then 378253 Lansdowne Road, which is a continuance and then 3781 165 Franklin Street. So before opening the meeting for public hearings, here are some ground rules for effective and clear the conduct of tonight's business. After I announce each agenda item, I will ask the applicant to introduce themselves for themselves and make their presentations to the board. I'll then request that members of the board ask what questions they have on the proposal after the board's questions have been answered. I will open the meeting for public comment at the conclusion of public comment. The board will deliberate and vote on the matter. Any vote taken at this hearing will be preliminary until the written decision is approved by the board at a subsequent meeting. All votes will be conducted by roll call vote. Under state law, no decision granted by this board shall take effect until a certified copy of the final decision has been filed with and recorded at the Middlesex South Registry of Deeds in Cambridge by the applicant. So with that, I will open the hearing, or I would say reopen the hearing for DACA 3779 Morton Road. So this, we continue this at the end of last hearing because there were some questions for the applicant in regards to the, what they were proposing for an accessory structure, accessory dwelling unit at the rear of their property. And so if they could address the board and let us know where they stand today. Hi, everyone. Nice to see you again. I'm Kate Gregorio and my husband, Anthony. Great to see you. Thank you for the time. We at this point, we'd just like to ask for continuance we are sort of going a little bit back to the drawing board on our end given all the feedback and the considerations. We now have a full picture of and so we will look to be in communication with Colleen about the plans as they develop. We are going to start working with a general contractor to develop some blueprints and we'll be able to bring those to the board with us. Next time we see you. Okay. So we're happy to continue. We do need to continue to a specific date. So I wasn't sure if you had a sense as to how much time you would be looking for. Maybe not the next meeting, but the one after that would be a good enough time for us to sort of get things going. So March 12 would be a month from now. That would be great. Okay. Are there any questions from the board. With that, I would. It's accept the motion to continue the hearing for nine Morton road to Tuesday. March 12, 2024 at 730 PM. Mr chairman so moved. Thank you, Mr handle in a second. Second. Thank you, Mr. the blank. So as a vote of the board to continue the hearing for nine Morton road to Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 730 PM. Roger Dupont. I'm not hearing this, Mr chairman, this particular item. Oh, I beg your pardon. Thank you. Okay. I forgot that you were not present at the prior hearing. Thank you. Patrick Hamlin. Yes. Hi, I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here. I'm not here. Hi. I'm not here. Hi. Hi. I'm not here. Hi. Hi. So we are continued on nine more and wrote until Tuesday, March 12, 2024. Thank you. Thank you. With that, we've moved to the next item we're taking up on the agenda, which is. So there is a letter in the. In Novus posted to the town in regards to this application upon further review of the application between the town and the applicant has been determined that a special permit is not required for the work that they're proposing to do. And therefore they do not need relief from this board. And so they have requested that their application be withdrawn. Unfortunately, the request was it was a determination was made within 48 hours of our hearing. So it was not able to be just withdrawn administratively. So the board does need to vote. So the chair would accept a motion to withdraw the variance request for nine Morton road. Excuse me. Excuse me. 11. That's not Ronald road. Christian. Yes. I'm one of the neighbors. To Catherine and there was no specifics as to what the variance or what she is exactly. Applying for could you give me some clarification. Sure, I'd be happy to. So the applicant at 11 Ronald road. They had done a bunch of landscaping at the front. They currently have a set of stairs leading up to an entrance at the first floor. They're proposing to remove that structure and replace it with a deck at the level of their first floor at the front of the house. The deck does not extend more than 10 feet from the foundation line. And it is not covered. And therefore, under the zoning bylaws, it does not require a special permit. It can be built by right. And so that is what they're going to be constructing. Okay. Thank you for the clarification. Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you for asking the question. So again, so this is a, the chair would accept a motion to accept the withdrawal the special permit request for 11 Ronald road. Mr chairman so moved. Thank you. Thank Mr. DuPont. So vote of the board. Mr DuPont. Hi. Hi. Hi. The Rick Adele is not present. Ms. Hoffman. Hi. Bill Blank. Hi. And the chair votes. Hi. So the special permit request for 11 Ronald road has been with from. Okay, so that brings us to do docket 378 to 53 lands down road. There's a continuance of a prior hearing, which we heard at our January 23rd. meeting. And so with that, I would ask the applicants to reintroduce themselves and. Tell us where we are today. Hey, good evening, Mr chair. Can everybody hear me fine. We can. Great. Thank you. My name is Bill Nolan from Savoy Nolan architects. I'm here representing Becca and Tim center, the owners of the property. Also with us today. We have David Crispin, who is our land surveyor and civil engineer. And Russ Boussa is our contractor. So we received. So just wanted to inform the board that we have changed directions with regards to our, our hardship. And Becca has a prepared a presentation for you, which, which she will do. But we also wanted to address a comment that was sent to us by Colleen. In the interim between last meeting and this meeting, regarding the status of the lots, whether they are separate together. So, Dave Crispin sent a letter to Colleen, I sent it to her to her email and not through the portal. So I think she got it late, but she did end up getting it yesterday. Hopefully that was passed on to you guys. But Dave, Dave's here to kind of explain in a little bit more detail. I think Becca actually has some information as well. She spoke with her real estate attorney. So, Dave, if you're here. You want to address the, the lot issue, please. I am here. Just for the record that the letter was received and it was posted to Novus so it is available online. Great. Thank you. Good evening. I don't want to take a lot of your time up with this. I've been doing this for a long time. And I believe the board would be more than familiar with the merger doctrine. This is pretty well documented. And basically what that says is if a lot has 5000 square feet and 50 feet of frontage, if it's located in a single resident zone. And if it was created conforming to zoning at the time. So those questions are yes. And if it was not, if it was, if it was not separately held. In this case, we have two lots, two parcels side by side that have been in common ownership for 78 years. The house was built in 40 and in fact the house that's standing there now is about four feet onto one of the second parcels. In my mind, these lots of parcels are clearly one lot for zoning purposes and should be treated as such. And that's basically what my letter said. Just another comment because assessors maps are commonly misunderstood with this assessors maps are only intended for assessment purposes only. We can talk about this a little more if you like, but that's that's my story. Are there any questions from the board specifically in relation to that letter. Chairman, Mr. Hanlon. I just wondered if what Mr was asked to say about the zoning bylaws definition of a lot. Because at least one of the cases that is cited by the DHCD memorandum that is summarized to length in his letter emphasizes that the general rule is that you don't look at the title unless and they've had the official way in which this is put in the record books, unless the zoning ordinance or the zoning bylaw so requires. And in that particular case they went into the whole issue depended upon interpretation of the local bylaw. The bylaw says a lot is an area where parcel of land or any part thereof, not including water area in common ownership, designated on a plan filed with the inspector of buildings by its owner, or owners as a separate lot, and having boundaries identical with those recorded in the middle sex county registry of deeds. Mr. Murphy, it's not quite like saying the lot is exactly what is treated as one lot in the registry of deeds. But it's not the very general language that is in the that is is in the section 40 a. And as I say some of the cases seem to indicate that the language of the local bylaw is important. And I wonder if Mr. Boosa has a view on how it is that we should be interpreting the town's bylaw. Mr. Chris speaking again. I'm sorry I made a mistake. That's okay. I don't see any difference between what you just read and what the state law says. And the keyword there is common ownership. This parcel has been in common ownership for 78 years. The building is on both of the lots at the same time for zoning purposes. This is one lot. I guess Mike, what I'd like you to address is the language having boundaries identical with those recorded in the middle sex county registry of deeds. And this has exactly that this is registered land actually these parcels are exactly precisely recorded on registry and those two parcels comprise one watt. I see so you're basically your interpretation is that there's no deviation. The fact that they're the boundaries are what they are. And the treating them as one lot as opposed to two doesn't have anything to do with the language about the boundaries being identical because there's no deviation. It's just that you're amalgamating them. Is that racially right? That's one way of putting it I guess. Yeah. Okay. Sorry just to speak this is back a center owner. I also did some research on this I talked to the real estate attorney who helped us close on the property originally and his interpretation is that even though they're listed as two parcels we have one deed and there's nothing legally that there we would need to do to officially combine them because they are already as such. And then I also talked to the tax assessor in Erlington and their opinion was that they're they're one lot and we have two real estate bills because they're two parcels but we could very easily combine them with a simple letter asking the town to do so and are happy to do so but it there was nothing that indicated that they were two different blocks. And the two bills is not uncommon. Anything further Mr. Hamlin. No, I guess I'm feeling, I feel a little better from what the center said because anything that it's simply a matter of their going through a formality in order to create something that is exactly what is required seems to me to be close enough to take this issue out of the out of the the case and put this on to what to what qualifies for a variance. So I'm okay with this. Okay. Are there any questions from any of the other board members this stage, if not okay so then this returns us back to with the initial question, which is that this is a request for a variance. The applicant is requesting that the proposal structure extend into the front setback, which would not otherwise be allowed to do. And this is an issue because this is a being existing home is intended to be completely removed and a new structure created in its place so this is being treated as a new structure rather than as a renovation. Correct. Yes. I think Becca has present prepared a presentation for you guys. So I'll hand it over to her. Okay. Colleen, can you go ahead and give her permission to share. Can everyone see my screen. Yes. Okay, excellent. So thank you all for the opportunity to continue this discussion. We definitely took the key points from our previous discussion to heart and had some internal discussions in the interim time between last meeting in this meeting. And are here to present what hopefully is a bit clearer of definition for why we are requesting a variance to our front setback at 53 lens down. And please stop me if you have any questions as we move through this. And so I thought maybe I would start by just giving you a bird's eye view of what we, what our property is like on lands down road because I think a lot of that goes into why we are in fact having this discussion today. And so our lot 53 lands down road is 110 feet. Long by 64 feet deep. We are in zoning district are one where we currently have a single family home, which as you can see in this. This image here is on the north side of the property. Our current house has a front setback of nine feet and two inches. The south side of the property, which is here, we currently use as our backyard and open space are some plays here all time. And as you can see on lands down road, which is here in this image here, our lot here is at 53. This is consistent with our neighbor who is at 57 lands down road where we have our houses situated on one side of our property. And we use our side yard essentially as our backyard specifically because both of our lots are quite shallow. One of the things that's important to note about land town road is that it actually is a relatively steep hill. And so you drive up the road up this deep hill and it begins cresting at the top and terminates in a dead end. The hill crests sort of in line with our neighbor at 57. So we're still significantly uphill here at 53. This actually creates some unique topography to our particular lot. And so with this image here, which hopefully just demonstrates a bit more now compared to our last conversation. The part of the law, which is the south side over here, which we use as our open, our open backyard space actually has a very steep grade. It's a greater than 8% grade. Whereas the north side of the property, which is designated with this sort of hash red area here is a much flatter grade less than 8%. And as you can see, that's where our current house sits. I assume that when it was built back in 1940, that's why it was built where it was because that's the flat part of the flat part of the lot. And so when we were beginning the design process for this new construction home, we also decided that the best place to keep the house would be to keep it on the flat side of the lot, which is located over here. The reasons for that there are several obviously in order to achieve the scope of the house that we are hoping to get by doing this entire process. It made sense to keep it on this side. The other thing we considered was because the current house is already situated on this side of the lot, keeping the new house in the same location would minimize construction site work burden because there is already a hole there because we have foundation there. And the other thing that was important to us is that by keeping the house on this side of the lot, it would maintain our current neighborhood character and minimize disruption to our neighbors because as we move to put in a new foundation and dig, the current house was already here. And so we're not starting from scratch and digging up an area that literally has never been done before. We understand that the zoning bylaws require our front setback to be 25 feet. However, our lot is only 64 feet deep. Therefore, if you take into account what we must maintain from a rear setback perspective, this gives us only 26.1 feet of usable depth for a house, which is not very much. If we were required to do that, as you can imagine the front setback being much further back than we are currently planning and accounting for rear setback, we would be forced to build a very long and narrow house, which would likely take up the vast majority of our open lot in order to achieve the same square footage. So, why are we here today? The reason we're here today is to request a variance to provide relief for this 25 foot setback regulation, which is set forth in 5.4.2 of the zoning bylaw in order to build a new construction house on our existing property. We understand after our conversation from the last meeting that there are 3 distinct criteria that must be met in order to implement a variance. And we'll talk through each of these criteria in detail and how we believe that we satisfy these based on our currently designed plan. They obviously criteria 1 is it must relate to the soil conditions, the shape or the topography of the length of question criteria 2. If that a literal enforcement of this 25 foot bylaw would involve substantial hardship, financial or otherwise, and that criteria 3. Such relief, if granted, should not be without substantial detriment to public good and without nullify or substantially derogating the intent or purpose of the bylaw. And so we'll move on to each of these criteria in relation to this particular project. So, criteria 1, obviously, as you're all familiar is that we must have a condition for hardship that relates to the soil conditions, the shape or the topography of such land. I just want to know by bringing up this map of our neighborhood that the majority of the houses on Lansdowne. So this is Lansdowne here. The majority of the houses on Lansdowne road are big lots that actually are oriented perpendicular to the road. So they have the narrow portion on facing Lansdowne road and the vast majority of their land runs deep away from the street. As you can see here, we are in that the long axis of our particular lot actually runs parallel to the road. And therefore we are particularly impacted by being held to a 25 foot setback requirement because our lot is long here and very shallow here. Despite this and the fact that most of the lots on Lansdowne road actually are quite deep, there are very few if any lots that actually have a setback that is 25 feet. In fact, the vast majority of the properties are much, much closer than that to the road. And so what we're faced with in our particular situation is not just that our lot is wide and shallow. It's the fact that it's the combination of the fact that our lot is very narrow in terms of depth, but also situated on a hill. That would require us if we were if we were faced with having to maintain a 25 foot setback would lead us to create this long and narrow house, which would extend a much larger portion of the house onto the very sloped region of our land, which is greater than 8% slopes. And in fact, the bylaws themselves recognize that slope land greater than 8% is actually difficult topography to make use of. And so we believe that that really is our rationale for satisfying criteria one is that we're going to have to put a whole portion of this house onto a very steep piece of land if we need to maintain a 25 foot setback on our particularly shallow lot. In terms of criteria 2, as I said, it's the combination of both the shape and the topography of our lot that results that could result in the construction of a very long house on a slope portion of our land. This would significantly increase the cost of the project. We would in order to make that happen. We've talked through it as a team. Significant additional bill would need to be brought on site in order to make the south side of the property, which currently is quite sloped more level because we need to ensure that the planned basement is not considered floor. And in order to maintain the garage under the house, which is how it currently is situated and which would be in keeping with the design standards. It also should be noted that the current plan that we're proposing, which would leave the house on the north side of property actually does not require additional bill to be brought on site. If we did need to make this long narrow house retaining walls would need to be bills likely along the entire south side of the property as well as the majority of the road facing side of the property in order to appropriately retain this fell. These would need to be constructed with appropriate reinforcement. And as good neighbors, we would not be not want these walls to just be very stark concrete. We'd need to make them look aesthetically pleasing, which would add cost by making adding stone is hot. The cost difference for this alteration is estimated to be between $75,000 to $100,000 above what our current construction estimate is, which we find unduly burdensome and honestly would go well beyond what we're financially able to support for this project. And then third, obviously, we believe that the plan we proposed to you actually uses the land in the best way. We're keeping the house in the same location that it currently is, which minimizes changes to the site does not artificially change drainage and also maintains the look of the neighborhood. It's consistent with Arlington design standards, which is that our current the house that we're proposing would have consistency with the current street elevation. In fact, our house would be the house that we're proposing actually moves it further back from the road, which means that closer in line with our neighbor at 57. If it was a 25 foot setback, it actually would be an outlier on the street because no one else is that far. A more condensed footprint, which is what we've designed actually leaves all this open space and allows for more natural light on site. And in doing so also allows us to keep our garage under the house, which is desirable for off street parking consideration. We actually in addition are improving the existing conditions of the property. We currently have a non conforming north side setback, which is only 3.8 feet from the property line closest to our neighbor at 57. We plan to correct this through the new construction. Additionally, and the point I want to note strongly is that the plan design actually improves the front setback from its current location. So the current house is 9 feet 2 inches from the road. The proposed house is 16 feet 6 inches from the road with an 11 feet 6 inch covered porch. This is very consistent with the rest of the street. And in addition, obviously building a nicer house increases the surrounding property values of our neighbors and the tax base for the town. And so we this is why we are requesting variance to provide relief for the 25 foot setback regulation set forth in the zoning bylaw for this new construction. This is just a picture of what we're planning to build. You saw this last time. I think we all agreed that this is a really nice looking project. We'll maintain what the look of the houses in the area are. It maintains open space that our kids can play in the yard. And we believe that it is consistent with the purpose of the Arlington bylaws. And then it does not negatively take away from the intent of those bylaws. And so the last thing that I would say is we also considered obviously I understand that the board does not take lightly to granting variances. I understand that. And so we considered the scenario where you don't feel comfortable granting this variance. So obviously, as we mentioned, building a long narrow house, which would take up almost all of our open space is not something that we feel comfortable doing. It would be an outlier in the neighborhood. And so we feel the most logical solution. If this variance isn't granted would be to develop a similar project in the same location, but we need to use the existing foundation to do so. Which we feel is not ideal on several fronts, both for us as the owners, but also to the neighborhood community. The current house, the existing foundation is concrete block, which is not used in today's building practices. In order to build the house of the scope that we're looking to build, it would require additional reinforcing to support these additional levels. Our current basement height is quite low and we need additional structure to bring it into today's standards. As I mentioned, we have a garage, which is currently under the house. It's important for us to retain that. So we have lost free parking. Our current pitch of our driveway. I think we mentioned this during the last meeting the current pitching the driveway is quite deep. And it makes it really difficult to drive into the driveway and also we have had issues with storm water entering the house because it slopes very steeply towards the house. And if the slab where we were forced to keep the slab height in the same position, it would be hard to fix this. And I should note in our current plan, we actually have made a solution which we described last time, which actually creates almost no slope to our driveway to be a huge improvement. And of course, using this existing foundation and the structural support we would need to put into it to maintain the house would be more expensive and it would maintain foundation that is updated. And in terms of the neighborhood and the community impact, if we were to keep the existing footprint of the house, it would maintain this very close north side setback, which we are trying to improve because if you remember from the GIS map, we are the closest on that side to our neighbor at 57. And obviously, if we were forced to do this as well, but this would be even closer than what we're asking to do now. And so we really feel like the variance, while I understand not always the easiest thing to get granted actually improves from where we currently are. And so with that, I would just say thank you for letting us share the rationale for this project and why we've come to you with the variance on a personal note. No, obviously we're hoping to be able to do this project. We spent a lot of time and effort to design it saved money over every year that we've lived in this house. We have a young son he just turned five yesterday. We'd like for him to go to kindergarten and straighten this year. There are three other little boys who are also five on our dead end street who will also go to straighten this year. And so we're just trying to do something that suits our families needs in the long term but also does not negatively impact our neighbors and the neighborhood. So thank you. I'd be happy to take any questions. Okay, thank you so much for that. Could you go back to the first slide. Yep. That's the one that has the grades on it. Yeah. Sorry, one sorry the second the next one sorry. So. So this is showing the proposed house. In the dark line and then the red hash is the area that is less than 8% grade. I wanted to ask Mr. Crispin. If there is sufficient land area after the construction of the house to meet the usable open space requirement. Excuse me, Mr. No, Mr. Nolan. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If I could share my screen. I updated the usable square footage. The answer is yes. And if I could share my screen. I have an updated graphic on that. If you could go ahead and do that. You're all set. Great. Thank you, Colleen. Sure. Okay. Yeah, so I've updated that review the review the the bylaw again and we can have a we can have a portion of the usable open space on on a sloped lot. And that's what we have here. It's close. Now in reality, this whole yard is used for open space and they do use it, but by the definition of the law, we do meet it. A small percentage is part of a covered porch, which is allowed I think 75% has to be open open to above sky to above. And a small percentage of the open spaces on the slope, which is, which is allowed. Again, 75% has to be on there. I did the calculations and the math here. It checks out so we're not before the board asking for any relief on the open usable space and we will need to meet that or we'll beat back in front of you asking for relief on that. But just just to prove to you that we did look at it and everything that I see meet we meet the definition of it. Okay. Yeah, I just want to confirm because obviously this plan doesn't have the contour lines on it so it's difficult to assess. And the prior plan has the has the contours but doesn't have this area marked out so I'm just trying to sort of get a sense because, you know, as the as the homeowner said, you know, this part of the parcel is sloped to such an extent that it creates a hardship. So I wanted to confirm that it wasn't so much. You know, it wasn't so sloped that it was unable to be used as usable open space. Yeah, so by the definition of the the regulations it's over 8% that we calculated, but where we have enough of it on the flat area that it qualifies for it. Most of it's actually in a patio space that where we're going to be leveling off a little bit anyways. Okay. Hopefully that answers your question. It does. It does. And then a second question that. So the I'm assuming based on the discussion about the garage that the basement level is being raised. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah, and it's, it's actually slightly, this is where the hill actually does work in our favor, because the garage is slightly moving down slow. The combination of raising the garage a little bit and moving it more down the slope allows us to have a much shallower pitch to the house. Which is easier to mitigate the drainage to. And then in terms of the, the level of the first floor relative to the average grade. Do you have a dimension on that? I just want to confirm that we're not accidentally making that lowest level of story by raising it. Right. Great catch. Thank you. And we're not. Okay. Yeah, so the existing first floor. I'm sorry, the basement slab will be less than. Less than 4, 4 foot 6 of it will be exposed. Therefore, it won't be classified as a. As a story. And again, I just to reiterate what Becca said during her presentation. That becomes significantly harder to do the further we move down the hill. Necessitating excessive fill and potentially retaining walls. The other thing I'd want to point out to is the way that the building department looks at. At land is it's not, it's not the land that touches the, the, the face of the wall. It's 6 feet out. So not only are you. You know, filling you're filling 6 feet out in order to maintain that. The elevation that we need. So, so it is a significant amount of fill. And then just a question about the nature of the ground there. So, is it primarily ledge or is it. Loose or what, what is sort of the nature of the. The ground there, Dave, that, that's a Mr. Crispin question. We have, we have sent into some chess pits out there and it is a. A silty gravel to a depth of about 10 feet. So we're in good shape. We are proposing a catch basin on site to handle all the storm flow that the house. And current property will. So that's another, another, I think, benefit to the, to the neighborhood is that where we now, we now will have control over all storm water. On the site. So those were the structures that were on the, the plan that the center had, correct? Yeah. Yes. Questions from other members of the board. Mr. Hanlon to congratulate the center on her presentation and request that she's that the applicant submit the submit the PowerPoint presentation. To us so that we can follow when, and ultimately when an opinion is written to take fully into consideration all the things she said. And I hope that would be okay. Question I have, we've, we've sort of got a, you've got this house there's a possibility that you'd have to make something completely. You have to meet the bylaw and the difficulties of doing that and the center described. And another possibility is just to stick to the same foundation and the disadvantages of that have been described. But this is a 4500 square foot house, which is a pretty good size. And there's nothing in the zoning by law that says that that you have to be able to achieve the full, make in order to avoid having a hardship. And I wonder whether what would happen how if you if you were going to read to renovate in the sense that you're building a new structure, you can't build 4500 square feet in a sensible way because that because that has all the disadvantages that have been described. Where is it that you get to the point where you could build it, it obviously would be a hardship because it would be considerably less valuable than what you're proposing to do. But, you know, could you do 3500 square feet 3000 square feet. There's nothing more than you're currently doing where does it sort of switch where it's not where suddenly it's it's practical even if it's less than fully desirable to to build something something new. I get that this design wouldn't work in that way but I just sort of like the record to sort of deal with that possibility that you just built a somewhat smaller house. And I'll be honest and say that my husband and I spent more time than our design team would like thinking about the size of the house. For me, it really comes down to the footprint of where we've landed is I am not sure if we could get to a smaller square footage by decreasing the footprint of the house because I think that the orientation of how we have designed at least the first floor in particular to have an open living space between the kitchen and living room such that their position on the side of the property with the sunlight best. I don't think there's a way for us to reduce the footprint of the house and achieve the something that we would want to build if that makes sense. Thank you. Yeah, I think the living space, I believe is closer to 3400 square feet was my understanding actually are you counting the basement with that. I'm just, I was just relying on the number in your application for gross square footage. Okay. So gross square footage takes into a little bit more into than than complete living space it you have to include the basement spaces and I believe garage to the the only thing that you don't include is mechanical spaces if I if I remember it correctly. Yeah, I will say that that is one of the more complex formulas to generate space so so if I'm if I'm stating it, I apologize. Living living finished living area though we're about 3500 square feet, which is, you know, again, in keeping with the majority of the houses in that neighborhood. There's also a certain price point. You know, I don't know if we need to get into or want to get into the economics of the property to but Arlington is a, you know, it's a sought after place to live and and these properties and houses sold a certain value. This I believe is in keeping with what is, you know, consistent in that in that neck of the woods so to speak. Any questions from the board seeing none. We can go ahead and leave the plan up on the screen that's up there now. But before I open up. I'm now going to be opening a meeting for public comment. Questions and comments are taken as they relate to the matter at hand should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing his 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 in the zoom application. Those calling it by phone, please dial star nine to indicate you would like to speak. You'll be called upon by the chair you'll be asked to give your name and address. If you've given time for your questions and comments, all questions are to be addressed through the chair. Please remember to speak clearly for anyone wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing the chair will allow those wishing to speak for the first time. We called upon first. Once all public questions and comments have been addressed or an allocated time has ended the public comment period will be closed. So now that it is 823pm, I will open public comment until 9pm. So with that, are there any members of the public who wish to address this application. I see one hand, Mr Moore. Yes, thank you, Mr chair Steve Moore Piedmont Street I'm glad I'm Mr handling raised that that issue about house size because the hardship of cost of doing something different than this design is because the hardship is created by the, the size of the, it's a self created hardship. Because of the size of the proposed house. That the cost of doing it differently into the other lot that's part of this parcel as well. I guess I have a question about the, and I don't know I assume that the, the applicants can answer it. These were two parcels that have been combined by a single owner of two parcels. The tax bills that have been run on these houses all these years, or this house and the other lot all these years I'm, I guess I would ask if the tax rate was the same on both parcels. If the applicant has, can address that question. I have no idea. Sorry. I'll take attention to that. It's a it's a fair question. I don't know the answer. Well, I imagine that it's not. I imagine that the one that the vast majority of the house is on. It's possible the land value is similar between the two but obviously the property value would be very different between the two. Right. Mr. Chair, I asked about the tax rate as opposed to the tax bill. The tax rate on the land. I just wondering if the tax rate on the land was the same for both and the reason being that many years of let's say it was a lower tax rate on the undeveloped property. And there's been a benefit retained by the owner all those years of a lower tax rate. Now, this is an assumption. I don't know that tax rate is lower. And that by not combining the properties, there was, if that is true, there was a lower rate on the undeveloped land that that was a benefit accrued to the owner for many, many, many, many years, various owners, including the current owners. And now the idea that the properties treated as a combined set of properties sort of solidifies now that will make that makes that benefit permanent. That's what I'm saying is very clearly. My big concern is that it looks from aerial, aerial views that there's some significant trees on this undeveloped property that may be retained or may not. And so I would ask the question through you, Mr. Chair. What is the plan for the trees on the what is now an undeveloped piece of property as well as the trees on the other one I think this mirrors the issue I might have raised at the last meeting with a similar sort of question. The two lots would have setbacks, allied to both of them. The single law would have setbacks, allied to a combined that would be different, perhaps, for the retention of the trees and I'm wondering what the plan generally is for the trees on the property Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Moore. As the applicants do you have a site plan that shows the location of trees and the disposition of those trees. No, I don't believe that we we documented the trees. If you don't mind I can answer this back up. So if the if we're allowed to move forward with the proposal, we will speak with the tree warden and make sure that we, you know, work with the with the town with regards to this there are some very mature trees that are very close to both houses. And I think, I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong Becca and Tim. I think both neighbors would like to see the large trees removed because they're somewhat dangerous. And the intent would be to replace them with new with new trees that are, you know, healthier. And I can add, you know, those those trees in question or I think they were brought here from Canada by the people who originally bought the property 50 years ago. Three years ago in a big nor'easter one of them was blown over and nearly took out our neighbor's house. So, yeah, just to speak to the hazard of those. They're not native. And so I recognize Mr. Morris concern over trees. We also are avid nature and want to make sure that we maintain the trees on the property. As Tim mentioned, yeah, these trees are really tall and they scare the heck out of our neighbors as they're easily hundreds of feet tall. And as he mentioned, 1 fell 1 time, which was terrifying. So the plan has been to remove those very, very tall dangerous trees that line property line and replace them with something that is equally as beautiful, but also safe. And that has actually been fully supported by our neighbors that we've talked to. No other trees or plan to be removed or other than the tall ones and they will be replaced. And we will do this in accordance with the with the Arlington regs. Great. Thank you for that. Mr. Moore. Yes, Mr. Chair, I understand that the tall trees can represent a danger. Usually that occurs because the trees haven't been maintained. The trees need to be maintained like any other plant and that means trimmed of their dangerous aspects as they grow. I will remind the applicant that the tall trees have a much larger impact on reducing global warming than small trees that replace them. It takes 35 years for a small tree to go grow enough to perform the valuable service that the current large tree is is providing with proper care that large tree can be made safe. And I don't my whole diatribe about that, you know, the two lots and tax rates and things like that was aimed towards the fact that setbacks of two lots are different than the setbacks of a combined lot. I'm worried about the implications for these trees or the tree, the large tree in particular, and how removing it and replacing it the smaller trees will not allow the community to have performed the same task that the current large tree performs. I understand that a lot of folks fear large trees because of the very thing that happened to one of them, which was it fell over and could easily have caused significant property damage. But I also again remind the applicant that proper maintenance of trees minimizes that risk, and the community benefit, which may not accrue directly to the owner is lost if they are taken. Thank you. And that's the very same thing that the tree warden will relate to you when you speak with them and develop your tree plan. Again, I would encourage the applicant to retain the large tree not take it down. Thank you, Mr. Chip. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Are there other members of the public who wish to address this hearing. I do not currently see any other names or any hands raised again as the reactions tab there's a raise hand button if you wish to address this. Don't see anyone either waving their hands in a window so I will assume that no one else wish to address this hearing. So I will go ahead and close public comment for this hearing. So then that brings the question back to the board. So what is requested of the board is a variance. On this property in regards to the front yard setback. I believe that is the only variance that is required for this property to move forward. The existing house is non conforming on the lot in regards to both the front yard setback and in regards to the side yard setback. And as the applicant had noted, the project like this could have gone forward as a renovation, which would have imposed certain restrictions to reuse the existing house and how that might have impacted the project. But it would allow them to take advantage and maintain the existing non conformities in regards to the side yard setback and the front yard setback. However, they are requesting to the board a variance to allow them essentially to reduce the existing setbacks that they have in regards to the front yard and the side yard. In order to construct a house of the depth that they feel is appropriate to their needs. So with that I would, the board has before the question of a variance that we do have the standard for criteria that are required of a variance. So I would just at the start turn to the board and see if there are any further questions they would want to ask of the applicant or the applicants consultants in regards to the property or what is being proposed being none. So then the question before the board, the board would need under state law and under town law, the board needs to make a series of findings that in regards to a variance those findings build upon each other. So that if any of the particular findings cannot be made, then a variance cannot be granted under state law. The first finding that the board would be required to make is that there is a circumstance relating to soil condition shape or topography, especially affecting such land or structures, but not affecting generally the zoning district in which it is located. So that would substantiate the granting of a variance. So essentially is there something about the soil shape or topography of the site that specifically that is particular to this site, and not a general condition in the underlying district that would substantiate the need for a variance. And as the African has stated and I would ask her to correct me if I have this thing correctly. Essentially, they're the lot that they have is a long, it's sort of a long narrow lot, but it is oriented parallel to the street rather than perpendicular to the street, which creates certain conditions for them. And that the largest setbacks that are required under our bylaws are actually working against the short dimension as opposed to working against the long dimension of their property. And they are looking to comply with the rear yard setback, which necessitates that their, the front yard setback is not as it would be required for the district. And so noted that the setback that they are proposing in the front is more in keeping with what is common for the district. And I would note that we had at the prior hearing we did have a substantial amount of conversation about the town does have in its bylaws five three section five three 10, which allows for setting the setback of a property relative to the basically the average of the other properties that are developed on that block. And this is kind of a quirky situation because there are only two houses on the block. And so if you remove the one house, the house that remains is no longer more than 50% of the block. And so that is not something that's available to them. But it does indicate a willingness on in the town bylaws that maintaining a level street front is something that the town has contemplated and has felt is something that might be appropriate. The question is really is whether the the shape of the of the lot and the topography of the lot would justify the granting of a variance because I think we have the conversation with with the soils expert that they had done test pits and it is basically was gravel so there is nothing particular about the soil conditions that would make it difficult to comply with the bylaw so it really comes down to shape and the topography of the site. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Sorry, I heard Mr. Hanlon who's the other was that Mr. Nolan was it. Yeah, sorry, I just wanted to add one thing is the perpendicular to the parallel with the street is also the hill. So and I think that's, that's the, that's the critical part here is that by being parallel with the street we're also parallel with the hill. Okay, thank you. So, Mr. Chairman under the way the state law has written the requirement for soil slope or topography is that the hardship has to has to arise from that. It's not as if we evaluate separately slope and shape in order to decide whether or not a variance is required, we just have to make sure that the hardship that's being claimed is coming from a relatively unusual situation that relates to the shape and topography. And if you look at what the hardship is that the applicant are claiming we may or may not agree that that is a sufficient hardship to warrant a variance but it is flowing from the shape and topography. This is clearly a very shallow lot. Dealing with that in some way is clearly something that the topography makes more difficult. The, so that then will bring us to the question of whether there is, and, and I guess the other thing is that it's not, it's not as if every lot in this on this street has this problem. Generally, they don't have this problem. It's probably not true that throughout Arlington there must be other places that have shallow lots. And there certainly are places that are on Steve Hill. It's the combination and and taking a certain degree of local view of what the comparison is, at least in this area. This is an unusual situation that prevents the applicant from doing some things that are being done by the other properties in the area. And later we would presumably get to the question about the impact on the neighborhood and whether something is consistent with the bylaw and we can hold that analysis. But it does seem to me that, that if this isn't absolutely unique it's it's not the Mona Lisa it may not even be an Andy Warhol which is hardly unique at all. But it seems to me to be enough to get us to criteria number two. Thank you Mr. Hamlin. Other comments from the board. Seeing none unless there's any objections from the board will move on to criteria two. Area two is that the literal enforcement of the provisions of the zoning bylaw, specifically relating to the circumstances affecting the land or structure noted above would involve substantial hardship, financial or otherwise to the petitioner or more appellant. So literal enforcement would mean that they do have to maintain that 25 foot setback where they're now proposing I believe at 16.6 feet. And as the appellant had said earlier that would limit their house to 26 feet in depth, which is unusually shallow for a house. But the length of the lot is perpendicular to it would be, it could be very long. But it does sort of create an odd situation where effectively you would have that side of the house facing the street rather than the front. So, so I guess the question of the literal enforcement. Would it create a substantial hardship to the to the appellant. So the question, the question that the board needs to needs to address. I sort of began that so I thought, in my view the answer is yes. And let's take it in three different ways. One is, let's suppose that the applicant to where to say okay. We'll observe it. I think that the house that would emerge is a significantly less desirable house. Objectively it's it's a less desirable house. The long narrow thing makes it even, even if it's feasible to do that. That that would be a significant harm. But of course it's true that the zoning by law doesn't guarantee you everything you want. So it's important to look at the alternatives to see who what to what degree this is a matter of sort of unreasonable ambitions rather than a matter of real hardship. I think that trying to do it over on the on the on the existing foundation would be a substantial hardship and would be extremely negative for the community as well. Preserving the existing foundation would be a real problem. It's environmentally quite unsound to do that. And the, and it would ultimately produce. If it's feasible at all it would produce a house that's very, very different from what the the applicant is looking to do. So then there's the intermediate. So it just in general I'm persuaded by what the center said about that I don't want to go into it in great detail but I thought her presentation was persuasive. So the middle thing is let's suppose you have a somewhat smaller house. At what point can you have something that's full full that's reasonably satisfactory. But that doesn't involve the kinds of problems that we've been talking. And it's a little vague on this and I think that people can come to different views on it. I do think that that trying to sort of just make you take the the half a loaf approach. Rather than being like Goldilocks it might be a little bit like splitting the baby. It's not really going to address the kind of hardship that is record that is involved here. Obviously there is a house that's small enough that you can fit it on here, but you have to sort of have a general sense of what's reasonable. Certainly making this the Taj Mahal is not reasonable. But this is an area that has a certain character to it. And actually the thing that the proposal that the applicant has that is most consistent with what is existing in the area is the proposal that they're making to us for which they need a. Variant so I think that the half a loaf is really not better at this point and that the difficulty is I feel for their predicament and believe that the house, the, the, the alternatives that that we've discussed are not really sufficient to make this simply something to come with as opposed to something that that is the kind of harm that that the zoning by law deals with. I will say that in other cases we found that it's just a hard hardship, not, not to be able to build a driveway on your property it's not as if the kind of hardship that is involved here that is involved in a variance has to be at least that involves a significant interference with your ability to do what you otherwise have a right to do under the law it's very unclear but I think that that I don't really think this is that close to the edge I think that there is a hardship here. Thank you Mr. Hanlon. Other comment from the board. regards to the second criteria, seeing none. Unless there's objection I'll move on to the third criteria. Which is the desirable relief may be granted without substantial detriment to the public good. I think the construction of the house as it is being proposed where, although it is not as far from the street as would be required for a new permit, where it is deeper than it currently is and it appears to be more in keeping with the adjacent and in keeping with the more generally the pattern of the street. That distance is not any form of detriment to the public good. Should this should the relief be granted. Any other comments on the regards criteria three. Mr. Thank you so much for the new construction house here that it actually does benefit by the neighborhood but the time itself is, it'll be much more energy efficient and built in a much more sustainable way than the current building that is there the current house that is there. So it'll be improving the neighborhood. And through that as well not just, you know, it being a new structure but it being an energy efficient one that will help improve that as well. Thank you Mr. blank. Mr. Hanlon. I both agree with what Mr. LeBlanc said and it would like to address what Mr more has been talking about the question of the, there will be required a tree plant anyway as Mr Nolan pointed out. And there'll be a discussion that will parallel the kind of discussion we had here today. And it seems to me that that probably the tree warden can deal with that in an effective way if the applicant is being cooperative about doing that but I would. I'd encourage the applicant to take very seriously what Mr more said and what the two tree warden says in designing a tree preservation. And I think that's the plan on the site. It's it that is certainly a part of the the impact that this has on the public and it's not necessarily a simple issue but it's something that that needs to be done with with the town's expert and that it will be done an ordinary course. Thank you Mr. Hanlon. Unless there's any objection from the board I'll move on to criteria for the criteria for is that desirable relief. Desirable relief may be granted without nullifying or substantially derogating from the intent or purpose of the zoning bylaw. So should the board grant grant relief, we will be exchanging at one family house for a new larger more energy efficient one family house. It will be sitting in approximately the same location it will be. It will extend slightly deeper into the site but not past any setbacks. And it will leave a substantial portion of the yard open for the enjoyment of the owners but also providing opens open space and open air for the properties that do a but that portion of the property. And certainly the construction along those lines would not nullifier substantially derogate from the intent or purpose of the zoning bylaw which is, you know, the, the careful development of land, the improvement of in quality in the of the land improvement of the value of the town, while the maintaining some of the natural aspects, access to air access to light. And that sort of preservation of the character of the town and I think that should the board grant this, this variance application it would not derogate from any of those intense. Mr chairman. Mr handlin to I agree with that I just add one thing in that this is a situation where if we step back from the language of section 5 310. We look to sort of at what the urban planning aspect of all of this is. This is a neighborhood where actually keeping observing the 25 feet is likely to be somewhat out of. Certainly, if you look across the street. It is some way it would be somewhat out of character with what is as the established pattern there. The purpose of the bylaw is to figure is to provide for harmony in the way the streets are laid out and we're free to talk look at both side of the street instead of what we have to do for just the literal application of the bylaw. It seems to me that the underlying policy of land use here is is well situated by something that provides for more setback than there is today. As much as the full setback that that would be required by by the bylaw so, you know, in some ways, as is true of much of this case in some ways granting the variance is more in the public interest and more consistent with the purpose of the bylaw than denying it would be. Thank you Mr handlin other comments from the board seeing none. So the board has a couple of tasks in front of it at this point. One is to caught up if I vote on the findings to confirm that we. We have confirmed the vote on the four findings should the board vote positively on all four findings, then we will move on to conditions and whether there are conditions that the board would need to impose in order to ensure that what the board is looking for in regards to the grant is application would be carried forward. And then the board would take one final vote on the, the variance application including the conditions. So unless there's anything that needs to occur before that I was going to go ahead and move to the vote on the findings. So this has been the board's practice because of variances, sort of a different sort of animal than our typical. Excuse me, special permits that we do vote on the four findings to because we do need a positive vote on all four findings it cannot just be on the majority of the findings so with that in regards to the first finding that circumstances are looking to soil condition shaped topography, especially affecting such land or structures but not affecting generally the zoning district, which is located that would substantiate the granting of a variance. So members of board voting to affirm that finding. So I would ask for the vote Mr. Hamlin. I. Mr. Holly. I. Miss Hoffman. I. Mr. LeBlanc. I. The chair votes I that is finding is affirmed the second finding a literal enforcement of the provisions of the zoning bylaw specifically relating to the circumstances affecting the land or structures noted above would involve substantial hardship financial or otherwise to the practitioner or So this again requires an affirmative vote of the board. So with that Mr. handling. I. Mr. Holly. I miss Hoffman. I. Mr. LeBlanc. I. And the chair votes I that finding is affirmed that brings to the third that desirable relief may be granted without substantial detriment to the public good. Again affirmative vote required of the board Mr. Hamlin. I. Mr. Holly. I miss Hoffman. I. Mr. LeBlanc. I. That is affirmed that brings us to the fourth and final criteria finding that desirable relief may be granted without nullifying or substantially derogating from the intent or purpose of the zoning bylaw. Again affirmative vote is required. Mr. Hamlin. I. Mr. Holly. I. Miss Hoffman. I. And Mr. LeBlanc. I. That is affirmed. Okay, so the board has found that it can grant a variance in this case. And as I said, that brings us up to conditions. So there are three standard conditions that the board applies to all applications before it. The first is that the plans and specifications approved by the board for this variance 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 shall be no derivation. Excuse me, there should be no deviation during construction from the approved plans and specifications without the express written approval of the Arlington zoning board of appeals. Number two is the building inspector is here by notified that they are 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 21 D of the Massachusetts general laws and institute non-criminal complaints. If necessary, the building inspector may also approve an institute appropriate criminal action also in accordance with section 3.1. And standard criteria condition number three is the board shall maintain continuing jurisdiction with respect to this various grant. There are other conditions that members of the board field would be appropriate for this application. I know we have discussed a few times the question about the tree warden. So I would put forward that the we include a condition that the board request the applicant work with the tree warden to address compliance with the town's tree protection and preservation bylaw. Are there any other conditions that members of the board feel would be appropriate. That's done. And what the board has finally in front of it is a request for a variance the board has founded that the that the applicant has met the requirements for variance and the board has put forward for conditions the three standard plus an additional regarding compliance with the tree protection and preservation bylaw. So that unless there are any other questions from the board. The chair would entertain a motion. Right. You're handling I'm not hearing you. For some reason it's coming across very quietly. Hey, there we go. Mr. Chairman, I move that the board approve the variance in this application subject to the three standard conditions and the fourth condition regarding trees that the chair just read into the record. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon may have a second second. Thank you, Mr. Holly. So what the board has before it, this is a vote to approve a variance for 53 lands down road with four conditions, the three standard plus the one in regards to tree protection. So a roll call vote of the board is required. Mr. Hanlon. Hi. Mr. Holly. Hi. This Hoffman. Hi. Mr. Blank. Hi. Mr. Hanlon. I just like to reiterate my request earlier for a copy of Mr. of Ms. centers. Slide presentation. Of course. Yep. Thank you. We thank the board. Thank you for sticking with it. And I just, just to remind the applicant that the vote. Taken tonight is preliminary. There will be most likely in two weeks. We'll have the final, the vote on the final draft of the written decision at that point. 20 day appeals period was open. And after that, it needs to be filed with the state. So. Thank you so much for coming out. Thank you very much. Great job guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. With that. That brings us to docket 3781 165 Franklin street. So this is a new hearing before the board. So if I could ask the applicants to introduce themselves and tell us what they are proposing to do. Good evening. My name is Christian Germano and I'm the owner at 165 Franklin street. And I'm here before the board just requesting to take our existing two family structure and expand into the rear. Of the 11,000 square foot lot. My architect is present Jim Wiesling and my general contractors here with me. Greg Zalanskis. All right. Thank you very much. I guess I would ask Mr. Riesling if he could. If I said as Colleen if Mr. Riesling can have permission to share and if Mr. Riesling has drawings to share with the board. Okay. Thank you. You should be all set. Okay. Thank you. Still trying. I'm still disabled Colleen. You want to try again. Yep. Yep. Okay. Thank you. So. Before you are images of the existing house at 165 Franklin. Firstly, good evening. Thank you for this time. We are seeking a special permit. To construct or maybe reconstruct. The second dwelling unit at 165 Franklin street. As an attached house behind the existing house is as Kristen indicated it's 11,000 square foot lot. And we are seeking a special permit for the large addition. Pursuant to section five. Point four point two B number six. The addition. Are you still seeing my screen now. Thank you. Yes, we are. Okay. So this is the existing footprint. At. At 165 Franklin. Less. The images. I'm sorry. I still see the images. Yeah. Okay. I think I'd be used to this by now. How many years into this? There we go. So. This is the footprint of the existing house. It also includes a large addition on the side that that we have. Are being allowed to remove by historic. And then an addition to the rear. So we're sort of stripping it down to its 1850s form. And restoring that. In its appearance. With a, you know, more contemporary interior layout. And then. It would be attached to. Two separate garages. And then behind that would be another, another dwelling unit sort of replacing the up down. Arrangement of the two family. To a front and back townhouse arrangement. We would. The house is set back quite a ways. I believe it's. 37 feet from the front property line. So we have a very nice yard for the front unit. And then we're 32 feet off the rear property line. So another nice yard for the back unit. And then we conform to all the side setbacks for the new construction. The existing house does. Sit in the left hand setback, but we're not. We're not increasing that in any way. And. So we're conforming to all the, you know, the zoning standards. The only thing that we need is, is to be able to add. The amount of addition. That would make another nice house on the lot. So. This is again, the, the layout of the front house. The attached garage, which is a one story connector. And then another two and a half story addition to the rear. And then I do have a larger elevation. So the front elevation, this is the restored facade. And then the rear. Scaling it back or taking it back to its 1850s, sort of a, a simple form Greek revival. And then the back house, which is further back than this, this. Flat drawing shows would mimic that in, in its, its details and execution. And then this is the side elevation. The right hand side elevation. And then. So we were. We were in the midst of maybe three or four historic hearings and. We had to quickly. Pivot. And retain the rear addition of the house. So this is, this is the elevation that we are now seeking. And that should be in that it was uploaded to the. The portal and it's included in everyone's packet. But it's slightly different from the original. Submission that was done in December. It's maybe turned out to be a slightly better project for that. And then this is the rear inside elevations. I do have. I did pull up a PDF of the, of the GIS map. To give a sense of the area that this addition will, will sit in. We are back here. And again, we are 32 feet off the rear property. Conforming to the, the 10 foot setbacks. And we feel that in terms of like a figure ground study, this, this is. You know, it's, it's compatible with the, with the neighborhood. And I think. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe, maybe there's some other questions. Sort of running out of. Out of my own things to present. Could you just speak a little bit about the, the review before the historic commission. Yes, yes. As I started with, with. You know, this, this is what we're, we're starting with. As you see the house here in white vinyl, much smaller windows, nothing, nothing very. You know, not very much evidence other than the massing of the house that it's, it's, it's an 1850s. It was actually put into the Greek, Greek revival. It was this, this is a photo of it's in 1980 when it was actually put into the when it was into the, not registry, but into the, I'm losing my word, but, but the reason it was, was identified as it's because of its, its form. At the time that it was identified as a historic property of interest, it was, it was in good shape. A lot has happened to it since. And so that would be our goal is to restore some of this quality. So, in our back and forth, we had initially sought to remove all the additions except for the main mass of the house. And then later on it was, it was determined that the, the main rear L of the house was, was original to it so that we had to, had to work with that as well. If you could go back to the site plan. Sure. Actually, if you go back to the existing site plan, sorry. Yep. So, looking at the existing site plan. So there is an existing driveway that comes down the side of the house and sort of widens as it goes down. So you are removing and replacing that is that correct. Yes, yes, we would, we would be maintaining the driveway pretty much in the same location. This, there's a portion of this that gets removed. This, the main mass was sort of bumped out another room size. And then we would have a surface parking spot here aprons into the garage. One spot here and then, and then the new house. So what one question that I had had when I was going through is that the town requires that. Driveways be no wider than 20 feet. And the proposed drawing doesn't have any dimensions in regards to the width of the drive itself, but would just want to confirm that the driveway at its widest which would be where it is extending to the garage that that would not exceed 20 feet. And does that apply to, to cars making a sweep into a garage. It does. This is my understanding from the, my conversation with the building inspector. Okay, okay. Well, we can, we can verify that. Okay. You know, if it's, if it exceeds 20 feet, it was merely because it was a, you know, it was a matter of getting the car into the garage and being able to, to maneuver. The vehicle. Okay. And then the also in the, the parking by law, there's required to be a vegetated buffer between the driveway and the. And the property line and just because you are extending the drive farther to the back. Would want to make sure that some care is taken as to the nature and dimensions of that buffer so that that is not wouldn't be considered an afterthought. Yeah, I believe we have, we have room to, to, you know, enhance the existing, definitely enhance the existing buffer that's there and, and, you know, add, add more to it. And then it does appear here that there's a sort of an oval shaped feature with labeled patio into the left of it. Is that a tree that's to the left of it there. Is that that I believe was a tree that has been removed. Was that removed recently or was that removed sometime in the past. I don't Kristen and Greg, can you fill us in on that. Sure. We removed that probably two months ago. We did go through the tree warden. Okay. Was there a particular issue with the tree itself or was it just related to the construction. Related to the construction. That out. Those are the initial questions that I'd had. I would turn to the board for additional questions and comments. Here's we have none at this time. Mr. Mr. Chairman I'm sorry I was Mr. DuPont. So we got a memo, I believe from the building department did we not saying that this had not been characterized as a two family or that there it was not in the records as a two family. Is that correct. Yes, let me go ahead and bring that memo up so this was issued by the the building inspector. Let me see if I can make this a little bit bigger here. So I had asked the building inspector for just a clarification of exactly what the board was required to find. They responded that the property is a single family dwelling and then our two districts, although there are indications there may have been a second unit at some point in time. Our office being a special services has no records of a second unit being constructed. The applicant seeking permission to build an addition that exceeds 750 square feet and is seeking a special perimeter 542 b5 or 2 b6 for large additions. So my question Mr. Chairman is just is it currently two units that are being inhabited by two different individuals or families. I would turn to Mr. about that. Yes, we purchased it. And there were two families. Yes. Two separate units. Both units occupied now. No. Right. And I did the existing conditions there were it was it was set up as two dwelling units to kitchens, you know, separate bathrooms. And it appears that had been for a long time. But again, the two two family is a allowed use, right? So is that in question? No, I think it's just just confirming for the record as to what the what the nature of the occupancy has been. Mr. DuPont. Did you have anything further? No, I guess I'm just struggling with the question a bit because I was taken by surprise because this came into us a little late. And so, and I'm sorry, I don't have my microphone closed. But it came in a little bit late. And I've just been sort of wondering to myself, you know, what if any ramification is there. If in fact, it's only classified as a single family under the, you know, under the town's records. And I'm not sure that there is anything that would come of that, but it's something that I would like to be able to do in case there is something more to it. So that's, you know, maybe something for Mr. Cunningham to comment on, although I'm sure he would also only be getting this at, you know, the 11th hour. But that was my concern, Mr. Chairman. Okay, thank you, Mr. DuPont. Mr. Cunningham, I don't know if you want to step in or sidestep. A little bit of both. Yeah, it did come in late, Mr. Chair. So I'm looking at it now and I'm trying to find stuff as, as the applicant speaking. So I'm doing my best to try and get up to speed on it. But it is a little difficult to do it in real time. Understandable. Thank you. Are there other questions from the, from the, from the board? Seeing none. We go ahead and open the meeting for public comment. So again, we note the 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 its decision. Members of the public will be granted time to ask questions and make comments. Members of the public wish to speak should raise their hand using the reaction, the raise hand button on the reactions tab and the zoom application. If you're calling in by phone, you can dial star nine to indicate you'd like to speak called upon by the chair asked to give your name and address for the record. Given time for your questions and comments. All questions to be addressed through the chair. Please remember to speak clearly. Anyone wishing to address the board a second time during any particular hearing the chair will call. Upon those wishing to speak for the first time first. And once all public questions and comments have been addressed. Or allocated time has ended the public comment period will be closed. So we are at 919. So, I will propose that we go to 945. With public comment, unless it appears that there's a large number of people still in queue at which point we can revisit that question. So with that, we have been mangram. Yes, can you hear me. We can thank you. Thanks. And this is my son, Grady who's next to me. My name is Ben mangram and I live at 37 Hamlet street. So my, I'm one of the butters to the property at 165 Franklin. And I purchased my home a year and a half ago and I'm dismayed at this proposal and thought that the character of my neighborhood would be so negatively affected so soon after moving to Arlington. So, I have in front of me a brief set of comments that I want to read. I'm, I'm reading the comments as opposed to just speaking to brandiously because I'm so emotionally, you know, upset by this proposal so I want to make sure that I'm staying focused and reading to you the, the points. So, so I've actually sent a letter to the town to the zoning board outlining 11 points in opposition to special permits I won't read all 11 for you this evening. But I just want to highlight three. So my first is simply based in the zoning bylaws. So the proposed addition is not harmonious with my property or my neighbors homes. There's no home in the vicinity that resembles the proposed alteration and size look or layout across the property line. So the town bylaws for what else is local government for if not to prevent a developer from damaging neighborhoods in this way. So the, the architect suggested that their property is harmonious and I would just ask to show us which which property is like this in the neighborhood. I don't see any. So the, the second point that I want to raise is that the current structure at 165 Franklin Street, at least on record allows for two families. So there's no need for an addition to allow for two families to occupy the property. So the current structure would allow for a more equitable and affordable living space so as the architect has already said, there's two kitchens there's two living spaces. So the space is already set up for two families. So what other justification could there be for the addition except to increase the profit of the developer. The developer's profit is not an allowable exception in the bylaws as the member members of the zoning board previously noted because there's space is also not an allowable exception in the bylaws. So my third and final point is just a personal plea to the zoning board. So please deny this special permit because the changes would negatively affect my family's experience of our new home and our new neighborhood. As I said, we moved to this area from out of state only a year and a half ago. If the proposed addition were built, I would look out our windows, or my kids would be playing in our backyard. And we would see this large second home, a two and a half story home structure in our backyard, instead of the skies and trees we see right now. So I attached pictures of my current view to the letter I submitted to the zoning board, so that you can see my current backyard and see how imagine how it would negatively affect our experience of our home. So again to the members of the zoning board I asked you to imagine what it would feel like to lose such an open view of the sky and of the trees. The proposed addition would ruin our skyline and would negatively affect the neighborhood. And it's just yet another instance of how it's not harmonious with the properties surrounding. So, for these and other reasons outlined in my longer letter I urged the zoning board of appeals to deny the special permit request and protect the character of my neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. You had referenced the letter in the images I was just going to go ahead and display those images. So this is from the, by the previous speakers backyard. Looking across the the yard that with the proposed addition and then beyond it you can see the house in the garage on the property on the side. And this would run the proposed addition would run beyond the tree that you see on the right most side of the image. A two and a half story. Not the garage that's. Yeah. And then just a view slightly to the right of that as well so that the tree at the back of the property. So if you're so this I'm assuming that this tree that's in the center of the image in the window applicants property is that the tree that's been removed. No, no, it's not. It is not okay. They removed a different tree. Okay. Okay. And so this, this, this letter is available it's in the, in the online record for the application so I'm going to go ahead and stop share. And then next, the speaker's list is Steve Moore. Thank you, Mr. Steve Moore. I am a little confused about the status of the property when purchased by the applicant. I guess they're saying it was a two, a two family property. The Townsend record seems to call it a single family property in our two zone. I guess it was an illegal or a non recorded two family. I guess I would ask the applicant. I purchased purchased it as an R2 as a two families lived in there. And I looked it up. That's how it was listed. Oh, okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. That's that. The town had it recorded as a two family property. Not a. It is listed with the assessor as a two family. Okay. All right. Good. Good. That clears one thing up for myself. Secondly, I would like to ask for you to the applicant. So if there were discussions with the tree warden about the tree that was taken I'm very, very pleased that you approached the tree warden on, on that activity. And he tell you it was a not a protected tree. Is that why it was okay to take or what was, what was the conversation with the tree one. The location of it was where we could take it down and it was not a protected tree. I would never take down a tree just to take down a tree. It was smack in the middle of the location where we would be building unfortunately, I hate to take down any tree. But in this case, it was necessary. Right, Mr. Chair, that that's understandable. And I just wanted to confirm that that's what the tree warden had told you. Thank you for that. Consideration. It looks however that some other trees around the periphery of the property and again it's a little hard to tell from the satellite pictures what's where. I don't are what are the plans relative to the trees on the surrounding edges of the property, which would be protected trees. That I'll have to go over with the tree warden. Again, I'd like to keep anything I can keep. I hate to take down any healthy tree. If it works with the layout and they're not in the setbacks of the trees are in the setbacks those Jay, if they're not. And it's where the dwellings going up that would be different. Okay, Mr. Chair. Thank you that that's that's my point is that it looks to me like the trees are in or some of the trees anywhere in the setback and would be protected and the the the assertion that they're not going to be taken if they're in the setback is pleasing for me to hear because these look like some pretty large trees that as I mentioned on the previous case has a large impact on global warming as opposed to small trees that get replaced. So, thank you, Mr. That's that's it. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Next on our list. Michael site, I hope I have that pronounced correctly. Yes. Let me just make sure. Thanks a lot. And thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak Michael side. I'm the home owner of 136 Webster Street, which basically we are the house at the chairs, the back fence. And in the diagrams that was shared. So, the new construction when it is built, it will basically take all this back fence or the most of it. And while my garage kind of hides some of the view of 165 Franklin from my backyard, this is completely a clear view. Clearly, Ben has done his homework and I equate everything that Ben have said. And I agree with that. In addition, I would say. In the, in the diagrams there have been a structure in the back, but that was a green house that's a prior tenant has used for storage with short. And small as you would expect from green houses. So the view similar to Ben's picture is open and wide. And we can clearly see the sky and the two family houses. House was like far from us, which will create a privacy for both sides. Now was this proposed changes. It's kind of like adding another house. Whereas you were one. Definitely would make it crowded will change the scenery will block the air and the sun. It also. And I would like you to consider that if you approve this, you'll be creating a situation where over time. The rest of the lots that are next to these houses will end up doing the same. These homeowners move. Developers will then know I can switch a 1 family home or like whatever 1 house structure for 2 families or whatever and build in the back. If you have seen from the picture. The house over has just a garage where the new plans are proposing to build a garage and another house. I also would like to know how many families will be there in the proposed structure. How many levels. At that will definitely alter the view and structure. I have owned this house for 8 years. I have known the prior tenant. And definitely this will change the circumstances around my house. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Next on the list is John Donnelly. Yes, thank you. I appreciate the time item. I'd like to talk a little bit about what apologies I need. I do need to ask your address for the record. Sorry, what do you want Hamlet Street. Sorry. Thank you so much. I'd like to talk and I am in a butter. And I echo what Michael and Ben have said already wholeheartedly. I want to talk a little bit about the house that I've lived here quite a while. And I've never known two families to live in that house. It's a it's always been one family as far as I've known. And prior to the person that just sold it. It was another family. And I've never known two people, two families to live in that house. But, you know, that's why what the letter that the town said interests me as far as that goes. I'm very concerned about, and I'm looking at the bylaw for a two family district R2. I'm very concerned that this house does not fit into the neighborhood in the least bit. I'd welcome the board to walk up Franklin either way. Towards the center off of Hamlet towards parallel street that way and look at the lots. No lot is similar to this with this proposal. And I agree with Michael that if you open the door on this one. You can you can bet you can open the door on a lot coming forward and I don't think it's correct. I don't think it's correct to build a new house in the back of this lot. It's going to take away as as Ben and Michael have said it'll take away the views. It'll hurt property values for those of us who've been in the neighborhood for a long time. And it really doesn't meet the residential character of the neighborhood. The town also states they don't want properties to consume large amounts of land. And certainly in this instance, this thing takes up almost the whole lot. So, you know, that those are my concerns, I asked that you deny the special permit, it would, it would drastically affect our neighborhood. And it's been a great neighborhood. People have lived here very consistently for a very long time. And this this project is going to drastically alter things, both up and down Franklin Street. So thank you for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. I see is Dan ledger. Hey there. This is Dan ledger I live at 169 Franklin Street so we are the long property that is directly to the left of this property. I think I agree with a lot of the points that have been made here I think, you know, one other point I'd like to pick up that Michael made is that, you know, there's a wonderful corridor these long lots create a lot of open space behind these houses and you know, there's a lot of trees, there's, you know, they provides nice views and I think this again I agree this creates sort of a dangerous precedent and would be, you know, very disruptive to this, I think of the views that a lot of people enjoy a lot of people purchase their houses for because this is an area of Arlington where people have kind of these nice open wide backyards and it does create. You know, you look at your windows you see a lot of green trees you know I still look at a beautiful weeping willow tree that just got cut down a couple months ago. And I think we're just kind of saddened by this idea that there's going to be this giant prop giant new house that kind of pushes into the space and I also agree that this sets a sort of a dangerous precedent for this this area on Franklin Street where we have a little bit extra green space in the back and it affords a lot of folks around us kind of just a nicer viewer of the fence and a little bit more kind of view of your neighbors and a little bit more connection and things like that so. That's my I'm sort of in alignment with with the other folks have spoken up on this. Okay, thank you so much. So next is usual Sharista. Hi, can you hear me. We certainly can. Hi, thanks for thanks for the opportunity here. My name is usual stress to live on 134 Webster, right next to Michael. And my property is right behind proposed development. I agree with the labor of most of the points that have been said, I wholeheartedly agree with what Ben and Michael just said about the view in the open space that we enjoy behind our yard right now would definitely be blocked and affected in an in an aggravated construction where it happened. And also, a lot of the read that the president that's that this sets in our neighborhood would not be would not be the right one so I request that you deny this request as well. Thank you so much. Yep. Next is Diana. Hello. Excuse me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me. We can. Great. Thank you so much. So I live on 45 Hamlet Street. So it is right behind the property on the right side. And actually I have the beauty of being here for 20 years. And I actually agree with John that it used to be always one family property. One family who lived there for two decades. So I think that's, you know, one point which really needs clarification. And I really do echo everyone else concerns about the second large building. I think there is a, you know, picture of two garage spots plus another car in the driveway. You know, one tree was already cut down. I think there are multiple other trees which are around. So I think we worry not only just about the big building which will which really does not fit in the neighborhood but also the environmental aspect. So I also echo with everyone else that I really wish and vote for or not. You guys approving the extension. Thank you so much. Thank you. Council Cunningham. Thank you, Mr Chair and I think you mentioned this but in response to Mr Dupont's question earlier. Yes, this property is listed with the town as a two family property. I'd like to speak to Mr Champa about the memo that was received by the board this evening. A little bit more about, you know, his research as well to come to the conclusion about what that means. But just for clarification, I think that it took the point you made earlier, Mr Chair, it is technically listed as a two family property on the assessor's website with the town. Thank you. So this is an R2 district and single family, two family and duplex dwellings are all allowed uses under the under the bylaw. So, there is no problem changing it from single family to two family. As far as a legal basis goes. Are there other members of the public who wish to address this hearing. Last opportunity this evening. Seeing none I will go ahead and close the then snuck in for a second right under the bell. Go ahead. Hello actually this is this is Ashley mangram I live at the property at 37 Hamlin Street as well and yes I am Ben's partner and I just would would want the community to hear that there are a number of children elementary children. Our youngest child is three years old and there are toddlers there's an infant in a family that's already spoken and while that might not sound like much to you surrounding this property is is more than a handful of children. So this is a couple of months up to teenage years. So actually off the top of my head I can think of eight children. And so eight children who play in this neighborhood and these backyards in this community. They have a structure two and a half structure yeah and so I just I don't feel comfortable with a structure in my backyard where people can look over and see all of these neighboring backyards children playing. When our children look up to play and and have a good time all of us what they see as a massive structure, literally feet from our fence line. So I would urge you to consider the experience of the children in our neighborhood. In addition to the property value and property owners and thinking about what kind of space are we creating protecting for them in our neighborhood. Thank you. Thank you. So with that seeing no other hands raised I'll go ahead and close the public comment period for this hearing. So this returns us back to the board. So the request that is before the board. It's a special permit request for a large addition. And under our bylaws. It is a special permit and so it needs to meet the special permit criteria, but it also needs to make we need to make three additional findings which are not typical for a special permit. One is that the alteration or addition is in harmony with other structures and uses in the vicinity. The second is that consider we need to consider the dimensions and the setback in relation to a budding structures and uses. And the third is that we need to consider conformity with the purposes of the bylaw. And that is the only request for. That is being made. For the special permit, as I had mentioned to the applicant earlier. There's a concern about the driveway with that under 6.1.10 a driveway can only be 20 feet wide maximum. And then under that also under that same section that a vegetated buffer is required. Between the drive. It's our driveway in the side. On the side yard setback so those are things that the board would be looking to. To make sure are addressed. So the board has received. Both from the applicant. The description of the proposed addition. And we have. In the record, there's the letter from the historic commission that this project has been reviewed and approved by the historic commission. Which has now brought it to us and. As I say, the board needs to make a determination in regards to a special permit for large addition. So, and at this hearing tonight, the board has heard. From a number of residents who are butters. To this property with their concerns about the project. So I would. Open up to the board for their. Questions and concerns or comments in regards to the. Requested application. Mister chair. Mr. LeBlanc. I guess I would just start by arguing that I don't think the proposed addition is very harmonious with the rest of the neighborhood. You know, this is, I think a pretty unique lot in the area. Being this deep looking at the, the other lots, it's, you know, they're not that deep, but the way that this is being proposed. It sort of feels like it's two structures being put on one lot. Yes, they're connected, but. Barely by a little garage. And the existing structure that is there doesn't seem to hinder. Making a decent, you know, duplex type or potentially even a townhouse style. Renovation at that place. They just don't see the need for such a large addition. And also generally when we see large additions come before us, at least in my experience so far. They're not this large. They're not basically another structure. There's someone, you know, they're a family adding on to their existing house to create some more space for their growing family. And not necessarily such a large addition. This is. I think really, really large. You know, I would say that I don't think it meets, you know, some of the criteria of being harmonious with the rest of the neighborhood with that. Thank you, Mr. Black. I would ask the, the applicants, what is the proposed gross square footage of each unit. Jim, do you have that in front of you. Yes, I do. Each unit. Living space of the front unit. Excluding the seller is 2523 square feet. The rear unit excluding excluding the seller is 2790 square feet. And are the sellers of either of them being built out for habitation. The seller in the rear could potentially be finished in the future. The seller in the front house does not meet minimum height requirements for occupation. And does that include the garage structures or no. No, that does not include the garage. The garage is together come in at 548 square feet. Okay. Mr. Chair. Thank you. I joined at the start of this hearing. So I hope we can just ask a question. Thank you. So, just related to that square footage question, the documentation that was submitted to the board was proposed gross square footage of 7,563. I would just, I just wanted to ask the applicant, Mr. Chair, is that an accurate number? Maybe that counts one of the sellers. It doesn't seem like that adds up to what we just heard. Yes, that is, that doesn't include the garages. I don't think that the garage is to be accessory parking. So, but yeah, that's the two, the two houses, including that's that's full on gross except for the garages. But would that include the seller dimensions as well. It does. Okay, so that, that was the, that was what I was missing in the calculation. Okay. Yeah. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. I think I'm inclined to agree that there's a problem with meeting this special provision here for harmoniousness with the neighborhood. Obviously you can't hear practically all of the butters agree with one another that it is hard. Disharmonious with them without at least being moved somewhat in that direction. I would disagree a little bit with what Mr. Blanc said about building another house before that actually in many parts of East Arlington as I'm sure that he knows from because he lives here too. This is not an uncommon. Not an uncommon thing. It's, it's not just an East Arlington I can remember a case that where we had a similar case on Mount Vernon Street a couple of years ago. It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with the structure where you sort of instead of having duplexes side by side you have a front front to back that happens. The question really in all of these large addition problems is not what usually happens but what might be true in any individual case. It's not as strong a case in some ways as others. I think in some ways that the, usually what you're dealing with is people building a house that involves a large mass that is actually sort of impinging on the use of the neighbors property and that's sort of was what the bylaw was intended to deal with where something is consistent with the setback requirements but it is built in an already built out area in a way in which it interferes with people's use of their of their own property by sort of encroaching with too much mass or some other way. We've had some testimony that that's true but to a considerable extent the testimony is that this is this is adversely affecting people's use of their own property because they can't look into the neighbors property, which is at least a more fraught case than that is typical still doing this is essentially moving out as it is affecting and a number of other properties that are not currently affected on Hamilton on Hamilton Street, where, because of the long backyard. The impact is, it is quite is sort of crowding and sort of if you step back and think about it more broadly in terms of the pattern of development in the neighborhood. Often it's a good thing to put this in back and then to leave the front of the house in a pretty good looking like the rest of the neighborhood. And in fact, in this case, if you thought about it that way, the front of the house is going to look better than it does now and is deliberately being restored to something that looks more like the 1850s house that has made it has made it valuable. The difficulty here is not so much from the street is that all the butters who are who are all around it are concerned about a substantial increase in Matt in mass and lot coverage that is affecting the way they use the back of their houses. And I think that the sheer unanimity of the neighbors and the sense that this is a pretty large structure in the back. These units are not strange sizes in Arlington, and they are going up all over the place. But this just doesn't seem to me to be the right place for it. And I don't think that this is the right street for it. Excuse me Franklin does have. I must be getting used to the theater. Franklin does have a sort of a character of its own. And I think marginally this is this is a difficult thing. It's particularly because of the special condition that the special rule that we apply to large editions. This was a straightforward special permit and didn't have the special regulations. The analysis might be different. But here the bylaw deliberately puts a thumb on the scale somewhat in favor of the butters and and here I think they've made an up of the case. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Mr. DuPont. I was actually going to try to quote Mr. Hanlon from the Pleasant Street case where he essentially said the same thing about the large edition section of the bylaw. And even though I think people on the board members of the board could come to a different result using the analysis. But it was persuasive when he pointed out what he just did, which is that the bylaw puts the, you know, that's thumb on the scale in favor of the neighbors because while there's no, there's no strictly speaking right to a view or right to light. It does specific the state in this section that it has to take into account the the effect that it has the relation to a budding structures in uses, which to me means to the neighbors. And so I believe that that is where you do have that added dimension when you're looking at this as related as opposed to different special permit sections that we do other things under so maybe not a very articulate rendition of what Mr. Donley said, but I echo his findings. And I think when you look at that section to where it says in conformity to the purposes of the bylaw, I go back to the section that Mr. Donley one of the neighbors quoted, which was just reciting the language of 3.1 residential districts, three sub three, which is two family districts and I saw what he saw which is the town discourages uses that consume large amounts of land. And I think if you look at it and if you were to go, Mr. Chairman, I don't know if you can get this up easily. So the Arlington inventory, one of the attachments that was in the record. It's where you have the, the Massachusetts cultural resource information system where it has a picture of the house from I believe 1980 but then if you go down farther it has the assessors map. And it circles the structure and you can see that this lot as well as to which I believe are going to the north are very sizable in the 11,000 square foot range. And, and so, first of all those lots are there. They're not typical of the neighborhood. And so that I think that you have to be careful in using them and building on them, because you have to take into account the character of the neighborhood and everything else around it is you have really small lots with, you know, space that's limited and you know covered in large part by the houses. And I think that even though it's a large lot, the idea that you would put a second residents behind it is really too much. I mean, you're approaching 8,000 square feet, based upon the numbers that were provided in the application. And I just don't think that that's harmonious with the neighborhood I don't think it's really in conformity with the bylaw in the definition of the two family district and as Mr. And then has said, you know, you have to take into account what the neighbors the butters have to say and I think they've been pretty uniform in their view so I'm disinclined to believe that something that large is a good idea for this particular location. Thank you. This is just that that assessor's map from back at the time of the initial application for the historic district of the historic district, but for the historic reference. That's the image that the applicant had provided earlier as well. Mr chair. Yes, Mr. Rickidelli. If I could just maybe echo a little bit of what Mr. DuPont said, you know, I think that the biggest challenge for me with this proposal is the is just the size of the project. I mean, several of the members of the board live in East Arlington. It's not very common to have a nearly 8,000 square foot house in this neighborhood. You know, I'm sympathetic to the neighbors, because spaces of the premium here and access to light and views and, you know, use of somewhat small backyards, like many of us have in this neighborhood is sort of like a sacred. So I am sympathetic to that. So I think really the size, but also the height of that addition. If we were looking at a one story addition that went as far back in the slot as is proposed. I think we would be having a different conversation, but because it is a two and a half story, you know, 32 foot tall structure. I think that that sort of changes the calculation in terms of that large addition and section of our zoning by us. Thank you. Thank you. There are other questions or comments from the board. Seeing none. So what is now before the board. Because we would need to make a decision in regards to how we want to proceed. So, I think we should review the findings that would be required. And then at the end at the board can decide whether or not it feels the findings have been made as a whole. So the required findings for a special permit is under section 333 that the requested use is allowed or allowed by special permit in the district so to family is allowed. The duplex is allowed because it is a two family district. And the, it does not require any additional approval for the use. The requested use is essential or desirable to public convenience and welfare. So to a two family residential use is desirable in the town of Arlington because it does allow for the increasing the number of people who are able to take advantage of the town and to be residents of the town. It also improves the tax base for the town. The requested use will not create undue traffic congestion or a pair of pedestrian safety. So it is a duplex in a two family district. Which would not create any undue traffic congestion or a pair of pedestrian safety. I would note that this block. I actually didn't go to the end of the street. I was, I had to look down the street and thought it might be blocked off at the end, but maybe it does loop around. We'll ignore that. But it is. You are able to walk down the street and cut over towards the minister river. So there is some pedestrian traffic, but it's not different than any other two family district. The use would not overload any public systems. So the use is the use as a two family would not overload any town or utilities that would serve the property. Special regulations for the requested use are fulfilled. So the special regulations. That's the, that 542 be six large additions. Which would allow the creation of a large addition. So we'll go and review that in a minute, but I'll finish up with section three through three first. So the next is the requested use will not impair the character or integrity of the neighborhood. So a two family use would not impair the character integrity of the neighborhood, but there has been a lot of discussion from a buddy neighbors that the, the proposed structure would impair the character and integrity of the neighborhood. The question use will not be detrimental to public health or welfare. Similarly, the use as a duplex would not be detrimental. The public health or welfare, but the butters have indicated that they feel that the structure itself would be detrimental in terms of a lack of privacy and the impacts on light and air. That are available towards the rear of their properties. And then the request use will not cause an excess of use detrimental to the neighborhood. Again, the duplexes aren't allowed use this would not create an excess of duplexes, but in regards to the size of the proposed structure here. By the name as stated by the butters, it could be considered an excess of structure in the in this area of the of the lot out of the site. So those are the conditions for special permit then specific to the large additions we said before the alteration or addition isn't we have to find that the alteration or addition is in harmony with other structures and uses in the vicinity. And whereas the use is certainly in harmony with other uses in the vicinity. There has been a lot of discussion that the structure that the addition itself is not in harmony with the other structures in the vicinity. That the location upon the lot, the depth that the structure extends into the lot the size of the structure and the height of the structure are not harmonious with the current use pattern in the neighborhood and is not harmonious with the enjoyment of the the butters having enjoyment of their own property. The board needs to consider dimensions and setbacks in relation to about structures and uses as the, as the applicant said they do meet the setback requirements under the bylaw with the exception of the existing structure that has a slight non conformity on the north side of the house. But the, because it's going so deep into the property it's coming close to a lot of other structures that it would not necessarily come close to. Which is a little bit of an unusual circumstance in this case. And the board needs to consider conformity with the purposes of the bylaw to the purposes. We don't often discuss during the meeting, but it might be helpful in the circumstance. So the purpose of the bylaw is to promote the health safety, convenience, morals and welfare of the inhabitants of the town of Arlington. The lesson congestion in the streets to conserve health to secure safety from fire panic and other dangers to provide adequate light and air to prevent the overcrowding of land to avoid undue concentration of population to encourage housing for persons at all income levels to facilitate the adequate provision of transportation, water, sewage schools, parks and other public requirements to protect and preserve open space as a natural resource, the conservation of natural conditions for floor and fauna, and to serve as urban amenity for scenic and other aesthetic enjoyment and recreational use to conserve the value of land and buildings to encourage the most appropriate use of land throughout the town to achieve optimum environmental quality through review and cooperation by the uses use of incentives bonuses and design review. And to preserve and increase its amenities to encourage an orderly expansion of the tax base by utilization development and redevelopment of land. It is made with reasonable consideration to the character of the district. And to its particular suitability for particular uses with a view to giving direction or effect to land development policies and proposals of the redevelopment board, including the making of our act in a more viable and more pleasing place to live, work and play. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So, three things actually. One is there's a missing provision that we often we often sort of skip over because we deal with the parts without dealing the whole. When you go back to section 3.3.3 before you get to the individual things that the chair just went through. The finding that we have to make the written determination is that the adverse effects of the proposed use will not outweigh its beneficial impacts to the town or neighborhood in view of the characteristics of the site and the proposal and relationship to that site. And that basically is a 3.3.3 consideration. Some extent it overlaps in this particular case it overlaps with the provisions, provisions regarding harmony and the special regulation itself. But one of the things I think that we should recognize is that some of what they've done, or what they're proposing to do that has been approved by the Historical Commission is is is a plus. And we shouldn't the issue here is not whether this is irredeemably bad, although maybe if you live right behind it, that's the issue. The issue really is, if we're at 3.3.3 is a balance. And I think that we need to take, if we're going to do that to take the plus side into effect as well. I know from what I've said earlier where I actually come out on that but in terms of the analysis I think that we need to pay and give consideration to the standard that was set forth in the beginning of section 3.3.3. So to get to the question of consistency with the bylaw, there are so many policies that are in the bylaw in the language that the church has read that you can almost always find that something is inconsistent in one way or consistent in another. It doesn't give you very much guidance. The only thing that we've talked about so far, which I was a little bit dubious about is what Mr. department mentioned about the about the use of land. I'm a little bit unclear what that was ever supposed to mean, but when you look at the GIS map here, most of the embudders have got more lot coverage than would be true here if they built the proposal that they have. So it actually in terms of using land, they may not be unusually voracious and I would be a little hesitant to rely on that on that as a factor. It seems to me that that you get all the all the where you need to go in asking yourself what what what harmonious means for purposes of the special regulation relating to large additions. And I think that the testimony has been to that. And I think that that is the place where you both have an adverse effect that outweighs beneficial impacts, as well as as a failure to actually meet the, the admittedly stringent requirements of the large addition bylaw. Thank you Mr. Hanlon. Anything further from the board. Mr. Chairman. Mr. DuPont. I'm not sure that this is something that the applicant wants to consider, but I think oftentimes when we've reached this point and it looks like there is a trend in one direction with regard to a special permit. I guess it's sometimes raised as a question for the applicant as to whether or not they want to proceed with the vote and realizing that, you know, should it be denied that then they are foreclosed for a period of two years before they can come back. I think oftentimes applicants have chosen in the past to amend what they are putting forward with no guarantee that it will be any more acceptable to the board, but at least I think it's something that they might want to know is a possibility. So I just offer that up. I think that would be a good idea. I'm going to take it back, and I could discuss it further with my architect. If the board would be willing to do that, if we could revisit it maybe on March 12. Let me grab my calendar. So we could. It's certainly continue. March 12 would be. Yeah, four weeks from now. I believe it's four weeks. We're in February. Yeah, so it's four weeks from now. So that would work. And I think you've received a significant, you know, I think enough feedback already to sort of the sense around as to what the issues might be. And so appreciate your willingness to come forward and to want to take a look at additional options. So I do see that one member of the public has raised their hand. The public comment period is closed at this point. But this hearing will be continued. And so when it does continue on the 12th. It will be available for public comment again at that time. So apologize that we can't take your, your comment at this moment. So then the request then that's in front of the board right now would be a request to continue. So this would be a motion to continue. This special period hearing for 165 Franklin Street to Tuesday. March 12. 2024. At 730 p.m. Unless there's anything further from the board, I would look for a motion. Mr chairman so moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. So this is a vote of the board to continue the special permit hearing for 165 Franklin Street to Tuesday, March 12, 2024 at 730 p.m. Roll call vote of the board, Mr. DuPont. Mr. Hanlon. Hi. Mr. Holly. Hi. Mr. Rick Redelli. Hi. Ms. Hoffman. Hi. Mr. Little blank. Hi. And the chair votes I we are continued on 165 Franklin Street to March. Thank you all very much. Thank you to the applicant there consultants. Thank you very much to the members of the public who to stay throughout this here and appreciate your contributions and your, your particular knowledge as it relates to this particular hearing. So thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. So this brings the board unfortunately back to the administrative items, which we glossed over at the front and move to the backside of the meeting. So. Go back to our official agenda. So now we'll go back to agenda item number two. The approval of the decision for docket 3776 49 Dixon Avenue. This was written jointly by myself and Mr. Hanlon distributed to the board for comments and brought forward in a final version today. We'll note that there is an additional condition in the application above and beyond what we had discussed at the prior hearing upon further review of the application. We realized in discussions with the with the inspector of buildings that the proposed deck on the wheeler lane side where it was 10 extended 10.3 feet from the building. It actually was an issue. And unfortunately, the way the bylaws written. It is a, it requires a variance to make that any larger than 10 foot even. And so the building department spoke with the applicant the applicant agreed that it would decrease the width of the port of the deck, excuse me, the 10 foot even on the wheeler street on the wheeler lane side. And so a condition was added to the, to the decision that essentially the paraphrase and taking into account what we have in condition number one that what is submitted has to be built that the deck would be 10 foot zero instead of the previously listed 10 foot three. And so the, that it's friendly to the applicant and the building department is okay with it. And we have asked council and council has said that it, it is okay the way we're doing it. And so I just wanted to make sure that everyone's aware of that change in the final version of the decision. But this only applies to a certain number of us because I think there are only not as many people voting on this one. So, may I have a motion to approve the written decision. Sorry, are there any other questions or comments as regards to 49 Dixon Avenue. Seeing none, can I have a motion to approve the written decision for 49 Dixon Avenue. Chairman so moved. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. So a vote of those members voting on the initial decision, Mr. DuPont. Hi, Mr. Hamlin. Hi. This often. Hi. Mr. Holly. Hi, the chair votes I that written decision is approved brings us the item three on our agenda, which is a motion to approve the written decision for 186 over the road. This is an appeal of the building inspector. The decision was written by Mr. Hamlin distributed the board for questions and comments and final version posted this afternoon. Are there any additional questions or comments in regards to the written decision for 186 over the road. Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Chairman. I move that the board approve the written decision in docket 3783 186 over the group. Thank you. So Mr. DuPont for a second. Yep. Thank you vote of those present at the initial hearing Mr. DuPont. Hi, Mr. Hamlin. Hi. The top man. Hi. Mr. Holly. Hi. And the chair votes I that. The decision is approved. That brings us to item number four, which is the approval of the meeting minutes from November 28, 2023. These were distributed by Mr. Alston to all of us a couple of weeks back. I've submitted a couple of comments on them. I don't know particularly if other people have comments. Is it did anyone else have any additional comments they wanted to provide in regards to the minutes for November 29. Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hamlin. Just want to indicate that that I felt short of my standards of reviewing these things because I hadn't realized we were going to be doing them tonight. So I'm not going to be either making motions or voting on these, these, these, these sets. Understood. Ross you off. Okay. So with that, can I have, unless there's further comment, can I have a motion to approve the minutes from the November 29, 2023 meeting. Mr. Chairman so moved. Mr. DuPont and a second. Second. Thank you. Mr. Holly. So vote to approve the minutes from November 29, 2023. Mr. DuPont. Hi. Holly. Hi. Jerry deli. Hi. Stockman. Hi. Mr. Blank. Hi. The chair votes. I those minutes are approved that brings us to item five on our agenda, which is approval of the minutes from the December 12th meeting. This is possibly the shortest meeting we have ever held. The minutes are about two thirds of a page. Unless there's any additional questions or comments, I would take a motion to approve the minutes from December 12, 2023. Mr. Chairman so moved. Thank you, Mr. DuPont. And second. Thank you, Mr. Holly. Vote of the board, Mr. DuPont. Hi. Mr. Holly. Hi. Jerry deli. Hi. Mr. Blank. I would take a motion to approve the minutes from January 9, 2024. The chair votes. Hi. That is approved, which is the item six on our agenda, the approval of the meeting minutes from January 9, 2024. These are again, prepared by Ms. Rawson submitted to the board for comments. Are there any additional comments in regards to the meeting minutes from January 9th. Seeing none, I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes from January 9, 2024. Thank you, Mr. DuPont, can I have a second? I need a second from Ms. Hoffman. Second. Thank you. So vote of the remaining members of the board who are present, Mr. DuPont. Aye. Ms. Hoffman. Aye. And the chair votes aye. That's a set of minutes is approved. Right, and that brings us to the end of all the items on our agenda this evening. So briefly, we have a meeting scheduled for February 27th. There are three new items on our agenda and there are no continued items. So there are three items for that. And then Tuesday, March 12th, we just put two items on as continuances. And Colleen, I don't know if there are any other items for March 12th. That doesn't matter. Sorry, Christian. I thought I was unmuting myself, but it was not. No, as of now, that's it. The three new ones and then the two continuances. Perfect. And then so that's February 27th, March 12th. Unless there's any other questions, I will go ahead and conclude the meeting. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Just real quick while I have everyone. The issue that I brought up with you about the abutting property that's being renovated, that looks like that's not going to be an issue. Oh, great. I was just looking up the building permit has been issued. And with the condition that it did, the issue was that they wanted to add a second driveway. So the building department is not allowing them to do the second driveway. That's the condition of it. Oh, OK. Special permit. Sounds good. Thanks so much. Appreciate that. Well, I would like to thank you all for your participation in tonight's meeting of the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. I especially like to thank Colleen Ralston and Mike Cunningham for their assistance of preparing for and hosting this online meeting. Please note the purpose of the board's recording. The meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record of the proceedings. It's our understanding that recording made by ACMI will be available on demand at ACMI.tv within the coming days. And if anyone has comments or recommendations, please send them via email to zbaatown.arlington.ma.us. That email address is also listed on the Zoning Board of Appeals website. And to conclude tonight's meeting, I would ask for a motion to adjourn. So moved to Mr. Chairman. Second. That comes to the point. Vote of the board to adjourn. Mr. DuBont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Holley. Aye. Mr. Rickidelli. Aye. Softman. Aye. Mr. LeBlanc. Aye. And the chair votes. Aye. Thank you all very much. A lot of work tonight. Good job getting through it all. And look forward to seeing you in two weeks. Good night, everybody. Good night, everyone. Good night. Thanks, everybody.