 So I'm going to call this meeting of the zoning board of Arlington zoning board of appeals to order today is Tuesday January 5th, 2021. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein. I'm the chair of the Arlington zoning board of appeals calling this meeting at the board to order. I have to confirm that members and anticipated officials are present members from the zoning board of appeals. Roger Dupont here. Patrick Hanlon here. Kevin Mills here. Aaron Ford here. Stephen Revillac here. Shawna work here. Excellent. Thank you. From the town, our administrator Rick Bellorelli here. Perfect. And Vincent Lee here. Thank you. Hi, Councilor here. Thank you. Thank you. I'm anticipating. I know Emily Sullivan is here. From the planning department. Do you know if Ms. Rates coming this evening? I think she might be coming. Last I checked. Yes. Okay. And then. Council Paul Haverty here. Perfect. Thank you. And on behalf of the applicant. Thank you. Thank you. And then I'll have Mary. I'll ask you to introduce your team. When we get there. Certainly. Perfect. So this open meeting of the Arlington zoning board of appeals is being conducted remotely. The 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 the public hearing. Thank you. Thank you. For this meeting. The Arlington zoning board of appeals has convened a video conference. 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 is being broadcast by ACMI. Please be seated. The meeting is being recorded. 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 the public hearing. For this meeting. Your Arlington zoning board of appeals has convened a video Please be aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means, some attendees are participating by video conference, other participants are participating by computer audio or phone. Accordingly please be aware that other folks may be able to see you, your screen name or another identifier. Please take care not to share personal information. Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you please maintain decorum during the meeting, including displaying an appropriate background. All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda as chair or reserve the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting. And so that brings up the first item on our agenda this meeting this evening, which is the approval of the meeting minutes from December 22 2020. There were minor corrections made by Steven revelak. Are there other corrections to the minutes. No, not seeing any from the board. Can I have a motion to approve. So move. Thank you Roger and the second second. Thank you Kevin. Quick vote down. Roger. Patrick. Hi, Kevin. Aaron. Hi. Steven. Hi. Sean. Approved. Okay. And then the, so the next item that we're now turning to the comprehensive permit hearing for 1165 R Massachusetts Avenue. I want to review some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of tonight's business. This evening, the board is opening a new comprehensive permit hearing. The proposed project 1165 R Mass Ave is a redevelopment of an existing site in the industrial district. The submitted documents are available as an attachment. The posted agenda. And those documents will be posted to the board's website. We open this evening with an introduction to the comprehensive permit procedure by attorney Paul Havarty. Then town council Doug Hyme will address any local implications of the comprehensive permit law. The applicants will then be invited to introduce themselves in their team. They will have a brief presentation on the proposed project. And then the board will present questions to the applicant before opening the hearing for public comment and questions. Public comments and questions will only be taken as they relate to the matter at hand and should be directed to the board for the purpose of informing the board's decision. Due to previously demonstrated interest in this project and to provide an orderly flow for the meeting. The chair strongly encourages individual public speakers to limit their comments and to use their time to provide comment related solely to the topics discussed at this hearing. Please note there will be multiple hearings scheduled for this project and each hearing will have an opportunity for public comment. The chair also encourages the public to provide written comments to be reviewed by the board and included in the record. The chair will first ask members of the public who have previously identified themselves by logging in through zoom who wish to speak to digitally raise their hand using the raise hand function. And the participants tab of the zoom application. Then we'll then call on those who are participating by phone to dial star nine to indicate they would like to speak. And once all questions and comments have been addressed or the allocated time has been expended public comment period for this evening will be closed. And as noted previously there are multiple hearing scheduled on this project and each hearing will have an opportunity for public comment. So with that, I would like to introduce Paul have any who is Board's Council or inside the Board's Council but if you could explain your role to the to the general public. Mr. Chairman, I am here as a consultant that's being provided through mass Massachusetts housing partnership. It's a technical review fund in which allows municipalities to actually avail themselves of an expert in chapter 40 B in my experience on an attorney that does a lot of chapter 40 B development both representing boards and representing developers. However, there are other consultants that NASA housing partnership uses, including planners engineers and things of that. So it really depends upon the type of guidance that a board is looking for in terms of what which person the board requests for their consultants. Chapter 40 B is a state law that allows an applicant to file a single comprehensive permit application with the Board of Appeals. And the Board of Appeals then acts as the sole local permit granting authority under that application so all other local requirements all other local approval processes are subsumed into the 40 B application process. And then the filing of a comprehensive permit application also allows the applicants to request waivers of local rules and requirements that does not apply to rules and requirements that are of a state nature that are being applied locally. And then the conservation commission under the State Wetlands Protection Act Board of Health under local, I'm sorry under title five, the building commissioner under the mass state building code, all retain their jurisdiction under those processes and the Board of Appeals is not acting as those entities as part of this process but all other local permits are being granted as part of the comprehensive permit process. And that becomes subject to comprehensive permit applications, if it doesn't meet certain statutory or regulatory minimum requirements. The one that's obviously most well known is the 10% year round housing, which Arlington has not met. There's a statutory requirement that has to do with the 1.5% total land area. And I know that this is an issue that Arlington has gone through on multiple occasions, and we can talk about that further if the board so chooses. There's also a statutory requirement having to do with 0.3% of the total land area, zoned in the community for residential commercial or industrial use. I have never seen that applied. I don't think that there really has ever been a circumstance where that's been applied. There are also regulatory safe harbor provisions. There's a housing production plan safe harbor that applies when the town has 0.5% or 1% of its total year round housing, approved as affordable within a particular years period, but it only applies if the town has an approved housing production plan. There's also a recent progress provision and that takes a one year look back from the date of the application and sees if the town has approved 2% of its total year round housing units as affordable units. There's also a large project safe harbor, which for Arlington is actually going to be somewhere around 400 units so clearly not implicated in this application. There's also a related application safe harbor. So that is frequently known as a one year cooling off period, and it says that if there is an application for some sort of relief, whether it be a subdivision or a special permit site plan approval or a project that didn't include a minimum of 10% affordable housing, then the applicant has to wait a year before they're allowed to go forward on a comprehensive permit application. So for an applicant filing a 40 be there are certain criteria that they have to meet their for their submittal they have to be able to show that their applicant status is either as a public agency, a non profit entity or a limited dividend organization. For the most part you're going to see applications that are made by limited dividend organizations or somewhat frequently nonprofits, not public agencies. The applicant is also required to submit evidence of site control with its application, and it has to include a project eligibility letter from a subsidizing. So there are four subsidizing agencies that issue, these types of project eligibility letters is mass housing, mass housing partnership mass development in the Department of Housing. Other 40 be applications submittal requirements, the applicant has to submit preliminary plans, they're not required to submit final design plans as part of this process. The way it works is the final design plans are actually submitted after a permit has issued, rather than before a permit is issued, although the line can get somewhat blurred as you go through the process and the board asks for additional information. You usually see plans get pretty firm before a permit is issued but technically preliminary print plans is all that's needed to be submitted. The applicant is also required to submit existing site conditions and a locust map preliminary scaled architectural drawings tabulation of proposed buildings by type size and ground coverage preliminary subdivision plan if a subdivision is being proposed for preliminary and in a list of requested waivers as I had indicated previously, an applicant is allowed to request waivers of any local rule and regulation, and the board has to take those into consideration when making this decision. There are a number of deadlines that need to be kept in mind throughout the public hearing process, some of which are more directory rather than compulsory within seven days, the town should distribute the application to various departments. Within 14 days of receiving the Carpanser permit application, there should be a notice of public hearing published. The public hearing is required to be opened within 30 days of the filing of the application. And once the public hearing has been opened within 15 days of that opening, the board needs to provide any notification of safe harbor that it may have or believe that it has to the applicants that notification has to be in writing. And that written communication has to include the basis for the claim of the safe harbor. So when, for instance, numerous times of represented municipalities that have achieved a housing production plan safe harbor so that's very straightforward. The municipality has achieved a housing production plan, safe harbor they get notification from the state, and all you need to do is submit a copy of that notification with the letter notifying the applicants that the safe harbor applies. Now the fact that the board is providing notification of a safe harbor being applicable does not mean that the board is denying the projects. I have been involved in numerous applications in which a safe harbor notification has been provided, but the board has still gone on to actually approve the project in a manner that did not require an appeal by the developer. Presuming that the board issues a safe harbor notification, the applicant then has 15 days to appeal that safe harbor to DHCD. And at which point DHCD would then have 30 days to render a decision on the notification. There is also a interlocutory appeal provision after the CD issues, its answer. But at that point, the hearing before the board would be stayed. The rest of the deadlines wouldn't then apply until it's. The board opens a public hearing it has 180 days, which to conduct its business and then close the public hearing. Once the public hearing has been closed the board has 40 days to render its decision. And then there's a 20 day appeal period that's associated with that decision. The board can and should retain peer review consultants as part of its review process. That can include civil engineering, traffic, architecture, financial review can be done but only under certain constrained circumstances. Which all other review has been completed. The board has provided the applicant a draft decision that contains all of the conditions and all of the proposed waiver decisions. And then the applicant has informed the board that those conditions in waiver decisions render the project on economic. At that point in time, the board can then engage in a review of the pro form. So in terms of the process in front of the board, the board should really focus on real project issues and impacts early in the review process peer review process should be commenced as soon as possible, because the 180 day period tends to run a lot more quickly than you would think. So the sooner you get started on the peer review process the more time you have left at the end to do a pro forma review of the board needs that necessary. So negotiation and work sessions are possible. They will often be very productive to have a work session between town staff or between the town peer review engineers and the applicants peer review engineers. No decisions can be made as part of that process and obviously you have to comply with the open need. So in terms of making a decision, the board has to balance regional housing needs with local concerns. And those concerns would consist of health safety environmental design open space planning or other local concerns. In terms of the end of the process once the board has closed the public hearing. Then it can hold a deliberative session. Those deliberative sessions have to be held in public. They're not an open hearing so once the public hearing is closed no more information can be taken in by the board. But the board can deliberate in a logical fashion discuss potential conditions and review the requested waivers. When drafting initially comprehensive permit decision the board has three decision alternatives. They can deny the project. They can approve the project as submitted and I will tell you I've never seen that occur, or it can approve the project with conditions, which is the most common. When approving with conditions the conditions should not render the project on economic. The conditions indoor requirements must be consistent with local needs. And this is an important one the board may not reduce the number of units for reasons other than evidence of local concerns within the board's per view. And that's actually taken straight from the DHC regulations. The board's decision if by the applicant are taken to the housing appeals committee. And I will say the housing appeals committee is certainly a developer friendly forum. It was intended to be that way it's intended to help facilitate the creation of affordable housing in the Commonwealth. Appeals for other grief parties will go to the Superior Court or the Land Court. I think that is good for now. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you that's very, very complete. Are there any questions from the board. Mr. Hanlon. Mr. have it at the end you said that the local concerns need to be or the conditions need to be supported by local concerns which need to have evidence in support of them. I just wanted to explore that a little bit. Sometimes when you read the opinions they're looking at a fairly specific evidentiary basis, something like a general concern with with pedestrian friendly environment or something like that would not be sufficient that it needs to be something that is specific to this particular location and not a general policy rationale. Could you explain a little more just what kind of an evidentiary basis is necessary for each of the conditions that the board might ultimately ultimately impose. So, the first thing the board has to keep in mind is that it can't simply rely upon existence of local rules and regulations that address a particular issue. And the next that my partner Mark Barbrowski was involved in and Holliston several years ago that went up to the appeals court and essentially the Board of Appeals sought to rely upon local wetlands concerns, and they had a wetlands by law and the by law addressed the specific concerns that were being raised by the board. And so they know the board shows not to grant waivers of that local by law, and the Housing Appeals Committee determined that that wasn't sufficient that they had, they had to provide, not only the general concerns, you know, throughout the town but specific conditions as it related to this project and why those particular regulations that were in excess of the Wetlands Protection Act standards were necessary to protect those interests on this particular property. And that's sort of, you know, applicable throughout. So no health safety environmental design open space planning or other local concerns, theoretically can be sufficient to support either an approval with conditions that render the project on economic or denial. Those concerns have to outweigh the regional need for affordable housing. And that's the balancing act that the Housing Appeals Committee will undertake on appeal. And I will let you know that more often than not, the balancing goes against the municipality rather than in favor of it. So you really need to have something that stands out as an issue of local concern to support either a denial or particular conditions, rendering a project on economic. If I could ask one other question, please. The, as you know, Mr. Aberdeen, the town in another notable 40B case that is currently pending has litigated. It's a certain safe harbor under the 1.5% limitation. I think we can figure out a little better what the relationship might be between our asserting that safe harbor provision in this case and whether that might either affect the other case that's currently pending or any other cases that may happen in the future. Is that sort of required to assert that on pain of losing your ability to assert it in other cases or is this something that that you could be inconsistent if you wanted to, or in any event your decisions in one cases don't as a practical matter affect what happens in other cases. So you have to assert it if you want to use it in this case. You're not required just because of the municipality has a safe harbor the not required to assert it during a comprehensive hearing process and it doesn't have any impact upon any other comprehensive permit process. I mean it may be that a municipality chooses not to assert a safe harbor because it actually is in favor of a particular application and just doesn't see the need to go through that process. So it not asserting it here does not impact your claims with regards to any other pending or any other future would be developed. But it does impact your ability to assert it in this project if you don't provide the notice within the 15 days, then you are not allowed to assert that safe harbor at the end of the process to support whatever your decision says. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Any other questions from the board being none that I'd like to introduce town council Douglas time to to address some local issues. Thank you Mr Chairman. Good evening members of the board. Residents of Arlington town staff and the applicants team. I'm grateful to have the additional resource that attorney have already provides as folks know these are very staff intensive permit applications. We have a team of folks who work behind the scenes to make sure that we get all the information that the zoning board needs. In addition to all the tremendous amount of work and hours and evenings that the zoning board puts in to properly scrutinizing any 40b application. I'm really bluntly since I'm sure everybody's had enough of that doesn't need more from from me, given the thoroughness of Mr. Hoverty's presentation. Just speak with bluntly about a few things that are common things that come up in 40 b applications in the very specific context of Arlington, so that folks have expectations of residents, the applicants of the board. In particular order of importance. I'm just going to address them sort of head on. So, one thing that I want to sharpen very clearly for everybody. Mr. Hoverty talked about it in sort of more general terms, but one of the things that we're not that the zoning board can't consider in any 40 b application is the impact on schools. It comes up a lot. People concerned okay we're building a large development. What's the impact going to be on school class size. And there have been many, many, many cases that say that you can't the zoning board can't consider that. I'm not saying it's not important, but the zoning board decision can't factor that in. Indeed, and I wouldn't impute this to anybody's intent, but I want just folks to understand where the courts are coming from on these issues. I'm really expressed concern that that is unintentionally discriminatory to basically say, you know, we can't build affordable housing because it will have impact on our school. Similarly, I'm aware, as I'm sure the zoning board is, as I'm sure lots of folks in this call are about the discussions about our industrial uses. Our industrial zone and you know building or redeveloping a lot of the industrial uses that that aren't currently being utilized. There's very little that the zoning board can do about that. The fact that a project is cited in an industrial zone is not something that the board has a lot of discretion to say well because this is an industrial zone. We need to veto this project or we're not going to prove this project. It's not generally something that for reasons that Mr. have already explained in a lot of detail. The board can just say well, we don't want residential in an industrial zone. So how many of you have a more finer point on that. I'm amenable to it but I just want to speak very plainly to folks about that. Third, the process is is is one where the board, Mr. have already again spoke about this in a very balanced fashion, but it is extremely rare that a zoning board just says no, we're not going to have when we're going to say no, we're going to veto or we're going to veto the project. And the reasons for that are many. The reasons for it may be because, hey, most of these projects are well received by boards, but the practical matter is, is that if you just say, we're rejecting a project outright. HAC is a very, very, very difficult forum for municipalities because the state and the state laws mandate the creation of affordable housing. Therefore, if a board just says, no, we don't want to do it. At all, we're not going to prove a version of it. We just don't want to prove it at all. The most likely outcome is that an applicant has the project approved as they submitted it without any conditions, without any tailoring towards Arlington's specific circumstances or needs. I say that not to reflect at all on this application or this applicant. I just say it so that there's a common understanding that the state has a very, very strong mandate that basically says we're overriding your local zoning goals because we are saying as a matter of state law, creating affordable housing is that important. So I don't mean to start anything off in a negative sense. I just want folks to understand the landscape in which the board is making a decision. I have a few additional comments on this safe harbor matter but I believe Mr. Klein that they're Mr Chairman that there's some time set aside for that a little bit later on down the road. We don't want to have, you know, too much further discourse about it now unless any members of the board have a question for me. Mr Chairman, I do have a question specific to that. Please, Mr. Dupont. I wanted to Mr. Heimann, Mr. Hoverty. I realize that we can't calculate to be prior the other 40B project that's being considered as no building permit has yet been issued so you can't really calculate that into where the town stands with regard to the 10% or the 1.5% land area. I'm not saying as a matter of a to consider this next project. This is important but as anybody made any sort of a calculation as to where this mass ab project would bring us with respect to save harbor if it were to be built. Mr Chairman may I please Mr. Hoverty. So there has not been an official calculation, because again, we wouldn't do that until not only something was approved, but it would have to be built, and then placed on DHCD's basically inventory of affordable housing. If there is a mistake about that, please feel free to jump in, but it's not enough even for it to be permitted. It has to be built and placed on the housing inventory. I will say that the calculation as folks may recall if you've been following other 40B hearings is close by most metrics. So the approval of a 40B would significantly improve the town's ability to assert 1.5% safe harbor status in other countries if that's what you're getting at Mr. Mr. Hoverty, I don't know if you wanted to add anything I don't want to speak for the chair. The only thing that I would add is the town does actually get to count the units in the 40B development as soon as they are approved. However, after a year, they fall off of your subsidizing housing inventory, if a building permit hasn't been pulled, which generally you don't see a building permit pulled within a year after approval. So you would temporarily get to count them but more likely than not they would fall off until they actually do. Thank you, Mr. Hoverty. Thank you both. Mr. Dupont, do you have any further questions? No, that was a thanks. Okay. With that in mind, I would like to reintroduce Mary Wynne Stanley O'Connor, who's the attorney for the applicant. And if you could introduce herself and her team and give us a presentation on the proposed project. Thank you, Chairman Klein, members of the board, attorneys, Hyman-Harrity and fellow residents of the town. We are pleased to be able to present this project to the zoning board of appeals for issuance of a comprehensive permit at this site. This has been a project has been a long time in the making. The development team has been involved with many, if not all of the departments in the town of Arlington to get input for this project. They have been to the board of selectmen as you know, in your package, you have a letter of support from the board of selectmen for this project, along with the letter from Mass Housing. They've been to the department of planning, conservation commission, historic district commission, and also the development team has met with the building department, engineering department, fire department and received a comments and their input. Also, the team has made a presentation to the neighborhood and has made available the plans and the traffic impact study. The developers of this project, and this is a limited dividend organization, is the MIRAC family and Bob MIRAC is on the call. I'm sure many of you members of the board and members of the public are familiar with the MIRAC family and their stewardship of their properties in the town of Arlington. A comparable property that the MIRAC's develop and self-manage is the legacy which is in Arlington Center. Spalding and Sly is involved in this joint venture and Daniel St. Clair is the project executive and managing director. He is on this call. Spalding and Sly has significant multifamily design and construction experience, and I would direct you to tab 20 of the binder that you have with all of the application materials, which contains information as to what Spalding and Sly has done by way of multifamily design and construction. When the project is completed, the MIRAC family will be purchasing the interest of Spalding and Sly and will have sole ownership of the project and will self-manage it as they have done with their other properties. Also on the team is Paul Boucher. He is the project manager. He is from Jones Long Lacelle. David Gamble of Gamble & Associates is the master planner and some of you may recognize Mr. Gamble's name because he was on the master plan consulting team for Arlington. The architect is Joel Bargman of BH&A Architects and the landscape architect is Kyle. Not with us tonight and other team members and they will be on the calls in the subsequent meetings that we have on the particular areas is Bolar Engineering. They are the site civil engineers. Edward Marchant of EHM Real Estate Advisors who is the development consultant and Brian Zamolka of niche engineering. The niche engineering was selected to do the traffic impact study because of the fact that Arlington has used niche engineering in a peer review capacity and has great respect for their experience. And we have provided you with an extensive traffic impact study. The affordable housing lottery agent has yet to be determined as of yet. Before I turn it over to Mr. Bargman, I just wanted to review Mr. Gamble was going to do this but he is in Brookline at another meeting just to review a couple of things about this project. And the development team put this project together. They designed this in accordance with the goals objectives and policies of the master plan that was adopted by the Arlington redevelopment board in 2015. And the goals and objectives of the town of Arlington housing production plan and the open space and recreation plan. And as we go through a general overview tonight that will be those that will be pointed out. This is going to be 130 units with 25% affordable and a range of sized units from studios to three bedrooms for an a range of incomes family sizes and needs. This is going to be a redevelopment of an underutilized site and a repurposing of some existing buildings with as we're as suggested by the housing production plan. In fact, this specific property 1165 our massive was one site identified for redevelopment in that plan. The project offers a wide range of transportation options to prospective residents and has accessible public transportation and bicycle access. There's a walking trail that was proposed along Milbrook and amenity space to provide a sense of community and neighborhood and a neighborhood experience for those who live there. This is as I said there's an extensive traffic impact study. The proposed project the conclusions by niche engineering is that the increase in traffic will be negligible. It'll be safe at accessible adequate and efficient. And there will be a transportation demand management plan, which will maximize alternative modes of transportation. You know the master plan committee concluded that massive has the capacity for growth. The town's growth management priorities should include massive in the Milbrook area, developing along Milbrook has the potential to result in transformative change, as our landscape architect will expand upon the project is attractive to people who work in Cambridge and Boston, and work bar as you know work bar is on this site so this will give the opportunity for many to live and work on the same site. It is also attractive to seniors, because it will give it is a local to transportation shopping restaurants and the like. The project as proposed will be repurposing certain of the existing buildings with some historical significance, and the brook will be showcased with the removal of encroachments creation of a walking trail and informational markets. The improvements that are proposed by the development team are in keeping with the goals and objectives of the Milbrook corridor study group. It's going to have connectivity to the bike path, and the project will have a number of sustainable construction features. I would suggest to you that this is an exciting reuse of this underutilized site. And I would ask I turn it over to our architect Mr Bargman to to provide the plans and go through. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Klein. Granted permission to share the screen. Yeah, it should be good to go Joe. Thank you. My name is Joel Bargman. Thank you for the opportunity I'm going to walk through an overview of the presentation. In collaboration with Kyle Zick who is Mary mentioned is the landscape architect for the project. This opening slide sort of says a lot about how we've focused our development. There's historic assets of the buildings that we want to restore and add on to. There's ecological and natural resources that are part of the site, which is the Milbrook channel. Here is running along the right or street extension towards historic mill building sites changed over the years and that's one of the things that happen to sites. And the lower left is prior to the Myrack Chevrolet and Myrack Hyundai going into the site. The site is actually behind the auto dealership sites and it was a mill site for many years. We're attempting to find out the and develop the core characteristics of what was there as when it was a mill site. And of course, honor the fact that sites change over time and change according to regulations that communities brought into fact so as Mary explained there's been master planning. There's been discussions about the site and there have been sort of six principles about this particular area and the master planning. About linkage of work opportunities stewardship of historical resources, natural systems and walkable public realm and the site project that we're going to be showing you tonight. And that incorporates those six principles. The yellow area on the left is the particular site as an extension from Mass Ave. It comes in past the Myrack Hyundai dealership between what is called building to and the work bar building, and then building one which is the larger site, the rear of the property. That's outrider street extension and out to Ryder Street, which connects to forest. That is the extent of the site will be discussing and is the ownership of the property. The particular development principles. After planning, we're really focusing tonight on the natural systems, historic systems, other property connects to the greater neighborhood and advantage of the greater density. We'll be talking about the Minuteman commuter path, which is on the proportion of the site that green line on the left. We'll talk about the Millbrook. And we'll talk about the third parallel line, the Mass Ave connection and of this site, which is now on the right screen here makes its connection into the greater neighborhood through these three parallel as the way of zooming in a little bit closer to the site. We have the work bar site and I'm just going to take a moment here to try to get a better cursor going. We need the annotation opportunities so I'm hoping you can see the cursor. We have work bar. Here you have building to and that's the entry to the site. Work bar is not part of the development. It's owned by the same. By the map my right family. It's it's into this development through organization is a separate property. Site consists of building to building one. Building four, which is a new building in the back and engine room, which is a historic restoration. And here you have the Millbrook. I mean through site. It's a little hard to understand. I think. This diagram here maybe shows it a little bit better. We have the work bar. Then we have a linkage of housing that connects front of the site to a new portion of the building. The slide on the left is showing is the property as a big number of tentacles that connected to the neighborhood. And one of the major things that we're attempting to do is to tie the Millbrook into the greater neighborhood. We're actually restoring this as a natural, logical habitat. There's a pedestrian habitat. It connects the neighborhood and connects through our site and has potential future expansion, which we understand as part of the master plan of our LinkedIn is to make a stronger connection of the Millbrook. We're planning to do that not only as a pedestrian, but also as an interpretive and historical feature that site really tries to make a connection up to the bike path. And then dilute the traffic. We're actually having three ways to connect out right or street. And then Quinn road to us have so that we can disperse the vehicular activity on the site, as well as the pedestrian activity. Here you see on the left, existing condition of one of those roads. And then the proposed condition. This is the mass have connector, which takes you as the Hyundai dealership work bar, and then building to just a new building that replaces existing wood building that has been damaged by wood boring insects, and has ceiling vents that are lower than are allowed by building code. So that existing building there. Not be effectively cost effectively or put effectively renovated. We're proposing to put a new building on the existing footprint. You get closer to the site. Now we're just past the Hyundai dealership and this on the left is the existing work bar building. On the right. That sits on the footprint of building two. And then the back is the historic building number one, which is the mill building. Then you have the new construction, the far distance. And then the right side of the building is the old building. The site is showing is much wider. The network going from about 10 foot to 22 feet clear with now will allow. Currently, there's a one way traffic. You can see on the existing is barely there. There's a very narrow way into the site. That's being cleaned up the height of that is limited now to 10 feet four inches. So a fire truck can't go across the bridge today. On it that crosses over the existing road will be removed. So there will be a full height of passageway, unobstructed passage. Trying on the left is showing new building. The same height as the existing building. So you see that in this perspective. The four story. It connects through from the front. The back of the site. Now we've gotten across the bridge. And are on the main portion of the site. And before I hand this over to Kyle. I want to point out that you still have not seen one surface parking. Space on the site. There are a few drop off and temp spaces for pick up us. Yes. UPS FedEx delivery. Working for the buildings are underneath new building. You're the first two floors. Or underneath. First floor of this building. So all the parking. The site is hidden from view. And that accounts somewhat for the heights of the building, because in putting the building underground, we're able to increase the impervious surface. Green space on the site by a quite considerable amount. And the tradeoff is by putting the built the parking under the building. We get that green space. And we get that green space under the building. And the parking. It is a good way for me to transition. From this courtyard where you're coming in from the street. Into this courtyard. Let me turn it over to Kyle to begin explain how the courtyard. Accesses the buildings and creates on the beginning of the interpretive site. Kyle. Thanks, Joel. I'm Kyle. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. You know, it is. This space with the courtyard is a place where different modes of travel are balanced. It's more of a European space. It's a plaza more than it's a driveway or a parking spot. And we do see that. Aside when it has those short-term parking needs that it is used for special events and that kind of thing. But otherwise this. It's not meant to be a suburban landscape. It's kind of reemerging from its industrial past. With plant species that are appropriate for that. And that the craftsmanship in the site furnishings are all kind of picking up on. The mill work and the piano boxes that were manufactured here. So we're using lumber and timber. In a way that is inspired by the original use. The upper left, you upper right. So you have a picture of the existing condition of building one. What. We are taking off some of the older buildings. And I'm showing you in this photograph. Is building one on the right of the photograph. And we're. Closing to remove. These little out buildings that were attached to building one. The backside of that. Is the picture on the right. So. There's building one again. We're removing. It's very difficult to see the cursor tonight, but we're removing this. Portion. Which is this. Sort of. M shackle. Set of outbuildings. They're really newer construction, not of historic nature. And don't have. Windows. Are retaining the historical. Engine building, which is here in the middle of the building of this slide. And some of the smaller. Buildings on the back are coming down. My point is that the site. Is being pruned. Of its buildings. We're taking off the buildings that are covering. Milbrook. And we're taking off the little shed buildings that are. Attached to the backside of building one. What that allows us to do is to create. The stronger interpretive. Landscape, which let me turn it back over to Kyle. To explain in one minute. He. On the left is showing the relationship of the new building. Mass. And I mentioned the building height. Of. The building is really 16 feet below the grade. Mass. So that's almost two stories. Lower. Than the mass of elevation. So the perception of the building will be lower. From the mass of perspective. And it is. And this is showing that sort of relationship. Of the. Where the version that steps up is. Right far back. And the site relative to Milbrook. And. Mass. So the milk record or something we really want to celebrate, you know, it's. At its origin. Was the organizing element for the mill complex. Provided water power. You know, got replaced by steam power later. But we think this. The. Should be something that should be a publicly accessible walkway. Shown in the lower right. A walkway up against the. Conduit wall with a continuous railing. And a green buffer separating that. From the driveway. And that's quite a bit different than the. The black and white photo on the top where surface parking, the noses of the cars are right up against the mill. There's no greenery and there's no public access. And if you look at that black and white photo, even more, Joel already mentioned this. The connective building that connects building two and one. Is being removed. So then no brook will be open to the sky. And it's intuitive that the walkway just continues between those buildings. The driveway here, we show very deliberately. Two bicyclists because there is a bike room in the. Significant bike room. In the proposed building. Because we're expecting that people want to live here because of its proximity to the bike way. And we're expecting that we're going to have. A lot of traffic for bikes to and from the site. Mary mentioned this, but this, this is really the, the point of our. Enscape development is to. Reduce this surface areas. Their asphalt and green up as much as the site. And I'll show you how we do that more. In the further. Slides. Also the whole opportunity is to open. Millbrook. This round in the community. This is not a gated community. This is a public access walkway. And intent. Is for this walkway. Continue. Between building one. The existing building. Our new building. Walk alongside the historic mill building. And bring you. Into. Smaller. Intimate courtyard spaces. So. We've taken you for a long time. The access road on Mass Ave. To a major drop off courtyard. An urban space. And now we've transitioned between the historic and the new. Into a very tranquil. Green space. And Kyle. You want to pick up again. Yep. So the thumbnail sketch in the lower left shows where we are. It's a. A long space south of the engine room, which is a historic building, which will be. An amenity space, a common space for the development. And that is a lawn that is the terminus of that public walkway. Along the Millbrook. And it's also a space that will be used by the residents. So it's this very flexible space. It can be used a lot of different ways and takes advantage of the great solar orientation. You know, it faces. A lot of different ways. And the right hand image here. We're showing the existing engine room building, which is the historic building that we are also repurposing for. Part of the residential component that happens to be a new. Manatee space. Servicing the apartment. Complex. So the space is really a Russian doll. Of. Lar space. With a smaller space in it. And then within the smaller space of this side of the. Development. We have yet a third. Smaller space. And the purpose of showing you this is that we have private amenity space. That is really distinct and separate from the neighborhood. So that there will be no impact. On the writer street neighborhood. It's clearly on the other side of the site. And it's contained. Within our buildings. Kyle, do you want to just. Mention about the landscape treatment. And how it varies from the other spaces. Yeah. So each one of the open spaces we described to have different personalities and different needs. This one is meant to be private. It's like the development living room. It's a place that might have dining tables, but also comfortable furnishings, maybe grill station. This is like the equivalent of the indoor common room. It just happens to be outdoors. And the pictures of the building are really showing that we're developing this industrial collage where. Have on the left, the. Existing historic building one. And we have a metal bridge connector to the new construction. So it's very much evocative. Of the way mill buildings were. Instructed. Over time. Additive pieces that were connected. And each piece has its own distinctive personality. Mr. This is the chairman. Just. If I could encourage you and Mr. Zick to. To wrap up some more quickly. I'm going to lose one of my board members at nine. This is our last slide. Oh, perfect. Thank you. So the last image here just talks about improvements. Existing on the left proposed on the right. The. What's. Isn't all that notable on the left. Existing are the green spaces. It only makes up about 6% of the entire site. The rest of it is either paved surface parking. Or building surface parking. The pavement makes up almost 68%. On the right is the proposed image. The green space increases from that 6% existing to 22%. And the building coverage increases some to 43. But by doing that. We're able to decrease the amount of pavement and surface parking. Basically cutting it in half going from almost 68% to 34%. There's just a, I meant to have this earlier and I missed it, but here's showing the existing condition. Now we're. I think one of the benefits of the project is providing. Our emergency access for. Fire police and emergency medical. Access to the site. And is, is available today. That bridge will be rebuilt. Rebuilt. Reconstructed and brought up to new load limit standards. So with that, I'll stop the share and. Get back over to the chair. Thank you. Thank you very much to that presentation. Much appreciated. At this point, I'd like to open to questions and comments. From members of the board. I know Mr. Revlock, I know you have a prior commitment at 9pm. So just want to make sure you had an opportunity to. Have any questions or comments you've had addressed. I do not have any questions or comments at this time. Thank you. Members of the boards with questions. Mr. Hanlon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for that presentation. Much appreciated. At this point, I'd like to open to questions and comments from members of the board. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are members of the boards with questions. Mr. Hanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two questions. One is. Well, one is actually a very logistical one. I was wondering if the applicant has not already done so. If you would be willing to put the slides into the record that you just showed us, it would be much easier for us to go back. To go back to the. Go back to the. Recording in order to, in order to experience this. This presentation again. Not that I'm sure that we won't do that from time to time, but it's harder to just look something up that way. Certainly will. Certainly. One of the things that I thought I remembered. I was quite pleased with about when you folks made your first. Presentation to the select board. It was a statement of intention to use. Not to use fossil fuel heating. In this building. As I, I understand that for hot water, you pretty much need to do that. At least as things are right now. And I don't see that in your papers now. And I wonder if that has changed. I know the work part is already using geothermal, but that's going to be changed in such a way as to not to integrate it with this project. And I wondered if you could just explain how the, the heating and cooling in the building is going to take place. I don't know that we've completely decided on the heating and cooling. I didn't get into the sustainable features. But we are evaluating fossil fuel. Free systems versus. High efficiency. Natural gas systems. And it's still an evaluation. That our energy model. Will take greater look at in the next phase. And it's not entirely clear at this time that the. High efficiency gas system is not going to end up being a more efficient system from an energy use perspective. And. It does have the advantage of creating domestic hot water. As well as domestic hot water for the heating system. So we are looking and evaluating both of those systems. With the intent of meeting. Or exceeding the new energy code for Massachusetts. Went into effect in, in early November. Thank you. Any further questions. Did you have any further questions? No, I didn't. I'm sorry. I thought I had not. Any further questions from the board. No. I have a question. Yes, Mr. Mills. They said they have gone through a review with the fight apartment, et cetera. Is that fight apartment happy with the access around all of the buildings. Being that they're residential. And up to six stories. The pipe. They say that these are actually inaccessible zones. The plants were reviewed with. The fire chief's designee and the building inspector. And I believe that the answer is yes. Thank you. That was my question. At this time, we don't have official written comments from them, but they are, they are being solicited now. So we should have those shortly. Any further questions. Yeah. One more question. The bridge is going over. They're going to be designed to again support fire apparatus, which can be very heavy. That's correct. They are. Thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Last call for questions from the board. At this time. Um, So we'd like to ask if there are, um, There's town staff. Who specifically likes it. Um, to speak at this point, if you could let me know. Or members of other town boards who are in attendance this evening. Ms. Chapnick. Hi members of the board and chairman Klein. I am Susan Chapnick, the conservation commission chair in the town of Arlington. Um, thank you very much for, um, this presentation. I just wanted to make a few comments, um, just for the public's information. Um, the applicant did come before the conservation commission for both a working session. We gave them some suggestions on improvements of the project in terms of. And by protecting environmental resource areas. Um, and as well as coming to the commission for what's called a, um, an RDA. So for a, um, Determination of applicability of certain standards. And the commission determined that part of the complex is considered a mill, a store, no complex. And I just wanted to make the public and the board aware that, um, just, just for your information. Um, when this comes up to the conservation commission under the state wetlands protection act, which we would be, um, administering and your administering our local by law and local regulations. Um, then this area that's identified as this historic mill complex, which is a subset of the total area. Um, that's, that's not an exemption under our local regulations necessarily. We have to look at that. Um, actually. It is an exit, probably an exemption under the local regulations as well, because we reference the, um, the state wetland protection act. So there's a small portion of the site that's proposed to be developed. That's actually riverfront area, but a majority of the site is excluded. So I just wanted to make that a statement. The other statement is in the applicant, um, mentioned writer book. So there's a small book. It's kind of a tributary. Um, that goes to no book. Um, we had a determination, um, during our conservation commission meetings with the applicant, that this book was not jurisdictional under the wetlands protection act, meaning under the wet, the state wetland protection act, it's not considered a strain. Um, for a variety of reasons I won't go into. However, under the local by law and our local implementing regulations, it's likely that it is jurisdictional. We should have those conversations with the ZBA and the conservation commission looks forward to assisting the ZBA in these types of issues and resource area protections for this project. So we look forward to doing that. Steve, did you have a question for me? Uh, I actually, I actually, it's actually for the applicant. Oh, okay. Sorry. Yep. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, could I interrupt the trick fell really? I'm getting some, uh, feedback from some people that's trying to tune into ACMI. They're getting the audio. Okay. Um, I'm sorry to get in video. Okay. But not audio. Can we ask Mr. Sean Keen to look at that? And see if everything's okay on his end again, um, people trying to tune in and not getting audio. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. Is there anyone, any other, um, any other questions or comments? Thank you. Thank you. Now staff or board members who wish to address this proceeding. You can go ahead and raise your hands. Um, Mr. Chair. Mr. Revillac. Yes. Um, I. I would like to thank Ms. Chapnick for reminding me of my question. I was wondering if there are any concerns about, uh, existing soil contamination on the site. Not that we're aware of. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Hamlin. Um, Ms. stamps has been trying for some time to get our attention. And I wonder if we could, uh, could turn to her now. I was looking for a blue hand. I couldn't figure out how to use the race. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hamlin for noticing me. I was speaking for the tree committee. Um, we never received any information about this project. Um, we did not the town, the tree warden did not receive a tree plan. Um, which anyone, there are no exceptions. Commercial or private is supposed to in a, in a development situation is supposed to submit a tree plan. Um, a tree. Um, um, um, tree protected trees on the property and protected trees are within the setback. Um, I think it's eight inches, um, in diameter. And so the tree warden hasn't seen anything. It looks like there, I saw the request for the waiver tonight. That's why we're on tonight. A waiver from the tree bylaw. Um, we have a lot of trees. We have a lot of trees. We have a lot of trees around. These are big mature trees. Um, this town really can't afford to lose any more trees. I understand. And I'm pleased that the development wants to developer wants to. Add a lot of trees, but they're small and it will take them. Decades and decades and decades. Um, To get anywhere near the size of the existing trees on the property. Um, but I really can't speak to the narrative. Um, I think it's a really important thing. So I would ask that the, um, The, the, um, whoever on the landscape person or whoever it is. Submit a tree plan to the tree warden as soon as possible and go over, um, the plan with the tree warden. Um, and get the tree wardens input. Um, I think it's a really important thing. Um, It's supposed to be on that tree plan is outlined in article 16. Um, tree protection and preservation by law in the Arlington general bylaws. We will do that. Thank you. And I would, I would object to the, the, the board, um, Um, is that an opportunity to be consulted? Thank you. The, um, The consideration of the, uh, the waivers will come. Significantly later in the process. So there's a, There's plenty of time for, for additional reviews. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Okay. Um, Seeing no other requests. Um, Town staff or boards. I will, I'm going to open the meeting to, um, The public comment. So just a few, uh, Briefly. Um, So the chair strongly encourages individual public speakers. Uh, To be concise in their comments and use their time to provide. Comment related to the topics discussed this evening. Um, There will be multiple hearings and different hearings will have different focuses. Um, so there will be plenty of opportunity for public comment. Um, So if you would like to speak, if you could, If you are logged in through zoom, um, At the bottom of the screen, there is a participants tab. And if you click on that, um, you will see a raised hand button. Um, so you can go ahead and raise your hand. Um, Then you'll be called upon by the host. Um, So if you are joining us by phone, uh, which I believe there. I think there's anyone who's actually joined us by phone. But if you were joining us by phone, it's star nine, uh, To put you in the queue. Um, so the first hand I see is, um, So Robert. Thank you, Mr. Klein. Uh, can you hear me? Mr. Klein, can you hear me? I can. Thank you. Okay. I can. Yes. Uh, I enjoyed the presentation very much. Uh, the one thing I did not, uh, Hear any mention of, uh, was my building. And my building, of course, Is the gray building that was shown out front on mass have. To the left of my rock Hyundai. Uh, I, of course, I'm going to be directly impacted by. Um, What is being proposed in terms of the 100 130 residential units. That would be constructed. And I did submit. Uh, an eight or nine page letter to the, uh, Board, which I saw posted. So I know you got it. Uh, which talks about the history of my building. Uh, my building was built in 1845. It's the old swarm house. Uh, and I bought my building in, uh, 1988. When I bought my building, uh, There was a gas station in the my rock Hyundai slot. Uh, and there was no expectation on my, and by the way, Work part did not exist either. There was no expectation on my part. That I was going to be faced with 130 units. Uh, using the right of way. And by the way, We're talking about a right of way. We're not talking about a road. Uh, it's a right of way, uh, that basically a butts my property. And a butts the Hyundai property. Uh, uh, Yukon realty associates purchased the gas station. Uh, constructed the Hyundai project there. Uh, and that was done after I purchased my property. Uh, so we've had increased traffic from my rock Hyundai. Uh, because they have their dealership there now. They come down the right of way. The entrance way to their dealership. Is only 20 feet away from the entrance way to my parking lot, which is on the other side of the right of way. In addition, as I've indicated, we now have work bar back there. Now we are in some difficult times right now. So work bar is not up to operational status. We know that, but that's going to get back at some point to where it should be. And we're going to have additional traffic emanating from that site as well. Now Yukon realty associates are LLC. Uh, is another member of the Myrack family. It's not Bob Myrack. It's not Jill Myrack. I believe it's Eddie Myrack. Eddie owns the Myrack Hyundai dealership. And he also owns. If you come down the right of way and you take a right and you travel to the east. Uh, and you get beyond building number two. That's all Yukon realty associates LLC property. Uh, the question for me is at, at some point. What's going to happen to that Yukon property. Is the Yukon property going to be developed? So if that property winds up being developed along with 130 units that, uh, that, uh, Bob and Jill are proposing. Uh, what's the traffic going to be like on the right of way? Now again, my property is a right of way. And the law relating to rights of way, uh, indicate that you cannot unnecessarily burden a right of way. Now I don't believe that that is a, uh, an affordable housing issue. That would be an issue for a land court judge. If it comes to that. And if in fact the right of way is going to be over burdened, then it probably would be, uh, something for a land court judge to consider. Uh, the other issue that I raise, uh, uh, important issue I've raised in my letter is, uh, the number of parking spots that, uh, are being provided for in the building. I believe that 130 of being provided that they need more than that. I believe they might need 161 or so. Uh, the question for me is going to be, what's going to happen with any excess parking? Is the excess parking going to wind up in my parking lot? Am I going to have to play sheriff out there? And, uh, in fact, uh, evict people from my parking lot. Uh, in addition, if, uh, uh, folks can't, uh, who, uh, occupy the building, can't find a place to, uh, park in the building itself. Uh, are they going to park on the street? We know there's no overnight parking in Allington. Where are they going to park on the street overnight? So I have a problem. Uh, I don't have a problem with the concept. Okay. And I don't have a problem with a my rec family. Uh, my rec family, particularly Bob, who I've known very well and his dad before him, have been very, very good to this town. There's no question about that, but I'm a small property owner. I purchased my property in 1988. I spent a lot of money in the night in 1992, a quarter of a million dollars, which to me at that point in time was not chump change to my own property. I don't have a problem with that. I don't have a problem with my own property. I don't have a problem with my own property. Rehab the property. Quite frankly, it was a dump when I, when I did that. Okay. I did that. And like a week or two later, I wound up on the list in Allington, the significant list. Okay. Why? Because they thought the town folks thought I did a very good job. Rehabbing my building. I'm not going to go that route again. I didn't have to go to a town that right of way or going out that right of way. I think that right of way is already overburdened. And I just don't want to see additional traffic on that right of way at this point. That's my position. Again, I'm not opposed to what the my racks are trying to do. But maybe there's another way of doing it in terms of not using and not overburdening that right of way. Thank you, Mr. Nessie. The next hand I see on my list, and I apologize, I don't know if they are coming up in order or if they are being reordered as they pop up on the list. The next name I see is Alex T. Yes, good evening. Can you hear me okay? We can, yes, thank you. Can I name an address for the record? Sure, my name is Alex T. I live at Two Ryder Street. And I actually had my, I have certainly a list of intriguing questions to list, but we'll keep it brief here. I think the most important one from my standpoint is very similar to Robert's and it's about the right of way access. I guess I'd like to highlight two points about it as the traffic study was a big portion of the feedback for today's meeting. And first of all, I guess the way, the right of way in the land ownership has been described in the architectural drawings at least, I believe is incorrect. I do not believe that the land is owned on Ryder Street. It's a right of way. So I would like to see that corrected for future records if that's possible. And the secondly is really about the traffic study itself. And just again, the sample size of two days in a February, I don't believe is representative of the nature of traffic on Ryder Street. It is really a gateway to the bike path for a large portion of the Arlington community coming down off the hill. And it's also a gateway to the middle school where you have a lot of young children kind of walking aimlessly really oftentimes through the middle of the street, along front end loaders and delivery trucks and all sorts of different vehicles and just the lack of controls in what is essentially a glorified parking lot has led to a lot of near misses and some very scary moments for me, my family and neighbors. And so before moving forward and kind of increasing the burden on Ryder Street, I would like to really make sure that we have a plan in place to kind of control for those factors. Even outside of the traffic study, I think it was noted that again, that the access to Ryder Street would possibly add traffic to two of the more dangerous intersections in that study, both of which had an above average safety incident rating. And I'm talking about the Forest Street and Ryder Street intersection as well as the Forest Street Mass Ave intersections. And so I guess maybe the appropriate question at least for this, before we dive more into the traffic study itself is I would love to understand why do we need necessarily the access to Ryder Street as I believe it was the developers in our June meeting themselves that said, we've often have done developments of this size with one curb cut. And I think legacy place is evidence of that. So again, I would love to kind of just build upon what Robert was just saying is what other creative alternatives are there as opposed to burdening the immediate abutters. Thank you. Oh, thank you. So going forward with the hearings, we will have a dedicated hearing regarding traffic impacts and a more thorough review of the traffic impact study. One of the things we'll be doing towards the end of this meeting is the board will be requesting review funds to hire a peer review consultant to review the traffic study that was provided by the applicant. And so some of these questions will hopefully be getting better information or at least more sort of general information to share with the group. Your specific question, I think at this stage we'll take it on advisement but I ask you to please stay involved in what we're doing and we will be posting on our website the schedule of upcoming hearings once we have them established. The next question, the next person I see is Nicole Weber or Weaver. Hi. So I'm at 14 Rider Street. Thank you for having us here with you. I would like to add to Alex's response to the traffic study. I would like to note that this is a landscaping area where a lot of companies come in and with lots of trucks during the spring and the summer. So that also didn't reflect that traffic going in and out. So the timing of that was interesting that it's probably during a time when the least amount of landscaping is happening in the area. So just to note that as an observation that we need to think about higher traffic times of both school and the companies that exist in this area. Another point I wanted to say is that Zik brings up a lot of points that excite me about bringing down the paved surfaces and increasing the green spaces but I would ask that the company or the development, one of my worries is I'm an environmental biologist and one of my worries is that the protection by going with the state regulations versus the local regulations, we're losing some of those protections for our natural resources, right? And then by what Kaepernick was saying about the conservation commission losing the local protection to the brook. Also stamps, you bring in these things about the trees. The more mature trees and they're taking carbon out of the atmosphere a lot more efficiently than the young trees will be for a long time. And we really need to think about that for climate in this area. I am a single mom. I have a kid going to middle school and I worry about her safety on Ryder Street. And I worry about my safety on Ryder Street just walking back and forth to the bike paths. I would also like to ask the development team we met in June again. We made some suggestions. Have you thought about any of those suggestions? Are you going to implement any of them? Because I know you're going around all these groups asking you for letters of support. We would like to support this project too. I think we're excited about it. But one of the things that also impacts me directly is the shadow study, right? My house is in direct line of that and I am not gonna see the sun for a while. So think about like this is the first house I've owned. I'm trying to figure this out and hopefully work with you all in developing this further. And I would also like to note just the organization of this meeting doesn't give us a lot of say in what's happening. It's a very hierarchical meeting and it just feels very strange. So that's just a common as an Arlington resident. I'm in a lot of meetings in Zoom and so forth and I don't feel like this hierarchical power in those. So I will end there. Thank you, Dee. Just a brief question for you. You had referenced a meeting before, was that specifically the community meeting or was that a different meeting? Developers met with the residents specifically to discuss the project and comments that we had. Okay, thank you for that. Liz O'Connor, you are in receipt of the, you and your team are in receipt of the minutes from that meeting. Oh, I don't think there were any minutes from that meeting but I do recall there was some discussion about a shadow study and I believe that Joel, can you address that? I think you did look at that. We have prepared a shadow study and we could present that at a subsequent presentation if you want. Okay, thank you. But the discussion that the applicant had with the residents, were there notes taken that were then incorporated into or considered in the further development of the project? Well, yes, the shadow study was performed as a direct result of Ms. Weber raising that at the June 24th meeting. So the answer was yes. So there were, there's notes in a record but there's not a specific set of minutes, it's more what you're using. That's correct, people took notes. Okay, okay. Good, thank you. One of the other things Chairman Klein was to make available the traffic impact study which we did right away after that meeting. Okay, the next is Aniran Deshpande. Hi, good evening, can you hear me okay? We can, yes, thank you. She could just give us your name and address. I live at 18 Ryder Street right across Lallikata Landscaping Property. And basically my neighbors already highlighted a lot of my concerns and sorry if I'm regurgitating here but biggest concern is traffic. And I think it needs to be studied in a little bit more detail in terms of the amount of people that are trying to get the bike path from the new development. The traffic overflow as relates to the amount of parking, we often see a lot of visitors already visiting the skating rink and parking on Ryder Street already. And sometimes it's, we don't have parking spot left for ourselves and I can easily see traffic overflowing on Ryder Street, especially during the holidays or during wintery conditions and whatnot in affecting Ryder Street. So if possible, we would prefer that the entrance is directly from SF if possible to limit the traffic on Ryder Street. It's an extremely bumpy and busy road as is and it just gonna get worse if there is an entrance for this new development from Ryder Street. Like Alex said earlier, there are students that travel and walk there on a regular basis. It's a very popular access road for the bike path for a lot of Arlington residents. So there's all kinds of traffic. So from the residents of Arlington, traveling across this road, and it's a very diverse mix of people accessing this road. And if entry is planned and it's inevitable, are there any plans to maintain the road, improve lighting, so that the road conditions don't get any worse than what they are right now. So that's all. Thank you. Thank you very much. Wendell Evans. Thank you, Wendell Evans, Orchard Place. I really feel for the Ryder Street residents. This is a big change to your lives. I have several thoughts. One of my thoughts is that one of the most underutilized assets that Arlington has is the Battle Road and the great possibilities for tourism that it presents to us, particularly if linked with Lexington and Concord. The plans for the new buildings, unfortunately, completely obscure the historic nature of the site. They cover up what you're calling Building One, the Schwann Mill Building, rendering it pretty much invisible from Mass Ave. So I don't see how this enhances the historic nature of the site for passersby. It really turns it into a specific destination. So I'm concerned about that. I am particularly concerned about the loss of the very center of one of the largest remaining industrial, industrially zoned areas in Arlington. As Ms. Stamps pointed out, we can't afford to lose any more trees. We also really cannot afford to lose any more commercial property. Arlington is teetering right now. We're about to fall into the pit of being nothing but a bedroom community. And I just think it's catastrophic to drive a stake into the heart of this area. As Mr. Anisi mentioned, what happens in the future? The Myrec family owns, to the best of my knowledge, a good deal of the abutting and surrounding properties. What are the plans for the development there? How do we protect this industrial zone? Can we? And in my letter to the board, which I see is in the public record, but I wanna get it out there in public, Building One right now contains a variety of artists, small craftsmen, a variety of businesses that are about to lose their workspace. And I'd like to see some kind of plans for their relocation. Perhaps the Myrec interests could think about what they're doing to the surrounding areas. So I'm extremely concerned, I'm just really concerned about the loss of this industrial area. And I think it's something that Arlington is going to regret at Leisure. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think mine may make one important distinction. The Myrec family, the Bob Myrec family has nothing to do with the Hyundai and the unicorn properties that is set the separate Myrec family. They do not control that site. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you. Next is Mariah Contreras. Hi, sorry, I'm Mariah Contreras. I'm a homeowner at Two Rider Street. We are working on surround sound in this household. I would just like to actually Mr. Dupont's comment about understanding the threshold leading up to Safe Harbor made me wonder draw concern about the, you know, the gestalt of kind of our neighborhood. This project, this proposed project being just the first manifestation of redevelopment in our neighborhood. But also Arlington had chairman associates do a site analysis and recommendations in April, 2020 about the Arlington Industrial Zoning District. And in that it indicates that there's significant potential change to the Lollikata and the current DPW site both which about Rider Street and take up that whole apart from Nine Rider that takes up the whole other side of or the whole Myrec side of Rider Street. And it's a little alarming to think about all the change that could come to our tiny street. One safety first and foremost for people, for property, for the environment. But and things like light matter and the April, 2020 reports suggests that our neighborhood and our properties will be impacted in terms of what we see from those shadow studies. So I'm curious if the zoning board is taking into consideration really just in support of what other people have said not just the Myrec side but actually the Rider Street side. What is the near-term future? What does that look like? And what does, how does the current proposed development play into that? Thank you. So the Harriman report, I also, by being on the zoning board of appeals I sit on the Zoning By-law Review Committee who's looking at the Harriman study. So the looking at the Lollikata site that was just an example, a sample site to show sort of what, what different conditions, what different changes to the industrial zoning by-law would could allow to be constructed as no bearing on, that's as I know they have no intentions of doing anything different with their property. It's their private property. There is no redevelopment currently scheduled for that. The four sites that are shown in that are just sort of indicative of different areas along the industrial corridor that sort of runs through the center of town and sort of what they might be. So there is no imminent project going on at Lollikata. And for the purposes of the 40B application here, the comprehensive permit application, we are limited to looking at the site and the sort of the surroundings, but we, you know, what occurs in the future is not something that we can control, except if the, if by, you know, if within the next couple of years, the tap, the projects that are proposed that there's enough affordable housing that we can, you know, that we have safe harbor, then that gives us some leverage back against, you know, the 40B residential projects, but any project that would be developed by right under Arlington zoning is not something that we would be able to control. So that sort of where that sort of falls. I don't know if that answers your question, particularly, but thank you. Did you have a further question on that? I do not, but I would like to state, like I am extremely concerned about all of the safety concerns that have been stated by others. I work and have worked directly on Rider Street for seven years, look out, and I have seen multiple children almost hit by cars. I have seen property damage to multiple residences, and I really hope that we can address these concerns moving forward. So I just want to reiterate for what other people have said. Chairman. Mr. Clare, is there a sidewalk on Rider Street? No. Seeing no. Okay. Mr. Chairman. Yes, please. I just wanted to remind everyone of what Mr. Haverty said earlier that the task for the board as over the next 180 days will be to balance local concerns that need to be supported by the kind of evidence we're hearing tonight. That against the regional need for affordable housing, given that state law puts a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of affordable housing. So we certainly are going to be considering all kinds of local concerns, including the local concerns of people on Rider Street. And the more specific you can be about that in helping to build an evidentiary case, the more the easier it will be to try to figure out some solutions to if not solve at least to alleviate the local concerns. So all of these things are on the agenda, but there's a heavy burden to prove that the board has in order to be able to sustain a decision. And we need with the help that we can get from the people who live in the area and people who have concerns in building enough information that allows us to work with it as we proceed through the process. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Ms. Weber had a further question or comment. I'm gonna let Pete go first because he's waiting to raise his hand. I beg your pardon, I don't see him on my, he's not. You're muted, Pete. You guys hear me now? Ah, I can, there you are. Sorry, we were on screen too. Please go ahead and just name an address, thank you. Yep, Peter Maradiano, 17 Beck Road. I'm on the other side of you guys, but I am in a butter and I will definitely be directly impacted by this very new change. I noticed though that a part of this study was that Beck Road wasn't really included in the study and was kind of concerning to me because, Myrec wants to direct all this new traffic coming down Ryder, but what's to say? They just want to take a left on a Ryder. They may want to go right on Ryder and head down Beck Road. And the town just recently reclaimed 33 Ryder Street and we've seen nothing but a major influx of new vehicles, lot of heavy equipment and there really isn't, per se, a real established buffer zone in our area because it's a mixed use road. So already as it is, fire trucks can barely sneak by, especially down Beck Road and especially when everyone's parked on the street. And then now if we have a brand new development, 133 units, where are all those guys gonna go? In addition, people visiting, deliveries the whole bit. I mean, I just feel that it's gonna really impact our area 10 times, 10 fold. And it's, I think it's a good thing what the Mayrex want to do, but just to add to what Mr. Anisi said earlier, I agree though that it's not something necessarily perfect for that exact location. Location's everything and I don't feel that it would be conducive to this area. And that's pretty much all I wanted to say. Thank you, I appreciate that. Ms. Stamps? Hi, I'm speaking as an individual now. Two issues, one was that in the presentation, which I thought was very good by the way, they mentioned they were looking at a possible gas heating and cooling system. And I just want to make sure they're aware that town meeting just voted to submit a home rule petition to the legislature to ban installation of gas lines and a gas in any new construction and large reconstructions in Arlington, similar to what Brookline has already done. So that may be going through, if it goes through the legislature, it may well be going through well before they even start work on the project or certainly construction of the building. So I don't know if they're aware of that, but I would hope they would look into it and not try to get a grandfathered in somehow because the town is, that's a big step towards the town realizing it's net zero plan and sustainability for the town. So that's number one. The other thought I had was on the pavement there seemed to be so much pavement in the pictures of the development. And I wonder, does it all need to be impermeable? Can it not be? I thought everybody was doing permeable pavement these days. That was being much better for the environment and for the ecosystem. So I'd like someone to speak to that if they can. Thank you. Joel, can you speak to that? Mr. Bargman or Mr. Sick? Oh, I'm like, Kyle, for that? Yeah, I can talk to you that. I mean, we are looking at different paving materials in Pervious and Impervious. The civil engineer is also involved in that discussion. I mean, the good thing is that it's an overall reduction of impervious surface. So though that that's a net gain or a net benefit. But I think the decision of what all the final paving materials are still something that we're going to look at. So I don't think anything's set in stone at this point. Thanks. Thank you. Mr. Stamps, does that address your question? Yes, and I was just I was also wondering if they are aware of the home rule petition that we had filed and if they were going to be taking that into consideration that there may be a ban on gas, new gas pipes sooner rather than later in town. I don't know if Mr. Bargman was aware of that. I wasn't aware of it, but I'd better defer to him on that. He stepped away from the screen for a minute. Yeah, that was on the warrant for the fall town meeting. We'll consider that. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you Mr. Stamps. Ms. Wever, did you have anything further? I know you were drawing my attention. After me, I think Karen wants to speak. I thought they had their hand up. But I think this development would need a traffic light at Forest and Mass Ave. Now that we're talking about this level of traffic, it's already hard to get out on Mass Ave. I'm just saying that that might need to be consideration. That is definitely things we will discuss more in depth in the future when we have a full hearing about the traffic implications. Any other public comments at this time? Yes, please, if I could speak. Yes, please. If you just go ahead and identify yourself, please. Sure. My name is Tom Taylor. I'm married to Karen Erickson, who Zoom were using. So you're seeing her name. I live at 23 Forest Street, which is at the quarter of Ryder and Forest and Jason to Alex T. and Mariah Contreras. I have several concerns. I just want to repeat. The safety issues given the current configuration are serious ones. There are parking problems. A number of residents have had to basically ban parking in front of their properties because the construction workers or the DPW workers or anyone who's in those buildings park their vehicles on Ryder. So there is, at this point, there are times where we have no place to park on Ryder because the construction and other commercial vehicles that are on the road are taking up all the places. Additionally, the children, as Mariah mentioned, coming from school, Alex mentioned it too. A number of people on the call as well. But that is a real issue at this point, that those kids are very young. They do not have boundaries. They do not check. I'll just say a number of times, not many, but a number of times commercial vehicles, landscaping vehicles, turn the corner off mass out into Ryder. And they're not going five or 10 miles an hour. They're going 15 to 20 miles an hour. And if they're, I've never seen an accident. I hope there never has been one. But there have been a number of close calls. So I would just bring that to the board's attention. I also want to thank the presenters for the PowerPoints and the points they made. One of the questions that came up for me is that I wonder what the impact of all of this. Oh, I'm sorry. We've lost your audio. Can you hear me now? Yes. Hello? OK. I see head shaking. One of the points that's come up for me is I'm wondering about the impact of this development on our property values. And I would ask that the group, the zoning board, if this is standard procedure, I would ask for a property value assessment in terms of the impact of the development on the abutting properties on both Beck and Ryder Street. Final note I would make here is that I went through the materials for tonight's meeting that were on the website for the town and the zoning board. And while Alex T's letter was there, Mr. T spent a great amount of time putting together a PowerPoint presentation that addresses the documents that we had to review at the time that he had, I should say, because it's supposed to his work. And I would like the board to enter that PowerPoint into the public documents that the decisions will be made from, or at least that that be a piece of evidence that's taken into account by the zoning board. Because it was sent along with the letter, but the PDF does not appear on the town's record of correspondence you've seen. Thank you for that. Rick and Vince, if you could take a special note of that, if we can get that posted, that'd be great. How are you doing, Chairman? Thank you. Oh, you did. Thank you. This is for your time. OK, so anyone else wish to speak at this time? Mr. T. Yeah, sorry, just one more last question. Again, it might be for future discussion, but I know that we are in a flood zone where we are. And the previous owners of my house noted a flood of the MIRAC property years ago. I'm kind of curious if have there been any studies about how this development might impact either positively or negatively the kind of current flood situation? Joel, can you answer that? It's going to be better for the civil engineer at a subsequent meeting. Yeah, OK, so we will definitely have a series of meetings about this one. It will be about traffic. We'll certainly have one about the floodway and about storm water. As we will be sure to cover that topic. OK, at this point, I don't see any other hands raised or anybody else with public comments. So I'm going to go ahead and close this part in the hearing. I believe Peter had his hand gone. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me? Oh, Peter, sorry. OK, go ahead. Yeah, and one other thing I just want to touch on, just thinking about it. Ryder Street, as it sits right now, is not wide enough to accept two-way traffic. Two-way traffic goes up and down it, but it's usually one person waiting at the far end while giving the courtesy to the other person coming down. So it's just something that the town and the board and the zoning really needs to look at and think about. If you want to use that area, it's just not adequately sized enough to accept two-way traffic, even flowing. So something for them to consider. OK, thank you. I will close the public comment period for this evening. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this hearing. There are now several business items regarding this project. These items relate to the operation of the board and the proposed hearings, and as such are not open to public comment. The board will not take up new business, nor will the introduction of any new information on matters issues they brought to the board. So the first item is the state search. We have 180 to conclude the hearing from the date of opening. And so today is the day of the opening of the hearing. Today is Tuesday, January 21. And I believe 180 days from today is actually July 4. Christian, you're on mute. Christian, you know that you're on mute. I did not know I was on mute. Thank you very much for that. So Ms. O'Connor, do you concur that today is the opening day of the hearing on this project? I do. So I would move that having received the Ascent of the Applicant, the ZBA affirms that the 180-day clock for the purposes of 760 CMR Section 3 shall be deemed to have commenced on January 5, 2021. Now a second from the board. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Let's do a quick call down the roll of the members. Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mills. Aye. Verruch. Aye. Perfect. Thank you. And then the second item is moved that the ZBA receive all documents, correspondence, and comments received as a part of the application on Friday, December 11, 2020, and correspondence up until this date. There's a second on that. Second. Mr. Dupont. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. Verruch. Aye. Thank you. And additionally, I'd like to move that the ZBA incorporate all minutes from meetings of various town boards and commissions conducted with representatives of the applicant between March 26, 2020 and the time of the application. Can I have a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Mr. Dupont. Aye. Mr. Hanlon. Aye. Mr. Mills. Aye. And Mr. O'Rourke. Aye. Thank you. So the next item is a section, a request for funds for the peer review of documents provided by the applicant. Under Section 53G, which is one of the governing regulations for the comprehensive permit process, the board can request funds from the applicant for the to hire a review firms to perform these reviews. And we'll be looking for firms who could review the civil engineering and site design aspects of the project, the building design of the project, environmental impacts, which would include floodplain and stormwater. And specifically the traffic and transportation impacts. Are there other aspects that the board would be looking to have reviewed at this time? Mr. Chairman. Yes, Mr. Hanlon. I just want to stress the at this time part. There may very well be things later on as the hearings proceed. And as Mr. Havardy pointed out, ultimately it's possible that we may need a peer consultant on financial matters as well. So I just want to be clear that the motion that we're doing now is not waiting any right to increase the scope of our request for peer review within the scope that's allowed by the statute. Absolutely. So, Mr. Conner, we would be requesting an initial sum of $10,000 at this point for the hiring of the peer review consultants. Mr. St. Clair, I'll defer to you. I believe that's a non-issue. Yes, we can confirm that. Thank you. So therefore, $10,000 appropriate time to review consultants. Mr. Chairman. And traffic interpretation. Yes, Mr. Hanlon. At least until just now, you were going in and out. Oh. And I'm not sure that anything you've set up to now, unless it's only me, was not clearly audible. OK, thank you. I will restart the motion. Move that the zoning board of appeals requests the applicant transfer an initial amount of $10,000 to the appropriate town account to retain peer review consultants in the areas of civil engineering, site design, building design, environmental impacts, floodplain and stormwater management, and transportation impacts. Further, the town council and the Department of Planning and Community Development staff be authorized to retain appropriate peer review consultants for such purposes and communicate needs for additional funds for the retention of such consultants consistent with Chapter 44, Section 53G. The board reserves the right to request additional funds in the future to review these or other possible topics which might require analysis by an outside expert. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. Mr. O'Rourke? Aye. Here for the aye. And I had spoken previously with town council, Doug Hime regarding a review of the completeness of the application. And we had agreed that he would review the application and review the materials and report back to the board in 30 days. In that regards, Mr. Hanlon, does that still work for you? Yes, it does. Perfect. So then a move that the ZBA requests council to perform a completeness review of the application and provide a report back to the board and applicant within 30 days of this evening's hearing. Second. Second. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. Mr. Dupont? Aye. Mr. Hanlon? Aye. Mr. Mills? Aye. And Mr. O'Rourke? And the chair votes aye. So I've got to come back to the next item. I think it would be helpful if the board could have a site visit with members of the design team to get a better look at the property, a look at the existing buildings, a look at the waterway. I spoke with or exchanged emails with Christine Bongiorno, who's the director of the Board of Health, who felt that it could be done safely if we can maintain proper distances, be properly masked, keep it to a small group of people, understanding that if there are three or more members of the board present, it technically is a public meeting. It has to be noticed. And so I just, we don't have a proposed date or anything at this time, but I just wanted to confirm with you that we could try to set something up in the next couple of months. Absolutely. So I'll get back to you looking for details on that. So the next item is consideration of whether the board should assert safe harbor protection by ways of having greater than 1.5% of the available land area dedicated to affordable housing. So the calculation was run on this back in 2016. And the decision that information provided by the town indicated that there was a safe harbor in that the town had over 1.5% of land area dedicated to affordable housing. That was appealed by the applicant at Thorndike Place, which went back to the state. The state did not find that, found that for whatever reason that the number was different and that the town did not meet the 1.5%. The town then had the interlocutor appeal, which came back in the applicant's favor and found that the town did not sustain the 1.5%. So in speaking with the director of planning and community development, there has been no substantial change in the amount of affordable housing in the town of Arlington. There have been some additional affordable units created. There have been some affordable units lost. And so we do not have a current updated number. But the question before the board is, do we, does the board feel that the prior number is the correct number and we should be asserting it or that the board should not be asserting it because we don't feel we have it or that the board should consider applying it or not on the other factors? And so I know Mr. Handlin has some specific opinions on this, if you wouldn't mind. Before I do that, when Mr. Rheim made his initial statement, he reserved some time to talk about this. And I wonder if before I say what my strong opinions are, I could listen to his opinions and he could inform us a little more about what the status of all of this is. Thank you, Mr. Handlin. I appreciate that. Mr. Heim. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Handlin. Let me just offer something really basic at the outset so that folks who are attending this meeting, members of the public who haven't heard about this before, understand what safe harbor means. Safe harbor does not mean that a project is rejected. Safe harbor does not mean that a project is granted. What it means is that there's not a mechanism for an applicant to appeal to the Housing Appeals Committee because the town has met the statutory mandates for affordable housing. In 2016, the town did an analysis. Based on an analysis, it was believed that the town had achieved safe harbor status by essentially dedicating 1.5% of its total land area to affordable housing. The way that calculation works is both complicated and counterintuitive in a number of general and specific ways. But the board asserted it, as Mr. Klein noted, the applicant sent a different matter, appealed it, and the long story short is the town lost, didn't prevail. The town can assert safe harbor status in one 40B application and not assert it in another. By not asserting it in this case, it's not waiving its rights with respect to litigation of its previous assertion in this other matter, the Thorndike Place matter. Really, my best guess based on recalling the board's previous discussions is that the board really has one of two options. It can assert 1.5% safe harbor status knowing that it will lose, essentially, in DHCD. Or it can essentially say we still believe that we have 1.5% with respect to this matter that we're continuing to preserve our rights for and generally speaking. But we're not asserting it in this matter because we don't think it would be a productive use of our time. And I want folks to know that I consulted both Mr. Havarty and with Attorney Whitten, who's a special counsel in the other matter. And either one of those outcomes preserves the board's position. The only important thing to understand is that whether you lose in DHCD or you simply don't assert it, we cannot maintain it unless in this specific matter, in this matter, unless you're willing to go through a very lengthy interlocutory appeal process. And I know that Mr. Havarty is our specialist here. If he has anything you want to add on that, I'd leave that to the chair's discretion. But those are essentially the options. I'm happy to answer any questions that I can. Mr. Havarty, do you have some comments on that regard? No, I think Doug summed it up pretty well. Perfect. So Mr. Chairman. Mr. Hanlon. So now is when I get to have my opinions, I think. I don't believe that it would be in the interest of the town to actually follow here the procedure that we did in the Thorndyke case and actually go through a process of litigating this through the HAC, which we would almost certainly lose since they've already taken a position on this very issue. And leaving then after quite a lot of delay and expense, both for the town and the applicant, leaving ourselves with the process that we're doing now in the Thorndyke place case. So the idea of seriously pursuing it in this case in an effort to establish it seems to me to be something that's not in the interest of the town and something that we should not be doing. Given the unlikeliness that our assertion of a safe harbor will be effective, and given the present position of the HAC, and given the fact that it's necessary to assert our rights here in order to preserve them in other cases, which to me, at least, was critical, I was much more concerned about preserving our rights in other cases than I was at asserting a safe harbor here. And giving the waste of resources that the state harbor would occasion in this case if we went through what is essentially an empty process in order to preserve rights that we don't need to preserve because we've already preserved them, I think that the board shouldn't be asserting a safe harbor here and should proceed to consider this case in the ordinary way. The consequence of that would be the consequence that attorney Heim mentioned. And it seems to me that this is one of those cases where we do not have the very sharp clash that we do in the Thorndyke case. It's one where a lot of people have said reasonable things. There are problems that need to get resolved and discussions that need to be had. But this is not as conflictual, at least at this point, as it could be. And I think that it would just facilitate our moving forward on a basis of reasonable discussion of the issues if we do not complicate our lives by seeking to assert safe harbor and then go through the delay in the cost that would engender. Thank you. Are there other members of the board? Mr. Revillac. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Hanlon. Looking around to the faces of other members of the board. Mr. O'Rourke. I agree with Mr. Hanlon as well. I must say, my initial inclination was that we ought to assert it. Because in the time that I've served on the board, we have always asserted it. And it just sort of seemed like to preserve the town's rights. It was something we ought to do. But over the past week, speaking with various people in the town, speaking with Mr. Hanlon, especially with the time, I certainly see that if we were to assert it, it's a long way to get to the same exact place we would be if we didn't assert it. And there is no upside to doing so at this time. And so I would agree with Mr. Hanlon as well that our better option at this time is to not make that declaration and to let the process proceed. Mr. Dupont, Mr. Mills, do either of you have any questions or comments? No. I would just say I agree. And I'd like to underscore what Mr. Hanlon said, which is, I think that it would divert us if we were to assert that particular claim. And at the same time, I just hope that the applicants understand that we're doing so should we choose not to in the hopes that this can be a much more cooperative approach and solve many of the problems that have been alluded to by the people, especially the butters who have expressed their concerns. Thank you. Mr. Hanlon. Mr. Chairman, may I just interject one thing? Yes, Mr. Hanlon. I just want you to know that you don't have to take a vote because you're not ultimately asserting it. You've got a statement on the record. OK. Thank you. And Mr. Hanlon, just to confirm as well, if we're not asserting there, we essentially just do nothing. That's right. I mean, I think it was important for the board to set forth its rationale for the reasons that all of you have sort of set forth. But yes, that's right. OK. Well, we do not need to issue a specific letter stating that we are not asserting. That's right. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you. OK. So that was the last piece of business in this regard. So obviously, the next steps for the board, so we need to get the peer review engineers and consultants on board and to have them do some reviews. We will need to, excuse me, to review some of the documentation from the applicant's prior meetings with other boards in town and to determine whether we need to have additional discussions with those boards in regards to their decisions and their concerns in this matter. And obviously, we are in the midst of another comprehensive permit application, which is before us at the same time as well, as well as the other general day-to-day business of the Zoning Board of Appeals. So I would like to recommend that we continue this hearing until Tuesday, February 23, which I understand is a fair bit of time. But it will give us time to hopefully get some positive, get some good information back from our consultants. Get that in the hand to the applicants. The applicant has time to review it before we meet again. And in the meantime, I can have a discussion with counsel with the planning department and with the applicant to set up a review schedule that makes sense for the availability of the various consultants who are involved in this project. So with that all in mind, I would like to move to continue tonight's hearing of 1165 R Massachusetts Avenue, continue until Tuesday, February 23, 2021 at 7.30 PM. OK, second? Second. Mr. Hanlon? Mr. Dupont? Hi. Mr. Hanlon? Hi. Mr. Mills? Hi. Mr. Ford? Hi. Mr. Revillac? Hi. Mr. O'Rourke? And the chair votes aye as well. OK. So thank you all for participation in tonight's meeting at the Arlington Zoning Board of Appeals. Appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting, especially wish to thank Rick Valarelli and Vincent Lee for all their assistance in preparing and hosting this online meeting. Please note the purpose of the board's reporting is to ensure the creation of accurate recording of the proceedings. It is our understanding that recordings made by ACMI will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the upcoming days. 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, may I have a motion to adjourn? So moved. Thank you, Mr. Hanlon. And the second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Mills. All those board members in favor of adjourn, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? We stand adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Good night, all. Good night, all. Thank you very much. Thank you.