 Go ahead and call this meeting to order. Good evening. My name is Christian Klein I'm the chair of the Arlington zoning Board of Appeals. I'm calling this meeting of the board to order I'd like to confirm that all members and anticipated officials are present members of the board Roger Dupont Here Patrick Hanlon here Kevin Mills President Aaron Ford here Steven Revlak here Shawna work here wonderful From the town are Rick Valorelli here and Vincent Lee Wonderful That's a council Paul Haverty Here Good to see you, and I think I don't know if Marta Nova is on or not She is the the lead from beta group, but I don't think she's joining us this evening And then for the applicant Excuse me Stephanie Kiefer and John Hessian. I see John's picture here, so I know he's around Okay, it's a good evening This open meeting of the Arlington zoning Board of Appeals is being conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12th 2020 the order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location Further all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely 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 indicated on the post Agenda for this meeting the Arlington zoning Board of Appeals This convened a video conference via the zoom webinar app 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 aware that attendees are participating by a variety of means some attendees are participating by video conference Other participants are participating by phone accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you your screen name or other identifier and To take care not to share personal information Anything you broadcast may be captured by the recording. We ask you to please maintain decorum during the meeting including displaying an appropriate background All supporting materials that have been provided members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted Public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda This chair reserved the right to take items out of order in the interest of promoting an orderly meeting So the turn to the administrative items on the agenda These agenda items relating to the operation of the board and as such they'll be conducted with limited input by the general public The board will not take up any new business nor will they be the introduction of any new information on matters previously brought before the board So we have before us is the Approval for the meeting minutes from our October 27th 2020 meeting And I believe mr. Valerelli you have some comments already from members of the board. Is that correct? I do mr. Chairman. I've already implemented them when we get in a copy of the Official minutes posted on Novus as soon as we got approval tonight Okay, and I know the comments I had sent in some comments. There were just a couple of Name misspellings and names entered incorrectly. Yes Are there other questions or comments from the board in regards to the minutes? seeing none May I have a motion to approve the minutes as amended? No room Thank You mr. Dupont by a second second. Thank you mr. Mills I Do a quick roll call for Approval mr. Everlock I Mr. Handlin, yes, mr. Mills. Yes, mr. O'Rourke Mr. O'Rourke. Hi. I'm sorry. Nope Mr. Dupont I Mr. Ford yes And mr. Klein says votes aye Let's see Anonymous vote Thank you very much. Okay, so turning to the comprehensive permits section of the agenda so This evening we had originally intended to Begin again on the the open public hearing in regards to Thorndyke Place if you have checked the agenda it was adjusted over the on Friday and then Further documents were added over the weekend It was determined that the So we had the new documentation that was to be received by the applicant on November 3rd was received by the board on that date and The information was transmitted to our consulting engineers beta group They were to have information back to the board by the state which we have received And those documents are on the attached the agenda on the town's website We'll be voting to receive those documents this evening, but we will not be discussing them The reasoning for that is two-fold one is that We would like to have the Conservation Commission to have an opportunity to review those documents and they'll be doing so in an open session And I know their their chair is a is on the call this evening I believe the date and time for that will be December 3rd at 8 30 p.m Ms. Chattano, can you coordinate that? Yes, perfect. Thank you very much. So that'll be the next opportunity to speak directly to to this item the other reason for On postponing and our hearing until December 8th is that the applicant had asked that they be able to have a an opportunity to review the documentation from the Consulting engineers before we resume the hearing and so To accomplish both of those we will not be discussing the The contents of the revised documentation We will merely be Acknowledging receipt of those documents so the documentation that we received the list is on the Agenda under item number three acceptance of new documents I will quickly burn up here So that is this list Which includes documents from the applicant It includes the review letter from Our consulting engineer it includes a comment letter an initial comment letter from the Arlington Conservation Commission, and it includes Some public comment that was received And so I ask if the board will move to Accept these documents into the record Yes, please move that the previous convention documents should be entered into the record and will be made available on the board site as soon as possible Thank You mr. Hanlon do I have a second Second thank you mr. Mills Chairman I wonder if I could just sort of make clear that that The rescheduling of this to the 8th is designed principally to make sure that we have Everything before us that we need to make this as successful a hearing as possible If we had had it tonight the applicant would have had a very limited time to Respond to beta's comments the applicant did have its comments and when they were supposed to But it's a compressed schedule and also that we found that the Working session that with the conservation commission that we had last time was was extremely useful and wanted to have enough time to To put that in before we had the climactic hearing so Putting this off until the 8th means that instead of hearing this sort of In the middle of a process we get to hear it after much of the preparatory work has been done And that should make it more useful both for us and for the residents who will want to talk to us about this then Thank You mr. Hanlon For the vote from the board mr. Revillac Yes Mr. Hanlon yes, mr. Mills. Yes Mr. O'Rourke yes Thank You mr. Dupont. Yes, mr. Ford Yes, and the board votes chair votes aye Thank You that brings us to Item number four on the agenda, which is the discussion of the schedule going forward Up here on the screen in a second So we have here is a proposed schedule So tonight obviously is November 24th. We're meeting to accept your documentation and present a revised review schedule there are three different types of meetings that we are referencing on This agenda one is this conference call to discuss preparations. This is essentially a Quick call between the applicant The chair and vice chair of the board the town and council and the Excuse me the consulting engineer just to confirm that Everyone understands what will be presented at the following hearing and that everyone is prepared for that hearing date We do not discuss the merits of the application. We do not discuss the contents of the application. We merely discuss The preparations for the meeting So we'll be That's what the conference calls are The December 3rd Conservation Commission working session, which we discussed earlier is a public meeting that is held by one of the other Committees or commissions in town to discuss the details of the project as it relates to their particular Area of expertise and so The December 3rd is a working session with the Conservation Commission and that has been confirmed December 8th will be the next public hearing on the Thorndike Place Application will be discussing wetland and flood the wetlands and floodplain submissions reviews and comments December 9th, there's a meeting scheduled for the Transportation Advisory Committee. We have Notified them that we do have the traffic impact study the revision from the applicant and If they would be willing to entertain a working session for that evening, we would Appreciate them if they'd be able to do so We have not heard back yet from them. We only made that request yesterday. So we will wait on that hearing 15th is just a conference ahead of the next hearing the December 22nd hearing date will be a continuation of the discussion about the wetlands and flood plains issues January 5th is another coordination conference coordination call January 12th We hope will be the hearing to discuss the traffic impact study review and comments. This of course is pending that we That the traffic the Transportation Advisory Committee has an opportunity ahead of that meeting to hold a public hearing Myself again And that was that's January 12th January 19th is another coordination call the 26th is a Hearing to discuss the architectural and urban design aspects of the project submission February 2nd is that other confirmation call and then February 9th would be a hearing Continue discussions on the traffic impact study and urban design issues from the prior two meetings at present the Comprehensive permit applications have a 180 day Calendar associated with them to complete all the hearings that date is currently April 9th. So we're we're operating with a plenty of a cushion on the back end Are there any questions or comments in regards to the proposed schedule from the board? Mr. Chairman just a question about the December 3rd meeting Sorry access to that meeting. What's the best way to do that? Is that zoom with the Novus as well? If could miss Chapnick Comment on that please. She's the chair of the conservation commission Sure. Um The the best way to comment actually if you want to make comments for that meeting you can send comments to Emily Sullivan Who is the agent of the conservation commission? Prior to the meeting you could also make comments at the meeting We will allow in our working sessions. We do allow public comment We limit them to two to three minutes a person depending upon how many people are there However, we encourage people to actually comment directly to the ZBA because a working session is not a hearing So it doesn't have any legal team It's really meant as a free flow of information and questions concerns answers Um, if we can get them then so we really discourage formal comments Though we will accept them we discourage them At a working session because it's not part of the formal ZBA process It's meant just to help move the process along and get all parties thinking in the same direction So that when the ZBA does have a hearing on this Um top on the wetlands on stormwater and flood plain We will have hopefully addressed all the issues that we're concerned about Thank you. Does that make it clear? Yeah, it does and if people want to join the Join the meeting. Um, they where can they find a link for that? Okay, you should be able to find it you'll be able to find it on the conservation commission webpage And you you can register just like you register for a zba zoom meeting We have the same register procedure on you have to pre-register. I will um warn you that we also have a password protection for the conservation commission meetings Um, so make sure that you notice that you can't just click and then they get put in the waiting room That's a password you have to put into which you will get when you register All right. Thank you very much Any further questions from the board? Opening the question as well to mr. Hoverty Miss Kiefer or john hessian if you have any questions about that About the calendar All right, thank you. All right Seeing none, I will Go ahead If I could have a motion from the board to accept the schedule Mr. Chairman Uh, I'm I move that the zoning board of appeals adopts the proposed schedule is presented in the november 22nd 2020 Memorandum as the schedule for public hearings moving forward Thank you. Mr. Hanlon may have a second second Thank you Mr. Dupont Quick roll call for votes Mr. Revillek Yes, mr. Hanlon. Yes, mr. Mills. Yes Mr. O'Rourke. Yes, mr. Ford. Yes Mr. Klein And mr. Dupont All right, thank you very much That brings us on the agenda to item five, which is a discussion of the zba website revision Um, let me go to the screen okay, so I don't know if people are familiar with the current website. Uh, we have, um, Which is sort of created quickly and out of necessity um several years ago as a Basic repository for the documents that we had received as a part of the 2016 application And subsequent to that we have received new documentation We have been adding it as we can to the website, but we haven't we've never really established an overall format for it And a way to sort of ensure that people could find the documents they were looking for And to try to eliminate some confusion and so I have been working um with Vincent Lee um, and with uh, Joan Roman from the town and Also with oh with rick valorelli to put together Sort of a different format. Um, that we can have on our website Which we can use for this but we can also use for a subsequent comprehensive permit applications just to help sort of consolidate things so uh, what will be This here where you've seen this word document is sort of essentially what it would be. Um It's the name of the project a brief summary Um, which we currently do not have Of what the project is and in this case, uh, because of the revision you will have uh, both parts of that in the summary of both the initial and the follow-up Um, then we have the documents from the original application, uh, which was made in august of 2016 and Currently the titles for all of the documents on the web page are just the file names and so It's a little bit confusing to find out what they are. So trying to change the names so it's um There's a description of what the file actually is and then a date associated with that document um and so This that's what this is here for the original documents And then uh, department comments related to the application Um, those letters are here in sort of a digest format from that application And then just having a line and then the the revised march 2020 application Do I have the transmittals? Um for this particular, um We're including the bylaws that were in effect at the time of the original application because those are the Bylaws that govern this project. It is not the current copy of the bylaws that are in the in town So those are referenced here Um, we have the drawings and plans that were submitted And we have the department comments. Um, and so these are the the different uh, departments or boards that have submitted documentation relative to that We would have consultant comments um Both the from uh legal and from Engineering then we have public comments Um, currently these are the documents that we've received in the past And I would like the board to discuss a little bit how we want to handle public comment whether we um And so come back to that in a minute And then we would have a section for the september 2020 information we received um, and then with the same essential breakdown and then again the november documents, um, that we have received Uh, who it's from what it is What the date is, um all the way through and then as we receive department comments consultant comments and public comment to that And then I have a section on Correspondence from the board of appeals Um and That's the the proposed format That I've sort of worked out between my um with myself and uh a lot of input from mr. Hanlon um In regards to the public comment, um Been working with uh with rick valarelli to get all of that All that documentation correlated in a Into a way into a format that we can Have it available on the website my question for the board is Do we want to have um Each piece of correspondence be its own separate entry or do we would we want to have them sort of in a In a digest format um Related to the time they came in and I had wanted to get the board's input on that question Mr chairman, yes, please um, this is pat I I think that the uh Well, it's an interesting question because the ultimately the objective is is to make this as as user-friendly as possible Um, I'm a little bit concerned that if we try to do this as a digest the digest itself will will change because things will get Either be delayed in in getting everything to make sure that we have it in the in the proper order in chronological order Or alternatively, uh Uh We'll have to change it From time to time which would make it a little bit harder to use The advantage of doing it in a digest form Would be I suppose that it would be easier for people to That it would be easier for people to do If it's on a word document or or something that you can search It would be possible for the public to search through the documentation Or easier for them to search through the documentation Because they could do a word search and find things that they're that they're looking for um On the other hand, you would not you would have to actually get into the document And in order to do any of that and you wouldn't be able just to see what you're looking for by looking at the By looking at the the list on the website It seems to me that either way It's important For all of the entries to include the name of the commenter And the date of the comment And it seems to me that occasionally it would be useful when something is really focused on One or one particular set of issues like Transportation or wetlands and flooding and so forth To note that But I would not do that in every case because many of these comments will deal with more than one issue And it would become Administratively difficult to have to go through and make subjective judgments as to what each of those things are So I would only do that in under circumstances where the Comment has some particular salience in one issue set and wouldn't feel strongly even about that But I do think things like the way we have it now with one comment is mugar And of course, that's what we're dealing with in everything And so that doesn't really tell anyone anything about what that comment is It turns out to be a comment from Cory Beck Beckwith in july 25th 2020 on a number of issues and You need to know the name and the date if you are really taking seriously finding the finding it and Am being able to to refer to it later on the same thing is true of mr. Seltzer's comments in in may So at least you need that much I kind of you know I don't know whether I guess there's a third consideration And that's which is easier for staff to do because it's important to be able to get this done and get this up quickly And I like to sort of hear staff's recommendation as to whether which way Which way to put it I can easily see advantages both in the digest form And the other and and and it may very well be that the decisive character Thing is is how easy it is to do one or the other Mr. Valorale or mr. Lee. Um, I believe That changes to the website need to be done by Joan Roman's office. Is that correct? It is christian, um There's certain ADA compliance issues that Um, she's authorized to make those changes right now So so for for now anyways, yes, it's through Joan Roman Okay, thank you Mr. Tear Yes, please. Mr. Redlack. Yes. Um, I have two comments on the proposed redesign of the Yeah, web page. So first, I think this is a This is a tremendous improve. This is a big improvement over what we have now and it's You know, it's it will be easier to find things if it's more organized What we might consider doing is breaking this up into four sections The project summary and then one section for each submittal August 2016 march 2020 november 2020. I mean we kind of have that You know we What we're seeing kind of does that to um You know to a certain extent, I would just you know, I think it might be worth considering Putting one more, you know branch in the treatise so to speak um with respect to public comments, I Agree with mr. Handlin in that. Um, you know having them available on the zba website is is very important I would in the turn in terms of Digest versus individual comments. I would my own inclination would be to list them you know to make each Individual comment a separate file uh that way they're easy easier to link to um and once, you know a You know someone sent in the correspondence and it's been uploaded staff will not uh should not need to Change it You know at a later point in time, but you know, I would defer to Ms. Roman and Other town staff in that regard. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Just um on your on your first Your first comment was it that you would consolidate you sort of have a section at the top where we consolidate all of the um all the submitted materials by uh Sort of period of submission and then we have all the comments thereafter or Wasn't quite sure what you were so. Yeah, so um, then could you scroll up a little bit? or So more thinking more concretely, uh, you we have a pair of headings that say that refer to august 2016 So, uh, you'd have You know, you basically these would you know drop the heading down a level and just have like august 16 submission And I would keep I would be inclined to keep comments Together with the submittal package Just so it's clear what they uh were referring to So you would just add essentially one tab to the left that would Uh sort of help to identify the the the time period the time frame essentially for so that it would be We would have one that was a august 2016 and then under that would be the application Documents and then there'd be a second one for march 2020 and it would have the application for under that Yeah, basically revision one revision iteration one iteration two and iteration three. Yeah, perfect. Okay Thank you very much. Mr. Rowling Questions or comments from the board See Yes, mr. Japan So if this is the only reference down in the revised march 2020 application And then you have um arlington town bylaws in effect at the time of the original application um so Is that the only reference? To the bylaws which control in this Yeah, is it the only time they appear? Yes, you know, the only thought I had and I don't think it's a huge issue is that when you say in effect at the time of the original application I think we understand that that means that those are the ones which Uh, we which control the application But I wonder if it would make sense to also just add a small notation To that saying which You know are the applicable You know the applicable bylaws For this because if people look at that I think they can read it to say that there are other bylaws and I wonder if they'll be You know think to direct themselves Uh to a newer set of bylaws and I just probably leave you with that to clear up any question Thank you Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir um Really in in there Once we once we think of all of this the way Mr. Refillak has set it out and which is really sort of the organization that's already here um, there are at least two Things that that don't relate to one iteration or another and this is one of them because it relates not only to the revised march 2020 application, but to all further revisions And the other has to do with the scheduling orders which at this point almost everything Which sort of I mean which would be arbitrary to break them up by iteration Um, and I would suggest having an overall section Um, I'm not quite sure how it should be titled, but either at the beginning or at the end um That would include both of those things because they relate to the whole thing I guess I'd sort of be inclined to put it at the beginning because that's the sort of thing that people would look at first Especially I'm guessing that as many people will be consulting this on the schedule as as any other substantive issue And it would be easier to find if it was in the beginning But in any event it should be all together in one place and it seems logical into the same In the same way to include The bylaws and effect at the time of the original application In that place as as as well. There may be other things that emerge as we go forward that should be in a place like that, but But that should be broken out separately I'm just to concern that people will just not think to go happen to look at the march 2020 application to find the bylaws and effect because By that time that'll be ancient history by the time you get to You know the next hearing. Okay Thank you very much appreciate that Any other questions or comments from the board? Mr. Chair. Yes, please. I like mr. Handlin's idea As to I Just a question then for for paul haverty who's our counsel for thorn dyke plays Just questions to how other municipalities handle Public comment and the inclusion of them in the public record Chairman it really varies from board to board A lot of times what I will do when I draft the decision for a board is actually have a list of Materials that have been submitted by the public during the course of the public hearing And that list becomes an attachment to the decision for the board and it also Helps to identify what records are in The public record so that if anybody wants to actually review them they can go to the town and get copies of those Okay Mr. Chairman I have a question for mr. Haverty if if I may. Yes, please um A moment ago, we received a number of things into the public record um suppose time were to go on and someone were to send us a letter and and We for some reason or other didn't have it in a list of things that we in some subsequent motion Um admitted into the public record In in order to be in the public record Do we have to formally receive it or is it in the public record? Just because it was sent to us and is commenting on the application It is in the public record as long as it was submitted to the board during the course of the public hearing. Thank you All right. All right. Thank you, mr. Haverty. You're welcome. Um Is keyford you have any um questions in regards to the Website that we're maintaining Just a couple comments. Um, I do think this is much improved and I I very much appreciate um an ability for To go Review that And I I think Just to avoid Do we lose miss kiefer? I know her And she's back but her she's muted now. Okay Sorry about that That's okay. Your voice was choppy before Okay Can you hear me now? We can hear you but it's a it's a little bit a little bit stilted Okay, for some reason I'm getting a notice that the uh, the connection is Wavering right now. So I'm not certain. It's much better right now Much better right now. Yeah, okay Um, so I don't know if you caught my comment about the um Um, I agree with the suggestion about moving the the um, either the note And and the records as well as to the Um I don't know Time of the Provides clarity for everyone And and um also just Um Sorry, we lost you again Okay, I'm sorry. I my video is off it. It seems like you should still be able to hear me. Is that correct? We do hear you. Yes. In fact, we can hear you better with your video Okay. Well, if you don't mind that I'll just continue That way um, so my other comment was just Presently with the headers of um, revised march 2020 applicant drops not to call it uh, Or um, just so it's clear that it's all the same application. Um, and I know that there's been revisions to the project design, but um just So if if subsequent to the initial application one gets compete So if we refer to the original um August 2016 applicant as the application and then others Uh, subsequent to that as we refer to them as submissions That would be clearer I think Okay Thank you very much for that. And again, I do appreciate this effort to update Thank you any other questions from the From the board. I see none. I'm going to go ahead. Um I'd originally thought about taking a vote on this, but I think instead um, I will make some I'll make the adjustments per the conversation we've had this evening. I'll redistribute that to the board um, and then I don't think this is that necessarily requires a public vote. So, well, um We'll take a look at it and then um, I will forward everything off to uh, to Joan Roman She anticipates she'll have some time probably in the next couple of weeks To take this on so hopefully we can get that done in short order Wonderful So that was the last item on our agenda for this evening Again the next upper the next times where Florida Place will be discussed It will be discussed on December 3rd at the conservation commission hearing And then on December 8th at the zoning board of appeals hearing And the the schedule Is currently in the agenda and uh Is also on our current website and hopefully will soon be on our new revamped website But uh, thank everyone for their participation tonight's meeting at the Arlington zoning board of appeals I appreciate everyone's patience throughout the meeting. Especially wish to thank Rick Valley really and Vincent Lee for their assistance in preparing for and hosting this online meeting Please note the purpose of the board's recording of the meeting is to ensure the creation of an accurate record Our understanding the recording made by ACMI will be available on demand at acmi.tv within the coming days Anyone has questions or comments or recommendations? Please send them via email to the board at zba at town Dot Arlington dot ma dot us That email address is also listed on the zoning board of appeals website To conclude tonight's meeting. I will ask for a motion to adjourn So moved Thank you, mr. Hanlon second Thank you, mr. Mills all in favor say I All opposed We are adjourned Thank you all very much You too. Take care everyone