 2015 meeting of the Arlington Redevelopment Board. This meeting is being reported by a CMI. First on our agenda this evening is a discussion of an open meeting law complained filed by the residents of the town, alleging a couple of different violations. And I wanted to have a quick discussion about our response to that. Of course, I'll give you a chance to get settled. Mike, you wanted to start. So I've read the form of complaint, and I think we discussed a little bit of the last meeting. A request that had come in. And like I did a couple of weeks ago when we had that discussion, that our decisions were right around correct around what we had done. And beyond that, I would also suggest that it's the type of thing that we should present the different defenses that are forwarded to us with respect to it. So any of them that might be applicable. So that's my view. Bruce? Yeah, I would add for people who are unfamiliar with it, the complaint alleges that a question posed by a member in the audience wasn't recorded in the minutes. And the board has previously reviewed its minutes, and the minutes, in our opinion, accurately reflect the substance that was discussed that night and how the board reached its decision. And it's important to understand that minutes are not a transcript. So not every question finds its way into the minutes. So for that reason, I concur with my care that we don't need to amend the minutes. And I would move the authorized town council to file a response on our behalf with the Attorney General's office with respect to those allegations and pursue all the procedural and substantive avenues that are open to us. We have a second. Second? All in favor? Aye. Thank you, Craig. Thank you. Next up is the tree committee. It's a tree protection issue. And we have several members of the tree committee here this evening. So I ask them to come up and have a seat and introduce themselves. Thank you. 22 Addison Street in Arlington. Oh, no, that's fine. I'm the co-chair of the Arlington Tree Committee. And the committee is a board of selectmen appointed and we work together alongside the DCW Tree Department to promote the protection, planting, and care of trees in Arlington. Representatives from the committee are here tonight to discuss the urgent need to regulate the removal of trees on private property during development. The tree committee was recently approached at one of our open public meetings by some concerned residents. And as this protocol for our committee, we have put together a subcommittee to research on issues like this in more detail. And with that, I'm going to introduce Susan Stamps, who is leading up the subcommittee on this issue. Susan Stamps, what am I supposed to say? Susan Stamps, 39, grabbed the tree committee. So this resident came to our tree committee meeting in February. Was very concerned that his formerly beautiful leafy neighborhood was sort of a wasteland after a lot of trees were cut down in the course of a demolition and rebuilt on the property. And wondered, did the town have any way of stopping this sort of thing? And that he had come prepared. He had done a lot of research around the country and found that there are a lot of communities around the country that regulate the removal of trees on private property as part of the permitting process. And it just so happened that Mike Rademacher was at that meeting. And we asked him what? Because the tree warden works out of the DPW. And he said, as far as he knew, there was no protection at all. Nobody was tasked with worrying about what was going on with trees on the property. So it was an issue that came up in the master planning process. We, some of us, went to the master planning meetings. And specifically, I went to the one-for-town meeting members. I brought it up because it had, as I had said, you guys, this memo. And by the way, I have part of the copies. They're very organized. I have copies of the memorandum that I sent here. State the issues. Anybody need one? All set? Did you get it? Got it. And also, this morning, I filled the memorandum with the benefits of trees, which I left out of the original memorandum. You don't know if you guys got that. That was really good. And then the Lexington Tree Bylaw, and everybody got that. So anyway, we, the master planning process identified the local trees on the private property as an issue. And as I point out, my memorandum speaks in several places of importance of trees in the community for many reasons. And that a medium-term goal would be to look into regulation of the local trees on the property. The Tree Committee feels that this is an immediate and urgent goal, and that it's really too bad that we don't have any regulations in place now, and that we'd like to work with the board and the planning department with all deliberate speed to get a bylaw before the next Springstown meeting. The town of Lexington has a really good bylaw. We like it a lot. It basically, what the Cambridge regulates are removal of trees on private property. Newton does. Brookline has some protections. The town of West End just passed some protections. Wellesley is looking into it. Needham is looking into it. So it's happening in communities that are getting alarmed that the developers are coming in and taking down all the trees. And there certainly is lots of precedent. I don't have to tell you this for municipality regulating what people do on their private property that's going to affect the neighborhood, which obviously wholesale removal of trees does. So in Lexington, the Tree Committee is a much stronger board. It actually, if somebody doesn't like what the Tree Warden has told them they can do in the course of their rebuild, they can appeal it to the Tree Committee, et cetera. But most of the towns that we've researched, it's not me going out and removing that tree that's too close to my house or a tree that I don't like. It is only in the context of major construction for a complete rebuild, number one. And number two, it's only within a certain setback, like in Lexington. It's within 30 feet from the front of the lot and 50 feet from the side in the back. So I know that the setback issue is a huge challenge in our home town because I don't know. The zoning map makes my head spin. And I think there are different setbacks all over the place. But none of these problems are insurmountable. And I hope that the board will agree that this needs to happen. And there are many people here tonight who want to talk about what clear-cutting of trees has, in the course of construction, has done in their neighborhoods. And it's increasing in town, and it's a really urgent issue. So with the board's permission, you could maybe hear from some residents or if you have some questions first or whatever you want to do. We'll begin with questions. So do you foresee that this would be a zoning bylaw or a general bylaw? Well, you know, it's interesting. Lauren Weiner, I talked to him the other day, she looked at the Lexington bylaw. And she felt that it had the characteristics of both. Maybe Carol can speak to that. I don't know. We don't know anything about zoning. Generally, zoning regulates land use. But also, you know, we think of it more as the built, you know, man-made built environment. We get into these types of issues if we have a special permit that requires environmental design review. And then we're looking at things like the landscape plan and so on. But for the most part, I don't know. I think the zoning bylaw, there's nothing analogous that I can think of in the zoning bylaw that would be similar to this. So it may be that what we're talking about is a general bylaw, which we'd have to. But and so I pumped through the Lexington bylaw that you gave us an example. This would not necessarily be what you're proposing. It's just that it's a model, is that right? It's a model. Just the idea of you're not telling everybody they can't take down one or two trees. You're only talking about we've been a limited area where clearly it would affect the neighborhood. And that's somewhere within a setback. And it's only in the context of major reconstruction, which is where, frankly, you usually see it. And it also talks about trees that are of a certain caliber, in other words, the diameter of the tree. And they're applied eight inches or greater than the Lexington bylaw. Everybody does it slightly differently. And I noticed there were certain unprotected trees. So aggressive species or invasive species necessarily escape the saw. Yeah. And the other thing that I don't know if I mentioned this. There's something called that the master plan called not only a tree bylaw, but a neighborhood conservation districts. Here I'll know something about that, I think. But the other one that I forgot to mention here is a scenic road bylaw. I don't know if you guys know anything about scenic roads, but it's a state program. And you can designate certain roads. And I'm sure there's lots of roads in our way to designate this scenic road. And then you're not really regulating your moveable trees on private property, but you're protecting them on public property. That's a whole different topic, that that's not really what we're here to address today. But there's not a whole lot of protection. An individual can't remove a tree on public property, like the tree strip or anything. But if the town decides that they want to, they're basically the final decision maker. There's no process for the town. And I think ultimately we want a process for the town also. I'm not accusing the town of taking down trees in a bad way. But towns often do this, and that's where scenic roads are helpful. Yeah, I think I can see where Bruce is coming from as far as this being in the regular bylaw versus the zoning bylaw. I think that I'm not sure this place belongs here. I guess a couple of things I'd point out is going through the Lexington bylaw. First off, we talk about a tree manual. So I think that what you're talking about is, I don't know what's in a tree manual, but is it a pamphlet? Is it a book? Is it a, because just a kind of, it seems to me that there is a good deal of work to do on this, unless I'm missing something. You really, we don't need to come up with a tree manual first. But what Lexington did was that they had some amazing group of people in Lexington who not only helped fashion the relevant bylaws, but they also did this whole tree manual, only a very tiny portion of which is actually the bylaw. And the rest of it is guidelines for homeowners to take care of their trees and guidelines for the town for what they should do, so I really wouldn't get, that's really not relevant, the tree manual. OK, but it might be from a digestion standpoint, because what's a good tree? What's a bad tree? Who's going to say what's going to, you know, all those types of things, right? I mean, I'm just thinking about the bylaw and being a town meeting member, and what questions are likely to come up. And I think this has the potential to be quite controversial. And I think if ducks aren't in a row, that regardless of whether it's a zoning bylaw or otherwise, just my own view is that it has challenges. And, you know, frankly, I think the other thing is as I think about Lexington driving down Lowell Street quite often, you know, they've got quite a few houses that have gone up on Lowell Street. This went into place in 2001. It's been clear cut of several times. So I think I'm curious if all of that was done in Lexington with this bylaw here, what protections are you really affording anything? And are they real protections, or are we just kidding ourselves to some extent? Because, I mean, a lot of those lots have been cleared quite a bit unless I'm mistaken. The other thing is, is as I look at even these pictures, you know, I think it's an eight inch tree, if I'm not mistaken, that is protected. And I'm looking at this picture down here. It doesn't look like a whole lot of eight inch trees. So I might be mistaken in that. And up here, the angle's a little different on each. But frankly, that big tree's still there, that big tree, that big tree, a lot of the big trees are still there. So I guess once again, I'm coming from a place of knowing how this is gonna go over, that, you know, I think there's some work to be done on positioning and figuring out what it is that should be done here. Absolutely, this is a preliminary discussion. We felt that it's never too early to start with conversation. No, I agree with that. I agree completely. And we absolutely appreciate that feedback. Yeah, I just, I see a lot of challenges with this. And I think, because I look at the, and I'm sure folks have war stories, I can only imagine, I'm sorry for those, but I'm not sure that this necessarily articulates it maybe as well as you might hope. So, yeah, please. I'm Sally Nation, I'm on five-or-column road. And I see your point about these pictures. I'm quite familiar with quite a few of these sites because the older road is in my neighborhood. Okay. And the discrepancy that you're seeing in that upper photo for Oldham Road, but eight Oldham Road, what it doesn't really illustrate is that there are trees existing on neighboring properties behind. And so it's actually the density of the trees that has been lost. So the ones in foreground that are on the actual property have gone. So you can see from left to right that the tree cover is actually thinner on the right. Yeah. The other point that I would make if you look at 27 Oldham Road. Yeah, that certainly looks like quite a bit of stuff was done there. That's why I wasn't picking on those particular ones because that was obviously a fairly clear cut. So there were something like 13 trees taken down and some of the stumps were sitting at the side of the road and they were the sides. So they were definitely very mature trees. Other locations around the neighborhood that I have been looking at have had similar size trees taken down. So can some of them, interestingly enough, seem to be within the tree strip or at least within those. Well, but there's already think and what you'll hear is you're not allowed to do that. So that's a whole different ball of wax. So I think. I'm curious to how to pick up the motion. So yeah, and I think that's a great question to ask the right parties. But once again, I appreciate you bringing it up so early. I think it makes a lot of sense to discuss and that type of thing. I do think it has some challenges along the way. I kind of agree with this group. I mean, I think it really matters the trees in this town, so it makes the street feel great. It's one of the nicest things in Arlington is the trees. And if there's a practical way, I appreciate the start you've made to figure out a way that it could be made into a bylaw. Maybe it has to do with setback and new construction. Consideration has to be given for large trees that are close to the street. And then they're beholden in some way if you have a new construction to recognize that and put that as part of your permit application. I don't know the answer to it because it's too early, but that's all I think it's a great idea because it matters so much to the way the streets feel. So I'm looking, searching maybe as others are as to figure out really what's practical to go forward. But I'd love to hear from the audience too. So that's all I'm gonna have much more to say than that at this point. I don't have anything additional to add. I think I can agree with Andy. Said it pretty well. I'm happy to take a couple of comments, but I ask that you keep them brief and state your name and address and standard to speak. Is that too much? Sure. Okay. Hello, my name is Laura Perkin. I live at 15 Lakeview Street in Arlington. And we've been there for five years and previous to that we lived down on Long Road Terrace. We lived next to 17 Lakeview Street, which was the home of John Fitzmore, who passed away a year ago. And his family sold the property to a developer from out of town who renovated the house, clear cut the hillside behind the house, erected two large cement walls and has built a very large house in the side yard. So these big, huge retaining walls were built where the trees were clear cut from this hillside. We went back and counted about 40 stumps. There was egregious cutting of the hillside. These trees were mature, they were healthy. I even had the arborist say to me, I'm so sorry I'm cutting these down. These are healthy mature trees. They screened the noise from room two. They provided shade, fresh air, and made a beautiful lane at Spring Valley. I invite you to come down and take a look at it. And they secured the hillside. I wanna add to her remarks. I was recently about regulations in different towns. I was living in Virginia and where I was staying in Virginia, you can't just cut down the trees. You have to get a permit. A friend of mine lives in Maryland, same thing. You can't just take down trees. And I also wanna add that the Tree Committee website has a lot of information. It might be somewhat similar to the Lexington Manual. So I would urge you to have some kind of regulation in town. What has happened on Spring Valley is a travesty. It is really upsetting. And a number of those aren't photos from my home where I live. Thank you. I had a footnote. Alice Jardine, I live at 21 Spring Valley. I'm gonna pass around a before and after picture. Lovely, leafy, shady lane. The last one as far as I can tell to spy pond in Arlington. We heard the saws. This is after with all the ugly retaining walls. You can take a look if you want. We heard the saws in the fall. And I think it was more like a hundred trees. They basically strip cut the entire hillside, put up these ugly cement walls. It's right off of my porch. So I'm obviously a property owner very deeply concerned about the fact that I now have a quasi McMansion and these ugly cement retaining walls where there used to be 100 or so trees on this leafy lane. But I think what I was most upset about actually this is a historical lane. It's where one of the first battles of the American Revolution to place. It's where the first British soldiers gave up and all the horses from that battle are buried there. It's where Ralph Waldo Emerson wandered down Spring Valley to the lane, et cetera, et cetera. I know we don't have a lot of time. It's a historical treasure and it is now trashed. It is completely trashed. And I personally went to the town. I went, the permits were in order. It was more than a hundred feet from Spive Hon. Everything was in order. Everything was within the law except that this 28 year old kid from Riviera had no idea that this was a treasured lane. And I urge you to go take a look at what is there now. It is a monstrosity. It is ugly and this refuge was destroyed. And there are probably, there are tens of people who aren't here, who are as upset as we are about this. And I urge the town, I've lived here 25 years and I urge you to look at this, take it seriously, and try to come up with a solution. I understand how complicated it is. Thank you. Hi, I'm Deanne Dupont, 32 Oldham Road and I've been a resident since 1991. And I took those pictures of those more than 13 trees being removed from my living room. And I'm taking the approach more than I love the aesthetics and everything else. But removing trees and adding a larger footprint that displaces more water means that there's less water absorption. The town already has a problem with not sufficient water absorption. I've gone to several of these meetings by the town where they talk about problems with rainwater and water runoff, yet it seems like the two parts of the town aren't talking to each other because you have larger footprints and non-permeable surfaces. So you can't absorb the groundwater and then you remove the trees. So that exacerbates the problem. And in the case of 27 Oldham Road, I would think somebody should talk to the house that's downhill from them because there's a lot of ledge in this area. And when they built the house next to me on a larger footprint, remove some trees and shrubs, then I had to spend over $10,000 to mitigate the water damage from that house and the removal of trees. And so the town is bearing the costs of this and the homeowners next to it bear the costs of larger footprints and the removal of trees. And we have no recourse because everything was built in accordance to the zoning laws and everything. But I have to deal with water now and spend the money to mitigate the water. And I bet the person downhill from 27 Oldham Road is going to have water problems down the line. So I mean, I love trees, I like this, but it's more than just about the beauty. It's costing the town money because there's more mitigation they have to do. And it's costing me as a resident and taxpayer more money just to live in my house. So I'm taking it from a different perspective. So thank you. Hi, I'm Larry Englisher from Six Land Term Lane. I live about a block away from Deanna here. And the large mature trees in the Morningside neighborhood, it's a really important characteristic of the neighborhood and it was important to me in choosing to buy a house in the neighborhood 17 years ago. And since then I would count almost 20 homes have been either basically rebuilt, built or rebuilt within a two to three block radius. And as I've seen these houses being constructed in an already developed neighborhood, I've seen trees be cut down in a variety of ways. Some clear cutting of lots, major trees, a lot of the places that we were talking about, we didn't have pictures of all of them to bring. But many of these mature trees have been cut down and some of them are enormous. Eight inches sound small to me. I'm talking about really, really large trees that took a very long time to grow and there's no way to replace them. And in some cases this has been because there are some larger lots and I think the zoning law we have or the zoning code that we have now doesn't properly reflect the character of the neighborhood in other places where two houses are going in and the place of one lots are being split. And in those cases, they often lead to cutting down every tree and a lot to make that happen. So in addition to that, we've lost shade trees on the street. We don't really have a tree strip on our streets. We don't have sidewalks and trees are being cut down all over the place for various reasons and some existing homeowners are just cutting trees down. So I think what's happened is the whole character of our neighborhood is changing for the worse. And I think that part of what the zoning law supposed to do is to protect the good aspects of the character of the neighborhood for the benefit of everybody, for the benefit of the town and the benefit of existing residents and owners. And I feel if we don't act right away to have some kind of protection, it will really be too late. And I'm confident that the redevelopment board and the planning department and residents working together can develop something that's fair and balanced and protects everybody's interest, protects property owners' rights of all kinds of property owners, people who live here now, people including developers and people who are gonna live here in the future. And I urge you to give consideration to how it can be done. Thank you. Please. I want to give some friendly encouragement to the tree group and make some advice if you are willing to take it. I think first off, you have to figure out, do you have a zoning article or do you have a general bylaw article? If it's a zoning article, then you're in the right place. If it's a general bylaw, you're probably gonna be dealing more with the board of selection. To me, it sounds more like a general bylaw as opposed to a zoning bylaw, but you can study that and come to your own conclusion as to which avenue you want to pursue. If you were to try to model a bylaw based on the Lexington bylaw, I'm gonna repeat what Mike said. I really think that the tree book, if that's what it's called, the tree manual, it's essential because you don't want to get before a town meeting and have people critique the article by saying, it's vague. We don't know which species are protected and which we can cut. So I think I would focus on that manual at the same point that you're drafting your bylaw. You want to be able to present that as one. So when it comes up for debate at town meeting, people know it's a lot of work. I know, but once people start saying it's vague, you're gonna lose a lot of votes. In my opinion. I don't see that we need to distinguish between this kind of tree and that. I don't think that that was key to getting some protection in place. Okay, but maybe you don't have the same bylaw that the Lexington one is. But that one specifically makes reference to the tree manual. So people are gonna say, well, where is it? And then the other thing that I would urge you to think about are what are the triggers on this? I think at one point it talks about trees that are in a setback, complete either raising of the structures or substantial new construction. But then it also gets into talking about the stem of the tree being in the setback. And the stem can be a long way away from the truck. So all of a sudden you could be talking about a 60 foot setback instead of a 20 foot setback. So I urge you just to think about how expansive you want the article to be. So, sorry, but I'm gonna pile on one thing. I understand that the tree manual is a lot of work, but in essence, you will be taking away someone's property right, okay, as you do this. And that is something, other than parking, that might be the most controversial in this town. Rightfully so, because anytime the town takes that kind of action against people's property rights, you should have a good accounting for it. So I know it's a lot of work and everything else, but the fact is, is if this is something that folks want to accomplish, just as I said, I'm piling on with Bruce, I do think it makes sense to get the work done. You're starting early, which is good, but I think without that, whether it's a zoning or a regular bylaw, I'm not sure I see success in the future otherwise. So just my thought. I'm not aware of Newton or any of the other places that have been tree manuals. Lexington just went Cadillac on it, so. And maybe that's it. Maybe you can get the Newton one and check it out and everything. So I'm not saying, I'm just saying, when you go up there, you gotta make sure. But there's a lot of things we tell people that they can't do on their private property. Or a proper good. Agreed, but absolutely. But here you're talking about building and you're talking about more importantly, not building. And that's when you really need to, well, if you can't move a tree, if you can't move a tree, then you might not be able to build or separate that lot. So the Lexington bylaw specifically provides that if the contractor really needs to move a tree, otherwise they can't build what they wanna build, then they work with the town to figure out how it can be mitigated by replacing a tree with somewhere else. So there's a lot of flexibility in the bylaw. Okay, super. Totally understandable. I'm just giving you my sense of what's bound to happen. So maybe we've all lived it. So. Good. Well, thank you for coming in. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Hey, I'm David Gamble. I'm an architect and an urban planner with the Gamble Associates. We're based in Cambridge. I'm working with the town on developing a set of design standards. I was also a sub-consultant RKG on the master plan. So I've had some engagement with the public primarily through a visual preference survey last summer. And I think I met with you maybe six or eight weeks ago. So we are on a very accelerated timeframe. And I know the document that you received, you just got on Friday. So I apologize for the late notice for what I thought I could do is try to highlight to use your time most effectively a couple of things. One is we'd like to get some knowledge men or some feedback on the structure of the standards, which are very Arlington specific with the notion of these three corridors. We think that could be very unique amongst towns because it's seldom that you have these three intersecting alignments. Each of one has a different requirement in some way or should have a different requirement in terms of build out. So we'd like to get your feedback on that as a structure. We did do a test case development scenario based on these standards for a site, which is I think vulnerable or poised for redevelopment, the walk green site between SpyPond and Massav. We just chose it, but it's not for sale or anything, but it actually intersects two of the three corridors. So you haven't seen that yet, but I have a handout to walk you through what could happen on that site if it were to be redeveloped following these guidelines and more than anything else to try to give you a sense of capacity in what some overarching urban design principles are. So that's an application of the standards to a very specific site and I'd like to get your feedback on that. And third, we are, as I said, having working under a fairly accelerated timeframe, we're gonna have a public meeting two weeks from tonight and it would be great to get your thoughts on how we might use that most effectively. You guys are in the trenches a week after week, so I think you probably have your fingertips on the pulse of the issues that will likely come up so we could get your feedback on that. So I think you have that handout. This is a draft. We're gonna have two deliverables, one which is a document that the town won't will get for the standards. And another thing is the right term for it. It's a poster, it's a some type of graphic device. This is one we did for a nearby town that if a developer was proposing to do something and she wanted to know what are the essential criterion, look at this. And so we're in the process, we haven't done it, but we would like to create something like this that might be up 11 by 17. It doesn't have to be a poster, but we'd like to create something that's easily digestible, highly graphic, written for the layman, something that the ciphers as the people at the last meeting talked about. The zoning is often very cumbersome and hard to digest. So we see this as a simplification of the booklet, something that could be printed in house, if it's a smaller format. And again, this is for a nearby town, so it's not specific to Arlington, but really custom tailored. So the structure, the test case, and when you're ready, I can hand that out. And then the notion of a public meeting is too much paper to start with. I don't know, Harold, are there other things that you would like us to address in the limited time we have? No, I just think this is a, I think you're on track with trying to get feedback on the structure, but also wanted to make sure the board feels that what's included eventually in the content is going to help, particularly with redevelopment and mixed use. So I did prime the pump by asking you to ask a very specific question on these seven themes that we'd like to structure, that deal with, first and foremost, the building setbacks, in which case, on page eight from Friday's handout, asking whether or not the greatest setbacks should be reserved for Milbrook, then the bikeway, and the developmental or mass-having broadway should actually be almost a no-build scenario, yes? Andrew, can I ask you a question? Yes. Before you get going, what is the mass-having of broadway are two streets, right? Those are quarters? Yes. Those are two? Yes. Two separate ones. But we're treating them similar. Well, they flow into each other. They're the three he's talking about, or these three. We did combine mass-having, broadway, knowing that they are different, let me give you an answer. So the Minuteman bikeway I get, right, that's, and I'm the big Milbrook quarter guy, and I don't know what it is. We have identified the Milbrook study area. That I know. And I think generally speaking, that's what we're talking about. So it would help to have a mass right at the beginning of this thing. The dotted line around each guy. Yeah. And because the one that's hardest to understand is the Milbrook quarter, and I found it hard to figure out, because it's both mass-have and Summer Street and the Milbrook, and the Milbrook, all three. And it's hard to say, well, where am I setting back from? Am I setting back from mass-have? Am I setting back from the Brook? Am I setting back from Summer Street? That one's the one that really got my head scratching, trying to figure out how it fit into this formula. And I see you're trying to fit it in here, and it's not easy. It's not easy. I think that there's one site, the Miraq site, where the three quarters are sufficiently spaced, part of a part that it's easier for a person to delaminate. When they start to intermingle, it becomes more complex. You're absolutely right. But if it's a Miraq site, how would you define it? Because it's like it is so deep. So you're saying you would apply mass-have quarter to that, and then something else to the rest of it? The most important dimension is actually the build-to line, or the setback line. And so the way that we're imagining is that this the mass-have dimension, where any future development faces that corridor. The Milbrook would have two sites to it, and the bikeway would have one, because it's essentially bounded by the north side. It would be bounded by the bike path. So the Milbrook corridor, I guess to start defining is the best thing for me to be saying. It's a big chunk of land that has streets running through it, sometimes bordering it. So it just doesn't act like Broadway or mass-have. Moreover, it's covered up in substantial portions, so it's not even there. Whereas the Mil, whereas the bike path, the Minuteman bikeway, that's defined in a way, because it's a public park. Basically, it's a linear public park, and I want to stop anything. I want to do the best things we can around it, but it's more defined, because I can kind of identify what it is. It's a line. The other one's a chunk, a big chunk that goes through lots of streets, and it's almost like it's not in. It's hard to put it in this category, or it has to be given another category. I actually agree with that, especially if you look at page 11, where you talk about just building height. And I don't mean to skip ahead, but it's kind of hard and parcel. To me, this is a little bit scary, right? First off, height to five stories. I think that's great, but I think that folks aren't used to that here in Arlington, necessarily. So I think that whatever sample you have might be a good way to look at it. But I think the building in the center is for all the completing windows there, or whatever else. So you're talking about something, another story about that. But I think that's neat to hear there. I think we can easily, as long as you're kind of putting buildings of different height, I think actually would be pretty neat. But then I look at the Minimann Bikeway and the Millbrook corridor. And you say three to five stories on the Minimann Bikeway, and you say two and four stories on the Millbrook corridor, I guess when we're talking about Myrack and that type of thing that does hit both, then maybe it makes sense to have those conversations. But I'm thinking about kind of Millbrook along the way. And I guess other than the condo complexes, which do rise pretty high, things are pretty low there. And I think that when you have that public meeting, rightfully so, you're going to get an earful on how dense you're trying to make two places that aren't dense now necessarily. So to me, it is about Mass Ave and Broadway. And then these other pieces, as they relate to Mass Ave and Broadway, I think that's where this starts to make more sense. Where they maybe don't intersect as much as get close or property goes from one to the other, like on Myrack, that that makes sense to kind of have those things. But I guess I just get concerned with just as an overarching principle that on the Minimann Bikeway, three to five stories is fine. I have a similar reaction. But I wanted to take a step back to sort of Andy's point. And I think that the presentation to the audience may be clearer if you find a different word other than quarter, certainly for the middle brook area. It's not quite a straight line quarter. It's not quite so linear. The brook is certainly, but the area around it that could be shaped as part of that area does kind of expand and contract a little bit. The bike path is a quarter. But now back to the streets, your commercial streets, you've got really two different quarters that you're putting under a larger umbrella of being a quarter. And that's where I think that you may lose the public a little bit. And there are a lot of similar themes that you're talking about with Broadway and Mass Ave. But I think I've already said there's some nuances. There's some differences between the two of them. On the question of height, and I think that there are some people who have a knee jerk reaction against it. So I think you really have to make sure the audience understands step backs. Because five-story building with a setback looks like a four-story building from the street. And on the commercial streets, I think that you could go to a four- to five-story pipe there, maybe with some variation. But on the Milbrook and the bike path, I think you have to be much more selective. Because one of the nice things about the bike path is there are parts of it, even though you're in a very densely populated suburban town, where you kind of feel like you're in nature. There's enough landscaping on either side of it where you're not really back cognizant of the houses on either side. And that's kind of nice to lose that sense of urban density for a while. Then back to the Milbrook. This is a great area, I think, for mixed use development. And here, I think we need to be flexible. But if everything becomes five-stories in the Milbrook district, then we're losing something. So how do you keep those older industrial type buildings and do some adaptive reuse? How do you integrate some newer features in a way that keeps a balance there? I think that is a challenge. So and I think that you did say very building height there between two and four-story, which is good. So I'm not saying it's going to be uniform at two-stories either. But how do you get that mix that keeps it interesting, keeps it kind of funky? Funky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, actually. It's hard to regulate, obviously. It's funny when I was looking at this. I saw this picture. And I was like, they kind of got it right here in a lot of ways. They've got the water, the industrial bridge over the water. People love to do that. That's Springville, South Carolina. But they've got lots of light in the public spaces and they've passed it around. That's very, very nice. So I mean, that's a much bigger town. It's a much bigger river than what we have. I'm not saying that's the blueprint. But the way they've managed to attract the public there about lighting is really good. It keeps safety. They've got a mix of uses. There's an old cotton mill there that they've just left there. They've got a hotel. They've got cafes. They've got a performing art center. I mean, that's a dream. It's a pipe dream. Yes. But yeah, and they've got some tall buildings there, too. But they've also got some low-rise buildings there. They've got these things in scale. I think that's the knee jerk on, especially the mill broke, and maybe the bike path, too. Is that right now there isn't the same accessibility, right? So all of that might make a ton of sense if it ends up being a public space like that. But I know my concern would be that you put these design guidelines out there. People start building without providing that same public access. And then what you've got is you've got density, which is what has happened on the mill broke, right, with those condos. You've got great height and you have no access. So all it does is deaden what should be a good resource. And that's where I love where you put a public realm interface. Yeah, I think that is so key. We can stress that. So I mean, when we do have setbacks on a commercial street, that's a little opening for a public area. That's a great idea. And that's what keeps you think it should start with that, perhaps, and then just in terms of hierarchy, instead of leaving with height, which is going to be far with attention. I think it's not a bad idea. I mean, especially if it's that the height is going to be subject, well, it can be. But I mean, that's dependent on this type of public realm interface, that you are rewarded for providing that kind of public realm. I guess that's what I would want. Incision is. Incision is, exactly. Maybe a greater, another story of public access. Exactly. Public access and public use, right? Because of them just providing a doorway down to a path. Isn't too inviting. Quite enough. I think, really, in terms of public character. Yes, I'm urging you, you have a public character. Exactly. I'm still thinking that this whole, you start off saying the primary commercial industrial corridors in Arlington, I think maybe that's it. You've got to, NASA and Broadway are commercial corridors. The bike path is a park, which is we're concerned about developing around it. It's a transportation corridor, so. Just be aware of that, yeah. But I would, it's a transportation corridor, that's true. But if you start treating it like a street, which is what everybody's going to understand you're doing, the way this is written. I think you may lose the primary aspect, but it's a very unique transportation corridor, which acts like a park, it acts like a recreational zone. There is some transportation in there that's workman-like transportation, I got that. And then, if you look at the Millbrook zone, it's a whole area, it's a whole, it's not a street. It's not necessarily a park, it's a mixed-use zone, it's an opportunity zone, whatever the word is, you've got for it. That's what it's meant to be. Somehow, if you can define it that way at the beginning so people don't immediately say you're just jamming in heights, because those things actually may be perfectly valid in a way, as you start getting into it. If you look what you've got right now, you'd have three to five on Broadway, I'm sorry, a Mass Ad, I'm more into it in that way. So you'd three to five, and then you'd slope down to two as you got to the Millbrook, and then you'd have two across the way, and then you'd get to the bike path, and something would happen. I don't think you can really even look at it, it's hard to look at it that way. Well, it changes too, right, because at times the bike path is lower, and at times it's higher. Right, it's so unique, it's so unique. It's an opportunity district that it's hard to, I'm trying to figure out, because I just picked this up myself, I didn't get a chance to look through it too carefully. How you take advantage of that, how you define design standards for a zone that cuts through so many parts of the center of our town. It's a node connector, it connects the heights, it connects the massive area of the center of town, on the center, it has the bike path in it, it has the broken end, that's my problem. It's immediately, I said, oh, you can't put a formula on this, I don't know whether I want, like you said, the different grade issues, where we built, where we permitted 22 mil, now that's a big gully, right? So they have the parking way down low. Yeah, right. So if you're at the bike path, you're still pretty high. You know, you might be three or four stories there, but feel it, and it steps up into summer street. You would have to look at that, we did look at that very carefully, you see. And we tried to figure out how to pump mixed use into it, and how to, as an overall zone. So it's got medical office, it's got shattics, it's got the new retail, it's got the bike, and then we have them renovate the pocket park, which was part of town land on a no-brook. If we had done, even better, we would have had some other connection up on the Broadway, so that we would have all those things packaged in the idea of a mixed use development in the middle of the corridor. That's the problem I'm seeing this way of defining it. These are really good guidelines, I get it. They're a good start because it tells you that you're gonna have more density in an intelligent way, but I don't see how it works yet for that corridor, for the no-brook corridor. Maybe it does. That's a very good point. As much as I'm compelled to try to simplify into these three themes, the one I'm married to, and I think it needs to be, my fear is that it is too formulaic, and it's too blunt of an instrument, or something that has so much nuance. So either we need to pull out the notion of the transportation corridor as a bikeway. The no-brook has a potential public space yet to be developed, and then NASA, which is clearly its own animal. Yeah, or maybe if you wanna keep this formula, you introduce it, like someone was saying, somehow you characterize these corridors. These are two major streets. NASAD is one of a kind of killer retail street, or commercial street. Broadway is kind of our own local NASAD feeling. It doesn't go through every street, but it actually does, I take that back. It's similar, you're right, it's similar to NASAD, but it kind of has a transitional feel to it. It goes back into the neighborhoods a little bit more of that kind of thing. Then you've got this bike path, which is a completely different idea than those two, and then you've got the no-brook corridor. And maybe if you characterize this thing first, such that when you get back into the boom, boom, boom, before you said, maybe you've added some caveats, or you've added some descriptions, so then you can say, okay, yeah, well, I get it. I generally want there to be the ability to have higher buildings in these areas, more dense buildings, but I'm not reading it as a formula for actually building in those areas necessarily. That's what I'm worried about. I mean, someone's gonna look at it and say, okay, I've got a three to five-story building around the bike path, or around Milbrook, and that doesn't make sense for Arlington. I'm scratching my head as well. It's not easy, but that's when I first read this, that's the first thing I thought. First of all, I couldn't even understand what Milbrook corridor was, because once you actually draw a map of it, it ain't gonna be a corridor that's moving around. I don't know what everybody else thinks. I bet you guys have a lot of thoughts about it, and some thoughts about why it's in this position right now. Maybe there's a way out of it. Any one thing we might want to do is to start by just pulling the map out and breaking it down into some sections. The map of the Milbrook study area. Yeah, I mean, I think that one's gonna be your toughest one, because it's such a blank canvas, that I don't think anyone knows what's possible. And someone said opportunities don't go far, so it is more of a, you know. All right. It's by far the most variable, because it goes from being almost in a natural state to a very industrialized state. It channelizes it hard, soft, almost glaring transitions, so it is a very special place. And there is a lot of history throughout the Milbrook study area. Some of it's invisible, the five defunct milk ponds were in that area, but that provides some possibility for interpretation and design. I think, because that could work into the, I'm just thinking out loud, I haven't thought of this until Andy made this point about it's not being a quarter, but there are some historical resources that we could, we could build on for inspiration for site design. We could use them to inspire site design. It's also possible that the massive guidelines could be tighter, more specific, and as it moves to Milbrook, the language is just more flexible or more malleable with the caveats that you had mentioned. I think it's possible to lead with the aspirational components, and then be more, provide more of a range in terms of things like distance, percentages, heights, because there are really clear and definable sections, because the section changes as I have it's really, it's at grade, there's a public interface, it obviously has the highest amount of transit, so it may be possible to toggle the amount of tolerance that we use in our language to provide that flexibility. I think so, because I think if you, I don't think this is what you were saying, but I fear cutting it up into chunks and going with different things with different chunks, you end up with something that looks like that, and I know that's not what you were saying, but. I was only saying to cut it up to do the analysis. To figure out what could make that happen. Whether there's anything common among the chunks. I agree, you wouldn't have that many different types of approaches. Well, maybe not that many different types of approaches, but not just one approach for a whole, no brook area either, I think, because the areas where the brook is still in a more or less natural state, we don't want to lose that, and we don't want to say, okay, maybe that's it. Yeah, but at the other areas where there's either a historic or active industrial type of use, how do you sort of reintegrate that into the public realm a little bit, and saying, okay, we'll let you build here a little bit more, but there's got to be something coming back in terms of getting people down to the brook. Building in the restaurant space, or a cafe space, or a walkway along the brook. So maybe the part of it is to try to, and I know there's a property rights issue here, but you get walkways along the brook. Yeah, that's really interesting because maybe what we do is it's not the three corridors, it's the types of places, the recreational parks as a theme, and that applies obviously to the bike path, but also maybe other instances that happens as a theme, and then there's the industrial waterway area theme, and then there's obviously the primary commercial corridors. Maybe we don't so explicitly describe the geography or maybe we don't name it so much. I'm also just thinking about that. A bit more generic space types. I think people would be more comfortable with that because they'd be more familiar. We were working at that corridor, and you can see the shape of it, quite a lot of that. Yeah. And you start from Arlington Center, and you've got, it's everything about Arlington, all somehow sequentially happening. Number one, you get this civic zone. The little street that empties out onto Mill has got the historical. It's the civic, it's the old town, it's got the little alleyways. It has that feel of like an old city street, tight city streets. In fact, they are tight city streets with some of the stone and granite that you still see in some of the old houses all tightly packed. Then you go across Mill Street and suddenly you've got this beautiful brook feeling that you could be in somewhere in Vermont or New Hampshire with a beautiful thing, next to 22 Mill, and the bike and the pocket park, and that street which is Millbrook Drive is this beautiful little street. I mean, it's sweet with trees on both sides and the brook running along. Leads into the high school, that's a special thing. Okay, the brook goes under. Then you get to Grove Street. And at Grove, you have a little bit of that industrial feel because of the buildings around the Inspectional Services area. And then you have a park zone where the tennis courts are and the bridges that's dug in there deep. So it gets a little more parky and public park-like. And this isn't even mentioning how the bike path is moving. You're always seeing these cool cross streets that end in green bridges that are the bridges that were the original rail lines. They are the original rail line bridges. So there's this historical thread moving through it. Then you're in an industrial area, not a residential area, I should say, very much so, to the other side of Dudley, which is Brattle. And in Brattle, you're about to go into a whole other world to the east to the west of that. But Brattle's a major quarter because it comes up and ends at Brattle Square, which is kind of an intermediate between Arlington Center and Arlington Heights. It's like we even developed that in the early days as kind of a little mini-center, an intermediate center, an intermediate node. And each time you're going through the bike path, either you're going through it, over it, under it, in some cases where there's a bridge. And you transition your way up and then you get up to the Myrack area, which is just a great opportunity because it borders on the historical industrial mill zone. Those, it even says, they're mill buildings there. Those should be preserved or played off of in some way. Smoke stacks way down on the other side of the colony development, but it still forms a kind of a bookend to that Myrack stuff. So that's a real opportunity to kind of keep that industrial field going. Those could be quite dense and the mill might be something quite different there. The brook might be very different there. Then you work your way into the, I was thinking of it as Annie Leroy's neighborhood, but it's the beautiful little residential neighborhood. There, the brook is just shooting right through the residential. It's probably going to stay that way. And then you emerge back out to the gold gym and then eventually across to the hardware store. And that gold gym is a huge opportunity. That's where you really have a lot of flat land and maybe even some new industrial uses that can come in there. There's a lot of room there. Meanwhile, the bike path is cross to the, so it's really a series of zones that are characteristic of Arlington, very Arlington-ish that only we have, okay? Because we're an old industrial town that was on the way between here and there. And we used to have a recreational component to us, but they were like 60 mils or something on this thing and they've got the history of it. So it's not, that's why I'm saying it's a series of deeply rooted Arlington ideas that can then be brought into the future in a more mixed-use way. So that's why nothing's perfect, but the 22 mil chunk in a way was a pretty good characterization. I wish it had more industrial in it, but it has office, residential, park, connections, bike path, improvements to the bike path. I wish it had a connection up to Summer Street so people could get through. People talked about that when we were doing the special permit and they can get that way because they can go to Summer Street, but it would have been cool if there's another connection. So that's the thing I'm trying to see how we could capture in that, or allow, as you're saying, to be captured without characterizing it in a certain way that it's not gonna, it's not gonna, people aren't gonna not understand what the opportunity is. It's an opportunity for mixed use in a lot of different forms where they're characterized by Mass Ave, the bike path, the Milbrook, and Summer Street. That's what worries me about the formula of it. That's a warrior. Okay, that's very helpful. David, I think you're onto something like you said a few minutes ago, that this is an example of what the commercial streets could look like. This is an example of what a recreation zone would look like and so on. Without necessarily kind of get down to specific areas on the map. And then, but you could say, like for example, on Mass Ave, you might have this type of building here. I think that might be help in the presentation. And I really like a lot of what you've done, by the way, because I think words of tendency when you're getting reaction, it sounds like. No, this is great. Critique? I mean, I mean. It's gonna be negative at all. No, no, no. No, it's really very important. I think it's really helpful to get better illustrations into our zoning bylaw. We were just sort of ultimately, when I see this kind of leaning, and the illustrations of what step back looks like, the illustrations, bringing the zero setback line in the commercial districts is great. There's a lot of great stuff in there. Should there be a definitions section where even I get confused sometimes, step backs and set backs, because they sound exactly like, but they're different. Maybe we need a little definition section. Oh, that's probably a good idea. You could say set backs are at ground level and step backs are, you know, sort of for. It's a chance also to just reiterate the power of step backs and minimizing apparent height. Well, this may be the way to go, because as soon as you draw it on a map, then it's, someone's not on the map. Or the line intersects two properties because someone's actually gonna investigate it. So it could be an intellectual way to sidestep the dilemma of showing exactly where it is while still maintaining flexibility of these overlapping geographies, which as you, I think, very well articulated, that's the complexity here, is that there's no single line like at Mass App. I mean, that's the, you know, a broad way. Broadway is, you know, a Mass App is easier to define the way you've done it. But even that, it's gonna have holes where there are parks, like Jason Musselhouse. If you, I know in your term, they're gonna design you a video recorder and then you have a break. And in Arlington, it's lower scale, even in Cambridge in that area. So you're gonna have parks and breaks and things. As you get to the nodes, it gets more dense. As you get between, there are more breaks like the high school and this and that. They're good areas to infill, but it's not always gonna be quarterback. And I think that's okay the way you're handling that, because I don't think people will say, well, I wanna have five stories or three to five stories everywhere. We don't want that. We are allowed to have that. So there's gonna be, it gives us the opportunity to create density in those, particularly in those node areas, if we want to, which we do. Because we think it's gonna be healthy, it's gonna be vibrant, and so forth. More opportunity for residential, but it doesn't mean we have to, right? Certain areas we wanna keep over. Because that's the way they feel. That's easier, I think, to handle than the whole mill recorder. I think I said it a couple of times. I won't beat it to death, but I'm trying to figure out how to deal with that one. Well, let us chill out a little bit. Yeah, that's good advice. When you get up past the Arlington Center and it's a reservoir, it's a fantastic asset for the town. If you're a brothel, it's like, you feel like you're out in the middle of nowhere. It's gonna be nice. It's occurring to me that they're saying that it's not clear yet. I don't think it is to anyone. Whether these would be by right administered at the building department, or through a special permit process, or through a new process yet to be determined that might be more like site plan review. We don't have site plan review at this time in Arlington, but maybe that's what it would take. So I don't want any of some misunderstanding or misinterpretation of assumptions that remains to be seen. They would, at minimum, be used as guidelines. They could eventually, and should eventually, I believe, be worked into the zoning bylaw. To be explicit, but whether that would be on a special permit by right or something new, that's up to me. But don't we all have to deal with that because this, as it currently stands, wouldn't be allowed on the line, essentially, right? I mean, as it's currently set forth. In some places it might. It might, correct, it might be, but they're rather far apart, even far between. I think that when we get a little closer to what the content, settling down on agreement of the content, I think we then have to make some recommendations before we're able to make some recommendations about how to use these on an interim basis and then how will they work into a zoning bylaw amendment. How you then interact with the implementation committee and get them implemented. Very much. This was a recommendation. These are three very different things. The last item, Broadway, Minimine, do you introduce them as such? That's maybe I'm just reiterating. That gets you right away off, and why did you choose them? Well, because there are three key things in the town and you chose them because they're completely different. Because we could add in a couple more streets that are a little bit like Broadway. We could add in some more parks that are a little, you know, chose those three because they're key to the town. It becomes really important to create connections between those three. We're out of the opportunity right now. We have to connect the town to its center. That becomes part of the introduction to this thing. So we have a guideline. Have you guys really thought of, and now I'm talking to the perspective, special permit guy, have you thought about the relationship of these three things? Well, that's part of our guidelines. You gotta think about all three. So in a way it plays into the idea of a guideline to look at the nice, it has three different things. So the 22 mil would have looked at the connections first as opposed to, it would include all that. Add halt. Yeah. It's a tough task you got here. Yeah, yeah. It's actually, we love it actually because I think that in the absence of having guidelines then there's no clarity of expectations. And so, as Carol said, I think this is going to be a process of a transition and as a first step to clarifying language and demonstrating ways of thinking as much as how tall the story is. That's really the goal here. So that might be a good transition just to show you some initial concepts for one of those sites that intersects two of the very different places. And this was working with the town about, it's all the same site. So we've just generated a very simple sketch-up model at the Walgreens site. We happened to walk there at the bus tour on April 11th. Let me head about 25 people or so. So we spent some time and people were batting ideas back and forth. There's always two images. There's an existing image and then a proposed image. This is where the river meets the road in terms of the impression of development. But what you're seeing here is a, I would say an urban design aspiration for primarily a connection between Mass Ave. to the bike passengers by finding the distance. That's a primary motivation. Another aspiration is that something that's very unique in Arlington as you know is the fact that oftentimes major perspectives along Mass Ave are terminated by taller towers. And so there's a notion that at the bend in Mass Ave where the Walgreens that actually lies strategically, there could be greater height at that moment because you would see it coming west on Mass Ave. So therefore, in this view of the notion that that's a taller piece in part because it's on Mass Ave but also it helps to terminate a view when looking down Mass Ave. So it's embedded in this are the number of concepts that we would use to describe why this took the configuration that it did. We also think it's just a- What's that David? What's this, is this existing? Yeah, that's the back of it. That's exactly what it looks like. 28 feet tall wall, right? That's bad. That's exactly what it looks like. So yeah, we're also suggesting uses here as obviously the guidelines are necessarily dictating mixed use but there's an embedded notion that mixed use is important for redevelopment so you've seen a 3,000 square foot restaurant or something purple that just means it's a public amenity that would face the bipod. I think it's cool. And also you, by putting the connection from the bike path to Mass Ave, you create an amenity for residential, a scaled amenity. So that, the outlooks on that are marketable. It's for the new development. So people, that could be residential pieces or- Yeah. This is where we would talk about setbacks on actually the building massing tapers down as it gets to the south because you're closer to residential areas on the side. If you're interested in terms of numbers, what this results in is the current foot print of that building is about 15,000 square feet. We're showing blue for office, red for retail, the purple would be the restaurant, and then the yellow is housing. This gets us 30,000 square feet of office, 18,000 square feet of retail, 18,000 square feet of housing, so that could be 20 to 25 units, 3,000 square foot of the restaurant, and I should have prefaced this. This all relies on essentially underground parking that's built on a plinth because there's about a 12 foot grade change so you could fit 90 cars all together, 70 below grade, 20 at surface parking, and the parking actually would then, there are cores for each of these three building foot prints that connect to the underground, so there's probably more detail than you need to know, but we have- So it would be an integrated below the surface. Yes. Yeah, yes. Blue's office, right? Blue's office. Blue's office. Yellow's residential? Yes. Because you can also put your yellow back toward the core of the back to the platform. Yeah, and that would alleviate some of the parking burden because the residential would require less parking than the office would. A little bit of feedback there, but people either way, but at the tower, I get your idea. You're coming down, you're turning, so you're revealing the tower, and there's another one, by the way, which is the fire station you see from that point. Yes, right. Start to see it from that point. So it's kind of nice to think that Broadway is, I mean, the mass animal is having- You feel reward these moments, yeah. Because it always does turn. It's one of the most interesting things about it, but that doesn't get taken advantage of at all with a long time. Yeah. It's a little rotation. Yeah. The gas station. Ah, we included that, actually. Yeah, no. No, just couldn't remember. So part of what we would do in two weeks from now is maybe summarize the application of the standards, guidelines to a site that people may be familiar with and walk them through the process of how, if a developer would follow these recommendations, you might get something like this and why that should be tolerable. Yeah. You know, it's not really five stories all across mass avatars range, and that's probably what develop an entity and try to do. Or maybe multiple developers. This is a really interesting example, I guess. Okay. But in that corridor connected to the bike path, I think that's a great, great idea. We work with the planning staff on this. We had three variations of where that corridor to line and we selected one that seemed to make the most sense given the site conditions. Yeah. There's such a bummer now that Chamberlain counts on that. Again, I think that tack piece leading to the purple might be residential. Maybe hardly could retail back there. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. It would be more like a muse, I think, as though. Right. I think that might not. We might not be ready for that. I don't like the muse. See, but that's what you have to center. It's something like that. Yeah, yeah. A retail event, strong. They don't go off mass avatars. Pretty beautiful muse. As easily. David, one thing that you said to us at that meeting was that there is some, engineering science behind five stories, that there are some solutions. Some, a reason why developers like five stories that kind of made it worth trying. Can you tell, can you say that again? What it was? Sure, you might be aware that you can still do the stick-built construction of five stories. You can get one story of concrete or concrete block and then still build four stories of housing or office or whatever. What construction, once you go about five. You can get around that, but you typically move into a different building. Construction typology, so there's fewer developers that would pursue that. And the site would have to be a certain size. So I honestly think five stories is certainly doable along that path. We went back and forth about whether it should be four and then maybe you get five if you have another connection or if there's some other incentive. But it seems worth making the case, explaining that to the audience that there's a reason why five is the most economically viable. And it doesn't mean everybody's going to do five. And if there's a huge outcry, we can say, OK, four. I think five with step-backs is very different than five sheer. Yes, I think that's important. Right, and there's things we do to mitigate. And that's where it goes in the past. It's very important to get the step-backs and the step-backs all included on the loss of your debt. But I think that you're doing that good 20 to 30 year-round scenario exam and trying to think of what development pressures are going to be on the massive corridor over that time. And what is tolerable from the town's point of view, but what also is recognizing an economic opportunity where you start to see growth coming down through North Cambridge. Just because there's a municipal border there, by economics, it wouldn't stop. So I think there's a potential to capture some of that North Cambridge style development just moving down the street. And five stories would incentivize people to do that. David, you're thinking that this would be active with a lot of door, with a lot of openings, windows, that red first floor retail on? Yeah, it's actually poorly represented. I think that we should need to show that as more of a cream color, because it would likely be flaws up with terror videos. It's spilling out from the buildings, ground floor. Yeah, it looks like it's passive, but it should be more active than that. Especially since it's the same color as the one that you're calling the bogeyman here. Now, you would show that you're going to paint it up a little bit, right? Right. So I'm glad you guys didn't focus on the architectural expression, because it looks chunky and modern and all that. So we'll have an overlay that makes it more benign or more historic. And there's so many different ways that we can make the language look more modern and festive. So what would that be? I think you could have, again, even the purple clearly residential. Let's say a developer came and said, I'm not really just a food restaurant in there. I want to develop that little piece. You should think about that. No, I like the aspiration a lot, but I think that would be cool. Well, I think as an example, it makes a ton of sense. It's tempting to put residential back there, and I wouldn't want to foreclose that opportunity. You, the pond, et cetera. But to activate that with a public view is fantastic. A destination to crawl. And it would bring people down that alley. It would also potentially bring people off the bike path. We have the parks right there, too. Right. And it's a wonderful area of the park. I love it. Yeah. But I'm just saying, when the rubber hits the road and the developer comes in, just be aware that economics, even as a small restaurant, is a whole other molecule. But it could be fantastic. The interesting thing is you really just need two bookends. If you had a 2000 square foot legal seafood test kitchen or something, and then up on Mass Hab, you had something else. Everything in between could still be residential with stoops, and that's a beautiful place to walk. So it doesn't have to be all lined up with retail and the commercial space. Because that doesn't have very good visibility from the street. And they don't want to be on Mass Hab. Yeah. If you had a legal test kitchen, you would want to be on Mass Hab. They don't want to be on Mass Hab. This could then be yellow. I like the aspiration, but it may be something else. I mean, I could see wheeling and dealing if they put their public club facility there. I get it. And it's just I've done it. Not because I know what happens. They say, well, no, I'm in a restaurant. I'm going to be on Mass Hab. I'm not coming unless you put me on Mass Hab. But the idea is fantastic. And I think that's the great thing. It has beautiful views with trees leading back. Some kind of a more public active function at the end that the lions it draws you in from the bike path. You could get a restaurant down to be fantastic. Bike shop, another thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Well, the big take, not to summarize, but the big takeaways for me is, well, we think, we'll rethink how they're defined and try to tell the story in a way that resonates with people. I think that's really what you're doing is getting people familiar with what they have or re-familiarize them and then think about how these guidelines can apply to the thought of these places as opposed to the actual mis-address. That's one thing. Maybe using more diagrams to explain the vocabulary of the outset. We'll show lots of precedents. I think that's important. And I'd like to get that example. Oh, sure. That's beautiful. And maybe some sections, because as you were describing it, the topography changes a lot. And so we'll try to, I don't know exactly how we'll do it, but we'll try to communicate that those transverse linkages are really what's so, what make it such a unique. And somehow, like you're saying, some of these areas would be more about linkages and connections and others. More about street wall. Yeah. I think also, we didn't talk a lot about parking, but in this example, you get it with the low-grade parking. That's the only way you get that, because it's costly, is to have more height, more economic return for the developer. So that's part of the presentation, I think. If you're hitting resistance, height, say, well, we know there's a parking issue in that, too. And we don't have a lot of extra area. We're not going to have square miles of parking lots. You really don't want that. You think you do, but you don't. And plus, we don't have the link. Plus, this is not growing at all. Or you could stick with what we have. But if you want to turn this around and do something exciting like this, then you're going to have to deal with parking below ground. And the only way you can get a developer to put that in is if they're getting returned by going a little higher. I like this, because you guys are thinking tactically. How people can be less inflamed about adding another store than why that doesn't make sense. So are we thinking that we wouldn't use this, for example? Well, I don't know. The only thing I really like about this that it shows is the, because I think anyone who's visited knows this to this. You know, I mean, it's just kind of, you know, what you'd give for that difference would be plus the parking. Plus, you know, there's major advantages, too. No, I think we would like this. Okay. If we don't, the concepts are just too extra dry. Yeah, I think it is. And I think, you know, I heard you say this is really blocky and everything, but I wouldn't Disney World it up either, you know? I mean, it doesn't have to be bricks with spires and, you know. Just to show the density or... It wouldn't prescribe blocky buildings. No, correct. And I think from that perspective, yes. But so, I guess... Put a photograph or an image of something. Yeah, yeah, something closer. We're now going to design this thing. This is shocking. I mean, the first time I went, I sort of feel like... Like, I don't... I think this has to be worked a little softer. We can do that without making it too cartoonish, but I will say my lingering takeaway from last summer's interaction with the public we had about 100 people there was A, people are comfortable with a little bit more pain and B, some contemporary expression might not be a bad thing. There was more tolerance for difference, change, diversity, and it might have just been the people who were there, but not everything could be faux historical. Well, and also just to go back... We had that project a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, but even back to the property behind 22 Mill Street that you were talking about, the first proposal that we got from the developer was... It was a colonial... on a grand scale, wasn't it? No, no, it was the high school that planted on top of this. Yeah, and then they came back with more of a sort of international style with the flat roof and everything, and it's like, yeah, okay, so this has got a little more urban edge to it. We don't have anything really like that. And it felt more industrial there, a little bit more like the grain of the office. We urged them to do that. Yeah, and I think that... And they jumped at it Yeah, they were so happy about that. It was easier for them to... So I agree with you. I think that there's more receptivity to a contemporary style, building style than you might think. Okay, well, we'll find the architectural expression. All right. Thank you. Well, thanks a lot. Thanks for your time. You still have these? You can. You have to hide them from people in Maraca. Question of the master plan implementation. Oh, okay. The board saw this and made some comments on it at the last meeting. I'm not going to read it verbatim, but there are a couple things that were added. DPW director. The board called that you asked whether the director of inspectional services how they feel about possibly serving on this and after discussion with them and with Chapter Lane. It's not as critical we think for the DPW director to be a member provided that he's consulted with for the relevant implementation steps that have to do with public facilities or recreation other than his department. So the directors of inspectional services associate all of these on me that we might be undertaking. So that change was made and that's reflected in that first paragraph. The other change was simply to make it clear that item four and five it would be a former member of the master plan advisory committee two former members. And then and we tried to clarify that throughout this list of 10 people. One thing though that I really want to this is the time where I want to make sure the board feel like this is a board of the development board committee. There were some real strategic reasons why I drafted it like this because I think that this implementation committee needs to be broad and very representative of different sectors. So I really need to think about this. So right now it's got a redevelopment board member that could be challenging because right now because we're a short one member for one thing. But I think it's important to try to get an actual member representing the committee in the first year once things are moving maybe it's a delegate maybe it's someone from the community who will be your liaison but I really think it should be a redevelopment board member. So is there anything about this composition that you don't feel comfortable with or you think it should be different? So I think the challenging ones for me are four and five because it doesn't have a way of choosing who those people are number one doesn't say who's going to you know appoint them and number two how long does this committee live for because you know if someone rolls off and maybe another former member of the majesty I don't know that four and five work I think I can address that I've envisioned that four and five that the call for candidates would go out and the members of the master plan advisory committee who are interested would apply and the board would make your recommendation on but shouldn't we say that because I mean we should say redevelopment board appointed you know and I'm not even sure we need to say former master plan advisory committee member to the extent that that's who we do I guess I'm do you envision this lasting about two or three years six years nine years once again if we if we limit it to only you know former members of the MPC is there going to be an issue at some point where there ain't none you know and then what do we do I think that this committee should have a life until the master plan is updated okay you're supposed to update master plan or revisit it every five years I don't know that we would be doing the same scope of work five years from now as we've just undertaken two and a half years but you would when you do a thorough update and the board could suggest a period for revisiting whether the master plan master plan implementation committee has effected as much work as it can and now it's time to update the master plan I think that actually should be in the scope for the master plan implementation committee to make a recommendation when the committee feels that it's time to update yeah that doesn't get to the second part of your question which I think we can brainstorm a little bit and come to probably a range of possible solutions on how to make sure that we don't just like have two legacy members that are there forever yeah I just think that we have to I just think structurally it needs to have who actually appoints them to the committee who chooses amongst them in addition to that I think I infer a point whether you intended it or not that if let's say Jane Doe and John Smith from the master plan advisory committee are appointed to position to seats four and five will they always be the only people from the master plan advisory committee working on this implementation committee or could one of the large members be one as well maybe after a certain period of time it's four at large yeah I guess that's why I was saying instead of calling them at large which is the town manager recommends for appointing by select men I mean if we think that it's the redevelopment board that's going to appoint these two I guess I would say redevelopment board member and then I switch around a little bit and say number two redevelopment board does it need redevelopment or appointee redevelopment board for items four or five or yeah I guess I mean items four or five exactly so what if we read if this read former master plan advisory committee member selected by the redevelopment board and then I think that two with two things combined you could have one or the other of four or five resign or that could be a fixed term after which they are additional at-large members joining nine and ten at-large but appointed by the ARP yeah and once again I'm just doing it just so it can live forever without us having to do anything I think once again I would opt for four and five being redevelopment board appointee preference to former master plan advisory committee member and so that way we have a preference where we're obviously showing what we want to do we know the spirit of it but frankly if this board decides that those folks are out of time whatever this board decides we should be able to appoint those two people as they happen I guess I don't know that's my view I'll stop talking about this one what's CBA the community preservation and there's no member of the community guys from the planning department no staff generally speaking shouldn't be voting members of board committee or commission in my professional experience you will get staff support plenty of opinions yeah I'm confused by the second sentence in the first paragraph so this says the committee would be appointed by the town manager with the exception of two at large members to the town manager would recommend for appointment by the board of select men we just massaged that yeah but well maybe I'm misunderstanding but to me it looks like the only appointee of the town manager is two and then there's recommendations in nine and ten because you've got a redevelopment board member and I suppose one step removed all four of us anyway are appointed by the town manager but I don't think that's quite what you're getting at for this new committee and the director of inspectional services at that point did that two of us in that position four and five would be the ARB's appointees six would be the moderator seven would be coming by vote of the finance committee and eight by vote of the CPA committee so I just think you need to look at that second sentence again in the introductory paragraph because I think that's at odds with the numbered section here in the middle of the page I'm not sure you need that I don't know I believe somehow staggered appointments or maybe not because the next sentence for non-staff committee members expresses that they would be staggered so that sentence maybe we can just delete am I right? I think you are that committee would have staggered appointments you could simply make it a very declarative statement and I I think we might be disappointed if you don't say town manager or his or her designate and item two? because if he wants Andrew to serve or something like that and we should probably correct me if I'm wrong make seven and eight explicit or let them determine how they want to choose their representatives should we keep it flexible for finance committees? or their designate as well I was thinking more along the lines of do we want to be prescriptive about how they would select their member I think it's up to them so we'll leave that as a seven and eight who else this is good I'm glad you're being delivered about this oh I know what I wanted to ask you is we speak about terms above but I think we do want to add beginning with the end in mind so we talk about when we should be more clear about how this committee ends oh okay and that should probably go at the end of the first paragraph I believe after the word solicit so what's your thought five years and then review that point review that's what I'm thinking review for possible disband to either disband or reconstitute or something like that to keep it going the committee itself yeah the committee would provide the redevelopment board their recommendation and the redevelopment board would either extend or disband does also the purpose of updating the plan or do we need to be specific about that okay would either be dissolved or reviewed or extended and would it be implied that the standing the then standing members would continue yes okay whoever's got term they send for an additional term not to exceed another five years yeah that's good where are you putting numbers right after this new sentence yeah so I've got your term and at the end of the committee the term of each person the initial five year term of the committee it shall report to the ARB with the recommendation of the committee either be dissolved or extended for an additional term not to exceed five years you're conveniently writing this down yeah in such case all then serving members continue their current terms continue their current terms I didn't get all the other changes Carol but I can get that and a couple of other things I took notes on but I don't profess to have all the changes that through I think I have the rest okay anything else about it in a complete or missing or I think that's the right word myself could you also send this to me though because I think we just got my hand out at the beginning of the meeting tonight on that so that way that would be great moving on to minutes first from May 11th 2015 a brief meeting prior to I can only comment on the fact that I arrived at 7.50 that is true breathlessly I'm fine with these I second hi hi May 18th two things first page paragraph in the middle of the page in the middle of that paragraph it says that I suggested one member could be appointed by the selectman and approved by the town manager and I think we've switched those it should be that one member could be appointed by the town manager and approved by the selectman on the second page second paragraph that one sentence paragraph just to care us if there was much to decide to go through the zoning bylaw and rationalize it and I'm not sure that may be what Mike said and that's the case that's fine but is rationalize the word that we want or is it reorganize it or revise it I mean rationalize means maybe I can use that but the articulate word I use I'm not sure it's the wrong word Mike but I just it's sort of no I know what you mean I thought that was I guess the word to make it rational is one sense of it or to rationalize in the sense of not justification but rationalization that's where I want to kind of sort of know it was to make it consistent I think is what it was meant there so I think maybe that's a better way to go through the zoning bylaw and it's kind of like rationalizing a workforce frankly it's a little bit of a euphemism that's what it was realigning yes it's sound size right sizing I was in corporate speed there most likely so I'm fine with rationalize that is the context but could change it too my recollection of the whole discussion was around actually not even that discussion but it was during one of the working sessions or something else how we talked about kind of bring someone in to make it easy the fix ups yeah the fix ups exactly and I'm good with that I have a couple things do you have on the AK I was absent just a small thing on the first page historical districts in the 7th paragraph should be historic districts historic districts and on the 2nd page the 3rd paragraph from the bottom the last, 2nd to the last sentence starts with the department fields that's actually supposed to be committee the department fields a committee would be very helpful throughout this process because the grant actually pays for a consultant and I believe this case was being made to have an advisory committee so consultant would change the committee and then finally the last sentence would be Ms. Quals to be viewed desirable representation to have on the committee for the housing production plan I'll move to approve the minutes of May 18th as amended second, no favor anyone have any additional business I have two copies of the river watershed association I thought I brought them up I'm sorry, if you give me two minutes when we're finished you are authorized to sign in the previous meeting I'll move to adjourn second, all in favor bye thank you