will be here shortly and of course our senior planner and staff person jeffrey with the first item on fire agenda this evening overlay district sometimes known as the s r a discussion we're going to begin with the twenty six twenty eight avenue where we have received followed by the construction of a townhouse style two by two a townhouse style two family on a lock that is below the current minimum is both in terms of square we received in our packages on friday a letter from the applicant asking that the board would waive the requirement of plans and we have the elevations that were distributed we have a frank and real elevation that were distributed just not obviously i want to hear  from other board members and the applicant on this i am my create my own feeling is that while we can certainly have a discussion of the expense involved it is not different can different from the expense incurred by other applicants and we've asked our other applicants to provide a full set of plans the second is that this is genuinely an important and challenging case when the general residence zoning by laws were passed part of the concern was two families are on undersized lot it is also the case that in the case of hamilton road fifteen birch street where we had five thousand square foot lots and we nevertheless because of concerns over again city urged the developer with success to move to a one family house where where all of that takes me is that  i don't think i would be comfortable seeing sixty percent of the houses in this neighborhood really developed and i was to buy two townhouses i'm not sure that would be consistent with the spirit of the zoning and therefore if this is going to move forward there really has to be an affirmative decision on the part of the board that this is not detrimental to the neighborhood we appreciate that the size of the house has been reduced but without really seeing design i don't i don't think we barely move forward for one thing without design being able to look at the design and say real this really works we would then have fifty nine we would then have forty two other properties in the neighborhood which would be looking for similar treatment so we need so if we need to be able to we need to have a reason for saying even though in general we are not looking for dance to be at this level this works and without plans i don't see how we do that w that i can appreciate your point of view for me being a developer i can understand this pretty simply but i understand the need for a full package so that being said it's a shame th s with this package the one that we have previous landscape planned i'm sorry let me ask you to come to the mike drawn and voted it really is meaningless or at least very difficult to interpret i do think that this evening we could have some discussion of what we  do that would be helpful but again as i think michael the chief says said the last i'm you know fifteen birch street went through an evening fifteen birch street went through an evening because everything the board needed to look at was pulled together package it was a great thing but a mistake that the person of fifteen broad street also submit a plan once i submitted plans fifteen to twenty times and change them each time not always to you and the board but to jeffrey and you know each time i've had to change certain aspects of the plans so that point where i have it and it was over a lot of money into the feet in length and just decide all the asians are going to change three and a half feet basic it's going to be the same exact elevations as all the previous plans except probably removing one window the landscape plans will look exactly as they are except records is two hundred seventy nine thousand dollars and whatever's put up here even if in the end it were a single family he would be helpful just in terms of comments he would be good to both have comments on the design and people starts about how we how we walk forward with this because again we were able to get family houses built fifteen birch which had the legal lot size and credit for two family and on hamilton road because the developers that working with us  on to a single family that was compatible for the neighborhood was a assure a path to quick approval well that might certainly true for bridge street and i think all things considered for hamilton road so i think both comments about these particular plans and how comfortable would you be with how much of i mean just this is a townhouse need side to the very edge of the lot are we comfortable with that and are we comfortable with all of the remaining forty three two families that's not being built to the same specs and if not what distinguishes this from other cases here what we don't want to do is to make everything we do is read will be this presidential it's an existing two family structure you know so that being said you know i felt uncomfortable giving someone the approval to move forward with it with a two family in place the two films because i feel like before the biologic we probably could have ended up with something that we would have would have had less control over that could have been larger and maybe not as attractive and this fifty four feet fifty three feet fifty three seven feet which is substantial i believe in doing it and coming into working with the matrix numbers i think that they if you have i was just looking at your second floor trying to get one more in there in the middle with three across the front  smaller than your existing home my existing home is two feet larger than the new proposed plan so i think it's a step in the right direction but again i think it would be important to see i understand your apprehension about the way this board operates as we would love to see it basically like a matter of time frame as well with my architect she was like i said till ten o'clock last and i was just trying to get this finally sort of at least give you a a all right i wasn't i wasn't sure where you were going with that rafi so liz i just like to address your point about whether you know this site should be a single family or a two family and i think if that's a concern that we have going forward that the fork in the road that this board needs to address at the very beginning of the process along with definition of neighborhood i think it i feel  uncomfortable pulling an applicant along looking at two families for multiple iterations of a project and then i wouldn't feel comfortable at this point saying you know what you've done everything we've asked you to do but we were we really wanted a single family and we didn't try to read between the lines on that so but i completely hear the concern about you know a transformation of a neighborhood and increased density you don't think that that's really the case here i agree with joe on this particular neighborhood but as we think about process a little bit more i think that that's that's a gate keeping question that we need to put at the front of the process and not at the back  so i'm pretty comfortable with what i'm seeing so far i agree with joe's comment about the window and i would really like to see the side to see how the windows all lined up on the sides as well and that's where i c what we did say with additions was that we went through one and then we said wait a second we need to look at this differently this needs to be put into the context of the matrix but we let them  but we let the application that was before us go through and said to the next applicant by the way here's the way we're going to be looking at you not by the way but here's how we're going to be looking at you so that's option one option two is that you're saying essentially we need to work our way through this entire neighborhood before we say no i don't think we need to say that i think just in terms of our process reviewing the plans going forward in applications we maybe we need to ask the question directly of ourselves and maybe there's no consensus or answer and that the applicant but the opposite has some information if there were a consensus on a particular application that this really should be a single family and not a two family i just think that out of fairness that's something that we should share upfront you know if i could comment prevention would be if this were a single family in the applicant were proposing to family on a single family law we would not even be having a discussion whether the lot was five thousand whether it was four thousand whether it was six thousand to me in my mind if someone is doing precisely with this board it was set up in the town meeting i think which put us in charge to do is is to stop the single family demolition and allowed to film the construction in this particular case there's an existing two family here and some amounts to put back the two family in by the way you've all been by the site what's presently on the lot is by far attractive  and to me is actually not that official to the neighborhood so i i think that this is a and to me i want to see i want to see more buildings like that in town i would like to see them approved so again if this were a single and people were coming for two i would absolutely be opposed but it's a two and the two families being put back in place of a two in the units are not that large you know so and i have to tell you i think this is rather tasteful i mean although we can't have a single here it will be you had this window up at the front it's it's it's what i think it'll be a pretty attractive building but i grant there is something to the idea and you know to some extent i mean this is just something to think about given a lot the question of whether a true family could work on that lot is to some extent a question of how are you with the design is sometimes so given the kind of guidance i mean maybe what we could do is say fair warning this sure looks like a one family to like it should be a one family to us but if you think that if piano is going to be your architect and you think he has an idea preceded your own risk and joe i'm not quite true i brew with everything i'm not sure i fully appreciated the implications of everything you said about one family to family but i'll certainly reflect on it with respect to the maintenance is this better than the building that's sitting here now i think one of the things which we need to be very careful about the incentives that we create and we would not want to create an incentive to i'm not talking about this case but just in general one would not want to create a situation where it was in people's interest to let their house run down because then they'd be able to get permission to build it to family and whereas if they were impeccably kept we could i mean just there are there's lots of each time we make one of these decisions we change the value of land we change how interesting a small market is to a developer we change lots of things and we just need to be sensitive to that but i would agree with you believe me that that's certainly not  now have only one master bedroom here and one of the questions we've asked in the dance when someone has a full basement on each of four levels is what are you thinking of doing with this structure and here we have and again i'm eager to see that we've eliminated some a bedroom but we have an office with a full suggestion that this plan reduces the number of bedrooms is it could work out that way just as but again it's what we what we've said repeatedly about the up and down plans where we have a full bath and each blo you know i guess the question becomes if that becomes finish space whether there's a bathroom up there or not there's going to be the i don't know if that becomes very base because it's not it is not yet uncommon to have didn't have a bathroom up there at all whether it be a half or four so if you could remove the bathroom and make that maybe a large office or a storage room or something like that maybe that would have something that does not say bedroom s opportunity to talk about this in the future but i'm concerned about the implications for the neighborhoods in the future on undersize thoughts if the two family is replaced with anything other than the conventional two family because i think i'm hearing you're adding or may allow a second driveway and if all of those two families are place their dwellings with a second a new driveway that also changes significantly what we were trying to accomplish so it's it's put wondering if we could have that discussion at some point that if it's below of under five thousand square feet i mean i probably would like a discussion that you can only replace it i know you can't do that now but only replace it with the same design that you currently have if it's a conventional two family and i know chair bitties to brought that up at the initial public hearing that that would have been an acceptable option and that keeps it to one driveway thank you and appreciate your consideration no i i appreciate what you're saying with one driveway but in this particular case i think what you would have is i think you would have the vehicle pollution on one side of the house because of the configuration of the lot so in this particular case and it's then or whether you're going to have two separate driveways and you're going to have to here into there to me there has to be a fine line if you're if if that if the net result is that you're getting four cars and four cars and is really no net difference then to me as someone who develops real estate i think that for design to have four cars in tandem with parked one after the other so if you're going to i could see if there was a two car wide driveway on one side which a lot of two families a have and you could get two cars and two cars tandem in tandem i think that i really could understand your concern and i would absolutely agree with you that we would keep one curb cut in place and i think that's what the byelaws says up to fifty feet wide you're only going to get one curb cut so i think what the board is doing in this particular case here's where we're navigating a little bit where within our within our bylaw to allow for better design in my opinion anyway  i just think it would be to have a house built and then have four cars go in along a driveway along someone else's lot line and have four cars there in a line i think is a terrible design because think about the person that's not living in the house aside from the people that are going to be living in the house every time someone has to move a car there's more than one car that's going to start if the guy up the fight has to get out three of the cars have to get in their car back out of their driveway to let that car out i don't i think it's bad design but i was just point out just that this is one different situation where the right side of the house abuts to school so there's not a right side neighbor so that it's not you know opposing on anybody else's it isn't it is important to driveways and where you would normally have a house on side to side so statically it's going to be better only because the right side does it but the school thank if you were going to have a two car wide corruptive driveway ok then you're going to have your trading green space is what you're doing you're getting greater backyard green space with two groups to curb cuts ok you're going to get better green space if if you kept it on one side to me in this particular case you know you'd have a little bit more you'd have nine feet more if they were if we didn't have a nine foot kerk up but we were would probably have at least ten because the sideline supposed to be ten anyway so there's a ball kinds of really think this is a very peculiar situation where i think the board has worked in one particular way to begin with and now where i think we're batting back and forth the details but i guess my point would be i don't want to go back to where we were where we started from because i think where we ended up was pretty good we've got it down the road of the two driveways and i understand judith's concern but i think this is a different situation and i we need to do it we need my suggestions we do three things first is we need to be certain that week and indeed give relief on one cut for fifty feet under the current me there are some things in would be different but yes second i think point that barbara made some moments ago that we've started down the road without saying clearly what is and isn't permissible in this case  i don't think that people are understanding what i'm saying i'm not ok with that either what i'm ok with ok is if we're going to do something i think it's a case by case basis that's what this board was set up to do this case by no means said it sets up any precedent because this one doesn't even have fifty feet from which number one number two with an existing two family ok so i think what's going to happen is if in fact other cases come before us and there's that if there's i can think of houses that are on smaller lots than this that have a two car wide driveway ok where we wouldn't even be discussing we're going to give you a driveway on each side so i guess my point is that i'm not trying to set a precedent here and i hope everyone hears me loud and clear it's not precedent setting in my opinion what it is is that this is one case and this is one solution to the case moving forward as cases come before us as barbara suggested we do will be up front right away i just don't see this is a precedent setting case i see this as a board trying to figure out the best solution for a case that's come before to not require the applicant to include us in his thanksgiving plants we probably need to say that with the mot of the modern kinds of modifications we've discussed and subject to seeing a final package that we can't imagine voting for mccain on a two family on the sly for me i say that not because i am i personally think it's a wonderful idea but i think fairness requires that we say no clearly either the board wants to meet again and talk about this some more and not spend any more time in any money till the board does that that's alternative eight and alternative b is that given where we are given that we started down this road we are ok with a two family that sufficiently reduced in scale and make some of the changes it's part of a full page so we can see what we're looking at and putting a landscape plan we need to look at plans like plan and do what we can to see if we can somehow ameliorate that dr white house driveway but understanding there's not much room to work with what what people mean i think those are the two fair were concept you know that each of the others were going to speak for themselves i'm hoping that we're out on the same wavelength but this is certainly my own opinion of what i would like to say i would like to see a full package of love to see their elevation improved i'd like to see the front of ation improved as discussed we don't want to see a bathroom on the front unit on the third floor would like to see that office remain in office without a closet on the third floor so that never if it were  ever to become a bedroom it would do so without the benefit of a closet so legally it could never be considered a bedroom and i would also love to see a comparison where you can show your first plan having the tandem driveway showing four cars going vertically in a row that plan showing the amount of green space that you would have net versus the plan that i think i would like to see where you get two cars going to end a month each side then green space behind the last car showing the net green space to the positive or negative whatever that may be that's what i'd like to see then if i can get all  group i agree with joe also i think that the landscape plan with the two driveways mean you have an opportunity to to sort of showcase for us the green space that you have and how you can use that to you know enhance the frank yard we have our last item on the agenda this evening is to set a meeting date for november second right correct and so what i what we will do procedurally is just hold the motion to continue because we must have a fixed date to which to continue correct but obviously jeffrey you will make said date as soon as we have it you know to the applicant right you actually have have a meeting october twenty seventh right we're all on board yes so i'm not saying necessarily that they'll be ready by the transom to have in some of the changes that i know the architect that they have is very busy but i'm just making and we moved to item t approval to construct the t d bank at three o seven polo road i don't know if you've had a chance to be through the site but i think it looks terrific we have we had occasion around the time of certificate of occupancy requests to identify some areas where the contractor had deviated from the proposed landscape plan we reviewed that with that staff and we have since given some instructions to the contractor to modify the landscaping that was installed to be more in compliance with the plan that was originally approved by this board though some of the changes that the contractor made were for very good and valid reasons and we appreciate those in the collaboration between our landscape architect and staff and the contractor to acknowledge some of those changes the net net i can go through the plan and in detail if you'd like i can kind of give you the the broad brushstroke of what the essential changes are the net net is that you have an additional red maple tree and twenty five additional rhododendrons if you like they can approach with a color version of the landscape plan and if that mike works maybe  were installed with in what would be the grass or we instructed them to move back to the areas that they had they were originally proposed this area was originally proposed sod but the irrigation was not installed there so we felt that putting two shrubs out of the one city planted here there and keeping it as mulch would work just fine from our standpoint we think that it looks good the multiple help retain water the shrubs will survive  we also instructed after looking at the existing canopies there out here again at that same time around the sea of all requests but some of these rhododendrons would be better out in front of  the shrubs that were proposed than here so he has since shifted those to be out in front and they'll get more light they'll get more sign they'll work better there we had a rich yes out from under the tree out from under the trees yes  and we had i believe shown but maybe not appreciated the size of some of the existing trees that are on this westerly property line so the the trees that we had proposed here didn't fit well  and they're now located over on the fire department side in the still a real knight there's a nice fence and row of vegetation there that fits nicely under the canopy of the existing free when we were out there i don't believe any of the work was done along wilson that we had indicated on our plan since that time all of the all of the overgrowth that was out there has been removed of course all the mature trees were left intact  rhododendrons were have since been placed in little mulch beds along the back of the fence along wilson's i think it looks really good it looked ok when we first went out there but it did deviate from the approved plan so we're asking that folks accept this is a minor modification to the approved landscape plan and i don't have a problem with what's been done as mary fact  satellite island right there on the you changed to mulch i think that makes perfect sense to me diligent in terms of the uptake of their facilit the lighting people have been working very hard trying to bring all of the lighting levels down to zero on the property line property boundary lines and that all the specs in you know they've done a lot of changes in really trying to see if they can at least have this plan accepted by the board that's before so as it relates to the light levels that we're talking on several occasions as has a colleague of mine taking late measurements when we first went out there somehow there was an architectural update to the canopy for the drive through that wasn't communicated to us and we had done the original lighting design and pared the plans and had the light levels accepted by the board as was shown  so the reason for the multiple trips was because they needed to adjust the light levels back to what we had originally proposed so we had originally shown four fixtures out here when we got out there it was like nine and that was giving us some light levels that were that were pretty pretty high and higher with that than what's reflected on this updated lighting plan at this point i'm very comfortable in saying that this plan reflects the intent of the original design in the levels that were proposed in terms of the max mins and where we're measuring light part of the contributing light is for we don't model lights from exterior sources so we don't model moonlight which gets you a point  one light level when it's a full moon and part of the time we're out here was there was a full moon we also don't in our in our model we don't include street light fixtures or light fixtures on people's porches you know from neighboring properties that's just not something that the industry is a part of preparing for the metrics planned so i really wanted to find out what was going on in terms of the boundary light levels that the changes that were made under the canopy you'll see the the light level readings are much lower than what was on that original plan but we are still getting some measurements of higher than zero point zero and i'll point out that we stopped at one decimal place and an engineer of always been told that the small places are significant so the fact that we had a zero point zero but we're getting a zero point zero something rounding it's still there a point zero but some of the areas that were influenced are a street lower later on wilson here there was another street light on wilson here they were both on i measured zero point six in the vicinity  of that street light which i think is contributing toward some of the light levels of this corner there was a flood light on the porch at seventy three wilson that was measured at point one at the st line here which is giving some contributing light levels and then there was also a flood light on the side of of this house that was going on and off which may have affected some of the earlier numbers but again as i look at these zero point zero t it's essentially zero point zero and that was you know again through multiple trips out to the site taking light levels at various locations and i'm very confident that the as built conditions are are consistent with the originally p there's a lot more in that letter that talks about how a photo matching plan is prepare them in light of a lost actors and a lot of technical jargon but  on the on with the with the goal of having a zone rezoning package ready for a town meeting in spring we have been working with jeffrey and perhaps you'd like to or i can summarize which ever so briefly here's it to briefly summarize where we are in terms of the working sessions and i want to emphasize that this has not been reviewed by the full board this is just the results of our working session let me start with one major decision on our part that may come as based on the letter we received from the citizens group may come as something of a disappointment but at this point we have no plans to  that goes beyond s r c there was a suggestion in that letter that perhaps this ought to be extended to the town as a whole quite frankly we have had no indications of interest from say sri and we think that so i think that would be the first point the second is that what we tried to do was to start by asking ourselves the question  what is the we would like to keep zoning relatively simple so that when people start to consider a project they can fairly easily tell whether they're dying or not and therefore we started by saying what are the four three to five elements of rezoning for s r c that would accomplish what we want to accomplish and yet we do the citizens in attendance have copies  obviously there does have to be a restriction and are to avoid giving worst decide design incentives we wanted to have both  we think you get a design that in the end people won't like right so we don't want to give up hope the height where you go right to the ridge because i think that that could encourage someone to build  flat roof so we're not saying we're opposed to anything like that but i think that quite frankly i think you get better design out of measuring to the midpoint and at the same time recognizing your need to know exactly how high a house can go because of that midpoint thing and giving the neighborhood a sense of comfort we went to the ridge saying it would be thirty four feet in total where right now you've got thirty six feet to the midpoint which could put you well over forty feet so we think it's a i think it's a very good thing at the same time ok the s r a n s r b zones are also measured to the midpoint so worth a residential zone it's s r a b and c is a single family residential zone so we feel like that's probably a better idea in a nice house as our a scenario you've got a fifteen foot side setback right now i think be from not mistaken geoffrey the front setback this is existing is twenty five i'm going to leave it at twenty five proposes twenty five but the average of the building on either side is an optional type of thing and we're going to make it we're going to require you to be within certain distance setback wise so that we don't have that that missing tooth syndrome so to speak  i for one right now we're going to explore the possibility of changing it but right now i think the twelve twelve inch the one foot rule works and how to calculate we'll talk about that later ok here's his i think is the biggest the biggest thing that we're going to propose and that is if you've got an existing single family house on a lot that's less than one thousand square feet which is the minimum requirement that s r c zone as done as far as rezoned right now w  no i guess i guess the point is that we're going to we're going to just we're going to really pay attention to the details of what happens in these s r c zones where someone has an undersized lot and  they've got an existing structure on that and decides a lot and they want to take down that structure and put back a structure that proportionately doesn't work they'll be a process so i think that's the biggest part of what we're proposing to  let me just say you know the other board members who have not heard this before have any immediate reaction obviously it will be many occasions to have reaction but if there's any quick reaction when you need the other board members the height limits and the proposed new hard limits and setback requirements notwithstanding if it's a non conforming lot in other words if it's below nine thousand square feet we got a special permit so that's the idea ok and that special permit is not the zoning board it's planning board for that would be the review ok only concern that i would have as is i love the make up the planning board nowadays but that changes with time and so over time it would be nice to start codified some of the lessons we've learned and i know that that's on your long term agenda to that you've been learning from the g r district and the as we move forward with this potentially that would be the case so that we have these rules more or less from fixed a little bit as we go forward i just speaking only for myself but i bet you i have a four other we would like nothing better yes then to be able to codified some of this so it's the exceptional case we think that reduces friction far and time for everyone and we would love to be able to do that that is both our short term our medium term and indeed our long term step to excellence and then one more point lately it's become painfully clear that  our and enforcement mechanisms are could be improved i think over time and that would be another area perhaps in a different sort of under a different wearing a different hat or in a different  or that there be an option to have a contractor cease activity until there's can conformance with very specific kinds of rules of procedure for construction and those may be of elmont there is a fire and they ask you where you're getting room where the rubbish is going to go right so you know it's there and here you concern it just it's just it takes a bit to get that in forced and you go to the well it's the health applications that the planning board would see a year if we if we follow this i think it's hard to predict forever because i think what will happen is a what if you're going to see some i think you're going to see some people up the overtaking theoretically sixteen over ten years obviously you can have more in one year than others but sixteen over ten years potentially would have come for the board the other thing too is bob i'm piggybacking on joe statement see that itself is going to filter out what cases you're not going to get although sixteen before the board people are going to want to just do the simplest thing just want to be and move on meeting in the first half november because we very much want to get out there see what people's comments and reactions are and start ideally drafting  not for christmas right after this christmas so if there is plenty of time to see to get it into really good shape i also think on the playing them how many cases will certainly benefit from our experience with the g r district since we all know where we need to get out in front what we need to be looking for that is by the time we get  will encourage many to come  so that's what that represents really go over to henry i guess and then come to the other side of the senior center and then just over that side of peachtree and then down irving street and around when you're done project which is the definition of two family which we're really just getting started on a setting of relating with with jeffrey great for this week great hope was great when do you think do you have a time by which you might be able to report pre christian is for example i would hope definitely far before chris really thinks he can i may not may be able to make the october twenty seventh meeting so the meeting after that is there in teeth so it may make sense to try to do it that second third fourth fifth or sixth or second third fourth or fifth and with that with someone like yes i just like to say is so it was a little hard to hear your discussion but if you're saying possibly on a wednesday instead of a tuesday is that  just heard that could be a warrant committee conflict and i'm just saying some of the residents i mean we we were hoping for a tuesday night i just want to mention that and the second part is when would that be posted on the website the application we've been of in the week within a week ok thank i understand i'm just trying to figure out when if any time in all of that discussion dates are we talking about doing the public meeting to discuss the morning for him which is his only form and you all mentioned