good evening i'm liz allison chair of the planning board and i'd like to call the july nineteenth meeting twenty five sixteen meeting of the planning board to order as is our custom i will begin by introducing my colleagues on the full and varied engender this evening i want to take a moment just to run through it so that people know what is coming up when we will begin with a public hearing on one twenty two waverly street the we have a series of waverley street public hearings my hope is that we will be able to get through all of them by seven thirty at seven thirty the plan is for us to be joined by our state representative david rodgers who will be talking to us about the proposed rewrite of the massachusetts zoning  laws which is currently in the house it's been pacified the senate state law trumps local town last town by law so this would be an important thing and we're fortunate that dave is agreed to come and talk with us this evening we very much hope he gets through concord avenue and under the bridge successfully what i have said to dave is that if we are to representative rogers is that if we are in the midst of a discussion of one of the public hearing items we will complete it either continue it or vote on it but in any case will complete the whatever action we're going to take that evening and then move to ask him to begin his discussion with us and then go back to wherever we were on the agenda following the discussion of state zoning we will take up  forty two pine street which is a single residency case followed by the two general residence special permit cases one thirty two six more street thirty five thirty seven chandler street and then move on with the balance of the agenda middle cuts for yet another cut is on the agenda the applicant has asked to withdraw and therefore will just have a formal vote to accept the withdrawal oh all right well thank you thank you sam thank you for coming we stand behind our policing you are the big we are honored by your presence alright with that i will begin with the first of the public hearings and barb notice the public hearing by the planning board on application to modify design and site plan review notices here by given that the belmont planning board will hold the public hearing on tuesday july nineteenth two thousand and sixteen and seven pm in the board of select men meaning room four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of robert county and lauren cassano to modify a previously approved design and site plan review in order to one finished a void space as storage only on the second floor two a thank you we will start with the present presentation by the applicant as usual we have a number of neighbors here so i just have a few words first for the applicant and then for the neighbors before i ask the applicant who will matter is speaking for the applicant to come from the microphone i write for the applicant i watch local television while i am on those nights that i am not at a town meeting and i'm at home preparing dinner there is a commercial that i frequently see for out of the insurance and it is a dialogue between a couple that goes something like this she says we both had perfect driving records no kits no accidents he says perfect and then one of us taps the bumper of a food service truck and there goes our perfect driving records our rates go through the roof and the voiceover comes and says but if you had bought accident protection insurance you'd be in good shape right now it comes to mind because indeed we the board was very pleased with what you did on hamilton we are pleased that the houses that are being built on waverly keris are in the nineteen hundred to twenty two hundred square foot size  there are many other good things to be said but the town did not sell does not sell accident protection and to the neighbors we the board appreciate your bringing the issue to us of town meeting members to structures this street would probably rank the highest there is a distinction which will have occasion to talk about which we had a discussion with town council about the distinction between site plan review and special permit it's an important distinction i know that the neighbors understand it but that's an important thing to keep in mind the other thing i would ask is there are some issues that fall within the scope of the planning boards authority and some do not so the focusing and again at the appropriate time i think would be useful to  so i guess first thing i'll ask the board is do you want me to make a presentation on lot b one which was site plan review is that necessary or shall it be going to bathroom in the finished basement at a closet to the playground and we will withdraw the wet bar application on that application on the  this is really a very side issue but on the drawing i have it appears that the name of the architect has been blacked out is that because the architect was not involved in particular members just a brief statement i want to read this is regards to both cases so i'm just going to cooperate and not get up unless you want me to read this again which i'm sure you don't with regards to plenty but case number sixteen dash zero eight to consider the application to modify a previously approved design and site plan review and two planning board case number sixteen dash zero nine to amend a previously granted special permit i stand in opposition both of these actions after much work by residents the set forth in six section sixty point four of the zoning by law that approval is based upon the submitted plans no modifications may be made without the approval of the board or determination in writing by the building inspector that the modification is so minor that the approval of the board is not required these conditions were outlined in the approval levels let as that were filed you also the town clerk respectively on general level two thousand and sixteen and jan twenty sixth two thousand and sixteen with regards to these decisions furthermore how her two is only by law seven point three point six titles revisions to an approved site plan specifically paragraph b which states all proposed changes schober it would send a clear signal to the build is that they could make whatever changes to approve plan if they want to without prior approval by the board only to have the permit modified after the changes were made and without penalty it not only sets a terrible president it makes a mockery of the entire process  waverly terrorists town meeting member i have a question i'd like to approach the chair and just give you the listing she your design and site plan approval which you know states approximately nine thousand eight hundred seventy nine square feet maybe we could have an explanation as to why the broker in the listing she says twenty eight hundred square feet that's my first  that in compliance with the design and site plan and i think the answer is yes freek correct or am i that total living area is defined within our lives those are the dimensions we care about those that dimensions that will be measured when the and how a brokerage chooses to market a property is really not within the purview of the board the one word answer to your question would be i guess it's marketing but we grow at the level and brokers advertising we control at the level of what the building inspectors will measure and what the assessors will measure jeffrey would you it as well as well as what you said there there is a line and a separate line that says living area disclosure nine hundred fifteen square feet unfinished basement so in theory at  thank you and the second question and i'm agreeing with paul my zaki and his point but the the other question is it is my understanding and observation that the bathroom in the basement is already done and that would seem to to violate the terms of the by law it says it cannot be done prior to approaching the were drawn at the building department in reference to these homes including the bathrooms it was oversight on behalf to take the liberties on the first to finish the bathroom which site plan review by what i understand is not within the board's jurisdiction on b one because it's not a special permit after the first house was finished the other two were not completed so i just want to clarify that and i think i want to clarify something with the board that's kind of irking me a little bit and i only take a minute we came here to help satisfy the neighborhood to change the zoning into from g r district to build three single family homes instead of two two family homes and the way the keywords that were used were to work in harmony and i think that we have tried to demonstrate to the board that we are working in harmony with the board and to the best of our ability with the neighbors we do have several neighbors that just don't like building in general so i think overall the census in the whole neighborhood is most of the neighbors do like the homes that are there i get compliments every day up and down the street building officials fire department police department nothing but compliments we try to do the best that we could do  yes all exists say a few words on the bathroom in the basement issue and the total living area in the basement issue because i think that's an issue that we're generally we're going to see more and more of and as liz alluded to we had a conversation with the town council george hall about really the scope of our authority under design and site plan review as compared to a special permit and he walked us  bylaws and among other things the message that he gave us was that our authority for design in site plan review is really focused on the exteriors of the building it's focused on sort of the size of the building from a visual perspective and the way it kind of fits into the neighborhood it's x turn all features and that we don't really have the authority under the current by allies to address  what's happening inside the building that's just not authority that's granted to us under the violence i recognize the concern about total living area and density issues in particular we're going to spend a lot of time i think tonight and over the next you know particularly with this pending bill in the state legislature about the density of of belmont and what's right and appropriate and what the citizens of belmont like might like versus the citizens of the commonwealth as a whole right now are by laws just don't count basements typically in total living area other communities do brookline does for example we are not there and so we cannot particularly in the design and site plan review process take on the basement in any real the special permit standards give us more authority because it requires they require us to look at harmony with the neighborhood whether the proposed plans generate excessive traffic parking noise or density on the abiders or cause other detrimental effects to the neighborhood you know so in that context and you've heard us speak with great concern about bathrooms and attics that could be separate apartments that rooms and basements that could create a separate apartment where we could just you know really significantly increase the density of the neighborhood in the special permit context we have more authority to take that on  and i think that's you know we're presented with a case later tonight that sort of raises some of those issues as well but we really that's really the advice that town council gave us about this these bylaws and you know we are we need to stay within the scope of our authority  site plan review and i think it was helpful to have the conversation that barbara has done an excellent job of summarizing on the boards authority with representative who has very kindly taken time out of his one more meeting that's all this one more evening meeting that's all the state representative needs at this time of year  so i'd like to introduce dave rogers who needs very little introduction to anyone here who has come to talk to us about a bill that is very important for belmont which is a substantial revision of the state zoning laws as i mentioned at the beginning state law trumps local law and so this would have a very substantial impact on belmont  advance of the he along with the invocation we called the planning board color of a number of key points that we hope that representative rogers would  address as well as updating us on where it is and jeffrey's about to put the presentation up for just and because this is an issue of such  and eleanor brian cushman town clerk since this will be the whole topic maybe a long discussion game but i cannot promise that therefore we've saved you three other alternatives you're welcome jeffrey to join us at the cable or we can hand you the microphone and you can stand there which sort of let you address all of  right thank you again for coming the bill is our understanding is the bill before the house and in order to focus the discussion this evening and since it's a law it's forty six pages or so it's a long buildup of creative bills we pulled the planning board coupled out a number of points in the senate bill which are of particular importance to belmont and ask understand what it means help us understand how it would probably be implemented and then any other comments you want to make on those elements sure well it's good to be here  nice to see everybody and thank you for your invitation and look forward to a conversation with you i guess i should set the table as it were by saying that  i think i'll lead with process so the senate has passed a bill and the house is not going to it's right so  the to the extent people are trying to gauge the sense of urgency or the sense of the imperative to quickly understand that i don't think there's an imperative to quickly understand this particular piece of legislation because i could be shocked i suppose but i am highly confident it will not happen and this thing in this session which is all of this year i'm sure it will be reintroduced probably next year or something like it and but but i think it's important that for local leaders to know to the extent you see wow the senate passed it does this mean i don't think it has legs to be done this year and i say that because the governor baker the senate president and the house speaker have sort of identified six priority bills to try to get done for those who don't know or who may be listening the formal sessions of the state legislature and july thirty first so that's in however many days you know less than two weeks so less significant legislation can move in what's called an informal session but a major bill like this would require a roll call vote and there's eleven days for that to happen and it's not going to happen so but it's still a worthwhile conversation for sure because i do think there is a movement and i guess i would then say the other piece i would say here at the outset a couple things is  one i mostly want to listen i'm happy to talk and share my but i want to hear from the planning board what your thoughts ideas concerns are the the bigger policy issue and you may have heard this is that the state has a housing crisis and it's not too strong a word to use crisis now i'm talking about belmont i'm talking about entire three hundred fifty one cities and towns  make up the commonwealth along with particularly the greater boston area along with san francisco and new york city boston is consistently ranked as in the top three most expensive cities to live particularly the the boston metro area and the problem this creates is that young professionals trying to get a toehold here struggle i mean i  a give me a data point that a condom is estimate that restrictive zoning taken as a whole not in any one particular town drives up housing prices in metro boston by about twenty percent and leads to a twenty percent decline in employment that has a deleterious impact on the job market and that some estimate that zoning has cost the region over one hundred thousand jobs we're building fewer than half the homes we need annually to meet our current statewide needs housing and transportation costs eat up about fifty percent of family budgets and low density sprawl caused by current zoning patterns generates more traffic more infrastructure costs and that can drain municipal budgets so those are the bigger policy questions that the state is trying to address and i think th could find numerous people prepared to take issue with every single one of those flights but that is not why we are here this evening be i leave it to the war committee to convene such an evening  absolutely i'm just trying to set the framework for why why is this legislation even in front of the state legislature yes why is it there because i think for those listening and the planning board it's important that you understand that why why did the senate pass this why is it even pending at all why is there a felt need to do it at all you know and i'm just trying to give you some background about what some people believe is the reason to do an update and we appreciate that  first one is your slide is of course quite correct belmont bylaws define multifamily as to family the senate bill would define it as three family or section six t senate bill defines multifamily as a building with three or more units or has two or more buildings on the same lot with more than one two and unit in each so i guess it could be two to  so that is the proposal that passed the senate and i think the planning board can assess what that means for for the town and again i i don't want to just talk i want to listen i mean i simply you brought me here i i would assume in part to let me know how you feel about the bill and i want to take notes on that and be aware of it  so that i have a sense of what i mean i think jeffrey probably still has these numbers just roughly the count housing stock is a little around thirty percent so you know again that is thirty percent we're just doing the arithmetic here sure so we're doing the arithmetic of thirty percent of that's three thousand units all of whom could in principle then and become three families by rights that's a big increase in the housing stock to me that has numerous employee that i mean you know part of it is understanding what the and that means by right is would be our question so if you have two family who does this legislation a man contemplate your being able to make it into you know the quickly honest answer is i don't know and i've learned that one i don't know it's better to say that you know there was i don't know if it only applies to new construction or if by right as you astutely inquire whether that would automatically mean all of these two families currently in belmont the thirty percent or so of the housing stock would automatically be eligible that would clarify the second point requires every new news as we read it requires every municipality to allow at least five percent of its units to add an accessory apartment up to nine hundred square feet correct and that's section five of the bill is there any guidance as to you know again five percent of the housing stock is five hundred units right your is there any guidance as to how that would be is it risk in principle this turns the entire time into a two family  what it would build to give a little more definition defines an accessory unit as a dwelling located within a single family house that is not less than five thousand square feet and zoning ordinances or bylaws may require that the principal unit the principal dwelling be continuously owner occupied and may limit the total number of accessory dwelling units in the town as he said t to not less than five percent and so i think that puts a little more definition to two to the issue the five to five thousand square feet fulfilling a policy requirement i mean it's probably going to be like an apartment in the s r d a district people are probably not going to build except three apartments you know to increase their income stream they're probably going to put a nanny or no pair or in my eyes in that apartment if they chose to add such an accessory apartment right because there's no it it reads at least the bella point is if the town has to rezone to allow for it by right she certainly isn't forcing anyone to do so so whether the market actually if the if the house has to be five thousand square feet in belmont which does not have a great many of these houses what happens suppose we run out of five thousand square foot houses before we hit five percent does the bill contemplate any guidance or would you think what would you think the guidance would be i just i i don't believe the bill does three different points that were identified there were somehow woven together you know they're not they're very separate issues and so one of the questions i have is we have a very diverse hous part housing stock in precincts three and four and would we get any credit for this the requiring you to identify a district as a multifamily district where we get credit for having an existing safe zone district like precinct three of four meeting that requirement because it's already a non human it's already in existence there yeah well that's a great question and that's something i can research in other words as you say get credit for already having it would need to be but to be clear the legislation would require the town to designate define those areas and then any new construction would also have to meet the criteria but i think it's an excellent question because it's an ast observation in a way underlying your question which is if this legislation ever passes and who knows if it will as i said it's very unlikely to happen this term virtually dead  where would belmont designate such a district in and as you say would you get credit for i don't know if it's still true jeffrey but it seems to me when when i joined the planning board in my youth that was pointed out that belmont had an average rent level where ten percent of the renters in the town were under the so called the fordable ceiling but because this is that because that housing was not formally set aside and designated as affordable belmont has never gotten any the population paying ranch that are lower then several of the surrounding yet it still is the case that the law i don't know yet the facts on the ten percent now in belmont and terms of rents but the law still is a course that needs to be deep restricted  well the term is reasonably sized district and it does state that multifamily housing can be built by right in that district but  it would what a reasonably sized district would be in each town i don't know what percent or whatever whether it be done on acreage or amount of units or i can i can follow up with you on that process and as the body that's charged with me with making amendments to our zoning bylaws which is a that's a converse i'm process sure which could be made more cumbersome by the requirement to for a two thirds vote at any town meeting when you don't even admit change it's a it's daunting to think about a piece of legislation passing that delegates potentially a very large responsibility to a state agency about what reasonably sized means and what we as the town would need to do in order to participate in the notice and comment period if that's what it were to the state agency to determine what reasonably sized was particularly and i'm sure this is true for many of the municipalities that you represent if not all of them it places a huge burden on individual towns made up of volunteers largely volunteers right writing church and that's just something i think we all need to be thinking about and a little a little bit more of an i just process wise how would this work and th significant burden that it would place on the town government it's an excellent point i agree i mean you know i am also  full sociate in which i think would also act as advocates and they have been advocates on this legislation voicing very strong concern i think i have their letter here if you don't i'm having to give you a co the m m a has come out in fairly forcefully as advocates for for municipal government with a series of concerns about the bill so i think your your point is well taken here i'm having a hard time understanding how it got through the senate and is now for the house of reps and obviously it's going down you know what you might term like a smash and i'm just this so many questions this so many people that are affected i'm just trying to wrap my head around how even got to the point where even here so that's what it's disturbing to me as someone who understands real estate and zoning pretty well sure of how vague this is and yet how how greatly it could affect individual communities like belmont it's just it's perplexing to me and it's even more perplexing when you sit beside me and we question you and you know believe me i don't mean to be disrespectful in any way but  i can't get my head around the fact that we're having this conversation in this so many i don't know i didn't write it and then i'm thinking about you know senator brownsburg being in here and and we asked him the same questions and  i read in his blog that he voted for and i'm trying to figure out what did you vote for because no one seems to know so it's like it's just really upsetting to me and you know again i don't mean to be this course about it but you know i've everybody's time is valuable  i think everybody's communities valuable and i really wish that it wasn't so vague and we didn't have so many questions that you had more answers which are well that's fine i mean i  think there's ambiguity in lawmaking sometimes but i think to the extent there are questions i can answer it could be merely that i mean as you can see i've done a lot of preparation but you're asking very you're drilling down and this is a senate bill that is not and i've never reviewed you know i have fifteen pages of preparation and yourself to your to your everlasting credit asking very pointed direct questions which as you should and i'm happy to get back to you but you know i think  your larger point is you don't understand how we're here and i think i tried to at least address the broader policy concerns at the outset i know liz you indicated you know you want to talk about specifics which is understandable but the reason we're here is the state is is in a housing crisis i happen to sit on the housing committee in the legislature and  can pay me now or try to address some of the issues after we tackle barbara's point that she raised that how we're going to codify this and present this to our community and how we're going to build around it and then how we're going to pay for this because this is not this is another state i moved from pennsylvania as seems like every year in the boston globe there's a story about young professionals moving out of our state we lost a congressional seat right at least one you know every ten years the state does the federal government does a census you representation in congress is dependent on how many residents you have and we lost population in this state and many people attribute it to largely in part to housing and so i think there's a particularly acute crisis in affordable housing but i think it's it's broader than that so and again that's not sort of my lonely voice in the wilderness that's you talk about policymakers the preponderance of people who study housing in our state closely economists development specialists that that's the the current belief and so state policy is trying to drive to to find solutions and it's a challenge when we have three hundred fifty one cities i will ask a not in the weeds type of question but a larger policy question which which maybe you can either make note of or or maybe you could be prepared to address to the extent that this new legislation you know what it does is it eases a lot of restrictions on development that's that that's located in local zoning bylaws and takes some discretion from local communities in order to you know encourage more development and more density and more affordable housing well doesn't it make sense to really look at chapter forty b at the same time to the extent that that's the objective of chapter forty b as well or you know is there any appetite for that on the part of the legislature or is the idea that forty b will remain as a tool which you know really developers use  much to the objection of many municipalities i would encourage the legislature to look at forty b at the same time and i don't know if you have any comments or thoughts about that it's a great question  you know i think forty b is a well intentioned law and it's flawed and i think every session i mean my second session in the legislature there are a number of proposals to revamp it to modify it  d so again i guess i would say broadly i i hear you and i i think your your point is fair and well stated that you know if this is designed to encourage development and for to be also is how will the to interact should we be looking at reforms to forty b at the same time and i haven't had a chance to sort of study the two side by side and how they might interact but as i said i sit on the housing committee you know i think what i might do sammi is take your roy abstain from the warren committee just have two observations and then the question i want to observe ation is the five thousand square foot issue that was raised before i just checked the text at least of the if there are there are very very very few five thousand square foot houses and all that so yeah it was right so my second general observation is that i know we're not going to discuss this in any detail tonight with the discussion over the the scare of a housing crisis i think is very over overdrawn exaggerated unreasonable in many respects the claims of huge job losses and so forth i think are really unsupported and my view of this legislation is that if you look at the state as a whole i mean i travel around the state a lot i don't think there's any housing crisis in leominster i don't think there's any housing crisis in fitchburg or any other of the dozens of towns outside an hour radius of boston and this is really a campaign a longstanding campaign by people of a certain set of political beliefs to wage a kind of economic war against the relatively small number of communities in the boston area and i think once you get beyond certainly four ninety five and probably a lot closer the importance of this issue becomes almost vanishingly small but then my final question now is actually to mr rogers  looking at belmont as the representative of belmont what is your vision of belmont in the future if this legislation actually passed what would you like to see changed in belmont and how with this legislation promote that well first thanks for your observations and i it's funny in one part of my notes it says a lot the other part it says housing size so my regrets for for my earlier statement about about the size you know i think within belmont you know as a representative i have to listen to many voices and i do and i'm here today and i'm listening to constituents literally all the time and i find that all legislation is has pluses and minuses you know the example i always give is you know the sort of big issues like the death penalty or whether you're pro choice or pro life and those are sort of galvanizing big picture issues but most legislation as the questions tonight go to really are about the details and advocates will come see me on an issue and state their case and i'll shake my hand say wow they really made some good points and then advocates on the other side of the issue will come in and say and i'll say to myself wow they really made some good points so it's about trying to strike a balance i think your point is well taken that you did get into the larger policy question that it's mostly in greater boston that the so called housing crisis exists i think it's real in greater boston i think your point that in lemon stirrer and other parts of the state they don't have the same challenges but it's clearly a challenge here i believe but my job i feel as a representative is to listen to all the voices listen to the planning board listen the warrant committee listen to affordable housing advocates listen to all my constituents and and then try to make an informed judgment as best i can you know that's part of why i'm here tonight right so i'm hearing concerns and i think the concern i'm hearing from from this group of constituents and policymakers  a concern about overdevelopment frankly about the town having the burden of if this something like this passes that if two families become three families if excessively apartments on lots of five thousand square feet or less or more i should say that it will impose burdens of fire on police on the schools on on city services infrastructure  and those are real concerns that i you know i take seriously so i think your question as a representative for belmont how do i envision or how i see it and i think that i really it's important to to listen as much as i talk if not more and so i'm here to listen as i said at the beginning thank you because i think you have a comment briefly i cushman town clerk dave i would encourage you since this affects virtually as these folks at every single residence in the town of belmont that it was quite honestly it was a bit shocking to sit at a town meeting and hear honestly for the first time i think i'm pretty informed from will's report i know i heard many residents say how we learn about this how we participate in this and so my request  dave is since belmont is your primary district i know you have a couple of places in cambridge but really primarily in belmont five precincts in arlington aren't you excuse me yes thank you and cambridge right there you make some really strong outreach efforts to invite people to an open house and when i say invite i mean everyone as many as you possibly can because luxury is is time at this point and said you know struck me voted on the session so i would encourage you to do that as soon as you can and get as many people involved as possible because we know those folks are tommy members represent only those people so they can only go so far when the zoning is rewritten so well thanks for that and it's a good idea we could have maybe will and i as a state senator and state rep could have a forum and that's really a listening session as much is as anything ralph he was something you said a moment ago that the language of at least in the senate bill on what kind of when this development happens what kind of costs can the developer b bear is very limited and is limited to only hard capital costs it's practically the only place in the bill that there's a formula for calculating them which i  that would be a big deal and i should add there is the requirement of at least eleven formal plants to be produced by the town by professional planners is this has many implications as you said and they don't all fall within the purview of the planning boards but in the there's a requirement and state legislation that says you need to estimate the cost of the bill before you pass it and so the estimate in the senate bill when they passed it was the costs associated with this bill and that means you know setting up whatever new bureaucracies it's half a million dollars i do you know i do of a really rough calculation of the economic cost of this to b but it's a big number and that is the suggestion that the cost of this or half a million dollars is it typically legislation first clears whatever first committee it goes to say goes to housing or and then if it's deemed to have any financial impact to the commonwealth a fiscal note right is attached right and it goes to ways and means where ways and means assessed the cost to the state yes now i don't know but you may be looking at another number in terms of the cost to belmont the the that i'm i'm back of the on the low paying the cost  that may well be right but my goodness the cost of the individual communities are going to be so much more sure i mean i think i can imagine that be true i mean think i'm not sure it is not a question or i think there's a huge quality and a huge impact on the quality of life in every single community because when you have a five thousand square foot lot that has an existing dwelling two two family dwelling on it and you're allowing a nine hundred square foot accessory structure you're left with little little little green space and i think families designate a couple years back as being a green community i'm wondering if we'll keep that designation when this if this ever passes because we're going to lose quite a bit of green space if in fact something like this ever did happen which is has a lot to do with the quality of life in this community as well as others i can't imagine you know your winchesters your wellesley's here i can't even imagine how how much this will impact their quality of life which to me but actually drive prices down which is maybe what you want but maybe there's a crisis the other way and there's a mass exodus right well i guess just to pick up on where me in addition to in farming you know it's perhaps we should consider possibly led by the selectmen with the one committee having some kind of public forum of our all of which would be a welcome to honored guest course but you know the kind of to push on some of these issues both the broad one the broad economic issues which are somewhat beyond the purview of the planning board and the detailed ones and the governance and environmental ones  just want to thank dave for the forum for him coming in the clarity that you gave in your answer about what the house is not going to do because because because that's really valuable to sort of know that that this is this is not going to move fast over the next couple couple of weeks and if you have a moment if this is the right time to to sort of share some insight about what what was going on on the house side you know did the house have have had any working towards towards its own own a draft or or else has this not not been a topic that has been brought up and and then also secondly is it your preference to stay on the housing in committee next year because if you were i think i think that would that would really sort of help the help help the conversation here to to to sort of make sure that we had that we have a seat at the table where where the concerns of the town we're going to sure flow through both great questions and and thank you for them and the house did have two bills and act relative to housing preservation and production in the commonwealth that was the chairs bill kevin  honan and that involved a change in definition a multifamily to a building with three or more dwellings or two or more residential buildings on the same lot similar to this bill  and then h eleven o seven which is an act expedite multifamily housing construction and cluster development and that has some similar provisions to this it's as variety of differences as well so yes the senate did the house i should say did have legislation on this topic but it's in the less prepared form so we have a we have a better shot  trying to come in with some comments from out of right and then and then to your other question i mean i like serving on the housing committee in my second term of doing it for me and it's an incredibly complicated topic are most public policy topics and what i'm finding in the legislature i've heard a former state rep that say that it's very easy as a legislator to be a mile wide and an in because there are so many it's the environment it's transportation it's housing it's on and on criminal justice it's and any one of those topics to really master them could be a life's work so i think there's some value in me staying on the housing committee because i'm starting to get some continuity there but thanks for your question all right thank you very  much we you're welcome you're coming we look forward to continuing the conversation and we're really glad we are here we think you do and thank you for the invitation and i i took notes and where i was unable to give more specific answers i plan to follow up with the planning board ok thank you ok what i'm going to do now i'm going to move slightly out of order since i know there are people here who came only kookier the zoning presentation what i'm going to do is one jeffrey could you just update us on forty eight middle forty eight minutes yes but at the board's last meeting forty eight mil caught verbal he stated they wanted to withdraw their application i followed up with that saying we needed that in writing there was a series of emails back and forth the applicant wanted to clearly understand sort of all the  such and anyway she ultimately submitted her withdrawal yesterday or the day before the application so there is now a formal withdrawal a written time we will not run past the adjournment time sufficient to thoroughly hear four cases so i am going to ask jeffrey to explain our procedure particular with respect to the specific cases the board has opened the public hearing and allow the audience to make their presentation but that the case then is continued to the following i'm sorry the audience to make and ask their question but then the board continues the case of the next meeting so just we would hear the applicants presentation yes we would take any comments from the audience so from the  residence so that people do not have to come repeatedly to make their voices heard and continue the discussion of the case to our next meeting which would be august second the first tuesday in august of public hearing by the planning board an application to amend special permit notice here by given the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on tuesday july nineteenth two thousand and sixteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen meeting room four fifty five con avenue to consider the up location of robert and lauren saw no to amend a previously granted special permit in order to one and a half bath in closet to the basement to change the exterior front and rear steps and roof over the garage entrance on lot b three only located at one twenty two everly street lots to be and three also known as eleven we really terrorists and one twenty were really street and a general residence zoning district does the applicant wish to make a presentation office on the first floor that will look into and close one of the rooms to make an office to the notice so that's very unfortunate sorry about  so we can't take on the three tonight you can certainly have a hearing have the hearing or effect that in that one particular issue you can certainly take comments and so forth and so on but that one particular issue would have to be done can consider be to any questions with respect to be  and you know is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak to  from my perspective the reality is i wish again that these would write more attention that the original yeah so i planned and desired special permit herring's that happened way back when but technically speaking from a building standpoint these could be allowed by the next homeowner and historically speaking in terms of like the buildings themselves they're really not changing it interior it's interior space that we're talking about i don't i don't entirely you but barbara and i mean i think that there's half bath and the closet addition to the finished basement raises a concern that we've had in the past you know with addicks with things in particular about whether we're sort of creating some sort of additional bedroom space that adds to the density  and that's just a conversation that we as a planning board should should have had if the original application had come to us with you know with those design details in them you know i don't know how we would have come out but you know i think we should have a little bit more of a conversation about this evening and i think specifically i'll describe the conversation with county council and then barbara and jeffrey will improve you're probably wondering why i bothered to say anything in the first place since i so often ask others to improve on what i'm the exterior experience if the exterior appearance and to the extent that what is happening what happens inside the home is plausibly related to density we have a right to control that as well we cannot go we don't have a right to go in and arbitrarily redesign the shape of the room because we thought that the developer got the proportions wrong because that doesn't reasonably relate to density or character of the neighborhood and so on its interior it doesn't flow through but to the extent it flows through to density appearance consistency with the neighborhood we can go inside and the bathroom issue is the one where this really comes home to roost where i think it's fair to say if there were an exterior exit to this basement the answer would be no no you know this is just asking for this to turn into an accessory apartment and the state may indeed go ahead and do that but they haven't done it yet and until it does that we wouldn't interpret allowing that kind of increase in density on a permit for a single family house to be part of the deliber you know the the other issue is it is obviously  it would have been better to include this in the plans but let me just ask to be really clear have you installed bathroom fixtures in the basement now could i interrupt ease the board if i put in the deed that if the board goes along with the half path from that we put in the deed that it cannot be turned into a full bathroom with the shower or top because the necessary permits would have to be go in front of the building department to draw a building permit and at that point the building department would not grant the  t i'm going to take advantage of the fact that we have baghdad in addition to being the former chair of the planning board is also a real estate lawyer so is there another real estate lawyer in the house all right mr ba i can't say a almost thirty years of practice that i've seen such a restriction you know written written into a deed i think it's rare when you apply for a building permit that the building inspector would say give me a copy of your deed so it might be difficult to enforce from that perspective perhaps the you know perhaps the most proper location for such a restriction would be in the special permit because then it would get recorded at the registry of deeds so there would be public notice but at the same time it would be in the file of the building inspector so you know  imposing restrictions and comfortable and if i just want to add one more thing to my comment ok i have offered my my suggestion as a real estate attorney ok but by offering such such a suggestion i just want to make it clear i am by no means you suggesting that the planning board should make one decision or take one set of action or another and i will go on record saying that it does disturb me and i think it does set a bad precedent when developers come into town get one approval make one set of representation and then inch to get more ok so they come back before you asking for an amendment that you know i think it's important for belmont to encourage one stop shopping come in show us what you want will approve it now if a future owner decides to do something else then it's their prerogative to come before the planning board and request that that permission i'm not saying that's what you're doing but i'm just saying that's not a good precedent to have in town we couldn't agree with you for i'm not sure jeffrey you probably what your take on that the house is built some of comes in it they want to they want to put a bathroom in the basement unless we put in our water conditions that they can not be ira quiet so to speak and belt and suspenders it's sort of a fine distinction though isn't it whether we sort of impose a condition now to seem you know no bathroom we deny this then the existing special permit is based on the original plans going to be about room right and that's that and that's the special permit fencer becomes part of the deed if you will and and so and then you have future planning board then i guess the distinction either way probably a future planning board if they wanted to could undo correct or decision correct subsequent owners have the right to apply to a man and the decision yes so the owner would in that case have to come back to the board and ask for permission for a modification of the conditions of the special permit to allow them to put in a half back then just to play this all out if we den tonight is this a situation where then this property couldn't come before us for a period of two years it was trivia because it's you know i'm of yes so it's not that that owner could immediately that that seems i think it has the advantage of it certainly will incentivize people to put together a new plan to to think carefully about their plans beginning whether the given the two year restriction whether the economic damage that flows from that is appropriate is something that i would like to think about and since we are going to continue this hearing since we're going to continue the hearing we're going to have to take a three on august second we've posed a public hearing now and be to you know i propose that we continue this hearing everything and give this some thought and come back where i guess that will also allow us to think through with ben before the board now three times yes regarding this issue yes i would really like to clarify this issue to get a clear tonight we have it's gone on far since june and i don't think we can continue any longer i have time restraints commitments and i'd like to move  forward i just want to remind the board the only difference between b one b two when b three is forty two square feet and i find it unfortunate to be here tonight  i don't think our intent was to be deceptive i would rather take it if you can take the vote on tonight we're going to be missing one one member on the next meeting  and i'd like to just move forward i don't think you one do i have no idea where the board is i'm not sure that i have made up my mind yet but i mean i just want you to be clear that at the risk that you're taking is you get a no vote tonight that your buyer can't install a bathroom for at least two years i have been in that in these two houses i don't use a one house but i do understand that i understand and i think in part when i heard one of the neighbors reading the by law in reference to the building department the building department was well aware of what we're known we did we did drive a permit and according to the by a large did say that the building department has the right to stop the job at that present time which was not done and i just want to remind everybody that this was not deceptive so this is well aware of the building department and we're talking about a half bathroom so i would i would choose to have this voted on tonight don i have to i think you make a mistake i understand your frustrations i think you're making a mistake i think there's a lot of things they have to be discussed by the board i think there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff of oh i'm  sure your intentions were great the reality is we approved three sets of plans you didn't do it you give it to one without asking you did it you proposing to others you've got voters in the neighborhood that aren't happy and you've got i mean honestly from my perspective sitting on a board and being in your business you know it's it's almost it's it's borderline although i know it wasn't intentional it's borderline a slap in the face to the board because we shouldn't even be here you're here three times because he didn't follow what you said you were going to do so it's really not our fault we understand your own fault i understand though now you're pressuring us to vote on something because you feel like you've been here three times again that's your fault so i would feel more comfortable if you would just wait for the second it's you know fourteen days away it's two weeks i it there's a lot of work you can do in the meantime i for one am not comfortable voting tonight i'm really not so if you want to push the board that your prerogative  but i think you making a mistake all right in that case excuse me i'm going to withdraw the baton from b two and continue the case for b three thank you thank you and with that we move to the next item which is forty two pine street notice a public hearing by the planning board an application for a special permit notice is here by given that the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing  violence to alter a non conforming structure non conforming lot size and frontage in order to construct a second floor greater than thirty percent of existing gross florrie floor area at forty two point street and a single residen point out that it has the advantage of not being the first application under the new single residence and the the virtue of that is that we are  we are clear on the criteria that we'll be using namely as we look at whatever information comes before us will look at this with respect to density mass consistency with the neighborhood and so on discussing some of the standard number quantitative analysis that we do i want to emphasize that we do this analysis because it's helpful in thinking about the issues against the mass and so on that it is not it does not drive the decision it informs the decision i would also just quickly know that at various points we have asked and i know jeffrey wheeler has said applicants we had an application from thirteen bourke street that is pretty much exactly what we want to see in an application and we would really hope that people would follow that model and finally that one of the requirements of the submission is a landscaping plan last carl to speak for that a little more but we really are looking for a professionally done landscaping plan with that said the we're going to move ahead as follows will now move the presentation by the applicant and i will then take any do i have anyone here in the audience who wishes to comment on this application all right well that will move it along pretty quickly i'll then distribute the key numbers and we'll continue the public hearing so that we can also go through a similar plot process with sycamore and chandler street so who will be presenting for the applicant so we have you today in your consideration is we're doing a renovation to their existing home at forty two pine street it's an existing ranch and we're turning it into a contemporary home adding a second story before i start talking a little bit more about the design of the overall components of first i'd just like to respond to your comment about the previous application we actually hadn't seen a copy of that at least i had so we had you know if need be we have to take a look at it and your consideration in terms of the pl plan one of the reasons that we could have set that aside we have no intention of changing the current site plan as we're not changing the look at all the house so that's why we didn't go to the expensive creating a plan but again with your input and information we can look at going forward with those kinds of details and just the one of the reasons for asking for this is that it's one and a story to the house it may turn out to be an order to soften the impact on the neighbors and so on and so add to that that the landscape drawing should have the same status and be in the same list with all the other architectural drawings and not not just a color diagram it should have specifications and dimensions and  plant species listed preferably on the same page right and just a little background on that issue since some the table the owners had submitted for building permit back in april and were delayed by the billing department because of the upcoming vote on the  and they needed to get a plan in place immediately to get to make the filing right be able to be at this hearing today so i guess when you understand that's it for some of the rush where that came from and we'd be more than happy to take suggestions in the b b provide the details that you're looking for in a plan that said the primary part of this project is the addition of a second floor reading about thirteen hundred square feet of the house which is the mirror of the footprint of the first floor we have a proposed bridge height of twenty feet which is six allowed thirty four feet that's currently in the new zoning ordinance due to the feel of the land and possibly legend or anything the existing basement is only forty percent below grade making it count as a story according to ben done one zoning by the second story consists of four bedrooms and two bathrooms which is keeping within the number of bedrooms and bathrooms that are in this in addition of that size or second floor of that size the intent of the existing two first four bedrooms is that they become offices as they mentioned they work from home often i think even has pictures of the offices inside but this is computers all set up next to their beds there and you know again to clarify there is no intent of expansion of the footprint of the houses we talked about this early on in the project and i know from past experience working on belmont at least with the zoning board that any increase in law coverage really looks hard at because of our issues with water and all the other eight aspects that go with it so i really encourage them and we explored a lot street the other piece is the west side of the house is four inches over the setback line of that side house we are not extending that literally but we are extending an upwards direction to obviously at the second story we have subsea mentors of support from the so again in keeping with just the ongoing kind of building i'm away august second and my clients although they're more than willing to come before the board and hear you and translate if we do not attend the august second meeting is it possible to move to the meeting after that or i'm not certain what a workaround for you would be  comfortable coming in we can have as you point out the landscape plans are insufficient for your review we can have those drawn up and fair for the next meeting but in terms of the design of the overall layout of the spaces and the configuration of the facades if that's something that you know i can get a general sense of your acceptance or your questions about it today then you know we can decide if we need to go to the hallway to september sixth as you know they filed in april for the permit and can work with jeffrey prior to that and i think that some of our questions really could be very well answered by the homeowner so that would be my suggestion that thank you and with that we move ahead to the by the process of elimination i believe there is no one here we have no one no neighbors who wish to speak on either s ore chandler so let's take sycamore now and who is noticed a public hearing by the planning board an application for a special permit notices here by given that the belmont plan ford will hold a public hearing on tuesday july nineteenth twenty sixteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen meeting room town hall four fifty five structure lot frontage seventy feet allowed fifty point four five feet existing in order to construct a three story porch at thirty five thirty seven chandler street located in a general residence zoning district and with that we have a sufficient for  a two family house and we occupy those houses we also have two kids and sometimes my parents also visit us from far away so we have an existing porch which i believe is origin original porch and it's getting really old and there are supporting beams that we found are water damage so we think safety is a concern in the long run and so we're in the same time we also ran a bating the upper unit so we think it's a good chance to maybe rebuild the porch into three levels and our neighbor next door has exactly the same kind of porch we we are proposing to build this really levels and the top level it doesn't have a roof so we have a very long and big backyard so the porch is only seen from pretty much from the neighbors from both sides so i think it will basically have very little influence on our neighbors continued on second ok all right thank you thank you with that the only other issue that i think is suppressing is we are will meet on the second and i am proposing that we need on the first tuesday of september which is the day after labor day and the day before the start of school if we we need to do that because pushing village will have been decided by that time and cushing village will know a great deal more about pushing village at that point and if we if we are not certain that everyone can be he will have a form then we need to look for a date the previous week because we we really cannot just let pushing village sit there something important has happened right and we're not going joe be sitting  judge i at my request go has gone back to the a g s office to see whether under what circumstances would he continue to have is there anything else jeffery that we need to something at some point in september not the six we should schedule a working session i've been to go back and look at the permits we granted and ask where things stand and that's probably a morning working session but since we've had enough experience with general residence to go back and say ok where does it accomplish next year i started putting together a list of issues that i think should be discussed and should be looked at but obviously it's a blessing to the board so there will be there are six other i don't know some it just needs