this is the time we regularly check our electronic devices so if each of you would look at the screen and then when the when responses displayed on your small small and l e d s screen and present on this screen so glenn is the polling open yes so please go ahead and up press one or two and if we have a problem with any please raise your hand and come to the front immediately so we can get you a device it's working right is anybody everybody all right no all right i think we're all set thank you and the other issues ok the limits of the hall town meeting members should be in these two sections and non town meeting members my left i'll admit to the floor in addition of those i admitted in the first segment of town meeting in may in addition the bylaws review committee the board of health the board o recreation commission board of library trustees personnel board contributory retirement board bill osterhaus and rick jones any other requests for admission to the floor as i say all of the previous from mayor admitted the town council warrant committee and said are saying none then the list i have summarized will be admitted  let me say a few words about what faces us in the next three nights with your cooperation and certainly i'm going to work hard to and have already with others to see if we can do our business in three nights i think it's impossible to do it two but certainly i hope three that may mean that we have a couple of late nights but we'll have to see how proceed what we're going to in broad strokes the plan is as follows after a couple of reports would begin with article six and there are six amendments and when we get to article and so forth before we adjourn tonight we begin wednesday night with the citizens petition on cell tower that's that we begin the other but special town meeting topic will be postponed until monday night so after the discussion a resolution of the cell tower issue the buy a lot change we will then turn to the budget and mi will give a report from the warrant committee and we'll use the rest of the time presumably that night wednesday night for the budget if we have some more time we can then pick up any of the articles that we haven't gotten to that we from tonight finally on monday night we'll begin with the capital budget and then after that turn to the special town meeting on the incinerator and then any remaining articles so that's the broad game plan for the three nights and one other comment and i'll talk more about it when we get to article six think in mind this is my moderator and i think thank you i wasn't looking for applause but anyway looking for sympathy  myself and glenn to try to organize it would already done a lot of work but further work to try to organize that in a way that would put make it as helpful as possible but i just underscore that we're going to need patience don't feel the need to repeat all of the arguments and remember again five minute limit and two questions through the moderator finally with the unanimous consent of town meeting members i'll acetone clerk to read only the return of of the annual town meeting held monday may to two thousand and sixteen by posting in attested copy of the notice of adjournment on the temp clerk's official bulletin board at the town hall and at least five other places in town giving notice that the annual town meeting had not yet been completed and had been adjourned to meet today monday june sixth two thousand and sixteen at the cherry middle school at seven pm briefly stating the business to be acted upon all in accordance with the representative town meeting acts of one nine hundred twenty six as amended and section three zero dash one one zero c of our general bylaws of the town of belmont thank you before  precinct six chair of the board of health and the member of the executive board of the belmont religious council i stand before you tonight representing both these organizations to happily say that we have scheduled our second gun buyback program here in belmont at the success we had two years ago thank you very much this excess of two years ago meant sixty two guns were removed from the streets to be destroyed and with the good work of the chief and the rest of the police department here we have now come into a five town consortium running as well as getting the information out on the flyer as you can see in two thousand and fourteen as the doctor said we took sixty two firearms off out of our community and we would destroy them according to law we've been  we came together with cambridge alington belmont and some of all to do another one of regional gun buyback program along with the religious councils the middlesex cheap sheriff's department and also the state police will be involved as well but i would just want to give you a quick reminder it's gone be saturday june eleventh ten to three done it please pass the word if anybody wants any further information we have the telephone number six one seven nine nine three two five two nine our reach out to me a chief at belmont p d dot org where we had help and we can use all the publicity and word spreading that we can so thank you very much they have a great  member at large moved at the town meeting here the motions in the following order one six eight eighteen fifteen sixteen seventeen ten twelve eleven nineteen thirteen fourteen have done for you over the past few years typically the amount of state aid we've brought back the infrastructure investments we've succeeded in attracting to the community and in fact that's i don't by not doing that want to leave the impression for a second that that is not what i spend a great deal of my time doing but i want to take the opportunity of being before you to address an issue which is difficult and controversial and coming forward which is zoning reform there is a zoning reform bill pending before the legislature which in fact has been pending for approximately about ten years in different forms and which now appears to have reached a point where it is going to be taken up by the senate in fact this thursday coming along a little bit fast it does have an impact on our community i want to assure people that although it's happening this fast this will not be our last b apple i think we can keep talking about this idea frankly give that bill less than fifty fifty shot of getting it all the way across the goal line in this session but if even even if it does get done in the session they'll be a conference process will be considered by the house so i'm starting a conversation now i've been trying to started in the newspaper and starting to start on my website looking for your input looking for your concerns if there is a handout with details on the bill which i brought and put in table out there you can pick that up you can go to my website and get more details on your end if you are interested but in a nutshell let me give you the highest level of it what it does is is takes a look at what we're doing here in messages from a zoning standpoint in massachusetts we've done something rather unique which we've chopped up our state through history into three hundred fifty one small planning areas most states use much larger geographical planning areas counties are much larger municipalities and so what this bill would do is not back away from the basic principle of very local control but introduce a modest level of regional or state oversight to that process with the goal of encouraging housing production in areas where it makes sense that is near jobs or near transit so in in belmont what in practice i think the bill would mean would be two things one the bill would require the community to accept a certain amount of in law apartments those accessory apartments which we did not make provision for in our zoning code and second it would require that the town have zoning which accommodates a reasonable level of density and what is that it says in a reasonably sized part of the town you would be basically be able to build three the kind of three family area of the town devoted to buy right housing of that density so it's not dumb it was built as a street cart suburb this is not a transformative thing for belmont but it is a change and so i wanted to bring it before you housing densities of course is a matter of taste some people want to live in skyscrapers some people want to live in the know in the middle of nowhere some of us have chosen to live in belmont which is somewhere in between from a density standpoint the kind of density that this bill would require belmont to authorize again it might not change too much but if it did it's a level of density that i personally addressing us just one of your constituents as a belmont resident in precinct five in the general resident district is a level that i personally would feel very comfortable living next to or being part of i am extremely cognizant of the perspective that the members of the board of selectmen members of the warrant committee and all of you as town meeting members and planning board of course but for the financial perspective that you that you have to grapple with in belmont having balanced nine budgets having come into politics concerned about class size in the schools having been somebody who's been involved supporting override campaigns when necessary to fund the schools i am very very conscious of the idea that more families in belmont is something that some people are concerned about in terms of its fiscal impact i get that in my bones i lived it for many years i fully understand it i want to say though that at the state level that's not an argument that is very persuasive i mean most of the sad truth is that by many reasonable metrics most communities in this state or a majority of the other communities in this state are feeling much greater financial squeeze than we do in belmont and i'm well aware that we have a no commercial tax base and receive limited state aid despite the best effort legislators but compared to other communities when you look at the fiscal distress of the income levels in those communities other communities are just as bad off as belmont when it comes to the issue of providing missile services to the challenge of providing  so one of the interesting things i think what this is something that kind of distorts our perspective because we happen to live next to a several of the communities that have the lowest residential tax burdens as a percentage of their income in the state so cambridge and boston and waltham are among the lowest residential tax burdens in the state so we know in fact we just spoke to one of the we just recognize somebody who's moved from belmont to haunt them as a senior citizen and taken a lower tax burden so there it is it is a fact that the residential tax burden is lower in a couple of communities around us as a percentage of income but those communities are building crowd housing like crazy the mayor of boston has set a goal to tens of thousands of units of housing and it is sprouting all over the park boston parts my district one hundred units here six hundred units there twenty story towers marching down boylston street which are housing housing housing and so in any cambridge the  they've committed to the vast majority of their four of their community preservation act funds to the to the building of housing so those communities of except that the obligation to participate in our regional economy by building housing and we in belmont are not going to become belmont boston or cambridge and nobody is in the state is going to ask belmont to become boston or cambridge but the thrust of this bill will be to exert modest pressure on communities across the state to accept more how multi family housing development and in i want to come back to why is the legislature motivated to do this why is this important so on a few different levels first environmentally if you concerned about climate change if you buy into that as an issue you want to build dense housing near transit and near jobs which is what this is about that's a housing a smaller carbon footprint building close to two to jobs or transit saves carbon it's the end by the way if you're a wildlife person dense housing so is the opposite of sprawl and means less habitat chewed up so it's the right thing to do environmentally it is the right thing to do from an economic development standpoint i have never had a conversation with a business leader who did not want to tell me that the cost the high cost of housing which is a direct result of our fragmented land use policy in a state is a problem for economic development is a problem for bringing jobs to massachusetts and finally it does go to the ultimate issue of inequality to the extent we are locking up land preventing the development of multi housing the family housing we are driving up the cost of housing at the low end of the income curve you have people that are paying thirty forty fifty percent of their income to purchase housing if they can if they can afford housing at all so environmentally economically morally it is the right thing to do to find a way to accommodate additional housing across our state so to close again i want to come back to the fact that although we are voting on this on thursday i believe there is plenty of opportunity for continued dialogue about this bill i am eager to hear from all of you i am very conscious that these are issues that you think about a lot and so i come to this issue come to come into this room humbly knowing that you have all thought about this issue a great deal and  i am i'm eager to hear your feedback i am extremely easy to reach in my state house office or on the web which i encourage there's i've got i want to tell you i've got a couple of good posts on this in my website there's a spirited dialogue going on there are people who are concerned or opposed to this or people in support of it but i'm going to work with you and eager to hear from you and i i want to thank you all for giving me a few minutes of your time this evening got a number of overheads he's going to go through this hit the highlights but this over the overheads will be on the town website tomorrow so you'll be able to take more time to review it if you'd like with you any the things i'm going to discuss to this evening but before i begin i do want to first of all congratulate the two thousand and sixteen high school graduates i think some of you in this room probably a graduate a ceremony graduated with a wonderful event i want to applaud the efforts of the school department in the school committee it was a beautiful day until it rained and we all walked outside it was a great day and the all night party theme this year some of the you may know this already was indiana jones and i think the kids really enjoyed it they all came home exhausted and my daughter was sleeping until midday so it was a wonderful event for all of us in this it's great to see these kids going to the next adventure and away next slide please ok just quickly on twenty sixteen accomplishments from a financial perspective we continue to maintain a aaa bond rating from moody's one of only fourteen communities in massachusetts i think that's terrific we executed the sale of the wood for road property finally f one point seven five million were using those funds for the high school facilities study we continue to address and we have conducted comprehensive presentations on pension obligation bonds and opeth liabilities more to come on that  and also in beaumont sore and storm drain rehabilitation i'm sure most of you or some of you saw the recent editorial in the boston globe it's really concerning to this community can certainly concerning to the board selectmen i do want to just address that briefly we take this very seriously and it's really distressing to see the bhaumik out another af as relates to the all fall when brooke just some background briefly on june third two thousand and sixteen that was that editorial on the one book outfall in january twenty sixth seen some of you may know this already there's a presentation to the board of selectmen by the director of community development plans clancy which included results of water quality samples done in october twenty fifteen these results demonstrated significant progress in water quality at several locations in belmont so we were surprised to see that editorial in net result the samples were taken after two point five million in storm water we mediation additional two hundred thousand dollars for continued sampling and investigation in the mystic river watershed and these these activities will lead to another recommendation of significant capital improvements on the sewer and storm drain system to continue the process up next you know number recommendations particular we developed a recreation strategic plan to understand our strategic goals objectives and recommendations for the next five years we work with the beaumont like department on new electric water and sewer building collection and accounting system we've increased our investment because of the override of course half a million dollars between roads and sidewalks in the management of of our roads and sidewalk pavement repair next life please cushing village let's cross our fingers extension granted august twenty sixth two thousand and sixteen for the sale of the parking lot and as you know we're we're working with toll brothers on this matter and everything that we're seeing at this point time from the board of selectmen perspective we're very optimistic that in fact where we will we will be able close in the twenty sixth of this year so let's hope lisa gentleman finally can get that project off the ground we provided support to the logan airport noise advisory committee on august seventh two thousand and sixteen we were designated a purple heart community and unfortunately this year in germany i know that some of you would disappoint i certainly was as well my father served in world war two we had to cancel because of the prediction on the weather that didn't quite get to be as bad as we thought it was going to be but it certainly seems as though is going to be a pretty bad day horrible day frankly with on the storms we had to cancel our memorial day parade so very disappointing for all of us and the kids as well so we decided as a board of selectmen we're going to have an abbreviated ultimate sacrifice for our freedom next like please in twenty sixteen bit for solid waste collection contracting began and will be available late twenty seventeen early twenty eight teen in preparation for this big development during the coming months will take a number of actions next slide please we're going to conduct precinct we're going to do a lot of outreach of this folks we're going to conduct precinct means another public means audit to determine barrel counts and some surveys some residents may be selected to conduct a performance trial of an automated cart watertown as you know has moved to that automatic automated trash pickup these cards will vary in size of participants will be a representative sample next life please from a from a trash pickup and recycling perspective as most of you know we're dual stream two we go to single stream what do we do for trash pick up to the number of days that we go to automatic pick up so we really want to spend the time that's necessary and hear from all of you if we're not spending that time in terms of getting input in terms of what kind of community we want to add from trash and recycling perspective that's like please finally buy much sooner seems to be coming to an end by the end july early august the trees are being planted i think they look terrific don't they really want to thank all of you in the residents of this community for having the patience with the amount of time it seems have been to have taken and certainly the businesses you know we want to thank them in terms of their patience  this reconstruction the board of selectmen recently voted may have seen to provide to the businesses during the month of june free to our parking every day so hopefully that alleviates some of the issues and the impact that they've experienced so the green space is ne completion and we finally we have to do a final course of paving on leonard street as i mentioned the trees are being planned it we need to complete the sidewalk in front of lucky telly properties the fence finally came down i'm sure you noticed that and narrowing of the roadway and the slowing down of traffic i think that's fine for me i think unproved pradesh in safety ok please i think this is quite an achievement for a community we've never come this far as it relates to community path for constructing a pat based on the proposed path segments and finally provide a recommendation as part of the feasibility study to the board selected on the optimal path looks like please bowman high school committee school building committee was feasibility study i think it's pretty exciting i mean graduation yesterday was fun with the high school's pretty old so we need a new and please we're near completion on the electric light substation if any of you have had a it construction is seventy five percent done looks like place substation building is complete it the transformers have been delivered it installed a pretty cool i don't know if you like transformers i think they look pretty cool the switchgear installation is complete it for the three point seven million proof and it's about time meeting we've drawn down thirty two point eight it with twenty point nine million remaining funding next slide please so what's next final substation site cleanup paving around year upon completion of the transmission line installation i think that's the time frame we we we have monthly meetings with our like department manager jim palmer and we will be reimbursed approximately thirty million plus so i think that's a pretty terrific  please amongst a number of other things we're pretty busy as you as you can see we're going to sit down and implement a strategic planning process with all of the party heads and i think we've really done this we've attempted to do this in the past  but we are going to try to spend the summer months in the early fall in doing that again as i mentioned hopefully will move forward with the christian square parking lot sale and toll brothers can finally complete suit me start their construction we're going to implement a parking management plan for belmont center a lot of e mails a lot of complaints on parking i know it's a big deal in town and hopefully we can finally execute on that plan once the senate construction is complete it would implement a recreation strategic plan we're going to develop a capital what type of cap you have there and so there is a on our time weds website we did have a consultants report you can look for when we finally do have precinct needs around this in terms of some of the discussion the post closure use so we are going to move forward with that met with representatives from lexington and arlington and needham members of the boards of selectmen to try to find a path forward that we can all agree on is as i think you understand nine communities have voted for that although arlington's vote is pending a override a debt exclusion vote i think it's an override vote on june fourteenth which is next week so their vote was contingent upon that passing if find to identify the necessary funding to move forward with the building project no different than what we're dealing with with the high school it's unclear to us what the administration is thinking perhaps or considering to come back to town means for another de exclusion vote that may be a possibility perhaps they're considering to do a district wide vote has it's not an abundant lee clear i do know that they're very anxious and willing to meet with the town of belmont to perhaps understand our concerns and work with us perhaps change our mind as well will see we have a scheduled meeting we want to keep the lines of communication open and from our point of view in my point of view i should say as well we think it's really important to meet with other members of boards of selectmen and  other town representatives and not as much the administration to try to find a path forward it worked with the reach revise regional agreement i'm hoping it does work with the building project so that's my report that laid on the table of those in favor please say i oppose no dop and unanimously we now turn to article six and as i said a few moments ago we've tried to organize this in a way that is most helpful t town meeting the structure is as follows allison the chair of the planning board will in a moment read two motions the first motion is the waiving of the reading the second motion is the content of tonight's article and then after we take the votes from the bodies she and mr deception our planning board member will make a presentation on the proposal on the motion after that is completed we then turn before we vote on that and this is for a new town meeting members this is the way we always do it we then turn to the amendments and go through the amendments one by one and either vote them up or down once we've dispensed with them and there are six amendments when we get to that i will explain the order in which we're going to follow them once we dispense with the s amendments we then go back to the main motion as amended or not and that's when we'll have the full discussion on article six so that's the  sequence and let's begin then it's allison with reading the motions liz allison town meeting member precinct three chair of the planning board article six relating to the construction of oversized wehling units in single residence c zoning districts moved that under article six the reading of the proposed amendments to the zoning by law pertaining to sections one point four definitions in abbreviations and four point two point two linear requirements for residential dense strix be dispensed with the same being set forth in full under article six of the warrant some parts one three four and five and the may twenty fifth two thousand and sixteen substitute motion by the planning board to any alison the main motion move that the town vote to amend the zoning by law pretending pertaining to sections one point four definitions and abbreviations and four point two point two linear requirements for residential districts as set forth under article six of the warrant sub parts one three four and five and as set forth in the may twenty fifth two thousand and sixteen substitute motion by the planning board two thousand and sixteen annual meeting subject to both having be distributed to town meeting members and does the planning board have a formal vote on this yes the planning board recommends favorable action by unanimous vote thank you and the board of select presenting article six i will be presenting a very high level overview second i'll recap the path from town meeting twenty fifteen where a mor subsection of a single resident c two tonight and thirdly i'll describe the process by which the article that you're going to be voting on this evening was developed we will then let me begin with the high level overview and without asking mr wheeler or mr castro if i may have a laser  pointer i liberal overview there are two key words in this oversized and single resident see oversized we mean a dwelling that is significantly two and a half to four times as large as the neighbors of a different architectural style of a greater height and that in general it fits badly into the neighborhood as we've looked at some of these developments there are generally two and a half times to four times the dwellings they've replaced the second keyword is single resident see single residency in the has approximately thirty one hundred includes approximately thirty one hundred welling's and single residence zoning to stay single residency is probably the most broadly distributed of any zoning district in the town just to give a short example residence see in precinct for but i would might remind all the precinct for town meeting members that town meeting stood with you when you came forest two years ago to seek protection for at the general residence areas we then have five six and seven and finally eight so that single residency is widely distributed very important to the town let me move on to part two of my recap which is how we got here over a year ago the residence of a sub part of single residenc shah gardens here and your farm neighborhood so that they were looking at very large homes going up in the neighborhood of considerably smaller homes they came forward and again just a couple numbers to in perspective here we are looking at a home that more than doubled in size and that is without the inclusion of the so called bonus rooms which would have pushed it from fourteen hundred feet to over five thousand feet the resident the ins the citizens came forward with the  which town meeting passed virtually unanimously the established korean so that a year ago town meeting passed a one year march or am that limited construction to a height of thirty two feet  but was simply a one year mark tory that was done with the understanding that the planning board would work with the citizens and others residents of single residency to move forward and create a broader zoning amendment that would be a firm basis for moving forward so let me just now turn to the third s namely the process going forward probably the key decision was to move from this sub district to all of single residence see we did that for two reasons one is that we didn't one doesn't want to play whack a mall where we hold on oversized buildings in one part of the district and they pop up in another but more importantly and it is what new residents of single residency told us they wanted and i'll come back to that in the second but this expansion was driven not by the planning boards preconceived notions of what it ought to be but by people's requests that sad to just a few pictures to show what the experience was in single residency again  neighborhood of modest house was seeing a great deal of construction it very little landscaping great deal of hype not much compatibility with the rest of the neighborhood so that with the decision and now moving along  the process once we had made a decision once the decision had been made to expand to single residency here some of the other things we tried the planning board tried to do we tried to build on the lessons of the general residents district that it was good to have a very robust public process we proceeded in cooperation with the citizen petitioners who had at that point given more thought to single residency than other any other living human beings we provided and this was very important we provided multiple early opportunities for public input we started discussing last september we kicked off the public the the formal public process with a public discussion in november all together we held eight public hearings on this and and they were extremely valuable just the questions that came forth for example if you restrict this to non conforming lots are you worried that people are going to buy two lots put them together and then build whatever they want we wouldn't have done the analysis of that question if citizens hadn't come forward we had numerous discussions of h p a sea systems and the impact of the neighborhood all together we had over not all at one meeting we had over two hundred people at cannes and offer very very good questions and then finally and this is i think very important before we moved ahead with this we did our we did three kinds of research  geoffrey wheeler town senior town planner looked at all of the looked at the comparable communities that's a list of communities it was originally created to used for use by the financial taskforce as well as other communities to see what they were doing so we would not be reinventing the wheel we modeled and research the impact very carefully there are roughly as i said thirty one hundred we are familiar with the great very likely number of them we back cast what we were posing on the previous year to see what the impact would be and we have done our best to put together had to put together as zoning are called that balances the equities with that said you should be asking yourself and therefore what is it exactly that you did and for that i'm going to a precinct to time meeting member a member of the planning board and a local real estate developer so not really good using the slide but all of the big button ry ok you can do it so i think with the most important thing to do is to to define what a non conforming a lot is in s r c zone and what it is is just it's a lot that doesn't have the required one thousand square feet and or seventy five feet of frontage as liz mentioned earlier it is thirty one hundred nine lots in the s r c zone and believe it or not seventy eight percent of them are actually non conforming years ago seven thousand square feet used to be a conforming lot in s r c and i believe in the eighty's that changed to one thousand square feet that being said i think that there is a great amount of opportunity to developers to to have them come in and actually play on these lots that are actually undersized in build larger homes that don't really enhance the neighborhoods they're building in so what we did is we addressed this in a way that said hey guess what if you're if you're going to buy one of these homes and you going to commit and knock it down then you're going to need a special permit to rebuild by the planning board if you're going to knock down the house and put back a replica of the house in other words the same exact footprint you will not need any relief at all  we move now to additions so additions right now as they stand still as of right so if you want to put an addition on your house you don't have a problem doing so unless the addition is greater than thirty percent of the gross floor area of the home in other words if you have a home that's two thousand square feet and you want to put an addition on that six hundred additional feet that's thirty percent now you with a twenty six hundred square foot home if it's a larger than that you're going to need to come before the planning board for a special permit smaller than that you're fine unless within the last five years you added two hundred square feet of the first six hundred square feet i was talking to i hope i'm not losing anybody that would leave you four hundred square feet that you could then add to to get to your thirty percent number i think we touched on the new home but the voluntary demolition so if you were to demolish again you would be coming before the plane board for a special permit harmony with the neighborhood we wanted to enhance the neighborhood we think it should be appropriate scale and or mass for the neighborhood and we don't want to increase the non conforming lot coverage if in jeffrey ok so how we did that was originally with the with the moratorium they had a thirty two foot height restriction which went thirty two feet to the bridge if you look belmont measures its height by the midpoint of the roof ok so when the call a tie right so we felt like we want to keep that very continuous so we want to like the s r a s r b s r c zones to have the same type of language there so we proposed the midpoint to be at thirty feet and we actually increased height to thirty four feet from thirty two feet to the ri that does is a few things if you're going to build a contemporary home if that's the style that you like you would then be subject to the thirty foot midpoint so that's the height of a contemporary home if you're building a traditional colonial style home you would have the proposed midpoint at thirty and your reach would be thirty four next lie jeffrey another key element we did is we dealt with grade under right now you can't raise grade more than twelve inches so what we're saying is we believe that you should be able to cut grade in other words a lower grade to actually  lower the level of a home and actually be at a better height in terms of i'll give you a great example last year we did the g r zone and we all looked at i think it was one twenty two waverly street  waverly street had a very very high lot and they put even higher house on a high lot that was probably four to five feet above the street cred if they had been able to lower grade their you would a sorry host that did not look nearly as tall as it does look under our existing bylaw so we're looking to have the ability to lower grade here just to increase it you won't be able to increase the grade by more than twelve inches that would stay constant twenty five we're going to ask that you have your setback at twenty so we're going to ask for the average of the two applauding homes so you don't have that missing two syndrome and we keep the streetscape consistent as mechanical equipment there's been a lot of people that have building in parts of belmont particularly in the road area where gas natural gas is not in the street right now so as a result people are putting propane tanks in the front yards you've also seen air conditioning units in the front yards of g r zone and we changed this last year i believe to prohibit equipment and heating equipment to be placed in the front yard that being said we decide it is we thought a ten foot setback off the rear off the front yard into the rear or side setback would be appropriate there's been discussion that five feet maybe is more appropriate in my mind if you think about a landscape bed there at least four to six feet depth in the front of a house there four to six feet on the side of a house and if you think about that all together if you move it back five feet you really don't have much of a site set back and pretty much your mechanical equipment stays in the front of  house what will these amendments to i think they're going to preserve neighborhood character i think when people come in particularly developers command i don't think they're going to have the wild wild west going on they're not going to able to command just demolish up whatever they want to put up which is usually the biggest thing they can put up a number actually shooting myself in the foot because i'm a developer and i like to build nice things i like to build you know larger homes too but i think it needs to be in proportion to a neighborhood i think that's how everybody benefits to neighbors the neighborhood the community etc etc so how do we accomplish that well i guess the process would be if we have a special permit type deal where you have to actually come in and your neighbors are actually notified that is going to be some new building going on they're going to have a little bit of say about what's going on and we're not looking to stunt development here we're actually looking to create development but we want to have more smart development here we want to enhance neighborhoods we don't want to have stuff that detract from neighborhoods and have people upset and having moratoriums you know before town meeting so that you know we can put an abrupt end to all development and i think if we have this type of process we have import right from the get go i think this could work we're also going to apply rule would like to have appropriate landscaping to be part of the package base a lot of times these you know developers come in they put up their home they get as big a home is they can  approval also and we're looking for your approval as well i'm happy answer any questions or comments later scope of the of the article article six that leaves six amendments so what we are doing and it's depicted in the email that was sent to you this afternoon and the one page handout when you came into town meeting it's a grid and we will take the six amendments i mean lays out the order essential e we will do for amendments under the special permit sub sub part two starting with four five and then seven eight and then we do the two amendments under sub years can you come to the microphone charles i'm in town meeting member precinct three i can be heard i can hear it feedback i presented  fourth and fifth amendments to the weren't committee at the weren't committee discussion i stated my disagreement with the rationale that the planning board had given to the town meeting as to why these should not be approved but nonetheless in deference to the planning board and in view of the fact that these are totally technical amendments the weren't committee unanimously  any special permit decision person to the section one point five point for point b point two or three the planning board will consider the following scale a structure a scale a structure b the siting of the structure and driveway c walkway driveway and parking circulation the exterior lighting the open spaces creating and f drainage do you want to read the last part is that self explanatory oh it's actually not there number one ok got it all right so the purpose of article six is really to regulate the the construction of oversized welling's i was originally oh i know this is kind of late this isn't if it can change but originally i was going to get up and argue against the entire thing because i object to the design component of the of the article and so instead i decided to propose an amendment that maybe will make people little bit more comfortable with this so again the proposed s r c changes affect seventy percent of properties not necessarily seventy percent the building permits for that district the article gives broad powers of discretion to the planning board designed as a particularly subjective criterion though i think we would all agree that  reason a property owner has should have the right to build a property that is to build a new house that appeals to them i want to point out that removing the words and design from article six part five still maintains the ability the planning board to consider scale siting walkway driveway parking it doesn't change any of those criteria so i believe it maintains the village to restrict the development of oversized houses you so just illustrate my concerns i want to talk about how these rules are being applied i'm using one of the houses that's actually a test case at the planning board that happens to also be my my neighbor my neighbor's house the first planted by the  neighbor came in with with the most of the commas related to the size of the structure and my amendment doesn't change those analysis criteria all but there are also some does a design comments about the roof roof line being busy the house being preference for more balance the second plane came in it was a lot simpler i'm going to rush through this just so i get done on time there we go and the part that really kind of got to me was some comments from the planning board late in the process and this is the second round second set of plans with one of the members of the planning board asking him plainly respectfully what the inspiration was for a split colonial design he saw a bungalow there perhaps an arts and crafts style building didn't think it blended or enhance with inherent has the neighborhood it seems that there are even some differences of opinion within the planning board mr clarke you know his last comment was  not what i wanted to do he's hesitant to step on the p t architect and owner and what they want to build in the context of style and it's really style that i'm that i'm emphasizing here is alice in the chair indicated that architectural view is in fact what they want to look at and one more comment mr magick in this is why we call it a special permit i do believe though if you're talking about seventy percent of the lots it's it's a pretty broad process i might have been actually more comfortable if it included all properties and single residency so we always see pictures is my street this is the house in question originally in this on this street every house was identical these but most people have gone up there's been a variety of styles so mine we kind of went with a something that's vaguely cool contemporary some colonial style this one i refer to as the pac man house the addition seems to be eating the original home but there are several of these houses that are in their original configuration and just for a little additional perspective this is the front elevation of version two of the plans it's somewhere between the height of these two houses we could probably debate all night as to whether this is the best plan or a bungalows the best plan or some other style is the best plan but that's kind of the point i'm trying to make i feel that this is a matter of taste once you've gotten the scale down in the mass down we're not proposing anything too outrageous here i think really you know this person should have the same ability that i did to choose an architect whose style reflects his own and build something that he likes so what is the effect on property values which is one of my concerns if i had known about this process if it had been in effect when i purchased my home in two thousand and one i might not have purchased it perhaps i think it's going to reduce the interest from developers i think it might reduce the interest from people moving into town looking forward to hearing from people in the who are town meeting members who are also realtors from wrong i'd like to be educated and i think that really affects property value for a small subset of houses but these  groups always do that when i'm trying to do this you know small houses it's really difficult to go up here typically going to want to put a second floor on assuming you're not tearing it down and it's just impossible for them to do that without a special permit so i think it's going to hurt these people economically in summary design review is subjective i believe it can change the composition of the planning board changes i think it unreasonably restricts property owners ability to build or renovate a home a style they like i don't think it's necessary for the prevention of the construction of oversized homes and i would be more willing to support the overall the overall article with this change thank five with two abstentions it's a little bit of a close vote i think that there was some sympathy for the rights of the homeowner to do what he or she might like to do i think there was in terms of those that voted against it i think the general perception was that this is a very important tool that the planning board has and that limited in that school without a significant public process is not advisable i you have a brief response from the plenty more yes alice allison county member precinct three and chair of the planning board four points first we as with all the substance all of the amendments being offered the planning board is more is more than willing to talk about them a major concern we have a couple major concerns with that one the first is as mr levinson said this is a major change it was brought forward on may thirty first after the public process was closed there was no opportunity to talk about it had it been brought forward earlier we might have been able to incorporate some elements of that second good architecture is one of the ways that we bridge one of the bridges between the size of a house that owner would like to build and the consistency with the neighborhood so to eliminate issues of architecture and style seems a poor idea thirdly it is not the case that seventy eight percent of the homes will have to be subject to style review only if you want to substantially increase the size of your home or demolish an existing home and build a new one and finally this is one of the areas where the neighbors who did come in the residents who did come to the public process meetings most said there wanted there to be some sort of review process they wanted some opportunity to have their voices heard they wanted some input from the board thank you and miss alice and i didn't ask i should the formal vote of the planning board on the amendment not surprisingly the formal vote on special permit process we do listen to the neighbors we do take into account the neighborhoods we're not trying to tell anybody what to do or you know treat anybody unfairly but you have to understand those houses that mr ferrante just pointed out quite a few of them are small so when one comes down in another one goes up that's kind of big going to be the benchmark where of the developers are going to look and say i wonder what they did here so i did i took a long drive around that neighborhood and i actually spoke with several of the people in that neighborhood who actually it tended that planning board meeting that mr ferrante is talking about and most people were relieved that we had the position that we had i'm not trying to win for john upon anybody's property rights or anybody's right to  develop what i'm trying to do along with the rest of the members of the planning board is just encourage development that enhances a neighborhood as i said earlier and with there to listen to every neighbor precinct three i support this amendment i put myself in the position of someone buying a house and in fact twenty years ago when we moved to belmont when we bought our house we had to consider that a special permit was required for something that we wanted to do should we go ahead and buy the the house  but jeffrey wheeler who was here then as he is now so glad to say was able to reassure us that it was very likely that we would get our special permit because of the particular wording in the by law and and we decided that even if we didn't get it we would be ok i think everyone coming in buying a house is going to say what's it going to be like do i want to put down the money commit myself to buy this house and not know whether i can have a kitchen size that i like or have take advantage of the view or whatever and people ought to be able to have some degree of security the trouble with that is criteria and it's exactly it's advantage for the planning board that they can be flexible they can say yes we like this we don't like that the trouble for the buyer of the house is that they have no security they can say ok we won't expand we won't make it this model you know if you say here are the limits this is what you can do you can say you can decide for yourself as a buyer do you want to accept those limits or not and if you have to instead depend on whether people are in the mood for cottages or craftsman style houses or whatever you know might be the you just can't you can't make a decision based on that and so i have thought about this a little bit and i it's too bad it didn't come up sooner i appreciate the planning towards concerns but but i salute mr brown today and i am go support this amendment thank you and often bracing to and i also support this amendment and if possible and if you can go back to the slide shows with the word design comes out of because i i say the word design is just too subjective and me it has been said to me that in substance it is so that the planning board can impose their taste and government should not have that power were taking the time there are all kinds of mass and scale and so forth that they have all those powers and they saying beyond that they absolutely have a right to choose the type of architecture the type of taste i mr roberts roberts town meeting member precinct date i'm also rising to speak in favor of this amendment there are other issues with this that i think will speak to later i would simply say about this that obviously i'm a very avid believer and very passionate believe or in the ability of government to do good in people's lives this seems entirely intrusive i think in effect it would set the planning board up as a homeowner's association for the town of belmont with final say over what you can or cannot build on a piece of property that you bought and i think if the if the goal for the planning board is to have a smart and beautiful community then we should create clear and consistent rules for general residence as well as single residence zones that express out to sire and not do it on a case by case basis so i am going to be supporting some end houses in this group might be very good at it and very acceptable but the next group may not be so you know these words are not going to change as a planning board changes i'm very much in favor of this amendment what makes them valuable is the fact that the houses are well designed and i put the emphasis not so much about picking a particular style of house i've seen contemporary design houses fit into a colonial house neighborhood it's a question of good design if you don't have a phrase like that what's going to happen is that developers and i don't mean to pick one developer developers but developers will choose their particular one or two or three models and those aren't always in the best thinking good design the developer may have other interests in showing those three types of houses that he builds but if the property owner knows that he is going to have a design review he's going to choose an architect to design that house to design that edition and i think that's extremely important i was at the meeting when that language was brought back and forth between the planning board and the the applicant and in fact the planning board was very flexible in terms of what it would allow and made the suggestion that a particular type of house might be more in keeping with the neighborhood they quickly said that that could be worked out with the staff of the planning board and i believe that the applicant went away thinking that that could be accomplished so i have a lot of faith that how the planning board would deal with that and apply that and i think what we're looking for in belmont is excellent design we're not talking about picking particular styles and for that reason i strongly opposed the strange coming in precinct for first the question and i'm not sure who directed to i was thinking miss elssler but i'm not sure is there in our current bylaws are there any special permit processes that have designed as a criteria law which this body adopted two years ago the reason why this guy lost this amendment scuse me article was delayed until this town meeting was because the if you in your warrant it makes reference to section sixty it was determined that that wasn't appropriate so we lifted the language from section six d which is the general residence language to be within the single residency language so that design and scale is currently in the general residence by law thank you mr will follow up yes of course then as i understand it i have not heard any vast protest about the use of design in the existing processes so the fear that this will be somehow a new a new overreach is i think unfounded i'm opposed to this motion and i because i don't believe that the planning board now or in the future will abuse it in the way that it's being claimed for thank you carr martin cowen precinct three i support this amendment mostly for two reasons one is when i think of the a town of homes i think of the variety of homes buildings that we have and it's a nice assortment it's not everything is the same or similar the other consideration is what this design  what are the criteria what are the bases for the consideration it's not the time it's not i think it's only understood in the minds of those who are supposed to be doing the consideration without any guidelines and so i think that is the design part of this consideration should be eliminated thank you mr de adam dash precinct one member of the warrant committee a former member of the zoning board of appeals i guess i'm a puzzled by some of the some of the support for this and some of the reasons for i do oppose this amendment the special permits that are being sought as part of this whole article six of the standard into the state laws whether it's substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood than what's currently there which is the ultimate objective standards the planning board the zoning board whatever the case may be is making a subjective call on this with you have the word design in there or not i can also tell you that's a very very common for design i mean the lawyer i do this kind is only work all the time that the communities have design criteria like this as we do in the general residence district it's quite common there actually communities that have design review committees that vet all the projects for design issues and i got clients through that all the time and actually a lot of the time it makes the project better because they do push for the design to be better doesn't cost more in the end it just looks better for the client and i've certainly seen some bad examples where this hasn't been there and people have had these very modern glass and steel structures put down and amidst a bunch of victorian wooden houses and it looks like some space ship just landed in the neighborhood and it doesn't go at all so i would suggest that this is not i don't call this an overreach i actually see this is kind of standard operating procedure for planning boards around the commonwealth i think overall it's a  shame that this is an intriguing amendment i like the fight and i like the discussion it's a shame is being brought up after the close of the entire public process on this this and the other amendments to come our intriguing and they're worthy of discussion it's just a shame that we didn't have an opportunity last six months to do that maybe that's something to be thought of in the future when the planning board proposes these things and we also last like to state that i kind of like the fact that seventy eight percent of the lots are covered by this i think the problem we've had all these mor that people who don't like the zoning ordinance i think we have a major broken zoning ordinance problem that we need to address not tonight obviously but i think the fact that this is these discussions are happening in these memes are coming at the last minute is a symptom of a larger problem well i think this really comes down to a property rights issue and although we have a really good planning board in belmont now and they are very cooperative and they usually have very good ideas the crux of this issue is if you buy a property and you've met all the other guidelines do you really need to get approval and consent from the planning board for the design of a particular house where they want to modern house or a colonial and it isn't just i would say that our planning board really wouldn't objective someone came in with a different style house but during that process they get into m roof ridge lines and materials and it goes on and on and on and there isn't a government agency that doesn't want more power this clearly gives you know incredible power to the planning i stand with this amendment either a problem that if we meet all our criteria and then just subjectively are denied a right do what we want to do on our property i have real problems that i have and i question do we have liability thank you mr moderator george howell town council the zoning act provides for a right of appeal from special permit decisions to lay in court of the to the spirit court that's the remedy that's provided to the homeowner and beyond that as long as the town is acting in good faith it has no other liabilities other than the possibility that a judge will overturn the decision thank you thank you yes or tommy remember precinct six and i took a couple quick comments i think the process objections well i understand them as well as the fact that other communities regulate the designed isn't this really make it the right thing and i think that if i had wanted to live in a very overly managed community i would have done so and i understand people that do that but i am in favor of this amendment because i would like within reason understand a community has a right to regulate itself within reason be able to design the house the way i want to jack weiss precinct one i have another question i guess for george hall when geoffrey wheeler mentioned that without the amendment this language is lifted directly from what this body approved two years ago for the general residence is the town setting itself up to legal challenges or any kind of risk that the standard for one zone is different from the other in what is seemingly an arbitrary and capricious sense of the you know we just wasn't discussed two years ago we don't have a substantive reason for making design a criteria in general residence and not a criteria in single residenc so are we at any risk for having that difference mr h moderator george called him council i think that by taking the word out in in this section where it appears in a different section you're certainly giving somebody the opportunity to argue that there's a significant there's there should be some significance attached to the fact that it's missing from from that would be missing from the single residency criteria the again i would i guess  comments earlier that we're talking about many situations which require a special permit from the zoning board under current zoning where the standard is whether it's substantially more didn't detrimental the neighborhood than the existing use and part of the reason to draft something with more detail here is to really give the board more specific guidance about what factors what what may properly formed the basis for that decision and what factors it should take into account when it's making that decision this there are two lists here this is the second of the two lists the first list is the determinations the board has to make in granting or denying the special permit the second list is things the board is supposed to take into account when it's making those findings so in many respects the more specific detail you include here the more you're giving instructions to the board about what is or isn't  friends i was thinking that the risk here by taking out design is that somebody who wants to build in a general residence zone could challenge belmont as imposing a criteria there that's not imposed on others but your answered suggest to me that there's a different risk that somebody could challenge the zoning board of appeal who's probably going to deal with design issues anyway as being am able to do that because those words don't appear here so it now seems to me that we're subject by having conflicting language to legal challenges from both sides mr hall george hall council jack the chapter forty eight requires only that zoning rules be uniform within each district so you can have a different set of rules for the general residence district and it direly different one for the other districts that isn't concerning to me and it really doesn't present any basis for an argument for the invalidity of  rules that would apply in the general residence district and people will make creative arguments about different wording to the point where it's really kind of hard to anticipate what the i appreciate the sentiment in bringing forward this amendment and i understand the sort of favorable emotional response coming from the audience however a couple of clarifying points the word design in this list is actually kind of an incidental part of the list and what it basically is fleshing out is the definition of the planning boards criterion in granting a special permit and article six says above this it's not shown that the planning board may grant a special permit if it finds that the enlarged building is generally in harmony with the neighborhood and then in finding that they are considering these different components that's not inconsistent at all with what the zoning board of appeals currently looks at when it's looking at a special permit for an addition in a non conforming structure and that basically  is that the new construction shall be in keeping with the character of the neighborhood in which is located this isn't any different than what we already do it's just that the word design happened to be thrown in here as a clarifying point that that's one of many considerations to stand that when you see design you think oh they're going to want to redo the color of the house or work on the drapes something like that but and i don't mean that facetiously or i do mean it facetiously but i don't mean that disparagingly i think it's a legitimate concern but i think if you look at the context you're really talking about a tool the planning board needs in making the determination that in large building is generally in harmony with the neighborhood and that's what this is all about  precinct two two comments one of both meeting members in precinct two and residence of precinct to have some concern about mission creep don't know how realistic a concern that is but we've seen this move now residents say they were concerned about moving to residents and be so i'm just noting that common concern that has come up second i live in a neighborhood with a lot of reconstruction going on my husband and i rebuilt our house i think some of the houses are hideous i think some of them are lawfully i think that's subjective and i do think that the diversity of the neighborhood is very interesting as a five year resident of belmont i still feel like a newcomer and sometimes think i will feel like a newcomer until i have grandchildren here and it is wonderful that belmont has so much stability and depth but i am concerned that we send specifically in focusing on design but frankly with all of article six we send newcomers are not welcome message so please keep that in mind thank you as man and man precinct for realtors sounds a lot belmont and i was going back and forth here because the word design but once i learned that we've already been using the word design and that now i start to understand anthony as you know i think the world and this was and adam you're right we have to talk more about what we have for zoning and bylaws but i understand the point of the committee here and what they're presenting and that is that we were having five ways houses built we were having air conditioning units put in front yards we were having porches eliminated we were having really ugly houses built in belmont and it was affecting the ballyards of the houses around it and decreasing their value so you have to keep that in mind while the homeowner is saying well that can hurt me i do expect the same sensitivity that they have always used and certainly we can address this again and talk about how we're going to handle things going forward but i know what they're trying to protect you all from and i agree with them to town meeting members for i want to echo a lot of what ann just said i think the whole function of the zoning board is to act out those compromises between the interests of the homeowner and the interest of the homeowner neighbor it's not all one or the other you can't just have a property rights if you live in precinct four i know what just looking at property do i drive by the streets every day i personally i'm not so concerned about design unless it's going to be a big problem over and over again so i'm wondering mr moderator if the zoning board has any comments about how frequently design is the only issue in granting a special permit think that would move beyond the scope of this to thank you live it is liz allison tom meeting member precinct three chair of the planning board and two comments one is that again  as was mr hall said earlier the standard is then the question is what does it do to the neighborhood the planning board does not arbitrarily change style just change style if it looks at the impact on the neighborhood i would add that on those occasions where the planning board has prevailed upon a applicant to change style we look very carefully at the price that the final product sells for compared to the average in the neighborhood and it is almost always significantly higher and thirdly it leaves us with you in the on belmont heel where the lot size is twenty five thousand square feet there are there's a variety of treatments that can be very interesting in the can and that they don't add in a neighborhood where the they're much more problematic they implicate many more costs on the neighbors in a neighborhood where you have for six or seven thousand amendment the design of a building needs to fit in to the neighborhood and as such the planning board should definitely be able to consider a design in their ambiguous legal language is bad legal language the planning board has every right and responsibility to consider design elements in harmony with the neighborhood but let's enumerate the design elements we're concerned with and let's let's let me ask you would take a five minute break now or after the next amendment next amendment all right that's that's why i had i want us to complete action on the remaining three amendments and the article itself tonight so we're going to go as long as that takes if it's late as it looks as if it maybe we won't do the other articles but we're going to complete action on article six tonight under any circumstances so now we turn to the next amendment and is it mr friday are you making a presentation or m i'm sorry moved to many more to amend warrant article six by adding a new section after section one point five point four subsets subsection b one dot three by inserting a new section four that reads as follows for full second story addition to a single story non conforming structure a single story structure is defined as a structure with a second level that is not habitable according to the state building code i e floor to ceiling height is too low light invent laden ventilation is limited room sizes too small or is not provided that will not increase the footprint of the existing structure create new dimensional nonconformity or extend an existing nonconformity providing provided that the existing height restriction shall not be exceeded continue please if any run for a member precinct eight so the purpose of this is to sow article six as we discussed earlier it's a large number of lots in the area and this was really meant this really was really proposed with our neighborhood in mind about ten percent of the homes in single residency or capes or ranch is many on lots less than one thousand square feet an owner whose property is less than one thousand square feet will now be required to get his special permit process if they want to add a second level even it is only even if it is only within the existing footprint so in the previous example from the previous minute nine hundred sixty square foot house if you want to put a second floor on it you know it's a that's doubling so the consequences we think of this amendment as a loss of value and a loss of incentive to work in the footprint so you have an unintentional loss of market value for smaller capes and ranch is concerned about who's going to take a risk and buy a house that's too small for today's living standards and then take the time to go through this process and there's also a let less incentive for owners or bias to stay within the footprint if you have to go for a special permit than most people are going to go for the biggest biggest is addition they can get and i will say that that one of the reasons i'm so can you know i'm so concerned about both of these issues is you know i did buy a single storey house that was unattractive i could barely get my wife out of the house to out of the car to go look at it but i saw the neighboring houses and had a vision for what this might look like and i was able to find a way to work within the footprint we worked with an architect and a surveyor to find a way to build this with just pulling a bill pulling a building permit and i'd like to preserve that right for at least some others another consequence i believe is inconsistent treatment of neighboring properties and i said this before and i'll repeat it i would have been more comfortable in many ways if this applied to all the lots in s r c and here's why we've talked a lot about twelve hurley which ups i always do twelve fairly which is a very large home it's on a ninety seven hundred square foot lot so it would be unaffected by all of this discussion as would eleven hurley and believe it's thirty these homes are all eight hundred square feet eight hundred square foot lot this one miss is the the requirement for the one thousand square feet by only twenty eight feet so there's a huge disparity in treatment between this house and this house for example i believe if you allowed somebody to put a second floor within the footprint it would give somebody an incentive to stick within this footprint and not build the largest house that that they would otherwise be able to build on that  we think this is in keeping with the main purpose of article six which is to restrict the bee ability to build oversized drawings in s r c allowing the building of a second story within an existing footprint only would not should not result in an oversized wehling it would still require a special permit if they don't want to want to exceed the footprint in the next five years small single story homes were often intended as starter homes that could be expanded as as families grew finance improved i know on my street in particular i anticipate that all of the single family single story homes will ultimately be two stories this enable this amendment enables edition of the full second floor by right it does not allow expansion again be on the footprint of the of the original structure here just a few examples of things that would be allowed whoops to do that for the most part this edition this edition this edition mine actually probably wouldn't because i added the entryway but something similar to this could be done but would absolutely not be allowed or some of the things i think you've seen in the previous and the previous discussion presentation by the planning board these all expanded the footprint they're all extraordinarily tall and they would not be allowed by  armament in summary we believe that allowing addition of a second story to a single story home will not result in oversized homes the men make courage owners of single story homes to expand only within the footprint to avoid the special permit process and the amendment reduces the spirit in treatment for similar slots on either side of the nine thousand foot  liz alison town meeting member precinct three chair at the planning board the planning board unanimously recommends unfavorable action on this amendment the our concerns arm numerous first again this was an amendment that submitted on the thirty first of may there was no prior discussion  if there had been the planning board would have been happy to consider it and what the planning board would have done is exactly what it did with the amendment that it has before we came question how many homes with this impact what would the results be so that we knew that we wouldn't be creating major disruption here we have jeffrey what is your count on how many homes would be eligible for this treatment one story i think it's something like two hundred two hundred eighty one but jeffrey can cook but that's a that's a broadly correct number we know nothing about where these homes are if they are  a three thousand square foot lot and they go and have six foot setbacks i stand corrected for seventy eight so there are four hundred seventy eight homes that would qualify under this we don't know where they are we don't know the size of the lot we don't know the setback allowing them to go straight up would could have a very substantial impact upon their neighbors we are really opposed to rewriting zoning when you haven't carefully studied what this is the description this been provided of the special permit process just isn't consistent with the reality of the special permit process if you give some if you meet with your neighbors first if you give some thought to what would improve the neighborhood as well as in hansing the value of your home you go through the special planning process the permit process and one or two nights so that the suggestion that this is an extraordinary burden just isn't consistent with the facts of the special permit process as it has existed in the general residence district for the past two years thank you discussion paul roberts town meeting member precinct eight i stand in support of this amendment i think it's very important for folks and i encourage all of my town meeting members to sit up in your seat and pay attention these amendments are an effort by mr aren't they which i very much agree with to give homeowners the right to do with their property as they wish in a way that is in keeping we're talking about a single storey home adding a second story ok you know  when you purchase a house it is your house it is your property we don't have a homeowner's association and belmont we don't want a homeowner's association belmont's there are many communities in this country with homeowners associations if you want that type of oversight and consistency i suggest you move to one or semi urban community we have a diversity of housing styles and property owners in this community should have a right to do with their property as they see fit these are not exceptions we're not talking about exceptions we're talking about rules the cover three quarters of the homes in general in single residency areas of this town which cost which account for many of the homes if not a majority of the homes in this town so if you're in one of those districts if you're in single residency in in effect these are rules that affect you if you want to change your property you will have to go before the planning board to get a special permit to do so in three out of four cases so you need to pay attention to this and you need to be aware that in essence what we're creating is designed by committee and a homeowners association for the town and i very much don't want to live in that community and want to live in a community where where there's diversity of housing styles more homeowners have a right to express her desires over the property that they purchase and i think that will make the community in the long run a more desirable place to live i think if we want i think if we want to have a proactive set of standards then we should articulate those in a consistent set of designs for general residents for single resident zones that a developer can look at and say this is what the town requires what we have here in essence is bespoke every home every addition will come before the planning board yes it will list you're shaking your head yes it will it will come before the planning board it will be a one off decision up to the planning board and the mood that they're in at that time there is no consistency here as mr daschle said there is no proactive set of rules ok there are a bunch of general guidelines and i really think we need to raise this at m r adam dash precinct one member of the work committee i don't think i said there was no so the rules but i feel bad opposing this and some of these others because i think they're very thoughtful amendments by some people i like a lot however i think i don't want there to be the ability to take your entire house and add a floor on top by right i think that's the kind of thing that a special permit is actually for it's very common in other communities that that would be a special permit process does not preclude adding the  floor i think there was some talk about how this prevents you from expanding the house doesn't prevent you from expanding the house just makes you go to the planning board so the neighbors get notice and they have a chance to weigh in and they can have a discussion about it rather than just having it go up next door to you  without any say so i would say the impact differs greatly upon whether your house is very close to the neighbor's lot line or very far from the neighbor's lot lang is going up a floor very close to the house next door has a greater impact on shadow and light and looking down in your house than if you're one hundred feet away from the lot line that's the kind so maybe going up a floor is perfectly fine and maybe it's not it really is a case by case property by property distinction that's why you go to get a special permit in every hearing on it because if it's by right then everybody can do it regardless of where the house sits on the lot and i don't think that's the way that we should go i should know i represent precinct one which when you saw the map was almost entirely single resident see i'm i've definitely heard from constituents that they they like the direction where this is going to clamp down on this that there's been a lot of expansion and tear down that is not pleasing to people i do sort of mourn the loss of these smaller affordable homes in town being replaced by much larger more expensive houses i don't know if that's necessarily the direction we should be going i do also note that it's not every addition that goes to the plan the board i think that liz allison made it very clear you have to be adding more than thirty percent extra on your house of floor area to go to the planning board i'm not trying to show for the planning board i'm just trying to clarify the facts are so and i know the planning board went through a very very long process which i did observe from afar and it really it's very difficult to make extremely substantive changes like this in the last one and the next one kind of at the very last second not that that procedurally can't be done absolutely can't and the intentions are great and i think the ideas are actually good ideas i just have a very hard time doing it kind of at the very last minute like this house chances are you going to have to go before the zoning board of appeals because your house is probably non conforming as to dimensions and you're probably going to want to extend that non conformity so you'll have to get a special permit anyway now there are two loopholes in that if you tear your house down you can build anything you want to right now as long as you are in conformance with the existing dimensional requirements so i could go in through a process and i get a special permit and i put a little modest addition over my garage and the zoning board has been involved in the design of that because they would say i'm sorry the roof over the garage is too high you can have to drop it down below there are all kinds of design inputs that go on to that process but i can go through that and i can have a nice house and tomorrow somebody can come and tear down my neighbor's house and put up a monster with no public review whatsoever and the same is true right now of somebody who wants to just blow the top off of their cape or of their ranch and go up as high as they can get away with there's no public review of that process so most of us are already going to have to go through some kind of product review and we do in addition there are these two locals what anthony on this amendment is that it struck me as hugely unfair that people who hold small capes or ranches will always be forced to do a special permit if they want to raise their house they can't raise thirty percent of their roof so if they want to add a second floor they have to get a special permit every one of them all the other houses if you have a clone you know you're adding thirty percent ok you could choose to do twenty five percent but you really don't have that choice in these small situations we have young families who try to buy a house as a house on sharing road that just did a took a cape and made it into a sort of an oversized colonial and he said in his letter to the neighbors because he had a side set that issue that you know they had scraped and saved to buy this house and belmont and now a couple years later they're hoping to start a family and they want to add to the second floor of the house that's what we want to encourage we don't want to encourage a builder to buy that little house and tear it down and then go to the planning board and put the biggest thing that the planning board will allow them to put on it that are the footprint of the existing house better fits the neighborhood and so that's the intent is capes and ranches that a small that don't have a second floor that would be caught in this dilemma of always having to go get a such a special permit if they want to go up would be able to do this by right so when i read the zoning it says the thirty percent and then it says that you can add a half a dormer by right so you can add half a half of a back of a house but you can't sell in a cape ok you could probably expanded enough to make it a little bit more flexible but a ranch like when anthony had nine hundred eighty five squeak a square feet and it goes up and you know when you look people have been doing this for decades and i have a neighbor that i watched with great interest as the truck came in and lifted the top of the house over the tree to drop it on top i mean most people  has two houses they could be done by right because they're over one thousand square feet so you went up to a certain extent and i just i think that properties that in one thousand square feet the twenty two percent that are less are going to be sold at a premium to developers who will then do what they want with those proper thank you mr moderator rachel berger precinct two i don't know if i heard mr allison correctly but i thought she implied that mr wheeler had done an analysis of recent buildings and whether this perm have affected them and i was wondering if we could hear the results of that analysis mr wheeler mr miller that's fine proposal to modify did mention regulations to to require special permit for a certain size structure all of those things were looked at with respect to various data points this is one of the data points that was looked at there are four hundred eighty three i'm sorry there were through four hundred eighty three building permits issued between may first and november first of twenty fifteen those  that timeframe was chosen because that's the most busy period in the building department the bottom line of that is that only six of those permits would fall now underneath the special permit provisions what you'll see is that but i do very what you'll see is that thirty two of those were for some structural  appeals you'll notice the slide says eight that is because two of those were already captured by the zoning board of appeals so those two projects would have to come before the now instead of the zoning board they would come to the you'll see that two of them were four complete second stories above the first story two of them were four editions above a first story sun room very common in belmont to have sort of central entrance colonial with a one story for a season porch what this was was there are two incidences where there was in addition over that one story portion and then dormers across the whole top and then you'll see that there were hoops to vote again sorry there were four new homes that were also built during that time per day for this amendment and i think they bring up a very good reason for doing it some of these hoes are eight hundred nine hundred square feet and when you put their second floor on you're talking about raising it no more than ten feet because that's the that's the would be the full height of a full full story now if somebody is using a cape a lot of times i'll just put on a full shot daum on the cape hoes will not be demolished rather not tearing them down and going for full scale over size building as ma'am hi diane miller precinct eight town meeting member i'm also an architect in belmont and i have signed and been involved in the design of dozens of residential renovations and additions in town and i just wanted to clarify on the language i am actually speaking in support of this amendment  want to clarify the language in the amendment that it does say that it would apply it to projects that do not create a new dimensional non confront conformity and do not extend an existing on conformity so i think the concern that you're taking a cape that's six feet or three feet from a property line and building up and suddenly overshadowing your neighbor is not warranted because in that case there's a nonconformity that would require approval what they're proposing is that for example if you have a cape and maybe your attached garage is nonconforming maybe the garage is nine feet from the property line but you build above the main portion of the house as long as what you're building is conforming so what my understanding is and i guess maybe this is a question to clarify that the proposal of this amendment is that are putting a full second full of foot trying to put a full second floor on in the corner of your house doesn't meet the setback requirements that would not be allowed under this i would also like to clarify one thing about the capes and ranch is the four hundred some odd we were very careful with the language to limit this to homes that are single storey so they don't actually have usable space on the on the second floor so we were trying to route limited as much as possible and then just a clarification from mr mercer here  believe and you tell me if i'm wrong i believe if you have a cape and you throw throw dormer up that's allowed by right and i correct a very small comment to make in support of this amendment and that is that i find myself feeling very concerned about the feeling of discrimination against people who are trying to move into the helena hall but have already moved into the town and were not able to afford more than a cape or a ranch and now find themselves in a better financial position as time has moved on and would like to expand their home it does make me feel that as a person who moved into this town about a year ago a year ago little over a year ago that we were very lucky to be able to afford the house that we bought but if we had not been able to i would at this point be feeling discriminated against because i did not have the money i believe a special permit should be required i mean need to have input from the neighbors as to whether they would or would like to have this happen it least give them a chance to have some precinct five town meeting member i've been through the special permit process and it's i just want to point out is as easy as the zoning board of appeals made it and mr wheeler made it it's not as it's not just so you go one night and it's over with if it delays the project significantly there is a cost to it the permit costs money and then also you've got to get plot plans and things that costs hundreds to could be over a thousand dollars and for a lot of people that are doing these projects that's not an insignificant amount of money there will be reasons that you will have to get a special permit maybe because you don't have the right set backstory or too close to the neighbors anyway but but the size of your lot being twenty eight feet smaller than the neighbor shouldn't necessarily meet be a reason that you need to get a special permit and go through all those extra steps so i understand special permits if you're only you know fairly eight feet away from your neighbor but you could have all the proper setbacks and just have a lot that is less than  thousand feet and have to get a special permit and for that reason i think i support this amendment me member precinct seven i have worked very closely with the planning on article six and the last thing in the world we would want to do is to discriminate against people the neighborhood that i live in has a number of ranch houses and smaller homes and we have been always so pleased that it was for whatever it's worth at this point in time a place where people could have the a stab at homes we love that in our neighborhood and i just want to say that in no way would we ever want people not to be able to add to their homes they can do that what we're trying to do is a stablished a process that allows them to do that but that also respects the neighborhood thank you thank you ma'am precinct eight i call the question the question she is moved to terminate debate all those in favor place say i was opposed no it's dop to by more than two thirds are close the final vote planned ninety six in favor one forty four opposed so the amendment is defeated let's take a five minute break please and then we'll resume the last two amendments four point two point two of the zoning bylaw as proposed by the planning board the following item to two in the s r c districts the placement of ground mounted outdoor mechanical equipment and fuel storage equipment occurring after the effective date of this item two and a lot containing a single or two family structure else shall be subject to the following requirements not within the front yard which for purposes of this item two is defined to be the area between the front line of the lot in the line obtained by extending the front elevation of the structure to each of the sidelines of the lot not within the required side or rear setbacks provided however the ground mounted outdoor mechanical equipment make roach entirely or partially into a required side setback if one is placed adjacent to the structure to it does not extend more than six feet from the structure three it complies with item c and d below and for it complies with applicable noise standards in the general byelaws of the town of goma c not within five feet of the setback requirements or prior to sixty four was eight feet and now it's ten feet in single residency districts i'm i'm as i'm staking that's a substantial number of homes have been and have been built to the maximum in other words up to the they were required minimum for both front and side yard requirements and consequently in all those homes people will not be able to under this proposed by a law which in my opinion is much too stringent will be able to put in say air conditioning  condensor or something like that and with this the warming of the of the climate central air condition is becoming more and more imperative and we're going to be properties in belmont where because of this without a the good old days yeah had your time liz allison town meeting member precinct three chair the planning board the planning board unanimous recommends unfavorable action on this amendment and i want to take each of its four provisions let me just start with since that's on the screen behind me the planning by the the planning board article calls for screening so that it can not be seen from the street the screening of h p a sea equipment so that it can't be seen from the square street or from adjacent residences that is a very clear standard you take a picture you can see the h p a see doesn't work you have to screen your h b a see equipment i'm not sure what screen to minimize visual impacts means but i'm pretty sure it's harder to capture with a snap of your i phone then not visible not within five feet of the  front yard again the planning boards proposing ten feet we agree that air conditioning is a modern necessity i would point out that the everyone who currently has an h p ac system is grandfathered for wherever it is and a reason for suggesting our reason for proposing ten feet is  that it would be possible to reasonably place an h v ac unit within the back yard and it is additional point which is again when we think of h p a seasick equipment you think of h v c but as was observed pointed out earlier because natural gas lines have not been run everywhere in this district for think not just of h v ac line equipment but think a very big propane tanks that's an important element from which we're trying to protect the neighbors so again if you're there you're air conditioned if you're there you're grandfathered in we know it's possible to place these things we think our school version of the screening gives much better protection with minimal cost and finally the in terms of describing something as adjacent to the building we are in five that in terms of inspection and enforcement it is much better to have the clearer language that appears in the of homes have minimum rear set backs so if they can't do it on the side you can't do it on the rear they can't do it at all thank you mr roberts paul roberts i mean member present day just side or in the back yard what recourse with that owner or property owner have and kind of how would that be handled by the planning board mr will once you remove the area for the front yard side setback and we're set back and there's nothing left to put any room left in it would be a variance when you want to display the vote fifty seven in favor one sixty eight oppose so the amendment fails in school and we now go to the final amendment  christine co town meeting member precinct eight moved to amend section four point two point two subsection eight point to point c of war in article six by deleting ten feet zero inches and replacing it with five feet zero inches so that the section reads as follows see not within at least five feet zero inches of the front elevation and the his local and when i looked at my house which already has an air conditioner on the side and i looked at where it was it's five feet three inches there is a fence in front of it there's a fence on the sideline so it's screened i believe it meets the intent of the new zoning but then after that because the house is twenty six feet deep and if we have to start this is the air conditioner a ten feet now we have sixteen feel left said some people are going to have the back set that i know they did a study but this thirty one hundred houses and of my host can't do it and i can't the only place left if i can put it at the ten foot point because we have a small shed with a generator because where and when broke and we have a sump pump and then we have a gas meter and then we have a water faucet and then we have a window and we have to direct them for the gas so there is no space left in that sixteen feet to put the air conditioning unit and where it is works so with all due respect i wouldn't want to have to get a variance the only place left that we would have to put it in the corner of our yard in the deep side of our yard where we have our gas grill and i picnic table so it would be sitting right in the middle so that just doesn't seem reasonable and we because we're grandfathered thank goodness but i just feel for the person who could end up in this in the five feet might make a difference for them it's not really going to matter to most people so i just ask you to think about that if you were in that specific you had an unusual lot you have a unusual setbacks then perhaps that five feet you'd still be screened would make a difference and not force you to have to go get a variance which is a complicated process thank you very much liz allison chair of the planning board i think i think most most of what i could say i said two or three minutes ago  the only thing the two things that might be worthwhile depending on the meetings play here one is you might want to hear some more detail on the study of smaller lots that was done to ensure that indeed this was feasible second as muskoka of sand right now they're all sent and in the world in which they won't be all set they are already doing substantial construction  this says when you're doing if you're doing substantial construction before you have a contract deploy that pad think about how it will affect the neighbors and put it where it will have the minimum impact on neighbors and on the appearance of the neighborhood it's doable you can hear is much more about doing as you'd like at this hour and  three chair the planning board it will come as no surprise that the planning board unanimously recommends unfavorable action on this amendment right thank you mr murtha had discussion now on mr mercier or go in favor of this rather purpose rather than sticking this thing in the middle of the wall going for it i think as long as it's shielded from the street which it would be i think it should be fine and i don't think the noise level is going to be any different in five feet so i don't in favor of this article call only on the final article is there a second i'm sorry is there a second second alright so the motion has been made for reconsideration and seconded this is open to debate neutral in this town one of the main main benefits is to go to air source heat pumps which are these small similar to air conditioning units you put outside the house and i think having make much difference as far as noise or suction to the neighbors and i opposed to people with small lots having to put a units in the back of the yard and kind of reducing the livability of their backyard space so i'm very much in reason for reconsidering other than it was a close vote if it's a close vote and we retake it in the votes the other way around do we start an endless loop of reconsideration i mean it will we voted we will then vote the full motion again thank you discussion was a question or to straight to the further discussion thank you as with me on town meeting precinct two may i call the question on an amendment and a motion to reconsider now we're going to vote on the motion to reconsider so you're voting on what yes if you want to reconsider the vote and go back to discussion of the amendment no if you do not want to reconsider and now you now it's not open glenn can you can right the voting is closed glenn seventy nine in favor one fifty opposed the motion to reconsider fails we now go to the yes we now go to the discussion of the the original amendment from the planning board and it is not none of the amendments passed they all failed so we are discussing i will be brief thank you mr moderator we would like to thank the board of selectmen the warren committee town clerk town council the department of community development the planning boyd and most of all senior town planner geoffrey realize for the a continuing collaboration and support on this timely and important initiative i will committee appreciates and values the level of detail and analysis undertaken by the planning board in the development of article six during the public hearing process and throughout the town white collaboration two years ago a number of single a number of residents in the single residency zoning district of precinct seven became alive when they observed the increasing number of mcmansion style homes under construction in the neighborhood a casual observer could clearly see just by driving around precinct seven the extreme negative effects of such construction concern neighborhoods form the citizens for responsibility and drafted a petition signed by more than two hundred residents as a result the committee placed an article on the warrant for the two thousand and fifteen belmont town meeting this article was approved by a vote of two hundred thirty eight to twenty four and a one year moratorium went into effect on the construction of dwellings greater than thirty two feet to the height of the bri it is most important for everyone to understand the need for a mediate and what we hope will be favorable action this evening since the one year moratorium will expire on june thirtieth favorable action on article six will provide continued protection from the construction of oversize dwellings we are here this evening to undo us article six and to respect fully request your support and your vote of support for the sadic oh a two thirds vote is required for passage without your support for article six and with the expiration of the moratorium on june thirtieth there will be no support and no protection for the single residencies zoning districts throughout our town our committee greatly appreciated the support given by town meeting one year ago during the time since then our committee has worked closely and collaboratively with the planning board in the development of article six let me be very very clear we enthusiastically support the continued improvement of homes by renovation and expansion however we believe that cost six represents the best solution and we do believe it is a solution that will balance the interests of today's homeowners for lodger homes while respecting the rights of existing owners we respectfully request ya support for article six thank you stephen pinkerton town meeting member precinct seven thank you peg thank you mr moderator and good evening all i'm going to go off script here because we're all tired and it's time to vote on this and go home but i do have a couple of remarks that i'd like to pass limit on the total height of homes the second loophole has to do with the requirement for special permits for tear downs and single story to two story expansions in other words  special permits for very large additions the proposed article six closes those loopholes nicely thirty four feet as there is quite reasonable height for conforming lots of nine thousand feet we  feel and i think that the public review process the special permit process that there's on a board has the planning board has been using in the g r district as it has been successful and i look forward to seeing it extended to tear downs and large expansions in a single residency for those of you who have hesitancy about voting for this amendment because of concerns about single story to story expansions or concerns about other issues that have been raised in the proposed amendments i would encourage you not to throw this away this opportunity away but to instead come to the zoning board and work with them and work with us to make improvements going forward this is a collaborative effort this is been a remarkable collaborative effort over the last year a public hearings input from all kinds of people from the real state and development community to zoning officials in other towns too public citizens groups in other towns that i've had liaison with and citizens who have taken the time to come to the to the public hearings this is been an open and again collaborative community process this is what we wanted to start to begin with last year we came to you and said we wanted to start a town wide conversation and we've been having that conversation and it's going to continue i think but i would encourage you please to vote for this amendment it'll it'll be of great benefit to all of us and i thank you for your support anthony francais time meeting member precinct eight i'm going to rise to pose this two years ago a couple people brought up the general residence requirement for dime or designer view i want to make sure i mention remarkably consistent i know at person actually only one person during that discussion got up and subjected to the zoning by law because of the requirement for design review i've checked into it then i tried proposing an amendment to it just that in this case i just can't bring myself to am relatively new to town but i have a background in planning and i have been trying to get a handle on planning in the town have attended some of the planning board meetings and seen the discussion of developments in the general residence district and been fairly disturbed with  the way the discussions have gone on applicants have been asked to come up to five times which means that residents and neighbors who want to have input on the process have to follow this through many many  different reviews that they are given conflicting criteria in different hearings and the planning board has has stated an intention to bring the special permit process to non conforming districts across all of the zoning districts that they will have broad control over many varieties of developments and that can really restrict the rights of property owners in the town they discuss not only the exterior architecture but also closets and bathrooms and where they may be where they may not be and the concern that something could become a bedroom at some point in the in the future it appears to me someone you know i don't have a full experience with this but it seems that people who are well connected and know the right people to talk to ahead of time are in a much better position which means that again new residents are at a severe disadvantage to being able to do the kinds of work that they want to do with their property that they buy and i i think that the zoning ordinance of our town needs to be reviewed thoroughly the commercial zoning is not working effectively the residential zoning seems to be not working effectively and i don't believe that adding a special permit process is that right move in the right way forward for the entire town i also have been disturbed to hear the planning board say that they have an intention of using the special permit process to make it nearly impossible to do anything  but build single family homes even on lots that had been occupied by two or three family homes and this is i do not wish to expand the powers that the planning court has in this way through this article at this time thank you four to two and a half to four times as large in her discussion of this article but those are general terms those are subjective terms i don't believe the two and a half to four times appears anywhere in our bylaws i don't think that's a rule that any developer could go to school on this is really some very general language that the planning board is throwing out there in an effort to make this look like it's a very focused and narrow byelaw when to react reality and the unfortunate reality for homeowners is it is a completely subjective and interpretive one other communities including newton and brookline our neighbors in watertown are going through the process right now of trying to put together a concrete document with very easy to understand diagrams of different housing types and different types of measurements and diagrams that would make it very simple for a homeowner or a developer or a contractor working on behalf of the homeowner to understand what is allowed what is not allowed what is permissible what is not permissible that is not what this gives us what this gives is free hand to the planning board as i said before to in effect become a homeowners association for the three quarters of homeowners in single residence see whose lots are not and homes are non conforming would include me whose house was built in hundred thirty four eight hundred square foot home on a eighty five hundred square foot lot it's beautiful it's gorgeous i love it i love my neighbors homes but at the end of the day that's not what the soon for general residents for single resident see allows and that means basically any change i want to make over six hundred square feet i'm going to come here before the planning board so i would say this is this makes an effort to look like it's narrow and  finally tailored and in fact it's not and i think it could get very very complicated and put us in a situation where we have more or less designed by committee and that committee would be your neighbors who may not like you who may be jealous of the size of the house that you're proposing to build who may have their own aesthetic priorities that's all great but that shouldn't affect what you can do as a homeowner and that's why i stand to oppose this article thank you think no one denies the problem that this committee was trying to correct in all the good work that they did but i believe this presents overreach and i would urge you to vote against it in the let's go back and take out some of the more restrictive elements that we've seen some a fair amount of opposition here to the more restrictive elements i think there's some good works a potential here but i think it represents an overreach and urge you to vote against it thank you mr sarno thank you sarno precinct three i'm voting yes on article six this is owning seems the right mix of new dimensional restrictions and building heights a special permit process which will allow input from neighbors i also want to commend the residents most notably peg callahan and steve pinkerton as well as the other residents for their significant efforts in the i know the time and effort that was required to craft zoning that would work in single residents see for their willingness to take this on the town meeting i think they deserve our thanks this is an important issue is belmont gets more densely developed i think we heard a little of that earlier from senator brown's berger as one resident described the impact of such out of scale development really well in the recent commentary in the newspaper you may have seen they took my sky frankly for some neighborhoods it's too late they have lost their sky but preserving the character of belmont's neighborhoods it's critical we can't give up i know that stephen pead understand that passing this regulation tonight is not the end of the process it's the beginning the next stage is to support town officials in their efforts to fully implement the regulations bell months next challenge is to enforce so town meeting they need two thirds of your vote tonight to pass and i hope you'll join me in sending a strong thank you to our colleagues who are asking for our support by voting yes thank you residents and move forward with a an article i think that will be good for belmont it's unfortunate that some would suggest that if you're connected in town to get special consideration i certainly have not seen it as a member of the board for the past six years thank you seven i rise in support of this article i know how hard everybody has worked in enormous number of hours by so many people with  all good intentions for looking to coordinate across our single residence zones a desire to build for today's standards an inability to maintain property values maintain lot sizes that actually still have trees you might see a lot of these buildings that have gone up they've just  and it there is this coordination that has gone on with a lot of the with everybody in the room that's been talked about so far for a preservation and a balance between the needs the desires and the demands and it has been a citizen petition and i find that this is like the best example of how government works listening listening to people having a lot of opportunity for public comment writing them down evaluating them and being really thoughtful and considerate and weighing it's all about weighing i don't see that this is a government overreach i feel that it's an opportunity for people who have been elected and not elected people who just do this for free because it's important to really come together for the good of town and i vote in favor and i strongly urge the rest of you to do the same thank a moderator town meeting members william osterhaus precinct eight i'm speaking in favor of article six there are places in belmont were very large houses fit but not everywhere in the past few years oversize house have been popping up all over town many in places where they just don't blend in with the character of the neighborhoods putting one of these houses on a lot that has five to eight thousand square feet just doesn't fit well they being placed in neighborhoods with ranch and cape style houses as well as colonials that we built within belmont zoning by laws these oversized structures do not mesh well with the existing homes then there's the cree factor if one of these houses constructed and other properties in the neighborhood become available they too may be bought enlarged and flipped to people doing this do not plan on living in them they only sell them for a large profit i'm not against anybody making a profit or making improvements just not at the expense of the entire neighborhoods character some change is always inevitable but these drastic changes are not going to be good for belmont i heartily endorse article six and hope tom meeting will adopt it also thank you i'm dashed precinct one member of the war committee i rise in support of article six we need to rein in an appropriate by right development in article six creates a framework and process to do that which we currently don't have it's not unusual language it's not an unusual approach it's not an overreach this is fairly standard stuff i would agree the language could be better written however it's an amendment to an existing fairly antiquated zoning ordinance that we have the language has to sort of be the same language as in there i agree with prior speaker was stating that we need something like some of these other towns are doing where it's simpler and easier and you have a lot of pictures but that would require a whole rezone of the entire belmont zoning district yes pall of talk about you however  the that is a larger process which i wholeheartedly support we because of all these discussions and all the effect when you do something and you have this many amendments it's clearly something wrong with the zoning ordinance so i think we need to rein in in appropriate by right development it may be by right but it certainly feels wrong thank you mister richard candy three six seven ton meeting member and one of the petitioners for the mor i stand in favor of this because it closes a huge loophole presently our zoning would let me buy a house next to yours and loopholes so big you can drive a caterpillar d n i and bulldozer through it you can tear down the house and not have to advise your buddy and neighbors and you are exempt from the planning process that a large tradition for the house across the street might have to go through so to me this close is an obsolete part of our zoning code in belmont and i hope we all float in favor of it and then work through the process of those only in the planning board put together so well with a series of open hearings thank you property directly behind us which is a small house was torn down much to the delight of my three year old son at the time and we watched an absolute monstrosity which dominates not just the sky but practically the entire sky if you're sitting in our yard rise and place and i think every day that i'm in my yard the people who owned our property previously who put in lovely landscaping which when the leaves are out hides the bottom floor of this monstrosity and i i want to reiterate for everyone here something that's been said or meant all the other pieces is that we're closing loopholes that exist in what we already have we are not coming here approving article six creating something totally new that's going to be so different that it is something to be disproved of tonight we're closing loopholes in a way that will make it better for the people who live here in belmont and houses like mine and my neighbors two houses down from me is another one of the houses that has been featured in these pictures tonight another block down the road on dalton road is yet another one of the ones that has been featured  walk by them every day and i actually heard that one of the houses and on the road the builder said he would never build a house that big again in this neighborhood because it took him way too long to sell it and he lost money that he wanted to have earned i believe that we should vote in favor of this tonight because it's the best thing for our community i don't believe it excludes people i think that people can still do what they want to with their houses within very reasonable terms and i hope that you will rise and vote in favor of article six tonight thank you sir any further to miss allison now would you want to briefly respond to a couple of points liz allison tammy the member precinct three chair of the planning board i want to respond to just two points and then make a personal plea the two points that this is only the beginning the planning board wishes to go on and to create special permit process sees that do not now exist for single residence be and single residence a the answer to that is at our first public discussion was about two thirds residence from a single residence seat and about a third of residents from single residence be the single resident be representatives have come principally to tell us that they did not feel that new zoning or is was a necessity in their neighborhood and we listen to them just as we listen to the single residents see homeowners and you hear nothing from just tonight about single resident see the residents be this is i think the second is the suggestion that newcomers fare worse before the planning board than those have lived i do not believe and i do not believe it would stand up to any reasonable scrutiny those who are below those who have projects that will enhance the neighborhood do well before the planning board regardless of where they come from how long they've been in town whether they're a developer or a resident plea we have case is now before the board need to be changed you can do that town we can do that but as i look at the flood of development that will take place if this article does not pass by a year from now you will drive around the single residency districts which are in all but one of your precincts and you will there will be no way to call that back if we pass this article and it is flawed in some way it can be corrected if we don't it can't thank you when we bought our house when we all bought our houses and belmont we also bought a neighborhood we wouldn't bought the house if we didn't like the neighborhood that's just true i can protect my house i can improve my house i can i can keep it in good shape and fit and fiddle but i can't protect my neighborhood without the village around me in doing that and the same is true for you let's let's protect our neighborhoods by voting yes on this i don't see any further discussion so let's turn to a vote on the main motion requires a two thirds vote all those in favor of the main motion lodi those oppose for the record the final vote was one ninety five in favor thirty two opposed we're going to continue oh yes ma'am i see sammy baghdad a vice chair of the board of selectmen and town meeting member precinct four moved that there be paid to the elected officials of the town as salaries for the fiscal year commencing july one two thousand and sixteen the amount set forth opposite the name of each officer as listed below town moderator two hundred dollars chair of the board of selectmen five thousand dollars said lachman to forty five hundred dollars each town clerk ninety one thousand five hundred seventy two dollars town treasurer ninety nine thousand four hundred forty four dollars chair of the board of assessors three thousand thirty dollars assessors to twenty two hundred dollars each his or voter the board of selectmen the board of  really nice how we see these figures to see what we have given these people before the budget has lots of great detail and most of the budget shows change from previous years i see no reason why salaries couldn't  moderator at our caucus meeting there was a question about what other benefits might accrue from these salaries and we sent some questions in advance to david kale he had some detail out on a telephone conversation we had and i was going to ask him the question tonight if i could so what we're interested in not so much for the town turkey treasurer who are entitled to full town health care and pension benefits but for any of the other positions in these salaries what liabilities are the town also incurring for health benefits and pension and how do those get vested thank you elected official chooses to partake into the pension system then they start the vesting process in order to be vested in the rebel mark retirement system you must number one make five thousand dollars or more to gain a year of credible service in order to get vested into the system you must have ten years of credible service and if you complete those that once you reach ten years of credible service you are eligible to retire from the belmont retirement system and are eligible to receive but not have to take retiree health insurance and he  also has to in the health care bill you of the listing provided to you the statutes provide that officials elected to office by popular vote who are compensated  the town meeting member precinct one is that any level of compensation that they would be eligible for the health care plan yes thank you yes ma'am moderator melissa here in precinct eight just to follow up on that is that ten years of consecutive service or is it ten years of credit here service so it could be ten years over a thirty year i guess it could be because it's ten years of credible surveyors ok further question sammy baghdad a vice chair of the board of selectmen in town meeting member precinct four i get health benefits right but what about other people to other people not get them or mr care yes she member from precinct one move that article eighteen be dismissed or second second all right mr williams do i read the article no no no no not the motion do you want to make a great three hundred marks yes i submitted this article believe in it at the beginning of the town meeting process this year and since that time its purpose has been overcome by  adopted unanimously thank you we actually turning to mr jones momentarily article fifteen mr carm floyd common town treasurer ako fifteen other post employment benefits stabilization fund that the town appropriate and transfer three hundred sixteen thousand five hundred thirty dollars from the general fund free cash to the other post employment benefits opap stable data and fun for the purpose of finding other post employment benefits in addition a total of twenty seven thousand one hundred fifty two dollars transferred from out of coal mine water enterprise fund insular enterprise fun and from out of twelve light enterprise fund to the other post employment benefit o p stabilization fund as follows free cash ninety two point one percent three hundred sixteen thousand five thirty light enterprise account four point two percent fourteen thousand for thirty five so rent the price account one point seven percent five thousand eight hundred forty three dollars water and enterprise account two percent six thousand eight seventy four for a total of three hundred forty three thousand six eighty mr moderator ralph jones town meeting member precinct three the moderator and the treasurer asked me to make some brief remarks about the open committee that i chair in two thousand and fifteen the town meeting asked the selectmen to appoint a committee to study funding options for the actuarial liability associated with other post employment benefits or open the committee members are liz allison mike widmer jeff libby and richard waring and me and i was appointed chair the plan of our committee was to develop a cash flow model that would enable us to model the cost of retiring health care and make recommendations on options to control those costs during the first month of our meetings we learned that in belmont like in most towns in massachusetts it's hounded not separate the cost of retiree health care from the cost of health care in general other town employees in other words we didn't know what the actual cost of retiree health care was we also learn by communication with other towns that a says ins committee in wayland very similar to ours had found the same situation and had actually done the research to learn what their actual retiring the health insurance costs were they then use those actual costs and asked their actual to revise its estimates of unfunded liability of the words the actuary had been using state wide census data to create its estimates of wayland's liability and ours by using their actual data whalen was able to substantially reduce their own funded liability estimates as provided by the actuary through the hard work of the town's h r department our committee recently received the costs of retiree health insurance in belmont for the forty two months ending december thirty first two thousand and fifteen and our plan going forward is the same as the one we started out with and that is to develop a cash flow model that we proposed originally and we had planned to use these actual cost to revise the actuarial estimate of our unfunded liability similar to the process used in wayland and i presented these results at a meeting of our committee and mr williams is xliii to that committee and i think that the hit one of the reasons why he was quite willing to withdraw article eighteen was that when it comes to our unfunded liability we simply don't know what it is we have an actuarial estimate that we're reasonably sure is wrong and we don't know what is right under those circumstances it as joe questions for the moderator identify joel same ewell's county member precinct six if the exact figure is not known what is the latest the period ending two thousand and fourteen i'm sorry ralph jones town meeting member precinct three and the estimate there was one hundred seventy two million dollars thank you yes if you support article fifteen no if you don't mr williams are you reading a motion under article nine jim williams selectman and precinct one town meeting member moved that six million eight hundred seven thousand nine hundred eighteen dollars be appropriated from the account classified as water enterprise fund pursuant to chapter forty four section fifty three f and i half believe it or not the general was for the water service said some to be expended under the direction of the board selectmen and set appropriation to be funded by a transfer of seven hundred seventy five thousand from water retained earnings and six million thirty two thousand nine hundred eighteen dollars from water revenues williams want to read the second a motion as well and we can have discussions on both simultaneously but then vote them separately yes or section b that nine million one hundred seventy five thousand and eighty seven dollars be appropriated from the account classified as sewer and storm water enterprise fund pursuant to chapter forty four section fifty three f and a half of the general laws for sewer and storm water services said some to be expended under the direction of the board of selectmen in the said appropriation to be funded by a transfer of seven hundred seventy five thousand from sewer retained earnings in eight million budget committee the capital budget committee unanimously recommends positive action on both motions their discussion saying no one will vote on the first motion all those