think the timing of that submission provides an occasion for us a little bit about and if you look we have that we are concerned about broadly namely enforcement and compliance we have a rule that says the plans plants need to be submitted a week in advance of a when the hearing is scheduled and that's to allow the board community development  others to take them up  the plans for middle could street were not delivered as i say on friday for an eight am hearing monday morning from my perspective that does not give them close to complying with the rules and as we've talked more generally about how to get enforcement and compliance having a regime in which we take our own rules seriously and apply them seems to me a very good place to start we've  made exceptions in the past but what happens is when we get these very late plans two things happen and both of them are granted one has the board doesn't have time to study them community development and have time to review them as i mentioned second as i look around the room many of the people in attendance are neighbors who were notified who made an attempt to accommodate and this leaves the board with the really poor we if we were to hear this with basically no time to review it that would be a bad thing on the other hand to drag have neighbors have to hand hearing after hearing when nothing happened is a bad thing  so what i would like to propose is that we continue the middle cut street hearing to june twenty first which is our which is a regularly scheduled meeting on tuesday but that since the neighbors have made the effort to come we may want to hear from some of them at this point or we may want i would concur with that i had hoped when i got this envelope when i came home friday evening but we had a an unexpected a happy appearance of our son and his wife over the weekend and i even though i had intended to go and actually look at the site it was a choice between that and and a very uncommon visit from family and i think that that's an example the board faces when we don't have adequate time to review before the hearing itself i feel badly that everyone has made the effort to come but i think the board and the staff need more time than we have received on this project i think i agree with that i'll also note that as i was looking quickly through the packet last night i saw this fairly significant list of neighbors who opposed construction i mean it's dated for four days at least before the plants came in and that puts us again in a tough spot where our part of our job is to take into consideration what the neighbors have a neighbors feel about the proposed project and i mean i'm not sure that the neighbors likewise had a chance to see the plans and where would they have been posted before they posted on friday they were concur with both of those comments i mean do you think it's hard coming from a background where there was a lot of awfulness about the impact on the neighborhood and on the residents it's kind of hard i mean it's our responsibility to to go through a lot of data to kind of understand that but also on friday afternoon for monday eight o'clock it's kind of hard to turn that around and make it into a cogent kind of discussion especially when the  not what i would like to do people think this is a good process if there are any neighbors present understanding that you will have not have a chance that these will not be the current you won't have had a chance to review the plans any more than we did if there are neighbors present who wish to speak today that we should allow them to be otherwise  last promotion to continue this to the twenty first i have a comment on that i'd certainly like to hear the neighbors speak but if they're speaking to the prior wins as opposed to the current players that doesn't seem useful i agree which is why i will ask that of but people might have comments of a more general nature but i think that is a good distinction so with that i'll ask if there is anyone from the neighborhood who would like to speak to the original plans because they are no longer the prince ok thank you oh yes but i'm vincent bowden i live in fifty three little quote directly frost the street i actually read the online thing sunday night had a few questions on it and we're not we'll pick up but we're not opening the new plans today so that we're happy to have you you can certainly give us your questions but we're not going to take questions on the new plants because we're not opening a hearing on the new plans today ok but i'll i'll do it before the meeting rescheduled but but if we regret that the developer has not taken our rules more seriously and with that i will ask for a motion to continue in  madam my name is mary alice sammy and i live at twenty five hurley street unfortunately i we're going to be traveling and we're not going to be here for the meeting and fitz permissable i would love to hear his questions sooner though there aren't any answers at this moment again i just procedurally my suggestion would be if you mean by me a gesture if you we will post his questions on the website oh thank you we will put jeff or we can do that we will post your questions on the planning board website and that way everyone will be able to see them in advance of the meeting on the twenty first an we made drastic modifications since last time the square footage and the footprint of the building was reduced the ridge was also lowered more than a foot we just have regular gable ends and we eliminate the arched windows and the downed windows and try to have a more conservative look which i believe that's what you're looking for all right now with the with the revised plans and for the moment turning to these just turning to the there was suggested a reduction in the total living area from approximately twenty seven hundred square feet to twenty two hundred square feet absolute standard so i'd like to be remembered by going round and asking people for their first vote for any questions they have and any comments on the new drawings which were submitted in a that gives the option of having the elevation more balanced now didn't have a wall the windows softened the elevation more than having a black wall that so that is the primary reason ok so all of these leaving the decision to i'd like them applied not in the class so both so similar to simulated mountains ye they draw your attention up to the roof which i don't think is where probably you wanted to be or where for the sake of the look and feel of the mass of the house we want to be so i'd prefer also wondered if they think it might be a closet window here on the second floor if why you decided to make that smaller and not the same height as the other windows in the front of the house just because it's the closet i guess it's hard for me to tell with if we limited the other windows but it looks like it would might be a nicer balance if you had the full size window covered what i think of that on the front for assad the traditional way would be to have a vertically oriented window rather than two horizontal windows those those windows don't fit with the with the style of the house i think that you're trying to get to and i think that the even if you wanted a window you you put in a single window centered over the over the two windows below i think this these horizontally oriented windows look like they're from a different style the paired horizontal windows also appear on the on the rear elevation i think it's the same problem they they don't  eyed i comment on the general i think that it in terms of of fitting in with the neighborhood if it number fifteen is a much larger house the number three but this is this is the largest of the  three and that is the general concern i think they are going to hear from the neighbors is that each each new development is larger than everything that comes before the owner have listen to our comments and they've reduced the size of the building in terms of living area in terms of heights so they listen to us and they responded so that's w that it was hung up on l two i mean that's a neighborhood that's in transition from neighborhood that's in pla and this is an intervention well here i think that we have to face and that is we're not going to get homes that are going to be built that are akin to the homes that were in those neighborhoods making the part of the citizens that help two comments which are which are architectural but not in the sense that i think one of the concerns looking at the attic plan  is that particularly with the windows as originally proposed in the public if this had come to us as a six bedroom house we would not we would be saying round that would be the most bedrooms of any home of the neighborhood of fifty six homes we have described you can't do that i mean i don't want to sleep for others but i think a six bedroom house we would be going whoa that's a step up in this neighborhood and with the natural like me with the natural light that we're seeing up there and the ease of replacing a pull down stair you know my place and this is partly a question for my colleagues and a question for the architect i would be very uncomfortable permitting something that converts so easily into a six bedroom home  is there a way to address that let me do my second comment and then eps and then we will invite you to the microphone the second time and i think yes on the plans is i'm certainly pleased to see there is evolve the question is where to where and how quickly and it's still above two hundred in less the architecture deals with it and now sir  there's a building section if you'd like to open there's no dimension on this this if that's a very large open space inside the five foot long right the sixty percent the you're talking about getting after a calculation can be reworked within the walls if you're an architect you know yeah but what i'm saying if you are thinking somebody is going to have a bedroom that somebody can have a bedroom anyway you can't you can't have a loft all that a four foot ceiling height just go up and sleep that  of winding roads and stuff i kind of don't understand the inspiration for some of this is on the second split colonial to me that's what it looks like with the garage under so to me i like the idea that you actually come up with that little farmer's porch in the front i think it's a great great element but i look at that neighborhood and i see like a bungalow there like i see that it's like really enhancing that type of neighborhood like that's what that is crying for like a larger si so i'm wondering where you got the inspiration because you're kind of like not blending or enhancing that neighborhood you're actually going out on a limb and you've kind of got some of that so i'd done something that would be called like a bungalow but something that's  going out on a limb so i rather than seeing some type of continuity where someone actually put something where someone can actually follow it you know like make a transition into like the bungalow neighborhood where you see some of that inspiration happening like on white road and stuff and just wondering how you came up with what you like an arts and crafts style saved by the lord by the way type of home which i think would be great for like an s r c neighborhood with a lot of smaller and you can get a house that you can probably get twenty three twenty four hundred square feet o lexington the houses that seem to be gathering the most attention are those types of houses and not these type of like almost post war split quite a colonial type houses that you've drawn i'm just wondering how you came up with the inspiration you came up with it and he has opinions of but very well respected by me by the way as your opinion is very respected by me because you're a very good builder and i've heard good things about you joe has suggested that it's going to be better for the neighborhood you have a lot of homes i mean one of the ways to reduce the volume of the house was have outside parking in the driveway and you know that's not better than what we have now and it will spark a fire department to like it more the neighbors will like it more and we always keep part of the fairing to what the neighbors feel about it we tried hard with the neighbors to get something that they would accept so you should also consider that  his is something that we worked out with the neighbors and i don't know if there's anyone from the neighborhood to can address that or challenge it or supported i leave the floor madame and i live in fifty five which is parallel to last one and i understand that you know things have to transition because from affordability standpoint there are people can't afford to live in belmont first time home buyers i believe that any improvement on the current property is a good thing but i also agree wholeheartedly with joe about what the style of home is i realized that our single family home of a single level home may not work for today's family's lifestyle but the idea of an arts and crafts man or something like that is very very appealing but i have two questions the applicant has not indicated whether he is going to live in the home or whether he's going to flip it i think if correct me if i'm wrong but he said if he could talk his wife into living there he may live there i don't know if i've missed something but i'd like clarification on that of possible and secondly i'd like to know how long the construction whenever it is approved will last approximately thank you just just a word on the first question and then i'll turn to the owner for or or presumably the owner would be the most appropriate person to comment on the first question and perhaps the second as well  there there are some cases where it's very clear that this is the family home when i think at least speaking only for myself when we're looking at applicants who have developed a number of homes that's a somewhat different category because the question of whether they will or will not rich people's plans change if you've developed five or six homes in belmont your attitude toward the home that you're building is different from someone who's coming in clearly this is their home this is where they're going to live if they do something entirely different with the rest of their life so while i'm we certainly want to hear the owners answer i'm not sure that that would be a major factor in the board's decision lagarde i want to very much appreciate your comments so i do enjoy listening to them because i want to do it right i don't want to oppose what you're saying thank you for coming to make that comment for us we love the neighborhood we also have another house on the hope wrote that will be a run of ation this will be a brand new building i'm hoping when i build it my wife likes this better than the other one  and of course she is half of my life therefore she makes a decision on that and other part is whether i live in it or somebody else lives in it and they're going to be good people i don't sell my properties to people that i don't think they're going to be appropriate i have never done that one time somebody came and offered me cash for a building that i had his attitude was not right i said why are you offering cash and  if somebody gets mad at a question that i'm asking that means they could my get mad at many other things and i'm a psychologist therefore i know how the behaviors go i don't sort of don't because i smell trouble and he would not have been a good neighbor for the neighborhood therefore i'm very cognizant of that and i would be more than happy to watch for it whether i live it or somebody else lives in it there's going to be a decent person question which one was that was your ration of the construct the direction of the construction i have a builder who has said that he would build it in five months having said that of course builders are very respectable people and sometimes things are not predictable one hundred percent they may take a little longer i usually give them two or three months longer than that and hopefully it will be just landscaping and mind of work i don't know if we're sending before sending the plans back to have them rework after driving around the neighborhood then i would hate to have them come back to her job her out a number on a bungalow so like twenty three hundred twenty one hundred potential square feet i hear others saying as it were as it stands at twenty two eleven it's in the highest court taiwan among the highest houses in the top floor tile and so out of fairness i think to the applicant who is working very hard to try to figure out what we're looking for as we try to figure out what we're looking for and think that it would be very helpful to me not draw put a number in the you know in the same draw line in the sand with a number but a range or some additional thoughts about about whether twenty two hundred is ok and that it's really more the sense of the mass that we're worried about or whether two thousand is more of the number that we're looking for or less than that you know i just think out of fairness it's it's really important for them to leave here with a sense of that today you know i  certainly agree with that and you know there have certainly been cases in the past where after the there we remember thomas street after the third or fourth time around the architect said give me a but i think that there's always going to be a high number in the court trial and i think there's always going to be a lot more to we're talking about and that's our season which in my mind is not a g arizona it's a single families and i think the house laid out the right way i don't have a problem with with it hitting the upper court tiles if the house is actually a compliment to the neighborhood i really don't because i think that you're in a single residence on one of the g arizona or body pretty much said energy arizona if you're doing a single family we want to be ideally twenty to twenty twenty five hundred square feet so i think that to tell people where we were implicitly asked like from the neighborhood group if we were going to actually put a number on that actually jeffrey actually mentioned it himself and we said no we weren't going to put a number on it i think to put a number on an individual case basis could be a mistake because i think you're almost in a back which way to say precedent i don't think it's the right thing to do that's just my opinion because it again it's not a it's a single residence out and i think that people come to single residence on and invest in those loans to have a larger house i don't think by today's standards in a single residence on i don't think the two thousand square feet is a house think for me it's about how houses lay out what it looks like a sexually how it enhances a neighborhood what you try to mean but all those things have to have something to say with me and then i guess the court tells are going to have some we're looking at the living space and we're saying wow well you've got the smallest on the on the lot but you've got to get here on the lighter side on the on the living at basic concert you can bring those two things together and get those a little closer together i think that's probably what i'm looking for i can't again i can't speak for the rest of the board but that's that's that's how i view this situation right liz i mean when i was looking at that when i was looking at the drawing and started my comments earlier and how joel articulated  the dilemma if you will that i was facing i think you articulated it in the perhaps in the best way that i could have because that's what you're trying to reconcile i mean i think the sentiment of the board is if we were driving a direction that would be a bit smaller without putting a number out there makes some sense and if there are some ability for the all the architect and the submitter to take a look at some architectural features that would enhance the placement of this new home in the neighborhood that would be unique scenario for for them for their simo i think what we're seeing when we look at the the the numbers chart are seeing people investing in the basement and i think that to analyze square footage when we're we're clearly seeing what used to be a space where you put your furnace and your hot water heater and you had a six and a half foot ceiling we're now seeing eight foot ceilings in the basement and and planned living space i think i think the board that going forward needs to look at whether we should in set some standards for when a finished basement becomes part of the living area i'm not suggesting that we do that today but i think i think we've seen several cases where the basements have gotten taller they've gotten more finished they've gotten half baths recreation rooms it's no longer just the storage space that that is in that in the typical seventy five year old belmont house  that it is something we need to consider any i guess i have sort of a general comment on this i think that conformity with the neighborhood in all that is fine i feel  it's it's unfortunate in a way although i don't know the architects point of view to sort of at this point be asking the architect to change the style of house and i don't know how much that that cost him in terms of time or money but perhaps from our point of view since we did go through the other planes before and we said you know reduce this and he's got almost almost a twenty percent reduction in terms of size that he listened to all those things you know i think probably the suggestions for the different type of architecture would be positive but i feel bad that we didn't make that suggestion to meetings ago and i don't know if there's a way we can guide forward in the future in terms of that  so i think that that would be positive if he does that a but sort of philosophically i sort of feel within the range of what the board would would approve in the general  suggestions in terms of things unless we have a very specific thing that says we want bungalows of this size in this neighborhood over here i sort of hesitate pontiff stepping on the feet of the of the architect and the owner to make their decisions in terms of what they think they should build in terms of the stuff of the house i think that's their right in some ways within the context process and we did spend two rather long evenings approving architectural standards and discussing conformity with the neighborhood and so on which i think says precisely the opposite that these are relatively small lots relatively dense neighborhoods and we do intend to give architectural guidance and earlier would always be better earlier would have been that much but we but the point that we are going to give i understand i didn't and then the other thing is that you actually get a really good opportunity i mean everybody has a danger i think you know so for me i happen to do this for a living so i'm doing my own stuff so i actually get a really good opportunity to actually get out of my truck and walk around the whole neighborhood with prince in my hand and that takes time so i think for the second meeting i don't think we're asking for a lot and i think it's an enormous investment that this gentleman making you know that i also think it's going to have an impact on several of the people in that neighborhood so you're not just talking about one fellow making an investment from stuff you're talking about one fellow making investment it's going to impact you tire neighborhood as well as an entire community moving forward as the process moves on so i just you know i understand that it's a great point people definitely have choices and they have property rights and when they have good pinions and certainly it's his money that he is investing but i don't i don't think that we're asking that that much they really don't because i think he can work with these plans i think there's a reason that we call it a special permit because we don't give it to everybody for every suggestion that comes forward from carlos what i have but that's the whole point of the special kind of process so we are being more prescripti in helping to drive the process for and hopefully get to a place where it creates value not just for the person that's making the submittal but also for the entire neighborhood we want to encourage neighborhoods that will be very happy to be living there and enjoy the informative they're not determinative and that architectural design can one can and strategically if you will choose an architectural design that allows you to maximize your the space of the house without having it look maximized and so it may be that you know some particular subtle choices in architecture can lead one to let's say twenty two hundred square feet which is what this the current design before us is in a way that might fit into the neighborhood better and that we may be happy with and that the neighbors may be happy with and that the balance there is the mix of the architectural design and the numbers and and well that leaves i guess a lot of discretion and lot of freedom it also means that there's a little bit less  direction or degree from from the board which hopefully that's where jeffrey comes in think maybe to get to you know so let me go back to the first see if i can pull this together because we need to come to a decision we need i think i want to go back to your first point which is we're obviously going to continue this hearing but we need to continue it giving the applicant clear guidance as to how we get to yes if the total living area were to remain where it was understanding that two thousand and twenty one hundred would be more desirable in some sense but if we were to remain at twenty two hundred square feet and the books are in in that environment and the style were to be more consistent with the neighborhood in the sense of a bungalow type approach that that is something that the board would entertain and if well done would positively consider i don't want i mean that's good town good looking town but let's consider also the time factor when we had him putting the suggestions so if you empower jeffrey or somebody else within the group or two people three people to sit down and work it out i would appreciate if that kind of an approach would be possible rather than wait for another month and then you know evaluate things i mean you understand time to develop it and we also we also coming to the summer season i'll be all that cation the on that will be allocation will not be we don't have too much time to go back and forward on this project so i'd appreciate if you can see it all of these things thank you  thank you so that the the guidance would be we continue this meeting till the twenty first that in the meantime jeffrey we have we have work in the corporate world has come conceptual concurrence but we still need to see the actual plants is that and with that you'll be in touch with jeffrey to schedule a meeting at your earliest mutual convenience i'd like to move along to item three we have a hard stop at nine thirty am discuss and deliberate on potential amendments to s r c zoning article which coincides largely with article four prepare for me for me to some  for me to summarize briefly where we are with back to the six starting with the i suppose the headline news that article six will be taken up by town meeting on june sixth it will be the first i don't following the report following the decision that while we would be making no substantive changes there were plenty of drafting that needed clarification a somewhat shifting not excused your truth just hasn't come up yet here's where we are i believe that by the hopefully by our seven pm meeting this evening that we will have a revised draft that incorporates the subject to what we discussed in the next few minutes that will incorporate the changes that the  group feels is necessary we will also it is clear have a number of amendments you have seen them they have to gate they have all come from some will be withdrawn but let me focus on the ones i think and jeffrey then i'm going to ask you for comments let me focus on the ones that will certainly not proposal right now what we're saying is there needs to be a ten foot back set back and we are saying that the screaming needs to be such that it is just not visible from the street or from adjacent buildings and our language as to placement is defined as is clearest or not was not within the set of the changes that the macarthur amendment proposed there is by the way a second version of this i'm now speaking of the second version which is not identical to the first version there's quite a crowd here it loosens the standard for the screening of the visual effect by saying it should be screened and it remove only says it only asks that the h b ac system be placed adjacent to the building without reference to setbacks i think from the point of view of those and this has been an issue in discussion for me some months now so and so joe and barbara either of you want to comment on this since i think you are on the no i would i would d now i agree with the points that have been made and i know that jeffrey at after the debate about five feet or ten feet looked into whether you know the impact of that and didn't out of concern that there may be you know a number of properties where ten feet wouldn't work for some reason and came the conclusion that that's not an issue and i don't if you want to speak more to that jeffrey or not but otherwise i thought that the amendments did tend to dilute and in some instances make enforcement more difficult you know since we're talking about enforcement i mean putting the discussion about what minimizing visual impact means is  so this is been a issue that had been questioned basically since the beginning of these the boards review of this does this actually really work with that in mind i  conducted you know a very quick analysis of lots and lots eyes as with in the s r c district i looked at plots that were five thousand square feet less than five thousand lost it would less than four thousand square feet these lot sizes were chosen deliberately because those are the lot sizes that the board and the town has agreed were appropriate in the general residence district therefore if it works in general residence at five and seven and four thousand for the placement of h v ac one could easily make the leap that will work within the us or see districts with that there are one hundred lots that are less than five thousand square feet there are ten lots that are less than four thousand square feet the one the less than four thousand square feet actually are fairly well clustered within the herman street thirty three hundred square feet i was able to pull up some plot plans for those properties and taking into account the limitations that  became apparent in doing that is that the when you apply a set backs the setback would be to a lot that area actually is greater than the area that would be allowed very i also looked at louise road emerson street neighborhood because that's the sort of five thousand square foot neighborhood also the same thing was apparent that there was sufficient room in the rear in some cases on the side in that neighborhood system they can't just put it you know listen to the installer and say oh this is where i'm putting it because it's easiest for me to do so they have to be mindful of of the restrictions and in the end of the addition in what they're trying to achieve and how it all blends in together that was what i sort of discovered we will continue this discussion i think i'm in the crisis of the game we hope  you have the opportunity during your workday we will continue with this evening we will be meeting prior to the june sixth town meeting we will be scheduling a meeting amendments can be submitted until the first of june so we may see additional amendments all right now fred paulson i just had a question of clarification i've i've i've seen the first version that was handed out to us i'm certainly strongly in support of having this restriction as it's been discussed by the planning board i think that is important and it's good to know that there is that flexibility on the small lot that they can include compresses in the rear yard from the rear of the building but in the second edition are you easing up on those restrictions like i didn't quite follow that what you're doing in the second version now not in our second version of the article makes no substantive changes we are only addressing l clarification of language and embedded references but there is the only let me put it like this the only change that we will make in our presentation which is where we summarize the tru further point of clarification in this residence see the setback for regards i think is thirty feet so that in no case then if this is adopted would a compressor be any closer than thirty feet to the property line of their of the abutting property owner true thanks very much thank you and i think is there anyone who wishes to speak to this as a public comment l b another opportunity this evening wooden shutters not to be installed that's why he submitted the photograph of what the house looks like and then there is the i would coronate about the landscaping review of final approval so that's next at the first available opportunity for quite sorry we can't that brick thirteen birch tree is not an agenda item so we cannot consider it at this meeting but we will consider it at the first  all right and now if i may move to item six preview agenda for the next meeting stop being putting a period there because the next meeting will of course the seven pm this meeting this evening in the streets and we will in addition to jeffrey did you want to know sorry i just was it was put you know i just was i had my hand that's all sorry i'm pausing enough quaker moment to see if there's anything you'd like to in that case i am six preview agenda for this evening we have basically two items we have the hearing on the we have the public hearing on the citizens petition read the s antenna and i have a conference call i have talked with the sponsors and we've agreed upon the file and the format will be as follows the four sponsors will have among them or among anyone they choose twenty minutes to make an initial up to twenty minutes to make an initial presentation that will be followed by the usual public hearing questions from the board i will then go to the audience at eight o'clock i will begin strenuously encouraging members of the audience to only speak if they are going to raise the point not previously raised and it eight fifteen i will end the discussion we can decide whether we wish to deliberate involved or take in whatever we've learned and postpone  vault to the to our next meeting following that we will turn to the discussion of single rest and see and other business such as the approval of minutes and so on and so forth  we will also need to schedule an additional meeting and i will today circulate potential dates for that meeting to all of you i guess this is the date the seventh being a day which being between eight to town meetings and b it's unlikely we'll have a quorum seems good that they needs to be reschedule everyone can consult their pay their work al interest as well as their personal calendars and come to the meet come this evening ready to announce which dates they are available i am going to only send out  evening meetings for the time being because morning meetings as earlier discussed are more difficult for people to account anything i think will defer the minutes until this evening