so please be seated and i'd like to call toward or the annual town meeting for the town of belmont the year two thousand and fifteen will begin with an invocation as we always do and i'm pleased to recognize father a team in from the holy cross parish and pastor caribbean from the first armenian church gentlemen do you want to microphone for the invocation thank you for everything amen for those of you who are familiar let us pray the lord's prayer together our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and the just not into temptation but deliver us from evil for the fine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever thank you very much please beast what say standing for the well now welcome the boy scout troops sixty six and three or four who are latest in the flag ceremony and pledge of allegiance followed by the b h s senior acapella group singing our national anthem welcome to the boy scouts color guard advance scout  color guard post the colors please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you very much for the boy scouts and the with our electronic devices you've made a number of suggestions about how this could be improved particularly showing on the screen ellen and the town clerk's office have  worked with others diligently to try to improve and make this as clear as possible so first starting we want to show you how this displays and simply would ask you to click your devices and i think it's just click one ellen is that correct for either one for either one or two just simply to show that you're present and the device should have your name on the back so i double checked that and then and then click the device either with one or two and we were going to will show you how that is displayed this is simply an attendant attendance so if you haven't clicked please do and what this show is we're moving from left to right so we no longer show by precincts but rather alphabetically for all of us as you'd requested and then starting up and john alcott and the upper left across to david alperin then back to armstrong and so forth and it shows now scroll through glenn gradually and so then you should be able to see you should see your name on this list if you've pressed either one or two indicating your present so will go through the whole now glenn once you go all right go back to  dan would you check with mark there mr dendreon because i don't see his name any other questions of anybody who does yes in the back we're going to scroll through one more time please wyatt please and we're going to scroll through one more time starting a day if you don't see your name please let us know the purpose here is to try to identify any glitches now so we don't have them in the middle of votes while we're doing this ok got it i am my practice jennifer page whoops go back p for page anybody else have all right a word about electronic voting i will use electronic voting in any and all two thirds votes  any obviously contested or close vote and then obviously if it's required electronic voting as requested by town meeting member members we're happy to do it but where it's a typical just like article two legal representation we'll just do a voice vote unless there's some unusual event so try to mix it up in that  way but we're happy to use the electronic vote it's very easy we put it up for only forty seconds and it's going to end so at any time this will show up when we actually come to voting this is how it will show so you should check your name and it will turn into a blue collar if you are registered if you vote if it doesn't turn that means we aren't tabulating your vote if it stays current white so well explain that when we get to the vote first i mean surely there are couple of these articles where we will two thirds required where we will use it let me turn some other standard the limits of the hall are the seats as you were sitting before the in front of the aisle behind the aisle or for visitors non town meeting members it's typical for me to read those who are invited who may not be town meeting members so i'll just go through a list and then ask if i've missed anybody the town administrator an assistant town accountant apartment has town council george hall the warrant committee school committee and superintendent schools planning board by a large review committee capital budget committee permanent building advisory committee and then and paulson the chair of the underwood pool building committee david house a whirlwind i have not identified at this point the article eight individuals i will do that wednesday because the c p a will be the first  business on wednesday following the two articles on the special town meeting with that does anybody else request that others be admitted to the floor that i whom i have not mentioned all right at this point i asked that the newly elected and re elected town meeting members to rise so the town clerk in a new mr the oath of office congratulations good evening if you raise your right hand please do you solemnly affirm that you will uphold the constitution of the united states the constitution of the commonwealth of massachusetts and the bylaws of the town of belmont and you impartially perform the duties of town meeting member a position to which you have been duly elected keeping uppermost in your mind what is best for the town of belmont and its inhabitants please say i will  thank you and congratulations at this point i will briefly review the rules first the advance filing of amendments for substantive amendments to have been filed one for article seven and the other for article nine and when we come to them we will highlight those amendments on the the voting moment ago if i'm in doubt or if any of you so request that they be accounted vote we will have an electronic vote on the new rules that i  have proposed for town meeting in order to streamline and improve the flow here let me review them briefly you received a letter from me that laid them out  mail and then a hard copies and as well my moderate there included my moderator's message the first is that i've set a limit of five minutes instead of ten for speaking many many people have come to me and requested and said five minutes is more than adequate for people to make a point this isn't for presentations that around an article where we usually used to do that for ten minutes but for somebody speaking as a town meeting member so five minutes my experience is that the vast majority of people actually can have taken five minutes or less but i think it's important to have stablished that rule now and to stick to it secondly the whole question of questions that are asked of one person or another and we all know the experiences been that we've had  from time to time kind of a barrage of questions back and forth and back and forth which sometimes gets beyond that i would say regular a normal appropriate civic discourse  even when it's not doesn't it's i think often difficult for town meeting members to follow and i think it takes extra time so i don't think it's fair to town meetings so i'm addressing that in two ways one is saying that any town meeting member must limit his or her questions to essentially to an initial question then a follow up obviously he or she can then come back and speak for a second time if everybody else has spoken and ask another one or two questions if somebody hasn't called the question in the meantime and the other thing is to implement something that i haven't always done as this as directly as i intend to beginning tonight that all questions be asked through the moderator that's a long time rule here a few well and so i intend to implement what i'm that means specifically is if you come to the microphone and you have a question ask it literally through me and then i will direct the question and i asked to whom do you want that question directed and then we'll have that person answer if if that seems appropriate in order to also avoid this back and forth i would ask the presenters after they complete their presentations to sit in the front row so i may when there's a question call you to the podium the microphone to answer it but it depends what the question is and who the best person is to respond so we'll try this and see how it works and i would appreciate as always your feedback i mean the whole purpose of all of this changes and improvements is to have the right balance between a full discussion of important issues for the town you are the legislative body and it's important that we have discussion of critical issues at the same time to have the balance so that we don't get off into the weeds and get repetitive and so forth and to try to have the smooth as possible flow of town meeting out of respect to town meeting members so i ask for your indulgence and then i ask for your feedback as we see how this works of finally in terms of plenary i would ask the town clerk with the unanimous consent of town meeting to read only the return of the warrant without reading the text of each printed article hearing no objection i will introduce town clerk  i called it to order previously pursuant to the warrant for the annual town meeting to be held on may fourth two thousand and fifteen i l n o'brien cushman town clerk do hereby certify that i gave notice of said meeting by posting and attested copy of the warrant on the town clerk's official bulletin board in the town hall and at least five other places in town seven days before the date of this meeting in accordance with chapter thirty nine section ten of the general laws of the commonwealth and section thirty dash one one zero a of the general bylaws of the town of belmont furthermore i do hereby certify that i gave notice of the annual town meeting of may fourth two thousand and fifteen by causing a copy of the  sent to all town meeting members at least seven days before the warrant of this meeting and by causing copies of the warrant to be made available at the public library and at the town clerk's office all in accordance with section three zero dash one one zero b of the general bylaws of the town of belmont and the representative town meeting acts of one thousand twenty six as amend thank you mr moderator sammy baghdadi chair of the board of selectmen and town meeting member precinct four we had the misfortune of losing two people in the last year who were who are be loved  belmont two wonderful people longtime residents and like i said they were they were beloved in belmont and those are and claflin alan and robert a dally jr i'd like to begin by having a brief moment of silence for both of them ok thank you and the board of selectmen has prepared proclamations for each of them and i am happy that we do also have members of both families here present first proclamation on a ring and cla in allen where as the town of belmont mourns the passing of and claflin allen who was a well known and highly regarded member of this community and where as and was the daughter of the late william h cla in and helen a atkins claflin and the wife of the late eugene f allan the sister of catherine kitty c weeks of belmont helen c spring of and was a town meeting member for precinct three for fifteen years serving until her death on february twenty eighth two thousand and fifteen during that service and missed only three evenings of town meeting and where as contributions to the belmont community have spanned decades and she has left her mark by fully investing her expertise and enthusiasm to many organizations including the belmont garden club belmont land trust belmont woman's club the league of women voters belmont historical society friends of mclean hospital and mass audubon habitat habitat sanctuary now therefore be it resolved that the board of selectmen of the james r william selectman may for two thousand and fifty and i would like to welcome sinclair weeks who is and nephew if you would come up can see you  ok thank you sinclair ok now i would like to read a proclamation honoring robert a dally joined here where i where as robert downey jr or bob served in the town of belmont as a public safety dispatcher from november thirt two thousand and till february eighth two thousand and fourteen where as bob was active in town athletics as a past president of the belmont boosters club a participant in the men's softball program and as a frequent caller to belmont cable's time out for sports talk and whereas bob was a founding member of the town of belmont youth commission and a longtime board member for belmont youth activities and dare wear as bob worked for many years behind the pharmacy counter counter at his beloved corbett drug store where he was affectionate affectionately known as the mayor of waverly square whereas bob was always willing to volunteer his time to help organize local golf tournaments and golf trips for his friends and where as bob strength and positive attitude earned him the affection and respect of all that knew him and where as bob passed away on march sixth two thousand and fifteen after a ten year battle with cancer where as bob leaves his mother his wife marilee's and his son robbie and daughter nicole his brother david and his canine canine companion freddie now therefore be it resolved that the board of selectmen commands bob on his service to the town of belmont and offers its deepest condolences to his family friends and coworkers on his passing board of selectmen by sammy s baghdadi chair mark a political fights chair james r william selectman may for two thousand and fifteen we are pleased to be joined by his wife my release and his lovely children thank you for coming ok thank you both very much and thank you for your service for baghdadi the order of the articles ok sami baghdad the chair of the board of selectmen moved that the town meeting here the motions in the following order one two three four five six seven nine eight ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty one twenty two twenty three and twenty four all those in favor please say i oppose no so adopted  me just explain that we are going only through on that list through article nine of the order is nine and eight in the may session and i'm strongly hopeful that we can complete our action on those articles in the first nine articles tonight and wednesday mr baghdadi ok sami baghdadi chair of the board of selectmen moved that the reports of the select men and other town officers departments and committees for the year two thousand and fourteen the accepted all those in favor of police ai those opposed name ok mr moderator if i may say a few general comments please ok as the new chair of the board of selectmen i welcome the opportunity to serve you and the other residents of our wonderful town of elmont i am very upbeat on belmont in the coming year i look forward to working with each of you and with my colleagues on the board to make positive change and progress for our town you will be hearing a more detailed report from may at the second segment of town meeting in june thank you i now like to introduce for a brief report under article one and paulson chair of the underwood pool building committee miss  meeting when the underwood pool building committee reported to the two thousand and fourteen annual town meeting architectural plans for the new municipal pool were being finalized in october the committee awarded the contract to new england builders and demolition work began in november proceeding well until the unusual winter conditions of too much snow and severe cold ground the work on the pools to a halt but framing of the west pool house continued now as any of you who walk by the pool have seen work is going on at a feverish pace the contractor is aware of our desire to see this pool up and running during the two thousand and fifteen summer and while my irish heritage urges me not to tempt fate barring unforeseen difficulties we are looking at a substantial completion in early august which will allow for use of the new facility in a somewhat shortened but nevertheless exciting season throughout the planning building and contract award process the underwood pool building committee whose members include myself adam dash the vice chair stephen salah treasurer alan schreiber secretary and share of the fund raising joel mooney from the permanent building committee michael smith from the historic district commission david came from the recreation commission robert phillips a near neighbor on cottage street and kristen armstrong a citizen from precinct eight and a frequent user of the pool met weekly the full committee meets monthly now but a smaller subcommittee meet the full committee meets monthly but a smaller subcommittee meets weekly with updates going to the full committee at as needed to assure the input of all in the decision making process throughout the process each of my fellow members has brought his or her expertise to the table to help make this project very special town departments and boards and commissions have also played a role the layers on with the time was peter cast on a no the director of public works and upon his retirement the committee was fortunate to have gerald boyle director of facilities step in and provide much needed assistance to the committee and to the architect the police and fire departments have provided oversight of safety issues including fencing and access the planning board made in site and design features the conservation commission on bordering wetland their shoes the board of health in conjunction with the state cool requirements which led to the elimination of the shade feature in the shallow pool and a requirement of a special filtration system for the slide that resulted in one of the very few changes on this project the recreation commission is a constant source of information about who will operations and necessary equipment the private funds raised will help with any furnishing furniture and equipment costs beyond the scope of the pool contract at every step of the way inspections of the work have taken place we expect to plant new princeton alums along concord avenue in the next few weeks and more planting will be done on cottage street so the surrounding scape will be pleasing to pool uses and neighbors alike to meet what we think will be increased pool use a convenient drop off will be established along conquered avenue we will continue to have the same number of packing spaces on the small lot on cottage street but it is expected that people will use the wellington school a lot and walk down crowded street through the playground to access the pool to respond to the shortened season the recreation commission is selling memberships for the underwood pool at a discounted rate until june thirtieth and these passes will be good for the higginbottom until the new pool opens the pool committee feels very fortunate to be working with an excellent contractor a very sponsible superintendent to isabel mont resident and a supportive clerk of the works we are quite certain that the final project will serve the town well and that children and adults will have many hours of good swimming in the future and ten ewing a trying tradition that has been ongoing for over one hundred years thank article one be laid on the table all those in favor please say i oppose no adopted unanimously article to mr williams jim williams selectman town meeting member from precinct one authorization article two authorization to represent the town's legal interest moved that the board of selectmen be  hereby is authorized to bring and defend actions for and against the town to submit any such claims to arbitration and to enter into settlement on account of the same in behalf of the town as and when it deemed it for the best interest of the owner to do so said power shall be vested solely in the board of selectmen is there discussion under article t sami baghdadi chair of the board of selectmen moved that under article three the reading of the proposed amendment to article three of the town's general by laws pertaining to storm water management and erosion control section sixty dash three to five be dispensed with the same being set forth in fall under article three in the warrant for this meeting and having been distributed to each town meeting member all those in favor of police a control as set forth in attachment a dash two thousand and fifteen annual meeting annual town meeting article three proposed amendments to storm water management and erosion control by law under article three in the approved this article to form and placement mr baghdad it is a board have a vote yes the board of selectmen unanimous unanimously recommends favorable action on this article and i believe we now have a presentation by george show hall town council and glen clancy director of community development and among other things it it assigns to the board of selectmen the task of developing a set of regulations to implement it during the course of those discussions about regulations the board was technical as a lawyer is allowed to get the state stormwater management standards specify the use of a computer program known as t r fifty five which in turn specifies the use of a national center has been analyzing rainfall data up through the present and it may come as not as may not come as a surprise to many of you that recent data shows that the eastern part of the state is getting wetter and with more frequent and larger storm events and some state local government entities beginning to require the use of the more recent northeast regional climate center data instead of the t p forty data to get more  accurate sizing for storm water management systems and this is what the board was urged to do in its regulations as your council is the town's council i had a couple of concerns about that under the as written which are addressed by these amendments which i have drafted first of all that the byelaw was designed to exempt all of it all projects that go before the conservation commission as a way of eliminating a duplicative permit requirement because the conservation commission also reviews projects for their storm water impacts however the conservation commission is acting only under the authority of the w protection act which specifies the use of the old data so we would have essentially a bifurcated system where half the town was being governed by the new data and half the town was being governed by the old data and in order to avoid that one of the the amendments that is in front of you would explicitly authorize and direct the conservation commission to require the use of up to the other change is simply to explicitly authorize the board of selectmen and when adopting regulations to use the new rainfall data and the forward is to make sure that the  overlap between the permanent party of the conservation commission and that of the office of community development is is aligned properly that that only those storm water discharges that are explicitly approved by the conservation discussion under article three misfire judy finds precinct five ten meaning amber i wonder my reading of this is that it allows the use of this new dataset but permits also the continuing use of the old one and i know that there had been a recommendation that it be required that new or dated be used can somebody speak to that mr hall it could have been done the other way my intention was to simply make sure that the the board was authorized to use whichever data set it considered to be most reliable and in the best interests of  we did amend the regulations to incorporate the latest rainfall data so what this does is this puts the bylaw really in par with our regulations mr mercer is this going to affect four projects ongoing at this present time in other words the building for much of an issue and it's under construction at this point with the byelaw would go into effect when it's approved by the attorney general and my opinion is that if a permit has been issued prior to that time the changes would not be retroactive so that mr s member precinct three mr moderator you may deem this question outside the bounds of the article but i'm curious obviously it's not ideal to have two sets of regulations one for the conservation commission one for state representatives and whether there is likely to be any change at the state level that would allow the conservation commission to use the up to date rainfall data mr there has been robust discussion of the use of this data on both the federal and the state level since the one nine hundred ninety s there is some possibility that the federal government will revise the  fifty five model to incorporate a new dataset and that has has been a possibility for several years and it may continue to be nothing but a possibility for several years as is really no way to predict the timetable or whether in fact they will ultimately make that decision thank you any further discussion on the motion under article three saying non cushman article four moved that under article four the reading of the proposed amendment to article four of the town's general bylaws pretending to authority for town clerk to assign appropriate alphanumeric references be dispensed with the same being set forth in full under article four in the warrant for this meeting and having been distributed to each town meeting member all those in favor please say i was opposed  discussion moved that the town vote to amend the general bylaws of the town of belmont authority for town clerk to assign appropriate alphanumeric with references by inserting section ten dash one one five review committee has approved this article is to form an placement thank you miss question elena brian cushman again town clerk actually the by law review committee was the group that crafted this and it really is just as it says to allow us to assign numbers not to correct errors or change words just to correct the order and the sequencing in which people things appear in the journal by loss is there any discussion saying non five the reading of the proposed amendment to article five of the town's general bylaws to correct typographical clerical errors be dispensed with the same being set forth in full under article five in the warrant for this meeting and having been distributed to each town meeting member precinct three as you can see we have left substantial jurisdiction to the town meeting and matters pertaining to the general bylaws as these are very very minor and that's what we have to clerk there are four errors that passed all of us by pass the attorney general by and as you can see they are pretty insignificant there changing off to or and adding an s at the end of americans with disabilities so that our by thank you mr moderator article six citizens petition in a portion of the single residence see zoning district on the construction of oversized single family dwelling units moved at the town vote and the zoning by law of the town of belmont by inserting a new section ten point zero interim controls dash shaw gardens and hi overlay district at the and of the zoning by law as follows ten point zero interim controls dash gardens and head injury overlay district ten point one purpose the purpose of the shah gardens and had an overlay district is to provide a temporary period of prohibit on the t a down and replacement of and any existing detached single family dwelling unit with an a structure that exceeds a total high of thirty two feet as measured from the average grade to the highest point of the roof ridge while the town in gauges and planning studies to address the effects of such demolition and construction and recommends long term regulations consistent with sound fire safety and land use planning goals and objectives ten point to establishment and delineation the boundaries of the shaw gardens and hidden gem overlay district as shown on the shaw guidance and head injury overlay district map on file with the town clerk and include a portion of the underlying single residence city zoning district as shown on the tonic dominant zoning map the overlay district includes possible twenty through one hundred sixty one one hundred sixty three through one hundred eighty eight and one hundred ninety through two hundred forty three as shown on the town of tax assessor's map nine ten point three in effect except for the restriction a stably under this section ten point three no building permit shall issue for the construction reconstruction modification of detached single family dwelling unit that will exceed a total height of thirty two feet as measured from the average grade to the highest point of the ridge ten point four time limitation the provisions of this section tan shall expire on june thirtieth two thousand sixteen provided however that by vote at town meeting before said date they may be extended for an additional period to continue planning studies necessary to promote the establishment of long term regulations consistent with sound fire safety and land use planning goals and objectives does the board of selectmen have a vote on this article action and the planning board who have a vote list allison vice chair of the planning board sitting closest to the microphone town meeting member of precinct three the planning board unanimously citizens petition moratorium on the construction of oversized single family dwellings belmont citizens for responsible zoning is an informal group of neighbors in the single family single residencies zoning district of precinct seven the purpose of our petition is to an act a one year moratorium on the construction of single family houses greater than thirty two feet in total height in the neighborhood bounded by school washington and grove streets and grove and dalton and bacon road the resulting demolition moratorium will call a timeout on construction of houses that are out of scale with our neighborhood to allow development of a town wide consensus on this issue i would add that our committee believes that this moratorium will allow for a conversation to begin to address the effects that these demolitions i having on the neighborhood and to recommend regulations that will provide sound land use planning goals there are a number of problems with oversized houses for example they tower over the neighboring homes they crowd out sunlight vegetation and particularly when trees are cut they affect the songbird habitat these oversized houses also reduce opportunities for entry level by areas and for people in belmont or outside of belmont to may want to command and downsize they also undermine and this is so important belmont's character as a town of homes there are a number of zoning by law issues i'm going to mention just a few the single residence district height limit of thirty six feet to the midpoint allows construction of new houses with excessive total height but the expansion of an existing home requiring a special permit must be and i'll quote here in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and quote the allowable midpoint height in the single resident district is higher than in the general residence district a residential district to me in effect there are two heights and it's within the single residence sees owning district one is for a new houses and the other is for existing houses that require a special permit and we believe that this is the time for a conversation to begin to address some of these issues i'm going to ask the pinkerton who is a town meeting member from precinct seven also to talk about how we came to the rationale for this moratorium mr pinkerton thank you mr moderator thank you peg my name is steve pinkerton i'm a town meeting member from  accelerating oversize home construction we think that the moratorium will provide a time to make sure belmont zoning law reflects and protects the interests of all homeowners not just those who want to build a new large dream house but also the existing neighbors who are already living in their own dream houses although at a smaller scale recognizing this is a town wide problem we initially considered petitioning for a town wide moratorium however since we didn't want to call for an outright ban on new construction we needed to find a temporary standard that would hold out of scale development but not rule out dwellings of reasonable side size during the war torn period for the purposes of the mor a total height limit offers a simple visually recognizable and easily measured benchmark to compare with surrounding homes but the height of belmont single family housing stock in the size of single family lot vary widely therefore for the purposes of the moratorium setting in enforceable height standard requires that we focus on a clearly defined neighborhood with relatively uniform dwellings we also look for a neighborhood with level lots since dwelling height is measured from average grade and with hilly land it gets kind of tricky you can play games with that average grade and lots that had more or less the same size and finally we wanted the neighborhood with significant recent tear down and replacement construction activity and we found exactly what we're looking for in our own backyard here's the town of belmont precinct seven is in the south as you can see it's bounded by school washington and grove streets the grocery playground and bacon road the neighborhood has two hundred twenty two single family homes most were built in the late forty's and fifty's seventy percent are two storey typical two story home heights are twenty nine sorry twenty seven to twenty nine feet from average grade to ridge top and lot sizes average about seventy two hundred square feet it's very small it's a sixth seventh of an acre we're not talking quarter acre lots here we're talking very small logs i also want to point out that typical dwellings in the neighborhood have non conforming side setbacks that is to say that they are of further closer to the borders than ten feet which is the current standard that means that any expansion of the non conforming portion of the home would possibly require probably require a special permit height would then have to be in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and would probably not be allowed to greater than the existing house let's say our neighborhood has seen significant tear down a disproportionate amount of teardown activity in recent years the first oversized teardown replacement appeared ten years ago it's big but it's on the edge of the neighborhood it has a hip roof in the last two years we've seen five new teardown replacement houses all significantly bigger than your neighbors and two of them are full story higher than any of the neighborhoods original housing stock  picture is the house that has been rebuilt one snubber fourteen road was demolished you're looking at the third photograph which is from the opposite end of the str again number fourteen road in the before picture you can see the height of the homes on the street at that time were of equal height and then the rebuilt which is the final picture of the after picture and if you look really closely at that after picture it almost looks like you're looking at two homes but in effect it's really just one home moving from  dalton road this is number one eight five dalton road you have the before picture and then the after picture and take a look at the home the ranch home that's adjacent to the rebuild you can see again what we're talking about in terms of height and then there is a front and center picture of one eighty five dolphin road and the home that's adjacent is a two story home and then the home that's next to it is a ranch home but you can see how the new of the rebuild is so much higher than both of these and finally visuals we're moving to two batts road picture on the left is the original home and then we have two photographs of the current rebuild on bet's road it's a home that's being rebuilt it's currently in process right now and again if you take a look on the photograph that's at the bottom the home that steve is is pointing to that was the first rebuild in  neighborhood that at the time seemed to be somewhat high then he coming down the street you can see what we're looking at right now and twenty two bath and then the home adjacent to that is a two story it's a cape but it is a two story cape so our neighborhood has been transformed and we at the end of this presentation will be asking you to approve our article it is a two thirds a typical neighborhood house two story house is twenty seven and a half feet tall from average grade to rooftop this is my house it feels really short these days but most of the houses in the neighborhood are about that height and it gets law allows construction of thirty six feet to the midpoint of the roof on a slope roof if it were a flat roof this is how big a flat roofed house could be at thirty six feet this this house is this example is actually just a an expansion of a house that was built behind me but you can see that thirty six foot midpoint you could have a height of the house total height of forty four feet which is very high obviously this is on a thirty two foot base as i said it's based on the example of the house that was built behind me if they had decided to instead of have nine foot ceilings go with eleven foot ceilings and make the roof  twelve twelve pitch instead of eleven twelve pitch they would have still been within the current zoning bylaws it's a big house and it's a full story higher than my house full story we settle on a moratorium height limit of thirty two feet in consultation with builders realtors developers and neighbors we also looked at the heights of past home renovations and single to two story conversions in the neighborhood to understand the potential effect of a thirty two foot limit this is not a line in the sand this is a compromise this is a good compromise figure so what does thirty two feet mean for home construction let's go back to my house for a  bit i can just about touch my ceilings they're all seven foot six in and going around the neighborhood collecting petitions the first thing i did when i walked in the four year was tried to see how high the ceiling was and they're all seven foot six and even some a little smaller and they go right on up but a lot of the houses have livable space in the attic also at seven foot six the current taste in new construction appears to be nine foot ceilings with significant third for living  area there's nothing inherently wrong with that unless you're trying to squeeze it onto a seven thousand square foot lot and a neighborhood that has much smaller houses and if you want trees in your yard by the way that the thirty  thirty foot midpoint of this house is still six feet below what it could be under current zoning by law the thirty two foot height limit will still allow nine foot ceilings on the first and second floors as well as  committee town meeting members home we have spoken with many town meeting members and other residents town wide so we've done what we think is a very very good job of reaching across town and having a discussion about this article town council reviewed the petition and crafted language for the motion for article six to ensure effective implementation the motion needs approval as i said of two thirds of town meeting this evening if approved belmont citizens for responsible sounding will work with the planning board to develop a town wide consensus on appropriate amendments to the  and will help to adopt the amendments at the two thousand sixteen annual town meeting we thank you for your attention this evening we respectfully request your support in favor of article six word of clarification on this article on article seven i remind you that if you have any kind of financial interest he's there as a developer or a real estate agent a lawyer or a home in the district that you simply identify that when you come to speak at the microphone the discussion is open for the motion under article s mr stan vinson stands town meeting member precinct three i congratulate the presenters on a very clear presentation i thought that really got the key points across town meeting considered a similar set of restrictions in the general residence district first in the form of a moratorium one year morator the general residence district came up at last year's town meeting i prepared a analysis of the sales in the general residence district that had occurred since the mor m and compared the prices that homeowners received for their house in the post moratorium period normalized to the assessor's valuation of those houses to the prices that homeowners in the general residence district had obtained before the moratorium was in place when presumably a much larger structure or structures could have been built and what that an showed was that essentially all or not really no qualification is necessary all of the upside of being able to build a much larger structure went to the developer and essentially none of it went to the homeowner that was a surprising result to me one would think that if you could sell your house and something much bigger and therefore more valuable could be built you would be able to command a higher price the data is not a gigantic dataset so i need to qualify in that way but one argument that people tend to make or might make against a moratorium like this is economic harm to citizens who are considering selling their house and i just wanted to let tom meeting members know that in the case of the general residences tricks such an analysis was not did not bear out the idea that  home sellers really participate at all in the upside it's it's the developers who get just about all of that i strongly support this article yet yes or price armstrong precinct seven although i live in the general residence section so i wouldn't be impacted by this i have a question i saw that in the warrant there is discussion of coming to a consensus based on land use policies and goals of the town as laid out i looked on the website and i couldn't find any sort of comprehensive or master plan does the town of belmont have one outlining such land use policies does anyone mr moderator does anybody know we have a plan outlining any policies  yes sammy baghdadi chair of the board of selectmen i think you're probably talking about our zoning bylaw right which divides the town into districts and now no so i so i was curious and mr moderator if please to that i was curious since i was looking at our surrounding towns and cambridge bed sorry cambridge lexington watertown wolf and they all have sort of broad policy statements envisioning for the community they were published between two thousand and two and two thousand and fifteen going through transportation housing land use open space etc so sort of a again a master a comprehensive plan sort of guiding these these policies th than x to support the larger vision yes about if i'm a mysterious moderator about oh i say six years ago five six years ago the planning board did adopt a comprehensive plan and i think you should be able to find that online and it talks about just the things that you are that you're raising ok and then my i have one more question if i may mr marketer yes go ahead ok so i so i've only difficult to build new things and i was struck by when i was reading up on prop two and a half how dependent we are on property taxes so i'm wondering if any thought has been put into the implications of this is owning amendment in so far as property taxes are lost potential property taxes so that so that we could avoid having to do another override in the in the future m tommy member of largest the very interesting question i don't think we really give it consideration digges the quality of life issue clearly a bigger house might have a higher assessment i think it's nominal in terms the amount of additional taxes we would recoup from that i prefer to precinct seven we don't have a comprehensive assessment of this but property tax assessment generally speaking is based on occupy will screw square footage area not cubic footage per se and so the height of the house might not have lowering the height of the house might not have that much impact now obviously real estate sales and things like that come into it all right thank you on the value house thank you question has i happened to live across town in kendall gardens in precinct three hoppus it mclean and our neighborhood is also a neighborhood of small homes we are also vulnerable and had an incident of such a home being built actually next to our own home which  done six or seven or eight years ago upset us and upset a lot of people in our neighborhood i'm wondering why this moratorium even though it is  finite in time and an interim and interim article why it would not be better to include the whole town for the  i particularly want to question this because if this moratorium goes into effect in the neighborhood that the proposed i'm wondering if that doesn't put time pressure on developers on our neighborhood to do something before it becomes a town wide by law can anybody address that for me i don't know if the planning board or anybody is like me would care to answer that i was told that you can amend a citizen's petition so we didn't introduce an article to make a town wide i was told by the chair of the plain board that in fact you are going to look at this from a town my perspective but i share your concern about the possibility that within that years time in my said we have as a board as a planning board agreed to take on a wider town zoning look at this you know with the intent to do it all before the year is up if we don't get it all it will just be for a matter of time in this moratorium could be extended if we need more time to finalize the town wide but we do intend on taking that thank you mr collin welcome back i'm martin cohen town meeting member precinct three and now that i'm back from my sabbatical i'd like to urge all those who may be undecided to support this motion but first i should mention that my daughter lives in the middle of this the raleigh area and if that is a financial interest it's been announced i don't think there's any point in my reiterating repeating any of the arguments that have been made i think they've been quite clear and sorrow but implied in mention rather briefly so that it might have been missed is something that i'd like to call a wake up call said in previous town meetings i was only in by a lot needs a thorough review and much amendment and somehow tham how it's been this consider this a wake up call let's do something here zoning by all that's good for belmont so let's do it back to fall town meeting a plan so that we don't have to wait a year giving developers last time to jump on the bandwagon and buy and build at the thirty nine foot level so just a thought  thank you ben bauer precinct six mr moderator i'm just curious some people buy big homes because they like because as other people buy becomes because they need space for their families in these examples that have been put forward do we know how many people are occupying the six or seven houses that were offered in the presentation moderator elizabeth soup you precinct two since one thousand nine hundred seventy my family and i have lived in precincts for precinct eight and precinct t four and eight years ago one of our sons was living in this very area that we are discussing tonight and so is a good grandmother i spent a great deal of time in that area but hadn't been back until this came on the warrant so i have taken it upon myself to spend two different half hour periods in that neighborhood and i wanted to repeat it just because i wanted to get  feeling for it and what i have noticed irrespective of comparing sizes or anything is that with the addition of the buildings that we have heard about tonight the neighborhood seems to have cleaned itself up it seems to look better than it did before now i noticed the same thing because i do walks and such as this when the waverly fire house was being turned into condominiums and as that was completed the area waverly street also houses were painted gardens were put in the it seemed as though there was more pride in the neighborhood and so i certainly vote for this amendment and i just want to say that anything that can be helped to improve our town so that it is a place of great pride in every precinct where we live should be commended is there further discussion say non we're going to take a voice vote and then electronics vote all those in this requires two thirds all those in favor of the motion under article six please say i i those oppose nay be clearly passes but let's take an electronic vote so we have forty seconds and what you'll do is press one for yes and two for no and this doesn't show how you vote is simply shows that you vote because it's only through a roll call that we know how you when he three seconds and keep sliding keep sliding plan please all right we'll check that and mr dean mr moderator what happened with me was mine didn't show up initially when we were doing the attendance because i didn't push the button hard enough you got the clearly this passes what is the absolute vote total requires two thirds to thirty eight to twenty four so the motion under article seven is a profound q thank you of plenty board in town meeting member at large move that under article seven the reading of the proposed amendment to the town zoning by of our pertaining to sex and six d point seven he dispensed with the same being set forth in town vote to amend section sixty of the zoning by a by inserting a new section sixty point seven single family dwellings as an alternative to a two family dwelling and remember the remaining sections accordingly as set forth in full under article he went through the town clerk's office in the state ethics commission and filed the written disclosure form and i'm going to ask him before before he and with allison present this evening for his oral disclosure stefano town meeting member precinct two planning board member warrant committee member i did in fact called the state ethics commission and disclosed to them and discussed with them what i had discussed at the w briefing about a week ago and i feel to the best of my ability that i can judge quite fairly and adequately on the above article mi thank you liz allison tom meeting member precinct three vice chair of the planning board the background for this article is the general residence rezoning that was approved by town meeting in at the spring town meeting one year ago the purpose of that rezoning was to give was to the planning board tools for dealing with a set of issues very similar to those you've heard about of care downs in the general residence in district the residents in the general resit district came together they developed a set of recommendations the planning board worked with them and town meeting passed these articles which gave the planning board excellent new tools for dealing with these problems but these tools range from special permits to a set of performance requirements and a variety of other instruments they were excellent t planning board has tried to make good use of them and we think we've largely succeeded the development that has taken place is much more consistent with the character of the neighborhood just speaking personally i'm happy i'm accustomed to serving on boards where not everyone tells you you're doing a wonderful job but on the whole the neighborhoods have been pleased with what we've done and i believe the developers have in addition to the housing that has been built that consistent with the character of the neighborhood the there is there are numerous developments that would have come forward they did not and to some extent that is as important as what was approved many of them are being rethought and we are confident that when they come forward they will be consistent with the character of the neighborhood however so i should pause here and i think the entire planning board is very appreciative of what the of the residents of the general district of the general residence district and the vote of town meeting there is however one additional tool that we would like to have and that's what we here to ask you for tonight there is a situation that has risen already risen once and we're quite confident it is going to arise again that is a case where a developer has a reasonably large lot say eight thousand square feet and ninety feet of frontage under the current violence with special permit the developer can put a large two family structure on that lot the setback at the side setbacks in the general residence district or ten feet that means that the developer can build a seventy foot wide structure obviously the planning board works with the developer to make that as architecturally appropriate as possible in some cases we've reduced the size but nevertheless it is a large structure so what we are what we have done is to craft an amendment that when the plant when a developer or an owner has a lot of at least eight thousand square feet and ninety feet of frontage the planning board can allow by special permit can allow the developer to build two single family homes what i'm i'm going to talk briefly about how we crafted this amendment and then my colleague joe de stefano is going to do a deep dive into the details of the particular into a do a deep dive into the particulars of the amendment itself how did we develop it we were aware that there were two concerns  perhaps i should say one overarching concern and two particular concerns the overarching concern was that everything we did be consistent with the spirit of the twenty four king general residence rezoning passed by town meeting secondly there was a concern that we not undertake a wholesale rezoning of the general residence district and thirdly there was a as part of that there was a concern that we not anything that happened should not be disproportionately impact for a particular neighborhood and finally we wanted to be certain that we could control the size and mass of your single family homes the purpose of this is to have smaller single family homes built on smaller lots by special permit not to allow oversized single house family homes on small lots to deal with these concerns we reviewed approximately two thousand one hundred and twenty lots in the general residence district we looked at a variety of criteria we chose eight thousand square feet and ninety feet of footage as a standard that gives us approximately thirty six properties that could come before the planning board and seek to create two smaller single family homes rather than one large two family we think that's appropriate it's a small fraction of the total homes a total of thirty six property