geoffrey wheeler and spencer go welcome everybody the first order of business is the continued public hearing for eleven through thirteen c street which is a special permit to construct a new two family home in the general residence district we've already had two meetings on this we've asked the applicant to come back to us in terms of the driveways on the property there was an issue with some of the deal with portions of the driveway being in the front of the residence with the applicant like to come forward and explain what's happened at this point and your response to our questions be one on the right the two cars on each side are along side the house now you know and there's just a tiny portion when they swing in the just cut just a radius to enter into the driveway which removed and will also make a recommendation to add three more street trees which you will provide that which we will provide we will provide so what you've done is you've moved the house over approximately a foot yet we moved the house although one foot to the right to create more space they had to make it easier access to to drive in and out and it and our driveways now are conforming with with the way we'd like to tiriel that we talked about it's all call the thank you wonderful thank you very much do we have any comments from the audience would anybody like to speak please could come to the microphone m audience would like to speak comment on this you're the the butter i just want to know what the footage is between the last line to the gemini i think i think for this but we do not have the four members to be able to vote who have been through this process for this permit for the special permit this evening because karl couldn't be here so we can't vote because we need four votes to pass that what we will do is we will continue the public hearing and we will get to this as expeditiously as we can so thank you i don't even answer all our  questions so as far from what i'm hearing from the board and from my own reaction we're front and i'm hearing from the neighbors and the the butter's you've satisfied their requests so we will continue the public hearing and we'll move this along is quite quickly as as we can do can we put this on for the nineteenth ok we'll put this on for the ninety then we'll continue the public hearing and we'll have a vote at that thank you thank you  versus revise whatever front sides and rear and then we have to say plan did you want to go through anything else because we can't can we we need to hope i mean the obviously the whole package is important but that it was elevations the comparison of the elevations and that once i bring that showed the difference can we get op i don't want to take that away from you and whatever you may want to say you do ok before we before we get into the details of this we need to know that this is a new public hearing for three ninety five conquered avenues to modify the design the site plan that was approved to construct the new building in a local business one zone this we did this in may i believe and since that time the applicant has gone through the process of designing in costing out the building and our understanding is what was going to happen last time is the third floor was going to be added to the building the building was going to be got renovated when they when they did the engineering in the end they did the cost it turns out that it's not feasible to renovate the building but it's more feasible it works out and it costs less to construct a new building so that's what this new public hearing is about on this and it's for a site plan and design review i have a technical question to ask jeffrey though if this is a if this is a new public hearing do we have a public hearing notice because are you saying that this is a modification i mean this is  yet don't go based on the kitchen just because they tend to does a public hearing but this is simply a modification and the second part of that is more important he is looking to that the applicant is seeking to modify the existing designs i plan to review so this is like when cushing village comes to us and they have a change although that's a false pressure permit in everything right and we can decide if it rises to be a major issue or not so in that case right i gather th play yeah yeah let's go with what we have in the let's see where ok i have more stuff if we need it but i i think we have enough ok i think we do remember to introduce yourself to the the t v audience at home and i will see the president my name is our craft and i'm avenue ninety five hundred whose story building that's great beside the post office building and directly across from the armenian church yes ok i just want to give us you have the site so everybody understands that y it's directly next a post office on concord out on the north side of concord so what happened was we we designed a project when we need it we went through the the full design of building systems structural bracing systems and architectural energy code issues as it turned out when we did it the price came in much higher than anticipated much higher than the early estimates contractor that actually anticipated and it was determined by the to prefer bettors that it would be substantially less expensive to actually tear the building down a building that there's a lot of complications on the lower floor there's a lot of complications what we proposing to do is is basically to construct a new building very much in the likeness of the proposal of the approved building we had before we aren't changing any of the things that we had by right and we we had some exemption relative to height because we had gone through the dover amendment and been approved for the dover amendment so we had some zoning relief from that perspective we are not violating any setbacks and in any direction we will we are adding about one thousand and seventy two square feet above grade to what we had before where we're losing three thousand seven hundred square feet below grade which didn't count against us so we need two more parking  it for thirteen so the sort of the same conditions apply the dimension on if you go to the rear elevation center or second you can see that the way that the glass flared out on both sides building now is proposed to be fifty feet across completely all the way through what we're doing is on both sides of the building currently there is there are there are light wells and planters that are to the answer to that more than two feet out where used were were utilizing that space against the post office side to increase the building two feet from ford from the previous forty eight to two fifty feet and that's just the drive while it's not changing anything there was a curb there and there was there were light wells prior to in the previous version on this side we decided to actually increase take the wells out leave the line where it was because it's a very tight space as it is so we thought the extra two feet would actually be helpful on the rear elevation where taking as much space as we can without doing any anything to it to jeopardize the drive around so we need as much space as we could because we're losing a lot of storage space in the basement for books so what we're what we're proposing to do and if you go to the front or the or the section maybe we're proposing to build a building that's that's going to be twenty five inches higher  total because we're trying to get a little bit more fourth floor height to use density to store more books or our racks are going to be higher thing and and such so that's that's our proposal we also eliminating the need for the stair in the front or eliminating the ramp and in its place where we're putting additional planting in front of the building we're still putting a seawall as was desired i think by the town so the building isn't really changing very much it's the side elevations are both changing there they're going to be a little more contiguous with the neighborhood in terms of of a single masonry wall versus we were having we had panels before on the top so now it would just be masonry wall on both sides of the building very similar to the building around it and in that neighborhood and we actually could drop the elevation but we would propose we would prefer not to the reason why why we would prefer not to as we want to put the thought of what takes on the roof we have forty two inch parapet for safety fence around it and we have a donor that wants to do the right thing and wants to donate the floor overtakes and and and i guess be responsible on this project so we would like to be able to keep that feature and keep the floor of what takes and and keep the  it the mechanical equipment is being fully enclosed and out of view so there is no there are the same improvements that existed prior previously continue t exist the same testing that we had promised continues to be in place so nothing has really changed except obviously the building is coming down going to be a new build new going up i think in many ways the building is improved in terms of of the way the concord at st front is addressed in terms of being at great to make it more convenient for handicapped access and allowing a little bit more of a planter in front of the building the i think the improved in terms of being consistent with the architecture around it and really the other parts of the building haven't changed very much so that from that perspective we feel could you just remind us again the parking issue is is soft how many how many parking actually insists are are are required so thirty two parking spaces bylaws if we're allowed to have offsite agreements for parking right next door it's actually a meucci the agreement i'll give you after this it's actually a mutual agreement with the post office post office currently parks on  during the day and nasser really has a very very minimal use for parking during the day there when they need parking it's more in the evenings when anything about and so the post office has said has has signed a letter saying you're free to use and i know you just been looking at this for the first time you have been through this through this process before so yeah i know it's it's it's it's hard candy but it's not changing as much as it appears in the six in this image because we're still using the same wood doesn't show up here it is for the glass in the same way that we were before this is simplifying the little bit by thinking of that one fold as a cost issue but it's also not necessary more because the reason that fold was in there was because of the ramp so now that the ramp is out we can make it a straight plane and it was a significant cost savings to not have that fold in the building you still have we still have that folded over hangs over the new purdue or and we still have and there is still an angle that disappointed if these statics i thought you had a really very clever building going on there and i know it had a lot to do with trying to mix and match with the existing facade but i like the siding and i like the fall and i like that there was a little bit of nuance this is feeling a little block ish to me and the windows are these slit sort of windows that you know it just looks very very institutional there's nothing in the back not that anybody's going to see it but on the side there's a lot of y again that's yeah the railroad track over there and yeah so the rear wheel in energy efficiency in the rear the reason why we to go is because actually that that's where our electra holism is it actually is more of a problem than a solution right but windows in there right articulation without the ramp we we were able to live one thing but we are that elevation when you look into it the two story space the wood that we're proposing is not going to change much at all we still have the visibility  brick and panels and the panels that were up there and i guess we had to get more of the panel so i mean i'm going just complaining because i think it's was a pretty building before and now i heard functional looking not not that there's anything wrong with the images may show that way but i think the building is going to is going to be an improved building and and certainly we can and we still have those panels right at the windows and their library in times well i look forward to that and yeah it's going to be it's going to be quite a spot an ice i suspect on the side here too that that the face will have more textures than we see in this yes it's like i said it's you mean the money shots in the front yeah the commune of real shots in the back yeah  yeah where it's it's all it's storage back of library racks and the lecture hall so there really is very little need for natural light and actually natural light isn't helping us at all mass of the building is fairly substantially the same there's a difference of what's the square footage difference one thousand and seventy two square feet one thousand and what's the difference in the floor plate slightly larger issue which was our primary issue has been taken care of so the issue before the board i don't know if the board wants especially since we have new members if you'd like to think about this who are until the next meeting or if you have thoughts because we're looking at this from a site plan and design point of view not a special permit point of view so it's a different concept in terms of this so we're not getting into the design of the building particularly the size of the building or those other issues it's how the building sits on the lot from our point of view if the new members of the board think that they'd like to look at this for a while and we'll come back to this at the next meeting we can do that people have feelings within the context of the say played in design review if this is a substantial change from what we permitted last time that's that's the question that's the question we have to decide at this point is the building that's going to be on the site substantially different steve frankly without seeing what we approved last time so my thought is that if i don't have any disagreement that we continue this until the i don't we have two members of the board and we have a third member we have a third in the fourth member actually who were not here i think i was the only one here before that voted off when carl and carl isn't here carl and i were the only one that saw the full presentation and we voted on this on approval and i understand your time frame on this and i'm cognizant of that and i think we'll be able to take care of that but i think in all fairness to the new members of the board they should be able to review what we approved last time and talk about that and we can move forward on the night the president and others would we don't see a reason for  was there any thought given to holding one side of the building on the lot line having access to the grass together on one side of the building you have the space to allow sites spaces were actually the window wells that existed and so there is a two foot plus or minus a little plus actually a curb and there are some planting there are not very successful planting but there's planting there and then there's window wells in between for the basement so we're eliminating those and in one side two to make the building two feet wider on the other side to increase the drive aisle because it was very tight parking o special because it's with the government this is the reciprocal park agree with it turns out as i recall from your presentation last time that in terms of the parking which was one of the crucial issues i remember that we talked about is that most of there's very little activity or visitors during the day at the museum i mean there certainly are people that are there in residence and there are resident scholars who come and work there but there isn't a lot of traffic here and there aren't very many people there which is actually why you can let the post office use some of your parking spaces most of during the day says most of the park you know but yeah i've been been by and it's it's the in the evening when the museum has events that that's when the parking is required so and the i think we we we did a whole chart of sort of history and forecast and i don't believe that it ever exceeded people on the day i think it was ten people when at the board meeting yes and then in the evening it could be a lot of it yes and i remember we talked about the parking at the they're quite parking to use that at the immediate church across the street and this is a better deal i mean from the building's point of view it's a safer because that can be a busy street in the evenings that it's hard to see and there is a crosswalk there in front of the post office but this is a better answer it was a better answer it was actually was good fortune that you guys push for this issue because it actually made a better outcome by by talking through it and actually protected nasser and in a way that they hadn't been protected because the post office i was parked there and there was no agreement yet and  and so and i think that only answer questions that people have and get them up to speed on this ok thank you thank you very much so jeffrey we will put this on the calendar general residence of zoning was put in place in two thousand and fourteen jeffrey it's twenty fourteen yes twenty fourteen we were all through that process and it sunsets is it may or june of june thirtieth twenty twenty eighteen which means we need to do something about it and have a prepared to go to town meeting in june correct and start not june may it may prefer day for april it's the first one many citizens in town as over developing delmon there were houses that were built that were perceived to be too large for the context of the neighborhoods that they were in and  yeah these houses could be built right and you see the changes that houses could be built by right and there were very few development controls on them the citizens petition came forward to control it this is the mcmansion ization and the belmont which is also reflected in the s r c citizens bitch and changing so we went through a process it lasted for five months it was the better part of of planing year but the focus was as we get on the end of it and general residence the changes were made at that point so it's sunsetting now we have to look back on that we have to decide if with we're happy with the way it is if we want to leave it the way it is if we want to make some changes small changes or we want to mix substantial change and  march thirtieth which is another six weeks and then obviously you have town meeting on april thirtieth so there's a lock that has to be done between january second unable thirtieth in order to get something before town meeting now there are three options the town school the board has first because obviously you're going to be making recommendations on meaning you can just simply roll over and either  either have the sunset just simply become you know another three years you know how the sunset removes so that the regulations stay in place the way they are you can just say to heck with this these have not worked out these haven't done what we want to do let's scrap them and go back to what it was or the third option is the third option is looking at what has been done what was done i should for not in not miss it wasn't just sven speaking for themselves but what they were hearing from the public the that there were some tweaks that need to be made but they didn't want to go back to someone once called the get so so we so because zoning can be so complicated and we will be i we will be relying heavily because that is the first tuesday of the month but that really date is really terminate him by you all you can make it that thursday which would be whatever thursday is it that week or you can make it the second tuesday which w then for the public to come especially that holiday can be a little crazy but that's for you to decide we do need to get staff doesn't need to get guidance on that date by the time you leave today forward i mean i was so to say in terms of the timeline i mean we have to go through this process no matter what we decide to do because we have to even if we decided that we were happy with everything in place right we'd still have to go through make a decision about that and i think yes i think the timeline is good i think in general i'll just make this comment about this i think there's them issues and i think we've talked about this some process issues yes but i think in general my sense is right from the the people that we just spoke into and the  ground which are as important as anything else i think there's a general sense that this is this is worked out pretty well in terms of controlling the wild west  we will be doing a photographic survey to bring that point home that chuck just mentioned in terms of what was going on prior to twenty fourteen what's been going on since twenty fourteen and to the extent that we can what was submitted to the board but ultimately approved and constructed back and there can be a significant change in that as well  actually has been built as a result of this process i think that will make a nice neighborhood the next i apologize if this is so difficult to read this is actually what was amended in the twenty fourteen six different sections of the bylaw and what i tried to do here is show what it was prior to twenty fourteen and what it has been since twenty fourteen i thought this would definitions we added definitions for a single family into family dwellings in townhouses initially the thought was that we would somehow craft designing by law that the definitions would be really important what we ended up with the definition important but they're not critical to ultimately what was passed and what actually drives the zoning so those two those are simple things that really aren't that big of a deal the good to have in place for future zoning changes that may come up where those may be important but they're not critical but the bottom half of this is much more critical non conforming is the bugaboo is the thorn in everybody's side  that piece was some of the most the greatest change occurred to one that was one section i'm going to go into detail in further on that later the second section was use regulations ass was everything about by right everything was allowed by right to change that occurred to families with choir special permit single families required to sign in sight plainer view there was nothing in the single family as built planned prior to this you didn't necessarily win a project was finished from construction you didn't have to submit and as bill pointed so there was no really verification that exactly what was built on the ground was indeed what was permitted in terms of at lease site layout so now the building specter has that authority to step in and say wait a minute this doesn't look quite we want you to submit a plan and as bill planned what was built  and again that a five thousand fifty foot frontage coupled with designers i preview clearly there is an incentive to do single family homes and the general residence district the hope being that what you would see would be maybe some more smaller single family homes i don't know for anybody who all live in town but there are a lot of small single family homes in town and they really single family homes in belmont part of the problem and i have heard this since i've worked here since day one is there's very few housing options for once you you know raise your kids and done with the high schools and now they're in college and you want to stay in belmont  few housing options for unless you want to stay in the big house and you have there's nothing really small single family thing to move into so the hope was that maybe this would help generate some of the smaller single family homes someone also said during the public hearing process that this district is called the general residence or strict it's not called the two family district and so therefore then it should be a mix of single into shouldn't just be and what was occurring is that  front setback as another with another major piece of this puzzle they were quantum into is twenty feet however you had an option that the b houses they were close certainly take the average and you could use that as your front side but that was an option and a requirement and what we had being built at the time were houses that were being built at twenty equipment prior to this there wasn't any requirements for us there wasn't any set back requirements and so we get stuck in these little teeny side yards and the neighbor you know benefits from all the noise right but none of the input you know i'm saying you know and so b it was great that the seven thousand square feet had been established there was nothing the lot sizes between seven and ten thousand square feet and i used ten thousand because ten thousand can be subdivided to form two five thousand square foot lot so you now have a lot that is relatively large for two family which means that you can build a relatively large t family home and in one thousand square foot law and unfortunately that happened in during the the public hearing process for this particular property everybody kept saying oh it's too bad you can't do two single family homes on it well the house a allow a lot that is greater than seven but less than ten to be subdivided into two lots and you can then build two single family homes as opposed to doing one large to family and  non conforming is probably one of the most confusing things in the zoning code there i always tell applicants there are attorneys who make millions of dollars arguing about non conforming what is what is enough for me basically non conforming means it was something that was built legally the laws changed and you could not believe it today the great one of the great examples is at one point in time the side said back was eight feet in the town and it's now been changed ten so those houses that were built a one of the major change that occurred was that it was people were complaining that things that were non conforming it just seemed it appeared that they just got you could do whatever you wanted with them in your pocket the first is that if the lot did not meet lot size a lot frontage but what you were building conformed to what they were to the dimension regulations meaning you could do it secondly is if the building so in pairs case her set back is eight feet per side side back as they say if she wants it if she put in addition that was  were removed and basically the line that's been highlighted is what has been done has been in place since anything that is non conforming lot side your house that the property that is non conforming in terms of size of frontage that makes them non conforming anything that is non conforming with quite a special permit by the planning for previously the special  and this change made it the planning board that they making being that some of the issues are designed related they're not legal necessarily don't what appeals tend to deal more with legal issues putting more ten done is used there's callouses an example where the eight foot setback of the addition of ten feet that addition even even though that addition night meets the dimensional regulations because the structure is nonconforming it needs a special permit from the plain board so this will be something this will be one of the major issues that this board are we looking at the single residency district which you have also in europe to look up as well where the small stuff will be back to the playing back to the zoning and you will be dealing with that truly which has a tree which may have an impact on a neighborhood a large addition or a new home and i also think i mean i think you're right in terms of that and that's what has taken a lot of time on the word yes yes exactly the time i mean because the board first permit has all of those pieces right to it and so it it's a machine of itself it doesn't matter if it's big or small that it has it moves forward in an it takes time in the takes process right right it takes time  so sure so the way that i've broken down the analysis so far is looking at the applications by project type so we have decks dormers additions and new construction and the analysis breaks down by a but process time whether or not it was approved withdrawn or denied whether or not it was a single or two family application and so you can see that for the most part that that's why this happens and then moving onto dormers as you can see debt over time to put the board has processed them more quickly they also have been the applications have been for smaller projects with regard to t l a than they were originally so the process time has been increasing and total t l a has been decreasing over time where people want to put dormers in that were they weren't in the driveways but but but they were they were big for where they were and i think that became on these so that that's what's happening roof yes so it's simply just not the dorm or it becomes a much bigger project and i know you all know the story as while you're at it you are that expression while you're at it and it's clear that a lot of  applications were while you're at it give me the walk in closets jacuzzi tub yeah little office space you know blah blah blah blah blah and it becomes more of a want versus a need in in in in so we work really hard trying to make sure that this is you know what they need versus what they want in and then you as well try to scale it back and get it to do it sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't moving on to additions since the amendments were adopted there have been seven applications six have been approved one was withdrawn and zero were denied it appears that the the larger the proposed t l a the longer it takes to process in general the average process time for a one family edition is eighty four days and for a two family edition is fifty five days so two really additions are processed more quickly and then lastly with new construction there have been ten applications seven have been approved three were withdrawn and zero were denied on average to family new construction takes one hundred twenty eight days to process whereas single family new construction takes on average fifty five days to process and they're actually have not been any new construction applications since april of twenty sixteen so just to be clear  encouraged to withdraw instead of getting a denial the reason being is because if a project did not mind you cannot apply again for that project for another two years so it's better out you're better off if you think it's the ship's going down you're better off staying i want to withdraw and then revived application and come back as opposed to getting denied and then having to wait two years so a lot of times that's why that's in some board told staff that we are really supposed to work and to really make sure the application that comes forward is quite complete as possible as well as to the extent that we can guess it done we wanted all the land that you do everything was in place and those are the kind of projects that we want to see going forward it's easy it's better for us and it's better for the application as well and if it moves for both of those projects they moved forward pretty expeditiously from my point of view and so for anybody who's out there that wants to do an application and talk to jeffrey and jeffrey will give you the model and that will move things for going to show you do you so do you want this first meeting listed here on this timeline to be on the fourth or the night so so we're set for the for the yep fourth in the eightieth right now there we go right and we will begin the process i have to say that that was a very nice presentation i believe some other things what we typically do for the new members of the board when we have a case that comes before us we define the neighborhood  define the neighborhood it's generally it's generally a certain area and it's the uses that or similar it's contiguous and this is the basis for the the the data in the metrics that we used to compare things so in other words within this neighborhood is a building here that three post is this going to be a really big building in the neighborhood is it going to be like a lot of them is it to be different that just helps us get a first look and spencer has been doing his job yes magic and these are much more advanced maps than we've had before this is the they are in the process of deciding how to move forward if they're going to move forward part of the way they do that is by we establishing what the neighborhood is and then we will staff we'll go in and and then they can use those numbers in thinking about their project what they're going to do they can use those numbers as a starting point to decide whether or not what they're about to what they're thinking of doing to their property is it too big is it too small does it seem to fit within that within that metric matrix the and we have had some instances where the board has to find a neighborhood and we've come up with the numbers and they have ridges and the so i mean of course i mean i don't want and you know eastern massachusetts is very heterogeneous in in terms of these things it's not like you're an eleven have or you're in a place where there are you know ranch is on you know six thousand square foot watts one right after the yeah it is the other and somebody does there or they're very different and you know the mix uses and everything and you get a situation like knock street and fifteen really we stopped at is that carlton but then for fifty three for this current project we've extended the neighborhood across cross and to incorporate those houses as well the project is a single family very nice yeah so one seventy two and seventy four we had sort of a similar situation with slate as lexington is typically a dividing street and so we struggle with how to define the neighborhood here two three it was three here one two three four five you know before they took down the other church it was five churches oh my god like this like my church walk and you know i have to wonder why they built all the street that included there that's a group home the house that is on the corner of lexington and belmont here that's a group home as well i mean but but but they are old but the improvements themselves are you know ninety years old and they're basically two family house i don't know the one on the one on the corner of belmont is right that used to feel it looks like i have been through how many interagency of this in any case i think it's important that we begin the process to look at what we're going to do on waverley square and pleasant street whether we treat them and we've gone through this process if we treat them as individuals or if we treat them as one part of things and i thought what's important to begin the discussion of this before we move forward have is you have a pleasant street which actually becomes part of way we use what and it's local business to right here this whole purple color and that actually is the and secondly what's also come up is the property owner here is has been actively putting together a development plan for that property and trying to work with other real works there's a lot of stuff going on there plus it has tremendous access to open spaces and this is all mclean further down here you've got beaverbrook rock meadow so there's a lot going on here could be really  number of this here what is encouraging about what's happening and where really square the community have the courage to think the fact that the triangle parcel there will be developed that's the par l where the tokyo choses and the developer doesn't control the bank of america part but he controls the other parts that's a good size site that's the biggest site in that part of the square for redevelopment and when you take a look at the studies playing studies that are in here that you take a look at that's the one that they focus on that this is got the buzz potential because it has land the issue is parking for a bunch of these things not being him not to have to do structured parking in any case that's going to be a mixed use that's going to be retail with apartments on the second floor that that happens that would be good in all our discussions about self worth and street in waverley square before the arguments as hollow much are they tied together  probably more so pleasant street the develop the potential to develop all parts of those probably and some place around the super dealership  then that it narrows and it becomes problematic that this portion here is and the super ruis of going to go anyplace so the portions south of that are the main developed for parcels there they have some issues with grade but they have good sight lines they have enough with to do things they are developing ball parsley and they will at some be developed at this point i think what would be useful to do is to look through the ones that jeffrey has provided us with just glance through and they're interesting and they point out some things that i think are relevant now but that's very much out of date i mean it's very expensive yeah yeah i know i know that just talks about the triangle there and so i i i think the structural issues structured oh i mean that i remember when they put the tea had it davis square and i remember one of my friends did the market analysis for what it's going to change and i think she said it was ten to fifteen years or so and it was about fifteen years before davis where became what it is now so in a case thank you jeffrey and i encourage everybody to take a look at this we will continue this conversation and we will at some point that's me and we also have to be aware that there are potentially projects that that might be proposed for any of these things that the planing forward either from a zoning point of view or from the point of view of either altering the zoning or putting an overlay district in might be helpful in terms of what we will see what tha thank you for the we have minutes to review and approve does anybody have we have minutes from what september  october seventeenth november seventh and of them burst sixteen i'm the only one who is here for the hip and can i do this by myself