good evening i'm liz allison chair of the planning board and i'd like to call the kids stay at home for fourth two thousand and six meeting of the planning board to order i'd like to begin by introducing my or homeowner forty seven pacing around first of all i appreciate your consideration of our request and this is my first planning board just about a year ago last september twenty fifth and we've been in the process of rebuilding it through the regular process but one thing that we had hoped to do was put in additional means of grass from our third floor because our bedroom is going to be up there and at the fire that destroyed our house last year where the fire started and how it happened anyone who might have been in the attic would not have been able to get out at the time that it was the middle of the night and we were awoken from sleeping to leave down the back stairs and as we're now having our bedroom up there it's really important to us to feel safe up there and we have originally wanted to put a second staircase in means of egress but because of our non  conforming property law and nature of the structure we didn't feel like we could afford the time that it would take to wait on the whole process to apply for a special permit for the whole renovation so reluctantly we decided it just wasn't down in nine minutes and the fire department didn't get there to look at it and that was fire private said it takes that long to respond and i thought oh my god their house burned down to nine minutes it was frightening and if this makes it if this makes it safer for those children to know they can get out of that house never to see the fear on that child's face again then without question i support an my name is john feely and i'm at forty five haitian road right next door or i own the house next door my in laws my mother in law lives downstairs and my brother in law so yeah i talk to chair and i'm in full support of what she's trying to do so i just thought i'd come and you know verbalize that for the board also cited fire safety as a reason for wanting a third forget we had a meeting glen clancy had a community development chief for sale the fire chief jeffrey wheeler and i had a meeting to discuss this because third floor gaps are somewhat problematic from the planning board's point of view given the considerations that town meeting has charged just with and the conclusion of the conclusion of that meeting was that if  that were more effective and more uniformly effective than adding a third floor again i say i say this not to minimize your experience in any way but to look up to see if this deck would you know do anything to the view that it doesn't doesn't increase the height of her home by any stretch because he my perspective as a neighbor it's up it's almost iraq you know it's it has little relevance in terms of you know damaging the the view with the neighborhood of the look of the neighborhood of my house yes i recognize that there are many ways to achieve fire safety and we have done everything that we can do and if you have questions about what other things that we could do that we're doing my contractor john early is here as well we have done absolutely everything we can and we've consulted with chief personally for his suggestions what he would recommend and that's a just a small portion of the picture for my family to be able to have quiet enjoyment of our space addressing the post traumatic stress which all the members of my family have have clinically diagnosed post traumatic stress from narrowly escaping with our lives having a small back gives us the peace of mind and then it's it's more about the sense of openness then like naming off each individual thing we can do to prevent fire because we've done all like we're doing all of the horse and we've been significantly impacted from our experience and we want to be able to move home and feel safe and we feel that what we designed with an architect is not something that will impact the neighbors negatively i'm also can speak from experience i've been a town meeting member for close to ten years i've been at all those town meetings when we talk about the new regulations that have gone into place and i feel strongly what people are trying to do and the intent of town meeting and i know many of you perhaps all of you have been there as well but what we're trying to do is keep the sense and the feel of our town the way we've come to know it and prevent a tiny house from being turned into a huge house that negatively impacts the neighbors and as we've heard from the neighbors and person and also in the letters that i presented it's not negatively impacting them but it's a huge positive impact on our mental health being able to have quiet enjoyment of our property members of the office of community development we realized that we were not going to get approved for our permit as we were requesting it so we took off the deck from the original permit request and then received a building permit for all the rest of our repairs to our house based on everything else in our architectural plans minus the deck the the porch that we're asking for is on top of an existing three season well what formerly was a three c's and some porch and some number of decades before i even own the house was turned into interior sunporch you know with heat and everything so if the roof existed of all of that all the  it it was all interior space below so when the rubber roof was laid for that i think at that point in the process we didn't realize that i don't remember exactly that the series of events but the only thing that's been put in so if we were to put a railing up we wouldn't have to cut into the rubber roof and compromise the roof but nothing else has been put in place there's no railings in place and the permit was approved with and of course the area that we're focusing on is on top of a preexisting four season room so the fire ripped through the house took off the roof structure and i put the roof structure back within all the codes of the setbacks so we're going to so then you know preparing that section of the existing stuff i replaced all that rubber roofing and the burnt structures underneath it at the same time my sister tempered up all the two by eight and a line that support the rubber roofing with the future coming to this moment in time where we may or may not get a permit  little deck on top of it and when we talk about debt we talk about just the track docking with sleepers under it because i incorporated the deck structure underneath the rubber roofing so that it's not intrusive are going to be seen like a deck on top of a roof it's just a little a little layer of decking like you know you would see track decking so that the post had to be put into this rubber roofing with the intent that maybe we'll get it if we don't get it we can just cut those posts down rubber kapil over what the railing on the porch and be done with it we're not forcing anything say that we were getting it we're just preparing for the the future that we yeah yeah yeah well that section that this deck on was previously flat was a flat roof deck they had rubber roofs on the front and back porches flat roofs so it's a natural to like go out there and stand full square foot is just a little section of it just when you go out because the deck is like twenty two feet long by say eight we just want wealth by six and a half laying over so i tear down our forty seven paysan road homeowner i think we might put two chairs out there but you know sit with a cup of tea occasionally it's not we're not planning to a grill a table entertain anything like that say that just right in my own head think if there's a way where you can get the security that you're looking for without having a full bonafide check and we make maybe make the railing a little bit shorter in height and it becomes exactly what you're looking for which is an emergency type escape thing and we make it more decorative rather than functional so your rails heights won't have to be forty two inches high they could be lower you could you would not be able to probably go out there because it would be against code just the railings would be lower but i'm just trying to think i'm just these atrocities going through my mind proportion because that dormer i built for a living i don't know if all you folks know what it looks like though when it goes up it's going to look huge compared to anything else that's on that street because it's not even remotely close in size so i'm just trying to see if there's some type of what i'm just going through compromises in my own mind to make you happy to really stay with the standards that were threatened to place as a board throughout the time with anybody who's come here whether they've had a fire or whether they're just looking for increased living area so that was of the questions that i have can i clarify just i'm not sure i understand correctly so the dormer at the front of the house has already been permitted that's allowed by rights and that is built according to the plans already so i'm i'm going i'm just confused it's it's on there now but what i'm saying this whole the whole process the way this whole the whole thing happened to me it puts this board in my opinion a very compromised position because what we could have did some tweaking here and there and trade something process by which some of this construction of taken place and i'm a little bit troubled it's not for the discussion here but we could take in discussing it with community development for me that made it a little bit challenging time to stand how they would say and access to a third floor deck area that's when even then yes approved and the question that i had then was it's essentially a railing system in a small area that would be a compromise but what would be the egress structure that you would utilize to get down because you referred earlier that the chief said or steve that there would be a rope ladder type of system or something so right now what we have in our temporary living situation which is a rental apartment also in belmont where we're also living our bedroom is also on the third floor is  ladder and that's what we would have and that's something that would be struck that would be on the it would not be it would not be permanently attached to the structure you just it's a temporary thing or if you can be basically they could put it's both the actual eat grass and the sense of security and safety of being up there and would this be an appropriate time to respond to your concerns about the process by which we did this and the hurricane in two parts so part of the process of what we've had to deal with for the last year has involved a very protracted fight with our insurance company that took six months before we could get even to the point where we felt like we could start designing and start on the process towards applying for a permit but at the same time that our insurance company just basically stonewalled us and wouldn't give us an open settlement that was anywhere close to what it cost to rebuild and we had completely adequate coverage even generous coverage so it wasn't about our coverage it was about the way the insurance company chose to deal with it and so that process took more than six months before we could even really feel like we could go to the drawing board but then at the same time we're also beholden to the insurance companies alternative living expenses section of our policy which has a finite limit on it and so we have to balance those things the cost of our rent of where we had to move to temporarily was triple the cost of our mortgage from owning our house so rental prices are extremely high right now in belmont so we had to feel we had to balance we could not afford to just like do this in the way that you might plan if you're planning to renovate your house because we knew we had slightly over a year maximum you know a few months more than that alternative living expenses that the insurance company would pay for so we after we met extensively and correspondent extensively with the office of community development in working out how we were going to make this happen so that we could start at least so so that's you know i'm sure that that's not i know that's not the ideal way to plan a renovation to just you know get what you can do first and then tack on the rest at the end but we felt like it was the only way that it's the only thing we could do because of how we were handcuffed by the insurance company in  negotiations i was going to say that in terms of the fire issue that it would not be necessary for the deck to be twelve feet wide that could be eight feet wide and and minimize the the visual appearance from the neighbors i think there's an important difference between this and some of the previous some of the other projects like this in that the first and second floors are already there and we're not dealing with someone who's coming in and proposing to add a second floor and a third floor  as we are on some of the other applications and i think i think we ought to recognize that difference compared to some of the other applications that are pending my only concern is if we if we go ahead and we went to war with the could somebody else say that well we don't have  concern or what i would want more information on is the alternatives i mean this seems to me to be a fire issue with the planning issue and in terms of like what does the fire chief say or what are the regulations were they dress from a third level living you you jeffrey you may be able to clarify that but it is it is clear that allowing a death on a third floor is not something that is required for a gris we we've heard that conversation we know the answer to that and i would pick up on what you've said and some  full experience but we need to look at this in terms of balancing the equities across all of the things floor yet applications that we're going to baton the fact that third floor and again houses in belmont last a really long time families move on the house remains and you know the concerns we have about thirty get applications given that we've heard from the chief there and i think you've heard here tonight that there are other ways to deal with the fire safety issue is that  are issues of privacy for other neighbors there's issues of outside noise not and i'm not expressing any doubt about it you're using it the way you described it but the next owners might not and then the deck there if you did this project was a combination of an expansion in living space and a design and i am certain every fire safety measure known to man that you could possibly encourage but the deck that's being requested i think the fire safety concerns would have been would be dealt with by the solution that the job described or indeed simply window and fire latter which is  widely used and i am very reluctant to see an expansion of third floor door space that we wouldn't be prepared to live with as a general principle and as i say i think we've heard some suggestions for dealing with a fire safety issue surely the size of the deck that's being requested goes beyond fire safety we get that that's very understand not being critical of this but what we say to you in fairness we need to say there are other questions that we haven't re use i think are assuming the answer which is well  does it does this allow for conversion to easy conversion into three family you know what do the interior plants look like and so on and from a graphical point of view how does not see how we say this is fine and other third story deaths are not fun it's hard to make  if you went back and watched our recent hearing on the third floor deck you would kind of see some of the things that we were wrestling with and the other case and so what we're struggling with here is how to try to accommodate you and your family and and help you get this is the end of this terrible ordeal over with but at the same time not creating a situation where every two family house in belmont comes to us for third floor deck either at the front of the house or the back of the house and so you heard kind of a suggestion of potentially a lower railing that ensures that this doesn't become a place for entertaining you know in the way that let's say the next owner might do i mean we've had other conversations about enforcement and putting conditions and we've concluded that those are extremely difficult for belmont to enforce so some condition like no ground hole or other thing like that just is not workable  and so then another possibility seems like shrinking the deck if you concluded that the railings were higher which i can imagine a family thinking very carefully about rather to have the smaller dock and higher railings deposed  clark railings but it feels like maybe this is something that we would want to sort of put back in your court to think about a little bit more rather than sort of potentially pressing us to though tonight at least that's my take i can't speak for the rest of the board the only other thought i have which is maybe completely out of bounds is that you have a window were to get out there  or there's like a fire door now the trouble with having a fire doors here we get has to be regulated so it can't be open and people can go out there but if there's a fire door with a bar that has suit you open it warm goes off i don't know if that's you go out the front if you can get out the window you've got a picture of there i guess you're going to have a ladder inside the cell and use that that way but  we certainly would not go comfortable of the views in every direction are around and there's tree is tree is the roof of my own garage more tree is tree is and the side of the three season porch of mr feelies house which i can see into from the second floor to so that's not any additional it gives zero additional views into anyone's space that i didn't already have from my second floor and i would be happy to video bring anyone on a chore but if truly does not give any additional views into any of the neighbors  i have this section of pace and road has very long lots so it's i'm not sure the exact number of feet but quite a number of feet to the back line of the property and all of the lots along there have very mature trees i'm not sure how old they are but my guess is they're probably around the age of the house or older so it truly does not give any less privacy to anyone around so i recognize that that's absolutely a concern to be considered but i think in this case it it really doesn't impact the situation another phone thing i heard mister apologize if i pronounced it wrong haglund say is that the first and second floor porches that's what the house was built with as far as i know there they were in there for decades longer than i have so i'm not building any additional structure i'm not expanding the square footage of the house and the portion of the deck is not within any of the setback lines it's on we understand a flat roof that was exactly the same before with ruins and something to stand on the third thing i want to respond to is the idea of the potential conversion to a three family or a third floor unit so it's my understanding that that absolutely wouldn't be allowed already by law in belmont it hadn't occurred to me as an issue and i know your concern is not just for me but for the future but it's my understanding that that's not even an option but i'm happy to go through like what the into our space is like and why why i don't think that that a situation that really falls within the scope of what's happening here  and then for the the idea of a fire door that could be opened only in the event of a fire at the definitely an interesting idea i've never heard of something in a residential house like this and i think part of what we were trying to do with our house is keep it in the in the same style as the neighborhood the same as everything around it and so if you were held to that standard on the exteriors it doesn't necessarily like a workable thing to require us to do something that are like industrial building stairwells there's things like that but not in residential interior living  this tonight but i think if we had to vote on this tonight i do not think that it would receive favor it would not receive the rectifiers majority it might not receive a majority  so that would mean that i would ask for a motion to continue the case into probably the either two weeks from tonight or the first tuesday in november what people mean sure hello john early taras bill there are forty seven pace and road so we're trying to get a two a one functioning deck so if i can just do a little questions here what would that be considered three feet would a railing so that they can't put a chair on it thirty six inches high forty two inches high you're trying to solve a problem for another  us they're saying no more third story decks we don't want anybody looking in anybody we don't want to see anything from the ground we don't want to see anybody looking in ok it's a safety issue yeah you can solve the safety issue but a ladder out the window but what would need to do as a group is figure out what people want what they want is be able to open up a door have a little air a sense of openness and you don't know that if we have it too big they'll go out and sit and they've got the parties with the next people that move in i understand if we're going to come back again i want to know what the board wants us to do and what what we want is we want to be able to keep the door there and open it have a screen on it with a rail and so the kids don't go out and fall off the roof we don't want you don't want to chair out there fine we won't put a chair out there the chairs thirty six by thirty six we got up we got door that's already up there five feet we should let the litter go out three feet of a railing that sixty three by six thirty six inches high you just go out there and stand those that meet the requirements of the board i think plans because i think we we all we all appreciate your point that you know this is this is a matter of the calle yeah and if you reach out to geoffrey because we can solve it for everybody down the you might want to on behalf of your client you were doing really well why don't you go with what you're i'll quit i'll quit while i'm ahead i just want to make sure that we we have a nice solution but thank you i do have one question for joe i i don't see the benefit of lowering the railings from forty two to thirty six i spend a lot of time dealing with railings in parks and so we we try to keep them at a at a normal height which for us is usually forty to forty eight is too tall for even an eight year old but thirty six i think is a little low well there but i think coach is forty two at a certain height above somebody's stories and and i think at three stories you should be forty two but you've got thirty six when you're dr nor there i understand you're saying i think what we should do is exactly what liz says we can have a working group meeting i hear exactly what you're saying i like what i've heard you know where you get a five foot tour and maybe a six feet wide so that it's on either side of the door and if they hear you  maybe the redo that in that case the the plan would be i will ask for a motion to continue the public hearing to november first and the applicant all right we we do need to move this along a little so i'd like to move immediately to the two sixty sixty two channing road is there anyone here other than the do would appear there is no one here who wishes to speak to this other than the applicant and i assume that you are the applicant in that case if you would come to the microphone introduce yourself and  as soon as far as you know let's make whatever introductory remarks like to make this case number sixteen dollars fourteen notices here by given that the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on tuesday october fourth twenty sixteen at seven pm and the board of selectmen to meeting room town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the the cation of alexander stoller and yelling at  he got that wrong polities very special permit under section one point five point four of the zoning by law to alter a non conforming structure side step back ten feet allowed eight point seven feet existing in proposed in order to construct a second floor back at sixty to sixty two chaining road located in the general residences zoning district background we my wife and i moved to belmont in two thousand and thirteen actually moved into sixty genny road in may of two thousand and thirteen in july of that same year we had our first  child and within the first floor there and over to do a lot of just basically what out the back door into our backyard space and we were renting that unit than that was great for two years and actually what happened  years ago we purchased a home sixty six road and we moved upstairs so we're living now in the second floor unit sixty two and we have another baby sixty six month old now for name is rose  and she's home at the moment she's not in daycare and at the moment one of the things that we do not have is easy access to any outdoor space so while for me personally it's not a problem to take both kids  downstairs a lot of the times we have for example my mother is babysitting my mother in law who's seventy years old is babysitting my father in law who's eighty years old lives in belmont comes over on your they did daily basis to babysit it's quite challenging sometimes to take both kids outside downstairs to and while the while they do that what we like to have is ability to access some outdoor space within the comfort of the home a place to basically open the door and take a stroller and set us sit outside of the stroller all the baby sleeping so that's the motivation and behind what we're trying to do here what exactly we're trying to do you have  neighbors of houses that you know my discretion was if i could if i think i'll be able to see them from the deck then they should know about it going up and so i went to speak to them and every single person i spoke to  basically told me that they have no they have no concern about it so that's that's my explanation the thank you line and moved innovate jacket and it wouldn't be so conspicuous from a drive by number one but number two you'd be could hit the ten foot requirement that you really need to be at so you would be making and not conforming walk the line or not conforming by adding to a deck on which is really no conforming in terms of the setback right so if you can just move the step back into ten feet and almost be like you'd be just under ten feet wide the existing house since it's already kind of non conforming that basically let's put it this way i have plans for exactly what you propose but even that was going to require a special permit because actually the existing house is not good for me so even if i wanted to build one foot by one foot something we would be here and so this is was the motivation to say ok i mean if we're here anyway then we basically just kind of almost aesthetically makes sense to kind of extended by i don't have any personal issue with it was therapy look better if you're could see yeah that's right yeah ok so we if i think just a little bit of extra space is nice there the we did have the thought of moving it in closer to the other the other wall but the issue there were concerned about creating too much shade for the space for the first floor there's a window there over the kitchen and i want to still maintain some light going through that window so i don't want to make a big force where i'm just creating the darkness underneath it so that kitchen window on the first floor so that's was the main there's a kind of a compromise to really from pushing a direction for should force the size the side of the of the neighbor but not any more than the house already because it's not conforming to the building code as it is we've asked people to make some small improvements in the landscaping as well as in the review we do of the building that's proposed and i wonder if that would be to add to it possible for you to do a simple sketch of the existing landscaping so that we could see how this fits in with  see whether it was there the addition of some planting would would improve that the contribution to the neighborhood i don't know if there are any trees or significant plantings on the land for gaping i mean it's a it's a yard and there's a tree in the backyard but when you're looking at the house you see you know there's nothing planted kind of what we have looked at that the entire lot and sometimes asked people to plant one or two trees on the front yard as a part of the condition of approving the special permit and so in order to evaluate that it would be helpful to have a simple site plan with your best guess as where that board where the existing plantings are located you'd like i can show you pictures of the the material you using right down to the nails so i get it and it's going to be doing all i want you to do is just on your drawing over here just put an arrow and you saved how it's finished that's all because you've got the list of materials i just i would like it so that the average person can take a look at the drawing and know exactly how it's done it's done all the time architectural so it's not that hard you can use what you have yet just to sho appreciate all your efforts but if you could do that and make the drawings of a more complete so that if someone else came in and which was to look at your package because you get approved they would have to go back here and read through all the stuff and it would be in that someone else's process a lot easier including the members of the board ok but your hands it looks like your you've done a lot of work and we appreciate picture if you if you went to google satellite view that would be close enough to to just plot the approximate location we're not asking you to measure and plot them exactly but what we're what we're interested in is the general character if there is there are no trees are there of the tree on each side of the front door is it already adequately landscaped or would it be a contribution to the neighbors to add one or two trees that's really how simple it is from town meeting is development should enhance the neighborhood and to the extent that outdoor space imposes some cost on a neighborhood improvements in the landscaping create some benefit so it's part of our the process of trying to balance the equities the town meeting wants us to respect so any other if not i would ask we eliminated some we consolidated others so what i'd like to do is to read the list of surviving projects and see if we are agreed that these are the things that we should move forward on understanding that there are great many projects it would be useful to move forward on but that we need to be realistic and i just i think we concluded the last time much better to do a few things very well then a lot of things in a somewhat slapdash fashion so these surviving projects for fiscal year seven being work one of the evaluation of the general residence process and outcomes to date three and these are some what we now get to the sequential part three to consider rezoning in the commercial areas not necessarily every commercial area but to at least take a as we benefit from having looked at the revitalization issue to then move on to the reselling of commercial areas that will take some discussion and finally to  the the architectural guidelines for the general residence area and we had a question as to whether it was premature to try to develop guidelines for the single residence area whether we need to hear a few more cases and let them evolve as we did with the general residence as i look at these projects there are two where we would probably in order to get them all done in in order to get them done in a jefferies actually seen just us one is the revitalizing belmont's commercial centers before we did anything in that area there is just some basic data that we do not have that we need to get that we need to gather i try to lay out what it would look like it would include statistics on new businesses in belmont and surrounding and comparable communities a review of the literature on town center revitalisation which would be both well what's out there in the way of theories and what are the success stories and three interviewing of new business owners both in belmont and elsewhere i think this major interest is in real estate and if we read descriptions we can get one hired we have the money to pay them and then at least we have this basic information in hand as we start to talk about rezoning and revitalization there is no policy in this but we need a basic set of information the other areas we discussed the last time we would be to addition to looking at what happened immediately before the reselling what's happened what's happened since is and i believe that this was your suggestion that we would also take a look at the building it's going on not by special permit but it's happening in the general residence area that's it dormer expansion is the most obvious example but just to see how much of this are we looking at how much of it is going on and how does it compare with the past and again that is the sort of thing that can be done by we would probably try to again that's a advantage graduate student with the right interest type proposal done under geoffrey supervision and it is not that geoffrey could not do that or we could not do this but i think all of us had seen it's amazing what a single person can accomplish when they have only one thing to do that is the magic of the j turn stupid and that we try to get those two done as quickly as we get one  during the january two so that is the plan if there are any suggestions or any i mean again we've discussed this i think the only y become working models like you know i'm not yes that's right i could see it going both ways one and not to change the subject but we're on the same track subjected to revitalize one of the commercial centers and what i think would be really important when we talk about that it's not mentioned here is we really need to get our hands around the signage in the town centers i mean i don't think we ever really got that you know that happened three years ago i think we should add that the signage in the town centers i think is vital to the revitalization because i think we really need to come up with some design standards that i think just from my point of view so a block to what everybody else thinks but in my a little bit difficult for them to get their arms around them and so i mean section one week one of this put it forward if they understand what they're getting two weeks to i think is let me just follow up on that i mean if we if we hired somebody and it turned out that they couldn't get to week three points i mean i think you're making a legitimate point chuck but i also think that that the week three project could potentially be carved out for us i mean as a planning board it might be good community by trying to identify people in three or four of the surrounding towns who have been active in town government and say who would you talk to who could tell us so that instead of leaving that to the professor we would make it we would make some phone calls we that is members of the board try to would benefit people in arlington and lexington and and and and suggest names to them rather than having them use up their time trying to track find people you know i mean one other point that could make things really efficient and would actually be a useful data set is that there are a number of businesses in belmont who have outposts in lexington arlington and i think it would i mean we could think about whether it would be interesting to hear from them about their differential experiences in the towns i mean i'm not saying that necessarily is the case but that's a potential option have little skeptical about theories as as we observe the towns around us i would i would focus more on getting really short but well developed stories of what and hasn't worked because i think i think greater boston grounds tend to be idiosyncratic and we can read in the in the in the belmont media who's who's moved into town for the last five years and who's left and sometimes they'll talk about why they're leaving but i mean but just to be clear that the purpose of the yes you can but there is a great deal but the the power of having the whole population of new businesses or departing business is that you look at why not you're talking about the whole population for how long for a year two years three years depends a little bit on ideally you would want three years of data so we would run the gun bradstreet for three years with no money and not necessarily when there's a the entry we would there for a variety of ways of approaching it to get the whole universe but i think we would want to get the whole universe and we would then sample from that universe because if you if you do it any other way by yes the sample  it's a judgment this is if you look at the mall and then you decide which one you want and i think john and sam don't know you know everything you stratified them by industry and then pick every tenth one that's an unbiased first first rule of field research no plan survives encounter with the enemy so you start out saying we're going to collect everything about everyone and it will be become clear community development on this i want to come back to that issue a second was pulling together sufficiently detailed specifications and the third was work on the landscape plan which was somewhat the end so we have the apple computer this evening and let me ask you again introduce yourself and make any introduction to make any you all right then perhaps well right then i think probably the most substantive discussion we need to have this evening is a revolves around the landscape plan before we turn to that development has reviewed the open space calculation and the point that joe de stefano makes which is that when we have a registered plot plan we need to take that seriously setting second guessing surveyor's is not a good business for the board to be yet and i agree with that at the same  time the there is on my mind a gap between the amount of landscaping and lawn that appears that one sees via google earth and that one sees a lot planned so that i have a take a little too late in the afternoon but you can use the car to get a sense of how far into the line area i think one of the one of the things that i would want to see with the is that we've talked about as permitted as bill and this is a case where i think that the landscaping need would need to be review so to speak as bill yes we measure what was the because when i look at the property via google earth as of today there seems there maybe i am not saying there is more i am not pushing back on using the to suggest an outing to the applicant's backyard i would say this is june first to june fifth twenty fifteen that's that's the effective date of the play and it's why don't we move along to a discussion of the landscaping plan because as i say i think that the concerns i have to be dealt with by simply saying whatever landscaping plan we agree upon confirmed i think that the landscaping plan needs to show existing and this plan that we have shows no landscaping in the front yard the other thing is that it does not growth circular not oval and and and there should be a size specified we've typically for arborvitae of said eight to ten feet high and i would say that for a dimension porch subtracting the step area you'd probably need four or five of them across the back and at least two of them on the side rather than that single lonely one that is shown on the drawing but but i think as we said in the previous application we would like to see what the existing landscape is in the front and it doesn't have to be exact you can take it off as as was suggested you can take it off google earth and head and have a landscaper tell you what there you mean  that there needs to be a separate plan showing additional landscaping you will do because this is a small lot the week counted  as floor space i did the floor area racial calculation and it's around point six and this is a very small lot this is also the neighbors  that we would be in and certainly speak more landscaping would be desirable and the landscaping that is to be a bush it's not a believe if you would go to one of the larger gardening centers like lexington or they would they would want they would do this for free they would say if you took them a a photograph of the place they could say well why don't you do this and this and they would to write recommend the type of plant and the size of plant  but i think i think what we're saying is we need to add something to the front of the house as the contribution to the neighborhood ok ok but but we could do that during the later on this week and the landscaping again when we're when describing the landscaping to be added and this is something that you can do it does not require that you hire a professional the name of the tree species the size of the tree deciduous trees with leaves are are sized by the inches of the trunk evergreens are usually sized at this scale by their height at the time of purchase provided for example where you tip typically say five to six feet or eight to ten feet and that and then you would go to a place like home depot and they would find that for you that's that those those are common me mention you mentioning very tall arborvitae and i don't think that we should necessarily allow him to leave the impression that he needs to screen the lower deck i mean he could have very small shrubs consistent with what we've seen for greenery but and to make that sort of area attractive but he doesn't i mean we're not asking him to sort of screen this is that right  but then it will be i i would i would like to i would like to go by and see you and and and then get something to you landscape design he will come through your property and take a look at it and on the basis of that he will be able to give you some guidance you can then as well as suggestions of nurseries in the area and garden shops to whom you could go and would give you additional advice at no charge in the hopes of course that you will buy their plants from them but your plants from them but yet neither there is no charge for having karo come to your property and there is no charge for visit any of the landscape additional item is i would like to move through the design the general residence design i would like to take up the general residence design guidelines at that meeting and ideally move through it so if all  you if we can i'll review those guidelines i think we are close to having them no longer draft but final but i would like to leave on october eighteenth having accomplished