grandparents etc will be spending time with them obviously you know we can't control the lot size the house is you know the existing house is part of a larger pattern and a consistent scale geometry in the neighborhood and more of these homes will be applying for dormers probably at a similar style and scale that we are and i think the house will continue to be a  proportionally correct for the neighborhood independent of the smaller lot size and i think there are many ways of looking at design matter but i think what you heard last time was that when in the area that the planning board had defined as the relevant neighborhood and the with the proposed addition this would be the we would be the  absolute of the neighborhood with this kind of renovation i agree those were the statistics that we heard it sounded like as a group we were still mowing the design over and said you wanted to come we were looking to have a conversation with the board if we were supposed to bring a new design tonight i apologize for doing so i thought we were supposed to continue talking about what we had originally propose which we make repeatedly is that because last so much longer than families do you know people families buy a home the uses changed that weekend to look at the structure in relationship to the neighborhood to a much greater extent and we look at the stretch in relationship to people's current plan of ok so i understand the board's position on the size of the house and the size of the lot and what your concerns are is the next step to go to a working group where we i mean are we were we supposed to come here with a new design tonight  ok so can you help us a little bit and give us a measure of what you're comfortable with and we can you know if you give us some more feedback we can continue if we need to and come back with a new design i can argue for design we don't have drawn forget about the architectural elements of it it's the size of what you're proposing so if we could get some place tonight where we deal with that issue we need to have a sense of where we want to go on and then let the design reese respond to that how many square feet do we want this through the various and i'd like to speak to that for a little bit because i think let's say we went with the top end of liz's third quarter mile on t l a right and just hypothetically we said ok twenty eight hundred feet i still i'm not sure that i would i mean i don't think that we collectively would say however they can figure that twenty eight hundred feet they are good to go right now great you know it does feel like we should have a little bit of a conversation tonight about the larger design elements you know are we comfortable with blowing up the back of the hip roof or are we comfortable with the size of the two side warmers are we comfortable with sidearms at all it seems like at that high level you know we should at least have a conversation we obviously we can't vote we won't be voting on  again where we have a significant and we have significant non conforming dimensions whether the bo hit whether the board is willing to see any increase in the non conformity is probably something we'd want to speak to as well so i think we're really would needs to be done is i think that i think that both the dormers on the sides are too large and i think if you reduce the size of the dollars on the side om i think it's creative but i think that i think that it's a little too large so that that would be my my comment to you i think that the dormers there over forty percent of the steps of the roof you've got about twenty feet there that was forty six feet you're talking a massive dormer on two sides to boot so to me it looks disproportional i understand why you did it and i know exactly what you're trying to do but i think you could you can achieve what you're looking for here and i think the family can be happy here and i think that to the neighborhood can be happy and certainly that the community as well as the board could be a lot more comfortable with  additional the angles which is part you know reality is that your lot is what it is you can't accommodate more parking and by making a building that's more intensive use of that structure is going to have an impact certainly on parking there's no you can't provide an answer because you know there is an inability to accommodate more so i would consider that so where do you come down on the side very real aspect of that belmont is replete in the g r resit g r districts with two families that are you know dormers or ready to be built and i think that often times the unintended consequences of trying to accommodate too of today's lifestyle you know we need bigger spaces we want to have more room is well it's not just what you experience it's what everybody else expects where the cars go where does the city you know it's a problem in mass to make the square footage less but to make it attractive and the other members of the of the poor have you know can't help you in terms of that but i don't know is exactly what the square footage is that we're talking about shows saying it's a dialect between the two of them but on the other hand i'm sympathetic to your point of view of not wanting to come to us many times and go back and forth so that's why we're talking now on this i want to raise the issue of  that's not a non conforming side of the home and i want to raise that because i think we're going to increasingly see arguments about whether it's ok to increase no second floor and the existing stair where rebuilding to make code compliant in sat the exterior while the house and that kind of determines the edge of one of these dormers which means it determines the edge of and that pulls it to a certain point which is at the front and we didn't pass it but we want to far as we had to pick up that stared of so we get a little had that's that's the issue with all these old homes is this to look like is like it's not an addition i want to look like it was built that way so that's what worked for me personally that's what work and you see some of these houses that exist in belmont right now with precisely what i'm talking about it's very hard to imagine an increase that would inhance the neighborhood and that if it has to either just there has to be better more efficient use of the interior space that exists or if it simply can't get much larger and i think this house is pretty close to it you know because i i don't thank you yeah but this that's where i'm going with it so and rafi i know that you're very sensitive towards the doors and i'm not i'm not and i am too i've actually asked for people on new construction to remove dormers because i think they're overdone but in this particular case you know if you don't have a lot to work with in this you've got a lot of depth here but you don't have a lot of with the trends you know so that's the challenge in the house my you know i understand the house looks large especially on  but the second you know these floor plans are not extravagant you know the people who live in these homes are not people with deep pockets and they you know are lucky they're able to get the homes they have and then they reach that point where they need a little bit more room otherwise they're  sensitive to it you know our family roots and we've been here forever and there's to joe's thing that he said that i made note of if you can work in a direction to make it look like it's always feedback you know is it art are trying just to continue that and you can submit a new set of plans you know when they're in the correct amount of time before the next hearing you know i would welcome that plans come in and the total living area is still sixty fourth largest in the neighborhood it's hard for me to imagine enough design i think with a name  clare and let me be clear i mean for me personally and i'm sure everyone else in the board maybe not we're here to help you guys you know are not here to like damp or anything we're just here to work with you and make the applicant happy the neighbors happy the community happy so would be we would need to have the plans a week jeffrey would need to have the plans the week before the scheduled he and then what we'll do is i'll ask for a motion to continue it to december twentieth but if you discover it does not work for the last time left jeffrey let the planning i don't know as soon as possible continuation in at the applicant's request where there was no presentation or discussion the last time by the applicant so as soon as jeffrey returns and i can from what i've just said with him jeffrey we do not need you this is a continued public hearing so we do not need to have the public  no discussion of it we all followed the format that we would as if this were a new hearing which means that we'll ask the applicant to present is there anyone hearing of the four of you now remaining  is there anyone here other than the applicant who wishes to speak to this all right in that and then the order will be applicant anyone should the spirit suddenly move separated out the decks from the attic application and we're here today regarding the deck and application so the an existing tax structure it's in poor shape it's rotting we want to replace the existing deck structure while replacing it and we're looking to seek approval to see if we can extend it up one floor to meet the third floor and the reason we're here at present there is a pitched roof at the top of the deck structure so we're looking to into a new level and we're also hoping to add a stairs that will provide exterior access the deck structure as proposed conforms to setbacks and it also conforms to dimensions and we have talked to all affected neighbors and bothers and some not affected neighbors and we have not had anyone and express any concerns so just briefly address those first of all aesthetics and you know in talking with our neighbor with whom we share a drive his stance is a it's improving so first of all anybody who's familiar with the property will realize that we've actually made significant improvements to our property and since we've acquired it all of the improvements in our neighbor immediate neighbor butter and point of view is improving his property value privacy cup couplet consideration so first of all we've talked to all neighbors and about hers they're not concerned immediately behind as you've seen the photographs and we actually back up onto an  house within view when looking back so we believe that  to whatever extent is possible privacy concerns are hopefully limited i were guards density so this is one where i particularly appreciate being able to see the previous videos because it gave us an opportunity to do what's within our power to ensure that the turret floor cannot become a separate unit so for instance out of the major systems we are locating the electrical panel  within the second floor the heating and air conditioning is being located in the attic and it's a common system for the second and third floors the water system  water is also common for second and third floors and we've also done what we can to ensure that you know it's it's to the extent possible not an easy conversion a potential target and essentially we're doing whatever we can within our power to try and show that we're acting in good faith we you know obviously we've no interest in it being it's our unit and we're trying to do whatever we can within our power  yes i'll start i mean i think for whatever reason there's been a run on planet earth three story deaths and we've been pretty consistent in saying no on those i'm including i think most recently piece in road which ended up with drying their application after a fire and we had a long discussion about it the fire safety issue and the eagerness issue and while i think these plans are well done i don't see that they probably surmount that obstacle that we really have in place they also have a lot of concern about the exteriors stairs and well i appreciate that the as presently presented to us don't include you know a kitchen on the third floor but you know there's still a lot of opportunity for you know an air b b type situation and a you know five grad students renting out that apartment with five cars and i i guess given our current decision making you know our president i don't see that this presents any arguments for us to stray from the president again and the third floor plans that we had seen again this this in none of these cases are we talking about the current owner moment the third floor that goes in the multiple bedrooms in this case bath and hand and exterior stairs the person most likely to be interested in buying it next is someone who will wish to convert it to a three family and we just don't think a three family increases density in a way the town meeting clearly did not wish to see there are certainly there are privacy issues this is a good sized deck there's issues of noise so it is really a combination of density not  them to do that yes but so if it's illegal for them to do that there's it would it be illegal for them to use it as an air b n b and turn over people every the noise issue is always present again maybe that wonderfully why people i'm i'm sure you are that i wish would move in next to me but again why of course my current neighbors are wonderfully  we want to enhance the neighborhoods and the odds that at some point in the future this wouldn't enhance the neighborhood are just too high ok so and the reason i was asking was i was wondering if you know there's some that i don't but i don't expect that we will be submitting any right earlier and tonight what i want to do the general concept is let's take a look we've been focusing on residential district let's take a look at the commercial district we have said for a long time that one of our objectives is revitalization of commercial of the town centers the commercial districts we should it's time we came to that and see what we could do when we last cut about it  presented a plan which met with i think you could describe as a look warm reception here and even less more lukewarm if not cool reception from our  approach which was to leave the committee structure pretty much as it was so channeling that positive attitude i'd like to love move to a different initial approach and see if people find it more congenial or more likely to be useful what i think the one of the strengths of the general residence and the single residence rezoning was that when the planning board was working with people who live there and this was something they genuinely wanted to see happen not everyone but it was clearly reflecting what the residents wanted to see done so what i'm going to suggest night is that we consider taking a similar approach with the commercial districts and to that end that we could see which had local ownership and then by owner and so my suggests my the one possibility for is that there is a manageable number there are three hundred properties there is some dupe there some out of state ownership not a great deal there some duplication of ownership less than i expected to see  is that we begin by inviting everyone on this list as well of course everyone who is interested the heads of the business the square business association that we began with a public conversation as with a public discussion as we've had before and posed the question of what is it that a planning board could do that you believe would improve increase the value of your business i think we i am not certain that we could hold this in december we might be able to we could certainly hold it in early to mid january and if what we hear is that there is a first of all the people express their level of interest by simply not coming that will be a useful fact and if they come we can hear some discussion of what their concerns are i believe and i have identified a faculty member at mit and a graduate student research assistant who could still do the kinds of research we talked about the last time but that it ought to be grounded in hearing what it is the people who own these properties would like to see i should and the assessors database has much interesting information in it and  bears hours reading but this is it this is this is the commercial base in belmont in six pages which jeffrey where maybe figure out a way to talk to some people who are  we square to reach out to them in some way and talk with loads of phone call or whether it's a small being before that rather than there being announced with the something is going to happen and then they're going to think oh my goodness they're going to change things and you know we're going to be there and that they're going to tell us this it's also hard to get if you want to get you know the level of what they think about things it's hard to get there from a small group i mean with a very large group it's easier to get that from a small group and what this will do think about in terms of the research program your ideas your i pod this is can come from any place and they can come cases they maybe it's good to talk to some people who are out there early on in the process and maybe that will help give us some ideas and maybe help to structure the meeting to a larger that's my thought all we've already had research done on that includes the cushing that we have that although it's kind of old at this point and that brings us down to wave six square itself pleasant street again which we've been i was looking to to maximize the value of that parcel to obviously it hits the value of that whole square of more inclusive first meeting is that this is inherently a public process and that way everyone is present at the creation people may have different varying degrees of interest they may stick with stick with it they may invest more in coming up with ideas but it's a public process and at least at the beginning everybody gets an equal shot of participation all right then what i will do is look take another crack at this with the editing that we discussed with the notion that we're going to try to do something circumstances they can be difficult and if your problem is if you're proposing something to they can be difficult and when they say see me they should be happy because it mean process we cannot force them to do so and if they don't wish to do so they go to yes indeed all right and so that is our plan i didn't moving right along to him six which is we are we are fast approaching and i think jeffrey has given us the schedules of the point at which if we were going to bring anything to town meeting this spring we would need to get started on it fairly directly at one point i think joe both  jeffrey had mentioned the that we might want to take a look at signage do you want to say a few words about that lot but i think would incorporate more attractive signage and more attractive signage standards so i mean i know that the board had a brief discussion about it but i for one would be open to  to working on something that i think was a little bit more clear you know a little bit more and we just have the design guidelines more on the g r district so i thought i would be open to something very similar to now put together there there is now a easily searchable database of zoning by laws very there has always been a database but it required a great deal of work to use which is the permanency of temper signs there are enormous number of temporary sides for contractors in the windsor papers in town that have become permanent they're always on the property and there are for sale signs like i realized that on where billy commons with whatever it is with the church came down that they haven't sold of the last parcel but she's had a sign there for five years i think at music you'll love it i did look at the i did look at them quickly i can conquer it for example has commercial sign language that does what you mention or at on the air b n b sub committee thank you very much we do have a draft report but there are some things that i want to be able to hand out to everybody that apologize for not doing this earlier but some things thousand and sixteen we had a series of meetings i think five in total we had the charter that kind of was the guideline for what the group was about and we met and discussed a number of the issues that were in front of us i mean you know the key things for us is to really understand what is it that we want to accomplish is this something we want to restrict or do we want to regulate and how that will be answered we need to look at some of these points for us to discuss here and going forward you know it's clear that our current lodging in boarding definition fall short and doesn't provide much guidance for the board of appeals or anybody that's going to be trying to understand how to address some of the questions and concerns that will come up by residents and people that wish to want to have a b and b short term resident short term rental opportunity in their home so we talk with we use the municipal yardstick to look at the twenty five communities and you know it was surprising but not any of the communities had any guidelines o not we looked to cambridge and cambridge had adopted something using a model of call the tourist house and brookline had chosen to go ahead and look at go ahead and do it we're not going to really weigh in and so air b n b does exist and i thriving environment and those two communities when we looked at it we also had lots of issues looking back to the house bill two sixteen twenty six eighteen which was presented but ended up not being enacted this year and that's something that likely in the next legislative session will come out give us some guidance but don't know i can choose to go ahead and move forward and put together some kind of guidance on how we should approach this and maybe the planning board will want to take a look at this and the report that i will push out to follow for folks to read but these are the main points here to take a look at one thing i did want to comment on in our last meeting on october twenty seventh geoffrey found winthrop had put together some new zoning guidelines that was approved by the attorney general which had a couple of interesting points that i wanted to call to your attention so  main the middle section their relationship to existing zoning in particular be so this was language that was accepted by the attorney general's office so that was a bit of a surprise and gave us some room to maneuver if you will and then i also call your attention to the back page and i don't want to put my colleagues on the spot to to learn and read and op or but in the back page that it's quite detailed what they're asking for with regard to consideration if you want to proceed with is the theme a better breakfast and transit lodging from all the various bodies in town health board etc so you know we have an opportunity to take a look at it and one of the key things was you know what was the size of this i mean at any given time you can take a snap shot of air b n b which i was doing while i would recuse myself yet again the numbers can vary and i'm just looking at air begin beside they can go up to as high as three hundred it's not uncommon to have one hundred plus listings in there and there's everything from a single room to one i was looking at i was just a moment ago it's up there right now with a number of reviews if you care to four bedrooms for six guests and the picture of the home is there and you all know where it is and all that so they're happening and it's down in belmont right now so i mean i think that you know we can think about digest this and think about it but i think that this is something we should if that's what we want to do of whether it is appropriate to turn every neighborhood in to essentially a commercial district is a big question whether it is appropriate to turn every single residen e neighborhood into a commercial district is a big question and i would i would not i think that there's the question of what are we to do it is something that should not get lost and turning into the question of if we were to do it how would you we do it and then somehow we never get that somehow all of this discussion has taken place learned how started immediately right thank you very much and now we move along to adam seven b complete appointments to other committees  jeffrey has helpfully inserted a list of committees to which we ninety in principle appoint someone and so let me just start with  well they could do what they did last year which is to simply ask that it be rolled over for a year for another year but now that they've completed the in metairie they don't want to do that they do want to move ahead with a new bike that's obviously an area of interest to the planning board air gold in prioritising where they commit where the joint committee effort out to be the committees that are going to bring forward by laws that are in our areas of specific interest of the others we have received have representatives i am hoping that you would be willing to serve as the liaison to the historic district commission oh yeah  going to move up on the list largely because of cushing square and concern surrounding cushing square barber would you be willing to take on the traffic advisory committee yes  right by the process of elimination and since we are required to make an appointment i'm prepared to serv so and joe no one gets to leave the high school building committee in any case and i believe if that is agreeable to everyone that commits that completes our point committee appointments geoffrey this is mean you will stop sending me the schedule twice a week sooner rather than later night and with that we move on to item nine review the minutes any yes yes yes  we have to say yes