were going to be calling the meeting to order the june thirtieth planning board meeting thank you for coming and i will introduce our board to my far right carl hagman my immediate right his our vice chair liz allison my left is distant so i spent the afternoon with i should know to michael battista the chair and welcome to the meeting so our first order of business is to continue permit public hearings to alter some non conforming structures the first one is thirty one oxford av to construct a second floor and rare edition and we got a package i received it was a jeff yesterday the day before i think for our for our c we asked for the h p a see equipment to be located on the drawing it to be shielded by shrubbery which it appears to be the half of the second floor overhang which was hanging over the  actually been cut off at an angle we had asked for the entire second floor overhang to be removed so that that angle would be removed and piers that that's the case as well  what else might my missing anything size is listed on the submission but usually we ask for some assurances about the size  discussion about how big this tree going how big how big is the tree growing yet so i think that might be worth understanding and yet they should be large  shrubs nine through twelve that are listed as five feet four inches high that's at size and the boards in the past has has sometimes modified an asked for somewhat larger plantings and then literally proposed so weak we can't tell depends on how big the h b a seaven it is it's just that we have a we have to go at least two and a half to three i think i think we want two and a half to three feet high if i'm mike in my big concern on my i think that's a good idea karl but you guys are showing the applicants are showing existing trees in front of the house and if i'm not mistaken you're going to take in the roof off the house and then you have to be put in addition on the house right going to be building up on the house right these trees are never going to make it they want they want to have i don't those i'm never going to make it there's going to be so much work there's going to be so much construction out there i'm not telling you that they won't live but they'll be badly damaged during construction  you're going to have a ladder i just don't see how these don't get badly damaged during construction i'm not saying they won't live but while i work what i would say is that they'll be damaged to the point where they may well be attract we're clear that this is a permit for one family and that that will be for a good deed but the fact that it lays out so there because that a form was sent out by the town clerk which was not returned which is which the town asks your name occupation of each resident i think that we do need to record that this must be recorded and that's a physical thing that has to happen and i think we should get a copy of  but we still need a visit to the county clerk's office to provide a resident form so that typically there is a a local census that gets sent sent out to every resident of the town to tell you tell the town how many people are living we want to see that field out was sent down as it had i think as a condition of our special permit which i think is legitimate you know to ask the town to issue a special permit when a resident or an applicant hasn't filled out required case number five fifteen data zero three thirty one oxford revenue subject to the conditions discussed here in after you have done your construction before the landscaping is done before you get a certificate of occupancy we need you back here with a landscape drawing telling us what you're going to do because you going to probably have to replace some trees and some shrubs and we may  ask you to add some other things  similar probably no because you're going to like joe said they will be destroyed just by fact of discover construction so that's that so thank you very much ok thank you for your patience with the process so again will will we had a list of things that we had asked you to try to achieve and when we again when we go around the board and see if there are any questions or some of the major design issues that we've talked about i don't see any landscape issues that should be addressed i think the roof lines look the great and thank you for putting the stairs to the mud room from the driveway straight and i think i just think they look so much better  because were so limited with that space on the side of the stairs going up the side really it doesn't even allow pretty flower beds don't you when you start to do that of which  i only have one question on the drawing it and it's on the on the side elevation was it is it possible to put a window in in the bathroom second floor i just really go to that the top on under the going to the window no because it's an outside wall and i really don't want the plumbing going up on the outside it's a narrow bathroom so i'd rather have the plumbing from where to go no it's a so like when that actually get filled it's going to look a little bit different anyway so it'll i think you'll find the work that was my only question other than that i think i love the idea of a pushing me pushing that fence back and creating a planter there just because there's just you know i'm going to suggest the same thing and we're going to really get down to voting on this that that landscaping will be submitted prior to after construction prior to sort of a dark beach because i think we'll know much better we see everything and see what can fit what can fit you know and i think liz said this sort of was to be just a few minutes ago or for the prior meeting but with so much of a building being added that you know it would be nice to see some additional landscaping you know for the neighbors and just from you know from the streetscape without change i do think i do think to your point though and i think that's a certainly a fine idea i i really want to see it as well because once the building's done and it's constructed give a much better idea of what's going to work there and what isn't so again that that will be a condition that i probably know yeah i mean it was it was big we took a lot off the side to reduce the overall when we get to the metrics in a second you know it you'll see that it didn't affect it as much as it is it may have had this been brought back a little bit and then again we can talk about it when we get to be at least as i was just one of the things that i remember talking about but here we go we still think you know according to the numbers that it's still going to be one of the biggest buildings of not the biggest building in the area but even then in all honesty if we took out fifteen square feet once the registry has a recorded and done their stuff they will send a copy of that according to the assessor at that time the assessor will update the records so at this point he their current plot plan is accurate read the registry just goes along with that he said yes goes along with it yes so there's no it is a discrepancy and it's in a certain certified survey or goes on record that it's accurate before i hand them out just let me explain they fall into two parts the first card was used to is intended to give everyone an understanding of the alternative analysis that the applicant mr reynolds submitted a tour de force of color coding and will want to spend a few minutes on that and then second  assessor's office lot size of six thousand six hundred and forty three feet but fortunately i can step projects for a long time and so alone not in full color i do right people will know that the font is still small and that's because what i've done here is true reorganize the original information five units twenty one of them single family thirty three of them to family and one for family per the original assessors list and as you can see by the what i did was so do initially sort things but is it a one family or is it two family and what you can see is that none of the proposed changes impact a single family houses and indeed there were a number of two family houses that they did not employ that they the the re the issue of the assessors records the assessors records basically says you have a lot of house you have a lot of two families where you've got fourteen hundred square feet of living actually you have not true but three or four units that five thousand square foot lot the really not that five thousand square foot lot holds for living it's and a total of approximately twenty eight hundred square feet when i first looked at that i guess i thought oh no if there are four units and each two family unit has five thousand square feet then we should be talking about four units ten thousand square feet and nothing's going to change in the way of ratios but this is a major disconnect between the applicant is saying that we have double the density  again that may be correct i got may be correct but it is it is certainly not consistent with what and that's the point of revenge just this is not an argument about what's in and what's out this is a question of what that that is one of the things i'm trying to say the the other thing so so let me try to say it a little better and then you won't have to say it's what you're trying to say you can just  measures and if if your correct and these are four units together twenty eight hundred square feet that certainly affects the number of twenty eight hundred square feet buildings in the neighborhood it however the question of what the lot size is is simply still important because density what makes a home single residence a has a lot of twenty eight hundred square foot houses has a lot of houses bigger than that people don't think of it as a dense neighborhood because the lots are twenty thousand square feet and so whether it is correct as the second as the revamped cable that you created whether these are five or ten thousand lights makes a big difference to the density issues which is certainly one of the things we think about and we need reproductive we just doesn't have to detain us but if you could for those who want to see exactly how it works if you what i did was to just pull out one of the properties that you work with so that everyone can see what is happening there  these are all that the revised analysis shows that these are all on a forty four hundred seventy square foot lot and the the applican space of two thousand nine hundred and seventy five seventy six square feet from my perspective it matters quite and i think in terms of the metrics the board is you know one is just the factual question are there really four buildings joined together on these lots and the second is and is the lot there sitting on up a number that would actually help the other metrics a lot but we don't think is accurate that is the lot size so that you know we need to give this some thought and we'll move on the last of this is just looking at single family homes and looking at the floor area ratio which is the place that kind of pulls it out together  and when we do that using the revised numbers of the twenty one family homes this is the seventh largest when we look started by postal living area know it's on the new city yet but what we're only looking at the rankings of total living area so it doesn't it's not a ratio it's an absolute number so it doesn't matter what the larger picture doesn't matter what the lot sizes so that when we look at point three eight let's imagine there we said ok well when applicants come in that if this were only a numbers exercise and i think we've been clear from the beginning it's not what would happen if we  others came in and said well we thought point three eight was ok for one applicant there's some argument you've got i think it's ok others and the answer is we would and around twenty two thousand square feet in single family homes which is something like eight to ten single family homes to this neighborhood that's a lot and that's a lot of additional if everybody over allowed to build two point three if everyone were allowed to  not obviously what people are allowed to do build two varies and joe has made the point for me many times that was sufficiently really an architectural world almost anything can be fitted onto anything  and no doubt finds for the equivalent me again landscaping matters design matters all these things matter we have said from the beginning this is not a numbers driven exercise but  you know i mean i think that if i just in terms of living area because that and in terms the floor area ratio it it to do that that could do it even it might be a substantial enough change in a neighborhood that it would affect it i think i think that's the point that that's obvious that right now is that this is not a forecast that we will see  equivalent square footage of the new single family homes built in this neighborhood but the equity among applications isn't a simple numerical concept but it's a but the numerical part is important and as michael michael says the fact that you  to work with like coverage doesn't mean ok so we're at a point where building from a design perspective is you know is looking good and where we seem to be comfortable with it from from our questions and for the size relative to the other buildings and what we've defined as a neighborhood even even if it is just a comparison to the singles think i think if i were really going to answer that question i would want to walk down the street and look at some of the other houses and try to imagine what would happen if they proposed a similar if i may is there a comfort level i mean not that i'm going to take it to this again and again possibly but but there seems to be a place where your new we're at seventeen on the list numbers wise there is a place where you can you can you may be comfortable and so i guess the reason i have to bring this up is to continue this gets better to have these answers up front because you're going to and waiting for you with yes no i think that when we when we when we went over there some week to week we just had this is owning change back of last time meeting the goal was we were allowing single family homes to be to be an alternative to family homes i think we were looking to do is to go from anywhere from two thousand and twenty two hundred tucked i think maybe twenty six hundred square feet max and you're like you're pushing it at twenty seven thirty one so any square footage that you can take off and get down to the high number which would be a twenty six i think to answer your question that's where you really that's we're hoping to get people because we really feel like you know and share a zon to accomplish as a board is we want to stay and that are below we understand as we go us like you're like you're here seven thousand square feet but that being said i mean where we're looking in the in that vicinity twenty two point six hundred square information i'm more of a feel based person i mean i'm not that i do i discount the numbers i look at them and they mean something to me but for me it's more about how the how the structure looks on the psych appear to the other buildings around it and where this is is a deeper why i think the fact that the addition you know yes it's a fifty foot white edition but it's really only eleven foot added on to the by the way to the front of the house to the because some of it's hidden by the back of the house you know my my thing is does it really have to be so deep you know that that one foot death would have thirteen one by fifty three i think on the on the depth of the of the addition it has been my numbers are right and maybe they're wrong but you think  mean whatever you know it it it's what we talked about the first time trying to kind of push back a little bit of a lot of coverage and try to push back a little bit on the so that it's so not everything is max or not you know so your house doesn't on structures in their neighborhoods for the reason that the structure is just too big there are over powering their neighbors and it has nothing to do with your taste or your needs inside the house it has to do with with what the neighborhoods need and what we are trying to achieve as a bo take it personally because it isn't personal and you know we're not trying to to to say that you know your potential lifestyle here is wrong or obviously you know you know what you need to live but we know what we need to do you know in the neighborhoods and so we're trying to come to a kind of compromise that will help everybody you know we want you to have your addition but it would help us a lot to keep it under all round this back to the number that we're looking for so your thing i think that you need to remember is is that you i've worked with a number of these numbers in a variety of ways if it turns out if it turned out that these were five thousand square foot lights then that would change the analysis information i've said it from from day one it's something we look at it helps us to you know to make our decisions it's not it's not what i'm basing my opinion on when the time comes i guess when a subject  now absolutely the last of all yeah and that's kind of you know that's kind of the issue  i think i would i think i shared with you the from the very start about trying to push back to the better of the square footage and i think from the start that it's less than one hundred square feet less that i just think  changed very much you've done wonderful things with the with the look about said we you know it's night and day from the flat roof to the room that i think i think you've got a much better home that has a lot more value a lot more resale value down the road because of the reasonable timeframe that will work for a client and myself and i think that in our in our last meeting we had certainly talked about taking two and a half feet off first two and two and a half which i think i said something about and the consensus at that time was that that should bar that see if you could do it and we could do it and i know that you had said that's just under one hundred square feet and still the consensus was that that you know should get us to where we need to go in someone's exact words so i'm not here to argue and quite honestly i just i would love to just get to a place which is why i'm supply and asking what those those numbers would be even though you may not be comfortable giving them to me because but i mean time is money absolutely absolutely and i know that joe shared with you that the two and a half feet and that two and a half feet came about because of the ga ends and how they tied it and that's what we were trying to achieve was the roof lines and the look in the design if it was if we weren't at square footage at the time i've been very consistent from day one saying that i think it needs to be small but i think it's too b don't think we're far away from what it would be talking total square footage less than a hundred feet one hundred feet three hundred one hundred thirty feet away you know in total one two floors so you know so what i would suggest he's see if you can come up with it out of the existing part of the home the new part of the home you know i understand the challenges i do i don't want you mess it up here your fireplace and having it be not right centered in the room and you know that the bathrooms very to be right it twenty six hundred square feet because i think designs important but i want to i think that i think that i mean if i recall when we get ready for twenty three you know seventeen or whatnot i mean twenty six seventeen and i'm struggling with ten square feet and i'm not i'm not least for me as a board member i feel for exactly what you're going through for so for me the closer you can get to twenty six hundred it's the better off you're going to be but i have to tell you this looks really like a long neck this almost looks like alley like so i think when you pull this back you're actually going to be happier going to a better design and looking at the size of your bedroom here redesign him if he wants a bigger sleeping area bigger bedroom it i'm fine with it i'm more about what this is going to look like and this spending a considerable amount of money on the design every roofing the house i used i would like them to bend up with something they like and i think you can do that i really do i space proudly as if they all get more space is the spaces they would want and the first go round then at the end of the day the neighborhood isn't going to be enhanced your criteria so yeah twenty six seventeen is one thing what i don't want to see is this little creep and now it's twenty six king and now it's twenty six seventy is that close enough i mean that's the virtue of kind of and i agree twenty six seventeen is close to twenty six but you know there's a kind of in from mentalism here that just need to be careful about because it has to carry over to the other  of the footage you don't have to take it all out here at auction maybe be creative there you've taken it all down anyway that's a shed roof right it's not a gable so it might be the easier thing to achieve some of the footage out of the half they don't have a foundation under and that's probably the to something else to think about something you know i'm just trying to give you some options to come up with the space all i need is the number you got so we're very close the you've done great great things with the outside the house i think it i think it blends in fits into the database when the building permits entered there's not always the consistent terminology used for new single family home so we tried to capture everything we could and you'll see that there are some question marks those are things that still need to be filled in that property is new or region have to confirm that indeed that was a new single family home was actually in constructed one of the things that what one would typically calculate and we have still trying to figure that why that discrepancy would be we have had several conversations with to figure out why that is they only update that little area every three years and they do do it based on the plot plans and they do do a lifetime twit calculations  so we are actually now in the process of actually pulling the plans for each and every single one of these properties and actually looking at what the calculations are for each and every one of these properties and  years and so i you know we just as i said we've been getting begun to pull the plug plans and the sort of our checklist for now those kind of stuff and we're starting to go through the discrepancies are you suggesting that it could be potentially that the numbers that  of these numbers every single residence for g m twelve thousand square foot lot with forty five hundred total living here fifteen thousand square foot lot with fifty because there's an existing house on a lot and a lot of his not conforming the ability to just by right go ahead and build something to the new zoning when the blood is not good for  that alone could require a special purpose it doesn't currently in my behavior now is the change i think of the zoning that would actually be a good idea because you should have to go through a review process i think if you don't have a conforming lot if you preexisting non conforming you remove a home you should definitely have to go through a review process to to be able to build whether that is a special permit or what the process is is up for discussion but in my opinion when you take comes up for discussion that's a conversation the boys have to sit down and think about do we want all of these cases to come before us jeffrey i think you know based on what's been going on in the town of the give much of a choice is it that there needs to be happening here on this board is that you know what i'm happy to do this i think what we're doing is important that you know i'd appreciate the work of the board of you jeffrey but it definitely takes us away from planning it being proactively planning in parts of town that i think needs proactive planning because we're being reactionary with all of these these things that are coming before us which were never coming before us before and it's by virtue of the change of zoning in g r now this is there this residence here and that's great it's immediate it's a short so you'll see that what we're looking at is lot size like coverage height secondly say what's required and then that would just be me off it particularly to to the president's going to go looking at the thing you know even though even though we know that there might be some issues or the numbers one of the things that you can start you can see is if you look than when you getting up to five four from five like three hundred somerset street which is zero write such a big lie but you can see where you know you're getting up to you know where in the singer doesn't say it's r only counts attic space based on what is actually used for the little boy area so even though so so at an area has to be finished off otherwise they don't count it as a little area now we would quire because we want to make sure the structures are no better than two and half stories we would quire have story calculation which sets up what the area is up stairs so we come up with an area number regardless of how it's us actually has dormers the post so we you know upfront that they're going to go infinite space fifty six thomas street doesn't ship anything in the attic but yet they have a pitched roof and they've had to do have to start calculation but those numbers actually aren't in the t l a that the board was discussing earlier access and access to attic space and if they're not providing it then they should indicate that it's a pulldown how has access been provided you're going to need access at some some point even if it's just for the h b c system appear to have to  looked at for you know illegal building activity and it's happens not just the stuff that happens everywhere and right and things are done illegally things are done and save and save conditions and that's something that you really need to get a handle on doing is because once we have this information on new construction it gives us something that as we talk about a number of directions for new she knew by was what we're going to do  ially saying ok so we're going to change the definition you know how to leave the how do we measure height how do we do this so that and as we come up with a draft zoning we're going to run it's not in a formal way but we're then going to look at that this and say ok if this had been there that well wouldn't have gotten the bill and is that really what we want to achieve is that the is that what we're doing here i think that's a good exercise ok well let me put it it's a question if we're not doing that what are we going to do with this in information once we collect it it's clearly in the city so discussion points living area is a large number but that could be right in the middle of the size of the structures in that neighborhood because narratively speaking yes comparatively speaking when you say so it could be on three  them in our first ever right although this isn't a public airing any comments from you know i want to keep it brief we do want to get out of here so this isn't the valmeyer that was sold and you may want to add it to your list of the two weighty frighten st so it's is it on there i didn't say it got a lot of you know what i think i think or is it addition it's not adding up thousands burford addition it's just adding addition that's how they don't have access to databases five years this is a guess that i'm saying but that's when they put the description for the building permit in and it's not saying about what i'm getting at is that you look at height is of great concern there's a building being constructed that you were approved with a special permit three eighteen to repel a road lot of talk about this to leave you with picture third floor has eight and once i get the i would then what i need to get the check and for the trees and then they have five thousand dollars can be released i would i would like to hear just to be able to you know things that have happened there you know because i hear things around town it and yeah i heard that their plane was a foundation plane but we all just know that there's an expiration date to the special project and again for the record that expiration they can file a lawsuit they can sue basically the town on the decision so the decision is held for twenty days after twenty days it's released so it was called twenty days of th days prior to the issue it's the foundation permit approvals your plans for us to approve and other things there's a sixty day window there's a ninety day window i think for building  would like to know you know it as it is a chair that is not run up against an expiring special permit you know i would imagine if i were the outlook i would try to get an extension for that is that allowed by law is that part of the process  what rules we have at our disposal to either grant not grant any kind of exception on a special and does it require a public hearing to be reopened to do that