you for coming on michael even said i'm sure there were a committee and i'm also tell me member large it's great to have everybody out here i think this is a fabulous tradition that's been obviously going on for many years and that huge thank you to mar women voters for organizing i think it's a great opportunity for tony members to have an opportunity to get additional education and learn about these issues before we actually get to town meeting it allows for time meaning to proceed even more efficiently which i think is questions for those that are poor bring forth an article as they will explain them give a little bit of an explanation brief let's say two to five minutes of explanation and then they'll be an opportunity for people to ask questions those questions are your opportunity to clarify to understand better what the work articles are about this is not just to be very clear this is not the time for advocating what you believe should happen right if you have a speech that you would like to practice please do so there's a little bit shorter opportunity for speaking at town meeting and also the notion is that you have a question you ask the question you can ask a follow up question but if you have more than that question in that follow up question you really need to get at the back of the line so we'll kind of  that way as well if you come up to the mike to ask a question you can ask a question and a follow up if you have more than that please go to the back of the line so that other people can have an opportunity to ask their questions make sense ok just one quick comment on the work committee i think many of you are familiar with that word committee is essentially the finance committee for belmont we operate there about fifteen of us which are includes a representative from the board in this case sitting by dad who's the chair and a representative from the school committee which is a large slab who is also the chair so we are primary role is to advise town meeting particularly on articles that have a financial impact  for the town and so if any article that involves an appropriation will certainly require the word committee to make a recommendation to town meeting and any articles that where the article is perceived to have a meaningful financial impact you'll also have the work committee making a recommendation to town meeting hopefully for your benefit so that's a little bit about what the work that he does ok i think everybody knows the town meeting will be operating in two different sections so the two different segments so segment and it takes for everyone's benefit if you aren't aware of this with in the segment a within the first town meeting there is also going to be special town meeting and that will allow us to talk about two different more articles within that town meeting and that those two articles involve  expenditure for snow and ice because we got a little bit of snow and ice this year more than we expected and then there's also an allocation for special education or they will come before a special education stabilization fund monies are being requested to be spent on that so it's not what we'll do is we'll talk only about segment a and that special town meeting that exists within segment a so that would be articles one through nine and then the two articles as i mentioned within the special town meeting the snow and ice and the special education stabilization all right so and then we'll have a separate word briefing on segment be ok article one that is just reports that you all here we have nothing to talk about tonight article two is the authorization to represent the town's legal interest as a procedural matter which we also will not talk about here will start with article three which is an amendment to the general biological stormwater management  stormwater management and erosion control by law many of you may recall the bylaws adopted a couple of years ago by town meeting the board of selectmen as authorized by the by law is allowed to adopt rules and regulations to implement the  this amendment to the by a lot is an effort to i guess sort of unify some of the wording that was added under the rules and regulations that wasn't necessarily captured in the by law the two primary issues that are being addressed through this amendment our one to give the conservation commission the authority to implement what is in the storm water management and erosion control by law right now the conservation commission operates under a set of standards that are defined by the state department of environmental protection the stormwater by a law that we've adopted here in belmont actually has requirements above and beyond what d e p t has for their standards and so this is an opportunity to allow the conservation commission access to socially motorola's for them to implement storm water management and erosion control in the in the cases that they hear as a conservation commission the other significant part of the amendment is to give the board of selectmen the authority to adopt rainfall data that is i guess above and beyond currently what the state standards allow the board of selectmen through their rules and regulations adopted wording that allowed actually codified that requirement in the by law so it sort of gives the rules and regulations adopted by the board of selectmen gives a some cover by actually having that wording recognized in the by law the current rainfall data is from data that was gathered back up until the late one nine hundred fifty s what this change in the bylaw will do is give us access to rainfall data that is current into the two thousands and therefore gives a more accurate representation of what rainfall it looks like in the region today if i may glenn i am here because this is an article sponsored by the board of selectmen and what we did ok residents we did take our regulations with which were enacted pursuant to the by a law that was passed by town meeting and we went a little further further than what the bylaws the rise thus and we incorporated the new rainfall data into the regulation more accurate grandfather that ok so what this article does is just incorporate that new data into the bylaws ok because right now there's a risk that our regulation may go beyond the scope of what was authorized by town meeting this puts the two in part at the same time it puts the conservation commission  the amendment in terms of process if you're familiar with what the office of community velleman does for example for planning board filings of his own board filings there's a certain level of review that occurs on the staff  that looking gets before the applicable board we would provide that type of review in oversight for the conservation commission we would work with them as they are he going through their hearing process to make sure they have all the tools necessary for them to be able to  implement the buy a lot of the applications that come before the thank you but for those that are going to ask questions if you don't mind just identifying yourself be terrific martin cohen precinct three this being general bylaw rather than zoning i presume is immune to being overridden in forty development me a little bit about who the north east regional climate center is and why have we seen them out is the source of my data because i assume that we're going to pick whatever is the we before day webster comes to the microphone just let me say that the way the bylaw was drafted the board of selectmen will have an option i guess for lack of a better term of choosing the dataset that they feel is appropriate and part of that process will be if the state of the commonwealth of benchley gets around to adopting an updated set of of data if it appears that the northeast regional climate center will be the dataset that's adopted but if it's not the by law has gives the ok the northeast regional climatic center it's often called the cornell data i believe and it's what they did is they basically took the rainfall precipitation frequency data and really analyzed it with more recent data than going through the sixty's and as you've noticed perhaps we have more frequently heavier storms when they incorporated that when when they incorporated that newer data it up the amount of rainfall by a couple  inches for the hundred year twenty four hour storm and similarly for all the other design storms so that's why when glenn says it's a higher standard that means if someone is trying to mitigate the impacts of a design storm like a ten year twenty four hour design storm now they have to build a bigger retention base and perhaps or different a different structure to mitigate to prevent the flooding they they do bad on their own but in the process i understand a government agency i think it's no law is in the process of updating the atlas for the new for the northeast and then it will be a federal agency not just an institution and we're kind of waiting for that and there is good reason to believe department of environmental protection will update that so the thought i think behind doing this was to be proactive and be ready to jump on it i guess if we get tired the selectmen are getting the authority to adopt this cornell data from this research institute but more likely i think they'll wait until a federal or state agency adopt it which precinct two and i rise because i'm not sure the previous answer is as clear as you indicated sent the whole purpose of oily b s to override all local bylaws which tend to restrict a development of low and moderate income housing that includes owning an includes all bylaws now the conservation commission is considered a state department so that it does not override conservation commission rulings which subject to appeal on their own judicial process i don't know where this bylaws fit i don't know whether it's just plain a bylaws that would be overridden or whether it is something the conservation commission would take into consideration and could consider and that would sex is the word relevant rainfall distribution data the same as recent because i so i'm presuming the whole goal of this is the have the most recent data so in the wording the term data set so relevant rainfall distribution is related directly to data set so i think i think what counsel is getting at here is that you identify the proper data set and then you use the relevant rainfall distribution from that data set so i think it i think it yes i think i think it's worded i think i thought i didn't write it but i relevant seems broader to me because if there is more recent but there's also geographical they make these atlases for different parts of need to use the same dataset for another application within the same timeframe or is relevant relevant to the application i guess it's i'm getting a little picky here but so so they must  use the same relevant data across any applications that they are then revealing the the way the article is worded if there's two options there one is if the board chooses to adopt northeast regional  application went ok across applications so that you would within one year could they still choose which dataset to be applying though no they would pick one and then if down the road they decided that there was one that was more applicable only adopting the stormwater regulations wearing it's in their purview and other communities there are storm water authorities which also regulate and or oversee storm water discharges from development one would assume th as the woman before me ask that you will use the same datasets and any storm water guidelines within the town will also be adopted across that same general platform that is correct yeah just  quickly be history on the by larrie's it's been in effect for approximately a year and a half in the authority in the bylaw is for the office of community development to apply that by a lot to all projects that meet the requirements or meet the standards in the bylaw s storm water that's correct you know where we were lacking all the gap was how to give the conservation commission the opportunity to look at projects the way that we do in community development ok thank you very much  two articles first one is article four which asks that the town clerk only under the supervision and direction of the by law review committee which is created by our general bylaws to assign numeric alphanumerics to existing bylaws sections chapters etc to make sure that they are consistent with the structure that we adopted a number of years ago now two years ago if something seems to be in a the wrong spot to actually move that only at the direction of the by our view committee and those are all public meetings so you can attend those the second one which is article five is to actually correct i think it's four separate one letter errors that made all the way through all of our town meeting members all of our reviews and the attorney general as well so we're not perfect so this is good and there are four of those and they're pretty non substantive for a benefit these first three articles that we've just talked about the two that i mentioned and the and the one we just talked about all majority of votes and the work committee did not weigh in on any of the three of them just because they are not appropriations nor do they have a financial impact are there any questions for owen it off me i put in a fifteen second plug and it says that on your mobile devices you may all get the general by laws and i sent something out to tommy members it's called code search and i do encourage that if you want to look up about dogs or storm water or whatever it's right at your fingertips and our inspectors actually carried around with them so thank you committee is the belmont citizens for every responsible zoning and where a group of five in the neighborhood of the single residency sounding district and we don't have much time tonight to talk about what has happened prior to coming this evening and we will speak more at length that town meeting what i want to do is just speak to you briefly about the problems that we have with oversized houses we are seeking a one year moratorium on the construction of single family houses that are greater than thirty two feet in total height and it's in a neighborhood or our neighborhood bounded by school washington and grove streets grove and dalton and bacon road and before i go any further i would encourage you prior to town meeting if you haven't seen how our neighborhood has been transformed please do take a look i'm going to talk just briefly as i said about the problem with oversized houses they tower over neighboring homes big crowd out sunlight vegetation and with trees being cut down the habitat of songbirds in our neighborhood they also reduce the opportunities that we have enjoyed in our neighborhood and tree level is and for people who want to downsize because what we're seeing as a neighborhood is transformed a very very long and expensive homes and they are taking the place of homes that are what we consider entry level homes and finally we believe what's been happening in our neighborhood really in truly undermines character as the town of homes i'm going to ask steve to talk a little bit more about why we chose the neighborhood that we chose and then to top a little bit of the the logic of this moratorium basically is that facing accelerating oversized home construction across belmont we thought that a moratorium would provide time to make sure that the much zoning bylaw reflects and protect the interests of all homeowners the existing homeowners as well as ones who want to build new homes and perhaps build them larger for the purpose of the mor feels and lot size so it's very difficult to settle in on for the purpose of a moratorium a single characteristic because this is a complex issue and it's going to take a lot of work on the planning board's part and the part of the community to figure out how to deal with this complexity across town for the purpose of a moratorium we could have said well let's just not build any more houses until we sort this out but that seems really unreasonable and i wouldn't vote for that and i don't think the meeting would either so we settle on height as the salient characteristic at least for the from our perspective there are lots of different ways of looking at it height offers a simple visually recognisable easily measured benchmark to compare with surrounding homes and because of this complexity we needed to find a neighborhood that had a uniform housing stock so because of this  page basically we need to focus on something a neighborhood that was having a lot of difficulty high volume of activity of tear downs and reconstructions that were oversized and it turns out that the neighborhood that we live in has had the highest number per block basically in town there are other places that have had and are starting to have additional activity  we picked this one because it's really easy to find so here's where the neighborhood is the shot of it we're taking a little bit of pain it has really uniform housing stock it's a relatively large neighborhood now the existing housing stock has average heights total heights of twenty seven to twenty nine feet a lot sizes are small so even you're at over five minutes if you would mind just give me a couple more ba i just want to show you all the activity we've had and we've had houses that are thirty four feet thirty nine feet thirty seven c very high tall houses it's completely changing the neighborhood i'm sorry to take up so much your time this is not an easy issue there's it's just too big under current zoning by a lot you can build a house in the single family district any of the single family district that thirty six feet high to the midpoint of the roof on a pitch can end up with a house that tall against a neighborhood home only twenty seven twenty feet high the highest tear down in the neighborhood is that big i'm hoping to show you the comparatively the moratorium would limit the height to thirty two feet in total height this doesn't permanently abandon the midpoint height limit the midpoint height limit is in effect to encourage people to build slope roots we think over a year period we're not at risk of people building a lot of flat roof homes especially after the snowfall that we had in the past year for example one year we would have a thirty two foot high and that's still four or five feet taller than most of the homes in our neighborhood but it seems like a reasonable expectation it allows people to feel in our neighborhood now my house only has a seven foot six ceiling to pump it realizing that that's what you get the reason houses everybody wants to build nine foot ceilings these days that's fine that's fine but there's no reason that you couldn't build a house with nine foot ceilings and have occupy wall attic space but still keep it within thirty two feet it's entirely possible it there's just no need to go that far so that's basically what we're up to the one question i want to anticipate an answer is why just this neighborhood and i think of going through this very complex there are alternatives but right now  to amend the article as it's written is going to be really complicated and it would probably be best to put this article in place we're encouraging you to put this article in place and allow time for us to work with a planning board to develop standards that would apply across town all across belmont that's what we're up to thank you are there any questions i mean i would just add that the board of selectmen unanimously voted to recommend approval of this article so work many did as well yes judy know i just a comment when you present this to town meeting it would be lovely if you actually took photographs we have them of the name programs so that comparing we have we thank you very much it's a great comment and we do have those this was a kind of an awkward thank you very much to both of you and as that was a very good comment there are in fact actual pictures in this presentation of before and afters with a number of different tones so thank ok the so we've just gone through three four five six and seven what i'd like to talk about actually is the two special town meeting articles right now if that's ok so we'll start with the snow and ice article and then we'll talk about the special education stabilization fund so the snow and ice article is a seven hundred forty eight thousand oh i didn't do seven i'm so residence and to allow the planning board some control over development we share is this better then i will thank you then i'll begin by thanking you again quickly for the warrant articles that you passed last spring a town meeting that allowed the planning board to exert some control over the development that was going on in the general residence area for the most part we think that has worked successfully both in a positive sense that the plans have come before us and we've been able to work with the developer to produce something that's more in keeping with the scale of the we've has as it's become clear that there's a certain type of development that you cannot bring forward there are many developments that might have happened that we are just not seeing because people it's clear they won't go anywhere between eight thousand and ten thousand feet we have ninety feet of frontage split it into two lots and build two smaller single family houses on it that's what we're coming to the planning board that's what we're coming to town meeting for ask to ask for permission to do the logic of it is on a ninety foot lot with ten foot setbacks you still get a building that's seventy feet long that's a massive building if we were able to subdivide the lot into for example two lots of four thousand square feet with forty five fr setbacks there would be a visual corridor of twenty feet between those houses but we also that will also result in smaller houses we think that's very much in the interests of the neighborhood the interest of the town it will rebalance the housing stock in general residence areas creating more single family houses it will create more small single family houses and give empty nesters an alternative choice so briefly that's what we're coming to the board meeting for and we hope we will have pictures we will have maps and we hope you'll agree to let us do  a district being replaced with two unit buildings so the district is becoming a multi unit district where before you have this nice mix of single families into family buildings so there's opportunity out there with larger lots to put back single family homes and we believe that the law that we're crafting the memo to violet we're crafting would really create an attractive alternative to the community as well as a developer we think it would be profitable to the developer but more importantly probably much more valuable to the community to have a stock of single families come back into the district  on smaller lots so we're not trying to create i just want to be clear about this we're not looking to lessen the lot size so if you have for instance a four thousand square foot lot that has forty five feet of front edge you're still go entered underneath the minimum required five thousand square feet with fifty feet of it would be for the larger lots of lives liz says with you know eight thousand square feet up to nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine square feet those will be the last will be affected the most so that we pretty much we offer more alternatives and this during the special prop meeting during the special permit process for him input from the community the neighborhood the he was joe are there any questions and man precinct i'm just wondering if there could be some it sounds like a great idea it makes sense but could we have some sort of disclosure if there is anyone that or appointed that has proposed this that might benefit from if they own the land and have wanted to do this if they just might acknowledge that in the past we've had zoning that affected elected officials in a very positive way and i just thought it would be nice if anyone that was elected or appointed to a committee who might benefit from this as far as financially because they own the land and want to subdivided it they might go ahead and i will not  financially i'm just going to do and we've identified thirty seven lots that would qualify for this and none of the thirty seven lots are the thirty seven  i have various parcels in the town i would have to remove houses from my part that i own to do exactly what we're talking about i would be actually oversized i could under the that exist right now put back a larger two family which i think i could actually make work without this byelaw so in full disclosure yes i developed quite a bit of real estate in the town yes i still own this building of on to for over thirty years alternative but can i can i add something joe ok number one this doesn't take away any right right exactly all this does is it adds additional tools that the plan board can utilize all by special permit right in the general residence district and i guess the last question just came to me is what would the square footage of the footprint be allowable it would vary in size from well whether it started out as an eight  if you take that twenty five feet and you multiply it by the one point six you'd end up with forty feet of depth that would result in a one thousand square foot footprint ok entire thank you would when we were putting this by like together we look at a number of scenarios and we looked at nine thousand we looked at eight thousand we i did some conceptual drawings of how well this is how well a house with a thousand square foot footprint would work how much how many properties would be available and eight thousand seem to give the desired mix that we can keep the house is small enough we can preserve the visual corridors but at the same time it makes a difference we don't want to come and you know make this point often as we were developing this we don't want that could have really we could have made a difference in the project if we had had precisely what we're talking about you were one of the co sponsors and we very much think this is in the spirit of the things that the  the sponsors were trying to do great one question that i also had is as you know one of the reasons we brought forward the citizens petition nationally is because we were we were having a lot of problems in my neighborhood was one that was really impacted strongly but i was curious about so this does not give developer by right to do it but they would still have to come forward and i just had a quick question on the height so to d d on page seven have to think it says the high jump out exceed thirty two feet but the previous one which is the thirty two feet really the top eight or is it that middle if i may in the single residency district where you have the moratorium the maximum height is thirty six feet to the middle of the gable role in the president's general it's currently thirty three feet reducing it by one foot so the last question i had was so if i understand correctly on the rear would could still go as far as ten feet within the property line is that correct how does that no no no the rear of the house how much how much what i think you're going to see happen jan is i think right now at the twenty ok ok to twenty and i think what you're going to see happen is with this planning board we're going to use the average that that was one of my concerns because we did have so many of those like railroad cars that go up really close to the property line and i know that there is a particular lot that is very close to my house that this would be a sect that the point that i have thought about for at least a decade when i've read the zoning laws and i'm sure there's a very good reason for it why do you measure the height to the midpoint of the roof rather than the height of the actual height of the roof or i guess a simple example would be so that you almost prevent people from building a pill people building to a thirty two foot max you could end up with a lot of flat roofed houses so we measure to the midpoint to encourage colonial style housing  you to see and we've now gone through three three seven so will not talk about next is are the two articles that are within the special town meeting so we'll start with the snow and ice  free cash seven hundred forty eight thousand dollars which is the amount of money over the amount of money spent over a budget of box me six hundred thousand dollars for the latest winter storm on average we  get forty five to fifty inches of snow this past winter we got one hundred six inches and basically we exceeded our budget by seven hundred forty thousand dollars and we obviously are looking to make sure that we don't finish the fiscal year in a deficit in our snow and ice account and so we're requesting seven hundred forty thousand dollars from free cash to make us whole it should be noted that the first storm of the blizzard was the clear it is a merge and see by the president recently we will get a reimbursement from the federal government at some point i would be highly surprised if it's in this fiscal year that we receive the money but that could be a reimbursement approximately quarter of a million dollars for the first storm samuels a precinct six town meeting member i just have a question to floyd carmen i believe the seven hundred forty eight thousand is coming out of free cash in my recollection is that the belmont cent reconstruction is being paid for in great amount from free cash how does this affect that and what's the status of free cash we began the fiscal year with approximately seven point five million dollars in our free cash balance you are correct during the fall tommy tommy appropriated one point three million to fund a portion of the belmont center reconstruction project an addition to that the proposed budget uses one point seven five million in free cash and then as you know the town has an open policy which would allocate three hundred forty one thousand parks money from free cash to the open trust fund so that is a use of about four million four point one million dollars and again the goal would be to replenish what we use for operations not necessarily for what we have a kid for the belmont center project and we believe that we were able to do that by a marg evening everyone the schools is requesting to access the special education stabilization fund that was created in the may two thousand and twelve town meeting we have seen an increase in our overall role that as well as a role that in certain areas that provide students with special services in special education services in transportation the special education services those funds have exceeded our budget i'm out ok thank you very much superintendent just already knows this is actually the first ever use of the special education stabilization fund the work committee has not yet taken up this article i think we will do so on wednesday if i'm not mistaken  is the education committee is reviewing it right now so we will share our vote at tell me we just haven't picked it up yet but thank you very much right fantastic so those are the two articles that are part of special town meeting that we just talked about  question those two are additional pieces of free cash allocation that would be used should town meeting vote to approve them so we'll move to article eight which is the community preservation committee budget and projects there are a projects i believe that floyd is going to start out is that right now president peg are you going to give a brief introduction so there are six projects we'll go through each of them in turn but i believe what i think you're going to start by just giving every expense so the first one is the belt start is anyone here for the moment veterans so we can go or you can speak to that one ok so the first project is sixty thousand dollars for the beaumont veterans memorial restoration or you can talk about that one by the way the work committee reviewed all six of these articles we were roughly unanimous in support of all of them one of the articles which happens to be the digitization of belmont newspapers there were two members that abstained i think one of them was out of the we didn't have any opening remarks is we sent out this twelve fifteen page document to count meeting you got to electronically so you didn't think we needed to cover the same ground you already have in hand looking for sixty thousand i mean that is the summary of really what that project's all about the primary sponsor of the project is a president by the name of kevin ryan a number of the fundamental subdivision of community education act projects is that they fall into one of three broad categories open space and recreation is one historic preservation is to in community housing is three is that correct but with the exception of small wondering the are people asas for that also have to concern because i know i think i think this entire projects probably going to cost about two hundred two hundred fifty thousand so that's sixty thousand dollars just for a small portion of the so senior for the questions thank you very much floyd the second project is a five hundred twenty two and a half thousand dollar expense for an electrical upgrade from the belmont housing authority correct yes so jon hamilton is and basically our project this year is a continuation of the project that we had last year which was to upgrade the electrical wiring at belmont village i think some of you probably know the belmont village as a family housing development it thousand for six buildings which would be a fraction of the actual number of buildings that we have this year we are asking for the remainder of the funding to upgrade the  remaining buildings we have twenty five buildings total one hundred apartments the concern for us is basically the age of the wiring that there may be fire hazards it's  basically a safety issue for ground they're going to pull out all that from between the walls to do that no we're not planning to pull out any wiring i think the plan right now would be and again we have an engineering firm that's doing the plans for us but basically we're talking about either doing extra on a wiring which would bypass the existing wiring or we would run actually wires from the ceiling but not to remove any of the existing wiring that's already there you jack jack weiss precinct one i appreciate the seriousness of life safety issues this is the third year where we have used c p a funds for the belmont housing authorities that we're now in for a million dollars if we were using c p a money is this a town responsibility or is this a state responsibility for capital investments in public housing projects the state basically will fund capital improvement projects for the housing authority they have asked us to look at other sources of funding which the housing authority has done over the years about three years ago we received federal stimulus funding up it was approximately nine hundred thousand dollars to replace the furnaces the heating systems the bell my phillips it's a state responsibility to try to fund as much as they can fund but they have encouraged us to look for other sources of funding is well i imagine that after we get through electric there's plumbing or there's the pointing of masonry or there's an almost unlimited list of capital projects to bring the quality of the housing up to a more contemporary standard by us continuing to fund projects through the c p a do we in effect create a precedent where it is less likely that the state will fund any of the projects saying hey we have scarce dollars to allocate belmont's willing to allocate it through the c p a let's keep pushing them down is there a penalty that we're encouraged by in effect subsidizing the state's responsibility to take care of the capital needs of the project well i think that the state acknowledges that it does have a responsibility to  fund based on the state budget the projects that it can fund as far as any other projects that are funded by the town i'm not sure that the housing authority will be applying every year for four town funding right now the way that the funding for public housing is allocated is based on a for a system of formula funding which basically means right now the belmont housing authority i can give you the exact numbers at town meeting but the way that we're funded right now we're getting approximately two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in capital improvement funding from the town is actually referred to as formula funding so anything we do above that is what we're looking for in terms of whether it's as i said previously the federal stimulus or towns said differently by us making you contribute contribution we are not in any way jeopardizing the formulaic funding that we would otherwise get from your state no no because actually the formula funding that we're using is already been allocated and it's a use it or lose it formula system where basically rich have to spend if it's two hundred fifty thousand we have to spend two hundred fifty thousand so all of that funding is being used in actually at this point because of the fact that we exceeded our budget for some of the other projects that we did this year we're actually borrowing from next the housing authority for any project the c b c thought the c p a funds could only be used to preserve or create affordable housing so regular improvements palming  windows would not necessarily pull interest under that category of preserving but the fact that this wiring issues with the wiring could endanger the housing it doesn't do with the residence but it's actually that we should that this group should bring forward the rest of the project and that's what they've done here they have brought forth the rest of the electrical wiring as someone exits in the c p a committee or gloria said we we've talked about this sor mortgages it doesn't consume one hundred percent of our income and i don't know what is going difficult for me to understand why with one hundred percent of your income you can't support that private property the way it should be  thank you very much are there any further questions on this article ok thank you very much for joining us ok so the third article on the list is the digitization of belmont newspapers that has a  it's a project on the historic component for the c p a and we're looking to convert some of the newspapers that we have for a fixed period to digital records so it's really preserving historical records and providing them in a format that the public demands in terms of access to information it's a specific time period it's the targeted newspapers that are that are listed on the slide and taking them from microfiche onto digital media that's accessible through your computer searchable and retrievable from from a computer through the library network it's for this fixed period it is our intent to go after the full spectrum but this specific project is for this time period because those are the records that we have access through that are available through the public domain qu just in stored purposes it's actually backed up so part of the you know the cost is hosting and it is part of the hosting fee is provide backup as well you know so do this new technology may have changed  technology changes rapidly for and it's a i'm professional iberian myself and it's a big issue for us because databases change come to changes over time and there's constant research and developing new ways to thousand dollars but you just mentioned the hosting fee and i just want to make sure i understand this i thought you explained in the warrant committee that the hosting fee would be a recurring expense that would not be covered by c p a money so details as a as long as these records will be made available in this format the hosting fee was going to be between three and four thousand dollars per year it's three thousand dollars for every year posted the first year to the seventy nine includes the first year of posting and you're correct there is an ongoing hosting cost to access this information and the them farm that we are going with currently its three thousand dollars so just our town but towns across the country to digitize their historical newspapers we're not alone in this and that's the good news because the institute for library museum studies which is a national institute funded by the federal government does a lot of research in this area there is such a thing called the digital public library where a lot of this content resides at a much lower cost so we're not stopping we're not stopping at this point where it's going to cost thirty thousand over the next ten years our goal is to put it in a place like the digit public library or the did and the digital public library as a place where the entire here in the audience we live in perfect timing would you please stand up this is peter  particular capital budget right between the preservation act projects whether or not there is in fact an ongoing operating impact this actually project doesn't fact have an operating impact on an ongoing basis of three thousand dollars so i appreciate pointing that out ok so we will move on to the next project the fourth one which is the home or house rehabilitation susan smart is going to join us and and share information on this is one hundred thousand dollars projects also falling into the category of historic preservation one might imagine susan smart and i represent the belmont women's club a five hundred one c three organization all volunteers which as you may know for the past ninety years practically since one thousand twenty seven have supported him entertain the house  the house as you know if i may give you my elevator speech just for second is on the state and national registers of store places it's certainly a belmont landmark your children maybe even your grandchildren have come to the house of children to see the house and we continue to work to improve our and expand our educational cultural programming it is a local landmark but it also have national importance as one of only two sites nationwide associated with the artist winslow homer that still exist and are open to the public we think it has great potential to attract cultural tourism to the town and we're opening for our third season of winslow homer tours this weekend when the homers women please come and see it belmont residen have discounted admission and actually this afternoon the deputy b h this old house program contacted us tell us they will come next week to film the interior of the house of the future at on their upcoming segment on the belmont house there  so exciting things are happening we asked for your consideration for the following project for the home or house rehabilitation and restoration of our couple of three porches and the drive these are all safety measures in fact they were all described as emergency measures in the two thousand and thirteen building survey and conditions report which was funded by the first round of c p a funding in fact we didn't lower left of metal flashing and would coming off the roof which needed to be stabilized in order to allow us to have a school children and have public visitation left brain that was paid for by the women's club and a grant from the belmont savings bank the netting that is now on the top of the koopa you may know that the bonnet is a temporary measure it prevents more pieces from falling off the roof but still leaves the roof vulnerable to the elements and so we ask your consideration for this work and be happy to take any questions you may have this is one building in the historical district which we try to preserve by our rules and regulations minus in this house is also privately owned by our organization i have a hard time having giving money to one private party and not the rest because there are many historical housing in the district and this is not owned by the town it's own by the woman's club but if you look at the legislation the legislation clearly defines that town meeting can approve it and i finally for any historical property this particular property here if it's a landmark has been really a fabric of belmont and we've been talking with the woman's club and if tell me approves one hundred thousand dollars of funding we will work with the town council to put a lien on the property that means if up to the up the years down the road this property was to be sold or something was to happen to it the it's very very important i'm glad you give me the ins and it's a loan is going to be a lien on the property i have me i favor that will require a vote of the board of the woman's club and we're certainly very willing to to  expanded opportunities for public access which we are absolutely in favor of i would i would hope when i'm in the town meeting with this being really confirm what would you are telling us part of a mission of a five one c three is to provide educational cultural programming a public good and i believe we do provide that the club itself provides high school scholarships we have hosted second graders for probably over thirty years we'd like to expand our education programs with the the historical society and with with the superintendent's office we have great plans and we want this to be the town resource basically so we have we think we think it provides a great public good and as i said again we had a twelve month period where we had nearly over a thousand people who came to the house simply to see it because it was associated with winslow homer and these were people from out of town i think this house can be a great source of economic support for the belmont center  and business relationships between essentially a tourist site a cultural tourism site and and the businesses in the center of the restaurants etc so i think that the house provides a great public good will be providing even more in the future and we look forward to two inviting you to the house i think in the interest of the property in the town as you say to reconstruct your economic structure for these thousands of people going through their property in the words of a nonprofit to belmont ok it would be a shame to lose this house the woman's club is made up primarily of the money president volunteers in the interest of disclosure i'm a member myself same with select and the sitting sitting in the back and you know they do provide other services in kind to belmont residents so for example i'll belmont residents to come in and take wedding pictures in the yard outside the house you also provide parking for our police police officers because they don't have enough parking you know on their current property so this to me is a different case th private resident who has a historically classified home looking for money to renovate or rebuild their porch this is just such a fabric within the town of belmont that we taped we'd hate to lose it  date they had such a difficult time trying to make ends meet once again i will repeat there might be a difference of opinion but i will move forward putting a lead on a property i have already had discussions with the town council i have a model in place the reason i haven't expended any money is we still need to have town meeting approve this town meeting approves this experience i will be calling cultural to get the ball rolling i will go over and visit with the woman's club it's it's as simple as this this is a five on one c s mr murthy said there are other properties in town that are historical in nature what we do for one we're going to  a town organization because how many other five or one c three story have that or historical building and the top down one i have no facts but but a private home want to would not be eligible for those one second and he's mean there is a question there behind you who has not spoken yet if you would mind letting him there was nobody here when i get up here i understand i'd like to call the question right thank through the cost of this resurfacing and repair was about twenty four thousand dollars the estimated life was about three to five years last year in the summer of last year we spent about a little over seven thousand dollars to do minor repair crack and ceiling this year we're proposing that this is a complete removal and replacement of brand new tennis courts at the peak  the questions are there any question history we have members in approximately two hundred households within belmont and our headquarters located in the class one room of the belmont public library and we are the owners of the wellington hill station which is a historic structure that is located on town parkland at two common street in the common street historic district is about one thousand station which i'm here to discuss with you tonight are the most historical society submitted the application for the community preservation act funding the community preservation committee is planning to recommend this to town meeting in may we are requesting twenty six thousand three hundred dollars for c p a funding to replace the current roof of the station in a historically responsible manner the project has also been endorsed by several organizations in the town including the belmont historic district commission which is indorse the project and our project will be overseen by joe cornish who is also who is the co chair of the historic district commission and is also our wellington station master who oversees monitoring and repairing of the structure when he also has many years of experience with these projects of preservation the wellington station has become a landmark and it is visible to those who travel to and from belmont center using common street in concord apt and the building can be visually enjoyed by the public who use the town park in the garden club also uses the land surrounding its walk its walkways and decking for plantings the station was built in eight hundred forty near its current location and it first served as a private school in which the it was then moved to the location of the old municipal light department on concord a outs to be used as a railroad station from the eighteen but about eighteen fifty one fifty two to eight hundred seventy nine before the then being moved to the underwood a state where it was used as school had a summer house and a artist's studio in one hundred seventy four the belmont historical society acquired the wellington station as a gift and restored it to the following year in one thousand nine hundred eighty the board of selectmen were kind enough to allow us to move this structure on to public parkland so that it would allow greater public access to the railroad and it has become a much loved and photographed landmark in our town over the years as far as a c p a project existing would roof is reaching the end of its useful life and it is important that we act before the roof deteriorates and threatens the structure if we receive c p a funding we will have the resources to strip the existing roof repaired tyria rated roof sheathing boards and install a new wood shingle roof we also will replace some of the roofs wo trim and touch up the exterior paint along that trim it's location on public park land makes the station a great local place for the public to relax and learn about local history the structure is not only important to belmont historical but it is also important to our community architecturally the station is a rare example of octagonal gothic revival architecture and it is recognised on the state register of historic places and is eligible for the national register the structure is historically intact and its roof is a major part of its architectural style the building is a publicly accessible historic an educational resource regarding the early history of our town and has stood in our area longer than there has been a town of belmont and one when one chooses to visit the one station they can sit and enjoy the scenic views of the belmont center area and visitors can also watch the center of the belmont go about its life and business in the same way that was possible when it was a railroad station  belmont center in the nineteenth century as the wellington station is a circle structure the roof must be repaired in a historically respectful as well as architecturally competent manner this fact makes the replacing of the roof of the wellington station more costly than a standard roof replacement would cost as a small nonprofit organization it is difficult for the belmont historic society to finance these large projects using our own resources and we hope that the town meeting will vote to assist us in  fulfilling our mission to preserve this historic structure and allow future generations to enjoy this building by supporting the c p c's recommendations to provide us the funding that we will need to complete this project i thank you again and i'll be happy to respond to any questions that you have case you're curious five minutes and eleven seconds so i was pretty good it's ok any questions about this project please come up with  precinct one the question is it could you explain the wording of the warrant how it relates to the boxed projects that are listed below i noticed didn't reading the language of the words you have of authority for preservation of and renovation of historical things but when the word where legislators added recreation to an open space slash recreation  grabbing for wording it but the creation the creation of open space today in the restoration of any recreational facility so people i know it's up here  change that so as restoration of historic resources and recreational that's the that's the language that's taken right out of the  out of the c p a one is historical the second is affordable housing and the third is open space slash recreation they added the recreation component a few years ago because what they were e yes hi i'm suzanne robotham town meeting member from precinct two i'm just wondering before c p c what town entity was responsible for upkeep of tennis courts and recreational areas  the restoration a reconstruction of p q tennis courts would have been the capital budget request and that would be for playgrounds as well  capital budget typically the town is not used couple funds for playgrounds but generally the tennis court would is a capital asset that would require capital budget recommendation for community preservation act funds were not available in the past i'm sure the tennis courts were resurfaced so some town entity must have been public works would have basically paid for the maintenance of upkeep so this is now taken out of public works budget bit more difficult because it's just kind of a building that's sitting on town own land but i've been in discussion with joy child to see some similar things we can do with even though it is more what i know there's things that can be done when i leave it up to you ok thank you very much so we are now on to our last warrants article so article nine is the citizens petition the non  to comment after mr reid was a chance to speak so roger revelle will get five minutes to speak about about this i will have mr jones speak for a minute or less just to share some facts i think i thought that based on that request it would be put we have a single page document explaining this article for those who are interested so this is a non binding resolution let me emphasize that it's non binding and it is directing the state representative and the state senator to vote for in favor of legislation were to be introduced in the legislature that would require belmont light to do two things one is to adopt the same net metering rates and policies that are used by the investor owned electric utilities in the state the reason for this is that there are two kinds of utilities in the state there are investor owned utilities like national grid in ever source which used to be and star that provide electricity firth three hundred in two of the municipalities in massachusetts and then there are municipal light departments which provide electricity to the remaining forty nine municipalities the investor owned utilities are regulated by the state  power department are public utilities department and the meanest right departments basically make their own rules so the first of these has to do with something called net metering so what is net  metering and it's essentially running the meter backwards if you are generating your own electricity with solar panels on your roof some of the lab and it's a sunny day some of the electricity is being used by you in your home but you may be producing more electricity than you're using that electricity goes out through the meter back into the grid and is used by some other customer when you buy electricity from belmont light it goes through the meter into your house the meter runs in one direction when you're pushing electricity back on to the system the meter runs in the other direction so that the net of that is what you're actually being charged if you live in a town or municipality that is used to provide being provided electricity by the investor owned utilities now it's also true for thirty four of the municipal light departments that somebody with a solar panel would still get net metering there are six municipalities that don't allow net metering and one of those is belmont belmont at this point in time does allow net metering but the light department has proposed to the light board that night metering be eliminated and belmont so that's the purpose of the first part of this is to allow people in belmont that have solar panels to benefit from being able to  metering their electricity and the second part of it is to adopt rates and policies that don't discriminate or impose other financial and technical impediments upon customers who seek to generate their own electric electricity from solar power one of the things utilities have done is try to impose fees on people that have solar powers and belmont light has also proposed this to the to the town for it and what they want to do is charge people for generating and using electricity in their own homes so they want to charge you for having solar panels on your house basically and this might be viewed as discriminatory because if you turn out the lights in your house and save electricity bill mount light doesn't come and ask you to pay a fee because of that ok well you can comment about one of the one of the people in the audience thinks that if they turn off their lights they are being charged for the electricity that they're not using in any case so those are the two parts of this  that that are important one is ensuring that people in belmont have net metering and to preventing the lights apartment for an imposing fees and making it hard for people to put solar panels on their house describing his proposal as you will note the legislation that would be required here would require that belmont light adopt that metering rights therefore article nine would mean the legislation if it were ever proposed would apply only to belmont light and not other municipal light systems therefore as town council explained it would also require a home rule petition which has not been pas d i also want to comment on net metering the this is a polite advisory board is not saying that solar homes will not be paid with their electricity the proposal is that they will be although at a different rate and the so called feel that we're talking about is to ensure that all customers including those with solar panels pay their fair share of the maintenance of the capital costs of the municipal like department thank you and thank you mr judge me if you don't mind we're again we're not going to be here and we're not going to entertain in a major discussion if you happen to have a question for either one if it is beneficial to the  and be self sufficient that's a different system but all those was when you need the power has to be paid for and to pay anything more than what we pay as it was it was explained more than what they're paying for the power someplace else is not fair to the rest of the users you're already being subsidized going to by the government program for your solar panels so we're paying for that anyway so mr mercer's your question whether or not you're paying for capital even if the lights are not on is that a question well i guess i can't i can't think of a story but i think everybody knows and i'm ok thank you very much epstein member of the warrant committee and tommy the member from precinct six my question for you roger is how recently have you checked the information about net metering policies in the other towns in massachusetts because you sent me an e mail last couple of weeks identifying towns which you said had all adopted net metering and said the model was one of the few or maybe the only exception to the rule and i actually telephone the towns on the list and found that your list actually was not accurate and many towns that you say have adopted net metering in fact have not or if they did it was in the past and they've since changed the policy because of non economic and i'm just wondering have you verified that the information that you are stating about net metering state wide about four other municipal systems is accurate because i'm certain that it's not the information was collected in july two thousand and fourteen i have had discussions with a couple of the light departments on it and verified not to verify but in those discussions have verified if you have the names of towns that have changed their policies then i would be happy to take those and check them out and change my information all that as far as i know that the information is still current well i'll just say now that not only is it not correct but certain towns of told me that they are from discussions among the state as a kind of a state association of  al light systems there's a groundswell of where they expect a wholesale change of policy to get away from that metering because it's not economic if you talking about all of the utilities in massachusetts or just the municipal municipal so municipal councils they are so it's not surprising because if you talk all i'm saying is that i'm concerned that the information that's being presented about what's in the norm for the state as opposed to belmont is actually not accurate and as i said if you provide me with that information i will check it out and change my what i'm saying here real quick and me on precinct four i would meet belmont three years ago we had three different solar providers that were there i was interested in getting solar panels last year when i went to meet belmont there was no solar representative and i asked why not and i learned that that they aren't interested in working with belmont anymore because there's no incentive to work with us and i wonder if before town meeting we could find out why it is there were jack doing belmont residents and don't encourage us to get solar or don't want to work with us to get solar anymore and when we think about that we can also think about climate change and the cost that we just had to take from free cash in order to take care of all the snow and allan thank so let me just say that our motivation in putting this on the ballot remember it's a nonbinding resolution it is directing the state representatives to approve a piece of legislation of which there is not one is to get people to talk about this and to decide as a town do we want more solar or don't we want more solar if you supportive of solar then you're going to want to have policies that encourage solar the town of belmont is moving in the opposite direction and that's the reason that we have put this on the surface just we're not going to have a debate tonight we'll talk as opposed to actual power costs even if you were arguing that well metering didn't make sense because it wasn't fair because people's still needed to pay for that just to be sure cos i believe that about forty percent of our total costs are for maintenance of the capital plant and the distribution system and then there's this other part that of course is the energy itself and along that same line i want to just point out that we are looking at buying one megawatt of solar power from a large distributor in the western part of massachusetts so i think that we can we can discuss that it down meeting