we just want to get going we've got some interesting items to go over tonight but just because of the way the agenda is set up i'm going to i'm going to be pushing the fifteen gets twelve fifty four white st public hearing further our board member needs to recuse yourself from that application as he owns a property across the street so so that because he's here i want to get through the things that he can join on and then when he leaves he won't have to come back so so we're going to call the meeting to order we're going to go right to the discussion on the shark gardens and hitting your farm overlay district this is for those of you that don't are familiar with that it's the start with the big picture we are going to be proposing zoning that applies to all of single residents see that represent something of a compromise between the neighborhood the practice it's larger than the neighborhood the proud it forward and is smaller than all of the single residence districts in town and we think that's the that's the appropriate level at which to do rezoning in this case or to propose recently  major points to make it right this is a work in progress we're obviously looking forward to the public forum and we will have input from many but at this point the the key elements in the new zoning we would be proposing would be as follows first an adjustment in the height and we would propose both to control both the midpoint  and we would propose both a maximum hike to control bridge height and control midpoint so that we don't create perverse incentives for only flat roofs or absurdly peak street structures or whatever second and this we think will be very important is that we are going to change these setbacks dimensions and joe you may want to say something about this the first is that we're going to propose the front set back be controlled in a sense as it is in the general residence districts of the house needs to be built in with reference to the neighboring houses to avoid the tooth gap effect or anything else right and second we think this will be this will make a this will be quite significant is that we proposed to increase the site setbacks from ten feet to twelve feet and we think that in or well i should say excessive pluck that's out of proportion to the rest of the neighborhood the we will be adding some restrictions see another mechanical equipment that exists in the general district area and then maybe joe you'd like there is a there is one more provision which is really important and that is the removal of the that doesn't have the required nine thousand square foot area needed with the seventy five feet of friday if you were to demolish an existing structure on a lot smaller like a preexisting not conforming lot can basically rebuild a lot that's less than required what area of that thousand square feet so what we're proposing is that change we're not trying to take away people's property rights what we are doing is basically we're trying to protect people's property values so here going to see the process go before this forum and we're going to get a lot more input from from the folks that they have property and i expect proposing we just think that that will put a stop to the to the over development of these lots as they exist today permit is something that we've talked about and is some is certainly something on which we expect to get comments at the four so basically a sizable addition of one story building  existing non conforming correct and the me you did this is this is responsive to a point that was made is the do you want the building the process  pulling eight kermie and the process of getting a special permit from the planning board to be pretty much the same thing as you know we don't want to be putting every every piece of construction belmont through a special permit process so this was an attempt to carve out something that we thought people would want a reasonable number of people might want to do that would not be detrimental  things that were are the buildings that are of most concern could they have been i just think it might be expected just so that we don't have to wait til the for for any issues concerning the people that live there to come up it might be worth having that either ahead of time and maybe nothing will come out of that but at the edges for a week we welcome the opportunity to meet with the neighborhood looking at construction in the last ten years to look to see what went right about some of the new construction and also what went wrong and we would love to share that with you at some point and that might be a good topic if we could and start thinking about notification in publishing it and putting together some kind of presentation for  that had been some conversation to having it outside of the regular scheduled meetings to boards meeting on the third in the seventeenth the weekend the week after the seventeenth is certainly thanksgiving so that doesn't really work  that we can certainly not a lot of worse see what it looks like to the different houses the two salient details sort of jumped out at you that aren't specifically being addressed yet in this process and one is  is kind of complicated but to address but it's the lack of utter lack of landscaping it's the stripping of the lots and replacement with a putting green and no regard for the trees that were there at one point or anything like that and that's one of the things that stands out about these houses in there doesn't seem to be looking at the plantings that are going on in these lots a whole lot of attention to what's going to happen next because the attention is to the inside of the and it should be included and in fact that's why i bring it up because in i know in the g r deliberations you guys have really paid attention to that and that i respect that that's that's it's that's great and that is one of the things that we've been seeing out there the second thing has to do with just the sheer inus of the structures i mean a majority of these structures appear to be just basically big boxes with very little ornamentation with it with no one to take the ones that work the houses that work for the ones indentations in different places and not token ones not ornamental you know mansion like columns on the front but really set backs on the upper floors and just interesting detail there this is this is an architectural i come from an architectural home so architecture can solve i think many many things and a lot of times what we're seeing is just not a failure of architecture it's the same kind of architecture that we see in the big box office buildings where maximizing interior space which is you know a worthy goal in its way but the appearance is basically of sheer walls which sort of accentuate the feeling of looming over the house next door so setting back another couple feet on each side will help but it would be nice to figure out a way to look at the upper floors and and try to avoid some of the a character add some character to it and that you can't legislate that and it's very difficult to do but but the the impact is of you know that setback carries its way all the way to the third floor  and trying to address that in some way would be of interest it seems to me and again especially when the process allows us that will help to a great deal and tend in leverage exactly and in fact i think that the thirty four feet at nine thousand square feet lot coverage so they're four feet high that seems to work pretty well but as you get into the smaller lot sizes which are the bulk of the lots that we're looking at are basically smaller non conforming that blasting with a home on either side can be tricky and i can certainly send out i'm just don't know if people knew that yet or not i have the fifteenth everything right the fifteenth is one right from the from the beginning but the the eight was talked about because the second other than what i've heard from from the selectmen that they're hoping that by the end of october all is wrapped up to be able to close out the properties so we wait and see our three months ends wh get out the nineteenth of november however the boards meet the boards meet meeting is on the seventeenth which means actually that the agenda needs to be posted by the friday prior which is the seventeenth the thirteenth so actually i've been telling people the deadline is nov twelfth at four pm for post proposed and purposes and i have been wrong many times if we were willing updates anything pressing or know it is i mean i don't know that we have any say whether or not it gets closed and waverley but if if it's going to stay you know or if it's going to move then absolutely i think you need to put an end where you know i've been invited to just the one that you just brought up i don't know that i'm going to be a to go but somebody will be able to be there i think it will be all over it one way or another i noticed a public hearing by the planning bride an application for design and cycling review and a special permit notices here by given the planning board will hold a public hearing on tuesday october twenty seventh and fifteen at seven pm in not got too far into in the first night but i think this might be a little bit more developed than the others and i'm you know happy to to migrate into it so the applicant is here if you plan on doing a presentation how how the the building fits into the neighborhood so to provide us with whatever information over the board has looked at the drawings and in a familiar with the setting in the drawings first is we just take a look at the background that is to say we look at are the taxes current if it's owner accurate if it's own or if it's only going to be owner occupied do we have that person in the sense is if it's a developer who's not going to be living in the house we ask for pictures of his or  previously observed the the plan is in compliance with that and coverage requirements and then third we move into something more tile and houses which is a tool for saying where does this how does this look when we look at in the context of the neighborhood what's it like in terms of a couple dimensions lot size total living area bedrooms f lot in the area in the neighborhood that the planning for the fire and this is the largest lot fourteen thousand seven hundred and one square feet it is also number of bedrooms compared to other houses in the neighborhood  analysis floor a project we looked at earlier and have already voted on which is three eighteen propellor row because i think in many ways this poses in terms of metrics it's very similar to three eighteen propellor out it's a large large it's a large house and it's high in terms of density because there are lots of bedrooms but floor area ratio is low so i think that have roughly a seventy five to seventy five feet of front page we've got ten feet on one side twelve feet of the other upset back which is certainly compliant but that means we've got a real moment we've got fifty five  it allows us to say does this does this house make sense in terms of the neighborhood before we get into fine tuning the house and that ends up working a lot better for every very hard to have to step back the second unit and to give it some some setback and some character and i think we were successful in doing that though it is a big lot and it is a big building and i think we're faced with very  similar challenges here you know i agree the comment about seo sheer sheer walls other than a couple of porches this is essentially almost a square and i think it lacks some character that  i think would be would be nice to be brought into it in the bigger context and although it's not part of the application here mr stepien developed around the corner and you know unfortunately for this board anyway maybe for a lot of the about is this g r zoning had been put in place yet so you were able to build those houses by right without you know without any type of overseeing process and you know fortunately or unfortunately you know that the permit came in after you know after that years owning change went in and that's why we're here that's why we were able to have some input and i think it's very important you know style and design you know is you know can be a personal thing and it can you know can be a very unique thing you know and we're not here to you know to pick apart the design of somebodies pleasures what would be here to do is make something fit into the neighborhood not necessarily the new neighborhood because that is now part of the neighborhood but also you know what's existing and i think it's i think it's an important thing i think it's a good tool that the planning board has and i think at the end of the day  assuming we're able to get there that that the project will be i think a better project at the end of the process so i just hope you can be patient through the process and don't you know don't i don't feel it's a personal attack so the comments that i made i have some comments that i'll be to take it pretty well you take it constructively because i think it's and i think it's important and you know typically what we do is we go around the table for anybody that has comments i typically reserve mine for last which which i do joe usually had a lot of comments but it you know he felt that he should be proud of it i think it's the right thing and in this case but that one of you indulge us who will go around the board here and i don't know who you would like to start does anybody have any comments this project was that it did in spite of the fact that it is a large lot the building is larger and i don't know that it's a better word or not but it does look a lot i mean against the mass of the building just seems to stand don't play all around with setbacks if there's something to break it up is that you know the effort that was done by the architect to kind of juxtapose the linear in the horizontal element with the roofs was a step in the right direction but if there was to be something else that we've done because it's architecture that a lot of very interesting and it contributes to the walking us back to car my comment would be that given that this is a commercial neighborhood across the street we have tried to do we have tried to hold to a standard of of three after four inch trees every twenty to twenty five feet and part of the problem i understand of how this out arrived with the doors where they are but it meet it means it's very difficult to to get the three trees that we ought to have on the front that the trees are spec'd at three and a half i'd say it ought to be marked three in after four so we don't get three to three and a half or two and a half but i think the difficulty of planting the front yard reflects the challenge of having a structure that is this big and has asked to have both two front doors and a garage door and you're not left with very much flexibility in terms don't i don't i don't have a suggestion and because i just when the time i think we could have slipped in at least one more tree across the front and i think that would help a lot especially if the if the plantings were to care for in the first few years i mean though there's i think my one question and then one comment but i'll hold the that way for the design knowing joe wouldn't be here i try to do my best to think through research design which does not work quite as well as doing it so i'll wait till after your comments but like i said i've got a few  fact i drove there tonight before the meeting and there was some concern during the construction of the of the other homes particularly the one closest to the corner of her fellow and and white in the garage and how people coming around the corner very quickly will turn into the garage or back out in and there was always a question are you really set back enough from the street and it was determined that yes in fact the dimensions were correct however when that when the cars parked in front of that garage they they come right to the fence almost protrude past the fence tonight and that's was to be a one car parking space in front of the garage door actually two cars parked side by side in front of the garage and it it's just such a congested area and corner particular with commercial traffic coming out of it that i was looking at the drawing and i was like boy it is and it is not going to be another garage fairly close to the street  to be right after that one in it and it kind of hit me just as a design thing and i know you're up against like coverage already but i love the detached garage i think it's great for that one unit and i would love to see a second detached garage for the for the front unit in fact you do away with the garage because it's so close to the street at a second garage and i think that means you're going to have to shrink the footprint of the house to achieve that because you'll be over the over the lot coverage but it's i think it's something i'd like you to look at explore because i think it makes a lot of sense you've got the one curb cut everybody would go in that get right out of the way and into the back you'd have to probably stagger the two garages because of the rear setback potentially but i think it still gives you plenty of yard and i think what i'm hearing i think i heard from rafi and i'm hearing it here and probably from some of the people that talked earlier about other areas to stagger that front you've staggered the front doors but the plane of the building hasn't been staggered i think that would really help a lot just to just to differentiate it and give it some character you know the for again the front porch is around the corner i know you don't own them i know this sold and the other people live there and i get that but there's lots of furniture on those front porches and other things that you know the neighborhood doesn't it so you want to look at it i have i think cow point about having trees or shrubs or something in the front to give some more barrier you know screening if you will would would help i think it just it would it would add to the neighborhood and instead of just you know kind of bringing that whole thing about right around the corner  to look at that i don't know what you do with the space but i think if you took some of that space and push that unit back up i think that's where you could come up with that space because you'd be your taken away what was gracia i would necessarily make it a living space i would kind rob some of that to try to differentiate the two units a little bit front to back so that's one comment that levi mentioned vinal every every new building that's come before us that we i know you're not in the buildings around the corner but it's just something we're kind of elevating the standard and i think it's important think it's belmont's a ton of homes and you know we wanted to have that kind of character so that's something that  that i'd like to see you know the corner boys in column something joe typically you know would bring up and talk about being sized you know accordingly for this scale of the house they're not sized or i didn't see the size of them but you know eight in the front right corner of the house the setback on the side it talks about being something greater than what's what's called for i think it's called limited it says ten feet but but it the house comes right to that line so i'm curious it is a ten three is a ten foot from the porch looks like it was over that line of that there's no it's actually because the front door just stepped in right so that it's actually there for then that corner of the house in the corner the porch should what another thing that we we've been adding typically as a condition when this one is finished basement space and i know you talked with basements half the chemical room half media room with a half bath on the air we would probably add as a conditioner i would suggested yet it is a condition that did not become levels based not become bedrooms in the basement the four bedrooms is a lot the unit is it's you know it's adding a great deal to the density there was nothing and out is eight bedrooms but you  know as families grow you know it could potentially mean eight cars you know on that area coming and going out into traffic in the area so you know whether or not four bedrooms precise is the answer it is another issue but definitely would rules and regulations that we set up for the front door step back going to family from five percent yeah twenty five percent so if the front door were ten feet off the front step back in it's full well it could be twelve and i think this front door is to that right front door is a twenty eight nine yes yes or twenty five percent of that would be what seven feet roughly so that would say to me that the door could be no more than seven plus or minus feet further and then i think it's ten feet but again i maybe read so i would just i would just double check that to match and make sure it's right i that front door is ten feet from the front of the building which would be ten feet further back than the other front door roughly what i'm because i don't think you go back i don't think you go back to the to the setback at the at the color of the street i think you started at the at the front door the way it's red meat as well couple different ways but i thought we were we would click is it wasn't meant to be off the street it was meant to be away from the other doorway we didn't want to see or do will give it a second door to your back you're right it's it's very five percent from the from the first door but you determine it's confusing but it's question on the photograph is is forty two white st the a butter on the north on the left hand side you have a human with a photograph of forty two white street is that the as that the adjacent  the other comment is that knowing that we would not jail and not wishing to leave the burden higher weight upon my colleagues and knowing that but this isn't what i really do i did research there's a category called narrow life to family where you can win architectural prizes for design such a challenge because it's such talents and so i took a look at the houses that had won our prize and this they handed and looked at sort of common characteristics looking mostly at the street side they did one of two things either they had a wings kind of structure where the center was pushed back and then there could be there was kind of landscaping between but you know that brings me to another comment i think that given the of the house at forty eight white this seems like that house of forty eight white street takes a pretty serious hit to have that long driveway as the new neighbor and with no planting and there's no no room for planning on either side of the driveway and and that  reconfiguration as well when we end up with a driveway where we're at we have a very long blank facade no planting no room to plant on the other side of the driveway it's it's it's not a very it's not very friendly to the neighborhood would would have to be really close and getting by it might be a problem but again all comments to to kind of take go back because in an effort to try to get some to get me that we're comfortable proving so many other media comments from because i'd like to ask that the audience if you look if you look at the drawing on the on the front it it goes to what but karl saying i mean it is open the floor for anybody that would like to come up in favor of or against a project i'm talking just please if you do introduce yourself at the microphone and tell us where you live jan cruz and granddad and one of the budding neighbors i wanted to echo our reinforce some of the comments that you made when i was looking at the design i was a little concerned because it appears that when you look at the drawing that the house is really or the property with the driveway is really very close to the budding neighbors and then there's more open space which is also the the rear facing on the other two townhomes are there so it's almost like they're getting a lot more open space in the rest of the neighborhood about the neighbors are just like the houses crammed up against the property line and it would be nice to have a little bit more breathing space there especially because the neighborhood is extremely dense already and we've already undergone a lot of major construction over the last few years  i also agree with the comments about the blocking us and how large the house feels and it would be nice to i agree with with your comments that it would be nice to to have  little more variation of the couple comments i had when so it was maybe a question because some of the some of the plot plan was a little hard to see on some of it even if it looked very pixilated even when i looked at it up is zoomed in on on the website it looks like there is a perimeter fence that is indicated around the property but towards the rear it looks like it's kind of cut off at where it kind of comes into a pike shape in the wedge and i was just curious if the fence is going there what's going to happen with the land on the other side of the fence because you talk about the little triangle that y no one that in your hand would be great and the other thing that i noticed when i was looking at all the drawings that were on the on the plane where website is it's hard for me to get a really good idea as to how large the structure is because none of the drawings i saw show the other houses that are in either side of it so it's hard to it's hard to get an idea if it's a lot larger both in height and also would be nice to to have to have an example of that i mean we saw a we saw pictures of those houses on either side standalone but not with the perspective of of this in line with it so that would be helpful and i was also curious whether or not  if this is a time to bring this up but whether or not we can also request to have rat control taking care of before the digging begins because i know in the past we've had problems with that where there's been rats that come out when the foundations were had health when i when the tear down next to my house on the other side happened two years ago the board of health said it was the off the community developments responsibility and office community bellman said it was a board of health and then nothing nobody took care of it and then we had rats in our backyard the board of health they are the ones that need you when you submit a demolition plan they request a rodent control plan and they review there they review the border control plan radicals lots of rabbits and my god and then the last thing also in again i'm not sure if this is the venue but who is responsible to make sure that the sidewalk is repaired because when the right now when you try to walk down the street you end up having to do a walk down the sidewalk part of the time you have to walk into the street which is right across from the bank which is dangers ok thank you going to come before anybody else comes up but it is this notion of enforcement jeffrey and i have had to deal with something else with it and i've actually requested a meeting with glen clancy and of this board if if we're making you know a ruling or a condition if it's not being enforced then i don't want to do what i'm doing because it's just a waste of time it's important to me to try to bring that to and the comments that i want to make is when the church was there i never got water in my basement when the church disappeared and the two foundations went in for the two townhouses now one very light moderate days when it rains i'm getting water seepage under the floor on the back of the garage which is a great we have to some work on that i have a here lying crack on the back wall of the garage that didn't exist before the two foundations and mind you it's a block garage one slab which is all right but the here lying cracks were never there so my concern is when the new house goes in and the special permit or how it works out because i can't go back in time which i understand is how do we address the watershed problems we've got a lot of roofs there now we're going to add more roof and now we're putting a nice long flat driveway in how do we address that watershed that's now coming down when their hundred year storm shows up and i'm now getting water on light days with dirt next door and no asphalt driveway and no foundation so what i'm looking at is can we put some drainage in the driveway can we put maybe out oh i went well somewhere to catch that water hole the catchment we lease it after the heavy rain comes you know cause i don't know about the neighbor in the back but i'm the only direct guy that's really close to the property line so maybe the one engineer something how we get rid of that storm water in that's a requirement that they have to be this is storm water management plan that they have to go together in fact if you look at the plot pla tracing system that they're putting in for that purpose i would imagine you're going to collect water on site in an area and then it will at driveways can be draining into oil well or something like that it's not going to be rolling over it's not supposed to right so  according to plan and you won't have that problem and i would imagine the driveway won't be pitching toward the property line you'll be pitching toward the center of the drain if you want to see drains like that i mean if you want to address a little bit about the site drainage  i didn't design it so and i and i haven't read the whole thing but you know typically there is a pitch to a driveway and there's going to be collection points if you can see it on the drawing his roof drains from the from the downspouts that are brought to that inf this board if we you know you know this board can it has anything to do it has this particular application to us that we can't buy and we can't go back without it was no special but a process in place but you know if they need to address the water that's coming on this site is in storage and get rid of it broke really there is a plan it's online if you want to look at it or you can go and see that and yeah and i'm like yes and my big concern is the driveway a lot of surface there and i just want to make sure terrace my issue is with the driveway we're talking a lot depth of one hundred ninety five feet in the driveway that's one hundred fifty feet long which is excessive you basically have parking another seventy five feet to put in a garage and walk back i think a better design is needed to bring that garage detached garage close of the house or incorporated in the house in the overall design but i think it's just the forest pavement is not a panacea if you queue don't vacuum it every year it fails it fills up with grit and then it's just like every other driveway so so i think we need to be aware of into the back out as a second detached garage because i think there's more trouble at the front of this house in the others around the corner than that poses i mean i'm not against you moving the garage closer to the house but if you do put a second long long deep lot the other the other thing i know that it would it was going to say is if you're more than seventy feet of frontage they could actually request a second curb cut and i think it in my opinion i think a single curb cut is the way to go i mean if you if they narrow the house away curb cut your driveway narrower building driveway than that's you going to see on both sides you know we don't allow it by right under seventy feet of frontage sponsors of the general residence moratorium so i am concerned and do object to the size of the structure the density the eight bedrooms and did i understand there are also two half baths one of each base so two half baths in addition to the eight bedrooms i just think it's too big to dance and   more than anything i think we arrived at a lot of these decisions based upon the requirements of this set backs and the front door step back in particular drove that the pushing back on one side and then also of the other side where we wish that we could push back of bringing that forward so we had started with a staggered building to begin with until we until we got some new the front set back with twenty five percent of the front set back and that really brought those two front door of what is maybe they're the best use of the site in terms of design we have been following the length of the site having to side by side you know it's one step further back to the to the to the end of the lot because then all of those problems about having a large mass at this street age you know it's it's a it's a small the end essentially of you got to the front side back then so but but but get to your comment on the front step back if that friend elevation of the left hand unit were pushed back to where the doris you to achieve that but but you didn't you just pushed the door back ye oh where a previous member of the board who was an architect worked with the developers a lot to to to create a kind of set back and and it's i think it's a much friendlier set of very dense development and they have the advantage of having rare access to the garages so that which this one doesn't have but in terms of of the feeling of density but variation i think it was quite successful and i think this lot is bigger than a lot of those lots that that a company two units and sometimes three units where you get the big bucks you know we're not designers i would try to incorporate some of those ideas i mean i know the roof we had somebody who proposed a flat roof and we asked them to put in gables and they had to rework it three or four times but it worked and you know what really really made a big difference that they were happier and we were happier when they got this special permit it's just it was just but work and work and a little bit  start potentially curbing and sidewalks which was brought up which is something we make we may ask you for i haven't got to that point yet but the idea of the notion of maybe taking out that garage on the run the right unit and then adding it as a detached unit in the back i think gives you a lot of flexibility to do a lot of different things you know that we're talking about narrowing it or  were identifying the corner boards in the column said you know somewhere around it probably eight or ten inches i would imagine because of the screws the size  i think those are those are my comments karl you know the idea of the notion of narrowing it and creating some type of planting separating the home you know looking at the house the home to the left so it's so instead of just being this kind of very plain and hard boundary it could be something something softer and more green and make sure you control the water so the neighbors don't get water which i know you can do anyway but i noticed one other thing and you had have the trees across the back of the lot been confirmed it's red maple and not norway what does this know excavate around a root structure for r m six and five as one of them coming out they said it but in this particular parking lot it was too far they weren't going to that it would be too expensive to maintain so they were not coming to forest to say they were doing premium pavement even though they knew that was  thing to say so i would be concerned with a plan for controlling modern that assumed that a homeowner would was going to do the kind of maintenance that a big institution feels is to in another point like that and it comes to the enforcement issues recent home that was built that you know we signed off in a landscape drawing and you know that the builder owns it for a year through his warranty but after that the homeowner has to keep that landscaping drawing and they don't want to put their irrigation system on they don't want to pay for water so the plants dies shrubs die trees die and and that you know they've got a perpetual basically you know not a deed restriction but it's a gets like a deed restrict where they have to maintain those plantings on those trees and you know somebody will be on their back to enforce that so similar thing if if there's maintenance required it should be a maintenance plan that they understand that the homeowners understand that they have to keep up  a good point though so does that help you as far as or the summary go great if there were any other comments before and i asked for a motion to to and i didn't say this but jeffrey usually gives a little latitude there i didn't say that