area seats available for those who want to s ok my name is sammy baghdadi i'm chairman of the board of selectmen also here are mark polo the vice chair jim williams also selectman and we are that i do want to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of the traffic advisory committee that has spent many many hours working and trying to design a and improvement of  belmont center and i know some of those people are here tonight and i'm going to embarrass you and ask you to stand up and you know be acknowledged for your many hours of hard work chair linda nick and many other boards in town including the board of selectmen this is not an exercise about questioning what the traffic advisory committee has done and recommends ok i think it is a great design and a wonderful project what happened was at the town meeting where funds were appropriated to do the construction of of babylon center the temptation was for town meeting members to come to the my and make comments on the plans on the design and at that time we had said that this town meeting is all about appropriating money not making revisions to the plans and i think we as a selectman committed that if people had two weeks or small comments they could go that length can't clancy and make their comments known and and if if you know provided it didn't require a whole redesign of the center and if those comments made sense they would be incorporated in the plan i'm happy to say much of that has happened one comment that i have heard now for quite a while is about the configuration i should come here about the configuration of the green and the parking and the drive in front of babylon savings bank ok many have questioned that phase of the project that design i understand this forum is not meant to read more than the discussion on the design belmont center ok that is under the water traffic advisory committee has worked on that i consider this more or less a tweak we are here to specifically address the design of the green area and the drive in front of belmont savings bank understanding that the balance center belmont center is not going to be redesigned or improved probably for another fifty sixty years so it is something that we're all going to have to live with and our children are going to have to live with and you know understanding that this element has raised so much concern among residents that the board selectmen felt that it would be a good idea to have this forum to get employed on a design alternative of the green and the drive in front of the bank just to let you know a petition has been filed with the town clerk a petition with over two hundred signatures to reconsider the configuration of the green and although it has not been requested you know that shows that there are enough signatures to require the board of selectmen to call a special town meeting to take up this issue your selectman think that a more efficient way of addressing that issue is not to reopen the discussion at town meeting but rather to have this forum provide an alternative get employed and it is my sincere hope that at the forum the board of selectmen can vote on which alternative to support based on the employed and then we can continue with the project i think you will hear from glen that a contract has been awarded construction is ongoing we get to halt the construction for a while in order to plan for this forum some work is being done now but we were able to time it so that if they green area i it can be done so and we are hoping at a revenue neutral in a revenue neutral way so we're hoping that this is not going to increase the cost of the project and we have been very careful to time that this is the current design and it's what you see on the screen when there is no pass through the green extends right up to the sidewalk of belmont savings bank and then you see the drive for cars that come from the underground parking there are three parking spaces as as you can see and then of course the exit on to concord have the barest reconfiguration if it can be called on the screen would take into account ok several concerns that not the other one that we have heard from residents namely ok namely ron because we have put back the drive the hope is that there will be better access to the front entrance of bellemont savings bank you know for those who needed for those who are frail or for those who are disabled number one number two we believe that there will be better traffic circulation so people coming down more street can turn into the drive and then circle around go up con so with the the idea is a car would have to navigate and slow down and enter the drive more deliberately second or third i should say there are four parking spaces in front of the bank garage and i think part of the criticism of the plan was with the three parking spaces tucked into where they are they were really not friendly to the other businesses in the square they looked and forgive me but they looked like they were too dedicated to belmont savings bank under the plan we have for a parallel parking spaces that i think are very inviting for patrons other businesses in the square next the green under this new design is in large by about fifteen hundred square feet from what it is today so that is one that has more than a forty percent and large amount of the current green and that's something i personally favor i do like the idea of having a green as kind of a gateway to the center as people you know come in off  not require every configuration of all the other design one thing that i have learned is you make one tweak it leads to another tweak which requires another tweak and another quick and eventually you have to redesign the whole square this change ok i glenn clancy who you'll hear from david caleb our engineers probably went through five six seven eight depictions of these plans to come up with this which we think you know words works the best many hours have gone into this and i just i just want you to realize that this program tonight is for us to hear your comments so i've already spoken too much i'm going to give them my brief we take land and then we will open up to your comments and suggestions please try focusing i know i am now rowing the discussion but please try focusing on the plans and do give us your import and on which one is is it better designed for you improving mobility for pedestrians in this area and as we move to the second plan in your package i just want to point out that just so you can sort of get the context of the proposed versus the existing the red lines that you see i'm sorry m the the red lines that you see indicate the current lines that exist today prior to construction because so for example if you look at the triangle that forms the current island you can get the context of what is over there today versus what the proposal would present and so you can see the new sidewalk system how would overlaps and falls into the existing layout of the island as sammy pointed o this concept here that introduces this new through driveway creates for parallel parking spaces in this area here there is a little bit of a strip of green space here that if this plane were to be adopted i'm sure let's keep designer can make some good the original location of the cross walk on more street so that there wouldn't be confusion as to where it's relocated ok but i did not want to go this this pretty patio element ok which was part of the original proposal just saying you have the context or you have the idea of how that driveway falls in comparison to what is part of the current construction document so this is really gone to the scenario you would notice the construct this but i just wanted you to see sort of the relationship between its location and where the driveway would be i think that's pretty much all i can  know please come to the mike we're interested in your thoughts your ideas your impressions please identify yourselves for the minute them having to walk on greed ok thank you thank you if you want to point to the plan you can  you can use the hand like vince and stanton dream it's unfortunate that this group of people who are at the time to show up here tonight is apparently going to make an up or down decision on this plan i think that the process even going back to two thousand and eleven could have been improved the present look of belmont is attributable in large part to three members of the underwood family who included landscape designers and architects who were active in belmont from the end of the nineteenth century through the first three three and a half decades of the twentieth century and what they created was a coherent look throughout town that we're talking about the design of the underwood park which of course doesn't look what it looked like when they designed it we're talking about the clay pit pond area on the opposite side return but the fact that you see stone walls almost in every major thoroughfare as you cross into belmont and it would have been desirable in my view to having gauged a professional designer to think about how to reconfigure delmon center something that mr baghdadi just pointed out perhaps happens once every fifty or know i realized that the the the towns which the name of the engineering firm and they have and they had an architect that's that's different from what i'm talking about i'm talking really about an independent design firm not an engineering firm that has an architect that works for them that on but anyway he we could do we could debate that he would also be nice if there was some continuity of design and  some integration of design in different parts of the town so it wasn't always a one off maybe this is something that should you know come through the planning department but anyway the idea that we're going to now have at that at the pas the eleventh hour we're going to have an up or down vote on this it's just it's a process matter obviously it's far from desirable i understand the issue that mr scally raises i understand the convenience of  the existing road and parking the countervailing thought would be that to make belmont center special or more it a more interesting place to linger as opposed to park get in get out you need to create more of a place there and i think this will effort to expand the triangle was aimed in that direction and if anything i think that it could have been could have been more ambitious but that that's not today here or there anyway i guess i uncomfortable with the president that this type glen i think can answer that well under the redesign yes the hitch is actually relocated to an area near the bridge because you're losing all the curbing essentially around the new green space under that proposal under this proposal i think it makes sense to keep it in the general location that it is today and comment i've always thought that the location of those three parking spaces was sort of awkward i was not about to second guess the work of all sorts of committees and professionals and whatnot but i'd like the re talking they didn't have to do worry about parallel parking it was easier to get in and out of a car if you had a wheelchair or other assistive devices the one thing i notice in the new design is that what i had understood was the benefit of the of the original design was that the green area was no longer an island surrounded by traffic that you could easily get to it by crossing one street now if you're on the south side of the square you have to kind of jerry rig your way all the way around the cross many intersections it's not as accessible it's jumped up some a little frustrated without i did actually mention to the  bank this evening i asked if anyone had had discussed with them or suggested that employees use the lower level and that customers be allowed to use the upper level for parking which might make it easier for customers getting in and out of the bank i see the attraction of adding four spaces in terms of center usage but i'm also concerned about cutting through the what had become a nice more accessible somewhat larger mahoney i'm president belmont savings the the a butter to this wonderful project to let me start by saying that from the very beginning we have been a huge fan of this and hanson this is the front door of belmont center and the front door looks a little tired right now and we have thought right from the start that expanding this green area and improving it maintaining it better would be a huge visual benefit for people major features one is parking two is the access road and three is the green space now the green space is going to be increased by about forty percent in law call plan b the new the new version but it's not as big as planned a that's a given we're taking away some of the green space in return for that we are picking up an additional for much more convenient spots and as much as i'd like to have three dedicated spots  front it's not fair and i heard that loud and clear from every merchant and the yes is only it's three spots instead of four but it's not anybody's spot that too far away they're not convenient they can be hard to park in particularly for seniors that's an awkward place to get into what's going to create some traffic congestion coming out of our parking garage and by the way i really am going to very serious that this question about employee parking downstairs who's is it's a good idea but  merchants definitely want those active spots close to them so if pick up the spots and i think that access road is really important as mentioned earlier coming down more street looking at that sea of traffic at eight o'clock in the morning on leonard street is pretty daunting at least that access road gives you some alternatives to get around so it's really to me three factors take up a parking can continue the access road but the return is giving up some green space for it but we are getting a forty percent increase from what we have today to me it's all about how we can maintain and make that a very special place that will really address up our front door leno precinct eight i live a short walk from the center and frequent it often i just want to express my support for the original design i think that i often go to the center with my two young kids and look for a place to set and while i like the few seeds outside of brinks it's not enough and i think the new design while it increases spaces is just not going to drop the type of use i think that padding something that doesn't feel like an island is going to get a lot more people using it enjoying it kids running around and playing people sitting in feeling like they're enjoying the time outdoors i think if you have an island and anyway in addition to the harder access points to get to it by sidewalk you also have an issue where you feel like you're surrounded by cars whizzing past the last point about people using it as an access road the more of an access road it is the more cars are going to go the more people using the green space are going to feel like they're enclosed in a traffic circle so i know in general that what you've been hearing from other people who want a new design but just know there are a lot of people out there who are really excited about their original design and want that thank you new crosswalks will be very helpful i think it's a big mistake to change to a new design the whole point about looking at belmont santa was to make belmont sun a friendlier place really encourage foot traffic going a lounge in the center and encouraging people to spend more time there than you put back that access road and the the green space turns out to be just what it is today only a place where a few people sit off and on it's not a place where people really think that it's a great place to to set because they have to make two crossings through traffic and order to access it and it is not that pl it's moved back and we have the original design it is really become a town center and i think that has been a lot of thought that went into this there were it has been a lot of conversation about trying to make belmont center a place where people will come and stay walk in and out of the stores not just drive through not just pack grab something and then run back and get in your car and leave there's look there's going to be more parking  belmont center as a result of it because of the changes on concord ave people will be able to park on concord avenue on both sides that's hardly the it's like three feet more to walk to the belmont savings bank from the spots on concord avenue than it is from the spots in the in the drive through so i'm hoping that the selectmen will really think about this and really think about the future of the town and the fact that we are looking to make this a t and held in precinct two but i just had a point of clarification it looks like we're losing three parking spaces on concord alfredo where where the cut through is so the net reduction in parking spaces would be two is that correct and if said we were able to pick up parking spaces elsewhere no no you are correct so if you look at the top plan the original concept you'll notice there are three parking spaces that are painted out here on the roadway to go along with the three that would have been in here so three plus three those will go away and you'll pick up four here and was there any consideration to putting to where the green right there yeah i did look at  we put just one in here and how does that work visually in it's on the table i think i can go either way but certainly i think two is going to be a challenge because of the proximity to cock it up  that tenney precinct one i'm really torn because i like the idea of the expanded green house however i love those parallel those angled parking spots now i don't mean that i'm saying either either or both to have the way the original plan is or go back to the way the center is today because i don't see how this alternate plan is better it's got the parallel parking which is difficult for a lot of people plus you're going to be fighting the cars who are coming through when you're trying to park and that can be forty percent more green doesn't look to me like a lot more green and i have sat in the what we have now and even my lunch and yeah it's not great but i don't think anyway i don't think a little bit more green that we're getting in the alternate plan is worth it when we're losing the angle parking so i'd say the choice for me at least would be either between get rid of the get rid of that convenient parking make people walk around the corner make it you know make it so that some people will avoid going into belmont center because of the fear of where to park  are leaves on sort of the way it is now which has those really convenient angle parking that does get people to go in and eat in the restaurants and use the cent hi carolyn bishop precinct one town meeting member since we lost those mature trees in the center sadly i very much in favor of keeping the green space that was the whole idea of enhancing the the month center and that's really the only beautification spot there is to put the traffic straight through that just defeats the purpose and maybe we've got a little corner that's forty percent but this is so much more gratifying to sit in and walk around but the point that judy singler made which i think is very creative is to make the customer parking where the employee parking is now and that would answer the accessible handicapped accessible issue of mr scally with his cane because that is handicapped accessible entrance through the employee parking that would also mean that the traffic going down the angled driveway past those three parking spaces would be twice a day basically when the custom when the employees go in and the employees come out which simplifies the safety of those three places right in front of the bank and suddenly three in general are a consultant a while back said that we had plenty of parking spaces in belmont center when they did the study as it was we just weren't using them well they were the portion well so whether we add or lose four or five it's not a big deal because we're actually gaining parking spaces in this beautif plan so i'm all for beautification i say keep the original beautification plan we sacrificed a few trees we're supposed to get some more and i'm hoping that the town can commit to watering those trees because they'll be tiny and helping them get to be as big as the ones we lost so i would say stay with this and note that if we change the parking area they'll be much less traffic going in and out of that little three spaces and it could even be a little straighter perhaps but that would be my vote thank you member from precinct eight i also support the original plan i've got a couple concerns about the new design one is it doesn't look like there's any crosswalk to connect the sidewalk in front of better i just like the original plan better i'm also a little concerned that there's going to be traffic that's going to be coming down leonard heading toward concord of it is going to is going to use that cut through i know that there's a bump out there to make it a little bit hard for somebody to do that but is there any traffic regulation you could do to say you can't make that maneuver you can sort of discourage it with a bump out but i'm concerned that people are going to still sit down there in particular with no crosswalk he said on the path committee i'll sit on the economic development committee and the original design three or four years ago making a comment in the center was rejected by myself and it was a vision something from post office square i have something for the selectmen if they don't mind looking at what i have the words that i want can see that just put up here for a second basically we had done many years ago the fire station by what was and we had done a little vest pocket park behind our property and it's so popular we have trumpet vines and gardens back there and  little green space for the people they really enjoyed and i had thought that we could take it one time and extend the sidewalk like the bricks iraq and from the pink building in front of the fire station we would extend that bricks i walk with the boston papers all the way down to connect the park and we'd have this little tear drop pock and that teardrop park would be a fountain in the center benches and around it some elaborate landscaping granite curbs and beautiful beautiful we could still accomplish what we needed for the bank on the outer edge of this one if you soften the lines on that and you put the bounce in the center and benches around like you see on this garage and raise granite curbs much more plantings in much more attractive and the sidewalks instead of having three sidewalks connecting it just one sweeping across and connecting the outer edge like this this new one and it doesn't make a better shape so some thoughts going into that but i have something that could alter both of them if they took the bus stop off the outside edge on this they rerouted the bar stops on into the turn out of the new space they created if you put the taxi stands in there and the new bus stop in that space there you'd be able to take in pick up another five spaces on the radiant side so the merchants on this side of the street as well as the other side we have the benefit of those parking spaces so you have a net gain action spaces so whether you soften this plan put in the center and just do more detail work you're really not changing the the curbing of the structure where you go with this one in adare soften the lines but still have those spaces in the bottom where the islanders and you would make again another four spaces which would complement the other ones the spaces up on the hill  quality in the interior even if it's something that just gets done in phases if there's money for it to get done or if the merchants have to pony up some money and get it done to do a quality so it's like like this one here and that's what i've be arsenal from precinct three i would like to add my voice to the support for keeping some kind of angle parking down there we not only have elderly drivers but we have new drivers young students who are coming from high school and i think a mangle spot is a little easier to handle than for parallel but that's just one point i also speak in favor of keeping that access road because i think it is a pressure release for the traffic in the town i think any kind of parking there is better than no parking and i do love the idea that was brought up about having the employees at belmont savings bank use the lower space i think that would be very helpful one of the things that i wondered if it's possible to do is in the last little corner which would be her point would be possible to bring the access road to more of a right angle and to convert ability is better for drivers right now where it comes out and it's angled up the hill it is hard for elderly people to turn way back over their left shoulder and see and i wondered if by moving the road just a little bit you could actually get some two or three angle parking spots maybe just to right there and cut this just a little bit so that you got more of a right angle on to conquer dad here and some chance for an angle by two things bikes there would be better than none of my other question about when i'm staring at the map is right here there is no traffic stop sign for either of the their own concord ave and i never really thought about it until somebody shot out in front of me one day without stopping to cross concord ave and i actually called the police station and asked them were we missing a stop  something happened they said no there's never been so i just wondered if especially for the straight across lane if it makes sense to put one in because that's that's just seems to me it's working ok cause people to attention but every once in a while stranger up in lexington and i really i really value the idea of the town cream i think this is not enough critical mass of green for families and children to really use it unless you're going to have some kind of little barrier even like chains with posts to sort of give a visual border to that if you have kids that are young running around what's going to stop them from just falling following a ball into the street or something if they're there i mean it's going to take hyper vigilance for parents to really use that as place it for anything except maybe a quick ice cream outdoors or something my last point on that would be to just remind you that the mind is not tropical and so the number of months that we have to use the south or green is limited and i think we can make it look very nice but to try to get every square inch that we can at the cost of the parking spots is maybe a little bit shortsighted because i do think the elderly should have a close an easy place to park  and thank you and can i just ask could somebody clarify what the big round brown thing is in the middle is that paving are is that if it's not a band shell right that's some kind of ground it's pepperidge from precinct two and i just like to say that i like the new plan better i actually did speak at a traffic advisory committee meeting a couple of years ago and but the loss of both the access road the angle parking that i get why the angle parking has to go however this the parking over here i don't know how people are going to do it people my age and older are going to have a real problem with that there's going to be people queuing up to get in if they see somebody starting to get into a car they may even block them is there and then trying to get out i'm not nearly as concerned about the people in already in the garage trying to get out but that's that's also a real problem also i'm in belmont center almost every day  most frequently during the day and i do know that the access road is useless as an access road during the day than it is at rush hour at rush hour it is a traffic reliever i think it's essential and i think we'll see that if we don't have it i think that at noon time and times that people are more apt to be using the green for sitting in contemplating and eating lunch and things people are less apt to be cutting through because there's it's easy to get down let leonard street it's really not a problem at all it's after nine thirty in the morning thank for precinct eight i have a question about the original plan and even this plan will cars be allowed to pull out of the parking areas either one and take a left on to e so there won't be up to the barrier that i see won't be extended to the point that it would be a no left turn tapper said i live in precinct day every day many times a day i'm trying to go through the center you get to work to do tasks go over to watertown the it is the safety valve that the area in front of the bank presents to people you don't think it's much until seven thirty or seven forty five or eight o'clock in the morning and maybe you want to head over to pleasant street and from channing you take a right and then because the traffic is totally stopped you can take the left and either go up more over or if i'm going to the town buildings so the to lose that i just we won't be fifty or ellen sugarman town meeting member precinct date i have a concern about the new design the bump out there coming down leonard street and i guess the idea is supposed to be to have you continue down leonard and maybe it would serve as an access for people coming from more say again yeah and that's the bump that i'm referring to i'm thinking of something that exists today in cambridge if you come over the long fellow bridge i realize it's close now if you come over that and you head up toward the gallery i'm all along on the water there is a road there that used to have it would come down this way and in theory there was a bump out they didn't people would go there and they changed the traffic pattern they now make you go up and you come down the road it used to be you come in on this side i think it's a similar bump out and i think it's going to cause issues with people going over it and interfering with as well i mean i'm someone who takes the train daily i walk through there all the time and i never see anyone in that island because it just is completely surrounded by cars it's it doesn't seem friendly or welcoming at all and i also have a eighty nine year old mother in law who is does have difficulty getting in and out of cars but i think that was pointed out some of the spots on the existing plan put her as close to the door as the spots there and if you're trying to walk or go down there with parallel parking on that quote access road people are going to be parallel parking in and out and everybody's going to get stuck about way thank you samuels precinct six town meeting member a member of the council an aging board at a town meeting i brought up the fact that seniors about twenty five percent of the population of belmont is over the age of sixty and many seniors have come to me bemoaning the loss of the angled spaces because many people do not want to or cannot turn their head and parallel park so  i would support the revised design but people who are seniors would have to parallel park to get into those four spaces now there are twelve spaces there we go down to seven and i think the last of those angled spaces is going to be difficult make it difficult for seniors to access belmont my second point is i believe that the the new the access road that the cut through should be maintained even though it's going to be narrower where those new four spaces are because with the constriction of the with the new bike lanes on leonard street the t are going to be narrower traffics going to back up more and as previously stated by others there needs to be a relief valve there even though some people may be  slowing down the park but my preference would be certainly for the angled spaces to route remain so that seniors can gain access to belmont center thank you ease i was looking for the ease in the quality of the parking for everybody and including having more parking for the for the other buildings easy access but this is a compromise which gives them a little more green space which i guess  defeat what you're trying to do is increase the parking for for the whole square system i don't know whether some of them are already going to be designated handicap and i do you know whether that's true glen i don't know what the regulations are on handicapped parking well i think that as i was drafting up this concept what occurred to me was that this first base here is the one that's easiest to get into in the one that would be logical market that's right that's right why not why not take out their little piece of green and put one or two in you in here yes well as i said earlier one can probably fit to would help the elderly be able to navigate a bit would be free on both ends for the never get into that one sport yet you know the other thing that i consider to even have even having one is it makes sense to not have an obstruction here so in other words you wouldn't pull up to back into it you would just pull straight into it which would give someone the idea that they should back out of it and you know she's concerned that there may be a conflict with the vehicle coming out of the garage well it really is not a show stopper in my opinion lot of people even though just driving around them really parallel park true i'm one of the proponents for leaving the parking pretty much the way it is because of the which of certain past for the elderly people people are not very good at precinct five town meeting member i'm also i also serve on the traffic advisory committee and on the economic development advisory committee i think we did a great job i would leave this i have no opinion one way or another as to which which is better however i do think if we are going to make belmont a centerpiece make a centerpiece for belmont we should maximize as much green space as we can  i think mr burke has some great ideas we've talked about a fountain in economic development which we think we could get donated i think len has has guided us in terms of  the best use of parking spaces economic development sent an e mail just recently but our recommendations are very minor they're just having to do with striping but i really would  like as i said that we consider maximizing in using that space especially now since the holiday tree is not going to be able to be all i don't know maybe cafe bellman allow us to use that space but you know if that cent becomes a significant green space i do think it could be it could pull our whole town together so i'm going to leave it to glen sorry i'll be quick carolyn bishop precinct one town meeting member i just with all the promotion and support for angle parking would like to point out that behind the stores in the local tele block are hundreds of angle parking spaces and it's easy access through our many friendly stores to get to all the other stores  hello scott tellier property owner in the center family has been members of this community for over eighty five years we've always expressed our concern losing parking spaces they're imperative to the merchants to be able to be successful in what they do the last thing you want to take them away one of our problems is that most of our parking is behind all the stores away from them and we do not want to push more parking spaces away from them we've always been concerned about losing the access road because it does give an opportunity for people coming through the center who don't find a parking space during through the center of the federal fair to use the access road to do a turnaround and come back through to maybe find a parking space back the other way under this plan when people can drive through the center don't find a parking space and they decide to keep on going through the tunnel and head off somewhere else and they don't support the merchants without parking spaces can be parking spaces for the not in favor of this this plan to a left is what we call compromise we want to see more green space it's not available in belmont center we want to see the parking this is taking away a couple spaces here rather than taking all of them away they've compromised very well here i think that the people that are in favor of this plan we understand the more land the better but if the merchants unsupported and they don't make warning then they'll be gone and then you'll be sitting in a in a grassy area looking a vacant stores so i ask everybody think about the compromise that's been brought up here to keep the access road for the flow still have a parking spaces although that i don't like to see some of them gone and maybe a little part of it is difficult thing for the elderly but at least it's a compromise to make it all work am the chair of the traffic advisory committee although i'm not speaking for the entire committee because we do have we did have one dissenting vote on the committee i'd just like to speak to the process it appears to me that some people feel like we kind of sat in a dark room with the doors closed and we kind of decided what we would all like individually to have for this plan and i can assure you that did not happen we had four public hearings some people came a lot of people sitting in this room never came a lot of people who have complained about the plan that we came up with never expressed anything so i'm a little bit disappointed to commit to a room now tonight and be told that we didn't get a designer and we didn't do this and we didn't do that and we don't care about the seniors i'm a senior i'm sixty five so i you know it's a little harder turn my head s walk my concern is that we sit in this room and with then we go into town meeting we had the board of selectmen vote for this we had the business owners vote for this plan the business owners liked this  plan someone just stood up and said well if the business owners don't like it well they did like it months a big spank liked it we got consensus from everyone we talked to business owners we talked to the residents our meetings were open in public for four years none of this was a surprise it's just that people don't pay attention now my concern is town meeting i used to be a town meeting member am not anymore whenever i did vote for town meeting issues they were very close frequently off by just a few just a few votes i can see what will happen here i'm just looking into the future there are going to be things that are voted on that some people just don't like and it is easy to go out there i have i have a couple hundred people myself will sign a petition for me i can see this snowballing and we turn into congress where if you don't like something you get two hundred people and then you go back before a town meeting and then you change that plan and then another two hundred people do the same thing so what i'd like to say is i wish people would be more involved with the process while it's going on and not come in as a strategy when the shovels are in the ground and change the plan thank you thad and i would just like to add to that linda i agree with you i think in a better process people would call and make comments when the public hearings are held i mean that was a frustration we shared with the planning board at interested in your comments and we're planning for fifty years so probably within ten years half of our vehicles will be able to park themselves and also by day had no mention you know parallel parking and people to pick up vehicles regarding the taxi question during the traffic advisory committees public hearing process the traffic so i can at the time approach the taxi companies to ask the opinion on this design in the response that we heard back was that the taxi cabs that you see queuing up in belmont center are really there waiting for dispatch to send them someplace and so it wasn't critical for them to be at any one location in belmont center as long as they c find someplace to be out of the way until dispatch contacted them for a fare they were good and so we didn't feel like we needed to accommodate them and they were ok with that larry mcdonald i live in precinct eight a resident of belmont center and vice chair of the traffic advisory committee i don't want to change the forum tonight but i just want to point out the bump but that one question the reason they're there to shorten the l to the point you know which one lying there are nothing there's enough room there for two cass and i myself as a resident have often tried to cross in the cross walk woman and her little mini quick buck shot by on the right hand side she was on a telephone this program that's been in study for four years also addressed the safety of the pedestrian and also to some extent the safety of the motorist driving through the center but above all we desire but i real goal was to make pedestrian safety create a vibrant center for the town of bellemont people were in favor of the green space ever it was amazing how many people want green space so where were these opponents with their ideas during these four years of public meetings forums it's just kind of too bad now that we're at this point i can understand this new plan i think it is a good compromise but above center a vibrant local business center that it should be and businesses will benefit maybe lose a couple of parking places but we have plenty of parking up back and catelli block gets done they'll be a cut through that will make it a lot safer for people at night when they go to the restaurants so yeah just want to point that out the safety of the pedestrians and trees will be replaced they'll be landscaping it'll be a beautiful town center and let's do something about it and let's appreciate and support first one in the town hall in the winter and there were about twelve people here now this is working for here you are you're allowed you're here all excited and that's the way it should be and i want to congratulate you very much it's a good plan the people who live on belmont h or the hairdresser is the restaurant you know and they find a place to park and i'm delighted that people are using the train  everyone knows how much i love bella there's no doubt about that and i hope that the kids will pick up their trash no more bottles and out there i want to tell the chief of police i'm delighted to parade don't there are a lot of unhappy people in town and i had two people refuse to sign my little petition and one wonder was a guy who was snow man about the override he comments my name's glenn walking in the new town meeting member from precinct seven and i'm one of those people who wasn't very engaged with this is actually my first exposure to this whole plan so there's a few comments i've actually i'm going to say agnostic to the two plans but i wanted to just make some observations sort of hearing this for the first time or the first as i can understand the comment of i think of one of the first speakers about you know there was a very long process and this feels like a very eleventh hour kind of change at the same time i do appreciate the fact that it seems like there was a lot of thought and effort put into an alternate plan that seemed to take into account a lot of the recent input so again from a sort of a point of process and a point of sort of inclusion it seems like the town is doing a lot to try to take in different voices because let's face it a lot of us i don't think pay attention to things until it's very close to deadlines or until you know someone raises you know the issue to a level that goes above sort of just the background noise so i can sort of appreciate both points right one saying like look we've had a long process to others saying look i was at least paying attention but now that i am paying attention i do have some strong opinions and so i think both points of view are quite valid i heard you know a lot of commentary around partying but someone did raise the point that according to the new plan actually we have fewer parking spots if i'm not mistaken right so as much as folks look at this and say we don't you know we're losing parking and you know there are some concerns around the angle parking my understanding is that this plan actually presents fewer spots because there's a loss in concord have that this one has and that i don't know if it was highlighted as often it's been taken away and there may be a possibility adding but right now younger resident with with children you know one thing i would like to just voices you know would be great to to know where parking for bicycles might go i haven't heard that and again to this idea of bringing in families and bringing in more pedestrians into the town i think would be an interesting thing to at least hear about at some point i don't know and i guess i can just real quick in either scenario there is an area between the trees here where we're calling for three or four bike racks in this location here and if i'm not mistaken there's a couple of  places along the street that will have them as well sober person on the other plane that's presented that area between the two trees and then the last point i just wanted to make in a sense sort of an observation i know that there's a lot of concern around access and the sort of the traffic  fortunately i don't go through belmont center during my commute so i'm not familiar with what that presents and i don't want to pretend to to make light of what that challenge may do for those who are faced with that traffic challenge on a daily basis one thing i do notice on th difference to you almost extended this meeting three hours so i so i'll take that part back but even with some of these changes i just you know i'm not sure what the net effect might be in terms of what the traffic may look like and whether or not that starts that i've spoken to ready i just have a brief question i'd like to think lynn in the traffic advisory committee for their hard work on this and my question is where will the trash b so it's kind of difficult to strike that balance but we've put that in places where we think it's logical and i'm sure there's one in the green ok this will be the last public comment and then the select will result i'm sorry i am a long time resident of my name is  they shal relations with devon one of my strong points but it seems to me we have created an island not one i learned but by adding a road that goes directly to from concord have a new to the driveway to the er garage need to be on the mike there coming out when you have a parking here and people coming little dangerous but one of the benefits of this plan would be that coming out of this garage you won't have to concern yourself with anything on the side so the word you don't have someone coming down this road that you need to worry about because it's all green special come out of the garage and you'll be focused on these spaces here and anyone that may there you know we're right now at about what senator kyl and and i you know i think we need to make a decision because we don't want to hold up the construction any further and  that we received has over two hundred signatures i think this is a direct yes was it a petition in support of the alternate plan or was it a petition just to reconsider the existing plan do we know the answer to that to brian cushman it is a tough work sammy actually has the exact language of the petition from the signatures lydia had presented it is not a petition to ask for a special town meeting let's just be clear it is a citizen petition to be passed on just for selectman and it did say please reconsider the design of the green space and pass through i think that's the language she is i did not bring language with me sam has it and the trees and the department that's how we certify signatures from petitions so we have all of the individual signatures ok that's correct  i guess i say yes but as i hear the mike comments place so number of thing first of all i do want to thank the traffic advisor committee for their outstanding work on this and having served as a number years in the midst chair realize how difficult it can be to sort of conduct public hearings and how frustrating it is when after you've done all of this work then after the fact folks come forward and appreciate mr dickinson point of view as well that every time that we go to town meeting if someone doesn't agree to it they can file a petition to reconsider and yes that's the marker see and i know it's frustrating because sometimes it feels as though we're moving for one step in that two steps but that's the right of our citizens to be able to do that and i do also wish as you do that when we have these public meetings and forums pl when i'm leaving my house at eight o one having to attend a mean you know at the board at eight o'clock i love that will cut over the school right through there or not be as late as them critically and so that is a nice relief for me but i remember a town meeting joel in particular  suggesting in the rush in a concern that for seniors in town removing that short of drive through does to some extent hinder them in terms of their ability to sort of drive up to the bank in drop off or even park i agree i think parallel would be better than movie parking which doesn't seem to be able to exist when i would encourage you to really put that one space and john indicated in front of the bank there the green spaces if we can do that because i think that would be nice to be able to do that and perhaps mak i think it it doesn't take completely away from that beautiful green space that will be there and so with that said mr chairman i do support the redesign and how difficult it is to get some some kind of change like this accomplished i was reading a biography of one of our past haven't seen any tantrum management so that is a thankful thankful outcome but the other thing is that i understand that part of the genesis of this meeting was that the original marathon meeting that those of us did attend in november there was a lot of discussion about design and we kind of lost our way from the main purpose of the meeting and there was a commitment that we would have a meeting like this after that meeting i don't know who remembers that but thank you so i don't find it too unusual to to be sitting here having to fulfill that promise the other thing is that i seem to find myself in a situation where i have to file disclosures so lidia ogleby as much one of my wife's friends we've been in the area a short period of time but lydia we live in her neighborhood and she's  i did i did file a disclosure report about that we have had lunch and i i did organize twenty five signatures for her petition but the reason i did that was was because i think it's this issue of discussion in other words i believe that that we needed to come back and we needed to talk about this to have to have  the circle completed rather than to go ahead and do the construction without without doing what we said we were going to do in november that having been said mr chairman i'd like to i think the articulation  by the chairman of the month savings bank was right on where there are really three issues parking traffic and green space i think the drive through the new proposal is a good compromise i also appreciated the merchant support i attended the merchant commission meeting or committee meeting probably four weeks ago now and i know they're very excited about what's happening downtown but i also think that  maintaining this drive through is very important so i support the new design thank you ok and you know i've been living this for the last two weeks and you know i i think the one mistake i did is i should have consulted with and met with the traffic advisory committee before this forum and i should have done that and should have known to do that as a past chair of the planning board so i do want you to understand that i take responsibility for not consulting with you before this forum and  certainly no disrespect for the process that you have gone through is meant here but you know the revised plan b is truly a compromise to you know address most of the concerns it's all about and you know the other thing is as a person who specially in the last year has grown accustomed to driving through belmont center  several times a week to get to town hall it is really a congestion and traffic mess and you know to come down more street because you couldn't find a parking space in the town hall parking lot and then to have to go down on leonard street to get back up is is really in the rush hour would be a considerable delay of time and that pass through as as market said is really a convenience and it promotes helps to promote the traffic flow so i'm going to support the revised plan as well so that said will someone make a