to welcome you all to welcome you to a public discussion this is not a formal public hearing of the planning board this is a public discussion and really we are so appreciative of the that so many of you came a public discussion without a public to discuss really does not work very well and your presence here is invaluable and appreciated what we have a hand out and we have a few slides a very few slides to just set the stage give some background some of our facts and then we will open the floor for discussion grateful if you followed them the first is that this is a meeting to discuss only waverley square and south plesance three realize there are many other issues of concern to be interesting to town but true this is this is it to issue just caution the second is we want to give everyone a few we hope here we hope you all came with something to say and we hope to hear from that means we've heard from you once until everyone else has spoken in the style of town meeting you probably won't get to speak again and if you are speaking at such length that it seems likely to preclude others from speaking i will ask you to shorten your remarks fairly dramatically and finally when you stand up to share with us your thoughts about what you think either of these areas to look like it would be or any other any other issue it would in addition to helping us what you think waverly square should look like it expects to we will see and we will take notes at the end of the meeting if there are any really important factual corrections to make we'll make them as a group and we intend to put together a summary which we will post on the town website of what's said during the course of the meeting and with that we ask one question how many people here have never been to a belmont to give your name before you start speaking there are two reasons for that one is that if we want to pursue a point you've made with you further it's much better to have your name on the tape than to be running around t find somebody who recognizes you and second it means that the people who are watching at home which will we quite a few know who you are all right with that let me quickly just launch into the  background slides jeffrey all right so why are we doing this i think almost everyone who has participated in belmont government headed has agreed that strengthening the commercial base is the is a priority there's been a lot of work done on belmont center and cushing square in recent years and i think it's certainly the consensus on the board that we should leave them alone and let  us see what comes out of the other busy business districts in town these are the only two that are really major targets that are large enough concentrated enough that rezoning for change of some sort might matter and that's our focus slide again and i suspect everyone here knows where they are you have a variety of maps and we are looking at waverley square which pictures to keep these things in perspective and moving on a little bit about the current state will post this presentation i think one of the reasons that the planning board is looking at this very carefully as if we look at building value and assessed land value in waverley square when it's lower and occurs square foot basis then belmont center would be a good thing for the town it would be a very good thing for the town if we were again this is a this is a point for discussion but as the board has tried to think about visions or plans for either district or presented how are we going to what criteria are we going to use into valuating these are the criteria that the board has discussed and has put forward not as an absolute as a final product but as a draft to give people if you give us a starting point for discussion i think there are certainly things up there that could be refined but that the board is constituted would be very concerned about developments that didn't hit most or all of those changes that didn't hit most and again many of you are familiar with these we just this is just when we talk about where we'd like either of these areas to be the tools that we have available at least in principle for getting there you see before you we can change zoning and that's why you have the three flavors of the zoning and the current state of jeffrey and spencer have prepared in change we have tried to just pull together for our discussion this evening the tools that were using the first is owning which is the one that we're all most familiar with and belmont has tended not to use  incentives but that is certainly a tool available to cities and towns in the commonwealth yet again it has tended not to use eminent domain but many towns many cities have used eminent domain as a tool to realize a vision of what an area would like to look like and there may be others that we have not included probably the most important point about all of this use of these changes we don't have to go to town meeting since they will be zoning changes two thirds of the town meeting will have to think they are a good idea if they're to come to fruition so with that jeffrey we're done we the planning board is done but the evening is just beginning we're going to start with a discussion of waverly square and i intend to  five minutes on waverly square and then we will move to a discussion of south pleasant street so with that do i have we we are looking for someone to thank you very much for those who just came in this is the opportunity to speak about  that thank you very much we are here to take input yes the so thanks again for hosting this i agree with a lot of the comments that were made tonight i be very interested in seeing what the rest of the process is going forward i'm excited about the fact that  would love to see enhanced to the square that will increase vitality in the neighborhood in supported whether it's more gathering places  promised one of my questions at the beginning was is there anyone here who has not a candid about on civic event before we had only one person so i promise the newbie the first question out of south pleasant str we have somehow failed to come out of the back row who would like to speak again thank you all very much for coming and let me try a summary that reflects some of the conversation we had at the planning board meeting on tuesday but i democracy what are we doing and where are we going to do next i think one of the things that we have talked about is there is at this moment no commitment on the part of the planning board to go anywhere next in the sense that well probably the best example is the single residency rezoning their town meeting past where the planning board were very very well with very constructively with the neighborhood association at one point there was a suggestion that we also do some of the money in the single residence be they were actually pretty clear on this point and so with respect to the questions of how we are going to i think the planning board would need to feel not that everyone supported it that would be a recipe for paralysis but i think we would need to feel that a majority of the property owners in the area felt this was a positive thing so any of the questions about process they are good questions they are all questions we need to take up but we don't feel the this planning board does not feel it has the mandate of heaven and if we expect to hear more in the days to come from property owners and residents about this but someone's gotta think it's a good idea other than the planning for it and we would i think that's a discussion we'll certainly take all of this and put it together i believe the notes will reveal that the public seem to generate the most  noble reason to go across the watertown line when you have your very own problem but more seriously we will put them together in no talk amongst ourselves and see if there is