february second two thousand and sixteen meeting of an envoy to order we have a fairly full agenda this evening so i can like to move right into the two items which is the request to as that project has progressed and those components have been complete and if we quested to have that bond reduced oh over time the last time being in september twenty fourt and i'll just read the communication from maclean's and take then take any questions i am writing to you the planning board requests the return of surety bond for south cottage road woodlands at belmont as you may recall we received a reduction in the amount back in september twenty four teen and glenn have asked that we keep that on record entirely up and house and associated landscape is complete the project is now one hundred percent complete and all units are so you may recall that i have submitted the necessary as a bill for a work in place prepared by richard wescott for project engineer please let me know when the next planning board gender is available to consider this request right for jumping in before you read the correspondence the question i had was is there any warranty issue especially with the stormwater system to that we have to wait a certain period of time the most projects were just completed in november right bond for south party to road mclean district right chris star developer cushing village thank you so much for your time and consideration and all your hard work on this project thus far i know each and every one of you have put a lot of time and energy and a good chunk of your sun and some cases good chunk of your lives on this project as i have over the last month we've been working hard really  on two main objectives one has been to move the line the the project in the construction loan to financial closing in the second is to move the retail leasing to a lying to a a process in a in a and point that you know it has been a situation where we can get the financial partners involved comfortable with closing on the loan i'm pleased to report that we've made a lot of progress in that regard we've we are very close to signing an anchor deal for the retail space also have a five thousand square foot restaurant under lease a signed lease and we also have a major national tenant that has signed the lease as well so this is this is the kind of financial stability that the lenders are looking for to create an income stream that creates that under rideable situation that to move forward secondly what i'm pleased to announce is that we've not only had great advancements in our retail leasing but also we've selected a a financial partner to move along and to drop in a considerable investment into cushing village it's a it's a national development firm that it's called michael's development and michael's not as in the first name mind you of the last name of being michael's but they're they're a national residential developer of of apartments throughout the country and they have committed to providing us the the equity financing that we need to replace one of our lenders so it  was kind of a perennial situation where we had two lenders at the table and trying to get them to play nicely in the sandbox now we have a one line we hope to have a senior lender and michael's together moving towards closing so we've we've really excited about this selection in the sense that they're going to provide some very strong banking relationships in fact they have a very strong relationship with a senior lender that we've had a number of discussions with and they also have they bring to the table executional capability that my family seamen are cim p t name doesn't have so they're going to provide some additional executional capability of embrace from our standpoint because we want somebody that's been there done that and done it throughout the country very successfully michael's particularly has done this program plan time and time again throughout the country but more recently there there's a project that some of our team members have been involved with and our partner urban spaces have been involved with them in a project of one hundred fifteen apartments and kendall square another one right out of outside of kenmore square these  apartments that have the very similar very high end residential above retail over on the ground parking same exact program that would be very comfortable with their their capabilities what i would like to ask the night is is that we are provided time to  forward with the financing with the addition of over eight million dollars of equity investment that if it were that they would be putting into the scenario and into the financing to move  us through the closing process and again that makes it a lot less complicated and allows us to live in a one of the the lenders one of the two lenders that we've been talking to at the table so it's a much more straightforward construction loan process we feel that we'll be able execute this and sixty to sixty days to on the outside for months but we would kindly ask you to allow us to function over the next month where we can give you weekly updates on our progress to close and get to get to a loan closing what we're hoping again is so that we can get out of the ground in the spring time  and we are looking for the amount of time we need to get this investment in place and move to a closing table and execute on the the the financing that we have  fair to say that michael's will be replacing cornerstone and not wells or is it wells going to be replaced we haven't really  it would be a cornerstone that they would be replacing correct and they're coming in with eight million dollars of equity financing whereas cornerstone and i think it committed in excess of fourteen million dollars correct so that is correct so how does that con organization and having a very strong balance sheet and very strong banking relationships that we don't see that this this extra extra leverage would be inappropriate for this kind of loan and if there is any gap needed where were ready to go to internal sources within my family and my current partner of urban spaces to fill in the gap if there is  but we don't believe that there will be so in understanding some of these financing questions i understand that you've been active in trying to get the prix leasing in place correct and that's like the hinge to help make the financing you know come to fruition what's the threshold that wells or michaels is looking at for it for you as a team i was in a fifteen percent leasing commitments is it twenty five on the commercial side were they looking at it as a threshold for them to go ahead and say we're now ready to close right they're now looking for three laces the bar was previously set to two coming into the up until two december and we are on the cusp of signing the third was asking for that which was asking for leases to be signed for the commercial and that just right i would have thought there was enough value in the land in the that other than where we just need to play the cards that we've been dealt and and our team is committed when when we're told  we don't ask questions we just say how why so we're very committed into the signing the last lease which is going to be a fabulous years for the for the town in the square i can't be explicit i put my foot in my mouth whenever i do get explicit so i'm just going to say it's an anchor tenan i didn't hear a specific date that the partnership is requesting for the extension that i'm assuming we're talking about well what  extension of the closing date which we had already agreed ok karl let's that's a very good question and i was coming in here with very modest expectations in mind but we we would a very much appreciate and i think it would be very helpful to the process particularly from lenders who have a very conservative viewpoint of the world  that if we were able to extend the closing date to four months i know that's a an incredibly huge ause but i think it would be in everybody's best centrists of were able to extend that closing time line  outside in the reason being is is that what we've experienced in the past was that we thought we could get it closed in late december one of the sticking points was is that we had already lapse over that close timeline by days literally missed it by days and one of the big sticking points was from the lenders saying we're concerned because  we don't want to go into an entitled and entitled situation or a situation that could be a left up to chance we reassured them that we could get in front of the planning board in short order at the beginning of the year which we did but at that point that ship has sailed if you understand my metaphor sent one question i guess to follow up on that anchor tenant negotiations give us i may have missed the time frame here but could you tell us when you might expect to sign are you  s for a number of reasons it was always something that was in a requirement before closing so therefore wasn't a priority from by the team i'll be honest if if i had to redo it maybe maybe i would have reprivatize my time vides my point is is that it was signed as an ally back then it went through multiple multiple leas drafts and also a same da's and what the complex financing structure that we had originally set up for this the s n d a which typically is a fairy fairly ministerial kind of documented is something that you're dotting their i's and crossing your t's with you being an attorney i'm sure probably think that it's there's a little bit more to it than that but from my also embrace so so my point is is that where we're very where we have a lease in front of them right now that we would sign tomorrow if we knew that lender was able to finance again said and to the best of our understanding that should be indeed the case at this point so you run it by your lender we have to we've made the mistake of getting too far out over our skis if you well that we get a little bit ahead of ourselves so we want to make sure that the lender now and we hope it's this the same senior that we're talking about and that's that's our hope and our expectation but i can't guarantee that and so my point is is that they need to buy into that lease too and so where i think we're very close to doing that it's a course of weeks and days that i would measure and it when did they add the third lease requirement the beginning of the year beginning in january correct own part of this project but it's one town and we need to move forward in concert with them we cannot possibly have two strategies  the length of time being discussed for the length of time being well that will at least help anyone watching at home the length of time being to see the the length of the extension being discussed runs this runs past the purchase and sale agreement for the parking lot which is the fully the selectmen responsibility not worse so that it would seem to me if before there before any decision could be made about certainly before any any decision can be made about this we need the selectmen will be meeting on the twenty second which is before our next meeting i believe they have scheduled an executive session and that  milestones will be operative it would have been unrealistic to assume that was the case so that mr baghdad and i have talked there will be an executive session of the board of selectmen to discuss the parking lot transaction they have agreed to that i will be attending and if you're s and so i think there are obviously are concerns that this is a plausible scenario we have not to put too fine of something of a collection of plausible scenarios and i think we need to talk with the selectmen and then on the twenty third have a joint decision about moving forward and at the same time some plan for what what is a reasonable period of time understand something that is consistent with the purchase and sale agreement because it does you absolutely no good i fully agree with that and thank you for understanding that we wanted to be as all pride and realistic with our timeframes so and so my question for my colleagues is so the proposal is that we would come back to this issue on the twenty third having had the benefit of a discussion with the selectmen and then be prepared to make a decision and keep in mind that between now and then we should review the decision process because as long as we do nothing the permit remains in place so then that would be the suggestion and i'd like to hear from to produce for not only for our benefit both for the town's benefit and we have personalize this project in ways that you can even imagine so we do appreciate everything every you know every working on this item for some time and i just but our discussion tonight has a little more focus it is twofold one is to agree one is to agree on what we what the shape of the press the public present and if you leave so that there is adequate time to prepare for it and the second in addition to the  revisions that you have before you there was some concern that the language on h b a c systems there was some concern that the that the language on h b a c systems was not as clear as it could perhaps could be and that in particular the and volunteered to take a crack at this red thing with jaco or her lawyer only talents and so perhaps we can begin since this is the new language for all of us which we may or may are a couple of issues that were raised by the language just big picture issues and that is the question of whether the concern is the placement of the equipment  v the property line you know how close to the edge of the line it is or how far back away from the street it is and i think joe concluded based on his experiences have that equipment pretty close to a house so the bigger issue is not visible from the street and not close to you know the street or front yard so we focus on placement of that equipment more than halfway down the side of the house if it were if it could we were going to be located on the side of the house  as opposed to in the back yard and i think that we have some pretty clear language that deals with placement in the standard lot to chew ation where there's a front yard too so idea in the back yard  we have just tweaked the language a little bit that you probably have one screening and then the question becomes what do we do about corner lights which have two fronts and two sides and afternoon i don't think it's really ready for you all to review i think we need to work through it a little bit more and vet it for jeffrey a little bit and see what we can come up with but the overall conclusion that we reached was that in general the this equipment needs to if it's located in the side yard needs to be located a distance that's at least half of the width of the house back away from the front wall of the front facade of the house to keep it far up the street and allow for screening and i think so then we're struggling a little bit more with what to do with those corner lots and how not to make the requirements so stringent that we're actually making it difficult to the so that the whole design of the house probably isn't driven by you know this by a law about where c system can be that's exactly right a corner lots it really has to do with the house having two fronts on a corner and that's where we're struggling because realistically speaking the real front will have the front door on it with good design with good screening with the tool to swim itself to to really a friendly interpretation of what can be done rather than having something that's so restrictive that it drives the design of a house in a way that actually is when they get it positive to the neighborhood so that's what we were trying to just tweak a little bit one small point that i wondered about is in th second paragraph under setback from front elevation is it has it actually the with of the house or the depth of the house that we're talking about in the story in the standard yard where we're talking now not a corner lot but a regular lot we wanted half way back the depth of the side of the house not about the house not the front about the correct so typical of what a field wide carl for instance it wouldn't be twenty if the foot if the house was thirty feet deep he would itself and jeffrey in terms of it so that sort of half the discussion the second half of the discussion is our expectations for the meeting itself are that jeffrey in collaboration with all of us as required will prepare a powerpoint and which we will and we will use it as we've used these meetings before as essentially the run for real for if we have a hand on a time meeting yes so between the covers available but my point is if we're not going to meet to the extent that what we're doing is making certain we have a standalone power point that doesn't require a supplementary handout i don't think we should have a supplementary everything and i was personally not contemplating a hand up for town meeting but we haven't done that in the past with our selling amendment so you know you do i think it's fine not to have one but all right moving along  to item five which is the review of draft changes and general resident special permit review process we had this is this will be this is an on more or less ongoing agenda item  as soon as practicable which would probably be something like the beginning of march so you have the list before you and the question is are there any just a know just to run through them through them very quickly in terms of additional information last time we agreed we should ask the applicant to provide total that living area in the staying format as the other information is provided we should also ask the applicant to provide the height of the ridge in terms of process changes in the process i think these may require when and application new the general residence area is did not when an application for a building permit in the general residence district is denied the idea here is not that all of these will automatically come to us some may decide to revise decide they're just not going to move ahead with it but it will at least give us a sense of what's the maximum number of cases we could be looking at and just in terms of planning and workflow that might be useful the second is whether we wish to standardize the format for submission of plants i think when we looked at thirteen birch street or the waverly terrorist plans we all said yes this is pretty thirteen birch tree people said this is a really good package to work with we'd really like to see it's very helpful with flows everything we want is there it's easy to find and the question is and again people may want to go back and look at thirteen birch before we decide on this do we want to have some kind of a standard package so but look at it and if there there's anything we want changed next let's add it and then there after when people come in to see jeffrey it's a complete here's here's what we have in mind a second question item being under that is for smaller for a for a day that was obviously new can demolition or that was new construction since it was a vacant lot  do we have a in the same way that not everyone has to file the the full ten forty there's sort of a shorter tax form for people who have simpler taxes  a question would be whether we want to have a reduced version of that package for additions or whether everyone should conform the same model or whether that should be at the discretion of the senior plan well as a way of answering that we've seen some very large edition including tonight where it's very helpful to have all four existing elevations all hauled two or three floor plans all proposed elevations and all proposed floor plan changes and i i think if it's a simple it's a simple addition it wouldn't take much to do that if it's a complicated one suggestions about what is consistent with the spirit of the general residence and perhaps in the future if town meeting passes it as we hope what is consistent with the spirit of the general residen tries to persuade them to do that and that like most processes of persuasion it enjoys varying degrees of success  what's what's been somewhat problematic are cases where the this construction is going to be very tough to make work and geoffrey works with them and works with them we've gotten through three or four iterations and so by the time it comes to the board the applicant has invested a lot in redoing the plans it comes to the board and the board still has great reservations about it so now we have a process that's longer than it's needs to be so the next question is do we want a kind of fast track process that in some cases where we think it's going to be that the board ahead of time says it's going to be very tough to come up it is true design conquers all but it has to be a really good design and there are some cases that are so tough that we should bring them up very early in the process before the applicant invest time and money and the ones that are called out here are trying to do pound house construction on less than five thousand square feet high in excess and the numbers here thirty seven feet and this is height again this is high through ridge of thirty seven feet or fifteen feet greater than the residences on either side those numbers are somewhat illustrative but strong multiple units potential that's the bath full bath on each floor and there are four levels  excessive use of artificial materials excessive use of vertical elephants who's making the determination on the more qualitative joints like you know create some potential well i just worry that we're setting up a process here that wouldn't every applicant want to come in and after a first set of complete plans to community development to come straight to us i mean what's the incentive for uniting the i wouldn't everyone want to like to try to get a fast track review so why wouldn't it how can we deny that to certain applicants when they have a first complete set of plans and i'm not clear answer to how this mechanism is going to work if if if i if if i can sort of interpret that in a way i was thinking about that too somebody might say we have a project we have a project here why should somebody jump in line ahead of me to at some point tell whoever it is that this is going to be a very difficult thing and you're going to have to wait your turn on that and if they don't get that message then they can do whatever and you know he was he was he he hit all the high points that the probe board has has said there that that are concerns for the board and you were able to make a decision that night whereas in other cases it's been they haven't they've it's been these issues here the townhouse on a less than five thousand where the board really struggled with  you and perhaps barbara joe would add by the next by the time we look at this again on the twenty third ok ok because i think of that also will address a lot of this because you can say would siding is preferred vinyl answer your question this is a tool for the planning office when the suggestions are being me and if in jeffrey's judgment this is just going nowhere  that it is good to come to the boy then then it moves to the board immediately and given that in most of these case in many of these cases people do know people are apt to enjoy their time with the board less than you might think because the answer in many of these questions will be no this is just respectful of the neighborhood this is inconsistent with the spirit of town meeting so i do not think that there will be complaints by others the gee we did not go get to come to the planning board in this excel aerated way if you if if the  if the planning department accelerates your case that is not  and they could just at that point you're going to get why you know i mean it's like wherever presents first is the person that comes to us first but we're already requiring that with that really are step so that's why i'm confused about the record we are requiring it but if we have the fast if we have all the requirements of the design guidelines so that people are clear if they're going to have a problem if they don't comply with those then what i just you know i'm not sure back multiple times in front of us with their plans i mean the the purpose of this is if it's and it's not to is if if it is if this is very clearly likely to end up with a no it's much better to do that quickly when i read this to me my mom my thoughts went to dante off because there i i thought i mean i came in after this had already started and it seemed to me michelle present taishan or presentations were of a structure that was a little bit larger increasing the non conformity if you will and there was at one point a discussion about whether or not consideration of a single family house was on the table so for i read that specifically for the less than five thousand square foot was perhaps we could suggest that they consider another type of structure and i heard your point joe and i support your point about whether or not somebody has the opportunity in the you know something that would be to the advantage of the the neighborhood to come in with they should given they should be given their opportunity to present that but how i heard that i read this fast tracking piece was that ok so the board has its inclination to want to try to keep within the intent of town meeting but you know what of the smaller size lot maybe consideration should be given to this type of structure versus a structure that's going to push the bounds of what we would consider and that's really i think i mean you know done here and you with the example where it went on so long without fundamental suggestions of gee a single family might work better in the end some sort of process fairness required approval and it was a unanimous approval but i would not want to do that again for simply i would not want to have to do that again for six i mean i agree process  important and i would respect to begin but it's not something i want to have i don't think the board should have a good process this post to prevent you from having to invoke that notion and just recall back on our fundamental criteria of what's a and again i think if i next time if there are any if there are additions in terms of design standards  we'd want to do this a regular five is these questions where there is a material difference between the existing total living area as reported by the f b i and which is important because that's the base afterward a from which we measure the size of the increase and the total living area per the assessor's database and so i had a discussion with the assessors about this problem and they offered a very constructive solution that they said you know it is certainly possible that when it was done they hadn't gotten access they had been some kind of estimate and so on so they had offered and i think this is very good of them that if there is a material difference they will go out and take a look a living areas that are of yours i can give you the unhealthy slightly unhelpful formal answer from the assessor's office you can the answer to the assessor's the answer is the primary use of this is in annie mae freddie mae in the mortgage market and therefore their definition of tell the living area corresponds exactly to the fannie mae freddie mae definition that area just because they're not on the list they're not on the assessors list so they don't get notified that's a bit we should we should really not do that again i said if we asked the question about the timing on that one given  neighborhood which we did you know when you wrecked before in all of the red notice is that something that we should consider and i don't know that i feel strongly one way or another that we really can find a new definition of neighborhood but i throw that out there is something that i think we so he's talking about we will we plan a whole session so we'll come back to that and i did under the update section i did have some discussion with the assessors about how this is defined ok since we have numerous definitions of this being and anyway so any thoughts we would like to finalist finalize this on the twenty third so looking back at birch street and thinking about design standard guidance on how the board was currently thinking so take it away rafiq i mean yeah i mean clearly this is something that was a summertime project that we're looking at and before we look at coming to the board with some kind of charter probably get a good trying to get a sense of gauging some employer some thoughts or any reflections as i go ahead at the next time be able to go public with a what would be a charter i thought i'd probably make good sense of just hear from  my colleagues on the board i mean it's the question is you know should bill maher consider regulating air b n b yes or no and where are some of the things that helped shape that that answer i mean if you if you read the i think was the globe today there was a applied in boston san francisco belmont i mean why not so i mean and also to i understood in the city of boston some legislation was filed in november to consider taxing air b n b so it's in communities close to us and across the country and you know whatever anecdotally people have observed you know air b n b there are a number of people that are doing it presently in town so i just want to get a sense hotel or b and b tax that's an outsider purview probably but i know one of the big issues in some of the other cities is it becomes town revenue or city revenue right here or should you should be paying at hotel tax or your other the old time model was you go away for the summer you go away for a semester you let your house out you put an ad in the paper the only thing different between that and air b n b is that you're doing it down one way or the other i'm just trying to say like it or not whether the folks in you know from work on it is an entrepreneurial business type situation that is happening in a residential neighborhood i don't think that can be disputed track i don't have an opinion one way or the other above here b n p at this point but i just have a process comment which is that zoning that talks about short term rentals i don't know if they are and there's an issue about that but aside from that it's a use issue and the playing board  is within its rights to look at this and to regulate it so so i say go ahead take a look at that and we're within our rights to regulate it one way or the other there  is one other approach that companies like the effort to creation first will play students in homes where it's partly an educational function but it is increasing the number of people in the house because they're coming from out of town they probably don't increase the number of cars in the driveway but it's it's it's it's in between air b n b and going away for the summer but it's another use of your property which creates income and i think here i think we have to try to either leave it alone or try to be as comprehensive as we can in saying what are the differences between these various ways of managing you know a property and so i look back at that that it was handsome blue books that jeffrey gave us this is only i last because that's the accumulated judgment of countless town meetings about how what the town should look like and how the town should run and i think is a good place to start informing one's opinions and i think reading specific sections on regulations in a single residence area and considering the document in its totality the answer is belmont does not want back businesses in single residence areas it does not want multi person units in single residence area so that it's very hard for me to see air b n b is at all consistent with the regulator if you want to run a business in your home there are pages of regulations of you can't have employees how often can they come clients can't visit you all of that seems to me to speak to what kind of town literally forty years of town meetings check your questions when we start so many want to see and the fact that air b n b is a new idea new is a temporal adjective it has nothing to do with quality or value so i don't see i don't see it i also think for the most part the criteria we use enhance the neighborhood just absolutely not unlike say some of the state of having an exchange student next door for three months would be kind fun for my great niece to play with it might enhance her but this is not what we're talking about here that's just that's not thank you i mean this is something that i mean i look forward to doing soon to be a working group  and the output of the work group will be something that the planning board will be able to take a look at what the pros and the cons are and how we need to deliberate on that it'll be part of the objective also is to you know engage some of these folks that have been interested in some of the issues with the planning board in getting new gauges and in their municipal desires to you know volunteer and so that's where the two will meet and i hope to have through the public hearing where the ryan family has had an opportunity to learn a great deal about more about and found government than they had perhaps bargained for and because we are open room town hall where fifty five concord ave to consider the application of bernard bryan for a special permit under section one point five point four of the zoning bylaws to alter any nonconforming structure side sat back ten feet allowed nine feet existing proposed in order to construct an addition at the rear of the house at twenty three poplar street and the general residence owning district and now a custom made we hear from the applican  civics lesson and all so we are proposing in addition off the back of the property the property itself is nonconforming in two areas one is the front or back the other is the right side setback the they're not doing any work on the front so if they were not affecting that setback at all we are proposing to extend the line of the existing house on the right side not any further than the existing non conformity but to continue that non conformity in order to extend that addition in the back we spent a fair amount of time a good good amount of time actually on in terms of trying to make sure that the design was in keeping with the neighborhood that it was in scale and not particularly visible from the street it is the roof the ridge of the roof is lower in the back and the the addition is entirely in the rear we are not doing any on the sun porch which is typical of these properties which you often see that a second floor added to that to create much much  larger wall facing the street so we've paid particular attention to that throughout the whole process and we have in i think i think we gave you a lot of information about what the nature of the project and all the benefits and so forth but it is our we're basically asserting that it's not detrimental to the neighborhood and in fact is is complimentary to the neighborhood the other u nique situation here is that we are on the edge of the the g r district and the house itself is relatively small in terms of the the abiders and nearby properties and the addition that we are putting on still keeps us in the middle of the pack size wise we're not trying to make anything particularly large we're not looking at there's no long term development plan here anything like that the ryan family is planning on being in in belmont until their living situation better as the girls are getting bigger providing more space for everyone so there's no one longer bumping into each other in the in the one full bath and things like that so  i'm happy entertaining other questions i think you have anything you want to to add i mean it's very much about ask you for the cable audience please each time you speak sure bernie ryan twenty three poplar street and my wife diane twenty three poplar street belmont it's really driven by by lifestyle and twenty first century lifestyle as you know these houses were built in one nine hundred twenty s been no material changes to it you go into the kitchen side you've got to go but back you go to living room side you got to come back there's no it's not joined at the back so there's no circle flow in the house is one full bathroom for a family of four which is certainly not up to twenty first century lifestyle standards we do have a letter from the a barter on the right side where the nine foot setback is supporting the addition happy to share that with you seventeen poplar street we also have twenty five signatures from the neighborhood supporting the edition and signatures from all of the direct the butter so these five direct the bothers to on poplar street five on barnard which is behind us and even after the addition so the proposed is still a forty foot setback to the back property line so that particular part of popular street even though it's somewhat narrow on the sides we actually have a very deep back yard at sixty feet close to sixty foot setback currently forty foot setback i believe after the addition of the deck is proposed so there's plenty of room we're not coming up against property lines in any any way shape or form thank you get you wish to introduce the rest of the family jacqueline is in sixth grade at the cherry school and samantha is in second grade at the butler school five thirty three no sixty four eighty right in their sort of five plot plan and they submitted as sixty five thirty two yes and i looked at the dimensions of both what we have in our office which says sixty four size not that it would matter a lot as provided by the at the applicant's plan plan it works architecture for the project we expect five quarter we don't know exactly what's underneath right now whether we can retain any of the existing siding the underneath the vinyl whether we have to whether it can be restored whether  have to remove all of it in and start from scratch so it would be there would be some kind of corner board generally fight if we're going to do a quarter board or all we would do five quarter to get a better relief on the visually from the on the corner problem you do with five quarter i'd like if it screams to me that really needs to be if you could just replace that window and add like a multi unit window there it would look so much better because you've gone all the way here with the  you or do you care if it's casement or double home or you can you can do i don't work but if you do if you mile it's going to look like it's double hung anyway so if you guys prefer the casement i don't have a problem with that but the window in the kitchen really you need to if the shingles and they're in it and if they're in good shape the logical thing would be to restore them and and stay with what was originally there but yes my expectation so we didn't have any there were any bad spots where i  could poke around and you usually sometimes you get like a broken piece of vinyl you can see what's there we didn't i didn't find any of those i can't tell i couldn't when i was trying to look at that as i could tell from the different houses in the neighborhood that there wasn't like a constant repeatable sighting so it could be either way if there shingles we could go to shingles just as easily to match existing but if we had to take everything off oh probably go to again i just want to just i just want to be clear with the stuff so if you do shingles more than likely if you find shingles under there you're going to have weaved corners and you're not going to have any detail there right so in that case you would go weaved corners on not an old house and a new addition but one house that's the goal of both interior and exterior no i understand that and i read that but you know i just have to ask the questions because to me that that's all well and good but you know you get people that can see from the plant there are some trees in fairly large shrubs in the front of the house in the back of the house there's really it's really just open grass right now and there's a line of bush tree things at the very back which screen the the rear property line but that's about it what we are proposing to do not only we want to be screening the equipment but we also will be doing screening around the the edge of the deck what we're trying to do is right now the deck is a whole story above the ground what we want to do is really soften that whole flow and we'll be using a couple methods to do that one is are we bringing  little bit we'll be adding a stone a small stone wall there to break that that gap between the upper level of the deck and the growth level of the ground and we'll be putting some landscaping in around that but the whole point being just kind of soften that whole flow  and make it make it more like it flows into the backyard as opposed to having some kind of cliff that you jump off of and i was acting funny or i'm twenty three policy in the backyard there is a japanese maple tree in the back corner that was  about ten years ago and it dogwood tree that comes up above the shed that's prone every year and perennials in along the house so it's professionally landscaped you know on a regular basis since we moved in but i think it is a logical thing to be perennial her bushes of some sort so you don't have to redo it every year obviously and keep it in and ideally what i would if it what i would probably suggest we never green  bs or something like that so that it's screens and it's foresees and screening as opposed to just you know spring and summer so but again that's this kind of detail we haven't quite gotten all worked out yet our big problem is of the what i think this is that we have our we have been asking people for specifically as cavemen as it comes to doing this type of work so you hear here i believe you have all the best intentions in the world and i have full confidence as the great you just need to give us some type of detail when it comes to the landscaping everybody that comes in here with a similar position or uses reaction is held to a certain standard we can't treat this any differently time you may remember we brought waverly street light street back to bring that that we've done that it's it's it's you know it's a it's a minor thing where you guys are concerned i mean i think that looks like you're going to take how detailed and good the landscape plan is you could a way you could imagine submitting it on the twenty third and not necessarily coming with it but we need to see the last week we've required that in every case ok so you don't so when so the board doesn't like in some towns the board will issue a finding saying well proved under the following conditions perennials across x section of of the property and and that you know that that's part of the that's part of the finding it's issued in there's not a return to the board you don't do it  first i thought that your package looked great it was one of the more complete that we have seen and in particular and things that they fairly for the sake of my fellow board members i liked the supplemental information that actually addressed the neighborhood impact in a way that tracks the bylaws i think that that was very helpful to to flag issues that i wanted to think about a little bit more and to to make clear that there were certain  factors that i think were known issues all together so i think that that was very useful and looks great i like the design i guess following up on a couple of comments that joe made you know that the plans themselves say although the house looks like it's got a clapboard and they're going to get one of boards you don't actually say that in your in years specifications are very focused on the shingles so i think that there should be a little bit of clarity about that if clapboards likely to be your first choice and the corner board details to be added and then i also just wondered about the existing front which has shutters and you don't mention what and i think new shutters might look like and what in particular what material those shutters would be  that hasn't been covered not that i would have actually covered most of the issues covered so well by my colleagues and any case which is the the th land slopes quite steeply downward in back and calculation that i would like to see is if you are from the perspective of the your rear a butter  required set but but still considerably closer and i'd like to understand the height of the wall with the rear a better we'll be looking at i can't give you a number one elevation on on grade because we are we are lifting up the we are back feeling more of that perimeter of the of the foundation so the average grade height will actually be increasing as opposed to decreasing so so using that the ever for our sight line dynamics which which we could provide for of course if i need to it's not something not particularly standard thing but simply certainly doable we do it on commercial work all the time we don't do it on residential down and it's not twenty feet that the addition is twelve to fourteen feet but twenty feet includes the back so from the setback issues the house itself is twelve to fourteen the addition is twelve to fourteen feet but nonetheless we think this point it's a good point you think it's it's nice i right rear corner of the lot is that it's a japanese maple that shows up on the drawing left  it just means you want to know the answer and write anything else you know so we will see you back on the twenty third we will i think we can make the first  procedural question i mean are are those the only issues that will come up on the twenty third or can you go back in and raise new issues so much there that wasn't brought up here no but you know if you if you could would be really helpful i mean i that you're getting a positive reaction from the board i would really love to know what is under pretty short cedar shingles but i mean i haven't we haven't ripped off large sections but if it's something we can find out between now and then around potential cases i've been meeting with people but nobody has indicated what they're doing the addition to the high school has received m s p a approval would be moving the town will be moving ahead on that as soon after the twenty third as at the town meeting of this the next monday i will be at article to appoint a temporary building committee and the at are if possible on the twenty third we need to have a discussion of the role of the planning board in this process so that when the superintendent will be calling something a few meeting so that we can clearly state what we think how how we feel we could be constructively involved and how the charter of the planning board requires us to be involved  secondly on the discussion of the the noise issue in conjunction with the installation of the cellular equipment in the plymouth congregational church in the course of that meeting i made reference to the issue with the wellington h b a c i was contacted afterwards by several members of the wellington fielding committee who  fine if i had not accurately described the wellington situation they sent a very useful memo on the topic which i'm going to ask jeffrey to distribute to everyone and i wish to correct my error but it's partly because correcting one's areas is a good thing but also because it has i think it is important for a number of the  when we had talked to the rising representatives we had said you know it's very important to be certain you're going to me in town by laws with respect to deciples levels we don't want a repetition of the not that it  was above the night time sound levels were above forty five it was there prior to the building of wellington school the night time sound levels had been around twenty and so the perceive it was not a whole violation they created issues with the neighbor it was the enormous difference and the quality of the it was the difference in the quality of the nighttime experience so that what wellington the wellington equipment was always clients it was just disruptive to the neighborhood because twenty decibels is a big increase in noise levels it was a very quiet neighborhood that is something that we may want to think about and i'm not suggesting we have no use by laws this spring but clearly i think the implications are we clearly want to get a measurement of limit on the current ambient sound levels both day and night and you agree i will tuck jeffrey and i will talk to the police department about making some measurements and it is probably an issue that we need to be concerned with in general and it will may or may not rise or isolated location but may arise again and then two other quick two other quick updates the one is with respect to the uplands who are well public appearances not in the cards we did receive and again i will ask jeffrey to distribute we did receive information on the  schedule for the for releasing markets for releasing the units into the market construction is proceeding apace and the first few minutes will be on the of the five buildings the first forty five units will be available for brantley in june and they intend to bring them along at the rate of about forty five units a month thereafter so that by should essentially have the full moon that will that's an important fact for the town and we need to look into it more and finally the  we did in meeting with the assessors they did agree they will be providing us with their neighborhood maps which are defined somewhat differently than ours and we will need to take a look at updates and if there are no questions about them would allow us to move along to item can review and approval of the minutes