good evening this is charles clarke on the chair of the belmont playing board i welcome you to the tuesday december fourth twenty eighteen meeting of the belmont planning board let me introduce to begin with the members of thought my inhibitions that are that are good that's not good at all in any case i've called the meeting to order we have several things happening this evening we are going to continue the public hearing on twenty two open road that's in discussion at this point after that we will discuss exterior materials and the tree grades and the sidewalks for the bradford project in cushing's square that will be followed by our discussion of potential zoning and then minutes and jeffrey has prepared a wonderful greeting for for us in the single family be zoning district   committees that board members participate in we'll take a look at some minutes and then we will adjourned so at this point the continued we're continuing the public hearing on twenty two road we understand that the that this is going to be continued until december eighteenth representative at that meeting and africans met with stephen discussed the some of the board's outstanding concerns and the desire to see further reductions in its architect indicated they were going to go back and discuss their approach and we're still waiting to see what the outcome of their discussions are so the moment we're just in a holding pattern so that being the case i make a motion that we continue the public hearing today december eighteenth twenty eighteen to hear a second all in favor thank you now the bradford geoffrey you are the expert on the bre we should talk about that we are talking the seat in the first thing we're talking about is the exterior building materials which we have discussed before and we had an insight presentation on them in the there were issues in terms of some of the party board shingles and their colors and some of the trim so we saw tint to it and then you also see that right here these are the shingles which they were proposing to use instead  you can see that they have a piece of the shingle right here and then this is the arctic trim arctic white trim the shingle is still the  same cement composite but it has if you look at it you can see the image here has much more of a graying grain look to it grain like like a shingle would look like it has much more separation then the other well material boards if you want to look at them to be rid of them but that's up to you i think to proceed these were the two main i think there had looked at this probably a little bit closer in terms of and what your opinion of the materials that were posed at this point these particular  another bullet my comment on this is that i think that they responded to us in terms of this and i'm happy with this i don't have any  out the different pieces each board and now because boards are not dated so will spell out that the actual details as well but that's fine would you like to make a motion that we approve of the tree great this goes back way back to even before the buildings were starting to be constructed the as you know the coming on line the same time that the road went through cushing village but unfortunately that did not occur so the bradford call is now on the hook to make traffic consultant and toll has been working directly with them to make sure that whatever they do is in compliance with what was approved for the whole  this case with respect to the tree greats the planning board had suspect out a larger caliber tree and a larger tree great and b a c ra as a concern in terms of its impact on the with the sidewalk and if over a period of time what the tree root might do to the potential heaving of the sidewalks  and so we've had you know obviously conversations with all parties and so now it's up to the board to decide how to proceed one of the things that was done was the b did look around the square to see whatever else is doing and it appears these are three sections of sidewalk near the projects it appears that everybody is doing more of a three by that's right well it looks like it's supposed to look like dirt but that it to use that is a true great instead as opposed to a regular tree great so it really is at this point make things similar in the initial planting and and in my experience that's not justified and in fact just the opposite is the case if you i think the best example in the town is the set of trees that were planted next to the do we call it the hockey rink next to the swimming pool where the i think three and a half to four and a half and they already look great now and the pool just opened and the i find the idea of cutting the landscape budget is a trivial savings compared to the advantage of planted planting somewhat larger trees from the beginning four and a half to five and a half or six instead of instead of two or two and a half or three a two in it to an a tree has has about a mortality of about thirty to forty percent in a typical public setting and i think that's that ends up being a waste of money rather than a an investment but what about the issue i think the issue was raised if if there are large trees well two things you can have a larger caliber tree that you put in the ground but not a large tree that you plant that you think would work better and no i think you you you you work as a landscape architect and use standardize on a set of species of tree and then after that it's just a matter of having that carefully and well planted and i don't understand the tree great issue either if it gets planted properly there's no reason for the  to tree the caliber of the trees going to grow anyway i mean given given given a true could be if it's a two inch tree it's going to grow and it's going to approve or cause problems any i don't see the difference in it with the advantage of him in planting a smaller caliber tree if the objective is to keep it from doing damage to the sidewalk he's going to do that anyway over time if it's not  is the season within the same species cutting the caliper down although it does it's increased mortality and intent and it takes longer to to to you know achieve a sort of natural look so i  tree to know if you were play if you if you were planting a larger tree say four to five you'd get to a tree great with a bigger hole in it then you know that seems to fit pretty straightforward landscape architect for the size of the tree and the and the species and go from there it's not i don't think there's an absolute that you can say the whole should get five inches  so unless there's a reason not to be we should be a relative conformity with what we grew five years ago a tree great i'm concerned more is that the tree doesn't have enough room to grow underneath the tree the tree is going to try to grow in every direction it's not going to it's not going to grow three feet on the one direction and six feet in the other direction and seems to me that if you're going to going to do do right by the tree that you would have the bigger creepers make a tree so they're great or what about the they are going to need to be decision i mean if we don't if we don't do the largest creates clearly clearly we have a problem with the trees down the line right right for the trees won't grow properly  with the other thing about matching the rest in a corner i mean this is this is a an island in that quarter seems to me i don't feel any compulsion to to go lock step in you know since since this is brothers i just i will did want to say a couple of things we are the prove landscape plans that show the larger trees and tree grays we are fine with told us not take issue with us  plan is to proceed with the approved drawings this suggestion from b s e to make the tree great smaller i think makes the sidewalk a little bit more accessible we understand the concerns about smaller trees were happy to proceed with the approved plans and have our landscape architect look at the species of tree to get the correct species or species that is is acceptable i'm not an expert on landscape and tree selection  if there is a proposal from the town or from b s c that says here's a way to do a smaller tree great keep this last size of the tree increases i were happy to look at that  but when we're happy to review this but we're not we're not i want because we're not suggesting that these changes were not the ones proposing the change but from the standpoint that if there are concerns we're happy to look at them and we're happy to revisit the species of tree the size of the tree great i do think having a tree great that is a better thing ultimately i i want to be clear that the proposed solution here with b s e to work with the town on whatever suggestions the town or b s c would have on changing that situation but from our standpoint the size of the tree gr we're happy with either size this we we do have concerns about the trees getting too big because obviously they're right next to the building becomes i mean it's a shoo in at some point you know the trees do grow and they get big so we're happy to look at them to make sure that they are big good one in urban condition they have a very light canopy also they've they're used throughout massachusetts or totally dependable urban tree i think that the american elm is a luxury they get huge over time but we're talking hundred fifty years they are being used around town but usually in places where there is a little bit more space and this is a really tight location and the other thing i'm i am somewhat concerned about and i urge you to look at in the course of thinking about the the six by six versus the three by six is we're trying to to manage both the  qualities of the road corridor as well as the pedestrian experience and of course you know maintenance issues as well and i am very concerned that the sidewalk is going to get very very narrow and it's excess ability and we all hope that square is going to be very pedestrian friendly because of course this has neighbors who are concerned about traffic the the landscape architect is you know qualified to deal with all these issues and i urge you know maybe have some feedback from them but also you know i don't know if the shade tree committee or th you know tree warden might have some some input it might be worth engaging them in the discussion they certainly have experience with trees that have worked in town but basically my concern is the with of the corridor and the selection of the  trees and the size of the tree grates and i would absolutely recommend against the permeable surface because it requires a lot of maintenance and because they're very vulnerable to same and that gets put on so i would suggest you discuss these questions either directly with tom walsh our tree warden or the trace shade tree committee we do have a committee thank you so like you are there any other comments before we move on you know not not it's causeway street the pedestrian traffic here at its best with all the new residents it will still be of lightly used thing and so i think we have it we think we want to strike a balance between pedestrian access and having the trees contribute to the overall pleasantness of the development ok cathy cathy rush the van horn road just a couple of quick questions if this who was though the solution proposed by if it wasn't toll was at the b s e group yes ok but their potential if you didn't do this you have to say that you could kind thank you and if we're talking about six by six greats which makes total sense now that i hear the expert and that's what's here to what do we know what the with the idea of a sidewalk should be to be compliant so are we t nine feet wide for a sidewalk the b s e report they came back to didn't really have measurements specially for williston roadside so for you know i guess that's ultimately what has to be  fleshed out here is that if there's a six by six how much sidewalk room is left over there is a question i think that will be sixty dollars question i think we will we'll make sure when we talk of the list cape architect that it's compliant i can imagine i  that limits the size of openings but the tree greatest self is compliant structure to walk on a roll the wheelchair across so that making the tree great smaller or larger doesn't shouldn't restrict your your  and piled a bunch of data together one of the interesting things that we were walked away with was there's comment about perhaps maybe we need to look at maybe this is not just one district maybe it's some districts so we went back and spencer put together a lot of data and a lot of maps and wanted to pick it up from here planning board issued its first report recommending the adoption of the by law and i included a few quotes here they're specifically referenced the area that's the s r b today and they the board comments in the report that  board wasn't quite sure how they how development should occur in that area then in one nine hundred forty four there are the zoning changed to require a minimum lot size of fifteen thousand square feet throughout the single residence district before that time there was no minimum lot sizes a lot of the houses that were built in what is now the s r b district were built prior to nine hundred forty four in one nine hundred fifty five the creation of the s r a s r b n s r c districts occurred at that time as far as fifteen thousand square feet s r b was ten thousand square feet with an eighty foot frontage and s r c was seven thousand square feet with seven feet seventy feet of frontage and then lastly in one thousand nine hundred eight thirty three years later the lot sizes changed again s r a was increased to twenty five thousand square feet s r b was increased to twelve thousand square feet with ninety feet  district itself and analyzed first what was the year of construction by parcel within the district and i apologize it's not as easy to read on the presentation here but a majority of the houses were built then we looked at the subdivisions and the district and you can see that there really is a breakdown between the the smaller lots are in the subdivision here and in the larger lots further up the hill or in these subdivisions so it really the area that you know they're in there those are the small lots and those are the the lots the become non conforming so there's a subdivision built there at that time that then that's the subdivision that's built like between world war one in the depression there and those are the smaller houses and the more if they are and those are the ones that will be the biggest threat for the that all of the paint here is still non conforming even under s r c one thousand square foot acquirements to the to the green conforms to the current s r e and it's just you can just tell it just hits in the same places over and over y some residents of the s r b district present i'm not sure if you want to hear from them in terms of what they would what their concerns are or if we should just go forward with week and i my recollection is that you asked us not to get signatures just yet to come back this week with our concerns at some point yes i mean my concern is that no that's fine but we didn't get signatures because you had said not to get you what's expedient and what's not in terms of this is that my concern is that when that letter comes if we're going to go ahead with this that we hear a strong voice from the neighborhood the district that's the go ahead on this we have a lot of things that are coming to town meeting and it was soon that the neighbors would like to see something on me tell me april tell me rather than have it pushed off to the fall if you want to respond eleanor brian cashman i'm actually one of the neighbors or three of us here but there are a bunch last week and john robotham who's kind of the leader is had told you he's not able to be here this week yes we we believe that there are kind of two issues chuck  one is those issues that have been very clearly brought out by people g a s are wonderful joyous company and sort of zoning protections and then the second step of course which they also highlighted is in single residence  there's a huge disparity of size and so in your position it's incredibly difficult to imagine how you would get through that without looking at both a ten thousand square foot lot and one hundred fifteen thousand square foot lot so we are both immediate and patient so we have to be you know a little judicious in how we look at the non conforming grandfather to make sure that we're not throwing everything in the air we also with respect to that where there's a character of the very much good at in mansions we were spoken about mcmansion this would apply to any new construction not just new buildings but also additions so we have to look at what does that mean the board went through a fairly lengthy exercise to the s r c director to say anything less than thirty percent of the gross floor area of the board also went through length with respect to g r to say three hundred square feet so we need to figure out what there's a magic number there somehow so we'll have to do some research on building permits and see where is the sweet spot that appears that the bore would that everybody  be reviewed versus those that that size that doesn't need to be this area as we know has significant slope and i actually was surprised to see how that but we also to make sure that we take into account what the definition of height engrave is to make sure that you have it like totally prevented something from doing anything to their property because it's slow that makes  to comment on that elevation we we ran into this on our street here yeah i mean definitely and you can see that the distinction is in terms of heights the one we were dealing with was actually at the bottom of the hill and r homes you know when will the the issue is when you have so you basically have to sort of districts here the more dense what is very with when you put the slope in it to be very heavy genius which means it's going to be difficult to make one rule that kind of made everybody which means we're going to end up in the special permit process and i think much much of this and i understand the benefits of the special permit process that i think i was the one that raised that all this but that we should do everything but special permit in the g r i rue the day i did that  so this is unique in that sense so trying to figure out how we do that just started first glance i mean you've got to so many districts we having a forgive me because i don't go up there often but so are we having experience of overbuilding are perceived over building in the neighborhood she was in fear fear of but we also will be doing for five years worth of building permits and see what's going on and see how that also fits into all of this stuff so yes just for the record i'd like to say that i'm a resident of the district on one of the highly non you're very involved with it and it was it was in reaction to the knock downs primarily right right for the s and i don't feel like we're seeing a lot of knock downs in the neighborhood but we're certainly seeing a lot of happy exactly to have just start this discussion and if may is not feasible that's fine we're just happy to start the discussion we all understand that we're not seeing this happen but in all of our small neighborhoods we have neglected or abandoned houses where the the best use of that land may end up being on a tear down because it's it's neglected and what we're concerned about is we all can we can all can attend to five probably block by b house or two and we just want to make sure that when they turned changed hands that we don't have problems so there's no you know impetus if this is too hard for you guys to do it we're  understand but you know it's ok if it takes the slower track but we just hope we're on the track of the issue was in the thank you for those comments the issue in the g r was basically the g r was on fire at the time the g r was it was just out of control and it was having an immediate dramatic effect on the neighborhoods there it didn't very heavily because you know developers could go in and you could you could buy a house less expensively than you could buy in other parts of town and the lots were small and they were tight and you could go big and and that created that for years and and and and the markets are always going to be strong in belmont even if the housing market which is supposed to like slow down a bit even if it does the months in such demand that people will feel like things go forward in terms of that so we see you know it's not bad to be proactive on that it's it's the g r was relatively homogeneous this is very heterogeneous this is like we're trying to get our arms around how we begin this i think that's what discussion is so we think we go from here i think  there's always the special town meeting in the fall which some of these it isn't but some of this will be easy to i'm place there's going to be some conversations around you know  wanted to make sure that we all understand because we are also in that holiday season that's why all these chairs are not necessarily felt so please do just on our participation because of the time of the year as well so we'd love to hear direct instruction so so this is the changes from two thousand and thirteen right but this is what was so were reviewed we codified the company also took a moment to look at this going back and what you have in your packets is actually an outline and the actual letter from the company calling out certain things some very easy things we the planning board actually had back in there some text issues in terms of some extra words that don't belong there is an incomplete sentence is missing in the north and then there's it correct references to state actually in  federal statutes of don't exist anymore or have been amended some other day so there's actually quite a bit that the board could do to get to clean up some of this stuff  example on how to how you want to proceed and you just check off the box and that's become your decision it's really very easy for a lot of the stuff i think we do this as one of our working consistency issues and all of that i would suggest that when you give us all copies of this that you have your preferred choice that doesn't happen after that as opposed to debating every single one of these this is the kind of thing that i think the community development has the most experience in and the playing board can just approve of just it's just not yeah you can just not i think that's probably the best way because i think we might be right to put a few of the and the police station the bellman high school will be coming on at this point in time will become coming on december eighteenth to pick back up where they left off basically to give your overview of what has occurred to date what where they are currently and how to move forward they are proposing to actually break up the approval so january eighth would be to meet them june deadline generally that would be the beginning of the play more discussion regarding circulation parking and carpets and it's in just a bit of that would take two meetings potentially every fifth would be the building itself and inciting again that might be a couple meeting so i think they're actually moving the building like one of our wants them to move  not approved but ok final version you know we should be having i guess we should i would be i'd be nervous just presenting this like this many agenda publicly because people are jeffrey and i will be going to the traffic advisory committee and they have to i mean there has to be consensus of the traffic advisory committee for for them to be for the high school building committee to be able to propose where they're you know accessing the grass and you know ingress is and what the circulation is and what the parking is now they probably have a pretty good idea of what they want to do at this point but we will not be able to to move any of these things until they make that decision and what jeffrey and i will talk about we will talk about a decision in terms of where they want to have their curb cuts and what they what they want to do those things you know the circulation all that which effects the parking and all of that and they have to make that decision before we can do any of these things we're going to go to the traffic advisory committee we're going to tell them what our processes and what our timing is on and hopefully they'll be if they don't make a decision on these things relative police soon it's going to push the schedule further and further back and we're going to have in terms of each of these things we will not only have the presentation from the high school building committee on that  evaluation of that but we're also going to if i'm correct we're going to have public hearings these are these yes these will be public hearings this week so this will be the full planning process and we're going to divide it into chunks but we need to get they need to make a decision on those things so we can respond to those things so the fourteenth there will be there as well as the day that we hope that we begin to you know encourage them to make a of thinks is appropriate and i think when we found out for pushing for the bradford here i thought that was great and i think inform the public on the form does it's a big enough roger it's a big enough nail this down right and make sure that you've got something going to come off the line and the board has always felt strongly that if you're going to require the private sector to do something yes the public should be treated the same way getting into this until january and the five months will run fast with public hearings and we have other things happening too that would be ok all right just part of the process question they're going to put the sho they're doing this in like modules like right you do this by the high school first and then yeah in the middle school you get a close the pool and yeah yeah yeah and then of we have high school which is you know a project of the generation the police station those are that probably won't be too much high school  have to go to meeting on that and if the inclusionary zoning comes before us we'll have to go to town meeting on that so that's one really big project in terms of just busy schedule and they say me it will be exciting yes big thing to be to start the new year good way to start the new year and we'll be driving towards town meeting on this and all the time we're going to be cleaning up our spelling do all three if i understand you i think they're limited you had to to two and they could either have a blade sign in a wall sign or two blade signs or two wall signs but i can't so you got to blow things up already you we looked at concord concord and of course it's a community it's a little town everybody goes to it so you know to go and leave peking or whatever for the right after bicycle riding right it's a great little town and we were shocked when we saw the pictures context they also all have very short so we store names you know scoops shots or puzzles or something like that so you know you're noted that the planning board understood that this was a stopgap measure but that it had everything oh it could do i think it i think the senate had already done everything it could do or something like that was the the nov eighth meeting was the one where they brought him the revised model pulled back to the right side to the story that we either need to add i don't remember that they pulled in the rear step back