good evening and welcome to the chills day april twenty sixth meeting of the planning board i'm liz alexander chair of the planning board i'd like to begin as we always do by introducing my colleagues  so i'd like to move immediately to item two on our agenda the discussion on modular classrooms at chancery middle school this is not an an item that frequently appears on our agenda and i'm now going to turn to mr boyle head of facilities for the town of belmont to explain the context in which the issue arises and say a few while we have the crunch as we are feeling at present he's convene a space task force which is a lot of work and we have already done a lot of work trying to find space and he will be kind of the schools using modules behind the high school re the most likely one for the short for the immediate concern i would say would be a marginal building consisting of six classrooms so mechanical space and bathrooms at the generous cool pretty standard modular building it's not going to be that signif conveniences of a classroom and so we have prepared last week in the question come up with a preview does the successful fit or have to go in front of any boards and we didn't really have an answer for them so we asked the question and we pretty much think this is about the only board we could ever envision them having to go in front of and if it is or if it is a necessity we might actually want to start their process with the design or coming forward now and get a discussion going so we may be clear the way for the contract when they do get on board thank you very much what what i'd like to second if you feel this is a matter that should come before the planning board under which provision of the bylaws would you see it as requiring approval from their sparred and if that were the case what are the considerations that you feel are to be raised and what kind of outcomes can you envision so with that i will throw it open to anyone who has a view on any  size hundred seventy by a hundred seventy so it's about a half an acre lot i know the module is a six thousand six hundred sixty four square feet i would guess the porch about eight thousand where we're taking up most of all that space enough to run from it of us and utilities and have our accessible ramps and how long has it been in vision of the modules will be on site there at the middle school tennis courts well a quarter of the code where we're calling them temporary  correct correct right and how long do they anticipate that will be like disruptive for the residents in the i would presume that water and sewer go together and power  may fourth to vote the funding for this so we will know the numbers at least then are anticipating is that these modulars because we missed what they call the summer slammer of all kinds of work trying to get done to get modulus to every school across the country that wants them of the elevations look like what's the exterior material and i can't see any of that year so i would be interested in seeing exactly what these michael is going to look like you're obviously going to have some kind of tennis courts are going to be looking at humph so he has a lot of information on the drawings but i think i gave you a copy the full big manual of that is for the technical specifications what describes the materials i have paid not only drawings right oh i'm sorry then i thought you had the whole big manual that has a technical specs i can't quote them chapter verse it's a modular building it's going to be a pretty bland light colored probably metal skinned well i think the other material i have is technical specifications would not have there are no there are no elevation drawings i think we could ask the architect to produce   far as what's existing goes yes so i guess i have a question so if there is going to be a concrete pad right going to be a concrete had these are going to go on the concrete that you know they're going to go directly out of the existing surface and we're trying to minimize the penetration of there is no there is no foundation there's no on the trailer so this is going to be sixty eight hundreds square feet about for the whole thing six six and you've got to have it's going to be six or you can have six classrooms then you have your mechanical so they're almost in the going to be a little less than  over time correct and you know the cold war is going to drip news it's projected to continue to increase ok how long are the estimates that this will if you don't do if it isn't moved to the high school or anyplace else and you have the modular units here the neighbors have to look at this for at least five years is there an interest patient that more will be added is there a possibility of there have been no discussions so far i am in anticipation of this meeting i review the sections on public buildings decommissioning of public buildings and so on also on off street parking and the like it is it is very challenging to find a section of the by law under which we all do which we eat governing authority for much units and we just i think it was not anticipated when the model was drafted you know and jeffrey i would ask you but i am i do not question i'd look carefully i think we are and i would be happy to have george but jeffrey you may want to comment on it i'd be happy to have george hall take a look at this laws where we talk about maintaining the character of the town and what the planning what does that sort of gives us at least a general indication that it's proper for us to have that that we could have a hearing about that although we don't have specific bylaws that talked about this the other issue is that temporaries structures are not real estate and so that's a different kind of thing and it may come under some other always struggled with in terms of how to regulate the question always becomes what is temporary mean if this is something that's going to become permanent which could be the case with temporary structures never to be different that's a different role that's a different thing but  it would be probably useful to consult with george hall because i'm a little like you know yes you can sweep everything under the general knowledge and character of life but i'm really you know i am something of an originalist in these man really uncomfortable and stretching that the cover everything that moves in breeze in belmont there it certainly is worth coming any bidders attention to things like the noise by law  to make certain that we don't  and with a sensitivity to the fact that it's both are you complying with the noise by law and how different will the noise level be once that modular is there from the noise level before even if it isn't in violation of the cult because the issue with wellington was not that it violated the code of knowledge by law it did not it's if you've been very quiet and now it was less quiet and that was a concern to the neighbors so i didn't just understanding go understanding that going in would be very helpful maybe in a moment i will turn to the members of the public and we appreciate seeing all of you here floor brief questions i'm not planning to dwell on this at length and then i think as quickly as possible we are to obtain i gather jeffrey you do have the technical specs and joe you c what they if they can lock them down that were mr boyle maybe and able to answer your second question and i think if you hurry after after it if you hurry you can make it over to the school committee just a few words of background on the first two and when we get to see the historic firing conversion i'll have some additional background to present the public hearings for west lange and middle c s these are both single residence see plots we will be obviously at town meeting on monday of next week will be presenting revised zoning bylaws for single rest and c and asking town meeting to support them because in order to in order to avoid a rush once a zoning dialog change is once a decision is made bring it forward to town meeting that decision is advertised and at that point the zoning changes go into effect so we are hearing these cases as as if the zoning by last had been accepted by come media which we very much hope will be since this is the first step the single rest and see that we are holding if town meeting passes next week i think one of the things we learned from the general residen proceed with the used to driving substantially on the processes and procedures that we use for the general residence district and i expect they will be similar but it will be something that if town meeting passes this we will stop and consider so i think jeffrey anything is there anything else that i should add or that should be added right now because then barbara if i may ask you to an exercise that we go through to help the board understand where these goals at home gets into the neighborhood in terms of size and mass so i'm glad i'm going to review i will then review the core representatives of the applicant wish to speak on west wing owner's representative and the architect for the project we started this process more than a year ago and there was a tenant in the house and on it did not want to we could not have started the new application for the new house until the demolition process was completed so in good faith to keep the tenant happy and head home at that time i said my dolly who purchased the property waited until it was a convenient time for her to leave the house so we the drawings at that time and subsequently when she was out of the house we filed or we tend to file a permit and right at that time the new regulations kicked in which was unfortunate and now we're waiting another period of time until we'll have the green lights to start a reasonable nice looking home on that property the existing house is very small the bedrooms are small the kitchen is tight that are some other structural constraints we haven't evaluated fully  the structural integrity of the building because we did not have access to the attic and we have to do some partial demolition work in order to complete that effort so we're waiting for that  subsequent stage the new house has a living area with a kitchen downstairs it's an open plan because the footprint is not very big so we cannot have too many walls constraining the space and we have three bedrooms upstairs and inadvertently now the study room is up stairs likely where people like to have the study room down in the first floor but because we would like to limit the footprint of the building and the square footage we designed accordingly the height at this point is much less than the allow the building h it's even much less in height and some of the other two storey buildings or twenty five story buildings in the neighborhood we have provided a visual illustration that shows how this new addition looks next to the existing buildings one of the joining property was renovated recently and it's a two and a half story building the next one which is at the coronet that has not be renovated yet and we understand that is holding period on that one until the on the nose to what it will be and then they will decide how to  line with the standard of living of the towns which are a joining us we try to have a very traditional design from the outside we try to use traditional materials we have the additional siding we have a couple of roof over the entrance and we did not have too many projections which would be  into volume metric components so that we don't have a mass but rather small that masses kind of combine together to make it the whole character of the new design in line with a small volume expression which is in the st kitts scape of that neighborhood i'm sure you had enough time to evaluate our presentation and all the studies we up to this point i think i leave the stage to you to continue what i am leaving at this point thank you the whole upset the world will follow it and we don't want to break any regulations for any sort to piece sticky or do things under cover it will everything to be obvious and i do thank you for one of our neighbors to be here already existing and just to summarize in terms of total living area floor area ratio which is a measure of how big is the house relative to it will be substantially above the median the lot is in the if you think of a lot it's one of the smaller not in the area and it's what questions people  you know if you  and i will this may surprise you we have more people watching then we have here this evening and that is why home actually i don't mind that at all there's a little exercise to get up and go back and set down it could be either it depends on my wife she has given me a condition if it looks good she would move into it if not she won't that's a tissue that's that's of to her decision i would love to move into it because i have met some of the neighbors are wonderful people i couldn't ask for better of course again it depends on what she's going to say to me  so it's undetermined whether or not this will be a that is correct or they're determined to be on my part for the neighborhood and the neighbors that i have met they're wonderful people yes question that i think is well worth raising time my comment is that you are in a very very neighborhood of simple homes simple architecture you have got more hits you've got the looks like a half moon window up there and would that be the half story calculation or is that just into an ack area that that that oh that window scaling down the mass and as you would aware of hip groups mass wise look much more restful and less op to save as compared to gable i know that a lot that are lots of gable end bruce in that neighborhood and they don't look nice they look bulky out of scale even though you may think the bedrooms are less than more effectively and much simpler i will i want static perspective as well as an economic perspective that's a very very very busy complicated scheme you've got going on there in a house whether tough road in belmont and all the homes that raised the ranches now miles he built his house which was a day's the ranch and it's all hip roofs more hips than what we have here and everybody in the neighborhood loves it now i have experience forty six years in designing house types i have fifteen years experience in england i developed when they went to metric from side of town to walk some much larger and while i know that i just wanted to bring the analogy of the visual here the west and i go to neighborhood we're not looking at home road so i'm really not interested in comparing one neighborhood in a whole nother town  talking about that i'm talking about the simple matter that you have got a great amount detail going on in this structure in a neighborhood that the roofs whether they're  gable they're hipped have simple simple simple hips or gables you've got one two three four even if for whisking just in the front of house well some people will think that take it as a as a good design  it's almost out of the confusing to see there's no question that you mark your prints the details are here but you really need to spend an awful lot of time and they can be confusing and i understand why rafi went where he went t name think i mean i'd just like to add to that i agree with what chuck has to say and i think it prefaced some of your comments with you know this isn't going to be the last house on this street you know there could be the corner lot next door that could come down and we could see a new house in one thing that we have been concerned about is to create that issue right so if we if you know what might be fifty seven out of fifty seven currently you know we're going to we could potentially see an  even application to come before us for that corner a lot that pushes the envelope even further and i have some concerns about the creep associated with the size and the mass and the height particularly in light of the current climate in town and the concern that we have seen from the citizens particular single residency about about this issue and i would be hesitant to  more i think that's what the issues i mean in terms of the aesthetics in the job talk about you know is within reason you know you have property rights and should do to develop within reason in terms that his suggestions are very good but in terms of the structure that you're building in the context of the neighborhood by our m lots are small ours is small i'm more concerned about design i don't mind the house next door is going to be big our house crew from the original nine hundred eighty square feet to two thousand i suspect the one on the other side of us given it's the same footprint and they use half the third of the attic space they must be up around twenty three twenty four hundred others have expanded what i'm really concerned more concerned about is that we get good design in the neighborhood i actually think the house basically attractive i personally would go for a simpler roof line but that's me that's a design issue when you look at the neighborhood yeah there are simpler houses a lot of them are also ugly i mean if we're being really honest a lot of them are simply ugly i would love to see larger nicely designed well built homes go up when it comes to the demolition frankly we should bulldozed ours they were not really well built even by the standard of one nine hundred fifty its concrete block foundation if foundations they were built so that they all flooded as they were being built so we're all training into the wimber constantly the there is very poor insulation it's not possible to insulate the first floor there are air leaks where me where the houses meet the sill and in the case of this house i happen to know that over the last four years the roof has leaked three times so they're probably structural issues there as well so overall i don't have a problem with this there are two other houses in the original configuration my guess is yes they're going to be replaced with larger homes very few people these days want to live in a nine hundred eighty square foot house so i don't have a problem with this when i first saw the plans my first thought was hey a two car tash i'd live in it  one thing i wish i had in my house so in general i'm in favor of it if it's simplified or that's that's great too but i'm actually in favor of you i just want to make a point we are not here to like stop development we're here to actually help encourage development what we want to do is promote development that is smart that doesn't hanson neighborhood doesn't detract from a neighborhood we also recognize the fact that when broke a lot of those seem of this particular house i think overall as you said as i said a friend of a she isn't horrible i think we could get simpler and i don't think it's a want to ask you think you could actually save some money making it more nation would have been mentioned whatever you want to call it ok it's been going on in the town for a while and people are building these larger houses you look at the print you know it looks good guess what when it goes up although it's thirty three point ten inches  that are you know proponents of the new i like change seeing the house at thirty two feet saying you know what it still seems kind of high so this is actually pushing it closer to the thirty four feet that we're proposing again so we're actually giving you more leeway but you're not the oh no no no no no i'm just curious i want to see nice houses go up and i don't so be curious to know just so that i can picture the scale  would have to ask the neighbors what the other house is that's also very tall but th encouraged to mitigate storm water infiltration through permeable pavers on the driveway for instance or dry wells or trees that would be appreciated by this neighborhood thank you thank you for your support thank you for a good question and here i am planning to make it primeval i'm not going to put all salt on it and the reason for this plan this house as i want to be edified the  neighborhood that's the main purpose the complication of the roof is just a beauty of it that i like not that i wanted to make it complicated if you want to make it simpler i would be happy to make it simpler there would be no problem and that in terms of the green in the area i make it as attractive as possible and also make it as a green leaf as friendly in terms of the being green as possible i'm not here to argue with you here to build a good building and i'm going to make it beautiful  also make it environmentally friendly  you take a vote on this as a special permit tonight that they are there is no chance that we we would not grant a special permit largely if it is a very big house or a relatively small lot it is a house with a great deal of detail which makes it more i catching and i think it is just not consistent with the kind of i like change we're going to look forward to to you have the option of going back working with jeffrey to reduce the size and mass of the house if we could you review if we vote on it tonight and board there is the option is it significant alterations were made then the board to the point and then the board could review their plan if they agree that a no alteration has occurred with their plan they could h we have a new public hearing within that two years but clearly the notion of a significant alterations would have to be something besides simply moving the window it would be something major to make t come up with the board with a design and a man that's more consistent with what we'd like what we think people residents want to see in that neighborhood votes for them they really love the design it's eye catching yes it is eye catching and a very beautiful way not in a kind of eyesore fashion i'm a little bit surprised to be rejected by it by a beautiful structure that is going because we have a mishmash of different styles and different buildings so what are you looking for it's very unclear to us would try to very hard to satisfy the neighbors  satisfy hopefully the planning board we thought we have satisfied the neighbors after a lot of hard work now we want to know how we had we're going to satisfy you and i'm kind of finding very confusing what do you want us to do to have a flat roof eliminate if you make one roof the roof is not going to look nice i want to know what you really want to because i find it very confusing i need a very honest and comprehensive direction from we want you to go with jeffrey you come up with a smaller structure that is more in keeping with the neighborhood and that is what jeffrey does when he works with assure you if there is a landscape plan we will not ask for a second landscape  is does that give you enough time to work with jeffrey and then come back with some  engaged too much with the classroom teaching so i can spend more time in my office and i will do some sacrifices giving priority and have longer days and i know that my client has suffered a lot in the open this process so i just would like to sympathize with him and sat him in the best way possible promise this is my last question what the process that is going home long would it take me to do this just to have a piece of mind for my own planning whether i should really go ahead with this or not how long would it take to to get the permit when we meet with you with the planned do when you approve it you're ok with it would that be also acceptable pretty much what the what the board ok week we appreciate the fact the academic schedule now and only in may providing us some additional flexibility and my husband is an academic as well i have right and with that we now move to forty eight middle middle cut street second floor and reread non conformist structure the approach will be  is asked the applicant to speak then i'll summarize the planet kate of analysis and then we'll put it to the questions to the board and then to the considerable number of people who have joined permit notice is here by given that the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on tuesday april twenty sixth two thousand and sixteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen select men's reading room town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of arthur and newton no new no thank you yes for a special permit under section one point five point four of the zoning by law to alter a non conforming structure open brand non conforming lot size and frontage close friend in order to construct a second floor and rear additions open for and greater than thirty percent of existing gross floor area close friend located at forty eight middle cut street in a single residency zoning district and applicant yes hello first of all i want to say that me and my husband are very bad at public speaking is the first time we are trying to in a special permit and being through this process so we fall just for that and hopefully if we do anything wrong so please give us a heads up that was built by him and his father so he has been to construction projects all his life since we moved pia we all of us wanted to live in belmont mainly because of your school system that you have we had little knowledge times are different not that we're just down in the course but you know belmont doubtlessly is more advanced but we could never afford it and we it's always the goal you know that one day if we continue working harder we can afford the belmont house it's still not happening we bought room in the house where they can get together with the friends and stay away from us and make a noise there so those house that we purchased as existing cut sizes fifteen slightly and there are sixteen hundred and we love the house we love the neighborhood and hopefully we can keep the house after we build it it all depends on how much it's going to cost that it me and but we all we're trying to do is just the built a second floor on a house on the first floor we're increasing and we're doing that by pushing costs a little bit back from the back the kitchen size will be increased by hundred square feet and the garage will come up front it's the will be one  car garage we just want to make sure we have enough room at the end of the in the back of the garage to allow us to have access to the house from inside the garage which is very important in new england states we want to just be able to walk on a snow days from the garage to house on a second floor we're just planning to put our four bedrooms and then bathroom shared bathroom and one one of them is going to be master bedroom and the other three bedrooms will share another box from so two bathrooms on a second floor and the first floor was staying as is except a size this is little bit bigger more convenient kitchen for looking completely in a character without their house is now saying that there are a lot of all talus is on the street built in one nine hundred fifty s obviously we cannot go back and make the ninety fifty or not change the house but all the right and as before just to summarize the quantitative analysis a to summarize the quantitative analysis the planning board behind neighborhood included sixty five to welling's in terms of total living area  we have a number of three thousand four hundred ninety eight roughly thirty five hundred square feet that will that means that it will be the second largest house in the defined neighborhood and in in terms of floor area ratio it will it will have the highest floor area  ratio in terms of bedrooms it will be in the top twenty five percent and in terms of bedrooms perth thousand square foot lot it will be the second dances so to that is a statement about mass as it was in the previous case so with that said i will again open it to my colleagues for questions or i guess going back and making similar comments to the ones that i had made with the last applicant in the four tylenol says looks very similar in terms of a lot size in the second floor tile all of the other dimensional features pushing to the top very top of the neighborhood gives me cause you know in light of the citizens moratorium that came before us last year and  was passed through town meeting you know one of the examples of the expansion of the s r c district that was presented to us by the citizens was seventy men all caught as as a concern that that was too much size and mass for that neighborhood and so it's it's difficult  is just to sit here and approved plans that are even bigger you know than that house one that's been the subject of some concern you know that house the dimensions that i have on that are thirty one thirty seven design direction and if you allow me just one comment and this is just my least interest you need to introduce yourself each time yeah sorry i'm just good at numbers and i wanted to do some additional work in addition to jeff you know your schedule when you summarize the numbers and come up with the median and mean for the houses that is a useful information but somewhat could be misleading in a sense of you know most houses past ten years and i made my media and mean based on those newly built properties in our property is perfectly in sync with those new constructions so if i may thank you evening we appreciate your comments and we'll take comments from all of the neighbors not with really responses after each co doing that and when i looked online i saw that the plans they seemed to be feet above street level so actually above above sea level and then lying to the ridge well i don't know where sea level is my neighborhood so i was kind of wonder and the house on the left that they share the four foot fence they mentioned is this house taller than that one shorter than that one the two floor house that is the grey one on the what what occurs how long to build it i mean i realize constructions is a little bit of time for me is this a hundred twenty day project is a so you know hundred eighty day project height was a big issue for me in that i was wondering i don't know how to figure this or if it's even something you guys do when they build the house this big is it affect the water table or is it only going to change by the hundred  was you know it was quite a shock from where i'd live before to come to that when i moved to problem one and  supposed to sell this house the rumors was to build an oversized house in a small lot which is going to infringe on my privacy and i have to live with the consequences in the beginning i was told that this was the developer wanted to build it like a little around the corner which is massive i want to build a two car garage in everything i had other words to say but now they say they there i don't know if they want to sell it or not and i would love a picture of the backyard to know thank you for listening to me thank you i think other i would give you her comment first she says i opposed this permit because of the rare addition because of the rare addition is too big for the lot size and second floor will block light and view nearby houses but genial way and my personal comment is again this is going to change the neighborhood every house on that block is a ranch with the exception of one they're all smaller houses and you put a big house like this in there it's going to change the whole look and the whole feel of the neighborhood we already have a couple of houses that have been put in not on that street but down the street and around the corner that are oversized houses and they just don't fit and i i oppose having this done i think it should stay within the guidelines of the present laws thank you ye if it goes too high it's the same thing so anything within the permitted by the zoning laws would be ok but expansion on either either beyond the height limit sort of expanding further back would not be  corner from the house in question i've lived there for fifty two years and i came into that area which is of course a post world war two ranch house settlement the only thing that's changed in those fifty two years is the house that came on her early street this year and i'm sorry to say it did because it's monstrous and it dorce every house around it changes the tenor of the neighborhood and ruins the beautiful symmetry and harmony of our neighborhood and i think of something that i read in the paper a year or two ago about people in another community where this had happened and the man was distraught over it he said they took my sky and essentially that's what happens you put a house up that high in an area that's ranch houses world war two and you take away the sky so i'd ask you to think about those of us who've lived there as long as i have or the garber have total between us almost one hundred years and think about us we care deeply about our neighborhood we pay a great deal in taxes to live there and so i'd like you to remember that when you think about this thank you thank you yes i mean vote when my husband spoke in the beginning and we live directly across from you guys if if that goes through and we feel that this house is too large for the neighborhood too large for the lot and we are against this house and also because it's directly across the street we've been in the neighborhood for twenty years now for the rest of our lives to we live in this house i will we will just be seeing this monstrosity no light no wind coming that front part of our house we get a little bit of sun in the morning i guess there won't be any more sun with this monstrosity thank you  elizabeth bishop eighteen pounds three i just wanted to pass along a few pictures of the the neighborhood and this is actually the existing home so this house  like a good trend for the any neighborhood to have these large houses come in and take over especially in this neighborhood where there are ranches so i am also opposed to this  county street and you guys had mentioned the word creep you know the creep factor if this goes in doesn't encourage other houses to become like this and you know encourage people to come in build them down build it and flip it and make a profit and it just encourages that and life in my estimation thank you all right now take one final comment and then i think we need to  want to all of a sudden i'm susan also i'm here with my husband ted also and we recently moved to belmont as of december we have a new president as well as you can see we moved to a really great neighborhood we've got a lot of passionate residents and i'd like to say i'm going to be one as well in the house while i do appreciate and respect development this seems to be a monstrosity among other houses and so i think there is a way to develop the house so that it's not as big  somewhat more briefly we do have i think we've heard from the neighbors before we're happy and happy to have you make a few more summary points we have other places to here so i must ask you to summarize your t so i think we have the same question for you as we had for the prior applicant which is do you want to return to work with jeffrey and to come up with a revised design that is more consistent with the character of the neighborhood and the size the homes already in the neighborhood understanding that new construction will be somewhat larger but that this is really at the top of the sick ale and if the odds that you will a pain a special permit with the current design are very low so we can continue the hearing or we can second thank you and thank you to the neighbors for coming and sharing your views so we can see that if the applicant is ready  which is a i will ask i will ask barbara to read the public the notice and then i will give a brief just a brief background and permit notices here by giving the planning board of the town of belmont to hold a public hearing on tuesday april twenty sixth two thousand and sixteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen its meeting room or fifty five and avenue belmont to consider the  write so my disclosure i'm listen listen chair the planning board we do not get an enormous number of cases under zoning by the last six point one one historic accessory building preservation when we on this or any other case that we do not hear as a as a matter of course we try to do two things obviously we carefully review the by law but then if it is with an digital memory we go back and obtain a transcript of the town meeting at which the article was passed because we are here  county clerk efficiently and cheerfully provided us with the seventy two pages of discussion that had taken place at the two thousand and nine meeting and when i reviewed the all seventy two pages of discussion i discovered that i had reason to speak in opposition to this article i had carefully considered  whether any lingering animists i might have had to this is still with me and whether it would interfere with my ability to fulfill the oath paid faithfully uphold the bylaws i believe that it would not strengthen by the fact that i did not remember that i had spoken on the article but this is a point of disclosure for me to right and it just for for anyone and pretty is still anyone at home still listening to us and i regret that we were not able to bring you up earlier where you would have had a larger home audience law was passed in two thousand and nine if the purpose was is to promote the preservation of unique historic excess three buildings by permitting their adaptive reuse for uses that otherwise may not be permitted under the sun and by law to summarize the remaining of the a few of the key points in the remaining bylaws of the redevelopment is permitted either for access three uses home occupations or as a second accessory dwelling with the condition that the owner continue to live and at least one of those buildings in the  should the planning board fall short of imagination on that evening that we may wish to consider so with that and for a fact round man introduce yourself and my name is patrick a hern i am the architect and this is a gaffney from my office in boston i was reading along with you on the the the guidelines and we very much appreciate the fact that notwithstanding your original vote some years ago that that the town of belmont has seen fit to recognize the importance of the historic secondary buildings in terms of character and scale and history of the neighborhood many towns don't have those requirements and i work in a lot of towns and in historic districts throughout the commonwealth and we found that the belmont was quite in lightened in their perspective and we did read very carefully from the historic  accessory building preservation by law and again we find that under the definitions the historic excess rebuilding has an excess rebuilding is considered as this is as a free standing barn or carriage house built before one nine hundred twenty one so we clearly fit under that criteria and as you did mention the aplysia billet he also speaks to not only home occupation but also to the ability to create an accessory dwelling unit which is not what we're proposing in terms of intensity of use at this particular time we are proposing to use the building as an art studio on the first floor in a gymnasium private gym on the second floor and had a half bath on the first floor with a slop sink basically for artwork in a bathroom a shower on the second floor we're not proposing any cooking facilities or any kitchen equally importantly in the bylaw it talks about the role of the historic district commission and we have been before the historic district commission and we received the unanimous approval and certificate of appropriateness for the project and in addition to that as part of the our prove all the historic district commission went on to say that the proposed exterior changes to the historic barn a twenty five somerset street are consistent with the historic district commission's guidelines and the historic accessory building preservation by law so they supported not only the architectural changes but the use from the historic district commission point of view edition to that our clients have worked very closely with many neighbors including the immediate a butter and i believe they forwarded some ten neighbors forwarded a joint letter to the belmont historical commission and the planning board which i believe you have a copy of but i will basically underscore some of the points we have the underside undersigned which includes neighbors of the property a twenty five somerset street owners of the property services street and the citizens concerned with the preservation of our historic district are pleased to inform you that we have reached a compromise on changes proposed to the property at twenty five somerset street specifically we've agreed to number one the new owners of the property and peter for its use here and his wife geeta have withdrawn a proposal for a new garage independent of the barn and commit to not reintroducing that proposal in the future that the diverts means in the wheelers who live immediately next door at thirty seven somerset street have agreed to work together to ensure that any construction plan put forth by the construction contractors avoids any conflict with the root structure of the copper beech located between the two properties and protects it from drainage during construction and based on the changes to the existing barn proposed in there were some minor changes that were brought forward to address a concern of one of the neighbors that went on to say that based on the changes to the existing barn proposed in approved at the meeting at the belmont historic district commission april twelfth two thousand and sixteen which retained the original historic footprint of the building in which we believe show sensitivity to have the concerns raised by the neighbors on clifton street by removing a door and reducing size of a rear window and shielding the lighting all the underside which include all directed buggers to the property fully support the plans to convert the barn to space for use as an art studio  we support the approval of this application for a special permit to convert the historic barn to additional living space at the upcoming planning board meeting today which will enable them to start the construction and all the undersigned neighbors concerned wish to thank the good verts means for their willingness to compromise and look forward to welcoming in them to the neighborhood sincerely lynn and greg wheeler we really have the list right but for the television i thought it might be important i include eliminating a window on the front of the building that was previously installed and reinstalling the original window on the second floor in its original location which we documented to the historic district doors in wood we are proposing additional minor modification to the rear of the building which shows a small window previously there was a larger window we also eliminated one of the pedestrian doors on the garage and we've located two additional windows all of which was unanimously approved by the historic district commission and it's very much in the spirit and very specific to the he's there is storage excess rebuilding preservation by law there's no expansion to the building in fact the bylaws sufficiently allows one to use it as a drilling unit we could have come in and offered a kitchen here we were true and honest about a less intensive use no one's going to be living there are sleeping there it's really recognizing the fact and i think joe knows that the basement in the pipes in the ceiling of the main house don't really lend itself to a full gym and it didn't get a likes to paint and peter likes to work out it gives them an a in a dull place to do the things they like to do and in very much preserves an important building that the neighbors really respected and cared about and we spent a lot of time back and forth with the historic district commission getting a better understanding of that and i think that process went extremely well and we're happy to be here to hopefully get our last bit of approval and move forward thank you again  appreciate the sensitivity to the bar that you guys showed and all the care that you took in doing this thank you for sharing and the details you did it there's no question the barn actually sucked the last thing that i never got to and actually when peter went to buy the house he old west window you have to do that because it was kind of very tough very good the buildings in tough shape and it's and in need of restoration so i can't find anything negative to say about the job he did i think you did a fabulous job and it's very simple right works well thank you but i guess i would just echo a little bit of that i was impressed that you you know you worked so closely with the historic district commission and you know restoring the and the window in the front to the way it used to be i think is really nice and very much in the spirit of of the bylaw amendment itself i went back and read all eighty to to figure out you know what what could i glean from the from the town meeting discussion about the the purpose of the bylaws and i think you fully conform to that so i think the design  fun are there any before i are there any comments yes my name is mary power i live on clifton street along with five other abettors on clifton st i want to raise some concerns that couldn't be addressed by the historic district commission because it's outside of their purview the historic district mission was very clear that the rear elevation is not one that they can influence or choose to influence because it's not visible from a public way but it's very visible to a number of abettors and in fact  way the property is situated it's a pretty prominent element in the experiences of the clifton street abettors so i'm here speaking for myself and my husband and i'm carrying why i'm concerned and not physically well the change of use itself i want to say that the idea of an art studio and the idea of a work out space in and of itself i great and if that is a way to encourage a longer life for that building that's terrific i support that but the way the grass is planned for this building it's going to add a lot of activity facing the rear abettors away from the from the home itself and a lot of light so the earlier plan had shown the addition of three doors plus the two front carriage house doors and the window in the back and our concern was that those rear facing windows are going to be very prominent to the clifton street a butters so what i've shown there is the before and after showing the new doors in the new window and i apologize i didn't use the online plan so i didn't see the slight modification in the window size but my request is that the property owner remove the back door and the lantern and because it's not intended to be a dwelling i don't believe there is a code requirement for that door and because there are already three other doors in and out of the space it seems unnecessary to have that additional door and lantern facing the rear bettors it's not going to completely address our concerns about light but i'm trying to be reasonable in that the way the building is situated the additional door the additional light on the pleasant street facing elevation will be other thing is the window that they're proposing in the back is the small i mean i'm having lived there in the in the summertime you have no problems because there's tons of foliage back there it's been substantially trees in the back yard landscaping so if you could do some larger evergreen trees that weren't deciduous and that would be great i mean do you guys have a landscape plan great that's a great compromise and it gives you privacy and it gives the curate's misfires the i just think that removing the door on the window would really almost kill the whole preservation idea because i think the barn was probably used i think in the old days and you could probably still smell of course yes a little musty right so i think that's a great compromise is that i do think that's very helpful twelve to fourteen foot trees and a fairly dense round there on the back would be terrific and if that's a part of this plan i can accept that i would certainly prefer that the the lights be addressed and the intensification of use coming in and out of that door is also something that will be aware of but certainly less so with the twelve to fourteen foot trees planted fairly closely together along that full edge yeah my name is sarah sauce and full disclosure my husband spoke very openly against the accessory byelaw back in two thousand and nine but we have had very positive experiences with the new owners of five somerset and would look very much forward to the giver timmons having a a is pleasant an experience as the crags of had i believe what i would like to do is support their  residential use of the accessory unit in that so far as the plan goes and i would support also the concerns of the neighbors that we were not party to that letter but  lighting is and a density issue and anything that one can address in so far as lighting would be most appreciated on that back door and and little lantern that's shown on the plan there's a company on martha's vineyard called lamplighter corner they make can made light fixtures historically correct at a cost of eight hundred dollars apiece and that was something that we felt was historically correct  we could do something different we could put a small low voltage light in the top of the the header above the door that would just shine down at the door it's a twenty watt fixture and forego the historic light and still probably achieve the code requirement you know i want to keep everybody happy here but how one of the odds that you don't want to have anyone be you don't have anybody get injured here because you don't you know like coming out of that door right i think the of light here and we could also restrict the water edge to twenty five watts and that would be great i think i mean i think it would be you feel mary you feel terrible if something happened someone didn't have enough light because you were be added to the conditions of approval along with our standard let's look at it before hand let's look at it afterwards i mean let's look at plans approved  i would also suggest that in terms of the conditions of approval that  understanding fully that that there is no residential use currently contemplated and even if there were residential use that is fully anticipated by article six point one one  nevertheless it is one can't look at the plans without noticing it would convert very easily to residential use you've got a full bathroom you've got everything you need and with the end there is the driveway going in that would make it easier that we two in addition to the conditions discussed this evening that we are to look at the six point one one point  five and certainly incorporate the prohibition of the special permit from being transferred to a subsequent owner without the approval of the planning board because that gives the neighbors another bite if the intensity turns out to be very different than currently contemplated the required number of parking spaces i'm not sure that we w to limit the business operation since i don't think this is contemplated being run as a business but again in place of d requiring installation of additional landscaping we should use specify the the wall of the living while agreeing that we discussed continuing maintenance of the landscaping you would probably do that in any case  d obviously i think if prohibiting the division or reduction of the size of the lot in which the historic accessory basically that with suitable modifications  dissident of the lighting the we incorporate the conditions of six point eleven point five and add the as field as permit does given that we're all be getting together again tomorrow morning would we like to defer four and five until tomorrow morning we think that would give us time ye right and now we move along to them seven which is preview the agenda for may third and the agenda for may third themselves which means everyone else needs to be here there have been some issues raised in fees of the new construction on waverly terrace if possible we will at we will have the developers appear on may third that has not been confirmed with them but i think it would be desirable and we will be having the permanent building committee something that's been scheduled several times the here to discuss the broader issue of ho permanent building committee and how municipal building approval should should work for major projects which will pretty much be a discussion of bel again there may be some other items but that is what we have at the moment in terms of real and approval of moments of minutes we have not yet received the six minutes so we'll have to pass over th em and we do have the second part of the march twenty second meeting with jeffrey will be circulating so that we can prove them on the third and i believe in less there is other  it is my understanding that when the final inspection is done to under the as built versus as permitted to the two will not be identical that they are on a path where we would find at that point t two are not identical my thought is it would be probably better for all concerned to have the discussion of that sooner rather than later since at a minimum it would require a modification of the permit clear and jeffrey is there anything else you've just said tomorrow morning we'll do the stuff for tommy to correct right and you'll have the presentation and the rest of us will pretend to be audience and we'll sit out there