over the planning board and i'd like to call the supreme nine twenty seven meeting of the planning board to border this is our first meeting of the twenty seven twenty eight season it is also the first pick up a master's degree from a technical college in cambridge and bachelor's degrees and one of the last to be in one and agricultural engineering before that i do have experience writing building codes and crafting thank you thank you and with that i do it like to move on to item three the continued public hearing and seventy five leonard street design and site plan review your way parking requirements  for a restaurant we have to say this is a continued hearing we've discussed this before so that i will just take a moment to recap where we left off the last time and then ask the applicant or the applicants representative to make his presentation this is a project to a proposal to create arise when a restaurant is being considered those of you who are part of the el central hearing will remember there were many here there are there is really only one open issue that is parking and when we discussed it last time we had asked the applicant to provide a variety of a wide variety of information and i believe the it has violated all of go any further rather than rehash what we talked about each other last year and i was wondering whether or not the board had any questions based on the information at this be provided since the last time we provided information on employee parking we provided information on a house of opening and some additional information on the zoning relief has been granted for other restaurants in the sense of previously  provided some information to you on the public transportation that's available for our employees we told you last time that we thought off the top i had that approximately seventy percent of the current employees use public transportation i think that the numbers when we actually got down to it under the current employee roadside is slightly less than that but not significantly so and it's clearly in the public transportation  purposes a small number of employees do part and you'll see in your package that there is a notice that is made very obvious to them in a number of different locations in the restaurant about whether they are not allowed  which is london streets and the other residential streets so having said that i'm going to take a brief pause and see if there are any questions from the board members on that information board so we actually have some additional information with us tonight the we thought it would be a good idea to give the board a real sense of what's happening in the parking spaces behind the like it's only buildings necessary or not but what i mean i'll tell you what it shows you a show she huge gaps in in the parking that there's this plenty of spaces doesn't seem to be any pressure at all i also discovered that there was a parking master plan jamie and images just for the proposed restaurant seventy five leonard saint i just kind of wanted to go over why we're doing this and where we are now you know for us it's we grew up in this town  right on the corner of alexander and leonard street and it's a business opportunity yes that's number one number two is it's we see it a bit as a service to our community to open this  house also the first book i read from front to back i found at the bookstore which is now camillus the book store we lost that the food store we lost that but now years later we actually have them back and it's we're at a point where the centers kind of it's changing it's going through a bit of an evolution and and and raul you know our our our agenda is pretty much aligned who want to make this a great place a great town etc etc and but what we need is a perfect business mix and it's starting to happen now and that's what we've been watching my dad opens as has breakfast and looks out pretty much at the the old macy's space as we've called it for so long but so we've seen this you know coming piece by piece and there's a lot of important players in here and as a small family business each one of these meetings they do they they are stressful for us financially and we hope we can hang on i hope there's not somebody else standing here next time because you know we we want to make this work it is a community service thing for  us and then the biggest point and this is i think what you know parking is all about you you want to figure out the parking situation we could spend thousands of dollars on a for a company come in do another study but i think the people who know the parking the most in this town understand what what it what it is is all the businesses that are on leonard street all the shops shop owners that open their doors every single day  and they interact with the guests and they interact with with people and i know they struggle i know these businesses struggle they struggle through the revitalization of the center and there they held on and they're doing they're holding on but it's not it it's on every actually agreed to me and he had a meeting with the town merchants and they all got together and they heard about we're trying to get this parking a permit through and so we can get on with the next steps of the of the part of our project and they they said you know let's we got to we've got to help them because we need them and therefore this restaurant all the business merchants and they actually wrote a letter i have copies and they signed it pretty much stating that that there's there's ample parking they're confident of it at lunch time at dinner time it's there and i don't know of anyone better than that in the business owners who open their doors every single day and interact the guests and if if if if the it's it's flattering and it's a it's a it's a nice it's a nice tone and i'm i'm pretty happy about that and i think that they are pretty much showing us that they're confident that their samples are in fact when i was driving around the videos show that there's there's there's so much space and it's actually makes me say it makes me not worry about having enough parking spaces but but do we have enough people to actually fill those and that is that's going to you know we see ourselves as being a cornerstone in the mix which we have a really beautiful mix of businesses right now but if you don't have a proper cornerstones it's the whole thing's going to collapse  for little pieces will lose some of this this restaurant will lose the you know whatever else in town there's a lot of beautiful spots right now and we're trying to to maintain the proper mix and be of just play a vital role in it so if you want to see the letter we have a period which is in the afternoon we do a lot of private events we do this at all of our restaurants and private events are huge and belmont we've done so many bereavement branches for families local families we've done baptisms you name it birthday parties out in the afternoons and we want that opportunity for the locals for the community just to be able to do that and it's also makes our business actually viable strong so that's kind of that's an important part to our our whole package thank you very much i mean comments questions i think i have one or two but i'd like to hear from my colleagues ask for additional additional information the reason we ask for additional information in that we asked for this information is because in the with respect to the farmer's market look at kelly had raise the issue of is there sufficient parking since the twenty twelve study was done foodies which is a very steep parking sensitive business has come into the center so that there were reasons for concern from my perspective the information that you have supplied has met my concerns i would be the only area where i would get if we were actually conditions would be that the instructions to employees as to where to park which are presently don't park on in the material we got we don't park on leonard  business community and we're glad you came tonight one smile suggestion for you're hearings you probably want to leap to your feet before we close the public hearing but that said public hearing is not closed and that if there are no more comments i would ask for a motion with a condition of additional direction to employees on where they might par ideally with the m subject to the additional condition that is just identified as well as the usual second i was in favor thank you thank you to discussions of this in everyone's package there were draft conditions four three forty four pleasant street and what i would like to do is to  move through the draft condition note that in addition include draft whatever we have to say about the draft conditions we had said at the beginning of the hearing that we would want to have this review signage for storm water management and environmental remediation these conditions are based on the discussion on august first for those who happened twenty one minutes into the hearing and they're taken from the discussion that happened between moment twenty one and moment thirty six in the hearing on august first so let me begin usual try to defer to carl on this one it's deep should any of the existing trees die within one year of construction and i just i don't know if this makes a difference but i thought perhaps we should say should any of the existing trade just die within within one year from the end of construction i mean i want to insert from the end of construct i guess i actually had a question about the d n a because it first i thought maybe there was a little bit of an inconsistency but d is capturing replacement of any existing trees right some of them the church trees in that corner right  he is responsibility for maintaining landscaping i guess so one question that i had was whether all failed landscaping means really only the newly planted  items whereas if an existing tree dies without a year of the end of construction then there's an obligation to replace it but they're after is there not that's just a question that i raise for the board for us to be thinking about i think you generally limited the guarantees to one year and we haven't because if an existing tree dies in three years it can just be cut down and not replaced with he doesn't clearly apply to an existing tree dying in three years it's not clear what happens there that's just the point that i wanted to make so if we want an ongoing obligation to replace an existing tree when it dies we should write it the general satisfactory in the bible and there because of the very large number of plantings it's not surprising that fifteen percent of them fail because they brought in several dozen maybe several score and you would you expect out of that many trees you'd expect some failures but i think typically i think what we would want to do is to look at the commotion layers and develop a bylaw about before we turn to do a any any other comments on landscaping if not before we turn to traffic which will be a longer discussion could we take a look at item seven which i believe are our standard conditions jeffrey direct i think the when we when we concluded last time we had generally agreed that if the level of service were maintained at the intersection of pleasant street and well but suppose it isn't supposed the forecasts in the substantial report did not hold what would be how would this be and you had suggested that some financial penalty would be appropriate i think for the most part the board was not enthusiastic about a financial penalty and in the draft conditions which  community development asked you to provide so that we have would have a starting point there is a financial but no obligation  yes i think that's what we said last time we were comfortable with because it leaves the traffic problem untouched well very the way we drafted  yeah go ahead try to remediate in terms of having an open ended obligation to remediate things if we don't know what the ca it before we launch in on that let me see if i can just reduce as people reduce the issue in the following let's suppose the retail business is that went in there were not hi we agree that under those circumstances we would not ask for traffic remediation signal times which is really all we could mean you do short of putting up additional no parking songs or a no parking zone and if the intersection gets worse all you can well like that nothing does or so but if the recommendations if they do not solve the problem themselves and there has to be an issue of recommendations such as limiting the the access to the site that will reduce the business that the site that in my opinion and so i would think that the owners would in particular want to make sure that this traffic plan w budget cars to stack and that'll reduce business so so you have an incentive to hear it so that that's the ancillary on this that's how this should work so i just have one question thinking about this you know we say that the clock is going to start taking on the one year time period from the first from the certificate let's say decides they're not happy and the location and they move on you know down the road there's still the possibility that we end up with something that snarls up traffic and i don't think that these that it'll either be really the be the main restaurant the main thing will either be done to done a or it will be a restaurant or a system and then the then the other ones will be the typical things that go along with that it will be like a dry cleaner or like the they typically don't generate electricity because the anchor that generates the traffic the anchor should be up and going in a full business six six to nine months and they should probably in that location they have the egger in place they should have the other ones least easily within six to seven months and have them operate so we'll know within your rights of the i think there was reason restaurant barbour's concerned reflecting in   a year after we establish a base are maintained and that twenty five thousand dollars to have a substantial pratt problem for a long time isn't sufficient that it needs the money needs to be spent on the remedy not paying some kind of f there is there is likely to continue to be rising traffic levels and and it's a it's a very difficult professional judgment to separate the overall level of increase from the impact of one specific business and i think i think this provides us with a mechanism to look carefully at what's going on but traffic management is a long way from a science it's very quantitative and expensive but it is not perfect and and we know that from watching route two and hungered ave and all the other places where we get  stuck it's got it's a difficult problem and i think it's just a just the way that the occupants are willing to contribute towards trying to solve the problem i think to say i think it's beyond the boards or the or the magnitude difference so we should be able within this one time to see what the effect of this right and within one year and the reason we the applicants own data which includes a no bill nothing scenario that pushed forward and says there will be no change in level of service  with let me let me see if i can i say i agree that we need to try to find a way home so to speak on this let me let me put out a str disagree i think we agree that traffic in belmont everywhere is a major problem and the extent to which the three thousand square foot development can the the just is makes and makes a good is and we want the good business calculation to be if the applicant's numbers that were depending on the applicant own numbers aren't are accurate for i would think i would say that it would mean if we were able to come to zero whatever that mix is it's a higher threshold if it's more spelled out in terms of what the possible remedies are because actually every question  what will happen if the solution if the study is forty thousand dollars to correct it he paid twenty five thousand dollars and what happens to the solution is to get implemented the other way and the brightness for it so it was just you would you would have been horrendous trying to make a left turn let alone what it does to everybody else when you could be sitting there forever so i mean hard to believe the traffic engineers mean that if we said we just want that to be the attractive alternative compared to paying twenty five thousand dollars and not having to think about it twenty five thousand dollars may not be a high enough number to make but there is some number which we would want to talk with george hall and make certain that it is with in our i did not try to look at the numbers in any detail but it seems to me that the economy has said the smart money coming from east leg street is to turn be necessary if there is not a high volume if there is not a high volume recal the stablish wonder food establishment here it may not be necessary i guess i'm wondering a little bit why why we're focused on twenty five thousand dollars and figuring out what the right financial incentive is and a couple of solutions that we've talked out and here tonight why and we're sort of putting it on the applicant and the applicants advocate slash traffic expert to identify solutions i mean maybe one needs to happen is the applicant in the event this is triggered within the year after this if you can i can see they come back with another report and we get to help make the determination based on the traffic experts recommendations as to whether there's just a no left turn off of pleasant or whether it needs to turn into the one way parking space because they have a lot of concerns about the you know balancing financial back in the event the decision is triggered and we can collectively as a group work together to try to come up with the best solution and maybe that at that point is the most minimal of the traffic options maybe it's just turn up of pleasant and we revisit that and he did create work for us in constant babysitting but  needs to be addressed whether there are like a lot of left hand turn coming in how the traffic pattern is flowing through that parking lot whether we're seeing problems with left hand turns coming out of the back of the park and i guess not knowing what the potential very how they are variable or variable they're all going to play out who you know what if there's another situation in town  just leads to significant amounts of traffic on pleasant street for whatever that's not in addition to something that that attributes there's a traffic increase as a result of this property  might be something else to take into consideration i guess that's why i'm struggling with you know locking down on a solution that really create so we'll say come back do a traffic study twelve months after you get your certificate of occupancy and if the results are worse than the baseline  that's right we're saying that there would need he would come back to the board unless there were some circumstances that made it clear it was beyond your control you know they reroute traffic on route to mean there are many things that could but then you need to keep working the problem to yourself  and here is the good news since three members who reappointed this year your nods of seeing the same faces are actually pretty good we don't often have three appointments in a single year but this is the year these are three year terms so move it along and you will see the same faces i t so that you are so that you are not necessarily returning to the board you're only sending in your study or if that is broadly agreeable to people what i'd like to do th is to close the public hearing and see if there is a motion that would satisfy people along the lines that barbara suggested if the level of service to agree do we want the applicant to come back to the board period directly a i'm fine with it if people are fine and fine with the language as it is i'm fine with you know i mean it's my first reaction absolutely suitable suggest well absolutely out the base from which the traffic will be measured by the date of the certificate of occupancy and that will require a traffic study should you wish to do one as opposed to using the one in here yes yes we could have said if it doesn't you don't have to come  rafi and i first started talking about the library idea as part of waverly center redevelopment while the timing we recognize that the timing was tight to have any law change for a no banbridge town meeting it is now clear that there is no realistic to that and therefore my suggestion is that we return to where we started the discussion with the need that we shelve the library idea and return to the discussion where we were in the discussion after evening but it will put them on able and start to work toward a coherent plan for moving forward ok public discussion we've all seen the slide before there are no there is no there are no new points on this these are the points that emerge from the listening session that we held at the beginning of the year with them so that on the first slide we have points that  essentially a very broad agreement and if we turned to the second  there were on the second side i group the points again that were made by a number of people but are not consistent in the sense that choices would need to be made among and again i don't propose to discuss now how those choices should be made but merely to say that at the meeting there was there were some points of consensus and some point clearly would require trade i think i would suggest on the potential next step that before we move forward there's there's a lot to be i'm a great believer in applied history there's a great deal to be learned from the history of previous boards previous planning boards have been revitalized waverly square and south west street if we can flip to the next side and then we'll foot back there are at least three and jeffrey in cairo you may know of more but there are at least these three where there's a great deal of documentation there's a lot to be read and my thought there would be that we are to start by reading some of that and understanding where things went off the rail attempt to result revitalize is you'll see a lot requires numerous public discussion i think it would behoove the board to try to develop some basic criteria maybe we would change that in the course of discussion but absolutely unframed public discussions can go nowhere these were the frank period that we discussed at the meeting at the beginning of the year we may wish to elaborate on them but i you're probably wondering wondering why i don't run this presentation my sense i know how to advance lights in a powerpoint presentation there is an idea that doesn't follow from any of the three but  i wanted to put it out there simply because it is not is that it is an idea that was spontaneously suggested by three people who will probably never again spontaneously suggest the same idea and therefore it's work it's well it's at least interesting the idea is that perhaps before we decide that rezoning is the way to go we really  to look at why there is a more vital we are to say look at the businesses that we'd like to have in waverly square look at businesses that opened in surrounding towns that we would have loved to have  release and understand why those businesses are opening here on their own without the planning board doing and since the print the argument is the princip revitalizing having a stronger commercial base in belmont may actually not be zoning maybe it is but we need to do a little more diagnosis before we set forth on eight large exercise and the three people who suggested this as a good place to start to be known at least the most or the first was adam selectman adam dash the second of was gung mercer frequent speaker at planning board meetings and the third was graham allison to whom i'm related by marriage but was a dean of the kennedy school a student of public policy this may be the only idea that the three of them were all put out spontaneously and all agree upon is a really good idea that may not be a good reason for us to start there but i thought it was worth mentioning and obviously will want to talk with the current property owners i think again just we've noted before that one of the places that we'd have said publicly we want to improve communication is with the business community and we want to make certain they are part of any ongoing discussion so these might be places to start and i think it would be helpful if everyone could comment briefly now but that we need to have our next meeting scheduled not public discussion in the sense of comment from the audience but we need to talk amongst ourselves and see if we can get any agreed  june so it was in july prior to the summer going on and although my proud a bunch of questions that we needed to get clarity on and we have yet to get that information we did get some we did get some design and some specifications but it did not meet to the tables that we had it was not clear and it was not ready for public consumption as we would only cause confusion suppose we should perhaps we should take the at some level twentieth century step of composing a letter and sending home i think that might be the a step that we do post our conversation with jeffrey and i need to have in terms of just making sure that we're asking this the right questions together of that but we did make a request and the information gets us into and then it just kind of fall back on writing make it an exact man and i think