ado so as you know we're going to vote on september twenty fifth whether or not to have either unlimited marijuana businesses in town both in type and quite of the allowed types  distinct questions they're overlapping but what we'd like to do is take them up one of the time first of all we have to figure out where this biz these businesses are going to be located we can't zone them out of existence there's a very strong so under location the adult use marijuana types could be allowed in one or more of the following zoning districts either by amending the existing zoning or by creating a new overlay district we have the general business district we have local business districts one two and three and we have the authority to produce but prohibit an adult use marijuana stablish meant for locating within a pre determined distance of a public or private school this is not but not daycare center and i think i hope you will feel free to say whatever's on your mind about this we have a microphone they are it might be easier just to pass it around rather than have everybody get up but i'd like for this to be an informal and relaxed and and polite and also like to invite the board to ask people is that she'll answer your question now let's start with your question we need a microphone because sorry we need a microphone because we're we're filming  and it will remain as is sale activity not used by the establishment or use at the establishment or things like that so just block out the you explain the difference between that and  retail retail is selling ok we have i think it says retail use somewhere in here and we're not talking about using it retail we're talking about selling so just the word used is was something that slipped into the language in terms of not it's been in the language and i i have anticipating the confusion i was trying to get it out of our presentation but it is in the guidance from the state and they talk about it as use and what they're talking about is the use of the license and the use of the licenses to sell the use of the licenses to grow the use so that's where that use got into here and i read that and thought people are going to think we're talking about consumption and that's not what it means it means the use of the license it's a term as it is jeffrey says it's a term of art ok i'll ask one more question good question thank you we have a four hundred or five hundred foot buffer from public schools least have a small area of protection for children and this may i may be getting him myself but to consider belmont center as one of the locations for a retail center i believe it's one of the most frequent frequently traveled in areas of gathering places for our youth and to have i mean what's that it's so contrary going to have a buffer around the school but then allow it in belmont center which again if you first topic for discussion is where would we like these things located in your suggesting what i thought i heard you say was that locating it in any place where children congregate which would be everywhere in town pretty not within our purview state says public or private schools k through twelve that's where a buffer can be you can if you want to if you want to draw  ing property in a place where you think no children will ever go or or that fewer children would congregate then that's in play we could do that we could define as that would be  would have to figure out how to do that i would i would counter that by by doing that you're basically placing a stigma on it and making it more attractive and why wouldn't it be next door to the craft  so there's that there's another view on it but let's move on i'm john boaz precinct six i live right near peson park i have two kids college age used to be on the school committee i do not want any such restrictions i think it's totally fine have near my house increasing square racketeers is right next to a booster we have no problem with that i think i have much more problem i'd be much more fearful of my kids smoking cigarettes than and a couple of joints down that are good thank fifty one south cottage road could you explain how many retail shops i thought we were zoned for just one but your presentation said to two and then for the other use well right now we don't have to them right now we could have any number without without the there is an election happening on september twenty fifth and that vote that referendum this referendum and that vote will determine whether or not we have any number of any type in town or restrict it to two retail establish what the vote is that's what the town is going to decide in september feel like they're going to go out and underage drink just because they see a beer bottle or are liquor store and so likewise we shouldn't feel concerned that the buffer zone is going to cause a significant decrease in under  colorado we saw when legalization came in effect than amount of under age use dropped dramatically according to the washington post so using that information that's where i get that information that i'm not really concerned about a buffer zone around the am stephanie crimen precinct three i wonder if it would be helpful context the regulations put in place by the board of health with you know the minimum age requirement and that the two door policy i think is really helpful contacts for folks who might not know  conversation because if people are concerned about access or are it's really highly regulated but i shouldn't be the one to report on that but i just if someone there could speak more understanding that the minimum age marijuana retail store would be twenty five and that there's a two door policy where where id is checked at both in oh there's almost like a holding cell in between door one and door two so that again i just i feel like about information alleviates potential concerns folks might have about kids accessing or even seeing it may maybe not and so i was trained in public health and i walked in public house for many years and now i work in by attack and i just want to remind folks that it took us many many years to actually fully convince people that smoking is actually harmful and for many years people are arguing they all there is no absolute evidence to claim that there is a causal relationship between smoking and also all those adverse health effects and i'm not saying mariana mariana is like smoking i'm not saying that i'm just saying  this and i think it's too early to draw conclusions saying that this is definitely not going to do anything bad to our kids by the left to young kids especially as they grow and in their teenager years where the a brain is there at developing so fast and i don't think anyone in this whole ward even the top notch scientist they can make a claim say i can't guarantee your kids will be perfectly fine even if they smoke marijuana at that age so i do want to be us to be more mindful and careful because kids is our business want special of the belmont center i just want to echo some of the thoughts already shared i think it's exactly that you know as a kids passing by the store it's right next to ice cream store i think it's making them feel like oh it's just like a taking ice cream and i think they before they reach the age they can't they really make their own judgment it's probably not a very good idea and also another thinking is because i do a very close to bama center the traffic has being pretty hard and you know adding another store which  i'm actually originally from the netherlands and the zone to buffer there is two hundred fifty meters about seven hundred fifty feet and they have the government is just up that and just to be totally clear marijuana is not legal ice in the netherlands but they don't necessarily prosecute it but they are now in the process of getting it further away from the schools because it has an adverse effect i guess i'm just arguing for the five hundred feet here because you can say only people who are twenty five and up can go in there and they can and they can buy it and then it depends on how much they can buy and they can just turn around and sell it on to these middle school high school students and the closer you are to school or the closer you are to where they hang out the easier it is to do that and so in that sense i would like to argue for the five hundred feet zone and definitely keep it out of belmont center  pam akers one thirty eight claflin street my own feeling about this is i would certainly rather see it in a place like on south pleasant street where it's not frequented by teenagers or children and i have a couple of e mails from constituents who have said the same thing if i could just read those quickly it's a couple of them one given the salience of belmont's in center two teenagers i'm worried that teens will internalize a normal of marijuana use even if they would be highly unlikely to obtain marijuana products from a regulated store and i agree with the suggestion to put it near the super dealership also alarmed about  altered the businesses on towns in the type of new area and just the you know i didn't expect it to have the impact it did and so i think we should really consider carefully that it could have whether it's whether it's traffic parking or types of people that come there first don't come there could have unpredictable impact on a business area and so when thinking about the zoning in the areas to go i think trying to pick one that it could potentially be a primary draw d i don't know how that the security on this one is required there you had to have two security stand out front and even though there was no signage to not nothing whatsoever it was just it was the most visited store in the area and so it you know that would be great for tax revenue precinct two so my question to you is when you go to ranks people go in to buy their ice cream and they sit around all in belmont center eating their ice cream so if you were to locate this in belmont center what would stop people from going into the dispensary or the retail store and then hanging around outside doing whatever and that's why i  agree with the pleasant street address because there's a huge impact on the other places around there or the people that would be in the area so just to be clear so people i agree with the fella from alexander ad no buffers i'm more concerned with traffic and parking so i would suggest waverly square be taken off the  decision point that it's already impossible to do anything even pass through waverly square i'm interested in the revenue so i'm concerned if we limit it to just pleasant street there there really is no where to put it all those places are rented i like the idea of self pleasant that would be fine i like the idea of by the loading dock which is at all let alone it's not it's not allowed but it's something that plane board could consider in terms of an overlay district you know so so i guess i'm i'm not talking about a buffer i'm talking about putting the location in a place put it in the location drawing the lines not it drawing the lines not right next to a heavily  three business districts are overwhelmed with traffic and parking and it is that this will be a i don't want to call the destination location but that we want people from you know the latest is i lexington opted out and burlington opted out we want people from further out to come in to belmont to buy this i think asking anybody to come from lexington come navigate your way through belmont center or to waverly square and find a place to park to go in and buy marijuana is going to be difficult for people so i think that when i cut through traffic in town i actually avoid mill street and winter street altogether and i move and i go all the way down pleasant and then all the way down her pleasant street actually agreed that traffic is a problem in cambridge and we don't expect people to be coming from cambridge into belmont to buy ok thank you unfortunately name and name and the reason  right live or unfortunately whoever decides to have one of these stores is looking at it for where he wants to put it where he can make the most money because the money is what's important to him so at some point you're going to put our dispensary down and the person who the families that live adjacent to wherever you're going to put it do they have any more say in the placement of that then other people is so you know even somebody who you know if somebody really doesn't want it you know it's too bad and if somebody feels that there's no problem with that and they put it next door to them you know it may change their mind with the traffic and the number of people coming in and  and i just think it's really not fair we wouldn't put a bar next to somebody and force them to be the we wouldn't put a restaurant next to them  they have to have some say in the placement of this dispensary i would think one of them on the national basis this product is still against the law in a lot of us including myself would never rent to to a dispensary these are the idea list so the license is granted by the state there is a community cohost community agreement that gets negotiated by the establishment and the town and there i mean there are lots of vehicles series of things that have to go into in there in play for getting pregnant from the state and and getting the host agreement with the town so this is just all we're looking at is where would we put these  either you know you come up with the zones and once you've come up with the zones i imagine that's fixed so now they come up with the just for the two zone locations what happens if you it's as if they cannot establish one that's the break ok so the business community had the business community still has the the last say in that sense in that sense absolutely that's what we can do is own it so stringently that there are no there is no reasonable economic opportunity g let's mention something from a technical point of view if you lose zone that area the business could you put it there there's a lot because a lot of that property that needs to be explored it's not even remotely close to being commercially zoned i mean that's a topic for another year on another night yeah it's not even we can't put a commercial you can't this is we're not dealing with residential districts for example because this is a business and that's a that's a that's  conservation land i mean the it's just not popular growing wage so what's the problem i think it just be helpful because i think there are different scenarios and loops that you know that this actually this actually goes back to the question about whether or not and a better would have more say than somebody else so there are  in poli building permit in assuming he's got all the state licenses in such he can open up tomorrow there's no public input most retail uses in the town that's how they currently operate the  bookstore for example that just opened in belmont center i hope you all frequent it's a wonderful place but that for example is a by right use nobody knew unless you were working in the office when the permits come in nobody knew was coming in it just permit and opened up the next day a design site plan review is the second option that is a public hearing process but the town has already decided that that retail use isn't allowed use in that district so what the town then is looking at is the site in the design of it the town typically that happens around schools and educational uses right now the board is doing that with the high school the new high school that's been proposed it's going to it's has to go through a design inside plan review process and they are looking at the circulation patterns the parking the signage the lighting all those things that make up the site in make up the location t looking at but they're not determining they're not saying yes or no to the school that's already been decided yes that's allowed the third option is a special permit the special permit process is a three story it's a six to nine month process to pending on how much public input is is bright it pushing village for example was almost sixteen months so it depends on how active the neighbors are how many questions come up how what how intense and some of the issues can be that process requires notification in the newspaper as well as notification being to residents in a butters within three hundred feet so they say because they are a butters within three feet they get notice anybody outside of three hundred feet is more than welcome to come it's a public hearing it's open to the public but they're not going to get any the restaurant uses in town are all under special permit the understanding is that a restaurant itself creates different impacts than a retail use would a dumpster with the wet refuse parking so town has said yeah we want the retail uses in this general area but we're not sure of that specific location is what we want where we want you to have it so we're going to have you apply for a special permit we're going to look at all these different issues and of sometimes when you're in the forest you don't necessarily look because anyway that was a special permit process in the first time the zoning board appeals her and it they were concerned about the traffic and parking issues were they did to that don't as a result the traffic impacts were less so they ultimately got the special permit it also allows the special permit process as well as designs a plan if you process allows for conditions to be placed on the permit for example hours of operation a lot of people hold sundays very sacred and don't want business opened on sundays or maybe they want to open later in the sunday many businesses you know monday through thursday close at ten pm and sometimes extended on saturday fridays inside it fridays and saturdays close at eleven that can all be imbedded into the permit so that there are a series of conditions that the retailer in this case would have to next day so that's what this is the opportunity and this is why we're holding this these hearings this is the opportunity to restrict the use but it has to be within a reasonable amount enough to allow a business to have a reasonable expectation notwithstanding being able to get a landlord to rent that they can operate a business there so it can't be so restrictive that you've you can't zone it out of existence but this is the way to get the permit process into that there will be republican put if that's the way you want to go with this as a special permit to have the about as have their say to have the planning board potentially put restrictions on the order or whatever the board is going to be hasn't been determined what board is go be granting these permits if it's if it's as if this is zoning type situation it'll probably be the zoning board but it got to the planning or but it could be the zoning board or it could be any i mean it could be anywhere else in the line the health department is involved to some extent here but they've already set up their criteria and i think they're good to go ok you know by friedman precinct three if you want a street also i live on a road which most people don't know where it is i've been studying for almost a year with the league of women voters the just to be clear the league does not have a position but we've done lots of research and as part of my research i've actually gone to stores in oregon washington and colorado and i have never used so it was an interesting experience and one thing i really found and a lot of my research concerned was consistent with this is that a store that in a downtown retail section felt far less sketchy to walk into there are no songs there is no there are no nothing a kid walking down the street would possibly see to give you a feeling that what side belmont center already has a wine store a beer and wine store a bar if you can i think it wellington looks like a bar and of several restaurants that sell  alcohol now i don't see that this is really that different except this nobody will see and we already have parking there we already have traffic there the south pleasant street the way south pleasant street is right now feels much more like the sketchier store i went to in washington state where as a consumer it felt very odd walking in the door once it was in side it felt more like a candy store for grown ups it was just a very different atmosphere and i think that downtown would also attract more of what i've been calling a craft marijuana store and there is a full craft style marijuana being  grown to appeal to that i think it would be much more in keeping with what belmont thinks of  itself ellen sugarman cross street town meeting member precinct eight by preceded jeffrey your description of by right design review and special permit but maybe it was mentioned beginning are is that potentially something that the board whether it's planning board zoning board the regulations that they get to come up with and we have input and say this should require a special permit this should be by right is is that ok thank you i missed that context that's the fourth leg in the stool as it were location  permitting so i did have a question so when we say no consumption on site we're talking about similar to like a pouring license like you can't consume in a consumer in the store but you can't use it you can't it's so that you could go through this double entry door come out with a brown paper bag with edibles in it and then sit down on a bench and open it up and eat it say sell as is the case with a bottle of oh of course not i'm not suggesting that the question was was is it legal and it's not legal we don't have an open carry state here right right ok but it's not just the smoking it's not just twenty five feet from the door you can't smoke it it's that you're not supposed to open that bag and it's out of brownie period you're supposed to take it back home and do it at home so yeah so in that case i still think that south pleasant street where you drive to it you get out of your car you go in you get it and you leave is going to be better traffic wise and just that's why if you're in a very public place that you wouldn't want to be seen using it and there would be police officers around that would be appropriately there  make sure that people were dissuaded from doing so as opposed to south pleasant street which on a dark night you get in your car and that's that so just a thought just a thought in terms of public public and it's not even an opinion it's just that has been expressed before right there's this idea that having an open but i also think that we need to y let's let's spread it around here let's check mcmullin country club playing precinct two so actually some of what i asked was and was going to ask was answered just by her so that because part of my concern with it being in center is then if people are coming out with not lighting up but with a brownie or a cookie or whatever it is and how much in foresman of that is there is there going to be a police officer really there watching to see no and so part of my concern is also with it being so close to school areas because at a bull's looks just like regular products and there is already a huge drug problem at the high school which people a lot of people turn a blind eye to there's plenty of drugs there so that just makes it easier if it's a near the schools to bring in brownies and cookies which are actually full of marijuana and so i think from cambridge or watertown or or if we're making centers so i'm saying that i think it would be better to have it further away from the schools not just because of people lighting up but because of the edibles and other things just pick a precinct five so we're here to help you sort of narrow down the proposals and the right and i was wondering if people agree with me what i'm hearing because then we can go that the super area and the loading dock area seems to not encounter  so much and i don't know and we're not true here to decide that now we're just looking for what sort of help and give you feedback you can act on it like i don't know how many of you represent anything at this point i just know that there are a lot of you and i'm really enjoying hearing your  studying this pretty carefully so we can't just decide on the basis of one night's mood turco i would caution the board to be very skeptical on research i can produce anybody can produce what they want to defend themselves so i challenge that the location of the store is a good thing for the area that's one question the other is if i if you decide this syria this area and that area is acceptable and in the building i own i have a toy store and two doctors fellow comes to me and says i want to open up a dispensary do i have an option you're the owner of the building you don't have to rent it and you have no obligation whatsoever to rent to anyone it's no different than what currently exist don mercer has already said he owns a commercial block he can decide whether or not he wants to rent to a restaurant area not all the zoning does it says restaurants are allowed in that district it's between the landlord and the retailer to work out and negotiate the ideal the town does not get involved in that private process of businesses have the power tommie ohlsen ten bay state road precinct five the only thing i am grateful that we got the three levels it would seem to me that as klaus said we may if we could make the simple the decision that we go for a special permit if where you then have the e u can then put requirements i would think that would help all of us here tonight and then you know we'll discuss you can discuss where exactly you want it located i'm not going to tell you where to put it i think there are a lot of good reasons that i've heard but i would basically like to see you do a special permit because i think that then you can control the parking you can control the trip the traffic so that to me would be a good outcome for tonight good good input i'm just trying to suggest that there are fifty people in this room who are motivated to come out there are five hundred people who couldn't make it tonight for whatever reason and so obviously i'm just obviously we can't make a decision based on one night's hearings but we are listening because this isn't a vote on this isn't a vote it doesn't give us an idea about anything it just tells us what this small group would like to see and i respect that but we're listening to the comments and the numbers it just doesn't help yes mckinnon i was talking to a friend and told him i was coming to this meeting tonight he lives in brookline and he said there's a retail marijuana shop by his bank and he said there's it's a medical dispensary that he said but there's always a line out the door there's a police presence all the time and it's you know he's altered his pattern of going there but south pleasant is my neighborhood and that's how i get to the center i walk there i drive there so to just say oh that's the best place there are people who care about that right so i think we need to be careful just assuming that that would be the best place right the next question is that what the criteria would be for issuing that special permit in other words would you have to spell out that you're entering that you're looking at traffic all volume or things like that you couldn't just out of hand say no the neighbors don't like it we're going to deny it you would have to don't yet have to condition it look at the criteria it's no different than for example citing a family restaurant that turned out to be a dunkin donuts at the corner of  sorry so what we have been told and what we've been hearing is that most communities are just modifying their medical marijuana bylaws  the town adopted theirs in twenty fourteen it is six pages long there are requirements with respect to the application what information does the town need to press can be looked at the size of the indoor waiting area the hours of operation the special permit can me issued for only five years which at which point it would cease to exist in the person has to come back in and we apply a special permit can be stated such that it's granted to that owner only so if you fred gulson decide you want to open up for a special permit the annual port to state that there's been no offenses or violations police or otherwise we can reach out to the police and fire departments to make sure that they review everything we can ensure that the licensing and such from the state is in full compliance so there are a lot of things that town can do i encourage people to look at the medical marijuana by law it's online it's section in that if you would that will give you a sense of what other issues can be looked at a by law is consists concerning yes it currently is allowed in the general business district over by loading dock in on south pleasant street there have been i probably get a phone call once a month from perth from any business inquiring about locating in those areas obviously nothing's happened but there is certainly a lot of interest in  g in the greater boston area correct for medical marijuana currently yes bear in mind that there's another permit process too in a sense in that the establishment of the applicant has to come up with a memorandum understanding with the town about what the rules of the game are going to be so there's that there's a whole nother step to the process in addition to the licensing process at the state level this is this is heavily regulated this is express my thought that considerable thought likely went into the medical marijuana citing i've looked at the map i anticipate that some good thought process related to that probably would apply here the retail so my proposal  be to keep this in the existing medical want marijuana zoning obviously with the school district exclusion exciter and sometimes when change occurs evolution is better than revolution this would be a modest evolution of current zoning laws e feinberg one o one hammond i just have a question i came late is it i know we're allowing for one retail establishment to ok and could those also be dual use  also be medical marijuana going to deplane do that in cambridge so they could so i just want to i'm in the health department in cambridge and i'm not directly involved in all this but people my office well there's if there is one little loophole someone who's eighteen can buy medical marijuana so they could get in the doors just saying yeah we were looking on the websites at work and we're seeing how easy it is to get that so i just want to put that out there helen bakeman lexington street right near waverly square precinct for i agree that we ought to extend the sites where medical marijuana licenses are now possible i would urge us to add to that where released square the other school other centers a business we're talking about opening a business that will be very well regulated according to the health department regulations that have already been established and it we have the ability through special permit ing to also regulate it unlike all the dealers you see at every playground every day this will be regulated i have a question that i realized the league has our committee had the state regs say that you can't have adult use marijuana more restrictive than medical marijuana  but according to our maps it looks like the high school property is zoned for medical marijuana that was one thing that we could never understand but that does the square footage include that whole property and how do we make it not as restrictive with adult use so it was actually this is actually a multilayer locational issue first you decide what districts so in this case just just go with the that's a general business tristram it includes for high school the great escape and the loading dock in all the other businesses across the street that whole sort of strip if you will then you add the buffer in the buffer takes out the high school and three hundred feet from it so when you do that you get rid of actually the greatest cape and that only leaves the business is across the street including the loading dock not violating state regs by having less square footage for use than medical that it seems like that's inconsistent because according to the plans the entire high school property is under medical  correct because it's an overlay district but once you get into it then you apply the buffer so that's what we do says actually the size is the buffer marijuana use the if i remember correctly the referendum the title of it was regulate it like alcohol so i would want to think about whether we want to have sort of the same sort of standards we would look at for  what our expectations are there are multiple places that sell alcohol in belmont center so maybe we should think about it the same way the other thought is i think we could make requirements as part  of licensing or allowing a business to open to say they need to have security outside to say make sure people go back to their vehicles and don't consume i'm assuming that's the case we could do something some to display that obviously you need some space make just two comments one is on the topic of regulation let's not make the mistake to assume that because we have a state regulation for marijuana that it's like alcohol or tobacco because it has federal regulation which has a whole other oversight in terms of the f shut down places and so this is still an experiment for us in terms of how a state can regulate something that's not federally regulated and so i think just the i advocate for this evolution in terms of how we handle things in turn in terms of retail marijuana and there was  comment about extra security having lived next to a green cross for over a year and a half actual security is not a pleasant thing to have your street we knew the security guards would say hi to them because i walk by them so frequently so it's not a pleasant down i appreciate the thought of wanting to improve your area such as a way valeant things but there are other businesses that would improve  and create more business so let's not look at it as this is the ultimate form of business to bring people the other thing is if we have security i would hope the board understand that too many not all but too many people we're not looking at this as a source of revenue we have children we are concerned and we that's why people who speak out on this we're  not i'm a fan of merkel marijuana so we really i really feel to you to think of the people i understand thank you there are lots of people and we are thinking about as many of them as we can i would like to throw one piece of information out so that you'll get a perspective on what's at stake for us and that is this guidance from the cannabis control commission it's online and easy to get and it is called guidance for music municipalities and it basically tells you what the ground rules are for us in this it's a good document to get i'm sorry that we don't have you know we just don't have the copies but it is online and easy to get to so can it was control commission it's their guidance from his this begins the public process as a result we'll be creating a web page this will be placed this presentation will be placed on the web page i don't know if you can see but spencer has been taking notes of all the  comments that will be compiled and put on the web page as well and links to not just the guidance but the actual regulations because if that is even obviously gives you more detail about what is going on medical marijuana will be linked things meant it was ellen sugarman cross street it was mentioned before about you know people saying well i believe it would happen this way or i believe would happen that way or my experience i get that people have experiences but at the same time people can come up with something that will validate their experience in any direction so whether your pro con think it should be by right think it should be special permit think it would be sketchy think it would be great for the neighborhood you know whatever everybody is going to have their opinion and i appreciate if you would keep that in mind as you do your research i towards that was that was the bottom line ground rule here basically is we're looking for input but not necessarily argument the second question because i know bylaws happen and then i believe that's how you actually got on the board steve you and your neighborhood decided to go for a change in bylaws so with this sort of thing could we decide something now i mean you mentioned even if it's a special permit that five years that permit is no longer good good you know we decide something now and then we say you know in a couple years you know maybe we were too restrictive maybe we weren't restrictive enough so there can be change after as well it can be changed after the first of all the planning board constantly second guesses itself and tweaks things and every town meeting you'll see something usually from the planning board just adjusting things but the second and that's the preferred way and the preferred way for citizens to have input into that would be to petition the planning board basically or at least to bring it up before the planning board or form a group to develop a plan for the plan i mean these kinds of things the sort of last gentleman over there suggested to start small and then if everybody's comfortable with it maybe expand it to other areas of town just one way to look at it these people are going to need a lot of security which is you know just to having the securities intimidating as far as i mean if i find if i go near a bank or you know fresh pond of some of those places if i see a security guy i screwed that whole area because you know because of the potential activity to that point on somebody pointed out to me that if you if you marginalize the business you also increase the risk of somebody because it's not in a public area people targeting that as a hold up site one person that's been waiting for you patiently to speech which i want to hear from you and i think we want to wrap this up at eight thirty so we've got in five minutes and i think we've heard from most of the people and i really appreciate the input keep going though i actually have to question o is who pays for the security that's private private security to the store pace farai not the town no no and and second question i'm really curious to i don't know if you know the answer to that why the state mandates that we can't have a sign for the store that would indicate what it is is that it's is it to ba you can because because they go the issue of trying to protect the children you know it's i don't think it says what one way or the other the state decided that they decided that they wanted to regulated in that way you know just it's this way that some people feel about having a slit songane or you know  miller beer sign that window i mean do you want to see that or not junior senior high school we're talking about so this bring something eighth graders into the mix when we're talking about locating close to the high school and so i think we need to look at both ends of that to look at the belmont center side of it and then look at the  general business district being i think actually closer and they're both very close to the high school both ends of that and then the second is that it's not easy to get something passed a town meeting and that this is a two thirds vote and that i think i think the moratorium was a great idea and i think getting something through town meeting that we know is going to get through with a two thirds is really important mcmullin precinct two so then quick follow up question with the school definition because there's discussion of making preschool federally mandated so preschool became a public school into the witching hour are private schools considered the same way as public schools because under this law yes under the as a under this regulation following up on julie's comment that it's hard to get things past town meeting and i agree be but am i correct that if a town meeting doesn't pass anything in november then there's no restrictions town why direct as to where anything could be so that's an incentive for town meeting to pass something and and i would remember remind everyone the town meeting voted basically to put us in this situation where the election the referendum that we're having in september is between everything or retail you know and to two units so that tells me a lot about what the sense of town meeting is compared to putting a referendum on absolute ban him so that town meeting town meeting well town meeting spoke pretty clearly that they wanted to see something rather than nothing steve can i add that the league of women voters plans to have an info night before the election on thursday september twentieth i haven't been able to get confirmation from general yet but we're trying for the community very good thank you gorman school st town meeting member precinct one i just want to remind people that the town actually voted in favor of having an a stop supporting marijuana in the town and town meeting  was sort of honoring that it wasn't just a bunch of people congregating in deciding it was based on you know the november vote a couple of years ago so i just wan thirty the planning board has other business they have to get done this evening so please any questions any thoughts any comments please send them to either myself or at belmont hyphen him a dot gov or by law that will pass a town meeting her good thank you all for coming ok so the next item on the agenda basically is to review the film of high school building project memorandum of understanding which is basically the planning boards  sort of the state of thinking for the planning board on the proposed building a school building project in the interim from last meeting we got a revised site plan that was  be responsive to the planning boards concerned about landscaping across the front and the positioning of the building and the forty feet of concrete buffer basically the world buffer between the proposed so this is when they're labeling option one previous correct and previous means that we form two weeks ago right for now before adding the right option to be removing the terrorists see i'm guessing that there will be construction impacts on the access road between the pond and the new high school and i think the planning board ought to see a significant relay and scaping of the area from the edge of the that they should be looking at from the edge of the pond to the wall of the school as one landscape and not say over there is this little landscape and there's a great big service access road and then there are a few trees sprinkled in front of the window and just to add on to that  the trail which i find really disappointing it's a road it's you know it's an access road for the fire department and to get it going to be open to the public i think that's you know i understand that it's just that it's still the twenty if you if you if you look at it you that's when your if you if you look at that image it widens from twenty feet it looks like thirty to thirty five or more in front of the high school we don't need thirty five feet of paving in but if you if you think about the way the town uses the current cafeteria that will become a significant entrance for people who were parked on concord avenue and walking into a about you at this point is during the plan review process we'll definitely revisit this and get a detail nancy planned but at this point as the design goes into the state of the will the view i've been taking as i look at the circulation is to present the most of the costl cost wise that it is now versus later i think is the the larger picture for a july deadline and then the the specific programming of site type of trees where the emergency access is how it does or does does not integrate with the path around the pond are issues that need to be addressed but i think will be addressed more in a more focused manner during the site plans which means that we need to make sure that that cross comments are clearly reflected in this remembering of munder standing right is it going forward this is going to be an important issue and to your points and you're you're you're right i mean the goal here is to make sure that we we don't want to put a put a stick in the spokes of the bicycle moving forward but we want to make sure that you know there's going to be a bell in the hellmann handles and things like that going for because it is i don't know what your notes circulation and traffic but i think it should be pulled out and the government would call it something like traffic demand management and use it to capture all of the things that we've we've heard so much comment on like making protester and access more  convenient bicycle access more convenient and bicycle accommodations on site the tunnel under the train tracks the possibility of spreading out school hours between the two the between the upper and lower i just want to make the point to the audience and those that might be listening is that this memory of an understanding is a document for the planning board it's not meant to be necessarily given to the belmont high school building committee it's not meant to be considering looking at in the future with the hope with the expectation that as members come and go from the planning board you don't have to back pedal you can just sort of pick up where you left off plan at this point it's just a matter of saying that we've seen it it's in the right direction there are lots of concerns that we have and moving forward these are the concerns that we're going to be interested in seeing addressed but they need to go whole can of worms that involves many layers of questions and is going to certainly especially the lighting for the athletic fields in the eastern of the complex it's going to be a long convoluted permit process and i'm sure the neighborhood is going to be thrilled to see seventy foot light towers in play there so i know we need to address that and it brings up for me the question of who's paying for it and why is it in the budget  going forward parking the total count is and distribution and location and the issue of student parking and how much student parking those are still obviously in play i don't do i should i keep going here because they can go through signage  a lack of sense of entering in the plans we've seen so far entering a high school campus it looks a lot like this to render my own opinion it looks a lot like you're driving into an industrial complex that's with a lot of chain link and i've been in an office building in the middle of it or are put potentially the minimum security prison i don't know it's just you know there's just these you know these are image this is that it actually wasn't for me and then there's the question about the skating rink and the and its inclusion or lack of inclusion in the plans that were being developed that are being developed here there's a significant piece of property there that are not in play that could clearly accommodate parking could accommodate athletic fields it could accommodate a change in in location in the building even spreading the building i don't know but it's an interesting complication of you know about the open meeting law and we have in recent opinion from the town council that impacts how the planning board is going to be doing its work coming going forward and this just because to this issue of you will submit edits to us june twenty ninth and then we will distribute those the night of the public airing right if we take your edits and you submit to us in june twenty ninth integrated into the document and send it back out to you without any notice to the public up that it's in violation of the open meaning law so you know and so in which is very different than the way the board's been operating right but if so means that things are actually going to ghost be taking a lot more time and this is speaks to also review when the board was members were volunteering to meet with an applicant to review housing plans those plans now cannot friedman again to precinct three you've talked about parking you've talked about traffic you talked about buses you've barely mentioned the community paff at a previous meeting but not tonight i would like since you guys have some influence on how this all gets figured out that you make a point to try to encourage more biking as well like right now from concord to the high school it's one way loop but the bikes nobody wants go all the way around by bike so the so the the exit into being a two way with bikes and the bikes could be on either side of the road and i think if you encourage thinking that out now that would be good i also love the idea of charging for parking and lowering the price of buses somebody brought that up and it seems totally lopsided how we encourage parents to drive in town thanks the community path it's yet another issue actually it's not i don't think addressed so that's you know well but it but it it's not under our review but it does impact the things that are under a very i mean so that's the problem with this is that we have to we decide certain things that have impacts on the you know so i just added we we talked about the community have quite a bit because of the potential pinch point in the back where the existing field houses and as the planning boards liaison to the community preservation committee at our last meeting the select been brought up the idea of they've been in discussions with senator brownsburg are about phasing the community that and  trying to do that to get the to do that to get the component behind the high school on the state's funding cycle and in order to do that we need to fast track design of that component so trying to find that design money to move that process along the state level so it's definitely on the minds of the planning board and we'll just make sure it's captured in the memo that fast track packaging of the tunnel  that it's been a big advantage in terms of talking about greater detail on the landscape plans but my first concern is that when we talk about that july eleventh deadline that if you look at the plans that you've handed out i think third from the back the so called street that circles the project and they drop off places are all part of the plan that's going to be submitted and the question i have this weather if that goes through and gets approved by the state i would be sort of bound by that type of design that the state what the submission to the state is doing one level  maximum budget for the project so it's my understanding that we can do subtraction zx so we could do a narrower road there we could get rid of the fire chief agrees and get rid of the road or you could put it in a different location  city planner and i was looking at the planning magazine over the last number of years and the emphasis on planning projects are clearly in the direction of recognizing that there ought to be firm for the project and there are a lot of aspects of their work that they've done and other communities and massachusetts that are also very helpful here and we're sort of making an assumption that the numbers of automobiles today proportionally will remain much bigger because of the added two grades but there really isn't an effort to cut back on the number of vehicles that enter the site and also and that could be done through bussing and through that are attractive things for the walkers and dealing with the ancillary street system to make it really safe for their children to go to the high school the other problem is the drop offs we have as a group and suggesting for a long time that we ought to look at drop offs long  selectmen are involved and it strikes me that you sort of have to work together and the planning board is a key actor here in terms of advising the traffic advisory board and the mention what is going to happen about the additional bussing and all of those things enter into the overall planning of this was roger and so the question of why the board wasn't brought  in earlier right ok and then but we want to i want to be sure that in your family understanding the thoughts that you're talking about and i guess i think what you've said it indicates the answer that  we want the different we want the planning board to take the lead and we want to see cooperation across the board to solve these issues and it's extremely important because you know it's a project for fifty or one hundred years and we want to write we want it done attractively you talk about looking like an aerial complex i'll take one opinion aspect of this and then i'll stop talking that  when you look at the project i think it's the third page from the back and you look into the access street that goes in they did make one good improvement and that is they took the parking off the beginning neck of that but if you look up you're looking at a pretty beyond that you're looking at a pretty wide street because you've got the lanes of two lanes of traffic and you've got the bike lanes you've got the sidewalks and you've got the is doing a town wide traffic study going clancy as part of that has expressed interest in looking at a drop off location along concord if that whether that comes on to the property itself or stays in the public right away is an issue and you have the skating rink is another issue whether or not that stays on the the town center campus there if you will and then if it doesn't what that does to free parking you have the school committee weighing in on the balance of charging for parking versus charging for busing and all that weighs into how we look at parking right now there's four hundred thirty spots on site that's what's proposed for the expanded school expanded grades and staff what have you so all those issues that are front and center i believe to the planning board and  the way into how we can encourage most split and head bike increases to campus and how we use that space and whether we can narrow driveways because we don't need as much parking on the site pushing some of the parking perhaps over to the skating rink area for students reducing some of the student parking so we're definitely kicking around all those ideas there's just a lot of things in play especially between now and through the summer with the submittal to the state from the high school building committee and then the traffic study being done by glen clancy group so i just point put that out there that i think the planning board understands the intricacies in the inter what's going on at thirty two thirty four wilson avenue where we got there actually it's a family that they're actually looking to raise a couple of feet currently are unable to utilize the basement and they want to raise raise the bar structure a few feet they can create more space in the basement usable usable space in the basement and we have the entire structure to assess that's right and in the end doing so will it still be a basement that i do not recall that's something we need to look basement is sounds like more exposure above ground and let's watch that one carefully yeah they could they could dig down if they get they're going to go the sounds to me like they're going to just shored up and i don't know i have no idea what's going on many non conformity is being called you know contemplated in this brand new building and i just i'm having a hard time starting out on a clean site you know a clean property with one two three four nonconformity so i don't you second proved let's go