good evening i'm a list allison chair of the planning board and i'd like to call our april sixth two thousand and seventeen meeting of the board to order began by introducing my colleagues on the board  considerable importance to the community so what i'd like to do is to begin by just very briefly as soon as i persuade the two cases that we will be principally concerned with this evening before we move to the warrant articles that we will be dealing with a hearing on three eighty five concord avenue for the expansion of the national armenian studies and research library often locally referred to as necessary and for the belmont a school often locally referred to as b d s both of these cases could the dover amendment and we have copies there for anyone who wants to pick one up after the meeting what the dover amendment does as you see is to restrict the ability tax cities and time of most cities and towns in bassett use it to restrict the use of land by educational or religious organization for example to put this for it for example if a case were to come before the planning board for construction of a private residence or commercial building and we felt it did not conform to th could simply say this building shouldn't be built one cannot do that with a educational or religious organisation one can impose as law and that comes that is obviously the appropriate the relevant paragraph in mass general law one can impose reasonable restrictions on it we can there are certain municipal provision such as parking requirements from which religious and educational institutions do have to conform but it is a somewhat the the rules are clearly different jeffrey if we could move on to the next what we'll be doing as we consider both of these cases and let me say the format will be the same and it's very similar to the format we've followed for most of our hearings this is a public hearing so the notice will be read by vice chair biography we'll invite the applicant or the applicants representative to make a presentation the materials have been distributed in advance for typically the applicant would like to make a brief statement of case we will then go to those in that in attendance in the audience and take questions and comments at this point we'd ask we would ask the applicant to listen rather than to immediately respond unless the answer is brief we'll then take questions from the plan whatever questions the member to the planning bo have and then we'll discuss and deliberate if there are questions that require further information which is quite likely in two large and complex applications such as these the result of the discussion and deliberation may be that we will vote to continue the hearing to another to the next meeting of the planning board or to another meeting of the planning board the other possibilities are that we vote to approve or  t so with that as background the only other rule is there are two other sort of rules of the road one is that we will have a hard stop on the hearings for both cases it eight thirty because we must turn to the town meeting articles but i very much hope that we can at least hear all of the comments and questions from we will see but we certainly will we will see but yes something like that also because the week there are for each of be recusing myself from that portion of the hearing and vice chair barbara fiasco will conduct that portion of the hearing and finally as i have said it so many meetings if you have something if you wish to comment come up to the microphone and give your name even if you have come up to the microphone before and given your name please give your name again it is very helpful in taking minutes and greatly to the first item three eighty five notice is hereby given that the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on thursday april sixth twenty seventeen at seven pm place or yes in the board of selectmen room whose address i'm blanking on at the moment from four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of the national armenian studies and research library hereby and shaky an agent for the design and site plan approval to construct a third story on top of the existing building and waiver of parking requirements at three ninety five concord ave located in the local business one zoning district the designer for this project he's going to do the design presentation and from my office is mark spaulding he's our director of design and jonathan marries her project manager so this project is for nasser which is the nasa national association of armenia studies and research i won't go through their whole history but they were founded in one nine hundred fifty five they're grounded in academic research in dominance of chairs for i mean studies through many colleges and locally it's harvard mit toughs northeastern and there's many others that are local and a far i want to go through quickly what we did to get to this point  initially we first met with community planning when we began to think about this project and think about the the concepts of what we might do and we were challenged little bit was with some of the restrictions and and from there we went through what you talked about that over a minute in addition i've met with the fire prevention officer captain captain john p z and we had a neighborhood meeting on monday which was a very friendly meeting because those that showed up were actually  nassar members even though we did send the invitation out to the terry body and we did post the meeting the team that's designed the building is all less m m a except for one so we have planners interior designers architects engineers all in house so we're designing the project mark haley's are geotechnical engineer so he's the one consultant on the team the project is basically an addition and renovation of the existing interior is as you said it's  local business own one the use in occupancy for the project is in a three assembly so a library lecture hall museum we have some excess reuses which is a business storage and mercantile the site itself is just under fourteen thousand square feet currently there is a two story brick building on the site it's just under eight thousand square feet with the additions that we're proposing will be adding six thousand three hundred square feet from the third floor front addition and we are going to be taking down the existing baxter and building one that's that conforms to current codes and there is a one level underground or below grade the things that we've discussed and dealt with with this project include sustainability the most sustainable aspect of what we're doing is we're keeping the existing building it's a solid building it's a ma building with waffle slab there's no reason to tear it down both from economic reasons and from the use of the building the right thing to do so that's why we we pursued the dover amendment to be able to do in addition we looked at  it adding on to the back and some other things that we might have been able to do to get square footage they needed and felt that this was the best option after meeting with community planning and geoff specifically we're also adding p v c on the roof for   takes where changing the obviously adding a lot of daylight into the fire of the building which you'll see soon where upgrading the entire mechanical system to brand new more energy efficient systems and waiting by cracks from an accessibility perspective the building currently is not accessible eight steve needs to climb three steps to get into the building there is no other way in the back because this is similar you need to go upstairs to get into the back end where if you did get into the building couldn't go up to this and floor down to the lower level so we're adding at a ramp to twenty five foot ramp in front of the building right in the commercial elevator to access all the floors and when we take down the rear stairs and build a new enclosure a new back stairwell fighting area of refuge there is own ing issues so we're increasing the lot covered by about seven hundred square feet so we're going from twenty eight point eight to thirty three point eight percent lat coverage there is no requirement for that for that coverage area but just to let you know all the setbacks are being met all around and we're doing only adding really to the to the front  we're bringing the front out to the setback limit almost just slightly behind the five foot limit the f a r s going from point fifty eight to one point zero three there requirement is one twenty five or below so the the  the biggest challenge was obviously building height looking at that issue knowing that we should be able to qualify under dover amendment to add a third story which their story is allowed by special permit but the height was limited to thirty two be used on this project exactly a month later on december twenty second i heard from town council that they accepted that proposal and we went on and designed this three story building the other challenge was parking  we currently have twenty three spaces on site we are eliminating four spaces in the front there's four spaces in the front of the building that that back on to concord have we don't think those are safe we don't think that it should have been there to begin with but with the addition obviously we can do that we can add and i'll get back to this in a minute we can add two spaces on this available to the street because we are now putting a curb in front of the building  but where i get backed out and as to why we are proposing it doesn't get done so the requirement is for thirty spaces in discussing the parking issues with jeff  look at options of how to deal parking because there is no parking issue at nasser typically there's very very few cars in the lot most of the cars that are in the lot actually belong to the mail carriers next door and when we need w next door where they can park there and a more formal agreement with the first armenian church across the street where the parishioners are able to park on the nasser lot when they have service and nasser when they have a lecture they're able to use out that lot so in looking at the bylaws we are allowed to under section five point three point one which allows us to have parking in a similar zoned area up to four hundred feet away obviously the church is much closer than that it's about eighty feet away across the street we went to our with that proposal and looking at can we qualify under this to be able to use these and he said as long as we have a formal agreement so we included a letter from the church that formalize that agreement to to be able to use that parking so that allows us to have fifty spaces total the thirty wanted to church plus the nineteen so we meet the thirty requirement the other thing i met with our about was storm water management and as it turns out the entire lot of thirteen thousand eight hundred somewhat square feet are impervious at this time we're modifying that slightly by making a planter in the front that makes it a little less impervious we're disturbing less than twenty five hundred square feet of the lot with this project so as are said we don't have any requirement to do anything for storm water we've elected to nonetheless take some steps and put in a dry while to get to capture fifty percent of the roof rainwater and that's good for up to ninety percent of storm events we did ask if we can connect to the drain line that's in the street and our said no so this was he looked at our proposal and thought that that was a good compromise in terms of capturing some rain water that we didn't need to do otherwise belmont fire met with captain p z and went over the project completely understood their requirements their review requirements their fees etc and i think he was pleased with what we're trying to do with the building right currently is not protected with a sprinkler system we're providing a sprinkler system throughout the building some of it will be pre action to protect the valuable books but he had no issue with that we also talked about fire alarm system we're putting in addressable system we talked about location of the united states or panel and the fire department connection which will be on the south west southwest corner of the building  and we talked about the elevator that you don't want a sprinkler on on the top which is typical of that heat detection on top in a sprinkler in the pit we looked at the access around the building it's not changing whatsoever by this project we have three hundred sixty degree access around the building we all agree i greet with him that it's a very tight access when the when it's fully park but it's not changing coming back to the issue we talked about before the two parking spaces that would be available to the town in front on concord have he asked if we can keep that as a fire lane and have it striped and i said we have no issue with it really it's community planning and this board if you folks would prefer to be a fire lane we're ok with that if you would prefer to be parking spaces were ok with that too but he recommended that i suggest that it be a fire line in the last thing we talked about was he said that the the town on the north side of concord out is very deficient and on hydrants and he asked if the hydrant could be considered as part of this project from a monetary perspective it would be out of the question for us i think and so i told him that we would certainly consider having him piggyback off of what we're doing we are going to be fully reconstructing the sidewalk but we would be able to put in the closest fire hydrant which i think would be an emotional issue is across the street on concord have on the south side almost directly across the street that would mean you have to bring a line all the way across because there's a six inch line on the south side that can support a hydrant on our side of the road there's only two inch lines so you can put a hydrant there the other the next closest to the closest hydrant on the north side of concord have is is actually on the other side of the high school so there are no hydrants on that side of the road so whatever you did you'd either be digging up conquered average you'd be doing a project that would be like the big dig it would be a big project so i don't think that that's a possibility but he said if he worked with d p w and they decided to relocate one would be amenable i said of course it would be but he can come to you and ask to take up concord have again the only other things that i wanted to bring up were that we are we have site improvements in addition to the building we have a planter in front in front of the twenty five foot ramp and and a seawall for people to sit down next to the post office or in front of nasser and we're adding to bike racks for four bikes and and we'll be reconstructing the front over down the architecture he was the designer he is a designer for this building to get into some of the nuts and the bolts of the design and what it looks like so this is the two story building today nasser is been around for over sixty years and they've been in this location hundred nine probably driven by a lot and never knew what goes on inside this building so this is the existing massive two story building with the basement and looking at some of the key psyching strains we have a ten foot easement that's a right away shared with the post office and then there's this five yard front yard five yard front yard setback that is from the edge of the property line which is right at the sidewalk and then we have our parking field in the back there's a view of that ten foot right away looking out to first armenian church so we were looking at the proposal and below for really thinking about the front of the building and then they added a third story which you see rendered in the blue and we're also going to reconstruct the back stairs which is that little bump out in the back to make it a little bit larger so that we can bring it up to thir four and bring it up to code so we have some challenges you know we have to get up about twenty eight inches from the sidewalk level which means we need stairs and we need a ramp and you know about forty feet of accessible so that's really going to dictate what side the front door goes off the front of the building is only forty feet wide so somehow we got to make all that work so what we're proposing is kind of push back the face of the building allow for this ramp area that gets you from the parking in the excess of a parking straight to the front door which will be on the west west corner which is toward the towards the post office which is carving that back a little bit but we don't want to give up all that square footage we want to go up right to sort of that five yard or five foot front yard setback so we're going to pull out the top of the building and this does a few things for us what it does is it shelters the front door so you have a little bit of cover as you're coming in also gives us a little bit larger square footage on the second and third floor and it does this sort of interesting butterflying folding up the front facade so it's not just a kind of plain glass wall it's got some scale to it's got some visual interest but this is looking at the building today coming up concord and the proposed design so you can start to imagine how this is going to look we're trying to create a very open in inviting of warm structure there that see the front door kind of peeling out all behind that five foot set back and then quieter materials along the back side which i'll talk about a little bit before eager to get too far i wanted to say a little bit about our media culture i don't want to go in depth about it but we with nasser have been trying to collect things that are foreign to the poor and to their heritage important for a cultural building not a commercial building you know this is a place where people can come to lectures they come and do research from across the country so we want sort of the environment to reflects that culture so from the you know from the stone work the carvings that are so prevalent over there to some of the textiles and needle ace and even to things like their alphabet which they're very proud of you are trying to find ways to enrich the building with this corporate into the architecture so this is the proposed front front elevation and i want to go into depth into just three areas i'm going to talk about sort of this film over the glass i want to talk about the front door and i want to talk about this main staircase that you see so this film is a little hard to see in this light but over this upper area proposing that the glass has like a film applied the glass they give it this hard being text year that will help reduce when you're inside to help to reduce some of the sun coming in but also provides a interesting motif to the whole facade know looking at our main monumental stairs to two story a tree i'm really drawing inspiration from some of these monasteries and cultural buildings you know army air i actually actually took this picture so i found it i said that there is really cool i want to incorporate that somehow so here we have it manifested in the library so it'll be the first thing that you see when you walk in the front door it's also going to be very visible from the sidewalk especially and i see it as sort of an icon from the building and massively sort of this front door feature so we have a lot of glass and could have said well the door should be g we're looking at that is being your first encounter with the building you know you're going to touch it you're going to open it you're going to go through it so we were seeing a lot of these what they're called hatch cars which means stone crosses in armenia but a lot of their public buildings their church is each one has one of these out front and indeed if you drive past the building at night cross the street at first army church they have one too may not have known what that is and now you do so we're trying to and reinterpret that in her front door so thinking of that is kind of a special special moment within the facade and then there's a lot of  and armenian architecture and the use of you know they have beautiful stone where it's very warm it's not just one solid color it's very rich so we're trying to pick up that mat posing a it's not going to be stone we're thinking more of the exteriors grade ceramic tile range screen for the upper upper portion of the facade then being very kind of respectful of the existing building we're going to clean the brick replaying it and then the windows of the new addition will align with the windows below so it keeps the east and west elevations sort of really kind of quiet and respectful of what we think of the do screen and then you see our field of photovoltaics in the back we have these little ween walls that are coming up which form a pair of head around the room to help shield some some of those mechanical pieces up there so that sticks up about forty two inches so you don't need guard rails and like that which go through some of these quickly since the east elevation that we saw before west is very similar again stacking the windows we do have a moment back here because we're building on top of the structurally upgraded so we're going to need some places for bracing within the facade we can't forget about the back of the building that nobody ever sees unless you're on the on the train going into work but this is the back so that backstairs doesn't meet code so we're going to reconstruct that you could see the footprint in blue here that's how much it'll expand site so the program you know it's a library has got about twenty seven thousand volumes there's a bookstore there's an event hall which holds you know about fully half for a lecture it could seat up to one hundred fifty but this is the library today and built in the fifty's very sort of dark a lot of wood this all goes away demolition says the basement floor plan so we're calling the garden lobby and a bookstore right in front of you and i have a bookstore today walking in which an interesting books are going to put that sort of right by the front door so it's the first thing you see when you come in and then the rest  the space on the first floor is more books stacks for for their books going on to the second floor the back half you can see is sort of a staff space with offices and then there's some more specialized collections with their older older books that will be on display up here this is that opening to the first floor lobby below that money metal stair that we saw before then coming up to the third floor you'll come up the stairs into the reading room and find your way back into this multipurpose space which could be configured here is showing a hundred fifty chairs or so for a lecture but you could also do it for workshops or small dinners for about seventy people and then the room for a plan which we saw in three d which is a little easier to see before but see the mechanicals all contain  it does this to conclude the applicants initial presentation thank you are there members are there residents here this evening who would like to speak to this issue and this devlin feel free to move my coat on to the floor so you have a place to sit down  evening i'm steve pinkerton meeting member precinct seven i'm very much in favor of this proposal i think that the salient issue the height of the building is somewhat mitigated by the fact that there's wide spacing between the buildings on that row i don't think it's going to be a problem with shading or visual obstruction for the people in the adjacent buildings and i think this adds a really nice sort of architectural touch much needed upgrade into the twenty first century for belmont this is the entrance way to belmont center basically and it's frankly feels a little drab going by those one nine hundred fifty s brick buildings all in a row  you if there are no others in the audience who wish to speak to this issue i'm moved to a yes sir if i please my name is tommy driscoll on the resident at sixty nine concord i have and i'd like to ask the applicant  if they were if they approached the butter's on either side of the building to disclose what their intent was with this bil the name very seldom changes in the course of the hearing but nevertheless we must ask you to give it again and my name is our craft and i'm going to look at jeff because i think it's nine hundred foot radius three three hundred foot radius so the bar is listed i get that we see this notice got the same notice for the neighborhood meeting tommy driscoll again my last question would be and when did you initiate the reach i think it was two weeks ago yeah and the only one other minor correction because everybody's been referring to this building is three d or three eighty five it's three ninety five it's always been three ninety five  right then and this fiasco let me start with you do you have any questions they do have a couple of questions one is that you mentioned there would be some bike racks but i didn't notice th t my next question was really about the you mentioned and i can fully appreciate that the glass the side will bring in a lot of light during the day and you also mentioned being able to see the staircases at night until one thing that i wanted a little bit more information about is sort of how that front facade will be lit from the interior at night and we are going to see it's going to be very bright and considered  so it'll be a lot like like the glass buildings you see downtown where where you can see em but you know it's not going to glow but you'll be able to see in the building because a building a you do maintain the green i mean i don't have that information yet or what were the early phases of design but the intention is that we'll absolutely maintain the planting it's our front door and they'll be a lot of pride kept for everything in front of that building but i guess we can certainly get more information on that new and we would expect to have that design development  you know i think that's i think we would encourage you to look at plantings that are spring to fall rather than just summer there's been a great improvement bay availability of grasses and perennials that extend the season and even though it's a small planting area we didn't clergy to look at the duration of the planting season absolutely actually one other question that i bring out to the parking question the letter from the church you know indicated that you would have access to their parking in the evenings and i think it identified your slide presentation and i think thirty one spaces but i know that the church also rents out to the powers music school and at least the back of haven't might have an answer i don't have an answer to that demand on sundays to use our power lot and we use their lot and in most cases we have not had any issues in not being able to park there and we have been doing this for many years and as far as the number of people attending and coming to the nasser building actually most of the expansion is for library space so it is not going to change the nature of our traffic we we have need for expansion because we have twenty seven thousand rare books and we are on a course for increasing to forty thousand within the decade and so we were moving ahead by planning for the expansion and for making sure that we have enough space now for our own library number of questions certainly i understand that it is a place of both pride and scholarship and i take the point made by mr pinkerton that it's a much more dramatic building then those that exist with many more architectural concepts here here are my questions and concerns however and i'll start with the larger ones and make my way down to the micro detail but in in good order i think the the first is with respect to parking because there are a number of ways of looking at this as i just indicated but it is clearly parking in the belmont center area and this is in the belmont center area is extremely tight that's my first point the second point is that when it comes to parking and waivers of parking the board has an obligation to create applicants and this is a place where  amendment apple can still not necessarily enjoy a position different from other applicants we have a responsibility to treat everyone equally all of us that i do not see any areas designated on the church that this is where the overflow of for nasser should park and i must tell you what i believe the eager scholar will do is simply park in the most convenient place and that will compete directly with the commercial taxpaying entities of them so that i also have i would not claim to be an expert  on clearances and parking i would certainly like to see more detail on the size of these parking spaces and  e and i think we would like to see more detail on the size of its packing spaces we generally get a letter from the fact that these clearances are very tight in terms of what a of those a truck can use and i think we need a letter from the fire department i understand you carefully review captain p z observations but the clearances are so tight and we've had so many instances where the fire department said absolutely not we need at least fourteen feet sixteen feet we would just i want to be able to start with the bond rate walk it back and see how many parking spaces of what size we have and what kind of clearances that i think we are speaking only for myself i would be more comfortable with a clearer in at a minimum signage but a clearer definition of where parking overflow should go so that people do not compete directly with the merchants it is so there's parking issue the second is traffic  it's hard to believe it would be good to have a count of anticipated employment both full and part time and the traffic flow in and out of the library concord avenue is already a very heavily trafficked street and i think we'd want to understand the additional traffic that would be generated by this and finally and this is why the  there is provision in the design and site plan review for asking for us traffic study but i think it would be premature to do that but i think some count of employees would be helpful and anticipated participants in each of the programs and then finally i just had this is my smallest question and there's a description of a trash disposal  just to be clear many of the nonprofits in town are responsible for their own trash disposal is nasser or is that a service provided by know with the expansion possible expansion of activity i am not certain what the rules are for when the town will pick up and when it becomes the responsibility of the organization that but i think we have to take a look at that and then finally just a procedural it is we are all i think having we're all really pleased that you get a great deal of consulting with community develop my and many within community felt and the general counsel's office but in the end these these are the decision and that they gave you somewhat more specific guidance than people typically get but you know i think we should absolutely respect the guidance that you got from community development and whatever access you've had outside counsels opinion but the to what extent is dover meant i asked the question to what extent just over men would apply to the third story yes and whether or not that then puts them in a different class for do they have to apply for the vari valuable to have the opinion of general counsel but the question of whether the hike this is consistent with the neighborhood and i say this because many sites plan design inside plan review applications come before the board is not the decision of the general counsel tell us that nassar is an institution for scholars and researchers and that the belmont a school is a school and therefore both follow up under the dover amendment i really hope we didn't spend much to learn you know any other questions comments i read and so i would like to you know i would certainly like to get more specifics in the areas that i've raised right perspective parking in particular and something that will let us see what the traffic impact will be because i think everyone in town would agree conquered avenue is a very stressed  street we did put in the report the employees i believe it six it's three full and three part time it was in the report it was described as existing employees and so the question would be with this very substantial expansion in space will it even books require care and secondly i would like it and i understand you have a thought about that and i'll turn back to you in just a moment  secondly with the activities i understand there's a going to be a fellow from reading the website there will be a fellowship program and so i want some calendar estimate of activity because it's a little over the world they come and they use the books and they do research and they do writing and the only time that nasser has traffic let's say will not change from today because it's about the it will be somewhat the same the expansion is only going to accommodate more books we don't have enough space right now for the twenty seven thousand rare books we have already we are being given a gift of ten thousand books and these are all rare very precious works and we are preparing to be able to receive and we expect that during the next decade we will have somewhere about forty thousand rare books in that building and the number of scholars there can one or two at a time so this is not really a change from where we are today you know people say well you've got a lecture hall that's larger the the end i had what was really important to note is that currently there is lectures that are larger and they currently happen they just happen the first army in church cross the street so that relationship is that tight that that that's where we held the larger lectures and so it's exactly the same neighborhood with the exact same traffic issues and and i am a taxpayer in belmont and i do frequent belmont center a lot this to me this location to me is not quite belmont center in my opinion it sort of lies between belmont center and the effort it feels where you have traffic issues that the athletic field and traffic issues and belmont center my experience for evening lectures here i haven't seen traffic issues that have been significant and and the fact that the neighborhood meeting usually when we do these neighborhood means when there's traffic issues they come out in droves nobody came out at all h the church thank you i think it's address the issues it's it's it's difficult when one looks at the the plans for the upper stories they are not it it's increasingly if if all one wanted to do was store books the pusey library is entirely underground because that's such a good way to store books so there's clearly some activity remove any anything else if not now when do you think you could collect the prepare the more detailed parking specs we don't quite know when we can get a letter from the fire chief we could continue this to the second of may is that does that work for the team works for me forward to seeing you this has been very educational and some lovely stone work have to consider the application of belmont day school lucille cream john agent for design a site plan review to construct an academic building gymnasium classrooms and offices and drive off concord ave and other associated site improvements at fifty five day school lane located in a single residence a zoning district so that it is the order of presentation this evening will be that the applicant makes a presentation well hopefully have some time for some comments and questions from residents and once we've gone through those if there's time then the planning board last questions of the applicant and then we'll conclude with a discussion and then deliberation by the planning board given the number of people here this evening and the fact that we're beginning this discussion at eight pm they fully expect that we may need to continue this but i'm hopeful that we can get through the applicant presentation hopefully hear at least some if not all of the residents comments because they recognize that it's not easy for all of you to get here on a weeknight and so hopefully we can move things along fairly quickly so with that i'll turn it over to the applicant i just ask that anyone who come to the microphone to speak each time you speak you need to identify yourself by name for the viewing audience at home believe it or not community television has a very large viewing audience and they want to know who they're hearing from on the head of school at belmont day and began my tenure in that role this past july one day was founded just so everyone knows a little bit of background on the school founded in one nine hundred twenty seven and has been in belmont for ninety years today belmont day is a pre k through eighth grade school with two hundred seventy students ranging in age from four to fourteen we continue to be committed as we always have to providing our students with the whole child education and uphold the school's core values and mission as we do so for approximately six years in addition to being a school during the school year we also have the summer camp which has been around for approximately six years and a program that many belmont residents have participated in along the way over the past couple of years the school's been engaged in a discussion to add space to our campus out of a need to offer a more robust whole child  program arts academics and athletics and its past and roman growth agreement where over the next five years our hope is to have forty five students who are overall school enrollment all in the middle school ages of sixty three provide a more diverse student body and attend to the social movement of the students who've been here since pre k and provide us an opportunity to offer more progress robust program magic offerings as well lower school would remain the same size maintaining the same class size and teacher  so one that offers academics are not but in both the fieldhouse and academic of reflect that additionally when i arrived in july i arrived only a few months after in february during a winter storm of last year before i came on board a tree had fallen across the date school lane and it was at the heart of the conversation as i arrived power lines were downed and no emergency vehicles police fire or any other emergency vehicle were actually able to get to the school because this building is currently the only point of a hill or access to it additionally our parents actually in that storm couldn't get to the school to pick up their children  so we actually had to ask our students to cross through what is that easement across the cemetery across concord avenue and ultimately we picked up the belmont hill club on the other side of concord avenue and while the emergency crews clear so we're before you this evening for a design inside plan review as brennan said the school is proposing to construct a new academic facility install the additional driveway and increase the enroll meant by about forty five students and ten faculty and requirements and parking although the barn falls under the dover amendment b d s has worked diligently to design the project to meet your zoning bylaw and to a corporate wherever feasible input from towns commissions and  point one of the zoning by law requires design as i plan review for any building that exceeds twenty five hundred gross square feet and so that's a trigger for us to be here today the information that we've provided with the application is based on your approval criteria listed at seven point three point five and includes a lot coverage parking and loading spaces internal traffic circulation and traffic controls in relation to proposed use as well as compliance with section five point one which includes application that you received the applicant reached out to the office of community development planners and fighters right to the scenario and that's consistent with section seven point three point three of yours only by law which makes that recommendation that first meeting where honduras five grand and he was brand new and wanted to introduce himself to the community the other two were mailed to the list of properties within three hundred feet of the site which we obtained from the office of community development and it's my understanding it's the thirteenth one of the authors of the newspaper articles indicated that they didn't know that the process was in in fact happening but this was their letter saying thank you for your kind invitation to our meeting we just couldn't attend  that if if people were unable to attend those that the information will provide today at the planning board will be adequate for them in addition to the public outreach and the office of community development we met with the police department and the fire department to review the project the project to make sure that we had included all things that they would want so that this site plan review would be complete and then when the chris question was raised at man management from one tree hill meeting about historic district issue we consulted with them so we tried really hard to reach out to people and we've tried really hard to be thorough and to give you a complete application and i think the input that we dragway that that here was close to a fence that it is on today's plan so we've tried to do is take that into consideration in the package and in the words that we'll see there are some photo simulations those photo simulations are a direct result of questions posed by the land management committee to ask us what will it look like from the pool world or from our walking trail off or they're on their students here and then they go back out to school sometimes they're skewing on the school and so we think under the new condition we'll be able to alleviate that on this new entrance is located  a couple of other things i want to point out there's a dumpster that's located here at the this location people can see it if it's not on the corner of the building that we screen with a seven foot tall wooden fence that we got during the early phases of class just talking to different people so those pieces now of but the field they will be ground spaces and we believe that those will be overflow spaces there was a traffic study that was done for the project country so the east elevation is the one that faces into the school the core center of the school the building is twenty five thousand eight hundred square feet and it's forty corrugated metal siding with flat panels there are two warm great colors here and there absolute colors of marigolds and you can see that the the marigold is more prominent on the portions of the building that face into the school and less prominent on the western nation in the celebration which face out towards the open space and to the cemetary these plants show landscaping again as it's proposed in the landscaping plants and these are the plants that would be installed at about the time of the certificate of occupancy or so initially at the time the landscaping is installed  shows what it looks like under current conditions and this is obviously winter so these are the conditions when the the building might likely be most usable this experience shows that building actually being placed onto the site and you can see approximately what it looks like in the last plant is if you look in here you'll see behind the trees now with the plantings that we have proposed and they're showing these lands this is approximately what you'll see from the coal road that address the current issues and the traffic will meet the requirements for it right away there will not be any additional stress or under stress on questions and comments from the audience yes  think the project has a number of positives that outweigh any possible negatives by my count there or eleven houses that would be positively impacted by reducing the flow of traffic access to those of us who live on a school lane as well as the school i've mentioned for thirteen months ago a huge tree fell cross the road with my tree efficiency and we tend to do this in a lot of hearings where there's a lot of people speaking if you have more than one question for the applicant i'd appreciate it if you if everyone speaks months in so you ask all of your questions and then we can allow the applicant to to respond and keep things i spent time in state and local government and politics and since i moved in i've been very surprised that the school has not been much more proactive in reaching out to community and trying communities around transportation management because they inevitably have a an outsize impact on the communities because you have students faculty patients coming in go away there's very specific methodology around traffic medication that have been developed around research analysis none of which the school seems to engage in at all you can go to leslie university you can go to mount auburn hospital go online and you can see numerous examples of the kinds of things that he's he's institutions that are wonderful missions but they have a very very outsized impact on the communities with regard to traffic and environmental concerns and there's ways to address those things which school is not done given that i was stunned last week to get a notice from the planning board that the school had been working on this project for six eight months in the community and i had no idea five within an hour i was on the phone to neighbors on both sides none of us had been aware of  every had houses and when these types of matters were before a planning board i know what i did and that was i went around the neighborhood i knocked on people's doors and spoke with them make sure i had contact with people and let them know what i was planning to do the reactions were always positive i try to do the best to respond to them because i know that at the end of the day when you communicate with people when you consult with them they're much more likely to go along and be cooperat and the school to simply has not done that in this case and we need time to make sure that the people at uni aware of this development impact on traffic other aspects of our community and hopefully to you know again i am hoping that of a local level we can play much more ridiculous when they're anticipating over a thousand cars per day traveling on that boat so what i ask is that i think the school the plight and they really by withdrawing their application for a few months so we can make sure the people the community a in the ninety days that the school has been in the existence ninety years has there ever been another time were they fooling has been blocked hold on a second are those all your questions because i need i need the up against to come to the mike in interviews themselves the answer so our home audience again can hear ok the planning board will really we can ask questions later we're not really at that point so so i didn't do a great job it describing the traffic because i because i knew that these questions were going to come up but we have  basic engineering who did that and i think just to respond to the first speaker of the second speaker i'm sorry that they will not be a thousand trips per day and so i'd like to have him come up if you can and and just answer those questions before we currently generates was done over two days last fall when school was fully in session and the average for those two days was nine hundred fifty vehicle trips a vehicle trip is one car in one car out so you get that and have to get a number of cars so nine fifty cut that happens for seventy five so that's how we get number of cars so if we have a one way  driveway and one way our driveway primarily for school where the portion of this building for the eleven residents will still remain to way for them but we will be texting for our graphic we'll have four hundred seventy five cars coming in over the course of an average day at the entrance and the foreigners say five as what goes in must come out will be coming out the existing day schooling based our projections on the schooling to spates that you know they expect some growth is common in forty five additional students over the next five years approximately so that also helped us to do some traffic projections based on what the school apparently generates at how many trips per student  and that so that increase comes out to be one hundred fifty eight vehicle trips again cut that in half the number of cars if my math is correct at seventy nine so we'll add seventy nine to the four hundred seventy five and we get about five hundred and seventy four i think that would be using the new entrants over the force of an average day going in and then five hundred seventy four coming out over the course of an average day so it's not no one your thousand  thank you would you like to answer the remaining questions of someone  so the one on september first the meeting was held on september first so the letter was provided or that the note was provided on the doors prior to that and it reads that we look forward to welcoming our neighbors to a wine and cheese meet and gree belmont day school's new head of school a go for the evening is to make new connections and answer any questions you may have a neighbor relations are priority for from one day school we truly hope to keep all lines of communication open and there's some contact information  welcoming our neighbors to a wine and cheese gathering to which all our goal for the evening is to make new connections explain future plans for belmont day school and answer any questions you may have it goes on to say neighbor relations are priority for bella day school we truly hope to keep all lines of communication open and there's contact information finally the last meeting was on wednesday january twenty fifth at six thirty in the evening we look forward to welcoming our neighbors to a wine and cheese gathering coolidge hall our goal for the evening is to explain future plans for the on a day school and answer any questions you may have  project has been unfairly and inaccurately portrayed in this letter you should know that i am strongly in favor of b d s is planned for a new building it's modest in romantic spanish and and the new driveway all of which are the result of  careful long term inclusive planning process that has included the entire b b s community and all of its near neighbors the construction project proposes results from several years of study and planning driven by the school needs as i've said many times within the b d s community if b d s could accomplish its program magic objectives without incurring the expenses of a new building it certainly would however in order to offer the best possible education opportunities  represents a major financial burden for our small educational community i was indeed surprised to learn that the driscoll just recently learned of the proposed plan as they have been invited three separate community informational events at a school and have received every communication the school has produced for its own current student and family community the neighbors claim that they were not informed of b d s as planned and their implication the b d s was trying to be secretive in its planning could not be further from the truth in fact i cannot imagine an institution going further to engage its neighbors and being more responsive to their concerns this whole line of reasoning seems entirely disingenuous to me as for the stated trap concerns about traffic langlade the congestion on concord ave s i think is a gross overstatement this letter implies that b s has experience enormous growth recently leading to this congestion this is not the case and rowland has in fact been relatively stable for more than the last decade what has changed y it is a narrow road not designed for high speed however none of these facts will be affected by b d s is new driveway as for the driveway itself the true impetus for it is in fact the safety of our students the driveway costs are river as a response to the scare we all had last year in which two in which a tree fell across they school lane blocking all access to the school by emergency vehicles and parents for several hours including my two small children the school was forced to evacuate the children across concord ave on foot to belmont hill club a dangerous endeavor in and of itself i can understand why some neighbors might have some misgivings about the new driveway in their midst but to assert that this driveway will as will be the source of additional risks to public safety is just plain wrong it will alleviate traffic provide an additional access point for emergency service personnel and will greatly lower the burden residents of day school lane currently bear the folks who wrote this letter to you have every right to their opinions and to be heard publicly however they have crossed a line of harassed me that should not go unchallenged a school provides tremendous benefits to the town of belmont and its current building plans have all been developed with the interests of the schools long term strength and safety of all of its members all the members of its community and mine the process that has been followed has been entirely transparent i would urge the town to building permit at this time delaying it will add an unfair and unnecessary financial burden to our little school inhibiting its ability to fulfill its noble mission the planning board would agree to delay consideration for thirty sixty or ninety days so that all the neighbors and their experts and so on could evaluate this proposal which the day school and its team had the probably six to eight months to prepare and then all of a sudden we're given about eleven days to review it that's just doesn't seem to make much sense so that's something i would very much like to ask you folks to do  everybody's clear on that leslie because because the creation of an unrelated intersection next to my house because the dover amendment ends with a towns property begins the times property begins and covered avenue turn up on to the so called driveway and with ice and snow on the bus driver can't maintain control of the bus and the bus tips over and there's a lot of injured or god forbid dead children they school is going to have to eat that and so are you because the attorney general's office made it clear that they consider it as a local responsibility not a state responsibility so you can't throw it back at the state do you folks give that some so it really receiving those letters that were read earlier that none of us really clearly understood and we had a lot of things from the day school and since my daughter went to school there we get yes all the time it's you know they're great neighbor and we love the day school but they could clear about what was going to discussed at those at those meetings and then the last point i wanted to make about the driveway the new driveway you know i think you guys purchased that land back when the cemetery was built and i think there was an indication that it was going to be used for a drive way back event at some point in the future or at least that was always our expectation that there may be that that may occur in the future so i think i don't think it's i think it's a little disingenuous to use the tree falling as the impetus to create that driveway because it's always kind of been there since it's been purchased for a future reason to do that so i think that you guys should be really clear and say look you know we've been we've been expanding over the years we went from we went to a middle we went to a middle school fifteen years ago we expanded we built we're likely going to continue to do that and we may want to think about other dresses in the future as opposed to talking about a any other comments from the community points it seems like twenty feet is really wide for a driveway cardoza so the width of the driveway is a requirement of the fire department the pave surface will be twenty feet wide and that's because that's the space that they need for emergency intersection might look like the reason i ask is that it's looks like it should be one way on the plan but it seems like twenty feet would allow for two way traffic and i am not sure if are plans in the future that you don't know about yet for changing and i'm sure you you don't know what those plans are now i can tell you that we had this and never driveway and we met with the fire department we were told that fiasco provided draft minutes of the minutes of meetings that we informally had with members of a school in october and in january i am here actually try and i have supplied extra another letter today with some additional questions because i was able to review the materials that were provided with the application just less than two weeks ago and i think that the neighbors really deserve a little more time because the stormwater which has not really been mentioned is pretty significant up there on the cemetery we have a detention area just because there is a tremendous amount of underground springs as well as a running water across the site and we would encourage the neighbors to be able to really take a look at that storm water as well as the traffic counts it seems like eleven days the five hundred five page storm water document is hardly readable within that short period of time so i would encourage both a day school and the neighbors to see if we can kind of come together and decide what might be the best path forward but it's going to take a little more time we'll take one more comment and then i think we will need to continue this hearing to another date to allow us to prepare for a town meeting so go ahead tom hanks live on ninety nine clark street in belmont i have kids who have gone to go to belmont day and kids who've gone to the belmont public schools as well just want to come specifically on the roof driveway question that's always been a possibility the reason the timing for the driveway is now is not having if you do with the expansion of the students in the school it's a little bit of a synergy with if you're doing construction building a separate driveway makes the access to the school at that time less disruptive and it's frankly cheaper to build them together than separately thank you so obviously i'm nor devil and i live up in the neighborhood we have been massively affected by the day school construction and construction construction through water it's been very very very inadequate lots of promis we have noise from the back buildings and i find it really ironic that the cemetery which was so thoughtfully planned out is now going to have a driveway right smack up against a stone wall l of the road so we actually you know i can understand there are people who don't have a driveway in front of them now that are going to have one and so they're going to be cars passing in front of their house and that's a regrettable result a greater public safety thank you so let me just go over process a little bit more will we will need to continue this hearing we need an opportunity as a board to ask questions of the applicant and to have a discussion among ourselves  in the interim if there are additional comments in will we will probably have a very limited time at the next hearing for some additional comments in response to review of the large packet of materials that were submitted it is possible on a number of you have submitted materials in writing if you choose to do that the planning board assuming you don't do it at the very last moment does review those take those comments indicate situation as we ask questions of the applicant so please do consider that an opportunity because we will need to keep this this process moving but i think for this evening cardoza to the extent that you could share your concerns with us now my only fear is that we'll get to may second and then we won't have been able to make make much progress and i understand that your agend is full at the next meeting but if you have any comments that you'd be willing to share now we appreciate that you don't unfortunately think we have the time for that we're already at the end of our meeting jeffrey i don't know if there's any other option for  opportunity for the board to ask questions because you haven't had that opportunity yet of the applicant then you could find time on the thirteenth if it's to open up the entire public hearing such as tonight there's not enough room on the thirteenth to do that  unrealistic to that we could this even bring up the issues that have come up today in ten minutes i think if we have we either take twenty or thirty minutes or we postpone i think and i don't know all right i think we should and i think we need i'm concerned that we would mislead you if we gave you ten minutes on me on april thirteenth because i suspect there will be more questions that come up for april second and i think we well you know give us time to engage but i'd like to make a motion that we move to continue a public hearing to add to may second second  that was exactly what was required right to move on to  with the exception of the neighborhood determination my understanding is that we would have gotten a petition there sixty three underwood has asked to continue ye all right so we will do those things very quickly at the end but let us now turn to amendments to the signed by law unless you need a moment to set up jeffrey in which case we will turn to the in that case we'll turn to the opposed yes out what's required is the circle right writes yank you both both sides of jeanette and but then draw the line between jeanette  and to be more inclusive i think yeah i think i think so because all those we'll all those structures reflect the house that's under this the house that's under discussion here i think geoffrey did a pretty good job when he went up on that having concluded the neighborhood determination of having concluded could we now move along jeffrey ok so  all right so this is a draft of our presentation to town meeting so it'll be a broad overview of what we did to develop the amendments and it will not be a deep drill down but if there are any particular points the you think need to be made along the way please do point them out because that is really the point of this run tonight so we'll go forward spencer so why and then the cleaning board picked up this sign by law streetscape remained consistent with this upgrade that we the upgrade efforts there ongoing by ensuring that our signed by law were up to par we looked at twenty four comparable communities to get a sense of what our bylaws may be missing it is actually been thirty years since the last time there was a close review an update of this out of the signed by laws so we are updating standing signs a window signed provisions and having a sandwich board provision as we looked around town at times we realized that there was a significant loophole in our signed by law and there was actually nothing to regulate awnings sign sizes we've included that to close that loophole as well and as we did our review of the twenty four comparable communities we also identified some other additional gaps to strengthen the assigned by laws to address temporary signs prohibited signs maintenance of existing signs and non conforming signs finally in twenty fifteen there was a supreme court decision addressing noncommercial signs and how they need to be treated and signed by laws consistent with first amendment rights so john council did recommend some additional provisions to ensure that we are in compliance and fisa challenge   constitutional grounds so as i mentioned some of these we're looking at standing signs window signs sandwich board signs awning and marquee stein's as well as temporary signs prohibitions maintenance nonconformity non commercial signs to the extent we come into compliance with the supreme court decision as well as sort of a little whisky patra to us for a waiver in certain circumstances sign that you see on the right which is smaller and lower in terms of window signs we identified a significant loophole in the window sign in the window signed by a law which currently allows for fifty percent coverage of windows which is a significant amount and actually this is one of the areas where where the members of the planning board had heard from the community that our store windows looked cluttered as compared to other communities and we wanted to see that clutter visual clutter eliminated so we are moving we are proposing to move from fifty percent coverage on windows down to twenty percent which is consistent with our neighboring  communities as i mentioned there was absolutely nothing governing the size of the actual physical size of awnings or marquees themselves nor was there any limitation on the signs the lettering in the logos that could be place on those awnings on our cheese as well as the complete signage of the of the business so currently under existing sign laws one can have a sign on their  on the window and on the building which could create a lot of issue of clutter and we're seeking to eliminate or manage that situation in light of the fact that we are working hard to improve the  pedestrian friendly nature of our our town center and other commercial areas we also wanted to address sandwich board signs so we've added a provision that limits the we also identified really almost no regulation of temporary signs so temporary science could easily become permanent signs which is part of the visual clutter problem that we had previously identified with  coverage allowance and so we of included a definition of what constitutes a step a temporary sign it cannot be up for more than ninety days and it cannot be repeated for four months thereafter we also identified through looking at our comparable community bylaws that nearly all of those committees included express prohibitions on signs so we have added a provision that parallels other towns  prohibited signs that includes no flashing signs no light illumination other than by white light snow string lights except around the holidays no signs obstructing egress and a couple of other provisions that are fairly standard in communities we've added i mean it's provision as well this is intended to ensure that there is a reasonable amount of maintenance on signs to eliminate the dilapidated some of the dilapidated signs that aren't that exist around town that are really taking away from the streets so we require we propose a provision that requires repair or removal after notice that meeting minutes is needed we added a non conforming sign provision the idea is that  changes in any existing sign that is non complying requires it to come into compliance with the bylaws themselves in addition for any sign that is fallen into disrepair such that refer bish meant would cost more than thirty five percent of the replacement value he would require at that rather than refurbished that non conforming son and signed owner needs to bring it into conformity noncommercial sign provisions i mentioned earlier are really just recommendations from town council to ensure that the treatment of noncommercial signs in town is allow for similar treatment or not more regulation for noncommercial signs than we have for commercial signs to ensure compliance with that supreme court case finally and this was really motivated by i think our struggle with developing an awning and marquee sign provision which we really drafted  without the benefit of a lot of comparable community guidance because this town does have now a lot of awning and marquee signs and we've created what's is a by law we have allow some flexibility to permit signs that don't meet the strict requirements of the bylaws so long as the sign is consistent with the purposes of the bylaws so that allows some room for someone who would like to  adjust measurements were other tweaks on a given sign to come before this board and request a waiver is really good i think the key point i mean you haven't done nothing's been done with this for thirty years and that that you really can't just twenty four communities i mean i mean those are two points that maybe rolled out there but they're not lost on  me but i think that some of the points of emphasis something else what is the rationale for when one this the owner of a right so it's not varies by as we went through it i was in less in less it has i have my concern is making visual distinctions when there are no underlying substantive distinctions that you're trying to convey is generally doesn't win new the agency prize there i think probably just eliminate i mean it's very hard to think about how to be consistent with color treatment might be influenced i mean we were even struggling remember sometimes appear in the final you could use it to indicate where there's a defined term happens is that people turn around if they have a sign that it is in the best shape they work you know peevishly to to get it into good shape so that they don't have to conform to the new by a law which will allow you know pdates and let us do whatever is jeffrey for anything in the way of updates and cases that we s a that would read it would raise the required it would restrict development  thought is in terms of i am somewhat reluctant to take that up at this point since it is i'm on time to the next town meeting and there's nothing terribly useful that we can do with it i'd be happy to jeffrey you and i can sit down with them and have a working or and or anyone else who would like to with jeffrey sit down and have a working group discussion but i do not really see this is like a dress rehearsal for maybe a citizens petition type of thing no i mean they're not getting anything more than their right to our interest to move in that direction i agree with you i mean i don't think at this stage knowing that we have our meeting confusing at this point to introduce something that will come to town meeting i do here in two weeks from now that it's in any world