that it's it's good to see so many people here this evening i'd like to begin with item one of the agenda  pacifically identified in the planning board one year extension of the special permit dated december fourth have ruefully committed to the continuation of their financing commitment and continue to have internal attorneys and consultants actively engaged in moving toward closing essentially all key long documents are signed and held in escrow both lenders have agreed to speak to members of the planning board and or the selectmen to confirm the significant progress made to date and the intent to float to the development team has been internally strengthened rob lowering the principal and smith legacy partners and an individual having thirty years experience in business in both residential and commercial real estate has been added to the day to day leadership team and will be assisting krista three the most significant impediment to completion of the loan in december was certain requirements for leaf leas modification with the national anthem the changes proved challenging as it required attention from major international companies during the holiday season the te completing a deal and expects a signed lease shortly for the applicant has submitted to the planning board the definitive site and building plans as referred to in section twelve c of the special permit by a submitted completed december twenty second twenty fifteen and i will ask jeffrey to speak to that at the completion of the reading of the letter the development team looks forward to working with the planning board in its professional staff in the review of these plants that it concludes smith legacy partners and our lenders remain committed to the belly of the development team is there for confident that significant progress will be made over the next month we would respectfully request that the planning board stand still close close until its scheduled meeting on february second the team hopes to inform the board of a long closing at that meeting or before in the meantime we would like to schedule an to really pursue it further if the closing wasn't going to happen that was slated for december eighteenth the definitive plans there are actually not the pride for four we view on till february first so there was some time on that as i said given the fact that the closing was in limbo and didn't make sense to spend too much time on those plans but perhaps you could describe briefly for the benefit of anyone watching what what that submission consists of that submission should be all the building plans relative to achieving being able to secure a building permit in order to build the project the key point of that and why it was set up as a condition that those plants need to be submitted was to make sure to verify indeed that all the conditions that were attached to the special permit are indeed in captured in those building permit building plans before a building permit was issued so it is an internal review just to make sure that to cross check and cross reference  three we had just to recap our last discussion we had planned to take no action at this meeting like  hindsight scheduling a closing against a holiday that deadline may have been somewhat optimistic but in any case if not we have a report saying that progress has been made have said had some conversation with the village but what i'd like to do is just go around the board and get people's comments comments and questions particularly with respect to the were a number of significant details involving surface details of the of the design and materials and if there are any questions in obviously as we get closer to launch i mean communication is key i mean i think that's probably been the one thing both as a resident and now a member of the planning board that has been probably the most challenging if you will in the last period up until today i think i'm encouraged by the call for weekly updates or more frequent communication i think that will help allay some of the concerns but action is going to speak louder than words and i agree with rafi i think the communication has been a challenge so far i'm disappointed that it took until today you know till we arrived at this meeting just see this letter on the table explaining that they had closed under some very i mean i understand there was a holiday but they spent a significant amount of time and made a number of promises when they were here asking for that extension and so i find that a little frustrating and i think the residents deserve more transparency and i hope that this event is the last of  those that lack you know such transparency and delayed communication as the project continues it looks like it should i have one question for jeffrey and that's whether the building plans submitted are for one building or for the entire project or you know what i don't remember but i believe they are for the  which is from the point of view of the economics of the program of the project is a significant building because it is the building in which the ratio of retail and commercial and residential is the highest was here last time and i was like you never left like i never left although it seems like you've made some progress on this i'm surprised actually having been on the other end of this i'm a commercial real estate when i do projects like this all the time and when you're getting to the point where you're getting it so that you know and if you if you do appraisals you're not a developer i'm not developed i do just marshal real estate in his crate and i look at projects like this all the time that are going through the financing and this is this is a construction loan which is different than the permanent financing or typically on these things when when they're going for the construction financing most things are in place and approvals are in place and this is a long process that i think has happened in terms of this i'm encouraged that it seems like they're very close to the end on this and that this will be the first building that goes in place that will be great it remains to be seen what they've presented to us i'd like to take a look at that the see if that represents the checklist of what was asked for by the planning board and once that's in place that we can expeditious to a couple questions for discussion one is i think that certainly the notion of better info better communication is key it would probably be good to go back to them i would i would think just having been through this process from the beginning i don't think that would be a bad idea and that would be part of our our checklist in terms of the project we have to do checklist against the presentation of the architectural drawings and the construction if your eyes were going to have to do checklist against the materials that are going to be presented we might as well get a muslim moving along and get get some communication from them on a weekly basis i think the i think project is important enough i think it's at the point where we ought to ask for that i get with that i mean there's no update in a given week it's not a burden for them to just send  suggesting to something like an e mail rather than a phone call i think that's much to be preferred by phone call if we're not everyone can participate and there is no record of y but the i think a concern that we had and was well how many how many twists and turns made lie ahead and there are no guarantees and we will obviously speculate about something we will know so soon on the second this looks more like a hunch list then any document we've gotten from them to this point  d that's so that they it it has the flavor of they've got visibility to the end of the transaction that's never a guarantee that it's going to happen but it's an absolute requirement for clo then if it doesn't have one other thing to add which i don't know if jeffrey or liz you're we'll be in communication with them but i think that it would be helpful if you know they didn't wait to close until february first and because they have another deadline that should be met that they probably won't be meeting given that they haven't closed which is demolition by january fifteenth and i think that it would be a very  important showing for the town that they begin to militia and by the time we see them in february second if at all possible i think that's an excellent point and i will certainly convey that since if you plan to close the morning  second and appear that evening and say you're going to close the odds that this won't happen go up a lot that you need one sick person and that's a little bit of an exaggeration but it doesn't work out so i would certainly pas pushing village team here this evening and i told them i thought it was not necessary that we much preferred something clear and in writing on the second we should probably have a representative of the team here place and be comparable communities just that we look at that to see if there was any thing resembling zoning on this issue or regulation on it and these are the communities as i say that the financial is some discussion of it but there is there are no more and there are no models within comparable communities that does not mean there is no zoning and no regulation anywhere in massachusetts but not in would say you had a two family house with three family house two that mean you could not rent of the first floor apartment as a or b and b because it would be if it was more than three and i think with that the first question yes do we wish that we are not with out we are not scraping for items to take up do we feel that and again i threw this out is an entirely open question given that there are no towns that have taken it you know do we wish to take it up  do know a two family house and i have tenants there if one of my tenants decides to supplement their income by offering a bedroom as an air b n b my other tenet could be inconvenienced because there's cars coming and going there's people coming in at night and their skis being shuffled under mats are what i'm petty trying to create the the imagery that will make my case i think that and i as a landlord don't know about it and i think that is an  issue that impacts my quality of life the quality of life of my neighbors and it may not be something that we may want to take up in earnest you know in the short term but i think that's coming to us with the advent of the web to kind of pro and i agree with karl on rafi's conclusions i think we'll see this eventually i don't think that now is the time and i think that eric smith's memo actually convinced me of that you know there's been one instances but with certain conditions he identifies as a problem a problem that we have faced in other contexts which is if there are conditions or if there is an existing bylaw who's enforcing it and how what are the town resources for that and i don't think that we've seen enough requests or examples of air b n b situations for us to have really thought through the situation to to to be in a place where i would feel confident that we came up with a bylaw that addressed all the concerns that that might come up i think it is premature need to let it play out a little bit longer meeting this spring you know is that on the other hand it should perhaps go on the list of summer projects if we we need to start thinking about what might be a way forward and at the minimum look at what other it would be terrific if another community did this first because we could then learn from their experience and that is so much better than basis and then for the research is done to see whether or not the extent of what's done and where it is and do they have any licensing and what's silver and i see that mr pale low vice chair of the board of selectmen is with us this evening is this the we are we are of course pleased to have you with us regardless of your area of interest if this is your particular area of interest and you wish to say something on the on behalf of the board of selectmen or on your all thank you madam chair just quietly sitting back because i want to tender mean seating but there are you and what we will do is as we host town meeting come back to this issue put together a plan for following up on the monitoring looking at whether other towns are doing and seeing if we can shape special projects and this maybe this is something we will talk about at our next meeting this may be one of the projects say we may want to consider some kind of a mixed committee planning board member and some community members to take a look at this but i might point out your yes i was going to say if this i the town staff could track over the next several months so that we could at least report on this issue at the brain tell me i'd be great that's  barbara if i might ask you to read did you notice notice is hereby given that the belmont playing board will hold a public meeting on tuesday january fifth two thousand and sixteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen meeting room town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of bell atlantic mobile doing business as verizon wireless michel no agent for the design and site plan review under section six point eight and seven point three of the zoning by law to install an interior wireless telecommunications facility within the steeple an associated building at five eighty two pleasant street located in a single residence the zoning district are matters of public record and so as a partner in that firm i'm going to recuse myself to avoid any improper appearance of impropriety and mr to step in no when this matter was originally brought to the historic district commission you were among those who signed a petition i know that you had felt that you ought to consult with the state ethics committee and reach a decision as to whether you should go i'm going to refuse myself far and for for those who have any question about it we are also the the fact that you are a board member is or is not a varieties and wireless subscriber does not require i am but that does not require as others on the board may be but that does not require us to recuse ourselves any more then  board member needs to recuse themselves in a budget discussion because the school budget is being discussed and they have someone a child in the boston public school system  of at least one hearing at the at the historical commission which involved replacing the steeple in order to install the antennas within the plymouth church this does not involve replacing the steeple this involves installing the antennas at the level of the cube in the church so it's still a cellular facility in the church but it does not involve the replacement of a steeple i just want to make sure people knew what we were talking about in case there is any confusion and i had seen some like the nature of this project is to install wireless communications equipment and antennas in the church it would be an interior wireless facility the equipment would all be on the second floor attic area i guess you would put it of the church and there would be an interior room built and upgrading the wiring and so forth needed to accommodate the the equipment at that level then there would be cable in that ran up to the cube below which sits on top of that level and there would be intent as place behind each of the louvers in that steeple so that we will be two antennas behind each of the   there needs to be an r f permeable radio permeable material in front of the antennas the proposal would be to replace the existing wood louvers in the church with identical louvers that were made of a looks from a distance of three or four feet very similar and the distance of fifty feet which is where you are on the building from the ground i would submit you can't tell the difference between this material and what the louvers are now hayes subject and you prepared this at a time when the church was planning to have two different companies in the place actually over studies potential impact even so it concludes that there's less than one percent of the regular  churches diligence and we have we had a south tower committee and i'm really proud of the work that they did they talk to experts they held a town hall meeting they really did  thorough job of vetting this and making sure that we were comfortable moving forward with the lease as i said i live in the area i live over and when brook area on farnham street and i work in the building and my son will be going to the nursery school next year i have a two and a half year old and so we care a lot about the people use our building and wouldn't care a lot about the neighborhood one do anything that would endanger or diminish the neighborhood in any way and we do know that there are some concerns from our neighbors and we really regret that there is concerns from the neighborhood as a church we don't share those concerns having looked talk that supports having looked at this plan feeling that it's a very reasonable plan we really see this is a win win improving cell coverage for an area that really needs it i was of horizon subscriber and now i'm a t mobile subscriber because they have a they actually have a tower in town over and belmont savings bank and so i can actually get reception from them and so and then also help us improve our  building our building is a contributing building it's not historic building itself but it we've been there for seventy five years and the building is starting to age and it's time to make major meeting its commitments to it and this would be an ability ability to paint the steeple repair the paint beautifier our building most of the revenue from this will go towards maintaining our building and keeping it beautiful and well maintained and i think any effect on property value or anything like that you know a good fully maintained building prominently in town like that is so important and we take a lot of pride plymouth has been part of th community for over one hundred years and take a lot of pride in being good citizens and we think this project will help us say strong and vibrant and of the future so i really hope that  all i had to say so thank you guys so much for listening to me and thank you i mean thank you and unfortunately i have an interview for some for someone who may be working at the church later and i have to excuse myself so you had a committee that was looking at opportunities to explore whether or not we were approached by originally eighteen actually i think originally horizon than eight hundred eighty and then eighty is dropped out as just just rising at this  point and so we were approached by them and then the committee was formed to do due diligence and they were actually pretty patient with us because we took our time talking to the congregation and the way that a congregational church works is we put things to votes  we put a committee together that's very democratic and then our committee made a presentation to our church and our church voted and our church was overwhelmingly in support of this so and i think that has to do with the leadership of that committee doing such thorough talking to physicists talking to structural engineers talking to other churches that also have nursery schools and selling tennis talk to other churches that also or in historic districts that also have tennis like trinitarian congregation the questions that i had which may be an unintended consequence of engaging to a lease relationship with over rising is whether or not that may affect your tax status and whether or not you had any contact with your we hope your interview goes well and now questions and then i see we have floor in my chair of the co chair co chair chair co chair of the historic district commission so i'll ask my fellow board quarter i didn't see in the plans but i was wondering if there was any discussion of the feasibility of preserving the existing wooden louvers on the off chance that the world changes engineers if that's the only possible they can be salvaged ok so it's not so we would be willing to to make that happen if it's possible to do that there's no the story but he has to keep at it with my questions i have two questions actually i see the condensed who's on the side is there a generator as well in case power goes off there is sure is not a generator if there was a need to bring a generator on site because there was an extended outage in the area and the police or somebody wanted the site to make sure the site didn't shut down there the ability to do that but there will be but there's not a permanently installed generator at this typically i mean you know some of these drawing on our earlier experience and then i want to see if miss marr's wants to make a comment we probably would want me post wellington we always want to see the  any noise generating whitman that is going to be installed particularly the  with one of the public schools here is that if you get that one wrong mind going to stew you spend a lot of time trying to get it right off and  i did not have an opportunity to talk with our polite department in terms of electric love is there anything notable particularly in terms of peak period usage soon we will have questions these miners would you care to come up introduce yourself and comment on behalf of the historic district mission thank you madam chairman my name is lauren meyer i'm co chair of the historic district mission and as was mentioned earlier we did see an earlier version of this proposal in march of two thousand and fifteen at that time there was a fairly large turnout and discussion about the proposal and we did this review as part was discussed earlier that said there are two alterations to the exteriors the building that the commission feels it would be subject to review by the commission and that is the replacement vers with a substitute material and second the condensers on the rear of the building because both of those elements are visible from a public way that said you know i think we've worked with pumice congregational church on other projects you know we always you know hope that we can get to get to a good outcome for everybody so i think it's just a matter of you know going through the process with the commission  however those you know in our guidelines i will say that our guidelines do say that generally you know replacement with substitute materials is not something that we generally do approve but we always look at every project on a case by case basis so my suggestion simply yes that they just need to come to the historic district commission for a certificate of appropriateness if i could just as you say yes anyone  to comment when we do apply we'll we'll work with them on the material issue but i would encourage miss meyer to take a look at this while she's here so she can at least see what it is we're proposing to do i've read their guidelines also it's not an absolute that you can't specifications of a particular need including they can include you know some level of architectural detail if there's detail so these can be manufactured to look identical to what's up there i'm not sure those are architectural design as you point out they're not actually i don't think you could particularly historic elements of that building but nonetheless they're up there and we want to make it look as much like that as possible and that's possible with this manufacture i think it certainly appears not to have the sheen of the old style fiberglass cast material that sometimes with applications like  ask why there needs to be another cell antenna erected in the belmont center area we already have someone top of the belmont savings bank we have some  on top of the police station and not so many years ago we erected a tower at the top of concord avenue on the former mclean property with multiple antennas and when that installation went  in word was given to us that this was going to cover the town and we would need to worry about anymore selling tennis going into residential neighborhoods at that point so i'm wondering why there is there is such a need to i think there was  yes eric anderson five forty pleasant street i believe the truth is that the the science about the long term health effects of living underneath a cell tower are really not known they can't be at this time because of  how long the technology's been out the lack of studies and for this reason until the science is settled and we know that it's safe i don't want to live under one  from talking to my neighbors an overwhelming majority of them do not want to live under one either and i guess i'm really shocked that a christian church would push this in spite of knowing the opposition of the neighbors jesus says the second greatest commandment is love your neighbor as yourself and he also says treat others as you would have them treat you so i would like not to live under assault our and i know my neighbors would not until we know the science is settled that it is safe thank you i'm one more holly stratford i'm a member of the church but i also live about three or four blocks down on alexander and farm road and i have terrible self perception i cannot conduct a telephone conversation on a cell phone in my house it's constantly dropped and i can't have people call me there on the cell phone because it's not reliable and so i can attest to the fact that the current cell tower coverage in town does not cover everyone in maurice along with my wife jackie is right back there we live at fourteen alexander rav which is adjacent to the church on the east side our properties are contiguous we bought the property in two thousand and one one of the reasons we love the area where home is situated is the distance to belmont center coupled with the fact that alexander as a quiet street particularly in the evening the only time the street is crowded is the beginning and end of the school day when parents are arriving in vehicles to drop off and pick up their children from the preschool and after school programs which are situated in the churches ground level here that's a picture of a typical morning on alexander rav morning and afternoon during those times when there is drop off and pick up the reason i mention this is that we occasionally cannot get it in or out of our driveway and emergency would be quite difficult if not impossible for emergency equipment to get down our one way block of alexander if we object to the cell tower project on several counts and we have questions regarding the plans that we that we found online  before going into these objections i want to just mention that i provided to geoffrey wheeler who forward of them to me the other day the members of the board the names of one hundred six neighbors who signed this petition entitled neighbors against cell tower at plymouth church which i believe jeffrey is forwarded to you caused copies of these signatures were presented to the historic commission at info meeting last spring as well as the town selectmen the application for horizons design and site plan review was received and stamped by town clerk belmont mass at nine thirty eight am christmas eve notices via a postcard advertising tonight's meeting were immediately sent out and we received ours at fourteen alexander avenue december twenty sixth in the mail i've spoken with several of my neighbors so far home able to contact with at with who did not receive this postcard and have still not received any information regarding tonight's meeting townhall did not really have an explanation as to exactly why some designated parties referenced on your above his list did not receive the mail all i'm trying to point out is that there is no reasonable way for all concerned the betters and citizens of the community to know that this meeting is taking place right now unless perhaps they have their town's website up on their computer screen when you turn on your computer the first the neighborhood heard of the churches proposed plans regarding a cell tower was that week that school let out for summer vacation in june two thousand and fourteen the church and verizon have shown a consistent pattern of scheduling these meetings at times when it is common knowledge that many residents will be out of town around available to major grievances that we have  of the noise level of a printed tent equipment listed on for risings plans to be placed on the rooftop of the elevator building which is approximately twelve feet from my property line and living space this equipment described appears to be in violation of section six point eight point two letter c under dimensional regulations of wireless telecommunications facilities and a pertinent equipment to be located within twenty five feet of a single family residence i've spoken with captain herb the belmont police department who explained how the readings of decibel is are taken it is from one property line to the neighboring property lines and measured by a d b meter the equipment mentioned in the h v a c notes on the plans that jeffrey provided me and that are also listed online are listed as one of these units emitting forty eight decibel us and that the equipment necessary to cool the cell tower will require two of these units i'm presuming the reading for two human its will be above that of the one unit and we are already over that night time limits as mentioned in chapter sixteen article six of the general bylaws i am concerned with how often the sound is generated when those condensers go on how it will go on and off what sound is associated with it on the h v a c notes it mentions hard starts i'm a professional musician i don't know exactly what that refers to but i would like to know what that is what kind of humming sound will be coming from the the unit how and where does the condenser is drain will there be run off into our garden into the playground where the children play i want more information on the generators required to run these cell towers i know you mentioned that there are no generators being used but i saw on your plans that there is something referenced about a generator cap being located on the ground i don't know what that is how and when will these condensers be serviced how and when will they be tested something about the g p s units that are mentioned that are going to stand on the railing which will also be visible how can you guarantee that there will be someone on site in the events of an emergency i've already explained that we have traffic is there any really  referencing what sharon has mentioned is there any real and total evidence of drop nine one one calls in our area i have signal i have never had a person tell me that there is no signal even though i hear rumor of this all over town i don't know really have any anecdotal evidence that we've missed an emergency also is it a fire hazard in the steeple that's not going to be replaced so how much heat is going to be generated what if the condenser stop working how do you know what's go happen there it will cause a nuisance and affect the quality of my life which will affect the quality of my family's life i am a musician a professor at berklee college of music for the last twenty eight years i hear sound this pitch and i hear pitches and rhythm this is what professional musicians do i'm an almost twenty year resident of the community a taxpayer and property owner and supportive member of the community i have the right to the quiet enjoyment of my home and my investment and i do not agree with what reverend joe said earlier about that a painted steeple will improve our property values in the neighborhood is well documented that if this wireless telecommunications is allowed by the town to be installed it will affect my property value and it will diminish it as a result we have retained legal counsel that will remain in place during this entire process until it is resolved in a satisfactory manner those condensers will meet the town's bylaw requirements and would provide the specs to the board on those and they also said that if if if if there are two condensers they're not necessarily a work so it's not a given that they're going to be exceeding any any of the requirements he talked about g p s antennas there are two there are g p s antennas like there are on every site those are i guess about the size of my fist they would be mounted behind the fencing that's on the roof where the condensers are located so they are not visible from off the property i disagree with his calculation of the twenty five feet from the equipment to his residence which is what the standard is you know i would know what i believe he uses a portion of the church's property for recreation purposes but that's not actually that is part of the church's property the residence is beyond that line and that's that's what i have on that the i don't think any of the other comments are things we would respond to do you have a different comment please thank you madam chairman my name is evelyn harrell apple i live in a hundred leonard street i have a question for the varieties and team and engineer i understand that you're not going to have a generator attached to the equipment so you'll be relying on the electricity provided through the utilities you have condensers which cool the equipment in the case of a power outage when the condenser is female how much of a hot fire hazard is also in the case of a lightning storm i'd like to know whether the antennas attract lightning and again cause a fire hazard to the steeple mean i would just make this general comment which is there are antennas in hundreds if not thousands of steeples around the country right in massachusetts right in eastern massachusetts this is not a novel application of the technology there are fire wireless world here and all the fire codes there are building codes there are electrical codes everything is going to be according to code you're building inspectors are going to inspect those to make sure they are there is fire suppression systems required that would be installed as part of that but we're not you know we're not in the business of having our sites you know a burn up that wouldn't be practical at all these are built according to code so they don't catch fire current scientific consensus which may not be correct but a pioneering matter is the health impact it's just not part of the design inside plan review it simply plan there's if it's not the appropriate body it's not consistent with the definition of design cycle and we feel so if there are no other questions my my question for my fellow board members is do do we wish to continue this so that we have a chance to review the specs for the h p a see equipment  or do we wish to take a while to see geoffrey you may have a view on this as well we would also review the dimensional issues that were raised earlier i have a question from geoffrey one of the issues that was raised had to do with like the set the the step back from the equipment to the why do they need the requirement and then we would not be looking at that again y that was the only question i had was whether we have enough information and based on based on the drawings that have been submitted to the drawings are correct then it does sound like the issue of and then the question i mean if if we brought up for a vote at this time up and down in terms of what's presented to us in terms of conformity then the only thing that we might that will have to go along with that is that the gentleman who said he read the notes and that was the number at the engineer knows something different but we can certainly accept the condition that says we would provide you with the specs and we would provide you with some kind of certification that it's not going to violate the towns as this gentleman did point out i mean it's it's something that we have to comply with in order to understand either of you know occupy space in town you have to qualify for the noise by a law  that i think that the board's experience with following up on the wellington school demonstrates the board's commitment to make sure that the standards that are submitted actually get built has it in conformity with with the original specifications and i think we cannot judge today in the same way that we would that this that the town staff would be able to do once they're installed and if they get they exceed the town's requirements then there would have to be an alteration made at that time i don't i don't think there's anything to be gained by waiting and i am sympathetic to the to the problem of people being in a neighborhood a long time and having the neighborhood change but i think whatever the changes are i think all of us have seen that happen and and i think the argument that my neighborhood can't change unfortunately is contrary to the history that all of us live with absolutely we would want this as built there's a guest there as opposed to the plans that we've received today we will ask for a new set of plans when this is built the second is that they would louvers be preserved so that they can be reinstalled her your point at some point when the technology allows it should and as the technology allows it and i think it would be a town staff review the decibel level and with the equipment with the full with the full specifications they receive meets the decibels and that is in everyone's interest because if it doesn't rise and we'll have to take it out install new equipment and that does not work as well i mean if it were it solves the problem eventually but it's a hard way to get there so i really would i really would strongly urge you to to to query your engineers very carefully on this point because we know the town will monitor this and if you are very very close to the line as what is what is allowable that's not a great place to be you know that's like builders who build to the exact step and then if in the course of getting it built they're over by one inch there's a big problem so again i just as a condition in the spirit of collegiality but under the counter violence whether we a clue did it or not they would still have to meet this so i think we should include it but i just want to i just want mr meyer to be clear that we understand  that you were not looking to us to give you a thorough to here but right but but but nevertheless i think you will agree that enhances the conditions yes and yes result i'm not speculating about what might happen in this case but i would just postulate that there could be so you know that is a possibility in the review with the historic district commission so the question would motion to close the public hearing i s site for designs i play an installation of interior was to communication facility located at fifty five twenty eight pleasant street with the conditions that were noted before to confirm the as built for setback that would groups that are preserved by the church and to meet the existing the decibels requirements and that they conform to specs in the by and perhaps we might set the stage get jeffrey i could ask you to review the changes that were that were discussed with the  front windows and there was an example of some ways they could have they could have been achieved either adding a window in the middle of the facade middle of the second floor or splitting up the  the other piece was to move the window on the second floor from the far right just move that over a bit more as well the rear elevation were split and moved so they're not an exact same location where before when they were split to break it up to break up the one window into two pieces on the front if that's what you like to call it but i don't have my license so i was just going to introduce yourself yes my name is trevor myron actually the builder with this project on filling in for silas she's on vacation  actual architect for the project i'd actually like to start with just in explaining the landscaping changes as he consulted a arborist or a tree professional in regards to the few items the few trees that are in question and then i can come back and talk about the windows if that's ok just in canyon twenty four of the road so like mr meyer explained i went out because like i said last time we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing because we want these trees to thrive in the environment they will be put in we were told actually that the caliper size upon actually reading verbatim from i can upon again the quote from a tree expert that i consulted with it has nothing to do with the caliper size upon planting a tree that will be winter hardy where you are will be winter hardy no matter what size it is upon planting it hardy tree in the correct zone could be planted as a tiny seedling and it would survive just fine that might be a misunderstanding of from what i thought you might have been saying or maybe how we explained it that we thought you were looking for the caliper size upon planning and possibly you thought we were writing down the maturity calipers eyes no no there's no there's and there's no way  which actually made us make changes to the tree selection were that while we are in zone six boston is nevertheless deep within the new england cold winter and the crape myrtle trees that we had selected are definitely a tree for a southland for california georgia texas and the carolinas not for new england so we changed that it was suggested that since we are in zone six and most of the time when you to choose a tree for the correct zone in a winter hardy winter hearty tree you want to choose a zone lower than your zone so we chose trees in i believe both zones four and five for the replacement trees but again i was adamantly told that the caliper sizes upon planting is does not has quite strong opinions or has very little experience i am not a registered landscape architect but i have worked with a landscape architect for the last twenty five years and the board has set a standard of three and a half to four inches minimum and in my experience in planning trees in belmont and along the charles river is that it absolutely does make a difference what size the tree is when it gets transplanted you're you're not simply growing a tree you're taking a tree that has been in a nursery and you're digging it up and you're replanting it and it makes a huge difference how big how much you're the tree is at the time of transplanting and that's why the board has adopted as a general standard three and a half to four inches ok i think then two then possibly we need to get more mature trees but we want to keep the same species of trees i think that's the difference that we have we are maybe looking at t watching it at home and brought in we don't want that so this is because this is a bush like tree and it's not measured by caliber size the maximum height of th bush like tree is ten feet if you look up the new jane magnolia it's not they'd nobody measures it by caliper size because it's a lot of roots coming from there yeah i think it's probably  that i have in my notes so i won't tend to read them over again i would just like to note that the items that were considered in geoffrey's revisions  us were highly considered on all fronts we went through probably six different renditions of the front elevation on conference calls with the owner and myself the architect we did slide the first floor windows to match up with the second floor windows there was considerable amount of time spent i think the only thing that we are looking at differently is that we're designing and are looking at the house from the inside out and you guys are looking at it from the outside in a passive house from the perspective of a design build process is a little bit more intense than just your conventional home as far as how many windows you can put in the home how much solar heat gain you get from those windows so there's a lot of consideration given to window placement size location and on one elevation so not that we omitted the items that were suggested as of the plan and redline form from jeffrey but we felt the location of those didn't fit with some of the interior items that we were looking to do on second and first floor particularly on the east elevation in as much as we can approximate the context of what it could look like going forward i did do a little field trip if i could share that with the word to your honor i have and in the environs there because there's a lot of creative  i was the one that used the phrase minimalist design that were done in the homes there most of them were to family structures but they spoke to the flavor in the field that i was trying to get to  be but being able to think about your home design from your perspective as i viewed in situ though homes on your own have in the side streets there of you know the one question that i had was what could you do to kind of break up that minimal with feel so to speak i don't know if you can do that with page or with different size citing the fibered there i don't know but that would be some consideration a lot of the homes there were built of as opposed to five aboard and i'm not opposed to five aboard that as a group discussion we have not and we've set a standard that we said that we want to do a would laboratory and i'm not opposed to it i'm just throwing it out for us as a discussion and i understand the need when you're talking about a passive home to take a look at it and it just all the whole thing not just the the door or the window will decid the i believe the front will be broken up and if you look at it from the perspective of house versus the structure in the front the slot wall and away or slats that will be i'm not sure if you're familiar with the wood of it's a dark alley you know resilient hardwood that will have that sort of color to it and the intention of the rest of the houses is to be of a white for the so there was a conflict in the way that the height was measured it was more of it's the way the deed zoning bylaw looks at height its average natural grade to the average point to the second floor of the roof line midpoint of the roof line on the second floor and that's where the number the twenty seven came from the overall height of the structure from average natural greed is thirty three so that's that's where those two numbers are  since i haven't been up to date on this i just didn't know why this was the site plan review because you increasing the size of the crease in the size of the structure just a kenyan twenty four of them  e now we're actually decreasing the footprint but because they were in general residents everything that is done yeah even if it doesn't go over a zoning or anything that there's future design on the on the new plan the twelve twenty five revised plan for the future edition of solar currently in the project budget it's not intended to be there right now but about it it's interesting when you look at the building from the street as you go up is different than when you look at the side and it's very much reminds me of buildings i've seen in cambridge which is a very as opposed to sort of the traditional belmont two families which variate it and have a lot of different elements in terms of you know the size of these present a very flat feature i mean that's that's typical of this kind of architecture  and you don't have the windows popping up where you expect them to in these days and that's the that's an aesthetic choice but that's also a choice in terms of the type of building that building correct the orientation of the house dictates solar gain with these windows  they are triple glazed to three thousand dollars a unit much more expensive than your current traditional window every thermal that you get from solar heating needs to be offset by your heating and cooling load in either the winter or the summer months so by adding more windows we're introducing more you know he can in the house source you know cooling again that we need to then make up with the heating system which then in turn increases the size of the heating system  es it's just a whole calculation so one window turns into three four five thousand dollars and your heating system costs and whatnot so it's just a hole in the summertime you have to move that he got that out right back there's thick with dense black cellulose some of the items that we're considering in the master bathroom you have a medicine cabinet in an outside wall that wall needs to be built up to twelve inches to accommodate that medicine cabinet raceway wire i got it they're going to have one unit outside right correct and they run on the same principle as the refrigerator is right correct yeah i've seen that and so then you any other then i think the the major issue and i believe the the major issue is the land skiers claim which again we are  kind of the from the point of view of the survivability of the trees from the point of view of the aesthetics and from the point of view of the neighborhood where landscaping is one of the few things that is going to soften a very minimalist house in a very traditional neighborhood and i might add have a look at the photos of our world here in kids sites in belarus between our last meeting and now this is quite minimalist compared to all of the world heritage sites in belarus this is not to say it is a bad idea but it is only to say they have more windows in houses and fell over us and a remarkable number of people have posted online slide presentations of said houses clearly a technologically advanced group all very interesting that we connect if you want to finish the landscape discussion i have some another question about the windows and i wonder you know we were to would have been trying to balance  with the your desire to design from the inside out i mean one thing that i wondered about was the the symmetrical look of the windows with on the first floor north elevation and whether you've got a lot of different sized windows and you've explained why you're making those sized choices it does seem that  there could perhaps be a little bit more symmetry in those two large first floor windows if you had it's smaller i don't know exactly the right words to use here i don't know if that you know that the smaller portion of the large picture window opens for or not but could there be a balance on the other side of each of those large windows as well as on the second floor  just to give more vertical line because you have some tall thin windows on the second floor you've got one on the first floor and it might be nice to have  i got to the b unit on the left hand side of the left most first floor unit is op like all the large picture unit is not are you indicating of that unit mint match on the right hand side of that unit as well had two units on the same window one on each and the right if you look at your streetscape you know there's a potential i'm sure it's a very different window than what you're proposing but you see it in the twenty eight thirty up when you rode where there's the big picture window but then there's the two narrowing in the side just to pick up an element of the house next to it and also  are you indicating those changes for both first floor units and the second floor unit so as a as a design constraint the second floor wall in the bathroom or closet is right up against the right hand edge of that unit it would be possible to leave the units on the first floor of the same size but make the left or the right hand side of the left unit and the left hand side of the right unit can have those key smiths so i would be sickly just divide put a divider line in that unit if that's the thing is this the design that is now is really something that we like about these windows the big picture window once we divide that up then it would look odd to have one skinny or one and then two wider ones so you'd almost want to have three of the same of the same with if we were it's of a divide that picture window at all we'd almost have to have three of the side then i think it's just it would it would not look it would not go towards our design goal at all and barbara if i can add is that was part of my field trip to kind of reconcile some of home so i just got a completely different head about me in terms of looking i feel comfortable with all those windows are some of the different design places as you know all my feel comfortable how these very committed to seeing the three inch caliper tree and we would certainly want to see a revised landscaping plan we have no again trevor meyer we have no issue with upgrading the size of all another submission but we do need a meeting of minds which i believe we that a policy of the board and one of the issues that we might want to discuss when we again discuss the that the project that barbara started of happiness or a standard  no is the law is whether we might think about this is not strictly relevant this is not relevant to your project but a two year warranty may be appropriate and street trees where there is not an issue of access having a true year warranty in which now you are going into the homeowner's yard  maybe something we want to do but we certainly want i don't sit here at first right not to if we don't want to do in we want don't want to apply it on the fly but i think we all agree that more trees are better larger trees are better and they actually support your trees i think are actually on the north is that on the north side of the sun yeah so so bigger trees will actually contribute to your lowered energy costs  right if if there is something else and keeping in mind that this is site plan review not special permit it which is a fucking a fundamentally different animal  so that the other than the standard conditions and the submission of the lead revised landscaping plan prior to installation is there anything else in march you know they want t form and move into the formal public hearing phase we've obviously had an informational discussion meeting but i think we're really clear we're down to one item that we feel needs further research namely the the citizens who run this forward have agreed on some changes mostly reflecting what we all heard at the public discussion the second  as we have we have said we would start looking back that we would start reviewing how how we have made a general residence cases and i i would like to at least get that process started so that in it that would mean that in advance there would be a man version of points to review and changes to make with the with the notion that this is nothing more than a straw man version but that it's a lot easier to start from that you nothing so clarifies one's thinking about what one doesn't like as seeing it in writing and then we'll be able to sort out what can be done in working session what should be done in working sessions and what should be done as part of a public discussion is this a process focused discussion or is this so let's look at what we've proved and see the result how it actually and not clear and so this is initially this is a process focused discussion because we have only four we don't have a great many units for a look at  but we can certainly look at i'm in particular i thinking of the memo that you and rafi put together about what our where should we be giving to get into others really guidance on this is this is very unlikely to fly you know the following things are very unlikely to fly and it would be best if you not spent a lot of time and money level process there's also some lower level things in terms of just revising the forms that jeffrey uses to present us with standard innovation and so it's it's a great question and i'd say it's not what we would be taking up on the nineteenth would be one hundred percent close enough it's one hundred we can't work back from the outcomes we have ring for for four residences is just not a big experience of base and you don't want to do a lot of revisions on the other hand we are committed to  coming back to town meeting and trying to be somewhat more rule based so that will require looking at outcomes but we can't do that yet and the third this was not on the original list it may be the historic district commission survey of critical historic properties i believe will be completed or in near final draft form supposed to be yes yes and the historic district commission has asked us to give some thought to the general delay which is above which will expire end so that those you know i think having some discussion of those three issues in addition to whatever will come before us would be useful if we cannot get the that however the final draft needs to be humane and i say draft doesn't have to be final form for the warrant but it's certainly a final idea of at least that the areas you want to  the direction you want to go in there has to be resolved by january night unless the board wants have another emergency meeting between now and if every second certainly it's always conference open for conversation but we have to establish a threshold if you will and that means we need to get out the current the current draft and with her proposal as to size of addition in time for everyone to take a look at it along with the we will certainly include but we will include at every meeting the weekly report the update i mean i look upon the update now as a standard feature of our meetings i just want to know burden sharing or burden care and making sure that it's going to be all it's a weekly update well we will ask i thought what we said was we would ask them to provide a written update on a weekly basis so that there are two updates between each meeting