so welcome to the monday july thirteenth planning board meeting starting at seven o'clock this evening of the first big before we get going if anybody is looking for the zoning board meeting this evening it's over at the home or building which is next door there was a bunch of restaurant people in here earlier who thought they were supposed to be here but they're supposed to be over at home so if you're here for the restaurant you want to go over there so this evening let me introduce development office so that a few matters this evening hopefully we'll get through them quickly our plan is to be out of here by nine o'clock or earlier we're going to start with the continue special meeting public i want to make sure i brought the old drawings to so we could compare we had two of those in the plot plan changes reflected in your must still have a list of what we were looking for imagine but basically we get asked the applicant to go back and try to show try to shrink the size of the of the addition to become more into line with the square footage that we were looking for and it looks like so we had asked if you could be added around twenty six hundred you brought it in under the sheet and thank you so the idea this week was if if they were able to to achieve what we asked them that we might be  getting any other comments or additions to this than anybody would like t what we've been finding with these special permit requests is that when the initial applicant when the when the african comes in with the initial design there is there's been a lot of missing information a lot of information that we'd like to see that we may not have necessarily asked for and it's it's really kind of slowed the process down quite a bit you know something that could have been done in maybe two or three meetings it's taken four five six meetings sometimes and  longer so we decided that we're going to we're going to have what we do when when these special permit hearings have been advertised as they were for the next three items  we're going to actually read the notices open the public hearings of this evening we're not going to we're not going to have presentations we're not going to have any any heavy discussion about the specific project what we're going to do is  have a prevailing discussion about the project because we've all had an opportunity to look at these three on the agenda tonight and it is information that we were going to want to see before we start having conversations  so having said that i think we will we will just have a reading of all three so that we can open the individual three public hearings and then we'll start discussion at the board there won't be any back and forth at this time with with the applicants will reserve that for the for the future unless we have some specific questions that we have you with we may want to ask so everybody and understand that here in the dental health it will speed up the process tonight but it also speed by given at the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on monday july thirteenth twenty fifteen at seven pm and the board of selectmen is meeting room town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of  in for two special permits under section one point five point four of the zoning by law in order to maintain the site setbacks to enclose a front porch and expand the attic ten feet allowed seven point eight existing and proposed at twenty nine thirty one flex road located in the general residents only escaped notice to notice a public hearing by the planning board an application for a special permit notices here by given that the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on monday july thirteenth twenty fifteen at seven pm in the board of selectmen meeting real town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of matthew for a special permit under section one point five point four of the zoning by law in order to maintain the existing site set back to expand the attic on the south side of the home ten feet allowed eight feet existing and proposed  notices for and then finally notice a public hearing by the planning board an application for a design a site plan review and a special permit use notices here by given of the belmont planning board will hold a public hearing on monday july thirteen chair suggested was that we needed to find ways to make the special permit process more efficient otherwise we would be a special permit granting board rather than a planning board and it is also no favor to the applicant or the applicants architect and the rest of the construction team to have these things take five or six sessions chart everything that we ask for from the applicant and then to go through each of the three applications we have before us and identify three things specific pieces of information that are missing and general issues that the permit rate that the special permit requests application raises that we might want to discuss before we begin the particular hearing and whether we'll need to do a neighborhood and alice or not the thought being that maybe we do this all at the beginning when the permit comes in so that there's a complete inventory of everything that needs to be provided and that way we can move through the process more quickly is that roughly consistent with what we've talked about i mean if if they could ever be you could step in i don't know i would do it prior to points one is that when we get when the when i got to be the particulars of the plan on the plans that we want to have before we  start i have i know that we want ali elevations in the landscape plan that section of the chart may require elaboration and second and this whether we want to i think about at this point whether we want to propose some rules or guidelines so that if for example the floor area  if the if the far comes in do we want to have some guidelines that say if you come in with an initial set of plans where you've got six that you know where you've got five thousand square feet of house on a twenty two hundred square foot locker this is not going to go anywhere whether we need it we've had this discussion before of the extent to which good design can compensate so there shouldn't be strict  we may want to propose some guidelines so that we don't spend a lot of time eliminating things that were just never in the ballpark ok so let me just and again i have their the chair contains exactly the same information for all three applicants but just taking them in order in flat road the thought is ok you know first is what are we doing here is it new is it if this is and if we have an owner before us we need to verify that this is indeed an owner that the town recognizes as a resident that's a function of the town clerk's office and b this threat also includes a conversation with the a check with the town treasurer to see if the taxes are correct since if the taxes were  want to think twice about a substantial addition to a house on which the taxes can't now be paid and in terms of the in terms of  residence that will include the number and ages of those who live in the house before we but we discuss what we've discussed before is that  nineteen sixty eight when you were a kid working for your father but for some reasonable period of time if you've been building in this town the planning board should see what kind of work you do  emphasize this is a i'm not suggesting this be i'm suggesting this be done across the board but none of these these are this is a place to get started and then i think the next category we ought to have are what are the items that the planning board has said it wants to see that are not currently included in the package and we need you know again my suggestion is we go through this  ok so and therefore maybe we should do it which would probably and in this case for example twenty nine thirty one flat broke the missing items said you know what we're trying there may be things that in a particular case we want to see but what are my thought was what we should try to do first is get a list of the things that we want to see in every single case and we want to  single place i think it says it so why don't we why don't we take the projects in order and if we're aware of things that we'd like to see let's go down jeff if you could make a list maybe that you like the master list by project so that the applicant can you know review that and then you can actual true height even though that's not you know what you can do to we'd like to know what it is because we compare to the to the neighborhoods but then the calculated height which is the halfway to the slope effort of the midpoint t suppose one i'd like to see what's there now and if you can if it is just just storage space pull down the attic stairs i just what i do i would just like to see what that is so i just to get out of drawing we talked about if we're going to notion of this car rides in you know number one the good although it doesn't really show it very well the notes suggest that the garage is going to be demolished in its entirety a new garage built with a flat roof deck on it  and jeffrey explained to me today when i called him on it was that the zoning board is going to be actually issuing or not issuing variances for that that that's not for us to rule on and if that is the case i'd rather not have it on no detail as far as that the demolition doesn't show an existing there's no existing drawing of the elevation in the way of the there are other patients is no floorplan to go out so i don't know what the dimensions of the existing garage footprint was and if there's a note that says the new garage will be the footprint of the old graduate if that is a bump out of the existing garages include that or not it is just too hard to tell so that's going to be determined  right now the steps up to an open porch to right two doors entering the two family and that entry is going to be closed down with a single door on the outside of it it looks like that single doors right out at the top step and there's no landing for it i don't think d one in the existing demo first plan the middle drawing on the one to the front porch that you walk up the stairs to a porch landing and there's two doors does anything else and i would be a good time to to look for those things that i think i think of all of those are provided and there will be able to you know take a good look open space when it is currently not compliant which in this is a more general question do we want to particular on those issues which relate directly to density do we want to allow  modifications that make them even less compliant than they are now when they are currently compliant noncompliant the second issue is and again we fl the living area as a calculation that's currently missing so what i did for the purpose of the first run through was to go to the assessors records and pick up total living area from those and  his records are showing total living area of one thousand and fifty six where feet and the proposed addition would bring this to three thousand and fourteen square feet that is a it could be it could i mean when we need but we certainly need an existing to compare the other concern would be we have a current lot size forty or eighty four and there's no right now we can with with discretion move to as little as twenty five hundred square feet put it to family and five thousand square feet this is below that and yet it's increasing the square footage by a substantial amount and again i think that the question for us to think about is how much of that do we want to set some standards here when we have a very non compliant lot harking we need parking by regulation we need parking for four cars which means the garage needs accommodate two cars to move to what are the general issues this raises here is how much increase when we have a lot that is non conforming substantially non conforming on virtually every dimension bylaws were passed to the other concerned looking at what we have is whether this has the potential to turn into a three family whenever there's another if there's a full associated area five feet above floor six hundred eighty six square feet there is just so six hundred sixty four so that's essentially being added to a house that's twenty one hundred square feet if that's  yes so for those of you just to understand what we're doing so we we define what we what we use as a neighborhood to compare a proposed addition or a proposed new building to it's its neighborhood what we believe it's neighborhood is so it's not going to be the fire station it might be there it's going to be other similar homes in the area residences that are of similar  size and density and height and we look at that we would what we're trying to do is maintain the integrity of these neighborhoods so we need something as a standard to measure it against and so on a case by case basis will  define what we believe the neighborhood to be from from that perspective it's nothing other than you know we think this is really a good indicator of what the neighborhood is and it'll change you know home to home so we're building to building so we do that and then liz and jeffrey have put together a fact gathering process where where they they look at various things of every single building in what we've defined as a neighborhood overall height total living area and many many other things that we look at and we use it during our deliberations to compare not as in the parable bottom line way of making a decision but to have it as as tools for us to help make our decisions we don't use it so but it helps us to kind of compare and make things stand out that we think may be an issue that we think we like to commute to compare to the neighborhood  to keep it looking like a neighborhood so that's what we just did with that with that they were it's another to get the information together which will have this puts these beautiful spreadsheets together for us that show us all of these comparisons and shows us where the proposed building lies as a mean in the media and all of these other buildings in all of these different measurement points so we'll see where this for this particular project comes down to when we when we do that so  did you want to point anything in particular out of your form here list and the and i just ran through it quickly it's addition to a two family honor the owners are see it wasn't clear to me whether h b a any of there was going to be any additional h b a see equipment at all but if so it's not again we need where is it now where is it proposed where is it proposed it's going to be was this is not necessarily a question for the applicant it wasn't clear to me what we did with the or in the calculation of that's a question for us in terms of neighborhood definition n the total living area i did not think that this  the only general question i saw this as raising is whether we should just create a spreadsheet to calculate the how how big and eight seconds to facilitate some of these right at all of the outside of the building you know there is this to the isometric i guess you call it the hardest renderings of basically a couple of elevations but there's no you know dimensions we that we need to see existing elevations i know the overall height doesn't appear to be increasing at all it's really just just creating the two the two dormice but that was one thing and there's no existing second or third floor plans see what is it what is existing unless unless that's what they want is showing i don't know if that's existing or new so they want to they want to show second and third i but a drawing showing that dimension as well as what we're looking for that so we compare existing to propose and then again a comparison to the neighborhood i think of it in this room at the end of the day might be more you know more rough cut and dried in most but you know it's already conforming lot it's conforming frontage but you know it does increase  much stuff right to put together and we want to see we want to see some detail on the exterior of materials being is there i mean i hadn't included plants like planned but that's because i haven't i assume it's crap or that i don't know but i haven't and i personally haven't had a chance to drive by yet i'll do that before any training but anyway you know any windows should match the style window to how many lights or how many lights thank you doing this without an architect your program yeah that's right they'll know what we're looking for ok so that's a they're so not for a flat ok so then for the fourth for vinson av ok if you could come to make a phone just state your name and where you live and what you'd like to say about it that would be great owner versus a renter because the stakes are different for the two yeah ok great all right thank you you'll have your opportunity to speak at the next when we will ask you to present the project at the name once the package is his or complete ok so then we'll move on to dante have and we'll ask for the audience too to speak at the end of that as well and this is the tear down of the two family with the replacement of the two family in this is unique in that you know that the drawings are all the proposed new building because there will be a building but for our purposes i think it's important to know what the existing building is so we need to see some there's yeah but i mean i mean dimensions a talk and elevation so it so we have something to compare to of you know if this building you know is eight feet tall we need to know that it's a few taller not just not just look at the trial when i try to create work for you it's again it's this whole notion neighborhood is what it is today and this this building is going to affect the neighborhood not not as early negatively but we need to see what the difference is so i'm going to ask you for existing elevations you know with dimensions for the existing building i think that's something that yes exactly yes exactly overall height right to the midpoint of that already great great yeah i don't think i don't think anything by the way that we're asking for or have asked for is unreasonable or or or too difficult to put together just something that we need to do our job the best way anybody else have any that was really my comment is i mean i could see what's here  do just a quick quick question is the is the front elevation of the building the same depth off the street that it was before or roughly is it any is it an average of the of the two of these people are these not we should look at it again skew a little yeah it definitely helps if anybody else want to see anything else that's not provided here it's non conforming in any number of dimensions in particular it's forty four hundred eighty nine square feet and this may not be  assessor's records are showing two hundred two thousand eight square feet a total living area right now and the proposal is to take three thousand four hundred eighty raises the same question in a slightly different races same question that left us how much additional density do we want to allow on these very small non conforming l know you know that that's really that's what we're not going to do today we don't want to go into the deliberation tonight yes we will save it so we have all the information before us it's just it's not to cut you off it's just that we're trying to move through tonight so that when we come avoid you know it also and that's another reason i want to see existing you know dimensions of elevations because it'll it'll help us to know what we have now or if it's a matter of moving the house over a little bit to allow a driveway on either there is so little open space there is so much pavement or what will turn into pavement equivalent in terms of storm water runoff that would be there there was we did have to deal with th talking about i don't know i'm just saying it from here people may want to be may want to tweet that how many parking space this is a question for the are going to be parking spaces exist for the home today for designated parking spaces first time after we've clearly got here that it's just a matter of you know how it fits in the neighborhood and right every week rightly we need to take a look and see these are going to be three big three bedroom you sel fifty percent increase in his bedroom density ok so yes if we can see that existing stuff that would be great you will jeffrey you're waiting for some additional information on this for footage right can be they can be overwhelming to a neighborhood and again i have no nothing to compare to overall dimensions length with height of the existing building but you know that's why i want to look at that other stuff is that'll help an awful lot to see how much we compare it back to still make it work but have it you know fit in the neighborhood and everybody you know who kind of gets what they want totally that's that's the idea so so we need to formally continue our public he right before we do that is there anybody to speak in favor or against that isn't the applicant present for her they want to look at the other two  and here are our next meeting is july twenty first and i don't know how many things will be able to fit in july twenty first of next meeting after that is august fourth and then we're going to try not to meet the rest of august but let's be up to have a special meeting for something but so it would it would it would happen at the beginning of september if it doesn't happen the twenty first or the fourth so the the stuff we typically we ask for what two weeks so well we if we can be flexible but but the twenty first isn't going to give me you guys enough time to put stuff together get it to us in advance so that we can look at it review it for the twenty first i think the twenty f is out of the question we're looking at it at the earliest august fourth meeting just understand that when they get continued to that date it will they will likely get continued to some of our first meeting in september and then or how many more meetings after that we will it won't be for each of the applicants and the new stuff will be coming on as well so you know it's going to be it's going to be a process and it's going to take some time to get through it all but so i think the idea would be if you can if you can have the stuff ready for august fourth we need we need a material into jeffrey you know ideally a couple weeks before that i think we could be flexible enough to a week or ten days which is what we've been kind of allowing which gets it to what job applicants will go around because what we may have to extend the different dates we're looking for complete information by the twenty fourth of july to be able to have you on the august fourth agenda  complete it's not going to come before it's just so you know and it will get continued again just so you know ok so you may want to touch base to make sure that everything that we've listed is is you know will this will be better i think we had eight sessions with a first or second application which didn't go well so if it went well yeah but it took a long time to get there so this will help thank  indicating that i wasn't going to be here on the twenty first i don't think so item is to review and approve the decorum standards for pushing village for condition twelve g of a special permit because she gilligan before we do that i just wanted to take a moment and then bring everybody date on what they need to do kind of in reaction to what we talked about it i'm meeting last week about the dates that they were running up against with their expiration of a special permit potentially so point one i  asked jeffrey at that meeting to talk to counsel today to establish what in fact that expiration date is because it's traditionally and belmont they add the appeal period of twenty days to the date that a special permit was granted so we we had that twenty days to it and then there was a question between the applicant and as as to whether or not weekend days counted and they do come out they didn't think they did so they thought they had more time than wh our counsel says we have so that day is august one thousand the kind of the day that is the date that they have to have either their foundation permit or building permit filed by to not have that special permit expire because if it if it looks like it's going to expire they're going to try to ask for an extension of that and there's sometimes that's a simple procedural thing sometimes it can be you know it could be difficult to get two years to do many of these things and you know i know they've been wary about getting their financing in attendance and lots of other things but that doesn't mean this is an important that we you know we have to keep them to it so based on that august nineteenth day this past friday they filed the information that will be required for the planning board anyway to  can obviously ask all the questions we want everything we need to do on the twenty first they're hoping that we can approve it it's mostly for us in a roshan control plan that's really the thing that we need for the foundation plan to to be allowed we have to approve this of the rosen controlled with that you'll get a copy of this some of the things that they've put in there with which is great some of some phasing and some things like that some parking that will will have an opportunity to look at for the twenty first but that's what's going to take up the twenty first meeting essentially there was another point oh so tonight this decorum plan for standard is something that they need to have the field and approved by us for them to be able to file a demolition permit it's a it's a straightforward thing you all be all sorry and you know as a contractor for  thirty plus years we had assigned one of those in every commercial job we have a work done it's really basically how the working people on site will act on site language noise you know how they carry so i knew that they had it so they they basically read repurposed it for our purposes here so they they've hired not construction corp as their right as a construction team they're out of needham i'm actually familiar with them i know i know the owner and they're going to be doing this project and it's their decorum plan that they that they put together part of what you're going to get when geoffrey census around  to include final sign off that environmental contamination has been addressed so we all know that the site you know has issues that they've done some mitigation work on now that they will continue to do mitigation work on during construction they have this mitigation plan they haven't made it public they haven't made it part of the record i suggested to them that they do that and then make that this plan because it's you know it's approved by the state and all of the authorities that have to approve it so they're go have they're working on doing that but if you look at the who approves it it says the planning board or its designate i would ask the planning board to have glen clancy be our designee you know he's though he's not an  authority on environmental contamination he has been receiving quarterly reports for two years on this he's up on it he's aware of it he's dealing with the owner on it and he's willing to to be that designee that will that will look at this approve it but with our you know with our oversight that he will report to us and we'll get that information want to talk about that and see if everybody's ok with that we can we can vote to do that or not if there's a concern that i think it's no definitely public record i think yes and at some point and we talked about this a little bit to what degree they do it i'm not sure but they may want to do some type of presentation to the to the neighborhood of how they're so i was told today by the by the group and i told them i give a brief update on how to run the project mostly for us but whoever it was watching as well they say they've obtained their final financing and once they get the approval of the selectmen they can close on the project and they can start the construction here to support starting immediately with demolition and forty foundations and they've got their own logistics behind hamilton road so it looks to me like except for the street trees it looks like the other plantings were done reasonably generously they don't really will take a year or two it looks like but i think it's close enough to our intention that i wouldn't object but i couldn't remember if the developers were street trees have to go in front of a house i don't think you're our purview is to tell the warden what street tree to think that our thing was with to develop in the very early meetings we said that if first of all the trees take it out of the tree go right  as i think it's in the decision because it's not in the drawings that they have a plant list with no sizes on which we which i hope going forward we would not accept we were living in salt lake city at the time they planted two two or two and a half inch maples and just for fun i decided to use tree spikes fertilizer spikes on one of the trees that tree twenty years later i fifty feet high and the other tree didn't survive so i feel like it was i was i was quite surprised that it made such such a difference but that you have to you can't expect the town to do that but if if we promoted a little bit of looking after street trees it wouldn't  and he did the same meter and i would be like the homeowner because i would be very upset but if you spend the extra money and put a separate meter in just irrigation then it's quite inexpensive to water but he only needs to water two three times a week and he will have a landscape that will be fine it's not a daily occurrence meet and this is why we have the ability now to do this so that you can make them you can make the people change where they don't have them when my mom still lives in that neighborhood so you should be on show you probably see when you drive by done later i then put out the decision gave a cover that is in for reference and also came across the whole thing about the noise so she said she's actually away for the moment and she's going to be getting m what he's going to be doing the nice measurement of the police department i'm not sure i don't know it was up to the applicant to figure it all out they could have hired they could have hired my sense is that they they ha instead now the change in size for the trees changes species which made them you know with what they were proposing i don't have the i have the information back in the office but it was a dumb the people in the pool committee who can answer this which is where is the pool with respect to the budget because we would be unhappy if this went ahead pool is issues that noise can raise for a neighborhood that's to lead the lesson of wellington it would be very good to be to have clarity on who is doing the decibel measurement when is it being done but you guys are really driving if it's ok we never hear again about it if it's not ok then they have to give us one that the community develop is getting a measure