and we will then move it into a discussion which is not a formal public hearing and i have mark to say about that later on one twenty two  have suggested to the permanent building committee who are here to talk about the rules of procedure for buildings in general obviously made more u the prospect of a high school building project i suggested to them did they come around eight followed by customary updates previews of agendas approval of minutes and  support of the neighborhood seven pm and the board of selectmen is meeting room town hall four fifty five concord avenue to consider the application of bell atlantic mobile doing business is for rising wireless michael g and me no agent for design in 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 at five eighty two pleasant street located in a single residence see zoning district to proceed with an interior with interior self facility that application was unanimously opposed approved by the board we are here tonight because the applicant wishes to revise he is at the request of the applicant who is putting forward a revised application and with that as usual i will ask the applicant to make his presentation or use this or the other which ever you prefer  of the church one would have been replacing the louvers with fiberglass louvers and the other would have been some roof top hidden but but still on the roof top air conditioning equipment we got a lot of feedback at that hearing there were concerns and there were conditions in our approval related to noise and there were also conditions related to retaining the the louvers and then there were signs that went up in the neighborhood of checked into fiberglass material so this facility has been redesigned there's no change to the antennas themselves the equipment is still all inside but the louvers will remain as they are now there's not going to be any change to those those before you i also know there have been obvious concerns expressed about r f emissions levels we do have people here who can testify that these levels they are no different than with the previous  application i know there is some concern that different antennas would be used for something that's not true and that they meet all political federal requirements and as i'm sure you know or have been advised  c regulations govern local control of our f a mission so whatever good intentions other people may have about suggesting different standards are being concerned about the federal standards that the law is very clear that those are the only standards and we will present the information to show that we meet those standards i know there was also a concern expressed in a letter that was released later this afternoon by one of the applicants one of the butter's attorneys concerning f licenses those licenses are in your possession you actually had them with the original application and they were then submitted electronically to mr wheeler about a month ago so with dad i think we could we have  engineer here who can explain answer some questions that we expect would arise or if you'd like we can feel the questions as they come up i don't know i don't know which is preferred by the board would you would you like us to think  standard typically installs air conditioning in order to for their electronics to maintain a certain temperature the original proposal allowed for a split system design so that would have exterior condensers with an internal unit when there were concerns about the noise levels and possible visual impacts of arise and went back and looked at the design their operations approved to actually  install the internal cabinets they would put a ac unit directly on the cabinet itself internal to the building so that ac would be one component mounted on the cabinet itself within the building structure because inside of the balcony that encloses the cube below would actually be mounted on a pipe and it would be tucked in behind there or boards about this wide on the core both sides of the core to be tucked in behind there so it wouldn't be visible from anyplace but it would serve its function which is to coordinate this with the satellite coverage just like the g p s in your car on your smartphone or anything any place else so that's what this is i just want to focus to see what the size of it was and what it looks  trying to geoffrey wheeler and who generally uses this time to tactfully remind us of important facts that he suspects we might not otherwise happen at our fingertips jeff reed is there anything that you want to add another moment in in that then i will turn to my colleagues and see if there are any questions i don't need and since i don't know if i have any questions  to the residence in attendance and just to get an idea how many of those in attendance wish to speak on this issue  and understanding that we will be having a public hearing on the citizens amendment on the twenty third of may at the beach street center at seven pm and that will be the opportunity to address some broader issues so the comments this evening will be need to be limited to the application i assume we have some here who wish to speak in support of this is that correct and intil i run out of one side or another what i intend to do is take one pro one con pro one con the since we've heard from the applicant i will recognize is there someone who wishes to speak out against this some nine years ago and ted has my hand did represent me and in the matter with one of my commercial properties in lexington and i do not see that this matter before us this evening will have any impact on my ability to be impartial and you have procedural matters i just want to make sure that the planning board is aware of the first one has to do with the licensing while mr geometer is correct that verizon wireless has a license it doesn't have a license is specific to the site indeed the section one of six review that has to do with the historic resources and the review this required in the f c c regulations has not been completed yet that needs to go through a process in fact it's been referred to the historic district commission which is going to be meeting on may tenth so that a license is not ash issued for this specific site just want to make sure this understood and of course the ordinance does specifically require that before you can entertain this application that there is a license and we the neighbors maintain that in fact that that hasn't occurred so this is not even properly before the planning board at this point one of the other concerns i want to make sure is clear to in fact is first of all with respect to the antennas the neighbors we're told in deed we had a previous meeting in front of the storage district commission where verizon wireless insisted that you know basically we had to do it this way we have to replace the wood louvers with a quote unquote transparent material which is fiberglass that was what got hung up in the historic district commission that's why they've revised first of all we would say it's not a revised application  a new application which should be considered a new but leaving that aside for the moment since there's no building permit that is issued let me get to the meat of the matter neighbors are concerned about what the actual impact on the neighborhood is going to be and whether this is in fact f compliant finally just want to make sure that the proper procedure was covered with respect to consulting with the fire and police department and the other departments that have to weigh in on this particular fire department when we have removed the condenses here which provide maintain the temperature in other words these these ten as do heat up the concern again for the neighbors is a fire safety issue not a health say safety but a fire safety issue with whether or not these antennas pose a risk of fire and that's something that we'd like to see is some sort of opinion written comments from the fire department establishing whether they have assessed this and you know prior to any action taken by  well i want to hear from i think we want to hear from a few more residents before we get into the the clothes so to speak the closing statements are there and do i have a resident who wishes to please so my chief concern through all of this was that the church acts with integrity each step of the way and in the sermon on the mount that said to go the extra mile and if you don't mind i'd like to share a couple the things we've done as a church to go the extra mile before signing a lease we held a voluntary neighborhood meeting at our church in recent a letter to the abiders and invited them all to common express their concerns where we heard concerns about health and then we also heard complaints about poor health coverage we studied the health issue closely having heard those concerns we had we asked the carrier to do a maximum exposure study and then we had an independent company peer review that maximum exposure study and were also willing to do a post implementation study which would actually measure the emissions coming from the intent is to ensure they're in line with the study we also a structural engineer to look at our people and belfry area to make sure that it was an appropriate sighting for these for this equipment we have and will maintain a fire safety system in steeple and finally we had asked every step of the way we had a concern about the appearances of our buildings and noise and so originally they wanted to be an on site generator and we asked that be removed from the plan before we signed the lease  and now we're actually very pleased with this redesign that allows the church to look at identical to how it is now when we signed the leas we knew some of our neighbors would be upset but they told us that it was because of health issues and those health issues simply aren't supported by the science there are a lot of really great things going on in our church and we've had young families come and join the church and when we saw this lease we saw an opportunity to do more together as a community i'm actually missing a committee meeting tonight where they're looking at ways outreach to marginalized communities and welcome people who felt excluded from church and so when we signed this lease it wasn't about dollar signs it was about mission we saw opportunity to do more together a faith community and we do sincerely sincerely regret that there is anger hurt feelings distrust and but i do feel good about the work that our leaders have done in vetting this and in following the rules in the law and at this point with a sign lease of horizon we're really hoping and trusting that for aizen in the town  will work for appropriate citing appropriate permits that to proceed in the in the best way possible and we are fully willing to accept the democratic process and  previous remarks hi my name is danny morris along with my wife jackie we live at fourteen alexander av which is twenty six feet from the church our home and fourteen feet from america raj in studio i would like to speak to the topic of homes evaluation for properties close to cell towers by the way we have  i also have one hundred forty signatures of again people in the neighborhood yet we're not going to go there we're going we will go there we will go there on the twenty third ok i would like to just read one letter written to me by a local realtor tower and close propinquity to your home and i'll summarize in short it is quite clear that there is a negative impact on residential property located in close proximity to cell towers and antennas ninety four percent of home buyers surveyed by the national institute for science law and public policy say they are less interested and would pay less for a property located near a cell tower antenna almost none of the one thousand survey respondents seventy nine percent said that under no circumstances would they ever purchase or rental property within a few blocks of a cell tower antennas percentage decreases mentioned in the study range from two to twenty percent devaluation with a percentage moving toward the higher range the closer the property this has to do with public perception that's when you choose where to purchase your home where to rent the property so that public perception is reality in the real estate business and as taxpayers we're all very concerned about our home values and that was the topic i want to speak of thank you for your time do i have anyone who  in that time i've served in various positions of leadership most recently as moderator of hiltons two thousand and thirteen as a moderator and long term member of the church i can speak to how the church organizes itself and how it makes its decisions community that recognizes no clerical hierarchy with voluntarily associates with the united church of christ the u c c but does not receive any funding from that body in fact plymouth donates funds from its annual budget to that association each year the church determines a budget and raises funds to meet that budget entirely from its own resources we pay a pastor and other church staff we operate and maintain our facilities we also give away a portion of that budget to charitable causes in support of our wider mission and ministry in the name of jesus christ also annually the congregation lexx its officers and members of standing committees deacons trustees church education missions and so forth all decision of the church of voted on by members of the congregation who meet regularly in formal business sessions or in the intervals between by an elected representative church council in the town belmont has for several years played a major role belmont religious council our current pastor jos r o serves as its president the congregation receives wellfleet weekly donations of food stuffs for the belmont food pantry and i members take part in a monthly rotation of volunteers who staff that pantry nursery school which operates in the church's facilities has just celebrated its seventieth birthday our building is used for several afterschool and evening education music and health programs my members individually have been and continue to be active in charitable organizations locally nationally and internationally so plymouth takes its role in this community thoughtfully and seriously and deliberates as a congregation on how parking loading what i'll say after that is that these guidelines are generic in the sense that they also apply to within one year if your commercial building or any other built or any other project that requires there are probably twelfth or provoke asians in town selling tennis and since the first couple of mania they stopped responding was not unusual for them not to respond to is there and any other resident who wishes to speak  the way of people having an opportunity to speak so that nor do i think that a twenty minute slide presentation is a good way to sample a good way to sample so if there is anyone who is ready to speak without benefit of sli perhaps my name's jacqueline maurice i live next to the church fourteen alexander said could i ask you to speak just a little louder yes jacqueline maurice who lives next to the church at fourteen alexander that was my husband daniel and we've been asked to read a statement from our neighbors next to the church on the other side on pleasant street alfred and sa dear members of the planning board as the long term residents of belmont since one thousand nine hundred three we alfred and sally elkhorn of five sixty eight pleasant street have enjoyed the many benefits of life in our neighborhood in belmont center for these benefits however we pay increasingly higher real estate taxes to the town including annual surcharges that exceed the proposition two and a half limit our home is directly adjacent to the plymouth congregational church and is situated in the heart of the belmont historic district we have remained cordial and cooperative with plymouth church permitting the church to build an addition to accommodate their elevators except through sally in fact was a member of the plymouth church choir for many years we find it ironic that the town would allow a possible safety hazard and threats to the environment in a church building immediately next door to us went on a nice day you can hear the voices of children from the nursery school that play in the school yard we are furthermore dismayed that our property values will adversely erode by the unwanted and unnecessary installation of another  steeple directly next door to our house based on the current value of our property we already pay in excess of twelve thousand dollars per year to the town of belmont kindly rule in favor of rejecting the rise in plymouth congregational church petition to install a cell tower in the church steeple yours sincerely alfred and sally l  thank you did you wish to say anything on your own behalf you know i think we've said so much who we are as a neighborhood you know exhausted by this process but are continuing on  i feel that the decision that is made going forward the neighborhood has been adversely affected by this process it will never be the same as it was of really do need to sit down during yes good evening the members of the planning board my name is tripp musher i reside at twenty three partridge lane in belmont  will be addressing two top x sin in my comments this evening the first is information about my personal background as a fifty year plus resident of the town of belmont second i'll discuss the decision process that and the due diligence undertaken by the members of the church to lead to the signing of a contract for a lease of space with verizon wireless after congregational vote to proceed i will not directly address health issues beyond providing studies that support compliance with the f c c requirements and information and data from the world health organization and the american cancer society all this information we relied upon to reach the conclusion members of plymouth congregational church for forty four years at plymouth church i have served as either the moderator a trustee or the chair of the trustees for the past several years my belief is that christianity the teaching of jesus christ and the churches organized in his name have an important role in this society my formal education was at the university of new hampshire in chemistry and at the harvard business school through their advanced management program my business experience is thirty nine years in the energy industry i joined the boston gas company in one thousand nine hundred sixty three as a management trainee and worked my way up the ladder and became the president in one nine hundred eighty eight and retired as the president of keys pan energy delivery new england after key span of new yacht purchased and merged the gas company into their operations variate section with boston gas parent community service has also served an important function in my life while my children were growing up and attending school in belmont i became one of the founding members of the belmont youth basketball association served as its treasurer and as a coach both in the league and if the teams that travel to other human duties to play basketball my service also includes being the president of the belmont boosters and for more than ten years with my wife one of the sponsors foundation for belmont educations annual fund raising dinner i am also in the broader community of serve as the member of the united way of massachusetts and one year as its campaign chair  i must add that i sincerely empathetic to this board and other tom boards and committees that have to make these difficult siting decisions my experience in the energy business makes me familiar with the difficult decisions related to siting energy and communications facilities turning now to our relationship with verizon wireless and the timeline that brings us to this evening during the nineteenth twenty thousand and thirteen both on a t and t wireless have several antennas and belmont at high elevations at hill estates ninety caught at avenue one twenty five probably road in question square which by the way is across the street from was hopefully one hundred new units of housing at cushing village and on thirty church street and waverly most of these implications have visible antanas hung on the outside of the buildings there are five other locations and i won't review all of them it is important for me to reiterate of church did not approach the wireless carriers as a means of raising funds for the church they came to us because of our high steeple something they have done with hundreds of churches in this country a t n t came to us with a verbal proposal to discuss a lease of space in a steeple without the need for an emergency generator the promise of their proposal was that the steeple was an ideal location for the antenna to significantly improve the provision of cell phone coverage and capacity in the leaded street area as well as extending into the one book section and towards the high school at the church saniel meeting in january two thousand and fourteen a congregation agreed that a committee of members should investigate the opportunity after about five months of study and due diligence about potential impacts of a lease of space for the installation of an antenna that might bring two and on the community the church go drooled the june twenty four june two thousand and fourteen neighborhood meeting and biting all about is to the to join us at the church to learn and comment i will not repeat the comments of pastors are about this meeting in mid tw fifteen eighteen t notified the church they were canceling their leave for the church under the terms of their contract erosion which already had a lease that would required more extensive run of attention to us people then took the structural location of a t and t eighteen t was not obligated to inform the church why they decided to cancel these and we will not speculate on that reason now address the health and safety issues the ability to use a cell phone and a health emergency or an auto accident is clearly important and a growing medical and safety issue this is due to the perceived and expected availability of cell phone and first russia to provide the connection as well as the removal of landmines from people's homes we recently learned that forty one percent of the lot of the emergency calls received at belmont's nine one one number comes from cell phones statewide cell phone calls account for fifty seven percent of emergency calls received by nine one one numbers so there is a perceived and a need for better service to deal with safety issues as your way of the f c c has adopted regulations that must be met by selke areas in order to operate on a cell and to operate a cell in town and as a part of our due diligence we asked arisan to pride us with a document prepared by their expert required to be filed with the f c c there this report was prepared by dawn hayes a radiation specialist safety specialist and turned the church hired another qualified expert dave mack some to perform a peer review space in our church which we provide to them for a small donation expressed concern about the end and when these two reports one by mr  them with along with other information about the installation for their review the opponents and an unsigned document left on automobiles where our church members were in worship services claim they have an expert just disputes the findings however they have never submitted their work to the church watch of horizon for review to the best of my knowledge finally research the reports on the position of the world health organization and the american cancer society and the center for disease control among others a rich fair reading of these documents indicates sellon ten a base stations are not the concern for additional research but the safe use of cell phones is important because cell phone emits significant more power when it's near the human body i am submitting to you this evening to america american cancer society documents and the september twentieth two thousand and thirteen q and a by the world  phone business we simply star a way of helping to serve the community but there are many reasons outlined earlier but miss church though this is a service to the community and a way of diversifying its income to carry out its mission  belmont and its surrounding communities in closing i wish to reiterate that i have empathy for this board and dealing with these difficult decisions that affect not only the neighborhood but also the population at large i also stand by my recent statement quoted at the conclusion of an article in the april twenty seventh edition of the about monte and town officials and town meeting members should take actions that are appropriate to providing better will have roughly fifteen minutes for the group as a whole to present at the conclusion of that do i have anyone else who wishes to speak for this and then at the conclusion of this give rise and counsel an opportunity to respond as i mentioned i would and then will turn to deliberations and vote by the board mr kramer  don't you clarify that there were other speakers that wanted to speak on this topic from the neighborhood and it wasn't it was intended that the slide was were just to accompany those speakers we were under the impression that that we would be speaking at one time all from the same neighborhood instead of alternating we did not realize we would be alternating so that's why only a few of us said that we would be let me say this again yes if you're going to speak you need to come you need to first be recognized you need to come to the microphone and then what do you need to do next speak mother with two children attending the children's program inside the church and as a parent i am deeply concerned about the safety of having eight hour enters inside the church although i heard that the radio frequency radiation emitted from this and nurse meets the f c c current standard i would argue that judging the safety of this and nurse using the standard is not stations the standard is believed to protect against injury that may be caused by accurate exposures that was out in tissue heating oil shock and burn but it any or all american ism is not justified the expert on a zation such as the international agency for research on cancer i arc a component of the w h o has there would be some risk so sit with cancer but the average is not strong enough to be considered cause all and needs to be investigate further so i want to bring everyone said tension that the current evidence is still limited should not be interpreted as all be equivalent to say that the radio frequency radiation is safe so i say this as our qualification as our trained  base stations that put this way this is a question which w h o takes very seriously because when a very large number of population is exposed even a small increase in the incidence of the adverse effects on health could have major pop health implications so as a belmont resident i urge the planning board also take the risk of this we do not need more radio frequency radiation in our community not a single one as a parent i'm particularly concerned because children are vulnerable studies have demonstrated that children have a developing nervous system and their brain tissue is more conductive than that of adults children have a greater absorption of radio frequency radiation in their brains then the church caused several children's programs inside the building where dozens or even more than one hundred children would be closely exposed to radio frequency radiation they can be exposed for three hours a day five days a week twenty weeks a year and for many years so i strongly urge that our planning board makes precaution or a decisions when it comes to the house of our children and its impact on our community thank you for attention thank you let me repeat what something of that i said at the initial hearing namely that we look to the health department for advice on this matter we have asked the health department  they have their their guidance would not lead us first of all it is not clearly within the site design and site plan review criteria and second the guidance we have gotten from the health department yeah does not lead us to say we should stretch to include this this is a topic more suited to the hearing on the twenty third we are holding a design and site plan review hearing tonight and i would really encourage people to take their broader arguments to the discussion on the twenty third and in so far as possible to try town meeting member precinct three i'm asking the planning board not to approve this application i'm not in the butter to the church cell tower nor my neighbor and i will not be directly affected belmont is only four square miles which makes it one of the smallest towns among the three hundred fifty one thirty's and downs in massachusetts but it ranks ninety third percent in terms of density for such a tiny town with this ninety three percent density we have nine cell in tennis as you can see i'm going to hand out i think you already have it in the application from verizon but in one minute i'll hand it out we clearly comply with the federal telecommunications act of one nine and may i approach to give you a handout wind in the hand out the in a sorry for the rest of the audience if it doesn't come up on the screen it's not working but it's the ninth cell antenna sites in belmont that of arisan submitted the first one for the board to look at is that for sixty concord out of it's the police station it's in a commercial area belmont center you can see the aerial shot in the as you go through the pages the second one is twelve church street which is also in a local business one zone and as you can see i'm i'm speaking about the design and site plan and are zoning by law the third one is local business one thirty church street and you can see that aerial view there are no residents anywhere near these salan town as number four is seven eighty concord out of its own two thousand five hundred square feet of vacant land you can see the aerial shot in your hand out the fifth one is three eighty con again in a commercial street concord ave if you look at the aerial shot there are no there's no residence within fifty feet number seven i'm sorry ninety con av is l b three local businesses three number seven is hill states which is an apartment zoned number eight is leonard street also the belmont savings bank it's in a local business on the last one that mr mesereau referred to yes one twenty five to pella road it's in a local business one zone and yes there will be development across the street but it won't be twenty six feet from the antenna to the residence and cushing square so i thought it with the final slide i gave you is an aerial view of this neighborhood and you can see the church surrounded by homes my concern as a resident and as an elected town meeting member is what i consider the dangerous precedent that this planning board would be setting the door you would be opening if you approve of the first cell antenna smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood these homes are as close as twenty six twenty seven thirty forty feet and you can see in the aerial photo even our by laws says it may be permitted as close as twenty five feet but i argue the underlying premises of the by law is not to allow cell  and in the middle of our many residential neighborhoods i don't want to see my or frankly any of your neighbors suddenly finding a way to make some money by putting a fel their home and i know you may laugh at that but you know as well as i do there are unexpected consequences when you see that this kind of a precedent which has been so carefully protected so finally i'm just asking the planning board please continue to preserve and protect us you can deny this application on location proximity to residents and on our by law thank you thank you we probably depending on the length of the remarks we have time for somewhere between two and four or and absolutely then you may have the next lot my name is karen donal and i live at fifty nine fairmont st i've been a member at plymouth church for about twenty years now and i've lived in belmont since one thousand nine hundred eighty eight this issue is very close to my heart i spend a lot of time in the church my three children went to the nursery school my husband and i and our three children have been friends with several of our neighbors and so it has been very difficult in this process to see our intentions and our reputation attacked in public forums and to encounter anonymous and sometimes very nasty messages on our cars as we leave sunday worship what i'd like to speak to i am a an associate professor of medicine at harvard medical school and i hold a ph d from the harvard school of public health in health policy i'm a survey research or by training who studies surveys and public opinion so i want to just rip respond to the comments about this study of property evaluation from the  citation read earlier this study was done using a sample of people who were members of a facebook group opposing e m f radiation i contacted the national institute that conducted this study in an effort to obtain its methodology they refused to disclose the methodology they referred me to an attorney who further referred me to e m f foundation dot org which is an advocacy group the data that they cite on ninety four percent of people feeling that their property evaluations would be damaged is data that is not supported in any written document that they could provide with the study questionnaire or methodology so i would you know i question that i also question some of our neighbors who have purchased properties that are actually closer to belmont savings bank and to the police station where there are current cell antennas and have done have made those purchases within the same timeframe that the intent has existed and so i i do feel there's a little bit of inconsistency here on the property issue beyond that i've looked my husband's an oncologist he and i have looked very closely at all of the issues here in terms of health and risk and distance and would just say that we we have taken this very seriously we support our church we support the right of our church not to have to ask for public funding to repair our building and we support the right of our congregation within the confines of our private building to try to do what's best for our congregation and our community and i thank you for your time thank you thank you my name is michael crag i live at five somerset street which is directly across from the street the church that we're speaking about i'm a father of four and moved to the belmont community eight years ago and have undertaken to answer renovation of our property we've been before the board several times in that renovation process i'd like to address a few of the economic issues around siting that  arise from this proposal first i'll be making three points first is unambiguous that this proposal is to cause a transfer of wealth from the surrounding households and from the town to have a rise in the church and the reason for that is fairly straightforward which is as you've heard there are real concerns about safety issues and the impact that that has on property values is important to consider and the reason for that is that any time there's a negative externality property values are affected now you may say well why is a property owner does that matter to me it should be obvious but i'm also drawing on my background as a ph d in economics i'm the chairman of the brattle group which is an economic consulting firm that specializes  i'm familiar with what you can share with your colleagues that i'm from very familiar with the issues around a bit of extra nowadays that one of the speakers spoke about earlier about the gas lines that his company had to put in and that's a regular part of our business is assessing those now obviously lower property values lead to lower taxes and so as a first order  ect i think you really should worry about what the impact is on the town's welfare more importantly perhaps is to consider whether or not this possibly could follow past the benefit cost test and the simply no way that as possible under the economic configuration that's being offered before you there's an obvious loss of that town there's an obvious loss to their surrounding abiders and there's no obstat ing can be realized except for a relatively minimal amount of revenue that the church would receive and obviously the benefits to horizon the last point i'd like to address is an issue of fairness as you've heard from a number of members of the church they have emphasized the process that they went through to evaluate this decision that they came  to i would emphasize that you haven't heard anything about their inquiry and engagement with the neighbors and they have not considered at all the impact on property values so as a general matter i think that their examination is relatively incomplete but the other point i'd like to make is around coming before you as asking for permission to make changes but we renovated our barn in our  house we came before you for a relatively modest request our neighbors that are putting in a skylight and they worried greatly about whether or not we were going to rent out our barn and they also worried whether we were going to use it for psychiatric services or some other kind of home employment the result of that was that this  extremely onerous requirements that were placed on us relative the request that's being made before you here and i think following up on one of the earlier speakers is really an issue of fundamental fairness and fair government obviously in our neighborhood what a butters think really matters every time that one of our neighbors has made a change to their home they have always come and asked us to discuss that with us there hasn't been a case of that are in place and the only time that has been actually violated is with regard to this project and i would just say that there isn't a single person from the church that has either the next two and final speakers on this so i would really urge you to be more concise we are over the fifteen  know my name is ron creamer i had planned on having access to the slide projector that did go so well so i'm going to just skim over to be quick because i want to introduce no butter and neighbor shelley knickerbocker  material which was necessary for the operation of the cell intended to give service to belmont at that time there was a haze report submitted to the committee and there was a new hayes report submitted to committee and they are significantly different  and not in a positive way the original report considered i believe six for six eight hundred ten is in the steeple at the same time it's eight rising antennas and it showed  virtually no danger areas at the attic level of the steeple and this looks much better in color we have to give this to you in color after the meeting the new report submitted with this design it's a plan review so the new design although they've gotten rid of the six eighty eight in tennis floods the whole attic level with dangerous red warning are afraid so i submit that there is a significant thing that should be looked into a significant difference in this outside on one hundred foot towers we also found another inconsistency that's worth looking into and that came from the isotope report where the isotope says that all their calculations were based on maximum input waters of two hundred forty watts per into and they claim to use the worst case scenario when they do these studies however the specifications for this in ten are for this install because she will be out but you will be our final speaker just to be clear and then we will get five minutes from horizon  do it yes ok hello thank you for being here i'm shelley knickerbocker at five nine two pleasant street i appreciate your time ron introduced my house my house is one of the closest to the church and i as i've sat here tonight i just wanted to express that at no time since two thousand and twelve when we purchased the house has played congregational church contacted us for any reason invited us to a meeting told us about the cell tower none of that has ever happened we are one of the closest about hers they expressed that they are democratic in nature but as you drive down the street you can clearly see that the neighborhood has voted and their vote has clearly b in opposition to this tower when i was thirty four years old i was diagnosed with breast cancer i had three children the oldest was eight i went through chemotherapy radiation surgery a year of herceptin another year of a clinical trial drug i understand what it feels like to have cancer i understand what it feels like to have your life measured in five year incriminates so i was very concerned to hear that they would planning to possibly install a cell tower which may produce a carcinogen that would be so close to my house i really value property rights i really want the church to build the meet their mission i want them to have the money they need to maintain their building but not at the expense of my personal health or the health of my children as i read the study their isotope study about the radio admission report there are a couple of things that are really confusing and hard to understand i would love clarification on so they have a church and you see the drawing and there's a big circle and that circle is called the minimal distance of approach and it's eighty one feet around and in the report it talks about safety and it talks about distance and the fact that the tower like you mentioned is so high that by the time it comes down either through the physical structure of the church or down to the pedestrians on the sidewalk that the power is diminished  it's safe but the thing they don't take into account is that my child's bedroom is eleven feet below that tower it's not forty feet below and my house isn't slayton brick which they talked about with a rufous slate but at  the walls are wood which it's easy for it to transfer into and clearly our family has the bad genes thirty four years old and breast cancer i am very concerned about my daughter sophie's bedroom being right there being exposed to these admissions when you look at the report it's for thirty minutes exposure so sophie is fourteen i figured over the next ten years her exposure would be thirty six thousand five hundred hours i'm a stay at home mom i'm home all the time my exposure over the next ten years would be sixty two thousand and fifty hours not thirty minute increments not going away not stopping i know you're not that board of health i do and i appreciate that all i am asking is this i'm asking that as a planning board that we're conscious about what the needs are for cell service in the town and how to meet those needs but offering the most safety to the residents of our town i'm also concerned about property values if my house receives i know i have like two sentences if it receives a seven percent decrease in property value it will cost my family one hundred forty thousand dollars that's a big sum if you look at the houses around the church it adds up very quickly far exceeding the profit that will be made by plymouth congregational church respond factually to some of the allegations that were made by mr cramer that this application did not satisfy the federal standards because that's really the only the only r f issue that's before you and so i would i would like dr hayes at least to particular facility in written reports in addition i have responded to questions from the a potters and also responded to questions from a independent review or isotope and i've also reviewed another independent review by a similar company e p i consulting all of these groups together have come up with the same conclusion and that is that the site as designed would comply with the f c c regulations for radio frequency exposure and whether people try to torture the numbers and try to make people think that an averaging time of thirty minutes only means you're only allowed thirty minutes disclosure over a lifetime things like that are just it's ridiculous ok a thirty minute exposure time isn't averaging time that is how you average the exposure it's any floating thirty minute period it is not only thirty minutes over a lifetime there are a number of funny other things here  and wireless concerning the section one hundred six review that review is in process as you know is in process the last time we are here we've revised the designs not withstanding statements in a letter you got today we have submitted those to the state they are before the historic district commission for comment but of course given the nature of this facility there there is nothing to comment about there is no longer a replacement of any of the historical aspect of the structure there's no longer anything visible from any public location and so under both the federal and local requirements the only possible conclusion is that this this is satisfactory from a historic integrity standpoint and it's just one of six filings were made with the revised plans these i really think there's been a lot said i'll stick with my original statement which is this as far as the issues before this board which are design inside plan review issues in accordance with your bylaw we've satisfied those requirements with this real estate valuation where the survey as it was presented was clearly proximity to cell towers not parks in miti to the emitters of the are afraid asian so i'm concerned about whether we're we're getting accurate information about the impact on property values from the from of an informal response i my biggest concern is that i think that this board has a narrow set of guidelines that we are to follow and that's why many of the questions here have to do with the board of health jurisdiction and not for the planning boards years diction i sort of look at this i mean there are couple of issues going on here if we put aside that there's a church in the churches on th could be anybody they could be and any building in town was things to keep in mind however is that once this is approved then basically of arise and controls this and not the church and i haven't seen the lease but i've seen other leases of these and basically it's a long term lease that the horizon controls the extensions of the church doesn't control that's something to keep in mind  also haven't heard if there's a possibility of adding other carriers to the cell towers to the to the cells if that's possible the devalu issue i'm a commercial real estate appraiser i don't know what the answer is on that i looked up a few things i didn't get anything definitive on that the local broker sort of hearsay kind of things i think the things that have shown devaluation typically look at large towers and the effects but my real concern at this point about the whole process is i think we need to at least from my point of view i don't know if this is the time to make a decision about this we have something coming up in a town meeting about this and which has to do with whether the should be granted special permits or not there's no building permit pulled at this time i think the more prudent course is to wait on this until after the tommy wrap it all notwithstanding the residents comments today about the health and safety issues i mean our focus here was more narrow towards a modification devised plan which the elimination of the stork concerns and questions the elimination of the ac which are the i would agree that along every day of relevant dimension the project we're being presented with this evening every dimension that is within the board purview this is a i think that the decision of the residents to seek a special town under the current under the current by law because it's really important to remember that we don't just make this up as we go along we refer to the by law as it currently stands this decision will not take effect until after town meeting but i think the existence of the special of the the speed with which the group got the  petition together and the coming of the special town meeting reinforces the point that ravi's made and that i would agree with that under the current charge to the planning board  considerations that the residents would like to have brought to bear are not covered that is why they are seeking a change in the by law so i would   this issue has created feelings such that nothing will be the same again and in my time on this board which is longer than i care say we've been through  mclean open space issue and some other issues that have been very contentious and i think one of the things that has affirmed my affection for the town of belmont is that we have worked through them and we have come out on the other side and even though it's not going to be the same thing it will still be a good and open place in which to have discussions and with that man i have a motion with respect to the application i make a motion that case number of p d six you know six thank you i expect that i will see what we expect to see you on the twenty third begin by presenting a little bit of background on this the most of the things we do our label public hearing or in from a shell session this one has the slightly different label of discussion and the reason that we are labeling this discussion is twofold the first is that the  enforcement authority of any of any business done under the zoning by law and it is very clear for those who like to google as they listen in meetings  the planning board is not the enforcement agency it does at the end of the process when under the conditions of a special permit or design site plan review the applicant is asked to submit as bill plants it will then compare the as built plans with the as permitted plans and presumably on the basis of that have some discussion with the building inspector as to what ought to be done next in this case we are having a discussion here at the planning board this evening inside plan review construction began and a concerned neighbor called this to the attention of the planning board the selectmen and others and since there is always some virtue to having a discussion before you get to the absolute and we are having a discussion this evening and i'd like to proceed as while this is not a formal hearing process i'm going to begin by asking the holder of the permit to make a statement or read his letter or whatever he would like to do then i want to make a couple of put clarification i want to make a number of clarifications to take questions from the board then go to the audience for public comment and then we will come back and have a discussion of what options we think we might like to discuss with the building inspector this is not a matter for a vote because we have no authority under the town by law to vote in this matter all right with that i will turn to the applicant ask him to come to the microphone i get by himself and give his statement cassano representing one twenty two way we street l l c i guess first i want to apologize to the neighbors for any disturbances that we cause you during the weeks of construction we know it's a tough situation with the pocking and trying to do the best we can in regards to the house i read some of the letters that were presented to the board myself particularly the square footage of the house we have not changed the design of the house that was approved by this board we finished off the basement which was within our rights to finish off the basement the realtor added that to his square footage as advertised i think everybody has to understand that living space above grade and space below grade are very different spaces now you can combine the two as an advertisement but they have to be disclosed in m l s which was done properly we finish off the basement and journey construction we went to the building department we asked two and a half bath to the basement to the playroom in our original plan it was not drawn on this application and on the plan we did not feel as though at that time when we applied that the planning board review had jurisdiction over interior design if i've made a mistake in doing that that's a mistake i apologize we're not here to cause any grief or not trying to jam something down the planning board we've been respectful to the planning board and everything that the vast in this whole development the whole design process we've agreed to every aspect and everything that was asked of us and we applied in we did that so i don't think that we tried to do anything to see full we added twenty eight square foot half bath to the basement also additionally to the letter there's some void spaces spaces called void on the plan these spaces are not calculated by the building department as living spaces we did finish the spaces off to make clean space in the house one of the void spaces is a mechanical room we finished it off i don't feel as though this is a big matter we didn't change the outcome of the house on the x steria we made some changes in tyria and if it's caused some disturbances i you the two the two clarifications i want to offer one does go to this issue of total living area this is the i appreciate your willingness to answer but my next sentence was not going to be whether you could speak to it it was going to be because this is not this is an important issue i discussed this when we permit this we used the concept of total living area we use that for comparisons across the neighborhood and that is the concept that we always use it is the concept we use we use in literally every special permit and design and site plan review the comes for us we use that for a number of reasons one is that it's a number that we can get from the assessors records for every home in belmont and that allows us to do the kind of cross neighborhood comparisons that are important to our  process so i my question to the assessor to the belmont assessors was how do you define total living area and the answer was and ambiguity as to what total living area means at least as measured by the assessors they assure me they use that concept because the state it is uniform across communities when that particular phrase is used so that it is first floor up no gets garage or porch is the count's so that if the building inspector were to go back and verify the total living area was consistent with what is permitted he will not be measuring the basement the garage any decks that cetera  and the second is this this this house as opposed to the other two the subject to design and site plan review not a special permit because it is on a conforming lot with that i will turn to my colleagues for questions and comments for your question i believe that the death of the definition of total living area is heated space above grade so in that case are if the void i don't think he gave me those qualifications i'm just going by state correct you know jeffrey did you want to comment yeah i mean there's just because a space is heated doesn't mean it's state building no town meeting member wearily terrace i just want to clarify that i did call marian or who's our assistant assessor and asked about above grade how the considers living in our area and she said even if it's a clause that if it's finished it counts so i just give you you can double check with the  that void space now would count as living area there's a different calculation for the way they tax are or assessed that because of the slope ceilings but it counts so thank you stephanie warner fourteen waverly terrace what i'm most concerned about is the bathroom below space below grade it gives the opportunity to really put more bedrooms and more space down there and if you look at how the wet bar is plumbed it is plum so that it can have hot and cold water which would mean that at some point they could come back in and put in more of a bath full bath i'm also concerned because in the way that they have advertised the living space we've had people we've had potential buyers come up to us now ask if they could rip out the stonework to put in more driveway we've had my husband heard the real estate agent tell the one of the potential buyers that they could park at the senior center overnight and i'm really very concerned about the size what what we're getting ourselves into on our small cul de sac in terms of living space but the bathroom is really one of my biggest concerns i would like to see that ripped out place thank you public hearing those plans were revised and those revised plans as what this board based a decision on their decision which was subsequently filed with the town clerk's office which i have a copy of and you are all aware of what it is so i don't have to obviously tell you had certain conditions applied to it and the only thing i am going to read addition five to nine listed below may be made without the approval of the board now regarding the void space i specifically asked due to the volume in the mass of this building  why there was so much void space unfinished void space i was told that with two of the root design and that it would not be finished if you want to go back and review whether you have minutes that meeting it is on video you will see that i made that specific request and was assured it would not be finished bass it is now finished bass the issue of the bass half bath and wet bar in the basement again was not in the submitted plans i have as you all know been coming to these meetings for the last couple of years i know the big issue it is with these boys with this board about putting in a bathroom in the basement you have dead set against it you rake residence over the coals for even suggesting that they put a bathroom in the basement or a half bath in the basement my question is why were these conditions allowed modifications allowed and why would they permit it i have checked the building permits not the plumbing permit for this particular building which was actually filed in the beginning of gerry before his decision was even issued and it granted approval of a basement half bath why the why the application was made before the decision was even announced you'll have to explain to me but those are my issues speak kevin cutting him that town meeting member precinct for as one of i have not been following this case at all but input in detail but i was one of the co sponsors of the moratorium on to try to prevent kind of overgrowth of the neighborhoods so i've kind of somewhat outside coming to this case and having driven by that street and seeing these massive properties much like as basically as large as they could possibly be is my impression of them i can't imagine the bigger  basement these can be gotten around i'm looking i'm very interested in knowing how we can proceed to achieve the goals of the moratorium or the intent behind it and i don't know i'm just i just raise it that that is my concern here is not the specifics of these house although the neighbors certainly have reasonable concerns it's that the precedent is set that there's ways to work around our intent to keep these in to reduce the density  space is actually from the building department point of view be called habitable space and habitable space is defined by an area that has a window to meet code seven foot ceiling and we don't meet those standards for habitable space and my intention is not to create more living space in the house but merely storage it is a relatively small home with very little closet space i know a lot of use gone through the house and if you take a good look the closet space is very small and that's all the intention was for that the neighbor did talk to one of my potential buyers that no longer interested in the property did asked the realtor regarding the wall in the driveway if he had a guest where was the guest depok he asked me if the wall could be removed in the driveway i said no if you would like to go in front of the planning board and ask that yourself that would be your discretion and that's how that came about he says where mike in my guest par the real to said well for overnight you get a part of the senior center i don't see anything wrong with that i think many people if they have a guest and you can't park on the street and there's only one parking spot in the driveway that's a solution and i think many people take advantage of that situation and i don't think that that's wrong and as far as the wet bar again the wet bar is not installed it is roughed out for a wet bar and again it was only in that house it was a niche that was left left there to look like a good spot to make a white bar if it were a major problem for the sport for a wet bar i'll remove the wet bar it's not it's not a major thing to us it was only a convenience to help sell a piece of property i've got nothing but compliments from many people in this town regarding those houses they stop by daily came in and say what a wonderful job is going on there i try to keep the job neat i keep it clean the best i can and it's only been four months the houses are all up another month and a half will be done the base will have a play room that actually was at my request because i knew that the board in system has always asked how is the basement going to be used clearly label it how it's going to be used and so the applicant based on that labeled the basement as played room space so that has always been called out the it did not however it does not however  have a half bath and it or what are those or indeed subsequent editions that occurred after the plane boards after this point thank you don't w again keeping in mind that we are basically giving the building and we are we are doing two we are doing two things one is we are as i said giving the building inspector advice but we are actually doing slightly more than that and i would like to direct people's attention i'll read it to provision seven point three point  six we all understand the design inside plan review just not give the board the kind of authority that special permits just doesn't doesn't work that way but let me just read the language and are seven point three point six revisions to approved site plan described the applicant may make revisions all proposed changes shall be reviewed and discussed by the planning board at a regularly scheduled meeting  prior to the initiation of such a property minor changes is determined by the planning board may be approved without a public hearing the planning board reserves the right to require a new hearing at the expense of the of an applicant if it determines that their proposed change or modification is made here and or significant and it concludes all approved changes are modifications shall be detailed in writing by the planning board of changes or modifications to be shown on a revised plan if approved shown on the as built plans that's the totality of language in the by law dealing with this situation i believe that the drafting there is some judgment which is the the question of who defines a minor change is not defined in the by last but that's not my point my point of is that no the board decides if it's a minor change or if it's a major change but it has to be presented to the board to make that decision doesn't  you know i think as a practical matter this is again with the we are now not in the zoning by law and as a practical matter i would think what happen is that if the applicant decided that he wanted to make a year she wanted to make a change that they would do what we frequently counsel applicants to do call the town planner and realistically the town planner or others in community development  would come to us if there was a question and otherwise give guidance as to whether it was major or minor but i think as a practical matter that's how it did it does mostly proceed and my question is if that for specifically for that so this was not something that was done without without some permission again if it was ignorant on my behalf not to come in front of the board to ask for that i apologize but we did ask for the building department and if i may just mr corsan know just to clarify and you were given a building permit you hold a building permit for that half bath that is correct is it right that the building permit for the plumbing permit let's say was applied for and accepted before our decision was complete on this property as suggested it couldn't be before you decision because the building thank you and well that well we can imagine this being a topic of conversation but i just i just i  perhaps i'm confused on this the process as you described before if there was going to be a change would have gone through community planning not through the building department correct that's what i just way of working through the process  i would agree i mean during that process so that we could get a foundation possible during the winter and that's we weren't granted a permit until after the decision was finalized and it had to go to i believe the appeal period i think the concern that's it that's being expressed by the neighbors and in at least me as a member of the planning board is that you seem to have made a decision about  bathroom in the basement that you didn't disclose to us when you were before us in january and that you know that's troubling as we as a board have consistently asked for you know transparency and open lines of communications from the various developers whether they be individual residential developers or developers of large projects like cushing village to come before us and be very transparent through every step of the process and that i've see doesn't sit well with the neighborhood or the community if you are right and i think that i think it doesn't sit well with only a few people i think there are other people that actually i actually like the house and this was not something to be dishonest to the board i truly thought that the interior space was for the building department and not the planning board and that's why that's all that happened if it was a matter of us coming back to the planning board to ask for a bathroom then that's what we would have done if that's what we need to do to come back for the other two houses we would like to do the same thing this is not it's a half bathroom in a basement it's people that have a game room or a play room in a basement i think prefer to have a half bath and not have all of their friends tramping through the house to go to the common bathroom in the house i think it's more of a convenience it's not a full bath it's a three and a half by seven foot bathroom that's all it is i think the concern is that you are already had in mind to put in a half bath and yet after that you came to this board and didn't say anything about the half it was not on your drawings no when we opened we were applying for the building permit we go through discussions with the realtor and the needs for that particular these houses they are relatively small and that's that we we made the decision to finish the basements and at that point that's when we went we said we better put a half bath down here and that's that's all it was so the i you know that leaves us with the question of what other than the need for greater in addition to the need for greater communication and more clarity of process what do we think what kind of solutions would we proposed to the building inspector the plans is that for the building inspector for community development billions factor is where they can do is let me answer this let me answer think you're trying to yeah so process that that is always done is when a certificate for such a get of occupancy is applied for i can by half in staff to the planning board will conduct a si visit there are times i also reach out to members of the board to help me conduct that site visit the most recent time you might remember was with respect to the t d bank property entrepreneur road i brought up of landscape planned with me and i sat in compare and i counted trees and i counted rhododendrons and i counted arborvitae is it because of the great discrepancies with with that plan brought that to the boards attention they had to come back to this board to get that plane and to get the approval revised in order to reflect what was built so with respect to this the same thing would have occurred was that at the time that his j occupancy was applied for i would have gone to the site and i still will because you have applied for one and i know compared to escape plan i will look at all the plans and if there's any discrepancies i will bring that to the attention of the board is that while we genuinely appreciate the attention of the neighbors there would have been a reckoning and prior to a certificate of occupancy in any case jeffrey would have done this and i am confident that he would have noticed the extra bathroom and the and a wet bar with the  i think the second and you know this if in talking to the building inspector the we are we are very concerned about single family straining into two families and that is why the  point was made earlier the the combination of a half bath with plumbing that could be perhaps converted into a shower which says oh this is a nicely self contained living unit we do indeed i think raked over the coals is perhaps too harsh a phrase in any case we certainly question very carefully and certainly in some cases reject plans where it's clear that you've got three stories and they break themselves into three living units there's no question that that's a that's a hot button for the board and i think in the architectural standards we went through we tried to i believe we call that out fairly clearly i think my other other two units which are special permit there is no question i think of whether you need to come back for a modification because this is design and site plan review  there is a need to come back i believe under this language but it's less clear shall i say what could be done about it under those circumstances the other thing that you know not necessarily this evening because we have other issues we have no vote here and the permanent building committee sits patiently in the front row  before before before as i was preparing for this evening i did talk to two major experts on deterrence because part of this discussion is let's fix this and the second is in the future we would really we don't want to see this we want to people if they're going to change their plans to come back to the board and so independent of this  there's a whole deterrence is a whole subject which we won't get into or not except to say that to say oh bear don't do it again and require absolutely nothing is a poor idea and to say we're going to carpet bomb with nuclear weapons is a bad idea and thinking about something that's reasonably in between is useful and i think we ought to have a conversation with the building inspector and with that in last there is something else that someone is extremely eager to say i would propose to conclude this discussion and move to  before but i think that you should plan on jeffrey will confirm this with you but i think you should plan on coming back to the board with a formal presentation of revised plan permanent building committee has emphasized this is not about the high school this is about a process but realistically speaking the high school is the next major building project likely to come before us and any process that we agreed upon for the high school would undoubtedly be revived reviewed and revised before the next building project came along so i think it's fair to say this is about the high school in some important sense and with that would you care to come to the table good evening and thank you my name is in i am the chair of the permanent building committee and with me tonight is bill a fellow who is also on the permanent building committee and is the chair of the high school building committee i am also on the high school building committee and you are absolutely right liz when we initially discussed having this meeting in the fall to have it in the spring that we talked about in the fall my intent was to have a discussion about the process because the members of this planning board with the exception of karl are are new to the municipal projects that we've been doing and sort of the agreements that we made in two thousand and six and seven  which we use then for wellington school and did review but they're only two years since and when liz asked me at the time what i thought the next project would be i  because that is genuinely what i thought the next municipal project was going to be however the high school has as they say gotten on the runway and that's that's terrific so bill is with me here tonight and i do understand that all of this is sort of now in the context of the high school which is terrific so we have your memory you do have and i when i as your memory brought up mark right so i guess the first thing that we want to just clarify with all of you is that when we when there is a building committee of the building committee is created by town meeting the moderator actually appoints the building committee the building committee differs from a private homeowner or from a developer in that we really don't have any skin in the game we are are doing this as you're doing your planning your duties we're we're doing kind of the same thing from the building committee point of view and we're really technicians so that we are given a site and we're asked to do something normally it's a little more specific than belmont high school because we're going through a new m s p a process this time but for example with the senior center we were given a site we were given a square footage and we were told exactly where to put a senior center use for the building and then when  we needed really for a lot of things with the city with the senior center the planning board this owning board met in joint session and when we came all of a sudden the questions were why didn't you look at the incinerator blah blah blah blah blah and of course the answers to all of that is that's not our job our job was here's the site and here's what you're supposed to be doing in the case of the senior center it couldn't be done for legal reasons and eventually it was worked out how it could happen but it took a long time to just kind of get through the idea that we weren't the ones that made that initial decision and we had just spent two years doing what we were told to do so going back to square one was was really not going to going to work the other thing that was i think and i think carl will  confirm was really misunderstood by the members of the planning board was how much public input goes into a building project before it gets to you folks because when we come to you normally or at least in those right up until wellington when we came to you it was at the very end plans and specifications were completely written so that you could do site plan review and you know if there were variances or special permits all of those things could be done so therefore we had had numerous meetings with neighbors and any kind of interest group there was unlike a lot of projects that come to you and you are notifying the three hundred  footer butters and sometimes that's the first time those people have heard of such a thing what we do with each and every building project just so you know is we hold a public meeting right at the beginning after we hire an architect and project manager  maybe within two or three weeks and we notify way beyond the three hundred foot planing board zoning board requirements we do it either by mail or by flyer we do it each and every house and we do it to what feels like the neighborhood so it went all the way down to school street all the way out to common street and all the way down to pace road and compassed all of those people we usually have two meetings at the same time so we have one in the morning and one in the evening so that we capture working people and and moms and all of the the senior citizens that don't want to come out at night and we regularly have between forty and sixt residents at each one of these meetings and we do that two or three times at each stage of the process so that we've had a lot of conversation now that's not to say that there's been complete by ian and obviously there are conflicts but it was it appeared at the time in when we discussed this in two thousand and six it was very important for the planning board to know that a lot of that had happened and that the planning board process at the end of all this was not the first time that people have been presented with things and the issues that usually come up are things like parking trash traffic and noyce and there's a there's a whole bunch of others but that the biggest one for us has always been parking and that's the one where we normally need a little bit of relief from you folks sometimes and by relief i don't mean granting something that is outside what would be expected in terms of the numbers of parking spaces required but what i mean is making a decision early on as to how much parking is going to be required on the site because when we get all the way through it can be there can be a very big difference between a parking lot for example wellington for eighty people and one for thirty four people and it makes a huge difference in the building you design and the amount of money which is in the millions that the town has spent to get to this stage all of a sudden be told no eighty is a lot even though it's only staff let's go to the thirty four or the reverse so so that that worked in the in the wellington process very well and that's the kind of thing i think that we would ask we continue to look at early on in a project so what we agreed to after the senior center and it was both boards met the planning board and the permanent building committee met together to discuss the process the senior center was was from a planning board and building committee point of view that site pla review was was a disaster and it was unpleasant for everybody and it didn't have to be so and there was plenty of blame for everybody but the goal was incur was chair at the time in karl's goal was let's just see to it we don't ever have this happen again and let's talk it out and see how we can make things better what are your needs what what is the planning board needs you need to understand why things have to be done this way from our point of view we to understand certain of these other aspects so what we agreed to was that we would have an early meeting with a plan with the planning board in a building project when we had enough detail to get a concept of what we were trying to do but we certainly wouldn't have any kind of detail plants and we would talk in general concepts and see if there were any major issues that the planning board had that are not written as regulations or not even written as guidelines because you have both guidelines and regulations written and we we have those and architects are given those but then there's everything else in between the meeting wouldn't be a legal hearing but all of the better the about ors would be notified in the building committee would take care of make sure that we paid for that and all of those kinds of things and that the planning board that what the planning board then agreed to was if there was anything that specific that was going to be required at the end one of the the things i can recall is a stop place for snow because that wasn't part of the time of your your plans so the planning board had come to the realization that it was necessary for these large projects to have a place to dump snow and so that was difficult to get with the senior center and then where the place was identified didn't have a drain and anyway it was you know again disaster for a lot of reasons so that was that would be one of the things so that you all would try to think of the things that you would become looking for at the very end of the project specific to that project and and that's that's really what we did and as i say we the only request we we made for an early decision was this parking at the wellington because it became a big neighborhood issue the neighbors all asked us to keep all of the staff cars off the streets neighbors never like the staff parking for their houses all day we understand that what what happened was once we showed them the plans to put eighty cars inside the site they didn't like the amount of asphalt and it really wasn't something we as a building committee could resolve it wasn't something that the neighbor said on their own could resolve in the neighbors weren't all in agreement and we needed a third party so we came to the planning board made design and said here's here's the dilemma and could you at least rule the number of parking spaces and the planning board took that under discussion and i think it might have been to beatings but at the end the planning board agreed that eighty spaces was what they were going to ask us to provide that did not provide for parents to park on the site at all but had to take care of the staff cars so it was a bit of a compromise and that's what that was the only thing that was just so you know at the end of the initial phase the schematic design phase that's when the town does the dead exclusion and the budget is set in stone and so at that point any changes that we start making  that are you know even design changes we have to we have to trade it's not a matter of coming up with more money there is no more money so that is you know that's something that we really  she ate having that be something that people are aware of when we completed the wellington building design process and the site plan review and when into construction we again met less formally i think i think i met with you and jenny as jenny at that time was chair and other member so as it was a little less formal and we just met to discuss how it worked and it it did seem to work fine there really weren't things that either of us felt we had to change with with with the sort of broad general concept of coming early and then coming again and so that is what the permanent building committee then presented to the underwood pool committee and they did indeed use the same kind of idea with you folks and and felt the same way that it was useful to have the pre made ng to discuss things and then it seemed to make the site plan review easier and it seemed that there were a lot more knowns then unknown's there are some issues that that do need to be resolved and now that we are talking about a specific project the high school noise is going to be you know an issue fortunately for the noise issue the high school is along the railroad tracks so and there are un us in terms of the the town by law that everybody has to adhere to and i think when we were doing dealing with the wellington noise issue we did talk about maybe there needed to be some work done some changes  and whatever it would seem that the time for that is pretty quick so that the high school building committee will have some sense as to what might be needed for for the high school if there are going to be any changes the other thing that at some point not tonight because it is late but i would like to discuss is is sometimes the town has made decisions the grass strip is is one that i'm sure most of you were here the night i don't think you were rafi but a lot of you were here then the board of selectmen about three or four years ago made a decision that on public buildings the way this site would work is there would be a road there would be a sidewalk and then there would be grass and that was a formal vote of the board of selectmen in the planning board actually pointed out to us jeffrey pointed it out to us and later the planning board did being the wellington and that's the way we selectmen were consulted and decided that maybe their vote wasn't such a great one and then they sent us back to the planning board in the planning board requested that we change it which we did misconstruction and it cost money  not a small amount of money and so we would kind of ask that we try to think through those things a little bit better at the beginning or stick to our guns unless it's a true safety issue  because it is costing us money and and we're all working for the same people but you know that's one the other the other issue we always have is with landscaping the police department prefers that all landscaping be very low into the ground and the board of health prefers that there be nothing that can allow a rodent to like try and it's really a conflict for a building committee and then we get to the planning board and the nobody seems to know which way to go so that's something we really have to think about than the other thing we have to think about with landscaping is while we we do exactly what you've requested is extremely difficult for the town departments to keep up with the amount of landscaping that we are being asked to do and we we collectively as a town need to think about what we should be doing with landscaping on our sites because one of the first things that goes from every department's budget is are things like watering and pruning and all of those things and you will find in almost all of the municipal projects that it's it's not well maintained even though we try so those those are just just ideas and i think that's pretty much why we came was to talk about a tad you have a discussion to have he sort of think about this and think if this works with your process even though you're a different word than perl's ford they came up with this idea there was a different board that actually was executing the first time it was tried which was wellington so i think we now have you know two boards having gone through it and you're number three now i mean we'll certainly have our own conversation about this and this is a great list of issues carl as someone who's been has been through it do you have anything you'd like and well it would be interesting to just get a quick summary there were a lot of issues with the architect of the senior center yes but both the wellington school and the pool the design seemed to be a much more collaborative and open process where the tent and it felt like the town was able to work with the architectural office who was responsible and it seemed to work really well for those two and i don't know if we were just lucky twice or if it was if it reflected a different approach from the from the from the permanent building committee in terms of how you want about selecting those two later designers no i was on the senior center building committee and on the wellington building committee and i'm aware and we were the process with the underwood pool building committee i think the process working with the architect was the same from a building committee perspective of the major differences was the architect for the senior center felt differently about what a planning board process should be and what an architect's role should be then the latter two or all of the previous ones we've we've always come to the planning board for site plan review it's sometimes it's been a deep dive and sometimes it's been pretty much last glossed over  most architects we have found are far more collaborative than the senior center architect was i also think the fact that we had a building on a site they could a variance by law was a big problem right and as i say this was after debt exclusion after two years of design after millions of dollars had been spent and all of a sudden you know we're faced with oh my goodness we can't do this and and where was somebody to tell us you know two years ago that this was this was indeed the case with the school we can screamed over and that would be fine the senior center didn't have  that so that was i think that was the other the other issue but but you're right there was a lot of collaboration on the pool in the in the w and with this we can move quickly through adam five update on paces planning board projects and committee reports i think i stand just i think i state the obvious that we will need to give some thought to  the scheduling on the twenty third that the combination of two special permits both of which will require some discussion and a public hearing on the cell tower by law thought would be that we we can do yes i think we can do s r c into special permits in one evening if we don't put anything else on the agenda  yes and then we can really be the twenty third primarily the public hearing on the south tower article plus some approval of minutes housekeeping and some other small things that make we can do other small things i think we want to have an agenda that's more than just a cell tower but i don't think we should do or even a single residency and the truth permits for another meeting versus local working really you know it's the session that week perhaps i could get the i mean we can do in eight to ten if you know again let's see what works for people but i think that's we need to work we will need to work in a meeting sometime between the twenty third and the twenty seventh where we do single rest and see deals with a seven we have no minister review but jeffrey we need to get the minutes because we're now three meetings behind one you already have you have one set  all right but at the morning meeting let's on the twenty third we will not let's do the minutes at the after the public hearing that's a good next on the right and with that i believe