Planning Board — 2021-01-25
Minutes
MELROSE PLANNING BOARD MEETING MINUTES Regular Meeting Monday, January 25, 2021 7:30 PM Remote Meeting PRESENT: Mike Cassavoy, Anne DeSouza-Ward, Paul King, Robert Mercado, Carla Morelli, John Sadowski, Greg Sampson & Jack Welch ABSENT: Sharon Petrillo STAFF PRESENT: Denise Gaffey, Director, Emma Battaglia, Senior Planner & Lori Massa, Planning Coordinator The meeting was called to order at 7:35 PM by Ms. DeSouza-Ward. Pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law, G.L. c. 30A, §18, and the Governor’s March 15, 2020 Order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Melrose Planning Board was conducted via remote participation to the greatest extent possible. Meeting access and the general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and/or parties with a right and/or requirement to attend this meeting was found on the City of Melrose’s website, at www.cityofmelrose.org/remote-meetings. No in-person attendance of members of the public was permitted, but every effort was made to ensure that the public could adequately access the proceedings in real time. An audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of proceedings was posted on the mmtv3.org website as soon as possible after the meeting. A link was also available on www.cityofmelrose.org. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Planning Board Regular Meeting, December 21, 2020 Mr. Mercado made a motion to approve the meeting minutes. Mr. Welch seconded the motion. All members by roll call voted in favor. None were opposed. Design Review Subcommittee Meeting, December 17, 2020 Mr. Cassavoy made a motion to approve the meeting minutes. Mr. Welch seconded the motion. All members by roll call voted in favor. None were opposed. SLOPE PROTECTION SPECIAL PERMIT Case 20-003, 22 Montvale Street, Armando Plato Planning Board Meeting Minutes January 25, 2021 Page 2 of 6 Attorney Bell requested to continue the case to have additional time to submit information to the Board. Mr. Sampson made a motion to continue the case to March 22, 2021. Mr. Mercado seconded the motion. All members by roll call voted in favor. None were opposed. SITE PLAN REVIEW & AFFORDABLE HOUSING SPECIAL PERMIT Case 20-004, 40 Vine Street, 39 Tappan Street LLC Attorney Patrick McAvoy, Michael Carter, Engineer and Mark Wilcox, Architect, Daniel Galvin, Owner, Kevin Carter, appeared to present the case. Attorney McAvoy requested to make a monetary contribution instead of providing an affordable unit on-site. Mr. Carter, Engineer, explained the site plan and zoning information. The Zoning Board of Appeals previously granted a variance for the driveway width. The footprint of the building is now smaller than it was originally proposed. This allowed the driveway to increase from 20 to 23 feet in width. The driveway width variance is still in effect. A recharge, infiltration system is proposed in the rear yard for the stormwater runoff. There would be no increase in rate or volume of runoff. There would be a six-foot vinyl fence around the site. Mr. Wilcox, Architect, discussed the design of the building. They will try to use green building practices by buying local and using energy efficient systems. The Board discussed how the application materials included requests for waivers; however, it appears that all of the relevant materials were submitted and the only waiver needed was for a LOS analysis. They did a trip generation calculation but did not include a full traffic analysis or level of service plan for the nearby intersections A full topography plan was submitted even though there is minimal topography on the site. A signage plan was not submitted but only a small address sign is proposed on the front. Mr. Sampon made a motion to open the public testimony portion of the hearing. Mr. Welch sectioned the motion. By roll call vote, all members were in favor. None were opposed. Shane O’Donohoe of 39 Vine Street stated that the building looks tall and out of place on the street. Finn McSweeney of 160 West Wyoming Street was glad to see a project in the RCOD. The MBTA considered the number of residents in the walkshed of the commuter rail station when determining if they were going to close stations recently. He had three questions: Are the dimensions of the elevator being large enough for e-bicycles to access the basement?; What is in the zoning that is precluding the affordable unit from being built on-site?; What is the developer’s perspective on converting the parking spaces in the future when they are not needed?. Mr. Galvin said that installing conduits for future electric vehicles would be a good idea. Mr. McSweeney said that Vine Street has a distinct "neighborhood feel" and it would be nice to understand if the design has any sort of purposeful front yard activation. A bike rack is nice, but it should be covered. The yard could use a couple of Adirondack chairs. Tenants could realistically spend time in the front yard. Planning Board Meeting Minutes January 25, 2021 Page 3 of 6 Patrick Jefferson of 34 Vine Street asked about a timeline for the project to begin and if there are any other steps that need to happen. Attorney McAvoy said that the hopeful timeline is this spring. They do not have a timeline for construction. The Board discussed how this parcel is in the RCOD and a four-story building is by-right. They saw no way of granting a variance from the affordable housing requirement that they recently amended with careful consideration. A member asked if there any solar panels being planned for the roof. Mr. Wilcox said that no solar is planned. There will be condensers and the elevator overrun and no room for panels. The panels need to be ten feet from the edge of the roof so it limits the available space. Mr. Wilcox stated that the roof will need to be constructed to carry the load of future solar panels. A member asked if they will use fossil fuels for heat. They were planning to use gas and instant hot water heating. They have not looked into the heat pump technology that Melrose is encouraging. They are not opposed to electric heating. The condensing units will be very quiet. The current building is large but only has two units. The interior was so poorly laid-out that it was difficult to work with. The Board discussed the design and materials of the building. The building is not in keeping with the residential scale of the neighborhood. It looks like a downtown building. It is difficult to fit in with 2 ½ story houses but it is possible to use a mansard roof or other treatments to better fit the residential character. There will be a fiber cement board on the front façade. The upper floors are a Hardi clapboard. They should submit elevations of all sides and a rendering that shows more detail of the building and materials. The front elevation shows storefront windows on the first floor. The residents may feel vulnerable. Mr. Glavin said that there will be a patio in front of the sliding doors. They have to see how much space there is to design the patio. The left side of the building is too close to the property line to be able to have bays like those on the right side of the building. The Architect added wide trim to the windows. The change in materials and horizontal lines help but this side has a flat look. The Board does not want it to be a monolithic building. The developer intends for these to be apartments. If they want to plan for them to be condominiums, they need to consider soundproofing. Mr. Galvin said that they will consider soundproofing even as apartments. A landscape plan should be submitted. There should be functional open space for the residents. Mr. Carter said that he would submit one that takes the comments into consideration. A member asked if residents will have storage in the basement. The plan is to have storage. There will be an elevator to the basement for easy access. A member asked if there a grading plan that shows that the runoff will make it to the infiltration system and not sheet flow to neighboring properties. Mr. Carter explained the grading plan. Planning Board Meeting Minutes January 25, 2021 Page 4 of 6 There is also a drainage report. They reviewed the curbing to prevent runoff. It is proposed to be a bituminous curb. The Board asked for it to be a better quality material. There should be a curb or wheel stop in front of the parking spaces. A curb is not proposed because the grade slopes down towards east. The back-out of the parking spaces will require a few turns. A member asked if any protection of the building from the driveway was proposed. The Architect will revisit it. On the southwest side there is a house in close proximity and the Board asked the Applicants to consider the impacts to this house.. There is a seven percent grade at the back of the building that they will look into. If a stretcher can fit in the elevator an e-bicycle should fit. The fence will be PVC, vinyl fence that will be a picket fence. The Board would like to see the specifications on the condensing units, the screening for the condensing units, the overall façade design and articulation, the two first floor unit sliders and the condition in front of them, a full landscaping plan with mature trees, a signage plan, clarity on the materials, curbing for drainage, turning radii and protection of the building. The building and site need to be built as proposed on the plans so the detail should be considered. Mr. Sampson make a motion to continue the case to February 22, 2021. Mr. Cassavoy seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Site Plan Review & Affordable Housing Application, Case 20-004, 40 Vine Street RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE BOARD OF APPEALS Board of Appeals Public Hearings on February 10, 2021: Case 20-033, 9 Harding Road, Michael Stankavish & Amy Basile The Board did not recommend approving the proposal. They found it problematic to take a nonconforming accessory structure with minimal setbacks and to make it part of the principal structure. The garage did not comply with the required setbacks for an accessory structure and a principal structure has even greater required setbacks. The proposal would exacerbate the nonconformities and be unsafe. There appears to be other options to construct an addition that would be more conforming. Mr. Sadowski made a motion to send the Board of Appeals a letter with these comments. Mr. Sampson seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Application Materials, Case 20-033 Case 20-034, 27 Temple Street, Joseph & Robin Higgins Planning Board Meeting Minutes January 25, 2021 Page 5 of 6 The Board recommended denying the variances. There were an excessive number and degree of variances needed for this proposal. The creation of two new lots that are so undersized, especially considering the slope protection regulations, was not warranted. They were sympathetic to the need for more housing but found that this was not an appropriate location for it. Mr. Welch made a motion to send the Board of Appeals a letter with these comments. Mr. King seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Application Materials, Case 20-034 Case 20-035, 33 Ryder Avenue, Joseph Guzzo The Board was supportive of granting the variances for the addition, but not in favor of granting relief for the garage extension. The front porch and second floor addition are designed to fit the character of a typical house in the city and will only increase the footprint of the structure for an open porch. The site plan is lacking the detail needed to know the extent of the work that would be needed to accommodate the garage extension. A fire hydrant may need to be moved and a tree cut to accommodate the driveway. Also, the garage would be close to and very visible at this location on the corner lot. Mr. Sadowski made a motion to send the Board of Appeals a letter with these comments. Mr. Cassavoy seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Application Materials, Case 20-035 Case 21-001, 2 Hemenway Avenue, Eleni Kaplan & Marc Okrent The Planning Board had no objection to this application. The property was a large corner lot and it made sense to locate the addition where it was proposed. Also, ten feet is a typical residential setback. Mr. Sampson made a motion to send the Board of Appeals a letter with these comments. Mr. Morelli seconded the motion. By roll call, all voted in favor. None were opposed. Documents: Application Materials, Case 21-001 OTHER Comprehensive Permit Application, 12-16 Essex Street, Carroll Essex LLC The redevelopment of 12-16 Essex Street that the Planning Board approved for a mixed-use building did not move forward because the Historic District Commission members did not approve of demolishing the building. The number of units, parking lift system and aspects of the design of the building have changed but there are a lot of similarities between the proposal. The blank façade is still an issue. The units are small. Melrose does have a minimum unit size but the zoning dimensions can be waived. Planning Board Meeting Minutes January 25, 2021 Page 6 of 6 The Zoning Board of Appeals will open the hearing this Wednesday. Members could listen to the presentation to the ZBA and discuss at the February hearing to provide a recommendation letter to the ZBA. The Applicant’s Attorney could present the case to the Board in February. Members requested for the Attorney to just focus on what is different between this proposal and the last. Documents: Comprehensive Permit Application Materials, Case 21-003 NEXT MEETING Michael Cassavoy announced that he is stepping down from the Planning Board. He has been on the Board for over twenty years. The next regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 22, 2021 at 7:30pm. The meeting adjourned at 10:10 pm.
Transcript
▶ 9:51 Are they showing up as participants anywhere? So, it's not giving me the option to make Mark Wilcox a panelist. Unfortunately, but he is showing up. He is showing up as she's. Yeah. Oh, so he's a, he's a participant at this point. Will he be able to speak? I can I can unmute him. Right. Okay. So I'll do that right now. I should I think we'll go with Mr Carter 1st, who is the. Engineer on the project, I can talk just a few minutes about the project. It's it's fairly straightforward. Railway call corridor project that doesn't present a great deal of legal issues. The 1 legal issue we had at the department's has hearing was. Since we obtained the lot, the. I am with variance, the design of the building has changed a little bit in that the driveway is on the opposite side of where it was when we came through and got that variance.
▶ 11:01 In discussions with Paul, I believe it's the understanding of the building department that that doesn't really change the variance and that we'll be able to maintain that. The other issue comes from the application of the new. Affordable housing. Ordinance, because essentially, we're 8 unit building by right. We can't really add another unit to the site. So, even in giving a unit, we don't get an extra unit. So it's kind of doesn't become an incentive zoning situation. We had hope that board might consider a monetary contribution in lieu of that. I don't know what your. what the board view of such a request would be. It's not explicitly allowed under the code, but I don't see it as explicitly banned.
▶ 11:57 I mean, a six or seven-unit building, I think, can make a monetary contribution and add a unit. If we were a seven-unit building, we could make a monetary contribution and get up to an eight-unit building. Here, I think we're an eight-unit building that doesn't get anything, Which, which makes it kind of difficult for the developer to fit in where it should normally fit in under the incentive going at all. So, I just ask you guys keep that in mind as we go forward and I turn things over to Mr Carter. Who's the engineer is going to be presenting this evening. Some of these late some of the layout, and I guess the size of the building have changed a little bit since we first submitted the application.
▶ 12:42 And he can explain all that to you, and he can explain some of the things that were brought up in the department heads meeting regarding the grading on the site and other issues. So, with that, Mr Carter can take over and we'll continue to work on getting Mr Wilcox signed in. I hope. Good evening, my name is Mike Carter from GCG Associates. Is it possible to share my screen with you so I can have some plans that I can show you and give you for everybody? yes I will make you a presenter okay so can everybody see this area so just to kind of go over the where the projects located on this is basically a Google Earth image as you can see my mouse is the outline red area is the parcel that we're here before you tonight that's that street behind the left vine
▶ 14:02 street running this way down to the Myrtle Street and I believe this is middle street right in here um in front 80 feet of frontage on vine street the lot is 11 300 plus square feet in size that's about 80 feet of frontage and 150 feet as you can see there's a resident the residential area over here is a residential development um and that's kind of the objective of the project um when we start discussing there's a tree right here that's where my mouse is that would be where the driveway is located so we would be coming in this way as the attorney mentioned originally the driveway was going to come in on this side the reason for the change is there's a telephone pole right here so it would require relocating a telephone call um so we the design process the decision was
▶ 14:59 have made to move it to this side so that's kind of the overview of the project and then what i'll do is i'll just go to color plans so this isn't one of the sheets that's included in your package without color the cheap four um and if you look over here on the right there's a table zoning table i'll just kind of go through real briefly um we have as i said 80 feet of frontage is what what we have is 149. Actually, what we have is 149, minimum is 90 feet. Minimum open space area, we're proposing 21 percent and it's required. If you go down these, you'll see that we need all these different setbacks or exceed these setbacks for the different things. The building is going to be four stories, approximately 45 feet.
▶ 15:48 We're proposing eight parking spaces which complies with your requirement. As indicated by the attorney, there was a waiver given for the width of the driveway and width of the parking spots. I'll talk about that in a few minutes. If you look, you see the gray area, here's Vine Street up here on the top. You would enter the site through here, come in here and park in the back. There's eight spaces. Let me just show you this a little. Each space would be right here on the sidewalk, access to the back also, obviously. Green space would be five feet minimum on this side with green space, and the green down front. You can see where the green is, there is a lawn area. The pros, two trees. The tree we take down that I showed you a few minutes ago is roughly right here.
▶ 16:45 There's two new trees that would be installed. um the dumpster would be enclosed in a fence right in here so the trash truck would drive in pick it up and leave generates um so that's the overall picture of the site as the attorney mentioned earlier the footprint of the building shrunk a little um so this plan is the same plan but what i did is just for presentation to give you a sense of what the changes if the red is what we are the latest current plan is you can see what i did we did is we held this sideline right here the setback line and the building shrunk about almost three feet right here and about one and a half feet right here so the so the so the width of the entryway would increase um that's one of the waivers we had is 19 feet here and 20 feet here obviously
▶ 17:40 we can increase it up to 23 feet or we can add some green space on this side as another option so that's kind of that change with respect to infrastructure there were some comments from the engineering department with respect to storm water and some grades and water we're proposing a six inch fire service and a four inch domestic service we just have to provide evidence that that's adequately sized for this building which would be easy to do we'd be putting a new sewer service in into the building which would be six inch from a storm water standpoint basically they're we're proposing to collect all the roof runoff and put it into the ground and if you look down here this green area is a recharge basin infiltration basin basically the roof runoff
▶ 18:34 would go through a series of dow spouts into the into this series of pipes underground um and recharge the groundwater and infiltrate the storm water also in the back corner of the lot there's a catch basin right here all the runoff from basically this point back would flow down the driveway and flow into this catch basin and go through what's known as a storm scepter which is a device that treats the storm water and we infiltrate into the ground we provided stormwater calculations that show that there's no increase in rate or volume leaving this site matter of fact the only area that drains into the vine street is about 65 square feet right in this part of the driveway and that that matches what was what drains there
▶ 19:27 today with a driveway on the side so that's kind of what we're proposing i probably should have just mentioned you know what was there first go back to that i apologize i meant to go to that screen first um existing conditions basically there is a existing structure there um that's going to be removed as you can see it's situated over here um this is the existing driveway and if you drive out there now this is a parking area it's been poor poor poor condition um so basically this would be removed there would be some trees cut down along this side the fence would be removed as it relates to our property and the new vinyl six-foot fence would be installed around the site um and then with respect to you did part of our middle with a small little traffic report that
▶ 20:26 to show what traffic is generated using IT, which is the standard we use. Basically, with eight units, we would generate almost 42 trips a day. If you use the current use, it's nine, so there would be 33 additional trips leaving the site or entering the site during the day. The thing that people look at in the peak hour, morning or peak hour AM, Basically, we would generate three additional trips, one entering, two out in the peak hour morning. Existing is one, so there'd be an increase of two cars leaving the site in the morning. Then did the same thing at PM peak hour. We generate four during the one-hour peak hour and end of the day. Right now, there's one using what the current use is, and then it would increase about three.
▶ 21:22 The overall traffic is not significant in my professional opinion. And then the other thing I want to kind of highlight, this is a stormwater report. Right now it says 11,000 square feet is the size of the lot, 300. Right now there's 3,381 square feet pervious. And when we're done, we're increasing it to 5,517 square feet. But the key thing is so we're increasing it by 1400 the key thing is to note that that infiltration system offsets any increase in any runoff leaving the site and actually we're grading everything right now if you go out there really flat and it will be flat when we're done we're not raising things a lot we have slopes that um although ideally two percent would be great um such a flat site
▶ 22:09 we have a half a percent to one percent in different areas and that works you just have to pay really close attention when you're paving things in the end so that's pretty much just the big overall picture of the project um i don't know if um the architect wanted to speak for this i'll leave that up to the attorney but or i can answer questions at any time thank you all right patrick uh did you want the architect to speak now uh can we is he on is can we speak to him is he mr wilcox um let me i'm gonna mute him now okay thank you michael can you can you bring up the architect mr wilcox's plans i do not have those actually sorry okay i can pull up i can pull up the plans oh you can't okay great that would be helpful i think mark can you hear us
▶ 23:18 i can hear you and i can see you can you hear me okay so mark we're going to try to bring up your plans here and maybe you can just discuss the development and the design sure thing look is michael bringing it up uh emma's bringing it up try that again there you go great are you able to see mr wilcox or is it a blind presentation no no i can see that uh picture oh great okay okay i'll be brief about this um this is a pretty simple building basically it's a four-story building the overall height is 37 feet 6 inches each floor contains two units per floor each unit has two bedrooms which are towards the rear two bath living in a kitchen area we have a total of eight units as mentioned before each unit is
▶ 24:51 about 1288 square feet per unit and the gross square footage of the building not including the basement is 14 065 gross square feet we have an accessible elevator um that carries everybody to all floors the basement we're going to have a basement where we have some mechanicals and also some bike storage down there the exterior is con it has um has all fiber cement and on the bottom floor there on the rendering which i'm not seeing now um has no cheetah machia panels it's a fiber cement it's got a it has a vintage wood um look to it you know all the trim and panel board above is all either hardy board clapboards had hardy board trim and batten boards um to add some detail and character to the building the the roof is going to be a flat roof rubber membrane roof
▶ 25:49 and we'll have some condensers up there we'll screen off the mechanical units from any sight lines or from the street or anywhere and we're going to push those towards the rear of the building and in the middle of the building um as far as green we're thinking about you know trying to buy local as much as possible and recycle products like maybe in carpeting and so on so forth so that's pretty much is what the what this building consists of that concludes my presentation that's a Patrick I'm so bored I what I'd suggest is I don't know you know it's fairly straightforward but I mean who would you give questions you want to go through is that I guess the best way to proceed at this point well let me ask the members of the board would you like to ask some
▶ 26:47 general questions about the project and then we'll open it to the public would you prefer to hear from the public right away so i i have one quick question um i saw in the staff report there was a discussion about um some waivers being requested for site plan requirements um it looked like the plans actually had some of the information that was discussed with respect to existing proposed topography so i wasn't sure if that was an old submission that that was based on or are there any waivers from the site plan review submittal requirements that we need to be concerned with mr mcavoy uh hang on just a second i think as far as our requesting the topography i don't think we did a full topography plan and submitted it but we we did you know go the the
▶ 27:47 The problem with the water problems and things did come up with the department heads meeting. And that was something that was addressed by the subsequent plan here. That was the, uh, on the showing the floodplain, I think, and. Flooding or something to that effect. Yeah, I think we have documentation that we're not in a floodplain. So, I don't need to be based on the plans. I don't see the need for any waivers. I think everything was there. You know, that's fine given this minimal part of the site. So it does. I think the information is like, identification and sign renderings was was something we didn't include in the original application. There is 1 sign on the front of the building there and that's all there's going to be.
▶ 28:45 Right, I do think the board would want to see any sign. Sign yeah, I think the idea is there weren't going to be any signs. So there is 1 small sign just but it's an address sign. It's the only sign. Right? Right. So that's fine. That still counts though. So we probably don't need a waiver waiver, I guess. Right, because you're going to show it to the board. Right? So. Yeah, I think the other thing was the level of service analysis, which we did not think was necessary for this project, looking at the nearby intersections. Oh, okay. So that's a waiver that we would need to make. The application shows those checked off as being included with the application. Yeah, no, but they're not. That's my point.
▶ 29:40 I thought it would be in the traffic report, but it's not. If it's not there, then we probably need a waiver from that. I don't know if we need a waiver from topography because I don't think we have a full. Plan the topography of the lane if I could interject there is topography of this spot elevation and the full geography plan. There's no waiver for that and actually in our stormwater report. do reference that the floodplain map and everything um and that it's not in a photo minimal zone x and then um with respect to uh part if you think that was it yeah so it's just the the traffic the full traffic report the traffic report is and i think the point we do need a waiver from it appointed we did a traffic and now just check generation to show that it's
▶ 30:34 really small and like you know deeper evaluation of the level of service maybe we shouldn't check that box that way we should have put it down for waiver my apologies that would be you know it's literally say payday that's um i'll leave that up to you guys okay looks like right now the only waiver then is the waiver uh on level of service analysis for traffic okay thank you all right so So, I think we've got that straight and then, and you don't need to get another variance for the driveway, which was the only variance of the driveway with because you do have 1, even though it's not exactly as proposed originally. Correct still in effect. Okay. All right. So we just, it's just site plan review as well as, um.
▶ 31:27 Affordable housing, uh, special permit other questions from the board members about the project, or would you rather hear from the public? 1st. The public, uh. We open it to the public and pardon me. Open it any comments from the public. If the board would like, is there a motion to open the public hearing. So move, okay, so I got a 2nd, any discussion. All right, please say, aye or nay when your name is called to open the public hearing. My category, I, Greg Simpson. All right, well, hi, hi. Carla Morelli. Aye. John Sadowski. Aye. Sharon Petrillo, Sharon Petrillo, and Susan Ward. Aye. All right, so public hearing is hereby open. Are there any members of the public that would like to ask a question, make a comment, or I guess
▶ 33:01 that's it ask a question or make a comment please just uh contact to the city planner or i guess it's emma actually who's the host the also a city planner uh shane o'donohue uh with some questions so okay i will unmute you shane if you want to kick it off can you hear us yes thank you very much so to be honest I'm coming a little late to this party but I live at 39 vine and to be honest this building looks really tall and really out of place for vine Street so was there a variance given on the height or can somebody explain how this building got here did you want to explain Denise sure I mean there is no there was no variance required from the height because this this parcel is actually in the city's real corridor overlay district
▶ 34:05 um which allows for the four-story height by right i think um all the project uh is a multi-family and height and uh area they need no variances it is allowed by right it's just the design that we'll be looking at with site plan review as well as the affordable housing special permit that they need for the project okay any further comments or questions from the members of the public all right you're unmuted thanks everybody Finn McSweeney 160 West Wyoming I just wanted to say i'm happy to see a rail corridor project going in here um i think we'd be remiss if we didn't mention the um the recent attempts to mothball cedar park station right very proximate to vine street um and when the mbta changed course and decided not to um not to close cedar park
▶ 35:33 station they cited uh the walk shed right the high number of um units within walking distance to cedar park so the fact that the city is adding to that dynamic um i think is great um and and it's gonna it's gonna enhance the the mission of the corridor district so i'm happy to see this um building going in i did have um i guess three questions one about the um the design of the building and two are more sort of maybe if the developers get humor the community a little bit um the first is just on the dimensions of the elevator maybe they were on the plan i couldn't tell but with with uh bike with proposed bike storage in the basement um and this obviously being a building where where the city will hope a lot of local trips are made by bike um we just
▶ 36:30 want to make sure that you know something like an e-bike which which may run 70 to 80 inches long and which more and more residents are buying is actually going to fit in that elevator um so that that's that's my first question um and then the other two are i don't fully grasp the affordable housing um comments about i think the application said that um an affordable unit couldn't be an additional unit couldn't be cited on the plan without otherwise conflicting with the um with the with the existing zoning requirements and that struck me as interesting you know because buildings of this size and scope are i think probably going to be relatively common in the overlay district and if if we can't fit affordable units in them that to me um it sort of raises a
▶ 37:33 question of what aspect of the zoning is making buildings like this which seem to be pretty straightforward unable to house affordable units and then the third question and this is totally just you know if the developers wanted to humor Melrose a little bit let's say we just heard from both the governor and legislature that um the state is moving towards next 10 15 years where um they're going to stop sales of combustion engine vehicles personally you know i would i think this this this building doesn't need parking spaces at all but from a developer's standpoint you're building a building like this right now and i don't think there's any ev spaces um in the lot what what can you tell us about your perspective on you know 10 years from now say Massachusetts is no longer allowing
▶ 38:34 electric uh you know ICE new car sales how would you look at converting this building putting eight charging ports back there because I think the community when we start to think about all these buildings being developed should be asking those questions and I think it would be helpful to start hearing from developers about their thoughts on this kind of building so thanks everyone for your time looking forward to seeing this building go up um and hope everyone had a good new year thanks thank you other questions or comments from members of the public is there anyone else who would like to speak right now we can leave the public hearing open uh and ask our questions and make our comments uh looks like emily from monte it's very good oh okay hi uh this is
▶ 39:36 actually patrick jefferson uh i and emily hi uh emily from monte and i live at 34 vine street uh the only question that i have is uh is there a timeline for the project to begin and if uh are are there other steps that need to be taken before this project will begin thank you i think that the the hopeful timeline is uh spring maybe march or april hopefully is that dan is do you think that's about right you have to unmute yourself dan yeah yes um as soon as possible would be nice and the spring would be great once the winter conditions are over. Dan is the essential owner and manager of the LLC that that owns the property. He'd be the one that does. One other thing I want to just say is my I have a business that's housed in
▶ 40:49 Medford which we just moved to Medford and we actually just put in piping for an electric vehicle charging station you know because we're figuring that even even my service vehicles will be electric soon. Putting in conduits for future work is actually a great idea and it's it's not that much of an impact on a project thank you I do think the question about other steps the planning city planners can correct me if I'm wrong but I think other than these two permits from us I think these are the steps that the applicant has to go through to get the project okay right there's no other thing yes if this is approved by the planning board then they can then they can fully develop their plans and file for a building
▶ 41:38 um i would be curious about the duration of the project um if you could just respond to how long you think once it did get started it might take to construct i honestly don't have a schedule We can find out and let you know. Okay. Thank you. Just following up on the comment about the affordable housing too, my understanding of the application as presented is that one unit would have to be affordable, and that any deviation from that would require a different form of relief from us? That's correct. It's eight units as a right. But, and the way I read that, I mean, it's a new ordinance, so it hasn't been used as much as as some, you know, a 6 or 7 unit built and gets to choose between a unit and payment 8 unit building.
▶ 42:42 I think is required to give a unit. But also is to get an extra unit in consideration of doing that and here we can't get that done. So, that's what makes the affordable housing not work that well for this particular site. I think from our perspective, I don't know because it would really, I think end up being a 9 unit building. If we could do there will be 8. As of right now, and an extra affordable for the, in exchange for the affordable. But we, we have no way of varying that. I mean, no, I mean. There's nothing specific or explicit in the ordinance that allows you to do that. So I don't know. I mean, if you were in favor of it, then the board of appeals could vary it. I'll hold my opinion on that. I just wanted to be, you know, to be.
▶ 43:38 Clear, I just wanted to, you know, the understanding is that what's presented to us is. An 8 unit project, 1 of which 1 of those units will be an affordable unit. and any anything that varies from that um would require a different form of relief your understanding is correct i think i mean that's how i read the audience i think that's how i use it as well i think it's only the very small projects five to eight units that that uh can have a monetary contribution instead of a unit Five to seven. Five to seven. To seven, sorry. Yeah, that was a conscious decision by the board. Right. Yeah. Yeah, we all were in favor of that change because the monetary contribution never really creates housing for us.
▶ 44:31 there's always a consideration I don't really know because but that you could make two one-bedroom units and then you have your an extra unit but I think at this size it looks like it's one unit one affordable is required by the ordinance other members of the board with questions I know there's a there were at least one neighbor talked about the size or the design of the building it looking large for the neighborhood I'm sure there are some design questions I do have a question in my yeah the question is come to the architect is this project below the limit for solar ready a roof systems in here or is any solar being planned for the roof itself question for the architect do you have to unmute him mark can you hear us i can hear you can you hear me now yes okay got it yes i'm
▶ 45:49 talking to the owner we had talked about it and there's no plan for solar on the roof uh we have some condensers units up there and a roof access and we also have the um elevator overrun so there's not that much room up on that roof is this project going to have fossil fuel for heater is it going to conform to the new melrose um energy commission's uh request for smart heat smart cool i would refer that over to dan the owner that says he does mechanical yeah we don't i'm an hvac contractor i think we're originally planning on doing gas um instant hot water heaters which will last hot water for the heating system um i haven't looked into the code yet so i haven't seen what Melrose is asking for as far as green heating system yeah it's it's not a code thing
▶ 46:54 they just the city has been pushing to use heat pump technology wherever possible so yeah we do a lot with Mitsubishi we've used eco air which is all very high efficiency heat pumps electric it's all electric we're definitely not opposed to it my other question is how many units are in the building that's being raised right now two no there's actually actually yeah it's it's two it's just a very weird house um the the recent renovations for the last two years have been kind of hard it's it's big enough for four units but but it's just so important and it's not even worth trying to fix okay thank you uh there was talk about that what's going to be up on the roof But I think that was 1 of the things that it was not in our packets, a roof plan showing what exactly is going to be on the roof.
▶ 47:56 Denise Gaffey: Oh, we received it late today, so. So, we did, we did upload it to the web page and we could show it now if you want to see it. Well, I can look at it on my own too. Does any member of the board want to see the plan? Okay, then we is that something we could. Share please in the meantime, and there was a comment in the chat. If you want us to read it, would you mind reading it into the record? Sure. It was an additional comment by and he says. Fine street has distinct neighborhood feel, and it would be nice to understand if the design has any sort of purposeful front yard activation. bike rack is nice but should be covered maybe a couple of adirondack chairs tenants could realistically spend time in the front yard here thanks okay good that's a good comment to have
▶ 48:58 on the record sorry i'm having a minor issue pulling this up just give me one second that's all right thank you can the applicant just describe a little bit it's small on my screen Yep. It looks like eight units and then maybe some kind of a surround. Yes, it was just a screen so that you can't see it, which I'm not even sure if you would see it without the screen. The units are only about 25 inches tall, at least the ones that – I'm sorry? I think that was feedback. Sorry. Go ahead. that's okay so the each unit each one of those squares is the is the ac condensing unit for the air conditioning system so they're only about 24 inches square at about 25 or 26 inches so placing them in the middle of the roof you would not be able to see them from
▶ 50:49 the street pretty much but just just in case the architecture and equipment screen which would shield them what what shear rating are you going to use for the condensing unit probably 16 so They go 16 SEER up to 17 SEER, depending upon what they're paired with as far as an indoor unit. Okay. There's a question in the chat asking about what kind of sound mitigation will be in place for the mechanical on the roof? You wouldn't hear them. They're very quiet. We can understand just the metals, which will give dBs. The SEER rating will give you a sense for that. Yeah, I have a question I had, there was a comment that there wasn't much room area. It is a flat route. Is that correct? It is, and so it looks to me like, even with the fencing around the condensing units, there's a significant about a roof area. Is there not?
▶ 51:52 It looks at, I'm not sure we'd have to scale out. out. Solar panels do take a lot. My office at Seminole, before I moved, I still own a building. About eight years ago, I put 40 panels on a roof with a 9.6 kW system, which I love solar. It's great. But it's just a matter of looking at once everything's installed and see what kind of room is making sure you can service it in. You need to stay 10 feet the edge of the roof otherwise you need tie-offs or another equipment screen so and that's just osha safety rules so once once you get 10 feet from the edge of the roof on all four sides it does it does pretty much cut down on the amount of usable space mike cassifoy here yeah you're correct about that is this built is this building exempt from uh
▶ 52:46 the energy requirement already if you're asking i think you don't know is that a requirement uh it's a requirement in a state building code energy requirement and it's kind of relatively new and it's sort of popping up but it's this building's sort of a tweener it's like half between or not i didn't know if it was exempt i'd have to look at it myself the architect probably should know and what that requires you to do is to carry an additional capacity in the roof for down the road so maybe sometime in the future somebody can add solar to it so you're going to carry five pounds or 10 pounds of structural capacity in the roof system yeah this is mark wilcox from gavin sullivan yes that is true you got to carry for that future potential solar
▶ 53:38 panels part of the stretch code right i don't know for certain it it's definitely here to add a couple of uh pounds per square foot to be able to support something in the future um while we're talking design is it okay for me to ask a couple of questions ann absolutely go ahead so um i'm going to talk about the two sets of plans the the most recent one uh looking at the front elevation it looks like where i think you described um like a rustic or weathered wood panel you're showing brick but is it you're not to show a red brick there but yeah it's supposed to mimic a wood board a vintage wood board it's a five or something okay and um i mean i think um let me start with overall excuse me i'm sorry does that vertical line
▶ 54:56 Um, no, I was looking back and forth between the 2. Sets of, um, I think what I want to say overall is that. I agree with the resident that spoke across the street, the homework across the street at 39. fine. I do find all of this not in keeping with what's built there. It's not easy to scale on a four-story building in a residential neighborhood of two, two-and-a-half-story homes even if they have shed dormers like the one directly adjacent, like maybe number 42, what would be 42 Vine Street. But I do think there have been many successful examples or a few successful examples in the city, including one right around the corner, where the top floor was an occupiable mansard, which helps visually to really break down the scale and the massing,
▶ 56:17 the boxiness of that fourth floor. I know it's clear from the floor plans that you have identical floor plan stacking. That makes perfect sense. but i'm wondering whether you considered another treatment for the top floor in keeping with the building that was there and also a prevalent architectural style in in melrose is that something that um you were considering had ever considered well the building itself it's always easy when you stack the units but consistent in the same size and then building there's we'll look for two bedrooms in a thousand square feet um that's basically get you that comfortable space to um have some living in the kitchen i mean we did look at some other schematics but my understanding that the city of mellows like that i i i can't speak to that
▶ 57:23 because i'm just seeing it i'm just seeing it for the first time but i think um i think that The use of materials here, there's, there's nothing about the scale of it, even the scale of the facades. And the materials on the facade that seemed. Very residential and so, and I, where I do think that a previous scheme. Where I think you were using, like, a hardy clabbered what we're using here. We are using that. It's on the upper stories. Well, you know, so I share the designer subcommittee and I think maybe we don't have to go over it all tonight, but I think it really makes sense for you to come in with. Elevations all 4 sides of the building and some real, maybe some detailed even line drawings.
▶ 58:26 They don't all have to be rendered so that we can really take a look at the coloration and the materiality of what it is that you're trying to propose. Because I. I your rendering doesn't it I opinion isn't to the justice that those materials might be able to to depict it's hard it's hard to read them from the black and white well it's the scale to the scale shrinks down so that's the the program automatically hides all that because it just ends up being a black watch or blind watch. Yeah, and I think we'd like to delve into this a little bit further and more detail with you. Okay. To the decision when that's rendered, we'd like to really get into some of the details with you. But I think most of the questions that I would have can probably be solved there.
▶ 59:29 you're committed to the current mapping um you know i'm wondering what some of the other um board members think about this in relationship to the scale of what's around it this is jack to me it looks like a downtown building as it stands right now a building that is in harmony with the neighborhood and again i agree that some changes could be made i think to uh to make it more in harmony with the neighborhood than it is right now i agree that uh in general it's it seems like the size is all right but there is something about the character that looks a little out of character for the neighborhood i don't know enough about design uh to come up with a good suggestion but um so you know i'd be interested
▶ 1:00:36 to hear what the architects have to say but i i think maybe some it would be nice to see it softened a little by you know changing the top floor so it doesn't look quite so boxy or changing some of the colors i don't know exactly what it would how it could be made to fit in a little but i think that would be a nice thing to work on i also think the landscaping will be helpful to you know soften it a little bit and that was one of my questions about landscaping was uh is there i think it'd be nice to see a plan for landscaping i didn't see anything in the materials but if that came in late this afternoon too maybe it's there now because there was some talk about making the bill now that the building's slightly smaller that there's room for green space
▶ 1:01:28 I was wondering where the green space was planned and what it would be, as well as a question from the public about the front yard. Is there any landscaping information you can give us? This is Mike Carter from GCG. We will provide you with a landscaping plan with this reduced footprint and with the plantings on it and things like that. The comment from Tim McSweeney is actually pretty interesting. We'll try to incorporate that and some of his thoughts in all of this too. Yeah, I do think a friendly front yard might make it look like it belongs a little bit more in a residential neighborhood. Even though it is a multi family, residential neighborhood. Other members of the board and it's great. I kind of agree with that. I'd love to see the generally speaking 1 thing. We.
▶ 1:02:24 Always are mindful of is projects that. They all meet the open space requirement, but there's little functional open space for the residents. To the extent the landscaping plan can identify some areas where there's outdoor activity space for the residents, that'd be great. There is green space here, and I know they're limited by the fact that they're meeting the parking space requirements, which we're hoping to reduce in the near future. but any thought to that i think it's helpful there's a quick question will the residents have storage in the basement as well as in addition to the bikes that would there be any bins or any designated storage for residents that is the plan yes and this is mark wilcox from gavin sullivan again and of course we'll have that elevator
▶ 1:03:33 going down there so they can actually bring anything down their knees versus going down cases and can I ask a couple more questions sure so I don't want to get I don't want to get too into the weeds but I'm just looking at the the front elevation here and at the ground floor it appears that the elevations on the first floor left and right of the front door are almost like a storefront front door but i look at the plan and those are definitely residential entries the front door of those entries or the at least the slider or french doors it's not expressed um in a perfectly residential way i mean i i i would imagine um somebody would feel quite vulnerable with that much glass and nothing's screening it can you elaborate a little bit on that well
▶ 1:04:40 what the plans actually what the plan show is what's that a slide is on either side of the front entrance way yeah they look like french doors that open in they could be indoor it could be either but the landscape will help you security too not just often the uh give them some privacy walking by so will there be a little terrace area out there for them yeah there would need to be some sort of like a little concrete pad or something just for them to come out and uh sit if they wanted to and would that be fenced in like the terraces above to differentiate from the landscaping around it or well i mean we would have to get together with um the civil the escape plan to see how much room we have up front there the idea is building this building in a sense where you get not
▶ 1:05:41 I understand the contemporary flair. I'm just thinking that they're still in a city with ground um you know in an area near a lot of public parking in the train and i you know i put myself in their position i think i would feel like i wanted something to walk out onto and maybe a little bit of my own like the folks that live above them that have a little bit of terrace um I think what you're probably getting the sense of is that we are interested in the details Typically, before we issues conditions for these types of projects, we do have quite a lot of details worked out, including a detailed landscape plan and a clear indication of all the materials being used. That's where we're going before we're able to, you know, make a decision on this, though. You'll, you'll have to articulate a few more of the details for us.
▶ 1:07:28 Okay, Carla, I'd like to go a little bit of what you're saying. I agree with you a lot on that. I'd hate to be sitting out there on a couch in a living room looking out at people walking by the sidewalk. Yeah. Other members of the board with comments or questions or requests for further information? I would just echo without repeating the architectural facts that were made. The two first floor units are very odd. It's an easy thing, the concrete pad, and I think putting the same material as the Juliet balcony surrounding that pad, Or simply putting it about, you know, whatever that metal treatment is across those 2, 1st, 4 units. And then otherwise my questions relate more to the site. I do want to ask in the staff reports, it was mentioned of the level of articulation and the left elevation of the building.
▶ 1:08:53 So, could be enhanced and I, so I assume that's the, I guess that's the east side. Can anyone from planning staff help me with what you... Yeah, it appears that there's a projection on one side that creates some detail to the facade that I see on the right as you're facing from the street. Uh-huh. Not so on the left. Yeah, it's not shown in this chance. This set doesn't have the left elevation. The left side, my understanding, was sitting near the setback line. So we didn't have the opportunity to do that in the bays. So we don't have an elevation of the left side, but I assume then it's a straight wall with some windows? No, we do have the elevation, Emma. If you want to pull it up, it's from the other set.
▶ 1:09:51 Oh, okay. We didn't copy it over into this revised set. A little confusing. All right. If it's not too much trouble, I think it would be helpful, Emma. Thanks. That is the set that I'm looking at. So you can see in that left-hand side what I did was we basically added some white trim in the windows and again went with the vertical wood fiber cement board in the first floor just to add some character. And we added some horizontal lines there at the floor levels to add the character. Again the understanding was that there was a setback issue there. We couldn't get that, protect those out on that side. I would have loved to. you can but it would affect the size of the units that's the bottom line and i think what we're
▶ 1:11:07 trying to avoid is a four-story monolith here i i do agree that the um change in materials between the base and the three floors above and the horizontal let's help break it up um but it's quite different than the articulation on the other side right what is the sort of floor dimension i'm you know it's hard to see without on a plant that uh did i see it was just eight feet what's the structural uh elements here that you you're contemplating so with an open web trust which i i recognize the efficiency of that that has quite a bit of depth to it though does it not no i mean using one foot And what it does is help us get the proper SPC rating once we add the discrete on the floors and rock on the bottom side.
▶ 1:12:27 Okay. And just remind me, are these apartments or condominiums? I believe they're apartments. Dan, you want to talk about that one? Right now, it's apartments. I would just say from my experience with residential, if you're planning on converting to condos, there's obviously much more of a concern in terms of the acoustics and then from a utility separation standpoint, it's a whole different thing. Very often, developers will develop initially as apartments with the idea of converting to condo, but that's something that you need to really think about and plan for in terms of the design and structure. Yeah, we do do a lot of construction, and I would make sure that things, you know, like potty walls and soundproof insulation.
▶ 1:13:21 Even if I was renting, I wouldn't want to hear somebody playing with toys on the second floor. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things, you know, sort of what's good for you is good for the market here. Exactly. If you're renting it, you don't want fall calls because somebody's making a lot of noise up the stairs, you know. Right. We want this to be a successful development. Yeah, John, we have to, by code, we have to provide, under the IBC, the International Building Code, we have to provide an STC rating of 50, and we also have to consider the impact noise of someone on the floor above you. That all has to be designed into the building, as well as the dwelling separations. We have to have at least an STC rating of 50.
▶ 1:14:02 Okay, thank you. Other questions? Anne, do we understand, is that correct that they're going to come up with a landscape plan? Yes, they are going to submit something. So, Anne, if I may, on the site, since for now we've covered the structure, I do want to go back to the topography. I do see in the plan for spot grades. What I'm unclear of from the civil plans, unless it's articulated in the drainage documentation, There's arrows shown in terms of the drainage. It's a long way to go from the driveway all the way to the one catch basin. But I just want to make sure that absent curbs, which I'm not clear what's planned for curbing, if any, for the driveway, if there's a grading plan that shows the slopes and how things are going to be graded,
▶ 1:15:07 such that it will contain runoff within the site as opposed to shedding it on adjacent sites. Hi, Mike Carter again. Would it be possible to share my screen? I can show you. We do have a grading plan that shows how the water is getting there. I may have missed it. Thank you. I didn't really cover it to that level, but that's easy enough to do? Yes. I'm going to make you, Michael, clear? Yeah. Okay. That's what my screen's on right now. This would be sheet number 6. And it just what it does is it has a spot elevations on it. These elevations you see here are proposed. So what we have is we have a curve along this side of the parking area. So the water can't sheet flow off to the abiding property.
▶ 1:16:39 And actually, if you look at the contours, what we've created, this contour right here represents it's almost a valley. So the water would come off going to the middle of the road and it would flow down, down the driveway. The high point is located right around here is the high point of the driveway. So everything from here back will flow down the driveway, flow across the parking lot to the catch basin located right here. And this is elevation 54. This is elevation 55.27. So there's a 1.25, basically a 16-inch drop across this. This length of distance is, well, from front to back, it's 150 feet in a straight line, so this is less than 150 feet. That's pretty safe, and this is all in the drainage report.
▶ 1:17:29 So we're not shedding any water off to the abutting property in the back. Same thing in the back here. Here's elevation 55. Catch basin's at elevation 54, so it all goes this way. Then even on this side of the property, we've created this shape of this contour. What it does is it tells you that we have a slight depression. It's a very shallow depression, so the stormwater would come back and flow into this area back in here. Okay. I see. One and a half percent is more than adequate. You well know when you start to get to a half a percent, you start to question how well it's going to drain. What is the curbing? I just want to be clear where it is. Is it just where the solid lines are shown? Yeah, see where it says TCBC, so top of curve, bottom of curve,
▶ 1:18:15 into our spot grade. So it starts up here, goes all the way down here. Oh, I see. Then along the back, where the little bump out is, it's located here. And everything else degrades back here. You can run off into this area here. And is it VA4 curb, or is it another material? No, it's a continuous curb. I believe that's on the details on one of the sheets. So, I realize there's a cost to elevating that. My concern, how he's bringing this up, is in terms of longevity here, the first couple plows that hit that, you know how that's gonna over time deteriorate. So, I know it's an added expense, but if not a V8 or curb, which i know is expensive uh at least sloped edging is it would be preferable and then least
▶ 1:19:11 preferable but better would be a precast concrete curve i just urge you to consider that okay i will discuss that with you yeah but yeah john if you look at the parking lot it seems like there is no curb on that parking on that uh parking lot the curb at the edge of the parking lot there is no curve though isn't it am i correct on that looking at the drawings no there's no curb in this location because the existing ground flows this way same thing is quite so the curbing is to prevent water shedding onto this it's a butter's property and same thing yeah but what will stop the car the car to go over the grass drive right through being the parking who's gonna stop it a good driver well you don't even have a wheel stop on that right you can just drive
▶ 1:20:02 right through through the grass though isn't it um that's almost the same grade yep so it's just uh i thought you might have a curb right along the park uh parking lotto and then uh that will uh drain right through the cultivation at the corner so the way you have it that it possibly the water will go right outside the parking lotto you know no no because the parking lot's lower than the grade around the outside perimeter right so everything from the lawn area like for example this this lawn area right here when it's when it's graded it'll slope this way and it'll slow to this catch base we've actually created this slight little hole right here so that the water won't go off stop the water along the edge of the parking lot if you don't have a curb there
▶ 1:20:53 water the way it's graded this is a low point so this is higher here so it's going to say a drop water see where my mouse is say a drop of water lands here the water is going to flow that drop water is going to flow here and it's going to float down here say a drop of water flows over here it's going to flow across yeah what's going to stop the water from the grass going to your parking lot like this or whatever from the grass going we want the water from the grass going into the parking lot that's the way we've designed it so you're going to have all the dirt and everything going through the parking lot you know when they wash away well it well if it's if it's blown and seeded and there's grass there you don't get the you don't get erosion yeah you need to you know
▶ 1:21:34 when they first put it down they need to stabilize it but once there's developed grass and this will be a landscape maintained property i just don't think uh i just don't think it's uh you know when the when the guys uh drive you know when the people park you know i bet you you know about but 50 percent of the time they'll go behind your parking lot though, they'll drive right through your cross. Robert, what I would suggest- We don't get rid of stuff though. Yeah, it will affect their grading dramatically here because even if you've had a sloped edging reveal that changes the whole grading concept. However, I could just urge the proponent here to take a look at other developments in Melrose here,
▶ 1:22:17 and I think you'll find that this is about the lowest level here, just to have pavement meeting grassed area. A curb is something you should consider, just in terms of the level of development here would be my suggestion. But again, I recognize that that changes the grading, not to an insignificant degree. I'm not so concerned about runoff from the grass on the pavement. I'm concerned about just the integrity of the edge of the pavement, and the cars parking without a wheel stop at least, but would prefer some curb with a reveal. Then one other question in terms of the last two spaces, the southerly two spaces, how do they back out? That turnaround looks very modest here. I suspect if you put a car track on this in terms of the template,
▶ 1:23:11 it would not be able to back out. You'd have to back out all the way to some other point. It would require multiple turns. It's not a three-point turn, back-down turn. So we kind of tried to balance. We had to push to a year to this green space and push this further up here, which gave me a bigger tail in the end. You know, there's no question that backing out of here and doing one three-point turn is not an option. We have to back out over here, here, and then probably two turns to get out. Something less than a 70-point turn. Okay. How about the building in terms of the driveway? Any protection for the building? We're going to revisit that because as I showed you earlier, if you look here, here's our original corner.
▶ 1:24:08 We got some comments today, different things. we're going to revisit that and you know really we were going to have a ball yeah that's where i would uh urge you to consider a curb because i think it's attractive and you know you might have a bollard here and there um we all know whenever a transformer goes in the utility company wants a bazillion dollars but they're not particularly attractive um but uh anyway i would just urge you to consider that and you know those are my comments on the on the site thank you thank you i i do have a couple little questions um mike if you go to the south um south uh west side of the is that a house right up on the property line yeah it's right on the right here yeah it's right there on the property line yeah i i can't imagine the car
▶ 1:25:06 it sounds to me it looks like the car is going to probably want to dent something there so it's That's already close. We'll look at that. You have to look at it. Yeah. And the, the red, the red dash line of the building itself. That's the face of the building up, up above. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So the, the reason I asked that question is because you want, you know, you have dormers on the left side. You want to make sure that dormers are out of the way harm's way of a, of a backing up trash truck or something. Yeah. Well, all right, that's my only comments. Thank you. It's just a quick question. Did you do anything to address the city's comments on the excessive grade in the back right at the back entrance? It's about a 7% grade.
▶ 1:25:52 We haven't yet that came in on Friday, so I have no, it's just like an adjustment at a contour basically. Yeah, it's pretty that's easy to address. Yeah, but the front part of your driveway, it is pretty flat though. That's like a half a percent from your 55 contour back to the street. That's pretty flat there at a half a percent. You know, I don't disagree with you. I like 2% everywhere. No puddles, no issues, no concerns. I do a lot of work along in different cities and towns four towns along ocean where i have a half a percent for a thousand feet it can be made to work as long as you pay attention um but half a percent is not ideal but it's such a short distance it's certainly easy to make that work
▶ 1:26:44 yeah look at that i'm more concerned with the steeper grade than than that my driveway is like that so it's very very steep and when it's a little slick. It's scary for me. The public speaker who mentioned the size of the bike storage, I wasn't quite clear on that but he mentioned the ability to store e-bikes because they're I guess significantly longer than regular bikes. I think he was talking about fitting them into the elevator oh the elevator okay getting them into the base that's why the question about the size of the elevator i thought it was two questions size of elevator size of bike storage i see all right and there are stairs if that's a problem but they're off probably heavy yeah yeah it serves as both the service or freight elevator and the
▶ 1:28:01 passenger so that's the that's the comment i think ah yeah this is mark wilcox again the um we have to provide space in that elevator for a stretcher so if a stretcher could fit in there i'm sure an e-bike can fit in there ah okay one other detail what is the fence material i'm not sure i caught that because there's a lot of effects here it's um pvc pvc excuse me pvc vinyl fence detail right here. So it's not a chain link with vinyl, it's a solid vinyl. When I say solid, I realize it's probably not solid. It's probably hollow, but at least it appears to be solid like pickets, right? Yes, correct. Solid like pickets. There is a fence out there. Can you see those? Yeah, it's actually a lot of it has a white vinyl face in the back. We're going to
▶ 1:29:02 either match that color or um it's going to get removed in reset because some of it's on it's not necessarily on the property in some areas and is there uh is there lighting that is uh site contained so it doesn't shed light you know in an intrusive way to adjacent residences yeah we did we gave you a lighting plan um it's the sheet right here sheet number seven oh yeah Yeah, I see it. Okay. Like right here, there's no spillover. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other questions from board members? I think that we need a little bit more information, although a lot of this is very straightforward. But there's been enough requests for more information about landscaping and design that I think we should maybe consider continuing
▶ 1:30:04 and asking for enough information to maybe make a decision with a continued public hearing. What do the other members of the board think? I would agree, that makes sense. Do we want to be sure we've articulated what we'd like the applicant to give us further information in order to decide we have a the staff report was great as far as including all the things we have to be looking at for both site plan review in general and also the rail district overlay i could take a stab at it if you want uh okay i'm going to start at the top uh in terms of the roof i think we would just like to see the specs on the condensing units uh understand that it's a high series rating but still like to to see that from acoustical standpoint
▶ 1:31:01 i don't know if there was a detail on the uh screening for the condensing units but i think it'd be helpful just to understand that if it's already in the documents then we can see that um i think that there were a number of comments on the overall facade design and articulation so i don't know how uh the architect might want to address that with the proponent but i would add that in terms of the next meeting just coming back with some addressing those comments as well the two um first floor units uh with respect to the sliders and just the grass right up to those units as to whether there's a pad or something mimicking the juliet balconies that might be the same material surrounding those if that's the intent uh in terms of materials just a clarity with perhaps
▶ 1:31:48 if the renderings really are such that you know it appeared to be brick as opposed to what was described as the hardy plank would we certainly would like to see at some point probably the design review subcommittee after we get through the vote on the from the standpoint of the approval process the actual materials and we do usually require as part of the conditions of the approval that mock-up materials be provided. We can give you more details on that, but I don't think we need that certainly for the next meeting. Then otherwise, to address from a site standpoint, the questions that were raised in terms of drainage to the extent the slopes are there, but curbing and the maneuvering of a vehicle again and protection in the building,
▶ 1:32:36 whether it's by curb or other means. Those were the things I had on my list. John, sorry, did you mention landscaping? I didn't, but thank you. It was brought up so many times. That's an important one. We would like to see a full landscaping plan. I realize that there's limited green space in this particular site, but we prefer to see at least someone with some experience. If it's not a landscape architect, someone with some experience with plantings in terms of, you know, what is evergreen versus, you know, perennial, annual, and would survive under the circumstances here where there's a lot of pavement. And then we prefer to see, obviously, more mature, and we'd like to see the caliper of trees as well, so we know that when it's planted, it's something that is going to be of a maturity that it'll look substantial on day one as opposed to waiting, you know, 10 or 15 years to fill in.
▶ 1:33:42 And I think along with the landscaping, if there was going to be even just that 1 small sign, if we could just see the detail of what it looked like, looks like, maybe it's already in there in the materials. I didn't I didn't see anything about sign. No, thank you. And that's right. Because it's incumbent on us to check that just to make sure it's within the ordinance. Anything else that we'd like to follow up on and can I just make a comment? Sure. I just wanted to tell the applicant that what you put forth at this point is what you actually plan to build. And it is conditioned in your approval. So, that's why we're asking you for such specificity with regard to the landscape plan kinds of planning versus not and things like that.
▶ 1:34:43 um it's easy to add plants and green to to rendering but we really want you to think about it and make your best um proposal because we will be checking while the project is being developed we understand that some things change but you are really committing to building the project as it is approved disapproval so i just want to point that out sometimes at this stage of design you know we think that there's a lot a lot of room for growth in the design and and in fact there isn't as much as you might expect at this point and i that's why i just make that very clear at the outset that's a good point too many modifications and we'd end up with a another public hearing so don't ever want to do that once we've made a decision all right
▶ 1:35:38 anything further from the board uh can we have a motion from a board member motion that we continue the hearing until uh february 2021 i think it's february 22nd is our next meeting yes is that seconded seconded uh if i could hear from the applicant is that reasonable because of course you'd have you have means you have to get your materials together and submit them at least a week in advance of that right i'm not sure it seems like enough time right then i'm sorry that's enough time for us right i i believe so yep okay so i have a motion in a second uh to continue the hearing until february 22nd with further information to be coming second i got that thank you any further discussion by the board all right then please say aye
▶ 1:36:41 or nay when your name is called Still here, uh, and I think she just unmuted, but I don't hear you, Sharon. Oh, it's me who I muted her. I, I don't think she's on. It sounds like she was having problems. Okay, all right. Well, the motion carries cases continue to February 22nd. Thank you all for coming. Thanks for all the information and we'll see you month. thank you guys thank you thank you thank you good night okay so let's see our next order of business is all our recommendations to the board of appeals so we have four cases for the board of appeals uh meetings that are coming up the first one is case 20-033 it's nine hardy harding road you all have the materials yeah laurie will bring up laurie will bring the brief up oh thanks