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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-10-21-PB-min PLANNING BOARD MINUTES MEETING OF OCTOBER 21, 2015 A meeting of the Lexington Planning Board, held in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room, was called to order 7:01 p.m. by Chair Nancy Corcoran-Ronchetti, with members, Tim Dunn, Charles Hornig, Ginna Johnson and planning staff Aaron Henry and Lori Kaufman present. Mr Canale joined the meeting in progress. *********************************STAFF REPORTS***************************** General updates: The annual Planning Board photo will be November 4 at 6:45 pm. in the Selectmen’s Meeting Room before the meeting. The Annual Report will forwarded to Board Members for review before being submitted on th October 30 deadline. **************************2016 ANNUAL TOWN MEETING*********************** Sketch PSDUP – Proposed Amendment to RD-6 (Brookhaven): Ed Grant, attorney, Bill Daley, attorney, James Freehling, president, and Dianne Duley, principal architect were present. Mr. Daley explained the goal was to bring this proposal to the 2016 Annual Town Meeting. Mr. Canale joined the meeting in progress at 7:10 pm. Ms. Duley gave a presentation of the existing site conditions for the 30 acre parcel. The parcel is a heavily wooded sloping site and the building location was based on the slope, setback and buffer from Waltham Street. This will be a four story building stepping down with the slope with a garage providing parking for the 48 units beneath it, and a maximum height of 60 feet. Additional parking will be provided along Waltham Street and at the trail head with enhanced vegetative buffering. The eastern portion of the site is heavily wooded and will be maintained as a buffer. The entrance access will be from an existing curb cut with a loop road at the entrance of the building at the high point and the road will continue around the back of the building and connect to the existing looped road. The existing culvert crossing the wetlands will be enlarged, any bank area will be rebuilt and any disturbance will be taken care of. Board comments:  The new entrance will get a lot more traffic and based on what’s happening across the way would this be a good location? Page 2 Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015  Why have surface parking along Waltham Street? The proximity to the historic trail and looking to get as much parking as possible made this the best location. Will the trail be open to the public? Yes.  There is a lot of slope on the site will there be a lot of cutting into the hill and will the fill be used to make the grade work? Still working on the grade, but the building location was made on a flat spot.  The site is already dense has structured parking been considered to take care of the needs? No, because of the site constraints. The loop road is being modified and parking on the edge reduced by 16 parking spaces. What will be the increase in the number of parking spaces on the site? The increase will be 48 plus 16 spaces. Has there been analysis of the expected increase in number of residents and visitors? The applicant is still working an analysis of the traffic, parking, numbers of visitors and resident cars.  What is the condition of the sidewalk along the frontage that goes to Concord Avenue and to the Waltham Street crosswalk? It is in good shape and residents can walk to the shopping center and use the pedestrian crosswalk and lights. The applicant said they could look into residents using the parking lot to walk across.  Additional comments included to have an expression of the water way at the bridge, rotate the building, avoid a dead end parking lot, verify that the location of any historic trails are correct, establish appropriate limit of work lines, and capture the trails and paths and how accessible they are on the plans .  What do you expect for the residents and visitors traffic pattern? The entrance is to the northern portion of the site and connected to the existing loop road to keep residents from having to turn left on Waltham Street to get into the existing site and a loop road for fire access. Encourage residents to use internal paths instead of making those two left turns.  The location of northern entrance now is just an existing curb cut, but consider the impacts of the property across the way if there was a change of use.  What is strategy for snow storage? This detail has not been worked out yet and will be discussed with Conservation.  The plan shows a 60 foot maximum height based on the lowest grade what is actual height of the building view to neighbors on the north? Will it tower over existing houses? The landscaping will buffer the view and mitigate the impact of that building on existing neighbors and will not be intrusive. Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015 Page 3  Where is the access to the underground garage? Will that be approved by the Fire Department? There will be only one entrance and exit which is the current condition and should be acceptable.  The intersection to the perpendicular parking is awkward and should be landscaped for pedestrian cross walks and vehicular movement. There seems to be no significant problems, but details need to be worked such as the view sheds as this proposal moves forward. ***********************DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION********************** CONTINUED PUBLIC HEARING 11 Suzanne Road, Special Permit Modification: Ms. Corcoran-Ronchetti called to order the continued public hearing for 11 Suzanne Road at 7:52 p.m.Mr. Rick Waitt, engineer and Ben Solky, applicant were present and there were seven people in the audience. The original special permit was under the reduced frontage development, but after review this plan does fit under the site sensitive development (SSD) with some waivers. The original proposal was restricted to a particular size and the new numbers were higher than allowed for the original proposal and the Board was uncomfortable with those changes. Mr. Waitt said the last meeting was in November 2014 and the changes requested were denied. The new plan shows no covered walkway, a reduced footprint of garage, but still outside the original building envelope. The proposed change to the roof line would prevent any additional living space to be created. There was unanimous support from the abutters at the last meeting to encourage the Board to approve the proposal. Benjamin Solky said he tried to work with the Board’s feedback. This is a small house for the lot size and just wanted to make his home functional and hoped the Board will support this modified project. Board Comments:  This project modification should be considered a SSD with waivers as permitted.  What was the reason for a larger garage? The applicant said he could not open the car door with garbage cans in garage and the neighbors would prefer the trash not be left outside and his elderly in-laws from Brazil would not be able to shovel snow off the cars. This would maximize functionality and would be helpful to remain in my neighborhood. Page 4 Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015  This garage would never be converted to livable space? Mr. Solky offered to include a restriction in the decision that this will not be converted to livable space and will always remain garage spaces.  There was concern expressed about approving this this addition since it is outside the building envelope. The applicant responded that this is a less imposing structure and more neighborhood friendly. This is a small scale project and more preferable.  What is the result in GFA? This is a 8,000 square foot home and has an of .226 FAR Audience comments:  This is a wonderful neighbor who always help others and we would hate to see them leave and this not an intrusive change.  The neighbor who would be impacted the most said they would prefer they have a garage to park their cars in. They are great neighbors and this change would create functional space for their family. Board Comments:  Look at this project from scratch based on the new bylaws and the numbers here are way lower than required. Just because the Board created something five years ago does not mean it should hold this to the old standards. This project should be approved with current restrictions that are needed.  Appreciate the modifications making a low FAR.  Under the circumstances this scaled down project was supportable.  This is just correcting the original design issue and making it closer to the house that was envisioned. Mr. Henry suggested that staff draft a decision for the next meeting. Mr. Henry said that the evidence of monumentation needs to be provided so the project can be formally closed out.  The decision should include that this is a new site sensitive development and the applicant needs an as built plan and have the monumentation done to mark the boundaries. On a motion duly made and seconded, it was voted 5-0, to continue the public hearing to November 4, at 7:00 pm in the SMR. ***************************LONG RANGE PLANNING*************************** Possible 2016 Annual Town Meeting Warrant Articles: (1:30:38) The Board discussed the list of proposed articles to move forward for the 2016 Annual Town Meeting. Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015 Page 5 Center (Banking & Parking): The Board discussed requiring large service uses be governed by special permit in the CB District. FAR The working group did not reach a consensus on the FAR for residential properties and are looking for feedback from the Board to determine if this is ready to go forward? Concern was expressed that the data is not accurate and this proposed article is really not ready. Audience comments:  Property values could go down and the Board needs to look closer at this proposal. This should move forward but better data is needed from the past and going forward.  There is concern about down zoning. This would be taking money out of the pockets of residents when they look to retire. Down zoning will decrease the tax revenue resulting in increased residential taxes. This is a large concern about how this will impact Lexington residents and needs more thought.  Need to consider the impact of increased taxes on the smaller homeowners. The working group will try to reach a consensus and the Residential policy Committee (RPC) will need to decide whether or not to move forward on this item. Staff will put together all the data and send it out for review to RPC, Planning Board, and other interested parties. The proposed article on the FAR seems to be starting from the wrong side and suggest the RPC come to a consensus on policy before calculating numbers and ratios. Height modifications: There was a consensus on the height proposal based on the setback limits on smaller grandfathered lots to deal with egregious large houses on small lots. Want charts, photos of egregious houses for this proposal. Two Family Houses: This proposal would be using the same dimensions of a single family house and be allowed by right where appropriate. There was concern that this proposal needs to be fully vetted before moving forward. The Board wanted to bring forward something that addresses the concerns of residents regarding affordability and should go forward to the formation of an article, go through a public hearing process to get the vetting needed. This initiative would be good by adding some diversity and is worth bringing forward. One concern expressed was that the end product could yield very large and expensive two-family homes and not the affordable units which the Board hoped to have as a final product. Page 6 Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015 Accessory Apartments : The current bylaw is so restrictive that building accessory apartments is virtually impossible. This proposal would remove all the restrictions that made it difficult to create accessory apartments. This proposed article feels closer to the feedback received from the public on affordable housing then the two family housing. Governmental- Civic DistrictUse Should the Board expand the concept of adding more institutional uses, add in the Town Municipal uses, or use the original proposal? Historic Preservation Incentives: The existing bylaw is too restrictive and cannot be used at all, but if some of the restrictions were stripped down this could be used to preserve historic structures. The Board saw this as a potential change for the 2017 Annual Town Meeting and do not see as urgent at this time. Modify Planned Development District (PDD): The Board discussed a proposal to revise the existing PDD zoning. CRO Modifications to be more consistent with the CM District Based on the past changes made to the CM District the Board could look at appropriate zoning for the remaining CRO District to finish the job started six years ago. There was some concern that some items might be too intrusive in these districts. There needs to be some thought before making those changes since some of these CRO districts abut residential districts. Is this something that could be put off to the 2017 Annual Town Meeting to allow time for appropriate outreach? There needs to be a determination as to what zoning would be appropriate based on potential impacts. Neighborhood Conservation Districts (NCD) Mr. Canale said the working group for NCD will be meeting on Monday and hope to bring a marked-up version for this initiative. Can the bylaw call for someone other than the BOS to be the appointing authority? Legal questions regarding recusal, alternates and other issues need to be addressed. Technical changes: Will work with Building Department and staff to see if there are anything important they want to address. A Parking PILOP: This has fallen off because the policy is not ready but staff will continue work on this and the BOS wants staff to look at parking rates. Banking and dimensional standards for the Center Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015 Page 7 should be part of a comprehensive plan to get the Center we want. Staff is requesting money be put into the budget for long range planning for this initiative. The Parking Management Group would like the Planning Board to weigh in on the rates and comments would be appreciated. A straw poll on parking rates in the Center was taken. Charles Hornig, Richard Canale, and Ginna Johnson, support the staff initiatives for Center improvements and parking plans and feel they should move forward aggressively on these initiatives for next year to increase the vitality of the Center. Would the Board want to address the one zoning district line in the CB District that runs along the bike path at this Town Meeting? There are some open ended items from the past to consider completing but understand that they cannot put them all forward this year. ************************************MINUTES********************************* On a motion duly made and seconded, it was voted, 5-0, to accept the minutes for August 19 and September 16 as submitted. ************* UPCOMING MEETINGS AND ANTICIPATED SCHEDULE************** The applicant for Victory Gardens has requested a performance guarantee release for the completion of the right of way for Victory Gardens and will be asking for street acceptance. The meeting on Wednesday, December 2 will be in the Parker Room at 5:30 p.m. prior to the Fall Special Town Meeting. When the Board is close to deciding what warrant articles to push forward staff would like to send out the information to TMMA, BOS, and other interested groups enough in advance to get feedback early on. The next meeting will be a joint meeting with the RPC at 7:15 pm on Wednesday, October 28, 2015. The room to be determined. On a motion duly made and seconded, it was voted, 5-0, to adjourn at 10:48 p.m. The meeting was recorded by LexMedia. The following documents used at the meeting can be found on file with the Planning Department: Page 8 Minutes for the Meeting of October 21, 2015  Application and plans for 11 Suzanne Road from the applicant (8 pages).  Memorandum from Aaron Henry regarding 11 Suzanne Road (2 pages).  Memorandum from Engineering regarding 11 Suzanne road (1 page).  Cover Letter and plan for an amendment to RD-6 Brookhaven (17 pages).  Potential 2016 ATM Articles (17 pages). Ginna Johnson, Clerk