##VIDEO ID:VMoGEswMzh8## e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] welcome everybody this is the let's see August 8th 2024 meeting of the chadam zoning board of appeals pursuant to Governor H's March 29th 2023 signing the acts of 203 extending certain covid measures adopted during the state of emergency suspended during provisions of the open meeting law um until March 31 2025 this meeting of the chadam zoning board of appeals is being conducted in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings provided for in the order a reminder persons who' like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling 508 94544 110 conference ID 220 263 711 pound or join the meeting online via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda while this is live broadcast and simoc cast on chadam TV despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide for realtime access we will post a record of this meeting in the town's website as soon as possible in accordance with Town policy the public can speak to any issue um or business item on the agenda during the meeting when recognized by the chair and before I continue with uh our procedural steps I will ask everybody to shut off any device that makes any sort of noise or vibration please and when you do um ask to speak there's a 5 minute limit you need to be recognized and then not start talking until you arrive at the microphones so that we don't have to hear a very scary knock on the window reminding us of that so um so the first thing we do is roll call of all board members to um authorize this form of meeting starting with Dave V uh yes David h v and I um I authorize this form meeting uh Ed Acton I approve David is Nexen I approve PA C simple I approve Lee Hy I approve Steve dbor I approve Virginia fck I approve and Randy podes I approve as well if any citizens are not non board members participating via the call please give your phone um actually via phone only give the last four digits of your name um and tell well actually the last four digits of your phone number for identification purposes um we begin meetings by um having uh staff read the applications uh Sarah clar to my right um then the representative um or are you will present your appeal after that we will hear if there's anyone in favor and they may speak for up to five minutes and then we will read or summarize I will read all the letters that we've received sometimes they'll be summarized depending on the length anyone against the appeal or application will have an opportunity to speak or ask questions um then there'll be a a period for the applicant to rebut any of that board members will ask questions we'll hear further information close the public hearing deliberate and usually we take a vote um all votes are taken by roll call and at the end of the meeting we will close the meeting VI a verbal confirmation and note the time of adjournment the first thing we do is we have minutes from I believe July 11th and July 18th if that's accurate we're going to take them one at a time and have an opportunity for anyone who has changes so who would like to move the July 11th Paul I will uh move uh that we adopt the uh uh minutes of July 11 2024 as published and would you like to second that for us for discussion second that for dis okay I'll second that for discussion yeah and does anyone have any changes I would propose an amendment to and this is being on page uh four uh on um around the middle of the page under deliberations um the it says Mr Simple move to approve application number 24-28 I would move to insert the wording to ensure to include the originally the originally proposed garage design comma with conditions and Mr Fe seconded okay does anybody else have any additions subtractions multiplications I would agree with that addition um I'll I'll amend my motion to include that uh change and Dave seconds and votes yes okay so let's vote for the amended motion you vote Yes Dave yes uh Jenny yes um vote Yes do I all right moving on to July 11th Paul I mean July 18th uh July 18th I was not present so I'll have someone else move to adopt those minutes I wasn't present either okay on that day da you you have first I will move well go ahead and I'll second okay I'll I would move to adopt um the um minutes of July 18th um I second that does anyone have any changes or modifications so I would move a I would move the on page one uh again in the middle of the page um sentence begins with a chairperson person person PES conducted a roll call of the board to achieve a quorum that we strike the wording uh the adding that Paul simple moved Etc down through um Miss David each seconded so that it would just read chairperson PES conducted a roll call of the board to achieve a quorum vote six or to establish a quorum even better to okay to establish a quorum okay that's sounds good I second that and how do you vote Yes vro Yes uh who we left with here um do you vote I would vote to approve as a oh and as do I all right very good we have a backup Crow all good all right so with that um what we're going to do if anyone has a list you need to turn to page two because we are going to actually start with 35 trout Pawn Lane um application 24- 079 today application number 24- 079 Robert pitris 35 trout pound Lane chattam Mass 02633 owner of property located at 35 trout pond Lane also shown in the town of chadam assessors map 7i block 43 lot c264 the applicant proposes to change alter expand a non-conforming dwelling and a non-conforming lot via the construction of additions the existing dwelling is non-conforming and it is located 37.2 ft from the road where a 40ft setback is required and 22 ft from the Easter Leia butter where a 25t setback is required the proposed additions will comply with all bul and dimensional requirements of the bylaw but is considered is considered a substantial alteration and under the second accept Clause of section 6 of Mass General Law chapter 4A such substantial alteration requires the grant of a special permit the existing building coverage is 1,56 ft and the proposed building coverage is 1,996 Ft where 2,900 ft is the maximum allowed the law is non-conforming and it contains 22955 ft or 60,000 ft is required in the r60 zoning District a special permit is required under masser law check 48 section 6 and section 5B of the protective bylaw okay so who do we have for trout Pawn Lane oh very good welcome sir thank you uh my name is Robert pitr 35 tropon Lane thank you for the opportunity today to present my proposed addition project I'm seeking a special permit based on the plans and application that were submitted to the board the addition on level one is for an 18 by 20 foot family room with a gable roof and an ex and um an extension to the kitchen 6x1 17 with a shed style roof the second floor is roughly 18 by 35 ft and will consist of a shed style Dormer that will contain the second bedroom the second full bath and an office space the property is in the river BAS neighborhood the area is mix of capes ranches and a few Colonials the house was built in 1984 and is zoned r60 which as you know requires a 60,000 ft lot 40 foot front set yard setback and 25 foot side and rear yard setbacks the lot size is 22,995 the front setback is 37 Feet and the side setbacks are 22 ft making the property existing non-conforming the maximum building coverage is 2900 Square ft the lot coverage is a currently 6.6% of the lot the shed in the proposed addition will result in total coverage of 99.1% or 2,95 Square ft well below the 2900 ft F feet allowed the roof Ridge will be 20 6 in in height and the maximum allowed is 26 feet 6 in in regard to the non-conformity of the addition the side setbacks for the addition will comp be compliant with the r60 requirements the side setback will be 25 ft on the east side and 40 ft on the West Side the rear set back will be 128 ft providing plate distance from the neighbors to the rear we don't anticipate any impact to the neighborhood properties or run off by the addition the site is sloping and the addition takes advantage of the current slope to the east providing some windows in the basement level in terms of square footage it's currently the smallest house on the street the addition will bring it closer to the square footage of average homes in the area I think you'll find that the proposed addition will be in good keeping with the existing Cape style home and other neighborhood homes with white cedar shingles double hung windows and Architectural asphalt Roofing the use as a single family remain as such consistent with the neighborhood septic tank needs to be relocated so we need to reapply for that application uh there will be no impact to traffic flow except for the occasional delivery uh we will minimize noise levels by avoiding exterior work during the summer months and we'll limit work from 800 a to 5:00 p.m. we'll make every effort to minimize waste and ensure materials are recycled where possible we will ensure the street remains clean uh and be good to our neighbors there will be no change to the existing utilities and um I think the last two items um are not applicable to this particular application so that's really what I had today to speak to if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them um okay so we'll get to that okay yeah very good um is there anybody here on Microsoft teams that wishes to speak in favor of this application if so please make it known raise your hand seeing none I will read the one correspondence that we received from our health agent Judith Giorgio on 86 2024 she reviewed the plan to add an addition to the property including a second floor the property will remain two bedrooms however the addition will encroach on the existing septic tank and so as you said you need to get permits for the relocation of the tank and that concludes our correspondence is there anybody here or Microsoft teams that wish speak against this project or has a question see none question from the board Jenny I have no questions we're going to go right around this way so uh Steve has no questions no questions no questions no questions um no questions and no questions and no questions for me so Paul I'll move to close the hearing and move into deliberations Dave seconds and votes yes yes did yes PA yes as do I so um deliberations now out with Jenny again yeah thank you for the your summary it was very um well done and I think the project is great it meets all of our criteria and um looks like a terrific project all right very good what do you think Steve um I also think it's a a nice project you did a very nice job in your presentation thank you um I don't see any problems this it's not affecting any of the existing nonconformities I think it's a nice project great Lee yeah I agree with my colleagues looks like a great project um meets our criteria and Paul and I agree as well I don't see that in any way it's substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood Ed certainly agree with my colleagues the the only point is um the shed because it is less than 100 square feet I I don't even know that it needs to be included in any of the calculations so you can can adjust it down good I noticed that too okay and Dave and I agree with all preview yeah and um so just a couple of the specific criteria that I didn't hear noted but I'm not objecting that you do meet them uh number one the adequacy of the size of the site um including but not limited to the maximum lot of building coverage and setbacks um it's compatible with the other structures in the neighborhood these are very important you know criteria that you absolutely meet in my opinion um and the impact of scale sighting and Mass on the neighborhood visual character um it's a nice project and um I also vote I would also vote when we vote to uh to approve it so Paul I'll move to approve the application as submitted it sounded as if um our standard uh conditions would be applicable given uh the way you want to proceed anyhow so um I'll move to approve on the conditions that all construction activity and vehicles be contained on site or at neighboring property with the permission of the property owner that between June 30th on Labor Day there no exterior construction will be allowed no work shall be permitted on the weekends and construction activity between 88: a.m. and 5:00 pm only Dave V seconds and votes yes I vote Yes JY I vote Yes yes as to why it's unanimous congratulations thank you so much luck appreciate it okay the next application is going to be what's listed as the last one um 83 partun mcot Road um and that is attorney Lichfield application 24 d08 when everyone's ready thank you oh yes yes yes I got to get my C out of my application number 24-8 Spencer H dric and Sarah B dric car of William G litfield Esquire 330 Orleans Road North chadam Mass 02650 owners of property located at 83 ponut Road um also shown on the town of chadam accessors map 8j block 50 Lot C 155 the applicant proposes to change alter or expand a non-conforming dwelling in a non-conforming lot via the construction of an addition the existing dwelling is non-conforming and it is located 20.9 ft from the Westerly AB butter where a 25t setback is required the proposed addition will comply with all bulk and dimensional requirements of the bylaw but is considered a substantial alteration under the second except Clause of section six of Mass General Law chapter 4A such substantial alteration requires the grant of special permit the existing building coverage is 1,461 ft and the proposed building coverage is 2,59 Ft where 2850 ft is the maximum allowed the LW is non-conforming and that it contains 20,400 ft where 60,000 ft is required in the r60 zoning District a special permit is required under M Law chapter 48 section 6 and section 5 b of protective bylaw welcome attorney Lichfield thank you madam chairman Bill Lichfield here on behalf of the applicant Sarah and Spencer dedric who are with us virtually this is a fairly simple proposal to a create a larger first floor bedroom on what is a fairly typical uh River lot if Sarah would be gracious enough to put up uh either the site plan or the elevation but I think I know you've all been out there and we we waited to file uh so that this could be heard at the same hearing as the trout pond application to save on your mileage we thought that was considerate and we did it in that way uh that is the lot as shown there we have a proposed conforming addition in the rear it's 31 30 almost 32 feet from the sideline 70 odd feet from the rear lot line but the house itself happens to be marginally non-conforming on the other side where nothing is proposed but like all the Lots in River Bay it does not have the currently required 60,000 Square fet so I'll go into the criteria as to adequacy of site including uh building coverage and setbacks again we have thank you Sarah that's the proposed uh front elevation you would see the uh bedroom behind the garage in the rear here uh as to adequacy of site we have a typical River Bay Halfacre lot with very low coverage 7.1% and a modest house we have an existing Westside sideline non-conformity I think you can approve the special permit based on a finding of the site is adequate for the addition of a larger first floor bedroom which meets all uh setbacks and is completely compliant as to cover just the compatibility on the third page of the handout is indicator we have the smallest footprint somewhat more than 1,400 square feet smallest of the adjacent properties in coverage of 7.1% we have a low gross floor area even with a full basement we are compatible now and it will remain so if you approve the special permit the addition of the bedroom at the rear while increasing the size of the house obviously is reasonable it remains compatible as to coverage living area and gross floor area calculations and meets all dimensional requirements as to the extent of increase in non-conformity it's fairly simple this is a buland hearing essentially there is no increase in non-conformity as to the suitability of site the site has been suitable for residential use for the last half century there are no Wetlands or environmental considerations involved as the scale citing Mass views and Vistas mass is not really applicable to what's on the screen there it's a simple full Cape set 43 or 44 Street uh feet back from the street it's without any negative impact on these Vistas and has a positive impact in the streetcap and if you approve the special permit you can do so based on a finding that the appropriate and simple design to match the house and again mostly behind the existing garage is without impact on streetcape no impact on views or Vistas the use remains compatible there is no change it's residential as the adequacy of water and sewer we have Town water and a four bedroom home uh there is no change the agent comments in that regard and suggests that we are required to have a 5-ft casement opening into the new Den that is shown on the plans which you have the other criteria traffic flow and safety noise and litter are not at issue so as you know the question is whether constructing a new first floor master bedroom completely compliant as to all dimensional and bulk requirements of our bylaw and thus without any change in setbacks or increase in non-conformities whether that is substantially more detrimental of the neighborhood than the existing slightly non-conforming house on a non-conforming lot as expanded uh we're still less than three4 of allowable coverage the addition will have minimal impact essentially no impact on streetcape it's 32 ft from the easterly lot line only 25 ft is required and the gross flow area and living area will remain compatible or comparable to the nearby properties so in light of the criteria and the plan I think that you can find the proposed addition meeting all zoning requirements is not substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood I thank you thank you is there anybody here or on Microsoft teams that wishes to speak in favor of this project please make it known seeing none I will read the two correspondences one from our health agent Judith Georgio received on 86 2024 she reviewed the plan to renovate and add an addition to the property the property has four bedrooms and the proposed addition will remain a four-bedroom layout however a 5 foot cased opening in the proposed Den from the living room must be added the addition must be partially on a slab to maintain its required 10-ft setback from the leech pit this is shown on the proposed site plan and is acceptable next we have a letter from Tim Bailey and Katie McDonald from 778 Riverview Drive received on 72 6 2024 it states that um Tim and his wife Katie have carefully reviewed the plans for the proposed addition to the house located at 83 pal New mcot Road um by Spencer and Sarah dri we AB but the subject property in the rear with our property located at 778 Riverview Drive and it's our feeling that the addition in question does not pose any detriment of any kind in fact we find the style and scale SC the addition to be consistent with the architecture in our neighborhood of River Bay Estates we therefore pledge our support for the proposed project and that concludes the correspondences is there anybody here are on Microsoft teams that wishes to speak against or has a specific question about this application see none questions from the board dve I have no questions uh no questions no questions Jenny no questions no questions no questions no questions and I have no questions either I'll move to close the hearing and move into deliberations Dave V seconds and votes yes yes yes yes and yes Paul oh yeah we already did that so yeah Paul deliberations all right uh what was the name of that road again you can read it it's right in front of you uh this is is clearly a nice uh a nice change and uh certainly is not detrimental in any way to the neighborhood so I will vote in favor of it Lee what do you think I agree with Paul I think it's a um appropriate it's modest and it will be great to have a first floor master and Steve I think it's a nice project most of the addition is uh is hidden from the street and uh it doesn't affect the the one non-conforming uh setback on the opposite side of the house I have no issues and Jenny agree with my colleagues no issues beautiful home thoughtful project meets all of our criteria not substantially more detrimental Dave Nixon it is not in any way substantially more detrimental to the name Ed and I agree with my colleagues and Dave be yeah yes I agree and then I I just thought of a question I forgot to ask and I I thought especially looking at the map and all that I'm just wondering Bill I I don't remember if even even I was in attendance to I'm wondering what the the process the thought process telling me in rezoning this entire area to r60 was uh motivated by the I if I could Madam chairman try to brief the the notion was that zoning of larger areas of town this was the sort of Northwest section of town it made sense because of the potential for water for Wells and water shed in that interest at the time there were more larger tracts of undeveloped Land South of old Queen Anne Road and it was felt that uh separating River Bay didn't make any sense so the entire broader area was was owned r60 great thanks and it brought us a lot of business I Mr Riley refers to that as his uity right yes okay so with that uh Paul I will move to approve the application as submitted do you see any problem with our standard conditions uh bill I I don't see any and if there are any issues with with uh not completing construction by June we will come back to you but I think they're reasonable all right uh I'll move to approve the application with the condition that all construction activity and vehicles be contained on site or at a neighboring property with the permission of the property owner that between June 30th and Labor Day no exterior construction will be allowed no work shall be permitted on the weekends and construction activity between 8:00 a and 5:00 P p.m only dve seconds and votes yes yes Jenny yes well yes as Dwight unanimous congratulations thank you very much thank you all right now we're going to go to 53 Mar View Road and see that is number one on the list and that is application 24- 047 application number 24- 047 Elvio James Master Bono and Laura Elizabeth Master Bono car William mcy Esquire PO Box 707 chadam m 2633 owners of property located at 53 Marsh View Road also shown on the town of chadam assessors map 8C block 26 lot s38 the applicant proposes to change alter or expand a conforming dwelling on a non-conforming lot via the demolition of the existing dwelling in the construction of new dwelling the existing dwelling and proposed dwelling will comply with all bul and dimensional requirements of the bylaw but is considered a substantial alteration and under the second except Clause of section 6 of Mass General Law chapter 4A such substantial alteration requires the grant of a special permit the existing building coverage is 955 ft 7.5% and the proposed building coverage is 1,788 Ft 14% or 15% is the maximum allowed the LW is non-conforming and it contains 12,775 ft where 20,000 ft is required in the R20 zoning District a special permit is required under master Law chapter 48 section 6 and section 5B of the protective bylaw this was continued from May 23rd 2024 we should have a commercial while we're waiting p through that y all right Mr Riley welcome uh good afternoon Bill Riley on behalf of Jim and Lara Mas Rono who are present here today uh and Karen of course so uh I hope your memories are better than mine I'd have to refresh Myself by going watching the last hearing I was going to say would you like to just tell us what's new what's changed yes that great I have my review of zoning board concerns so the uh Sarah would you put up the first slide that shows the proposed building there you go thank you all right so the there were concerns addressed about several aspects of the criteria um one was that several mentioned well they didn't think it met criteria number one that is to say that the site was not adequate uh for the proposed building the uh and that might have been because the they were concerned about the change in elevation of this lot above the street uh because the the building itself meets all setbacks um the building coverage as proposed has been reduced from 14% to 13.7% uh and the uh they've the current proposal if you look at the site plan carefully you can see that the top of foundation has been lowered by a foot so they're reducing the grade of the lot by another foot I think perhaps uh some members like myself have difficulty visualizing things that don't actually yet exist in real time uh and so looking at this property you have to visualize that the top of foundation is 2 feet lower than the existing top of foundation and so the top of foundation now is three feet above the street level so street level is elevation 14 which is on you know the site plan and top of foundation's elevation 17 so we're only three feet above the street level and some members were concerned about the height of the building above the street I hope that clarifies that in a manner that's satisfactory the uh and many times I'm before you presenting a building that is either exceeds the current maximum coverage because it's already not conforming or clients who want to bring it right up to the maximum allowable coverage and the this is a situation where the master bonus are not trying to maximize the building the original proposal was 14% they move the front porch uh with the columns that somebody didn't like and so now we're at 13.7% so I think that in terms of size of the site being adequate for the project you know one of the things I don't usually find wisdom in our zoning bylaw but one of the things I think was wise in our zoning bylaw is the use of a percentage rather than a raw number in ter in determining allowable building coverage because then all lots are equal you know you get 15% you know up to 20,000 Square ft but you know so that I think if we're coming in at 13.7% even if it's a small lot which just 13.7% of a small lot which by the way in our interpretation means it's a small house but that's really for you folks to decide the uh we also think that this is an an area where we think the gross floor area is somewhat deceiving uh Karen's current design uh has a living area on the first floor of 126 square feet uh and considering some of the projects we've been here this would fit in the master bedroom of some of those projects so I think that's enough another way of establishing uh that clearly this is not you know an attempt to maximize you know these folks have owned this house for 20 years family's grown this is going to be their reti and home unless like me they never retire but so they need decent living space there's no basement in this building and Mr Master stand he's a pretty big guy they have pretty big Sons so they bump into each other a lot in the current house which is only 900 square fet so uh I think that all these things emphasize how modest the size of the house is uh so another thing is U several members mentioned that the house was surrounded by uh small ranches buildings built in the like this one in the 50s and 60s when people would build a small summer Cottage no basement no heat just we're going to hang here for the summertime and when it gets hot we open the windows and the wind blows through and keeps us cool so unfortunately none of that stuff works anymore so for a retirement home the mro Bonos wanted to have a suitable Master Suite which they put on the second floor uh if you look at the floor plan the other two bedrooms on the Master Floor are actually quite modest and again to differentiate it from many of the applications that come before you where they have three master bedrooms each each bedroom having its own private bath here you know that's not what they've proposed and again I think that uh is a point where it shows the modesty of their proposal the the uh but in terms of the buildings that surround it visible from this property there are uh four twostory homes uh 20 Marsh view 38 marshview 58 8 Marsh view 82 Marsh View and 100 Marsh view well maybe they can't see a 100 but they can almost see a 100 and from their new home from the second floor they could see 100 but so the there are you know some modest ranches next door although the immediate AB but on Pine Ridge is a two-story house also that's the house where Dave was talking about looking over the fence and so there are uh so as a two-story house this is not an outlier this is really fits into the fabric of this everchanging neighborhood I know uh you know some people think well Hardings Beach Hills the entire subdivision is a neighborhood but I think that uh you know for this board when considering neighboring properties you like to consider properties that are in fairly close proximity to the building that's being the project is being discussed and I don't find that unreasonable but that's why I wanted to emphasize that these twostory buildings are visible from 53 so the uh uh the other thing is because we're lowering the building we don't think we're impacting anybody's views in Vistas beforehand uh but we know by lowering the building even more that we're definitely not and the if you drove through the neighborhood for instance if you drove up Pine Ridge Road uh you would see a design virtually identical to this design because and how do I know aside from driving around there today because I represented Karen design before this August body getting it approved about five years ago or was it seven years ago it was a while ago but I mean it's virtually identical to this design and so I think that this design does in fact fit into the fabric of the neighborhood so what I'd like to do is turn it over to Karen now to go through the changes that she made um Karen Kempton architect for for uh Laura and Jim Master Bono um so Bill's already gone through that we have lowered the house um an additional foot from our last proposal and our last proposal had the first floor one foot lower than the existing uh first floor and now we are 2 feet lower than the existing first floor um by dropping the house down obviously that has also dropped the ridge height down so the ridge height now is only 7 ft above the existing Ridge so that's pretty minimum to try and fit second floor space on this on this house um in order to disguise that we've done uh a different variety of dormers on the front of the house um most with different heights wall Heights for example these Dormers they're all set in from the corners of the house they don't stretch all the way over these Dormers are also set in this one set in 2 feet this one's set in a foot and I believe this one's set in another two feet the Wall height of this Dormer is only 6 and 1/2 ft above the second floor and the Wall height of the other Dormers are um 7'3 in or 7' 4 in was pretty minimum on the second floor and that was all done um to keep the height um of the second floor and the massing and the scale down um we have eliminated uh the Dormer on the rear on the Southeast Corner um sure cherl put that up right that Dormer right uh originally came all the way to the left end so we've pulled it back to soften that um Wall height uh for their closest to butter who is on the east side these changes reduce the living space by 100 square feet and the building coverage has noted has been changed from 14% to 13.7% the other changes we discussed were possibly locating the garage on the west side of the property with access only to Bucks Creek uh the concern with this was that the garage would be actually 24 ft long if we can go back to the front rendering it would increase the length of the house right now the garage is 16 ft wide with a single garage door if if we had put it on the other side and turned it um the length of that wall would be 24 ft without a garage door on it would be basically two windows and would look like an extension of living space so we like the um the way that the garage on the left kind of balances the main part of the house U and is symmetrical or balances the wing on the right hand side uh the driveway the proposed driveway is out of the conservation setback uh if we had it from bucks Creek it would be in the setback uh so that was another reason that we decided to locate the driveway and the garage on the left side of the house um the neighbor to the east also prefers the garage on this side uh as it creates a quiet space on that side of the house with all the outdoor activity and interior living space on the right hand side of the house so um we decided to concentrate on lowering the height of the proposed house and and and the driveway and by strategically placing the second floor space within the various Dormers and keeping the ridge 3 9 in below what is actually allowed uh we feel that this house Blends into the neighborhood and is not overwhelming um of the remaining original one-story Cottages um those cottages of which this was originally uh have small bedrooms 10 x 10 bedrooms um and which were great for when their kids kids were little 20 odd years ago now the kids have grown uh the bedrooms at 10 x 10 as you know were quite small um the bedrooms we have on the second floor are modest they're not extravagant in size but they give them a little bit more Elbow Room to move around so we hope you agree that this is a sympathetic response uh to making the cottage a year round house uh for the master Bonos um and is not detrimental to the neighborhood um although there other yes one-story houses we think in time most of those will transition probably into having second floors put on them as well as you can see in most areas around this this neighborhood thank you Ken yes um hello everyone um Madam chair and zba members thanks for your time today it would be okay I'd like to take 30 seconds and just introduce myself and my wife because we weren't at the last uh zba um we are the homeowners of 53 marw um my name is Jim arono this is my wife Laura uh we have deep roots in chadam Laura's father and grandfather handbuilt a house over on sound view in the ridgevale area in the 50s um Laura spent many summers at that Cottage in the late 60s 7s and 80s I'm dating you a bit I apologize um we have two aunts and two uncles who are retired residents of Adam and we have a cousin who lives here year round with her two daughters um Laura and I met in the early '90s we got married we started a family we spent nearly all our free time uh summer vacation time in chadam and dreamed of one day owning a home of our own here that dream came to uh true in 2002 when we bought 53 marshview for 15 years we rented the cottage during July in August to offset the cost of a second home however during the non- peak months we enjoyed all the great things about chadam and Cape Cod with our growing family and took time to make incremental improvements to the cotage uh our children are now young adults but still come to chadam whenever they can they have many friends here and love to show chadam off to their new friends L Laura and I are approaching retirement and have decided that we wish to retire year round in chadam as mentioned our current Cottage is no longer fits our needs it's simply too small not winterized and not designed for year- round living we consider selling mshv and purchasing another home in chadam but we love our location and we love our hings beach Hills neighborhood and we love our neighbors we considered a renovation but ultimately decided on a complete rebuild for cost Effectiveness and Energy Efficiency reasons we hired Karen we hired Bill we hired uh Clark engineering engineering all local professional professionals experience in chadam building process we spent nearly two years on the design and we're pleased when we cleared Conservation Commission and we're understandably disappointed in the outcome of the last CBA however we took the cba's comments to heart um we took their feedback in and we ultimately uh came up with a new plan that's been partially presented uh so far today that we feel addresses these concerns and we're excited to share that with you so um I would just ask maybe uh Sarah if you don't mind advancing that slide um just to go through a few things um you can advance through this um and I think we discussed the the three major changes were making uh certainly the finish grade uh Ridge height top of foundation all dropped uh removal of the rear dor um as as uh Karen and Bill explained um this will reduce the visual Mass from the back of the house also with the big portion of the Dormer just gone and from the um the northeast corner of the site on marshview you won't have that visual mass of that Dormer off the garage and again removing this fairly sizable door covered entry poro um you know this is a 4X 10t by 10t high roof entry structure that's no longer there we now have a flat front home more traditional cave uh one of the board members uh mentioned that the columns weren't traditional Cape so we removed that which again reduces the visual Mass if you go to the next slide uh this is just the site plan with all the um uh house height uh Dimension changes Incorporated if you go to the next s s please um on the left side you have what we proposed um in May of 23rd at the last zba meeting and what's uh we're proposing today um and you can see all the dimensions have uh critical Dimensions have dropped down so we really feel this uh this home will certainly be just slightly elevated from street level and Visually just just perfect on the lot next slide please Sarah I want to note this also this is the approved uh Conservation Commission mitigation plan was there a was there a pointer here yeah there's a button there's a button somewhere okay it's going on keep hitting it uh yeah so so if you've been by the property you notice we have a lot of vegetation here within the 200 foot 100 foot Coastal Bank area and that all has to remain as per the Conservation Commission mitigation plan plan um there's also space down here that has to remain um we we love this space a lot of great birds um you know a lot of great Wildlife we have to augment we're going to remove this driveway uh we hope to remove this driveway and we and uh if we do so we have to augment this area with some additional native plantings um a tree here some different bushes the plant schedule is right here so this has been approved by the Conservation Commission but but what the net result will be will be you know a a a visual buffer really from this point all the way around the house almost to the D the new driveway um this area right now is got you know a spruce in it a couple of Oaks uh 10 foot Thicket so you when you're biking and walking around here you can you can't see our Cottage at all so um we think that's uh we think that's a benefit to the site Sor could you go to the next slide please um so um this is our proposed house we've seen this already could you go to the next slide please Sarah um this is quickly hings Beach Hill Neighborhood just want to say couple words on this this is a neighborhood in every true sense of the word neighborhood was developed around the same time it's a neighborhood association comprised of 84 homes um there are two entrances to the home um here on mview and here on Hilltop you're greeted with that sign at both entrances um we all have shared rights to a common picnic area and dock area where we keep ey kayaks and canoes and we have our annual meeting here um everyone pays the same annual HOA fee next slide please um this is evolved this neighborhood here's our house at 53 to the point where almost half of the homes are greater than one story next slide please um they've grown people have expanded uh these homes um a third of them are greater than 2,000 square feet as as reflected in those highlighted in yellow next slide please um this is what bill was mentioning if this is our house if you just focus on this this area around so these are these are homes that are within eyesight of our home this is what they look like so um you know you have four on M few 20 38 58 and 82 and one right uh direct above or right behind us on Pine Ridge um so sizable twostory homes uh in a re reasonable proximity to us next slide please um these are the five most recent homes built in hoing Beach Hill um we showed this one I think Bill this you were mentioning this one this very much looks like our design which is which I have here uh this was just completed at the end of 2023 the Reagan moved in in I think 2024 um this is a short 260 yard walk uh from my house um here's another one that was completed in 2002 this is a Karen kton design um It's a larger home this is the only lot by the way on here that's non-conforming so it's a bigger house um but um you can see the style this is right next to the dock area he has a house that was completed in 2017 very close 190 yard walk from me right right up um Pine Ridge um 2800 foot home uh this house is another K actually this is a Kieran designed house and this is a Ken design house it's very popular in Hing speach Hill um so this house is on um the opposing corner to us so on the corner of Buck Creek and mashu is our lot on the corner of bucks Creek and Hilltop the other entrance is this house uh which was completed in 2016 at 69 bucks Creek uh it has a pool back there it has a two-car garage similar square footage to what we're building a corner lot uh nearly the same size uh this is a a house that's um you know a pitching graduated from me 160 yards right down the road built in 20 uh 2012 so I think I think our home in relation to the five most recently built homes in our neighborhood it's not an outlier in terms of size it's not an outlier in terms of style next slide please SAR um and just you can just go through these are just other examples of rebuilt and renovated homes in the hotting beach Hills neighborhood that just shows the variation and some sizable houses in our in our neighborhood association you know you you see a couple pus designs here this house is actually almost 15 ft above street level um sizable home next slide please just four more examples of houses and varying designs next slide please um this is a big renovation that was completed in 2022 um on Indian Trail here you see a colonial here you see a contemporary again just further examples of more uh varying designs in the neighborhood um next slide this is this is my final slide um I just want to make just some summary comments um you know we believe that substantial changes were made to the house design and site plan to address the points that were raised by the May 23rd zba meeting we took them to hot we made substantive changes uh to the site and to the house um another Point here is that street views of the house will be visually buffered by uh the native vegetation that's required uh by the mitigation plan of the Conservation Commission that we need to manage um the house is a modest house for year round living the first floor only has a kitchen a dining and a living room the second floor has three modest bedrooms and a smaller office it's a single car garage home the proposed house design and project plans have been shared frequently with our neighbors throughout the whole process we've been incredibly incredibly transparent with them and we've received positive feedback our neighbors value Home Improvement they really do and they value year round uh resid resence for personal and property safety reasons and I think you'll hear from some of the Neighbors when you read the letters um and finally the proposed house as shown by the pictures and this presentation are compatible uh with other properties in our neighborhood and consistent in terms of size and scale with recently built and remodeled homes that's all I have thanks J thank you I can run through the criteria if you want not necessary because you did it last time thank you and we can read your mind scary thought but we can um all right so thank you for your presentation and your passion and your the the um completeness of it is there anybody here or in Microsoft teams that wishes to speak in favor of this application seeing none maybe one nope I have uh five correspondences to read let's see first one was received on uh July 30th and it is from David witam Madam chair I hoped to attend your meeting today but I'm able unable to do so would you please read the following letter into the record in 1933 my maternal grandparents Frederick and Helen Drisco bought a farmhouse on 40 acres in of land in West chadam in 1957 they sold the property to Donald Smith who subdivided the land into 90 house lots of approximately 12,500 Square ft he then began this building one-story three-bedroom Cottages all of basically the same design Mr Smith named the first summer subdivision Harding Beach Hills in 1960 he noted he donated the land to be used as a common area to promote neighborhood interaction in the hbh the Bucks Creek Yacht Club was founded 64 years later that continues to be the governing body of our neighborhood we print a yearly directory with the names addresses and contact information of our neighbors the book also includes the current offices of the board of directors as well as our community bylaws and regulations we have two bank accounts all members pay the same dues the entirety of the by BC YH is a true neighborhood and should be regulated accordingly the the few homes AB buding the um property at issue are not a neighborhood in and of themselves and do not represent the average size of homes throughout the AG B most of the original Cottages have been substantially altered or replaced since they were built much larger homes have been constructed on previously undeveloped Lots Jim and Laura Master Bono have summered at 53 marshview for 22 years they've raised their family and have been wonderful neighbors they would like to retire and have designed a house to meet their future needs the proposed dwelling complies with all bul and dimensional requirements of the chadam bylaws the chadam health agent has no concerns and the con Conservation Commission has signed off on the project the neighbors are supportive less than 10% of the neighborhood is are year rounders and it would be nice to see another light in the off seon finally the master Bonos have addressed the concerns of three zba members by reducing the size mass of the proposed new home I believe the special permit will substantially benefit our neighborhood and I encourage the zba to approve the application thank you for your consideration David R whitcom next we have a letter from Marvin and Cindy Dinger of 14 Pine Ridge Road in chadam um I am a year this was received on uh July 28th of this year I am a yearound neighbor of 53 Marshville marshview I have seen the renderings I believe it will be a su substantial Improvement to the site I'm confident it meets and or exceeds all the requirements of the neighborhood and look forward to its completion next we have a letter from Russell and Nancy Young 24 Pine Ridge Road West chadam and that is received on July 27th 2024 we are budding neighbors of 53 Marshville Road in hoing Beach Hills development and are writing to offer support for their building project we have reviewed the plans and computer rendering of the home they plan to build and believe it will be a substantial Improvement to the site compliment the neighborhood there have been many recent renovation projects in the neighborhood and this project appears compatible in design and size next we have a note from Joe and Courtney Peters of 13 bucks Creek Road received on July 26 we are in a butter to 53 Marshfield Marsh View Road and would like to offer our support of Lauren Jim um proposal before the chadam zoning board nothing about this project including its original form has struck us as interfering with our rights as a buts having reviewed the most recent renderings it seems respectful of the modesty and charm of the hiding Beach Hills neighborhood while incorporating present day updates and sensibilities collectively it would seem that these features will enhance not just the Aesthetics and comfort of the property but also its health safety and overall quality undoubtedly over the long term the entire neighborhood and community at large gains from such Investments and improvements by the owners we have a short note from Kevin brownl of 48 marshview Road received on July 25th he lives across the street from Laura and Jim Master Bono at 53 Marv Road he shared he lives actually at 48 he shared the plans and renderings um with me of the house and that they wish to build I believe it will be an improvement to the site on hoing build beach Hills neighborhood I do not see it out of scale or scope with the houses in the neighborhood that concludes the correspondences is there anybody here are on Microsoft teams that wishes speak against this application or has a specific question seeing none Madam chair I have one comment I'd like to make regarding the correspondence please the the last letter you wrote read from Kevin bronley Bromley uh he owns the house that Mr Nixon was referring to in our last meeting right where he was very concerned that this house was going to be a detriment to that house that our proposed house would be detriment clearly Mr brownley doesn't think so I just want no and he's the man that lives there now yes I'm just not NE neily the man that's going to live there forever no his grandfather's still alive so we think he's going to live for a long time okay anybody else have anything to say about that good all right questions from the board let's see Where Do We Begin Lee we'll begin with Lee just questions yeah just question well you know you could always express your concerns as well because it's a lot easier for us to address them if you tell us during this period well we're to follow along with our rules during this process and all processes but thank you for your your comment go ahead Le uh actually I have no questions okay Steve do you have any questions uh no I don't have any questions J any questions I have a couple Mr Riley maybe Karen um I want to make sure I understood what you said so you reduced the height of the home two inches from the last hearing is that right no no the height the height we we lowered the structure by an additional foot so that the previous design the top of foundation was one foot lower than the existing top of foundation and so what we did uh after the last hearing was reduce the height of the top of foundation by another foot which reduced it another two inch two 2 ft 2 feet well I'm looking at the cover page and it has proposed height 266 was what was the grade plane is that what you're referring to the grade plane Changed by two inches yes that's what I'm referring to well it's referred to as proposed height of the of the home the height of the home has not changed it's always been 25 ft above the top of foundation we're just dropping the whole house down um 2 feet lower than the existing house one foot low lower than our previous proposal one foot lower okay I mean it's confusing a little Sarah on this sheet and I not reading it right it's what sheet is that we're bill is going to explain our cover page the board asked for Building height which is provided by the engineer land surveyor um and if you look at the proposed Ridge height from average grade which is how the town of chatt measures Building height it's showing it's reduced by 2 in from 26 a grade changed right from 266 to 264 right the average grade has changed so it's actually a foot lower okay it is it is deceiving you know numbers can okay well because confusing under our under our bylaw average grade is calculated from Final Grade not existing grade so when you lower the grade if the house height Remains the Same then uh the proposed Ridge height is is going to remain constant um no I understand that Mr Riley I but when we look at the site plans the previous home was listed as 26 26 feet 6 Ines and this one now is 26 I'm going to just stop you just for one second to help we're going to ask a Building Commissioner to chime in so the ridge elevation dropped a foot but the grade plane also dropped so the net effect is a 2 in a building height of 2 in less on this application okay but visually it's it's more than two inches it's a it's over a foot visually no it's only two inches difference Building height is different because we measure from the average grade but but I mean they lowered the lowered the grade visually right okay so visually it's um okay I wanted to clarify that um my next question you already answered which was that the grade changed a foot from the last time okay um Karen you mentioned the garage on the west had or the garage sighting on the west side was contemplated but um it required more square feet that you didn't have well if we did it on the West Side it would be access from bucks Creek Buck Creek right and it would still be a single car garage with one door yeah however if you a garage has to to be 22 24 ft deep okay okay so if we're turning it on the other side instead of having the 16t wide door now we have a 22 24t deep garage facing Marsh view which doesn't now look like a garage it looks like a continuation of the house so we like that the garage door does face Marsh view it keeps it compact it keeps it Charming can go in the back the depth goes back the depth goes left to right okay all right um thank you um and then I guess my last question would be um and I'll get into this a little bit more during deliberations Mr Riley but the pictures the images that you shared with us were very helpful um some of the ones that you spoke of specifically that you said this is just like our practically our home I think I think uh the homeowner said that I think you said that a couple of the houses look very similar but one of the things I noticed is that they have their Dormers are not as one of the issues that I'm having a little bit with the home is the it's a little topheavy you have 13 Windows going across the top if you add all the all of them and some of these other homes really like see the one on the top left see that's four windows it's two Dormers it's an an Tucket Dormer they're large dogghouse Dormers but the windows of it of it and a couple of these other ones the one on the bottom Cor Corner same thing does not have an N Tucket Dormer but it has two dogghouse of two windows so I guess my question would be um and you don't have to answer it right now but maybe think about it as we proceed through the hearing would you be open to reducing a little bit of that I think it could help with the mass well the Dormer on the right and left over the garage and over the wing on the right hand side yeah um help us have Headroom on the second floor if we didn't have those warmers there we wouldn't have sufficient Headroom for the bedrooms upstairs um so that's why we made them as minimal as we could by bringing them in from the corners um the the house on the upper right hand side is actually 40 ft across um instead of our 28 ft across so it's a much larger house um able to get more second floor space on the upper right upper right yeah I was I'm sorry I was talking about the upper left yeah the upper left but as you can see from this there's no second floor space on the right and the left wing it's only in the center part of the house and because we're trying to keep the um the footprint of the house small we have to put all the bedrooms on the second floor versus having a bedroom on the first floor making the footprint even larger than what it is so squeezing in the three bedrooms upstairs plus an office is why we need the dormers on the two ends and I think the look of it balances the house as as well I I don't disagree that it looks nice it's just that if you count it's it's 13 Windows going across the top and really like five Windows below I think it contributes to some top heaviness that that was my only point and I I mentioned we're getting a little bit into liberations but the question as part of it would be would would you consider um that so we could possibly remove reducing the size of the number of Windows yeah that's that's okay question okay thank you okay Paul do you have any questions I have no questions and Dave Nixon do you have any questions I do thank you very good yeah uh Karen um I briefly spoke with you before about the the garage on the left it it kind of makes to me that whole section jump right out at me and reviewing what troubles me maybe it's that big white thing you know that that might be my real issue as a you know when what the door the garage door yeah the garage door as opposed to moving to the right I understand your reasons why you don't want to or you can't and so forth um but how would you mitigate that door would you somehow finish it in the same way you finished the house would that somehow soften it well we haven't talked about paint colors yet so uh we generally like white because it's traditional and that's what you see everywhere that wall is 4T back from the front wall of the house I don't know if the rendering actually shows the depth of that but it is set back quite a bit Yeah the side view shows that yeah yeah so um maybe by changing the color of the door to a light gray if if um Jim and Laura would go with that um but again we we like the balance of the right hand side um the VG Grove board and the white door of the garage door if we had done shingles underneath the porch as you know uh shingles don't weather the same uh if it if they're not in the sun they don't weather the same as the rest of the house so that's why we chose to do the white VG Grove board on the right hand side which I think again balances the the uh white door the garage door on the left but it but the sharpness of it could be mitigated with paint or or whatever it might be okay and I think yeah I think that was my major concern about that so uh Mr Riley um uh the applicant made a case for uh the entire neighborhood being Hardy me Hills and all that um talk to us about standing I don't mean standing here but legally standing and I know you know a lot about this because for those who don't know Mr Riley was the architect of a very famous decision which was kener versus his clients by the name of the doctor's hve and um what had happened this was on chattar chatt chatt har Lane thank you where his client uh wanted to uh rebuild a cottage right on the water and it went up 7 feet and this board approved it and the folks who live behind it and the house went up like this it wasn't on the same plane they brought suit against us and after I don't know how many years it went on but one thing led to another whatnot and uh a lot of the talk on that case had to do with standing and whatnot but eventually uh Mr Riley was uh Justified and and so winning the case for his clients he wanted for for the zoning board of appeals and thank you very much you know that I I don't think you got paid a dime from the town for it but that's okay we appreciate anyway so would you give us like a tutorial about standing within a neighborhood and to me the neighborhood is just a house that you can see uh that doesn't agree with your applicant uh but seems to me there was a lot of talk about that and maybe you're the one to give us a little education I think I think the uh well the interest of the public in zoning matters really it's got two levels you've got a hearing like this where you're advertising in the newspaper and Joe Blow from Howard can come in and tell you what he thinks about the design but when the matter is appealed uh to a court whether it's the superior court or the land Court uh standing requires uh you know an agreement an injury that you suffer that the public doesn't suffer and so in the kener case uh they said that um the change in height of the building impacted their view of Nantucket Sound and the so two things sort of came out of that case one is yes we this is funny I've never won a case in the appeals court but I have one one in the SJC on appeal from the appeals court and the the uh so what the SJC said in that case was in terms of we have neighborhood views and Vistas well it's neighborhood views and Vistas it's not individual views so the candidat were complaining specifically about the impact on their View and the U the court said well uh the bylaw is not designed to protect an individual view it's only designed to protect neighborhood views but they did go on to say that um the ker house so the first floor of the ker house was higher than the ridge line of of the high proposed house so we're talking about a worldclass wine here because they were so much higher and so they said uh yeah but because the impact is so dominous there's no uh there's no injury perceived injury so they didn't have standing for two reasons one there was no injury and two the bylaw is not designed to protect single views but so you have to have you have to be close enough in proximity to the to the house so that the construction well not the house or whatever the project is so that the construction of that project is going to create relative to you some significant injury legal injury legally cognizable injury uh or agreement and so so that's why while all the Neighbors in Hardings Beach Hills can comment the only ones who actually have standing in an appeal would really be sort of the immediate abutters to the property is that thank you very much you're welcome any more questions Mr Nixon enough from Mr Riley all right uh no questions and I have no questions and uh I I think I have a couple of questions so on one of you in this let's see what I don't know what page it's on but I'll just tell you that you say 39 of 84 homes in what you call the neighborhood uh 46% of them are greater than one story so here's my question when you say greater than one story you're also including one and a half 1.75 1.75 right you just answer yes or no on that yes okay so you don't mean necessarily two story no that's why I framed it as greater than one story greater than one story because that's what's in the web assessor and so that's 46% are greater than one story but that means most are not correct the major the majority are not just by by that yeah I just you know just want to just clarify that's a true statement okay okay very good very good and then and all these a lot of these other houses that you're saying you know a larger um they're on larger Lots correct no um actually um um that's not the case well not not all of them not all of them a lot of them are on ler Lots some of them are I noted the one where I had the recent bills I did note the one house Karen designed house that was on a conforming law it was just over 20,000 foot but the rest of those houses were all on non-conforming um uh Lots under between like 13,000 and 15,000 square ft so okay um and then another one of your um math equations says 27 of 84 which is 32% are larger than 2,000 square ft right so they're not larger than three and your in your house is actually in the fours so what is the point no no this is this is n square footage from the web accessor so he's just talking about living area this is living comparison so 20 so 32% which is about a third are larger than 2000 yep okay and yours is much louder than 2000 and it's still in 2684 say again 2684 I believe our house is the living area is the living area I'm comparing this the metric I'm using okay so we can use 26 okay so a third of them are lot wait minute let's see 20 32% of the homes in the area are larger than 2,000 so that's only a third of them are larger than 2000 so most of them are not that's correct actually the prop the huge props of them are not so okay I'm just you know I'm just giving you you know giving back what you gave us just to clarify yeah I think I think you're inter interpreting um the statistics there correctly yeah okay no very good very good okay so we already read the correspondence we're on questions I was the last one to ask questions Paul I'll move to close the hearing and move into deliberations um D seconds and votes yes yes yes well yes as do I all right deliberations Paul well uh I think uh perhaps than the lawyers on this on this board we all went snoozing on standing there as as Mr Riley got into ker case and injury or no injury uh but um I really think that's all right I really think that uh that we're getting a little bit too caught up in the weeds here and we should look at the broader picture and the broader picture I think is represented by uh the comment that was made by Dave whitcom uh um in his uh historical analysis of the properties out there and the neighborhood and how this fits in and I think the neighborhood is in fact the whole Hardings Beach Hills area whether you're talking about the question of standing or not standing um I think the standing issue may be a little bit different than uh than what we're actually using for our overall View and I think that uh that this house fits in um I was in favor of it before I think they've made some modifications to try and address the board's concerns and I think they've done a good job in trying to do that I do not think it's substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood I will support it and Dave V you are also supportive before yeah I was I was in support of it before and and um and I feel very much the same way that Paul has expressed um I think that um I you know I just don't I I think they've responded to concerns in a in a reasonable way um you know I mean they're seeking to I mean they they certainly know the inadequacies of their current home they've lived in it for quite a while and um and I think that they've shown a willingness to um cut back uh on on the design that was presented the last time in a way that I to me that indicates that they're they're you know they're they're serious ious about this and they like it and this is what they'd like to have and I I don't and and there's no way I don't see this as being substantially more detrimental than neighborhood I I really don't I think you know even it is true you know kind of looking at the immediate of Butters you see more of the ranch you know the ranches in but there are uh more than one story buildings close by as as they've indicated and as you go a little further out in the Hardings Beach Hills you see quite a few more more um I I I when this is assuming this can get our approval um and and the lower another foot when this is completed this project is completed in no way would this would would this stand out in a way that any of us or any of the neighbors would look back and say oh what what happened here that's just not that's not the case here at all this is this is a A fitting and nice design and um I'll support it Ed your thought uh so I I went out to I was out there yesterday and um I noticed you know all of the renters in the neighborhood and honestly it reminded me of my wife's family home in harage and uh it was originally a small little ranch not insulated it was their parents so there was Grand grandparents I think her parents bought it for $30,000 from them um we put a second floor on it somehow the son-in-law got roped into uh putting a second floor on it adding a garage and and and doing something very similar to this on a on a similar sized lot and uh now it's uh just Cheryl's parents they're in their 80s there but it allowed you know the rest of the family to be there for a time and I I think this is sort of you know the evolution of of of this type of neighborhood um and I would be totally supportive of it I'm not voting but uh I think it'll fit in and I think this is sort of the the natural progression of of uh perhaps these neighborhoods all right Lee I I agree um with all of my colleagues I'm not voting today either but um once again very attractive home um I appreciate you taking into consideration some of our um thoughts and um I'm not as I said not voting but I would support it and Steve um well first I want to thank you for taking some of the comments that we made at the earlier um hearing into consideration I think it's then everyone's benefit I think it's sort of quelled some of the concerns that some of the board members had at the time and and I appreciate you doing that the other thing that and that I I just and it sort of leans toward uh what Jenny was talking about was the the dormers on the top uh on the second floor it there appears to be three different size Dormers um and at least three different size windows um so you know maybe maybe in those doghouse Dormers instead of having a milon have just single Windows um I don't know there there's there's some there's the the second floor just looks very busy um so if you could maybe do something to to make the those Nantucket Dormers a bit more consistent in size and in height um and the the windows more consistent um I mean I I wouldn't I wouldn't vote against this because of that but I just think it would look a little bit better that's it do you want me to respond to that or you can sure um I think we like is the interplay of the different heights and the different Siz windows so it doesn't look all monochromatic you know as one height across the front of the house it breaks it down into separate little scales and separate little units which we think is interesting um and does minimize the scale of the house but um the master Bonos are happy to look at it and discuss it with Karen good to know all right Dave Nixon liberations thank you m' mam chair yeah uh first of all um I want to speak about the idea what's a neighborhood and uh I don't agree with Mr wham's letter nor what Mr Riley's client feels is the neighborhood and I say that not only with what you informed us as far as legal standing it has to be one of the houses that can actually see it and I've always felt that way when I walk around a property what can I see who can see this and when you look at our special perit criteria a lot of it is visual right and at the end of the day that we have to make a decision based on that so in looking into the rules and regulations for the zoning board of appeals we are obligated to notify any but butter that is within 300 ft that's 100 yards that's all that is it's a short thing and we uh Sarah goes to the uh Assessor's board and she gets a list and they make a nice little circle for her and all that kind of stuff and it makes it easy for her to notify so we notify them okay so so what well so what to me is that that's the extent of a neighborhood that's the you know we have a lot of things here like let's talk about percentages of uh building on a lot the 15% or whatever it might be well that doesn't say to you go ahead and make it 15% what it's saying to you is that's the max you can do and that's what this 300 says to me that's the max that I could consider what a neighborhood would be but I still go back to what I think it is so um I appreciate what you said about the homes nearby because frankly I didn't realize that the first time well that was my fault for that well no and so thank you for bringing that up so having said that um I just don't want people to think well okay I agreed with that the idea of a neighborhood I don't want the folks on River Bay coming in saying we're one big happy neighborhood all 350 homes and Mr litfield would represent every single one of them and good for him anyway um by the way there by the way there are 400 Lots in River Bay oh so we got 50 more to go okay great thank you for telling us we we can expect that anyway never mind that let's go on to the specifics and the specifics are is this what you last presented to us uh substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood and I believe with the changes that Cameron's made with her clients and you that I no longer feel it is substantially more detrimental to the neigh I applaud the changes you made and what you wish to do and I will be voting for it and Jenny thank you um I I was one of the ones at the last hearing that was had concerns about streetscape um and the neighborhood visual character um and well actually well let me first start off by acknowledging the very helpful packet that you put together um it was evidence of a lot of work and it was actually very helpful so thank thank you um and I do also want to acknowledge the changes that you made um since our last hearing um now be because I was one of the ones that was not in favor of it last time I I really spent a lot of time on the new proposal I got an advanced copy of this and I poured over it so I have some things and and so forgive me if I'm referencing a lot of my notes here but I want to make sure I cover these things um I I think that the narrative and what Mr witam wrote was very helpful because when I first drove through the property for the last hearing that we had I had the immediate distinct feeling that this was a cottage Community it just felt that way and um it felt quaint it felt charming and it it felt primarily like a community of cottages and your paperwork has confirmed that Randy brought that up the fact that 46% of homes are greater than one story means that 54% of them are one story so I I wanted to just um confirm that that that this rendering really did confirm that um 84 homes in total in the na in the total Association which we're not necessarily saying is the neighborhood but Association the other thing that's interesting about the 84 home property uh Association is that there's very much there's undulating Hills and you know the roads um there's Marsh view there's water view um and there's very much diversity of architecture there um and so when we talked about the neighborhood last time um I think we were primarily focusing on this this front part right half of it not the water side primarily this part because we did drive around we didn't just look at five homes and and leave um and many of us have been back several times I I go into that detail because I just want you to have an understanding of what what we were coming from last time um your paperwork also confirms that the majority of the um well let's zoom in on that Northeast half of the association um year 53 if Sarah maybe you want to pull that this if you could pull this up all right so you're 53 you're the star and um you know it's predominantly one story and specifically based on your packet of information um so in in that particular part of it it's almost 70% of that half of the association was one story that's that's just another reason why we were saying the other thing is and I appreciate the effort made to reduce the grade to reduce the height that was something I specifically was brought up last time one of the things I talked about the undulating kind of 53 is sort of at the top of this hill right right after it is a is a drop off where so that's another reason why we made the comet house on the hill I I I just want to give that some some context and again your paperwork supports that um and so that's why I believe I said and I think some uh you know maybe some of the others that said that why we thought the original proposal was a detriment to the visual character of the neighborhood I also want to say that going back to this Cottage Community maybe not everyone wants a big to to improve their home and make it be a bigger home and so maybe some of the people that bought in this Cottage Community many years ago bought it and wanted to stay closer to a cottage community so it's half and half now is one more house going to change it is 10 more houses going to change it who knows we need to be open to what the community wants and and as Mr Acton pointed out maybe folks you know they want to evolve their homes and but maybe some don't so I don't think that we can say that by by and this is why it's been important to me to make sure I was comfortable with what you were proposing because I I do want to look out for the folks that maybe want this to remain more of a cottage Community feel but not at the detriment of denying someone who wants to improve and and that's my last Point here is having said all of that no one said that you couldn't and shouldn't expand your your home and build a twostory home no no one said that it's great that you're meeting all the setbacks and all the requirements um but you are here primarily because of your lot size at the end of the day um you have 12,775 feet you are 35% under what you need to be conforming and that's why you're here and that's why massing was our number one concern last time or I'll say mine however we want to work with you um these pictures that you've you've shown us um were very helpful I I put a a star around um 65 Pine Ridge around um 69 bucks Creek and uh and also around 93 bucks Greek just for the example of the Dormers because I do feel as though the house is a little heavy I I would use that word to describe it I I do think that your your new pictures show the recession on the left and the right a little bit more you know the you know the step back that than maybe it did before um I I would ask you to consider maybe just reducing a little bit of the of the um the Dormer windows but I I wouldn't I wouldn't deny the property because because of that I I I I just want to give you that background and say I appreciate everything you've done I I can agree to support this this project because of the changes that you made your willingness to listen to us but I I and thank you for letting me explain where we were coming from and why it was such a tough decision oh thank you very much okay so I still think it's too big for the lot but I did not say that I I think it's substantially detrimental I think it's detrimental but the reasons why I'd vote in favor is because it's not a heavily traveled Street um I don't think it's going to really ding the cham of of the town of chadam you're not increasing any non-conformities you're not getting closer to the Coastal Bank you're not getting closer to neighbors you're not getting closer to the street those are the things that often really wear me down um you're not tearing down a historic house and replacing it with some house that has a style that's repugnant to Cape Cod you know doing that um the windows I still think are awkward um but beauty is in the eye of the beholder um the letters mean very little to me because it's not part of our criteria and you should want us to follow our criteria because you should want us to be fair and so you could have 4,000 letters and if we're not following the criteria it's really you know it's kind of a kangaroo court here so if following the criteria um and because I don't think it's substantially detrimental to the neighborhood as the criteria um forces us to to judge I will vote in favor so Paul I'll move to approve the application as submitted um I think the conditions that we normally would impose would make sense in this neighborhood so I would add that uh all all construction activity and vehicles should be contained on site or at a neighboring property with the permission of the property owner that between June 30th and Labor Day no exterior construction will be allowed no work shall be permitted on the weekends and construction activity would be between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm only Dave V seconds and votes affirmative yes yes yes as to why it's unanimous congratulations thank you very much we will now take a five minute break and we will resume at about quarter of five e e e for e e e e e e e e e e okay so we are back and we are going to 172 bliff Avenue um whatever Sarah's ready application 24-50 application number 24-50 barcliff Properties LLC care of Rick Howard 405 Queen in Road harch Mass 02645 owner of property located at 172 barcliff Avenue also shown on the town of chadam assessor map 15g block 23 lot K1 the applicant seeks to enlarge extender change a non-conforming dwelling on a non-conforming lot be the demolition of the existing detached garage installation of a new foundation and construction of additions the existing dwelling is non-conforming and the that is located 19.4 ft from barcliff Avenue and 24.1 foot feet from mous hole Lane the existing garage is non-conforming and it is located 31.4 ft from mousehold Lane the proposed addition will be non-conforming and then it will be located 23.8 ft from mousehold Lane where a 40ft setback is required the existing building coverage is 2,50 ft and the proposed building coverage is 2,469 Ft where 3,000 ft is the the maximum allowed the law is non-conforming and then it contains 27354 ft where 40,000 ft is required in the R40 zoning District a special permit is required under M General Law chapter 4A section 6 and section 5B of the protected bylaw this was continued from May 30th 2024 Mr Norcross attorney Norcross welcome do you want to tell us what's changed on this one sure um I can tell you what's changed and there's a little bit more I'd like to get into as well but Jamie Norcross representing Marty McDonald uh Mr McDonald is here with me today in the back in the blue uh next to him is his Builder uh Todd Murphy who presented at the last hearing uh for the project over the winter um so again before I just dive into the changes I did want to touch on a few items I know came up during the hearing um I think they were um during the the winter hearing I didn't represent Marty at that time but I have VI the um the meeting in terms of um there was some I guess I call ancillary concerns from the board reasonable concerns not necessarily related to the project itself but I would like to just address how those have been or how those items have been addressed since that hearing since the board did have some concerns about those okay so the first was um there were a number of older building permits um that were uh found at the records of the building department and Todd working with the building department has cleaned that up so any any building permits are only for active work at the property which would be the uh renovating the existing front section of the building um um would be the only active permit uh a second concern was the pool uh the temporary fencing has been placed around the pool uh after that hearing and Todd reviewed that with the building department who felt that it addressed the safety concerns so that uh piece was addressed as well and again I know they weren't directly related to the application that you uh before you at that hearing but they were concerns that were uh brought up by the board I did want to ensure you that Marty had addressed those so in terms of changes um Sarah if you want to uh pull up the site plan for me first first one uh you can do this one's fine the most recent site plan hang so um the uh addition the um the hatched area is existing house uh the addition encompasses um the sun room on sonit tubes portion that you see at the bottom as well as we'll call it the connector piece going to what would be the uh attached garage the connector and the garage have been moved back I believe about 5T from the uh prior application so that the uh garage the proposed garage is in line with with the setback of the existing garage so there's no further encroachment into mous hole lane from the proposed garage um and then Sarah if you could please pull up the uh front elevation or rendering um either's fine oh I'm sorry the mous hole Ren uh elevation so another change here is uh the um the Ridge height of the roof on the connector piece so going from the um on the back of the existing house to the garage that was lowered by about a foot and a half from the from the prior plan to try and again address some of the massing concerns so those are the uh again the extent of the changes but I think if I may uh Madam chair there was I think some information that was not provided at the last hearing that I think would be helpful for the board in addressing their consideration today so if I may go through some of those numbers and information with you I think it might be helpful you didn't represent them May 23rd no we continued May 23rd we never had a hearing okay okay so the hearing was back in the winter time and I did not represent them at that time okay go ahead so um just a a bit of background the um Marty has owned this property since 2008 uh he's owned prior to that he owned a property in self chatam going back to 1999 so Marty's been a property owner in chadam for over 25 years uh the existing house is small uh especially for modern living U Marty has seven siblings and 26 nieces and nephews which makes any family gathering at the existing house um quite a challenge uh Marty's goal with this project was to maintain as much as the existing historical structure as possible and so and working with his architect um they decided to add on to the rear of the existing home while keeping the front structure as viewed from mous hole and adding to the back um the historical Integrity of the existing structure was important to Marty um the historical commission reviewed that they were very much in favor of this project it they deemed it to be historically significant but found that the changes did not take away from the historical significance um and in terms of the addition again it's a substantial addition but um the existing house does not have a lot of room and in terms of where you're going to add space you really have to go back it's a it's a long and narrow lot there's not a lot of room on the sides so to add area they decided to add to the back which again helps them uh maintain the existing historical structure without doing a full demo rebuild which would have perhaps provided some additional options um sort of adding on to the back of the structure is really the classic way these old homes were were um expanded over the years and again this is a large expansion but it's in keeping I think with that uh design characteristic um the setback from Mel hole Lane I know was uh a concern at the um last hearing um there's a 40ft setback to mous Hole as indicated on the site plan we don't meet that um but we are set back over 31 feet from mous hole Lane so it's a substantial setback um it's in line with the existing uh garage again our structure is going to be larger but it's it's it is set back over 31 fet I'd also note as you see on here the connector piece is pulled back even further and so that helps on a couple fronts uh first and Sarah if you could pull up the rendering from mous hole please um that helps on a couple fronts again that um by having different distances to Mel hole Lane it helps break up the massing from the visual as you look at it it's also pushing some of the building even further back from mous hole Lane than the 31 ft that the garage is set back as you can see here that middle section again is pushed further back to try and reduce the impact of the additional Mass from this addition um a concern and and a topic at the hearing uh back in the winter time was uh gross floor area numbers for this structure and it's going to be 6,100 S feet gross floor area it's a big jump from what's there now there's no doubt about it uh I would note that 1,700 square fet of that is in the basement um and in reviewing the the meeting I think Mr V mentioned that it's a large um number but it's not as out of uh it's not disproportionate with some of the other properties in the area and so in going through my gross floor area analysis um you know we're not on an island in terms of that size for this neighborhood um there are a number of homes that are uh in the high fives low sixes for um gross floor area and so um the in the packet that I handed out to you today which is a little bit different than this one um I did a couple things first was to figure out the average average for the lots that I've listed here what's the average lot size what's the average gross floor area and then what's the percentage of gross floor area at the overall lot size and so what that revealed and again it's a little bit of an imperfect science but um is that the average lot size for the neighborhood is a little bit over 24,000 square feet we have 27,000 square feet gross floor area the average is 4,100 feet we're we're significantly larger than that however I think the important number to look at is when you do the average percentage of gross floor area to lot size um the average for the neighborhood is 22.63% and we're right at 22.51% so I think that shows that from a a size impact we're in keeping with the neighborhood um you like to look at I believe gross floor area because it provides you with an idea of how big a structure is relative to the overall neighborhood and other structures in the neighborhood and I think just sort of adding on to that to show wow this is the size of the structure this is the size of the property what's the percentage I I think further helps uh you review the size of the what we're proposing relative to neighboring properties the um Sarah if you could please pull up the that Google Earth link so just uh I thought this was a bit helpful in terms of again some of the discussion at uh the the hearing during the winter time was the length of the house and it is going to be a long house given how the addition works with a long and narrow lot but you can see how long this lot is it's over I believe 250 ft in length and so it's a big long and deep lot and so the house is going to go as far as that existing garage so in terms of taking up an overwhelming portion of the lot it doesn't uh I I think um again it's proportionate to um the size of this property especially in this neighborhood where again a lot of the properties are significantly smaller um in terms of lot size it also uh point out again you can look here and you can see some of the homes at least from a bird's eye level looking at the size of them and I think what we're proposing is is certainly substantially compatible um with a lot of the neighboring homes in this area last lastly and I don't think this really got mentioned too much of the last hearing is height so the building height is going to be 24 ft which by your uh most standards is is not very tall um and most of a lot of the neighboring properties are significantly taller just from a visual the uh the house at uh 184 barcliffe is uh I believe that was 28 and a half feet tall so we're uh over 4 feet Less in height than that house and it's going to be the same height as what there now again it's going to be a bigger structure but that's to be the height and while there's additional massing du the addition um I think again it's mitigated by the fact that this height is only a 24 ft which Again by by your current standards and most of the projects you see is quite low um so I'll touch briefly on the criteria I know you've had a long meeting already and I've already probably touched on some of these um elements through my introduction here but um briefly number one adequacy of the site in terms of size again we suggest it's adequate for the proposal um it's 20,000 ft of area for the house um again well we're not going to meet the 40 foot setback to mous Hole Lane we are going to be set back over 31 feet from U mous hole we're not further encroaching on the setback to barcliff of course that's going to remain as is as seen from barcliff you're going to see the structure widen a bit but again I think that's mitigated by the fact that uh most of the addition is behind exactly located exactly behind the existing structure as seen from barcliffe I'd also point out that the proposed building coverage is over 500 fet less than what's permitted for this property under the zoning bylaw so it's not a situation where we're maxing out coverage uh by any stretch compatibility of the size of the proposed structure with neighboring properties again I think that goes along with the gross floor area numbers that I provided to you including the averages to show that as I said we're not on an island with our gross Fuller area number it's a large number but there are a a number of properties in the area that have a similar size size and again comparing overall gross floor area to lot size that percentage I think we're very much compatible and really meet the average of this neighborhood uh number three extent of the proposed increase in non-conforming nature of the structureal use uh the lot is non-conforming so any increase in living area constitutes an increase in the non-conforming nature of the structure also we are expanding the structure we're not getting closer to melol Lane but we're expanding the structure within the sep acum mousehold Lane uh which would also be an increase in a non-conforming nature suitability the site uh we believe the site is suitable for the proposed project there'll be no negative impact on neighboring Properties or the natural environment there's ample room on site for construction vehicles and construction related activity impact of scale setting and mass of neighborhood visual character um again I suggest that it will not have a negative impact on neighborhood visual character uh for a number of the the uh reasons that I've already mentioned um we're adding the bulk as seen from barcliff at least we're adding the bulk behind the building as seen from mous hole it step back back even more than it was the previous application again the connector piece is further back than the garage which breaks up the massing and again our building height at 24 ft is not creating a scenario where the mass of the structure overwhelms the streetcap uh compatibility the proposed use with neighboring uses residential use and a residential neighborhood compatible uh we have adequate water drainage and an adequate septic system impact on tra traffic flow and safety I don't think there's any negative impact on traffic flow and safety um there was some concern at the last hearing about the ability to park uh sufficient room to park cars on the property uh Tod it sketched on the plan where in addition to the garage there is plenty of uh parking on site available so there won't be a need to park on the street uh it's a five-bedroom home existing it's a five bedroom home proposed so there shouldn't be any additional concerns with uh more traffic no issues with noise and litter it has adequate utilities and 11 and 12 are not applicable um so to sum up again it's a significant change but I think taking a careful look at the numbers for the property in the neighborhood shows that it's um not a change that's um substantially detrimental to the neighborhood and be happy to answer any questions thank you is there anybody here or in Microsoft teams that wishes to speak in favor of this application please indicate seeing none there are six correspondences that are I will read uh first from our health agent Judith Georgio on May 29 2024 she reviewed the plan to add an addition and attached garage to the property the property was approved a septic installed for the existing five-bedroom property no additional flow is proposed and she has no concerns then we have a note from the um historical commission dated May 29th 2024 they heard the application for one 72 barcliff in February and they found that the home is historically significant but the proposed changes do not matarial diminish the home's historical significance historical significance so they don't impose a demolition delay next we have a note from Dean Russell oh Madam chair just full disclosure he doesn't own that property anymore but he did I think when he wrote the letter he did and I was going to acknowledge that okay sure just so full disclosure not on yep you don't have to be on defense in May 2024 I my understanding is he did still own that property he he wrote the letter saying that he owns the property he's in favor of the changes um he reviewed the plans uh was in full support he believes the scale mass of the property is appropriate and compatible with with the neighborhood in general and he wished them good luck he do not own it anymore but he opined when he did let's see on uh August 5th 2024 uh we received a note from Tom Harrington thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed enlargement of 172 bliff located west of old Harbor Road this section of bliff affords residents and visitors a quiet location within walking distance of the fish bear Ballfield downtown walking is shared with Motor Vehicles traveling on bar uh Cliff da which is the main thorough fair for the neighborhood one of the one of a number of renewal reconstruction prog projects that have occurred in this section on bliff over the past few years 172 bliff differs in two notable ways first at five bedrooms five baths five living areas a kitchen with a countertop seating for 10 multiple laundries patios a gym a pool a proposed enlargement is scaled to accommodate large Gatherings to be for private or Al purposes second the enlargement is neither principally situated along nor vehicular access and parking service from barcliff rather the proposed structure is to exceed about 100 ft along mle Lane and be non-conforming to setback requirements vehicular access and parking is to be serviced from mous hole Lane which unlike backlift is a single vehicle drive that is the only entry egress and Public Safety access for all relative residents on that street with scaled details such as Aesthetics vehicular access on-site parking trash accumulation and removal Public Safety and noise mitigation are elements to be considered in support of scale meetings its intended purpose with unique location Aesthetics again vehicular access on-site parking trash accumulation and remove Public Safety noise mitigation are limitations to be considered in assuring full compatibility with the unique surroundings given that 172 backlift encompasses both it seems imp can we shut that off whoever is not following that rule um that elements of scale limitations of location need seamlessly seamlessly balanced for in this instance undoubtedly your review will consider an address any specific concern held by immediate Neighbors in general I believe review should result in a project that complement and preserves the neighborhood's existing quiet character supports unobstructed access along mous hole Lane and un unobstructed walking along barli both during construction and thereafter following completion and is otherwise fully compatible with the surroundings in in this unique location um he this person lives on 24 Beach Plum way next we have a note from Mandy and Justin Blair um thank you for your continued communication regarding the proposed project at 172 bliff we are pleased with the design and support it as an improvement over the existing property the finished pro project should fit nicely with recent enhancements made all around the subject property up and down Cliff of late we would also like to thank Marty for his thoughtful communication throughout the process and wish him well with his project this is again Mandy and Justin Blair of win 85 bliff received on August 7th 2024 next we have a note from faras rof and jamilia hadawi from 175 bliff a and they write on May 29th 2024 they own the property on 175 barcliff which is directly across the street from 172 they received the plans um and are in full support of the project they believe that the scale and mass of The Proposal is appropriate and compatible with both this property and the neighborhoods in general we wish them good luck with the Endeavor and that concludes the correspondence now is there anybody here are on Microsoft teams that wishes to speak against this application please raise your hand okay so I'm going to start with the person I saw first a woman with white um pants and a black shirt when you get to the mic take your time and state your name please hi um my name is Diane rowlings and I live at 35 mous hole and out of the neighborhood I'm the only one who a year round residence um and I know you you know all this anyways I just had to write it down is and this is a third time that this Project's been before the committee the first time it was withdrawn the second time it was postponed um and since then there haven't been any really major changes except for they did not move the garage forward like they were going to but it's still it's a very massive building that I feel is too big for the area when you come down barcliffe you're going to look in and see 100 ft of House of building two stories on a little tiny 10t road which is mous hole even though the property is on mous on barcliffe they use mous hole Lane which again is only 10 ft wide um on the plan they have indicated that there'll be many cars parked on the property and two in the garage I assume so that's seven cars and to leave the property they're going to have to back up on to mol Lane so if I'm if I'm leaving to go to the grocery store you've got people backing in um and like again it's only 10t wide they're going to end up on the neighbor's lawn or into the Hedge but I think that's a a traffic concern with me coming and going and also the mail the trash pickup the delivery people we have a lot of um that kind of stuff that goes down so I think that creates a safety issue um I grew up on craw Road my whole life and I sold Girl Scout cookies on barav I know those houses they've always been very very cute and yes they've all been changed many have been changed but they've been changed to the point where they've kept the charm of the town of chadam um this enormous proposed building I think will disturb that um tourus and new residents come to chadam for its charm and its quaint neighborhoods not to see ma massive party houses I hope this committee will reject the proposal and Main maintain the quaintness charm of chadam for the future thank you thank you next yes ma'am thank you madam chairman and board for the opportunity to speak my name is Charlene gigley and we live at 15 mous hole Lane and we have the little cottage to the left of it as you're coming down mous hole please know that 172 barcliff does not have deed access to mosle Lane mosol Lane is a single Lane driveway that Services three deeded properties the Ean grusky family Diane Kendrick rowlings and the wigglies and we all oppose this application we assume total liability and the tax burden not Marty often as one as one is exiting MOS Hill cars or trucks that must enter from barcliffe cause one to have to back up and many times vehicles are forc to back up blindly onto barclift in order to allow passage mous hole Lane is simply not wide enough for two vehicles to pass side by side if this massive addition which now allows for many more than 10 people to inhabit is permitted this will overburden our deed right of way with what will be a multitude of cars the Canon will create an unsafe condition on mosole Lane and barcliffe getting in and out of barcliffe and mous hole Lane where Mar's driveway is located knowing this massive addition can accommodate many many people will look and feel and act like a motel parking lot people coming and going to visit attend a pool party going to the store Beach Etc will create an unsafe condition and having to negotiate just to get out of the driveway and then onto barcliffe do I need to put a metal guard rail in front of my property where our grandchildren play to prevent people from backing onto our lawn which they will be forced to do presently there is 10 feet from the front lawn to the end of Marty's driveway which is simply not enough to accommodate the number of potential cars any plan for changes from the existing structure makes safety sense to place a driveway on the right side of the house there is plenty of room on the right to access the property Park vehicles and easily access bar club Marty's addresses barcliff have anyway and coincidentally the original driveway to Marty's home was on the right side of the house when the house was initially placed on the lot also note the massing of the proposed Edition is equivalent to a 10 story building on its side two stories high think about that 10 stories long two stories high so on a 10 foot foot wide M Hool Lane a single man who bought a three-bedroom home as seen on Zillow chose to relb traditional first floor rooms as bedrooms so he was somehow able to qualify for a five bedroom septic this is all a plan to turn his property from a modest traditional home that is in the character of the neighborhood into something very different I believe that when Marty went for historical review the site plans deliberately left out the proximity and scale of mous hole Lane in relation to the addition those members on the historical board may have been led to believe that mol Lane was a traditional Road not a 10 foot wide private driveway the historical commission has a very limited purview but as you know the zba is to be concerned with the impact on our neighborhood the proposed addition is a det to the visual quality of the neighborhood to me it will seem like the Titanic mored next to a modest dock can you imagine if this house is rented and can accommodate numerous people the logistics of where all the cars will park as it stands now along the Hedge it will not only look like a used car parking lot but will wreak havoc safety wise on Mill Lane and barcliffe cyclists from the bike route Walkers with carriages many cars trucks landscapers trash Vehicles will be at risk trying to maneuver out of the 10t wide pathway just giving you a 30 second warning renters or guests staying there who are not familiar with the area and the usage and the traffic pan unduly create an unsafe condition I um so note the massing of the proposed addition is equivalent okay I told you that I kindly invite all zoning board members with their cars to collectively meet with us on mle Lane to experience firsthand what it's like to maneuver and negotiate on mle and to test scenarios of potential problems that we'll present if this addition is permitted um I propose you um also that um the again that the driveway should be on the right side of the home and um I'm a little flustered but no that's okay thank you very much next yes sir take your time just state your name for the record good afternoon Madame chair and members of the board my name is Robert wiggley and I live at 15 mol Lane a director butter to 172 barcliff a I'm here today to express my cons my sincere concern concerns as it pertains to the applicant's request for Relief and approval at zba with the five-bedroom septic system having been approved and installed in 2015 the applicant now comes before the zba to request approval and add one bedroom and more than tripling the habitable size of the existing home to appro from approximately 1819 square feet to approximately 5778 square feet an increase of approximately 4,000 square ft now that's a big bedroom Mr McDonald's are requesting a 4,000 increase in habitable Space by order of magnitude most homes on barcliffe don't approach 2,000 square fet and many much less than that Mr McDonald by his own admission stated and I quote as I get older I want fewer people then why build such an imposing house one immediately thinks short-term rental multifam or resale this can also be implied when studying the floor plans multiple proposed living areas multiple eating areas multiple sitting areas Etc it may not be strictly in your purview but a rental property of five bedrooms 10 or more people potentially 10 or more cars that can and can even um make for more of a congested and dangerous environment with negative impact on traffic flow and safety for the surrounding ing area and especially mous hole Lane and though the current owner may or may not have an interest in rent in the rental property a future owner may look at its potential as a rental property property leaving us in its wake it's difficult to gain a full appreciation of the magnitude of what's being proposed because the existing plans are submitted without Dimensions the proposed plans without overall proposed lengths or proposed Heights the site plan makes no reference to scale of mouse hole lane or barcliff Al also the pl the site plan neglects to show in scale any surrounding or existing features such as a Butters properties and houses this submission gives the appearance of a seat of the pants back of the napkin approach with very pertinent information being left off the plants by example when one 184 barcliff was in front of zba a complete package was presented similar to what was presented here earlier today a site plan showing scaled barcliff ab and mouse ho Lane structures on a Butter's properties significant trees proposed maximum Ridge Heights Etc so that everyone would have an opportunity to visualize the full impact of The Proposal on its surroundings especially when massing needs to be considered I know massing shares many meanings but to me it's the appearance of the structure is viewed from the exterior what we as neighbors and passers by see above grade Mr McDonald's proposing a 100 foot long twostory structure down a narrow 10- foot wide private way essentially creating a 25t high wall less than 24 feet from mle Lane where a 40ft setb is required though many may look at this proposal from barcliffe as not being overbearing I can assure you it's a wolf in sheep's clothing and let me show you why let's consider turning the structure so that the 100 foot twostory silhouette is now viewed from barcliffe would this orientation be considered appropriate to con in conforming to the neighborhood even the people across the street that view 185 at 184 uh 172 barcliff and that are in favor of it if we turn that house and they view the 100 foot long um silhouette from their front doors what would they say so then why should this 100 foot 20 100 foot long 25 foot high structure be considered aesthetically pleasing and in character for the residents of mouse Holan some of us may think this is a nice plan sir I just want to give we all agree just just out of courtesy just you have about 20 more seconds okay um I I know that the garage has been moved back to where it was originally put but it's still two stories still non-conforming and still far too massive we heard you in February when you made several comments about mass and scale but at it appears that the applicant did not during your deliberations please consider the long-term unfavorable detrimental consequences of this structure and the way it's just over it's it's a huge overreach I respectfully ask for you not to approve the plan is submitted I feel Common Ground can be achieved if a more modest design with a far less mass and a driver return to the east of the house going to have to stop you just of Justice thank you very much thank you thank you next yes ma'am just remember that it's five minutes so okay oh yeah if you want if you want just look over there every once in a while can you hear me yes um hi good afternoon my name is hope eisan I reside at 26 mous hole Lane along with my husband and two dogs um first I just wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak because I feel that as a neighbor I might be able to provide a perspective that might differ from some others that you may have heard from today and previously in February um as I'm sure you've heard by now mous hole Lane is one of those quintessentially chadam lanes and its name reflects its character it's quiet it's tiny it's only 10 feet wide and it's just over 200 ft long and there's deed access for only three properties number 15 number 26 and number 35 mous hole two of which are not even visible from barcliffe Road uh Avenue at all it's Charming um and in short it really is more of a driveway than other lanes that you in chatam such as gladen Lane which is a private Lane off of barcliffe Blueberry Lane also off of barcliffe they're both wider and they have access many more homes um with that as a background um and in the interest of time I really only want to touch on two aspects the first is traffic and safety we walk our dogs several times a day down mous hole and on various routes along barcliff and surrounding roads um we're familiar with traffic patterns and I can tell you that particularly in the morning and in the evening barcliffe is pretty busy cars that cut through from CW road to Shore Road dog walkers visitors headed to the fish Pier biking families coming on and off the rail trail par with strollers Etc there's no sidewalk on barcliff but generally visibility is okay when you're traveling along it however when you're exiting mouse hole Lane you have to creep up slowly to the end you have to peer around the hedges and the trees before proceeding because none of us want to hit um a pedestrian or another car while exiting in addition as you've heard the width of mous hole is only 10 ft is only allows one car at a time and there's no turnaround anywhere um despite only three of us there's already significant usage of the lane from you know the mailman and Landscape trucks Etc therefore the parking prop area as proposed with spots for five parked cars on mous hole and potentially many more given that it's a two-car G two-car garage the size of the proposed residence and the large backyard area would add significantly to the number of cars on our little lane um many of whom would be temporary visitors using the lane and exiting onto barcliffe I would like to point out that the two homes to the east of 172 barklie number 150 and number 166 are both four bedroom five bath houses so they're actually smaller than this proposed house they're rental houses and they often have more than five cars each at one time so I'm sure as um the board and the town is aware of I think it's very legitimate to question whether at some point this or another owner in the future will want to rent the property thus inviting large numbers of people in cars onto the lane what's more as you've heard there's very limited room for those cars to back up out of the parking places as proposed with a front lawn directly behind the proposed parking area is a significant safety hazard for children animals on the lane and of course for 15 mousehole um so with all this in mind I would like the board to consider requiring that the the garage access and parking be moved to the other side the east or the right side of 172 barclift where there's ample room and a better sight line for exiting on to bark Clift and would not burden the already limited size of mous hole Lane I also understand that 172 barcliff has no deeded right to the use of mous hole Lane either which is also an issue of those of us who who do have legal legal access um the other thing I am and I'm not going to go into detail I'm also concerned about the Aesthetics I've no doubt that the renovation as proposed will be in general attractive and conforming to Chatham's historic and Community standards um and as such I have no objections but with only 23 to 30 to a 40 foot buffer strip between the asphalt of mouse hole in the side of the building I fear that this long building as proposed will significantly alter the Charming look of the lane and cause it to look like an urban give you a 20 second warning and at best um be lopsided with a beautiful Cottage and a lush green lawn on one side and an extensive wall and a parking area on the other thank you for your consideration thank you very much yes Mr litfield attorney litfield thank you madam chairman Bill Lichfield members of board Bill Lichfield I represent the wigl and I'm here speaking today for Bob grusky I will try to be very brief the chair began this hearing and the last hearing by asking what changes were made and the answer is unfortunately not enough when the wigglies contacted me in May when this proposal came back I spent an hour watching the tape as I know Mr Norcross did I listened to what you said about not increasing the nonconformity by moving the garage back from household but I think more importantly and critical to your criteria about mass and streetscape so when I saw the revised plans I was very surprised to see that the mass was unchanged gross flare area is not readily Apparent from the plans as filed but after doing the numbers such as they were GFA is going from approximately 2900 Square ft including basement to approximately 6,400 Square ft including the basement and again the living area while not readily calculable the assessor say is currently 1,700 and it's going to something like 5700 and coverage is exactly the same as it was in February I then reached out to my brother Mr Norcross met with him in his office on June 11th suggested that plans be meaningfully changed moving to the driveway to the east side it's not really our perview to redesign it but after several requests for updates or even just a response after seven weeks I heard on August 2nd that there weren't any changes I was disappointed I did talk to the building department and confirm yesterday that yes they are down to just nine open building permits that's significantly better than they were but I don't think it's proper I know that there are some other large and thus ostensibly comparable houses in the neighborhood but as has been pointed out several of them are being used as short-term rental something which should not necessarily be replicated but this house as designed is very different from theirs Sarah would you put up that side elevation Please Mr Norcross indicated that the rear had been reduced that one yeah it's maybe a foot lower but having that facade facing mous hole is not a meaningful change when older houses are expanded in the rear the usual Norm is to have a step back step back step back that's the norm whether it's on Old Harbor Road or cross street that is what is historically done here that's not the qu case at all the full height remains 100 feet long maybe it's a foot lower than it was and say that the height is less than that at 184 barcliffe is somewhat disingenuous because I know many of you remember the history with 184 barcliffe moreover what's and more importantly what's going on in this neighborhood reminds us of what the SJC said in bjorkland that quote many municipalities do not welcome the building with structures that represent the popular trend of mansionization and the the towns may permissibly attempt to limit those adverse effects yeah barcliff has changed it's changed a lot since I was a kid when I was young the west side west side of old Harbor had as many fishermen as anything else and it will probably continue to change but this is one change that you don't have to endorse because with its mass as shown there particularly for mle with the 100 foot long twostory length that's impacted in the streetcape it's not something that should be allowed it does not meet the criteria for the grant of a special permit so today we plainly had a better presentation because they have a better lawyer but the plans are no better the house plans are exactly the same moving it back a foot or three feet from mousehole doesn't solve the problem returning with the same house to me displays something of a tone deafness to the comments and suggestions you made in February there is apparently an unwillingness to revise the plans to reduce the mass which is a word that Mr dor used Mr Nixon used the chair used many of you used that word that word in February that would have prevented what will otherwise be a substantially more detrimental impact in the neighborhood I began by saying that I heard what you said in February but based on what's in front of you today it's obvious to me that not everyone in this room heard what you said in February the mass of the house is unchanged and is still far too great its impact on the neighborhood's on household will be substantially more detrimental even if some plainly not all are but even if some of the criteria are met it is as you know the grant of a special permit is discretionary this is one on which you should exercise your discretion the applicant should be encouraged to work with his neighbors for more palatable change thank you thank you would you like opportunity for rutto attorney noly uh just to again go through uh I'll try to highlight I guess some of the common uh concerns we heard just now when um again a lot of it seems to be based on the access off of Mel hole Lane which again I would understand if we were creating access that didn't exist but that's where the access is now uh we're not adding an access or a driveway off mous hole that's not there it exists that's the way it's used the the garage has been there since 1981 so you presume the driveway's been there at least that long if not before um a little bit of uh Twilight Zone in terms of hearing some of the concerns because when I was involved with 184 barcliffe it was the congestion on barcliffe Lane we can't you know barcliff Avenue having another driveway on barcliff Avenue is going to create problems and congestion and sight lines Etc and now we're on M hole and everybody wants to put us over on barcliff Avenue which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me when the concern last time was well it's another driveway and it's more car going out on the barcliff as opposed to again we showed the cars there because there was concerns raised from the board members last time that can you can the cars fit on the property they're going to stick out on a m Mouse hoold we're showing you can fit cars on the property um and again you have a garage so there's no need to park on to mous Hole um I know other um concerns that were mentioned um again the massing yes it is it's a large expansion to the rear um but it is only 24t tall which is short I would say relatively short by many of the projects that you see before you and most of the homes in this neighborhood um the traffic uh excuse me the rental question I think is really a non-starter for this board I think it's unfair to presume my client's going to rent the property it's also unfair some of the personal attacks that say that he was uh deceptive in the plans that he filed intentionally I think is very unfair to this board and to my clients I didn't want to address that I do take umbrage with Mr Lichfield suggestion in terms of us not responding to his client's request the request was well put your driveway on barcliffe Avenue wav any rights in Melo lane and then we have something to talk about so it wasn't well why don't you reduce this why don't you reduce that it was a whole scale change of the project and waving of rights that he has in melol Lane was really a non-starter for my client so again to say that we didn't respond there wasn't much to respond to um so that Miss uh Madam chair happy to answer any questions okay thank you um let's see is there anybody else here that wishes to speak against to R and Microsoft teams just to make sure R has a specific question no seeing none um okay questions from the board then uh lee well I guess um I guess the obvious question is would you would your client consider moving the driveway I mean I know are moving the garage or redoing the plans that would make it um you know a little bit more less mass less of a worry for traffic and parking um I mean the driveway is complicated to be honest you have a a septic system over there which I guess there's ways around that but that would involve really I mean a wholesale change of everything that you're doing in terms of on the inside with a lot of that in terms of moving the driveway over to that side he felt um again that uh look at some of the neighborhood comparisons that this uh project would be looked at a bit differently at this hearing so I think he is he likes this design obviously it's why he's back here again with it um would he consider some reduction sure be happy to talk about that but again our our feedback was really relative to using mous hole Lane which again I don't I think that's really a benefit for other parties obviously disagree but an access off of barcliffe is adding another driveway and we've heard last time that folks thought there was already too much congestion on barcliffe ad so why are we going to to add a driveway on there where people are backing up when we can use mous hole and there's a sufficient area to turn out and back up so again size certainly something to talk about but I don't think the access is really something Mr McDonald wants to consider or even perhaps uh detaching the garage we talked about that um at some extent and I think the for a number of reasons the connectory he feels is important to the use of the house in terms of having the ability to go without you know going outside but obviously if that was something the board wanted to to see I would talk to him about that as well again okay questions Paul I have no questions Steve I guess I have several questions I was gonna ask you to summarize the change put your microphone on Steve please thank you I was going to ask you to summarize the changes U that were made since the last time everyone was here and I think you sort of addressed that um I'm glad to see that some effort was made to move the garage back to at least to where it exists today um but I don't think that really addresses any of the other concerns that I have about the proximity to mous hole and the congestion that it would cause a mouse hole um do you have um so it looks like the the ridge is the ridge height of the existing house and the the addition is slightly lower than the existing uhid height the connector portion will be slly lower and then the garage I believe goes back up to meet the same height is the existing house okay but that's still within the 30 foot that's 24 ft yeah oh yeah well within the 30 foot do you know what the overall length of the existing house is the or the depth of the house um now and what the proposed depth of the house I believe the proposed is 99 I didn't tell you offand the existing um configuration for the house see that would that that would be helpful yeah we can tell how are you I'm sorry I may what's the existing house now from lengthwise the depth of it 99 and what's the proposed going to be you can't speak from the audience no no come here Tod that's not true no I I'll yeah sorry he's trying no this no hold on let me just ask you real before you answer so this is he wants to know this is 99 from here to here what is from here to here from here to here yeah so it's and then you can speak introduce yourself and speaking to the mic but yeah so this is 24 and this is 26 so it's um my glass here sorry yeah so this is 24 plus 26 52 yeah okay do you want to look at this yep okay we're just going to double check one thanks Steve we'll be right back with you on that I give you the dimension yeah so it's sorry yeah 26 plus okay it's around 52 Steve cuz it's detached anyway so it's hard to say oh I didn't include the garage in that number no but the the the house itself is about around 522 exuding the garage so you're almost doubling the depth of the house from bark though I wouldn't necessarily 52 to 99 well then I think you'd have to calculate the garage in that number existing so I wouldn't necessarily agree with Apples to Apples right that's what yes I would say so what other questions do you have Steve okay well I was going to I was going to ask you about the the um we're gonna go to a different question now I was it's okay I was going to ask you about the um I I think you have the ability to move the driveway if if the house has a a barli Avenue uh address it should exit out onto barcliff Avenue and you wouldn't be backing out on barcliff Avenue because you you could you would have a turnaround coming out of the other side of the garage uh into the backyard and then you could pull out onto bar Clift Avenue you wouldn't be backing out on the barli so I think that would that would solve some of some of the uh traffic concerns for the folks on mous hole Lane um I'd also like someone to explain the need for uh multiple living rooms there's at least two living rooms a den a study a family room that that would not be a topic that he would have to do some explaining to to us as they say he doesn't have to do that no no no but I think well so I think the multiple living rooms and everything gives the perception that this house is going to be I know but if it's going to be a rental that's his perfect right to do that so that's not in our purview um as much as it may be painful to acknowledge it's not okay no and then the the the garage issue if if you if it that garage that's there now doesn't look like it's been used in a long time so you know just the fact that moving it back to allow additional parking I I don't really think that's that's I don't really think that's doing any good and I don't think the garage was being used as a garage anyway it's mostly storage right now they park in front of it so in theory I guess you're you're helping some of the situation by having a usable garage okay all right thank you J any questions okay I have a few questions Jamie um can we start with what is meant by the the deed rights I I see that I mean that was at the start of this hearing um but there are other people that live back there so can you just explain that briefly well I have never done the title to this property I've never represented Marty in any sort of purchase or refinance or anything relative so I'm not sure on on the access and deeded rights piece uh it seems they're alleging that he is property does not have a right in the deed to access mous hole Lane so but I I don't have any I haven't done any further research on that issue so I really can't by much clarification other than that's the essence of the claim okay I saw Mr Lichfield stand up did can you answer that or okay I just want to understand it a little better because um Mrs um ecan said there were three houses that had it but there couple more back there thank you if I could to it it is my opinion that the property does not have de subject property does not have deeded access uh this property and a lot behind it were owned by George and Helen Kellan uh George and Helen Kellan both died a number of years ago and their family members who inherited the property uh conveyed the property out the property in the rear um which is not an issue today was conveyed quote together with and subject any and all rights and easements Overland formerly of Burgess and other to and from the Town Way called bliff Avenue that property clearly has access the deed from the executive or personal representative of Helen kellan's estate for this property says makes no reference whatsoever to any writes and in fact this is it may not be strictly of interest to the board today but I have a plan uh when this property was first created killan family uh which makes plain that the abing property is not a way not a road it is instead owned by the predecessors entitled to the glees so in my opinion they're not legal rights there's a question that some lawyers May someday argue about whether there have been permissive rights or prescriptive rights we think they were permissive I suspect that other people think they're prescriptive but I don't think there are any okay just to piggy back off I mean there's there's a there's a a deeded right and a legal right can be two different things so there could be easement created other ways um not fmus or litfield alluding to and again the garage has been there since 1981 so this isn't a situation where this driveway recently and yeah well that that's why I was asking the question because you're using it today and I wondered how how that was working out okay I thought maybe that could be a simple answer but I don't think okay um I want to go through um so so I are both of the chimneys going to be gone looks like the current two chimneys I don't see them referenced in any of the new both chimneys are removed Tod yes they're going to be gone chimneys are gone okay can we go to um ex1 and ex0 I thought I heard in the previous hearing that there were five bedrooms existing today and there were five that are proposed but in ex1 and ex0 I only count four bedrooms well the health department considers it a five bedroom so they presumably and I haven't asked Judy Georgia this question presumably are considering one of the rooms that are labeled on this as something else to be a bedroom okay so cuz her uh letter if you remember said it's an existing five bedroom yeah I do remember that but I mean I'm just that's a situation be totally honest we encounter quite a bit there's these rooms that were created you know and it's used as a den but it meets the definition of a bedroom under the state code therefore it's considered a bedroom under the health regulations okay so with the chairwoman's Indulgence I'm going to ask the next question which is I want to get to floor plans because you can call these rooms anything you want and you just basically said said that I mean no that's not true it has to if it meets the definition in terms of size privacy Windows ceiling height it can be considered a bedroom there's certain parameters if it doesn't meet those parameters it's not considered a bedroom so no I wouldn't say you can label anything you want but again there are a lot of instances in older homes especially there's a room that's used as a study or a den or whatever but it meets a definition of a bedroom and it's considered to be a bedroom because it could be used that way legally okay can we go to A1A a1b and a z b we're going to just take a brief look at the floor plans I'm not going to go over in detail but I did want to um try to keep it in the form of a question I do I have this as a question so my comment and then it will be a question is that I count in looking at these three pages five bedrooms five bathrooms two living rooms one family room one study one den and then there's a there's a room on one on a1b in the front east corner that doesn't have any label do you know what that is I don't I can ask the Builder if you'd like me to take the time to do that okay so that would be one question and then while we're doing that there's it's probably not relevant to get him started again so let's not do that okay I'm sorry I just don't know what it right I'll just make the comment that there are two rooms in the floor plans that one is in the basement and one is on the first floor FL that do not have again I would rely on U Judy Georgio's reviewed the plans and she doesn't determine those to uh be bedrooms under again pursuant to the letter that she submitted so I think we have to rely on that do she have this exact flaw plan I I I don't know that for a fact no I can't say that she does this as what was sent to her as for under my request for comment I agree with you that that's why we hear about five case five foot opening caseman openings and all that because if she thought something was the bedroom she'd be the first one to say it okay um so Jamie you weren't at the last hearing but at the last hearing we talked a little bit about actually was a question Mr V had about the configuration of the garage the proposed garage had all these windows in the back and the explanation was is that it created a sight line to the pool but the garage is now shifted it's four feet closer away from mle Lane is there still is there still an explanation for that configuration not that I was given okay I'm happy to ask again if you'd like but I don't know uh myself as the the reason for maintaining the windows other than perhaps providing some light okay um so I just wanted to um this isn't a question it's a comment but it's a brief one um we we did talk about massing last time pretty significantly we had a our hearing last time was 56 minutes so it was almost an hour and we talked as Mr Lichfield pointed out we talked about massing we talked about um uh traffic flow and safety and we talked about compatibility of the size of the structure in the neighborhood and um when and and one of the things I specifically said which is why I'm bringing this up is that I felt like the gross floor area while not a perfect indicator is an indication of massing and since we can quantify that that's why I brought that up last time so this picture which is one of the images that we have is a good example of the doubling of the size of this house and the massing and so um that was not a question but that was my comment thank you okay questions D do any question I yeah I I don't know maybe I can I I'm just really unclear about mousehole Lane and and its effect on the I is it is it a town way is it I mean I'm here nobody from the audience can can make comments if you if Mr litfield wants to answer the question perhaps that work you it's not a town way I can tell you that yeah I mean whatever I'm I'm trying to get some education here because I'm good question uh you know looks familiar can I just if I could try to respond Madam yes is I just wanted to make sure that Mr narcross had seen what I'm going to reference I'm looking at a 19 48 plan uh that the Kellen family had done which shows mouse hole Lane owned by George Nickerson and Roy Nickerson then subsequently in 19 there was no garage on the property at that time subsequently in 1974 the Killin had a plan done on the for the subject lot are these recorded would you say yes and then SAR can pull them up yeah uh 282 or I'll be happy to 28212 I'm sorry 28216 Sarah is the more recent one and that 19874 plan uh does not show mous Hole Lane it's simply shows a division of the killan property which is now the applicant's property and there is no way there and that's because the property is owned by others in my opinion again there are no rights in it so in other words it is not a town way at all so so then I I'm just trying to think so what it looks to me like as far as zone is concerned in setbacks it's being treated as a as a role that's correct yeah we were so how is it that I mean if it's not a if it's not a road why does it need a 40t setback because there's many types of Roads okay it curious if I could it doesn't meet it doesn't meet the 25 it doesn't even need the set back well the garage the addition does right but the the garage but the the addition all right I see it's 23 Point yeah okay yeah so the zixing house is 23 the garage is so it's not meeting the 25 5 foot set the existing house does not no does not right okay um and then uh aside from that uh Jamie you indicated that and I see on the on the site plan that the septic system is on the uh other side of the house uh and that's that's so putting might to put a driveway over that that might require replacing elements of the septic system in order to have an h10 type tank Etc is that I'm just asking is that a possibility or does it need to be done would it need to be done do you know does an engineer you if um yeah if you had um if there was going to be driven over it does have to have certain H1 I believe right or H2 one of the two you have to have on to in order to be allow for cars to go over it so there is again it's I suppose it's feasible but um the access on mous hole was something that wasn't so but but just sounds like that as far as the access on mous hole that's sort of it's not really part of our it's not before yeah so okay so I think um I think those are the only questions I have Ed questions Ed sort of caught up on the whole mouso uh does the town plow mouso Lane no we're going to take that I'll take Jun and Lotus of fact that somebody shook their head no and I guess the other question has there any has there ever been um controversy about um this property using mous hole Lane before before they um Marty's been here since 2008 and he's never had any so it's just the The Proposal that's causing I would say that's true I mean he's neighbors have asked them to park in his driveway over the years and they've had overflow parties and he's been happy to do it so no one seemed to mind then but obviously with the I guess the other question is currently from the front of the house to the back of the garage is the 100 feet we're talking about uh the 100 feet for that's just for the new design so from the front of the house to the back of the garage y yeah the existing house to the back of the garage is 100 ft we're basically the same length so we're really talking about just filling in 20 feet in between the two properties is what we're talking about as far as massing yeah in terms of adding structure that's not there now would be in that middle section there the connector okay thank you nion questions no questions I I I would just sit you know plain just outright ask why don't you do anything about the mass I mean we talked about it for an hour here why um I my client felt strongly that um you know a lot of the elements he thinks in terms of why this actually is compatible with the neighborhood in terms of size and everything else just was not addressed so he just disagrees with the board you could say that yes okay fine okay Paul I'll move to close the hearing and move into the liberations Dave V seconds and votes yes yes Jenny yes well yes and I vote Yes as well okay now we'll actually deliberate and uh why don't we start with Dave just get it off your chest okay well um despite the the issues with mous hole and things I mean I have to totally set that aside uh in in my look at at this situation um and I um I don't share the same concerns that have been expressed about the massing along the mous hole lane side of the house in that um as you know Ed and I are look we're looking at the S plan here and put the scale on it and it is that's the existing length of of of buildings there not but without the the infill of a a connector piece in between so if you go from the back of the garage to the front of the porch existing porch you're at a a say 100 ft so this there and admittedly or granted there's there is a proposal to add another floor to the garage and to the rear of the um main house to add on a little bit and add that connector but I uh don't I mentioned it I think in February I know because I just watched both these meetings again I probably wouldn't have remembered but I did mention that you know I had looked at some of the um size of the buildings other in the neighborhood and Jamie gave us a better uh indication of that when I look at some when I look at those some of those numbers I I don't I I don't see that this is this proposal is out of scale with other buildings in the neighborhood as as much as as being emphasized it is larger than some others but that length and and that configuration um I I pointed out in February is is very close to a a house that was redone a number of years ago uh in my neighborhood on the corner of Main Street and Lighthouse Lane and um also with the blessing of the uh historical commission etc etc and and I I look at that building there now and and I I measured it on Google Maps and it might be 15 feet Less in length but it's at least 85 feet in L and and it doesn't stand out it doesn't stand out in the neighbor in that neighborhood and it's all you know all the Greek revivals all kind of lined up and and it and it fits so I I'm going to say in in this case I feel like if the proposal that they're doing when it's all said and done and and and and if it's said and done and and the neighborhood repairs any contol I I don't think it's going to be a negative have a negative impact on the uh on I don't I don't find that it the scale sighting in Mass for this proposal is substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood I think we can see it as perhaps being detrimental others obviously do but I don't see it as being substantially more detrimental in neighborhood so I can support it okay Dave Nixon well I feel just the opposite uh with Mr v um and we're going back to the neighborhood here your neighborhood is one thing this is another neighborhood and to me it stands out you know we've got 100 feet by 24 ft this is a massive structure and for that area and the homes around it and particularly the other folks who live on Mill this is use the world gigantic in relation to the others so I do not believe I could support it in any way shape or form unless it was substantially reduced good okay um Ed did you didn't go yet no I didn't might as well finish the um [Music] so I've seen you know these types of Renovations around town quite a bit where someone's trying to save a a historical building and you know they're making an effort to to save the the front of the house it's historic and it it doesn't because of the lot and because you're trying to save that historic part of the structure it the buildings do get long I mean they get long and there's an existing garage back back here yes we're adding they're adding a second story to it but really they're infill infilling that 20 ft in in between the two structures um as far as mous ho Lane um it seems to me that I mean there's ample room to turn around and to go onto mous hole Lane um I'm not sure adding another driveway onto bar Cliff is a good idea I'm not I I've seen traffic studies before I know curb Cuts onto roads are you know they like to see them minimized instead of increased um you know I I'm willing to I'm not voting but I would support it because I'm willing to there to be a little leeway because he's making the effort to save that historic structure and it doesn't leave a lot of options especially on a long narrow lot as far as what to do so proposals today um um I think that uh I agree with Dave Nixon on this one um there's a large structure that's going to be uh in existence there and I think when I look at our standards and I consider uh the extent of the proposed increase in non-conforming nature of the structure in this case the increased living area um clearly there's a substantial increase in living area uh gross floor area is going from from 2196 to 6,157 and there aren't many places that are at that level uh that are also on a lot this size um so I think that it does not comply with uh number three our standard um and I think that the uh impact of the scale on the uh neighborhood visual character uh does have a negative effect uh overall um there's some impact on traffic flow and safety in the sense that there's going to be a much more intensive use of the property and therefore uh larger uh traffic problems uh with respect to mous hole but also with respect to uh barclift barli is better is better able to handle it because you're not dealing with the 10- foot the rideway or driveway um but uh um the other standard of compatibility of the size of the proposed structure with neighboring properties it seems to me U this has a negative effect on on the neighboring property so overall I think it is substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood uh as proposed right now without revisions so that would be my view thank you uh lee if you were voting I'm going to be brief because I'm not voting so um I think I think what hurts this um application is is mous hole Lane and not because it's a private road or um a small Lane but it's because it's kind of an open space I think if the lot were in and of itself and you could landscape it and you would barely you know barely see how far the house went back you wouldn't see the mass that would help a lot but that's not the case so um mass is still a concern for me and um anything that they can do to to um reduce the mass vary the height um disconnect the garage lower the garage anything would be helpful in my opinion and Steve yeah I sort of agree with with Lee I don't think there was enough done to address the massing issue I think there's some other options that could be followed to um alleviate some of the pressure that or the perceived pressure that there would be on mous hole lanane and um I think um this needs to be Revis visited again very good and Jenny you are voting how are you going to vote yeah I um I think Lee brings up a great point about um you know just the seeing all that from molane and so and also want to go back to the comments that Dave e and Ed made about Ed in particular about I appreciate him restoring the historic home too but when you look at what's being proposed this isn't really a Greek Revival anymore it really never was a Greek Revival was kind of a hybrid in a historic even said it was called No style but by adding these you're not just adding to the height um Ed made the comment about the length and we all understand I've seen it successfully in town as well and I commented on that at our last hearing but I don't know that they went this wide as well as back and I know this is just a portion uh it's it's not this wide all the way back but to me this really distorts the Greek Revival look which is what we typically see in town when we see these really long um homes so this is just my little version of that picture because I didn't know we had the picture but you can really see the increased Mass from barcliff this picture is the one I showed before you really can see the mass because I agree that while we're only talking about this part in the middle is different between the garage in the home but the double going up higher to the Second Story everything in yellow is what's not there today that's more than 20 ft so I I um in summary think that it uh I was disappointed that we spent an hour last time talking very specifically about criteria 5 2 and eight and I don't think we did enough on those to for me to be able to support it what would you like to do Mr noos uh madam chair if I may I'd ask if we could withdraw without prejudice yes Paul can they oh yes thank you I I'll be very brief because it's been a long day I ordinarily support the right of an applicant to withdraw without prejudice however the repetitive petition process is warranted here in the leading case on the repetitive petition process judge C said that it prevents the neighbors from having to return to the barricades that means that the applicant has to make significant and responsive changes take them to the planning board convince the planning board that they are responsive and then come back to you to determine whether they are responsive I'm not trying to make more work for Mr Norcross or his client I'm trying to prevent my clients from having to return to the barricades yet again so I would ask that you vote on this proposal let's decide whether you have standing to do that I'm simply asking you that's all okay all right I need a moment okay I as I understand it you've moved to withdraw without prejudice I can if I may have a moment to comment on that all right go ahead I mean I think it's a very Draconian result here um again I understand this is the second time with largely essentially uh largely the same plan again he didn't have the benefit of council at the last Hearing in February I think he wanted to see if again with the presentation today he truly felt that there were items here that could be brought forward that would be helpful in terms of the board's consideration he's not trying to waste anyone's time including the board or the neighbors I think withdraw without prejudice again he's not going to come back with the same plan if he's going to come back with anything it's going to have to be substantially different we understand that for approval so I think to stick him with a two-year uh moratorium on a redesign short of going to the planning board and here I mean we're just going to clog up agendas for no reason on that but you know I have to just say that um you might have been Mis misinformed by a client because um he had already had the fence around the pool last time that had already been done the last time we looked at this I believe it was no it wasn't uh well I guess we were in preparation for it and then it got withdrawn so we had gone by yeah okay so it seemed like it was already done and I know again just to piggyback there were a number of concerns raised not necessarily relative to the application but I think board members were reasonably concerned about those items but like I think it we were wholesale disregarded I'm sorry I just think we were completely disregarded by a client I think you know we we said a lot of things and he just wanted to see if you could you know spin it another way but it was the same plan really you know and it was you know it's wasted a lot of time so I don't like to be Draconian either so I think I want to hear from my fellow board members to see what they want to do because I think that's what Mr Nixon has done in the past checked with other people and that's what makes us a good board so what doesn't everybody decide whether they should be voted on or or uh with or continued what do you think David um I think that uh uh this is only I I can only think of one other time in my time on the board while we were discussing something like this but um I think they've heard the message and I and I don't you want to continue and so I I I want to allow them to to withdraw without prejudice withraw what about you Ed withdraw without prejudice or should we vote uh I would say withdraw without prejudice only only because there were I I think a couple of us the last time that actually thought the plan was okay and a couple again today so I you know perhaps we sent you know we sent a mixed message I think okay what do you think David yeah I I believe that we should allow them to withdraw I think the message was very strong from some of us and as and and you know Dava pointed out they also was very strong and a positive so I think um a vote on it would be something that uh we would only do if we felt we've been really ignored so if they came again and the same thing happened okay that's a different story but I do not believe we should not honor Mr Norcross request for a withdrawal so we'll make it quicker is there any of you four members think that we should actually just vote and cut it off no okay fair enough I just wanted to make sure um so message sent well I will move to Grant the requested relief of withdrawal without prejudice Dave V seconds and votes yes yes yes yes uh yes and uh so that's unanimous and can we just ask that you find out what the story is with mous hole legally sure that would be helpful the next time do some research on that whenever you do come back great thank you very much thank you very good so no certain date right no all right so line up the one more application for today uh is 485 uh Shore Road these are steps and um this is application 24- 078 um we'll just take a couple of minutes let the room clear out application number 24- 078 Greg F Butler 2022 Family Trust and Heather R Butler 2022 Family Trust care of Terrence J hurry Esquire 15 Cape Lan Brewster Mass 02631 owner of property located at 485 Shore Road also shown in the town of chadam assessors map 16g block 3 lot A1 the applicant seeks to construct an elevated stairway and landings under section 4 a3a on the access easement to which they are a party to the access easement to which they are a party located at 500 Shore Road a special permit is required under Mass General Law chapter 48 section 9 and Section 8 d2b of protective bylaw um please state your name good evening Madam chair and board members my name is TJ hurry I'm an associate attorney at San Associates and roer um and with me tonight is Don Bracken from Bracken engineering uh and together we represent the applicants Heather and Greg Butler who are with us this evening um to start off I figured I would uh give a summary of the project turn it over to dawn for the technical aspects um and then uh touch upon the special permit criteria if that's all right yes please sure uh so Heather and Greg own 485 Shore Road uh the Ean itself is located on the southern boundary of 500 Shore Road uh the board does have some familiarity uh with 500 Shore Road and the immediate area uh because earlier this year you uh reviewed and approved uh similar stairwell projects both at 500 and 498 uh in fact attorney Lichfield gave what I would call an excellent summary of the overall Pro proper history uh and actions taken at town meeting with respect to applicable bylaws um I would have participated or at least attended that meeting uh I was Ill at home but I did watch it live on U Microsoft teams um so I will note that our notice of intent is pending at conservation uh we had our most recent hearing uh yesterday we received some feedback from commission members um regarding some additional plantings uh during previous hearing we had been requested to install Beach Grass underneath the proposed stairwell uh which we did show on a subsequent plan um as far as additional mitigation efforts are concerned with additional planting uh within the easan area itself we are taking a look at that uh that was brought up during the hearing yesterday uh we're taking a closer look at that uh because of the previous efforts by 500 Shore uh it appear appears that some of their mitigation from their project had come into the easan area itself as well uh so in order to satisfy a conservation's concerns we're just taking a closer look at that aspect of the project in order to uh propose our own mediation uh but I will say that overall our project's goal is uh first off to be neighborly uh with both 500 and 498 Shore Road uh but also to respect the existing conditions on the site and that's not only 500s uh U existing Landscaping uh but also taking the environment into into concern as well um with with the shore on its way down to Aunt Lydia's Cove um touching upon the history of the easan itself it was created in the 1980s uh there has been continuous use of that uh since then uh you may recall that attorney Lichfield did did give a history of the easeman and the property itself uh the larger portion on the an lyus Cove Side was split off and subdivided uh along with our client's property and the other properties involved on Aunt Lydia's way uh in doing so they reserved that 10-ft easement on along the southern portion of 500 Shore Road for access to Aunt Lydia's Cove U and that's exactly why we're proposing the stairwell uh at this time uh when you if you've been on site uh the last time I was there was early April uh there has been a considerable amount of erosion I think the board's aware of that not only this board but conservation as well uh with the previously approved projects uh there has been a considerable amount of consider considerable amount of erosion since the 1980s uh it's just simply not safe uh to Traverse down to onlus Cove at this point uh so that's exactly why we're proposing the stairwell um the stairwell itself would provide safe and managed access not only for pedestrians both young and old uh but it also would take into consideration uh the environment uh within the easement area with the proposed plantings uh we're hoping and the previously approved stabilization project from 500 um it would just provide safe access overall both for pedestrians uh and for the environment over time um in in the future it would also prevent further erosion uh through those proposed plantings that we are looking into with conservation uh so our next meeting with them is on September 11th uh so we're hoping to get out to the site take a look around and propose some additional uh plantings and and hopefully have an an approval from them on the 11th itself uh from here I will turn it over to Dawn to talk about the technical aspects of the project and I will hit upon the special permac criteria after he's done okay thank you uh the total length of the of the uh stairway is 133 fet it's 4 feet from outside to outside as TJ said it's a 10-ft wide easement uh we're placing the stairway and landings 3 and 1/2 ft from that southernly property line as you know 3 foot is the uh minimum sep back for stairways two property lines so that leaves about another 2 and 1/2 ft on the other side of the stairs to the limit of the uh of the easement uh it will be constructed of of wood framing uh except for the last section will be a removable aluminum section that's going to be uh removed uh during the off seon and stored either up up at the top or or within the stairway system itself uh the total elevation drop is about 53 ft from the top to the to the Beach um as TJ said we're still in review process with the Conservation Commission but I note on the plan you can see the pink area and the sort of greenish area uh at the end of the stairs uh those areas have been recently uh replanted and stabilized with a slope stabilization plan um done by the owners of the property so we're being sensitive on how we go over that stabilization system um and we are going going to be using uh environmentally uh sensitive methods uh for the installation of the footings uh we're installing helical peirs that get screwed into the ground and then the post sit on top of those helical screws so there's no escavation work required there obviously will be some damage or trampling during the construction um that's part of the uh mitigation work that we're proposing uh there is a partial foot path there that you can see on the plan from the top and then it sort of disintegrates um there's no real uh defined foot path but um if you would visit the site you would see you still can Travers within that easement to get to the beach and uh but it's obviously uh not not very safe uh um so the stairs will will take care of that um and then uh the stairway like most stairways I'm sure you've seen in the past there'll be adequate spacing and height over the ground so that the vegetation uh we'll have enough light and be able to continue to grow and uh maintain that stable surface um we are uh hiring uh a Bist to go out there and come up with a more detailed plan that they asked for we provided some information but they wanted additional information I think with that I'd be happy to answer any engineering questions thank you no very good do you want to go into just goool over the um criteria now Council sure be happy to Madam Sher thank you um so when it comes to the special per perit criteria uh board is very well familiar with that uh but a special permit may be granted uh when it's found that the use itself would not be more detrimental to the established or Future character of the neighborhood in the town uh and when the F proposed use involved uh would be in harmony with the general purpose and the intent of the bylaw uh we believe we've achieved that uh with this proposed project uh bearing in mind the uh recently approved projects both at 500 and 498 uh taking a look at each criteria itself we do believe that the site is adequate and suitable for what's being proposed uh again this is no different than what CBA and conservation has already approved uh with the with the neighbors stairwells um if the board does have any um concern about construction efforts or future construction efforts I should say um we've agreed that all construction uh Vehicles will be off site uh and the plans have no uh substantial efforts uh in terms of uh in terms of putting things together uh everything's going to be brought in essentially by hand uh so there's little to no impact on the immediate environment uh I would say that there is really no impact on traffic flow and safety there's really no impact on uh the neighborhood's visual character uh again you've approved uh these stair wheells to the north and to the South uh it's expected with the remedial planting everything will grow in uh so there really won't be any concern of views and Vistas uh adequacy of utilities none are being proposed this is a simple stairwell there's no electricity no water for rent stations uh no no lights being proposed no storage of whatsoever just a simple stairwell um when it comes to noise in uh litter I don't think there's any concern there as well um and the compatibility of the surrounding land use um with other with other properties nearby uh with proposed stairwells uh we believe that this is in keeping with the neighborhood and then the overall impact of the natural environment uh when you take into consideration the remedial plantings that we're looking into and what's already been proposed with the beach grass that's going to be underneath the structure uh we believe that there's no concern there thank you is there anybody here on Microsoft teams that wishes to speak in favor of this application a please make it known seeing none we have two correspondences first one as usual Judith Georgio writes on August 6 2024 I have no concerns about this proposal and that's a health agent next we have a note from the um the the uh Conservation Commission and the applicant uh submitted a notice of intent it was heard on June 12th and August 7th the project will be scheduled for an order of conditions to meet the rules for that anybody wish to speak against this application or ask a specific question we see attorney litfield Rises to the occasion he's going to pass out some documents to prove his case thank you and Council you will have a time to rebut at the end of this thank you madam shair welcome back attorney Lichfield thank you madam chairman Bill Lichfield who as you may recall I represent Steve and Stacy Bron who owned the property on which the easement is located with me today is Adam zagger this is actually more of a question rather than opposition and because I'm respectful of your protocols it it would have been better I suppose to raise this before the presentation was made but I have a question as to whether this is actually properly before the board these definitions uh in District regulations R40 Section 3 District regulations the middle block describes an accessory use as a barn a boat house a garage a swimming pool a ten Court a private residential garage and similar accessory structures so I think we could assume from that that stairs are similar accessory structures they're not a single family dwelling they're an accessory to a single family dwelling then we go up to section two at the top from our bylaws definition of an accessory use or building means a use or building customarily subordinate to the principal use or Building located on the same line not except as in the footnote below the footnote Below in appendix one footnote 3 says that accessory uses shall be located on the same lot as a principal use except that zba may Grant a special permit to locate such use on an unimproved lot so if the applicant owns 498 and 500 Shore Road is vacant is an unimproved lot then you can by special permit Grant relief if you see fit but plainly 500 Shore Road is not an unimproved lot the property is is certainly improved and the applicant is proposing to do something that I don't think is allowed by the byla Mr Briggs may need to weigh in on that or perhaps someone else may need to weigh in but based on the plain language in the byaw I don't think the application can properly be heard or the relief granted Mr Briggs thanks for having me here today I really appreciate it um I would need to give this some serious consideration I it's not a decision I want to make right here right now and we don't want you to okay um does anybody on the board want to say David Nixon go ahead no I agree with Mr Briggs that this uh should go to a higher level than than what we have here and so I would suggest to the applicant that they ask for a continuation and so that this matter can be discussed within the building department and when we come back we can go further or or not I think that's what makes sense here who's that person online um I see that's Adam zagger U I'm also Council to the trust that rep owns the property um on behalf of Stephen Stacy Brion so so you'd be part of the rebuttal on this I take it yeah I I just wanted to amplify what Bill said also that this despite the fact that we have only one applicant listed on the application this is actually an an access easement that that had been set up for actually four different parties so in addition to the to the issue that U my brother Council just raised with respect to the accessory use not being eligible for a special permit on improved a lot you also have the issue where you're essentially allowing a multif family use in in the single family Zone which we also believe is is highly problematic all right thank you thank you sir so um what would you like to do Council um if if I could just briefly address concerns that were brought up um first off I'd be happy to have a further conversation with the Building Commissioner uh moving this project forward uh when it does come to attorney zigger's concerns and attorney lichfield's concerns we can certainly address one address the bylaws uh and two certainly not trying to hide the ball with the with the zba uh it's been well known throughout this process especially with the commission um that the easement applies to four homeowners on Aunt Lydia's way 167 on Lydia's way 485 and 499 um so I just want to make that clear uh the easement language itself appears not only on the brion's deed uh but all of our clients Deeds as well so from a title aspect uh that that that's unique you don't always get that sometimes easement language is hiding somewhere at the at the registry of deeds uh so I just wanted to make that clear um as far as any sort of continuance goes be happy to do that and talk to the Building Commissioner about moving this project forward with the zba all right that that's very fair thank you um Paul pa uh do we need to set a date or are we anticipating how about late September would does that sound right we are meeting with conservation on September 11th and my apologies I I didn't look I did not look at your U meetings that that far in advance our September 12th meeting is booked so it would be September 26th at the earliest so we'd have to take the 26th then yeah I'll move to Grant the requested continuance to se December 26 2024 Dave V seconds and votes yes Dave Nixon I agree and Jenny yes and Paul as do I thank you very much for your patience and uh we'll see you in September well thank you for your time this evening as the song says uh I will move to adjourn Dave V seconds vot yes say what time it is right what time is it oh vote to adjourn all right we'll vote to adjourn Dave Nixon yes uh Jenny yes and Paul yes everybody everybody I said yes sorry Lee yes Steve yes and Paul yes as do I and now what time is it 6:36 p.m. good night shadow n [Music]