Oh, I see everybody now.

There you go.

We don't see you yet though.

Or I don't see you.

Oh, there you are.

Vanita Monica's phone number starts with 860.

Okay.

736.

Yeah.

I'll I'll send her an email.

You want to wait?

Um, we can start the meeting.

We can should we start the meeting?

Okay.

Oh, there she is.

Is that her?

Yep, it looks like I'd like to welcome everyone and call tonight's zoning board meeting to order.

I'm David Stein, Chair of the Zoning Board, and it is 632 on September 29th, 2025.

The members of the board and staff are holding this meeting by Teams video conference.

The public is in attendance both on video conference and by telephone.

I'd like to do a roll call first of the board and the staff.

Bill Morris.

Here.

Roseanne McManus.

Here.

Jerry Bozak.

Present.

And now for the staff, Ralph Blessing.

Present.

And Vanita Monter.

Yeah.

Good.

We have everyone.

The board's microphones will be open throughout tonight's hearing.

The applicant's mics will be open during the public hearing when their application is being heard.

However, we would ask the applicant to please mute your mics when not speaking in order to reduce any background noise.

The first part of the meeting tonight is a public hearing during which the public will have an opportunity to speak.

Each member of the public will be muted until it is your turn to speak.

Here's the procedure for the public to let us know that you would like to speak.

If you came in through Teams, please use the raise your hand function and you will be unmuted when it is your turn to speak.

If you called in on one of the telephone conference call phone numbers, please press star five and this will raise your hand.

Then press star six to unmute when you are called on.

When members of the public speak, please give us your name and address for the record and whether you are in favor of or opposed to the application.

The board request that members of the public limit your comments to three minutes so that everyone will have a chance to speak.

Something's not working.

That's V M-A-T-H-U-R at StamfordCT.gov.

And Vanita will get you on.

This meeting's being recorded and will be posted on the zoning board's website.

You can find the agenda for tonight's meeting and the meeting applications and the other materials for tonight's meeting by going to our website.

They are www.stanfordct.gov slash zoning.

Now the first item we have on tonight's uh agenda is a uh administrative approval, the appointment of Ms.

Monica Sims as the zoning enforcement officer for the city of Stanford pursuant to section C6-40-19 of the uh Stanford Charter.

Uh Ralph, would you like to uh just start us on this?

Uh sure.

Um so uh as you know, um our uh long time uh zoning enforcement officer um Jim Lani uh retired a while back.

Uh it's been uh very difficult finding a new CEO.

Um but um I think um we uh have now an excellent news EO who is up for appointment tonight.

Um Miss Monica Sims.

Um I have send or I think Vanita has sent you uh her resume uh in advance of this meeting, and uh she is here tonight uh to answer any questions you may have um about uh her resume and her about her previous experience she has been working as a zoning enforcement officer for a really long time, was really experienced.

So I think uh we can consider ourselves very lucky uh that she accepted um the job um with us.

Uh with that, I hand it back to you, David.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um and just uh in case it wasn't clear to the public, uh the ZEO does need to be um approved by the zoning board.

Um so um can we uh have Ms.

Sims uh uh I don't know, promoted to uh participant here.

Um yes, I did promote her.

I think she's on the phone here.

I also sent her a panelist link so you can she can join um on her computer.

Um but sims, uh are you able to unmute um and speak.

Hi Monica.

Yeah, can you get in that you're muted?

I think we heard her for a second.

There you go.

You're on mute.

Hi, can you all hear me?

Yes, can you get in through your computer so we can um see you?

I um on my phone.

I don't have my laptop.

I didn't realize that um I can't get in, it appears, unless I'm on the computer.

So I apologize for that.

Um I've been trying to chime in on this meeting since 6.15, and I'm not having any luck.

That's all right, we can at least hear you.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Well, um, welcome.

Um I think we all got your resume, and um it's uh very impressive, I feel.

Um can you just give us a little bit of uh give us your background, please okay.

I have been in this field currently for um over 20 years, and um I started out with my career in Hamden as the assistant zoning enforcement officer.

Um and so I did that for about gosh, I need my resume now.

I did that for a number of years, and then um I moved to Berlin.

That's when I got my real hands-on experience doing zoning enforcement and working for the zoning board of appeals.

Um, I was there for approximately seven, six and a half, seven years.

And um from there, I took a little break after I left Berlin.

Um, thought maybe I might have wanted to get into something else and missed it.

So I jumped back and um and from there I did a little tenure at New Haven for a little bit as one of the planners.

Um I moved around for a little bit.

Um and then I ended up in.

I'm sorry.

We don't see the Haven there.

No, hey, I was only there for even.

Yes, I was there for a year.

I because I moved around.

I only put where I was um with the town or or a city for a number of years.

I went to Bristol from Bristol, was in Bristol for three years.

And did zoning enforcement, and then um I received a promotion or promotional position in Meriden as the associate city planner, but I was also the CEO there.

I did that for three years, and then for a year and a half, almost two years.

Um I was promoted to the planning director in Nearden.

And um that was stressful.

So um here I am with Stanford.

Um I did a little time in Cheshire and um wanted to uh kind of just get back into things.

Stanford is a uh larger city.

And so I am glad that I applied.

I like it so far.

Um, and here I am.

I would I'm just a bit confused.

You said you were in Cheshire and in New Haven, but neither of those are on your resume.

Um the reason the reason why the reason why they're not up there is because I wasn't there for a long period of time, and I can't fit all of that on one page.

That's it.

That's it.

Uh and you were in Weathers Field?

Is that true?

I was in Weathers, yes, that is correct.

I was there for also a year as well, and I did zoning enforcement and uh property maintenance.

Okay.

Um I see you have a um quite a bit of uh education there.

Um is there a bachelor's degree anywhere in there?

I can't tell.

No, um, no, there is not.

Um every time I went back to school, I was raising a family at that time, and so it was really difficult.

So I would start and then I would have to stop.

So I never finished.

Um that is one of my goals, um, but no, I haven't.

And then I went through the program um the Casio and earned my certification in 2007.

Ah, okay, yeah.

Trying to go to school and raise a family at the same time is uh quite a quite a uh big load to carry.

Um I understand.

Um why don't we um go to the board and see if people have questions?

Um Bill.

Um welcome, Monica.

How are you?

Good, thank you.

Um, do you uh do you have any changes in mind or improvements that you're thinking about doing uh to the department?

Um one of the um changes um when they hired me, one of the things was to um get some procedures in place and um kind of get the department organized again and support staff.

Um and so uh that's kind of where I am right now.

Um uh basically to clean up the website and get complaints under control.

Um that is my first two goals.

The um do you uh I know you've been there a limited amount of time, but do you think you have sufficient staff to perform all the duties that uh ZEO uh is required to perform?

Yes, okay.

Um other question.

Uh several months ago, the board we were discussing um affordable housing and BMR units, and I brought up an idea, which unfortunately we never got to fall through on.

Well what I was thinking was that it would it be a good idea or we're capable of doing is have uh expedited permitted, excuse me, expedited permitting, um if a certain level of affordable housing was uh performed on a specific site.

Uh do you have any experience with that line of thinking?

Um I don't.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh I'm good, Dave.

Good.

Uh Roseanne.

Uh hi, and uh welcome to the team.

Uh thank you.

I guess my question is other than the uh small amount of time in New Haven, Stanford Um will be the largest city that uh do you have any concerns for um do you think it'll be much different because Stanford is so much larger than uh the previous cities you worked in?

So I believe that would be sufficient to be able to handle the tasks that um my department has.

Um whenever we get into discussions about parking and street parking and overcrowded street parking, most of it I think I think most of us feel that a lot of the reasons is because of um many single or multifamily homes that have um been converted into say six or eight apartments and not with the blessing of the city, obviously with no um appropriate um documentation from the city, and and there's nothing we can do about that as a zoning board, we don't have anything to do with it, but how do we go about cracking down on people who take her say single family home and illegally convert it to uh four apartments?

So um I have a meeting um next Tuesday to meet with Matt, um the health department, the building department, and I believe fire to see how we can tackle those um complaints because we do get we're invaded um with those type of complaints, and um it's hard for zoning enforcement to get into those apartments to see um what's being done, so it's going to be a joint effort and moving forward um with all the illegal apartments.

So we are working on it, but it's gonna take a joint effort.

Okay, uh those are really the only questions that I have.

Thanks.

If I if I could just follow up with that, can you give us what kind of ideas do you have, or what did you done in the past in your previous positions um to um combat illegal apartments?

So um again is it takes a joint effort.

Um is going to take the building department, it's going to take health.

Um, if that is the case is going to well, fire normally gets involved if it's a three or more family.

Um, but it takes a joint effort to get someone in there to contact the property owners.

Um, most times it is either health or building to get us to get inspections so that we can get in there.

Um, my past experience has been um we used to have a task force that um would get complaints of this, and we would uh one of the departments would have information um as to how we can contact the owners, and at that time we would um set up an inspection so that we can go out and so that we can let them know that you know there are no permits, um this apartment is illegal, it doesn't have the egress that is needed, so um, and that would normally help.

Um, so each department would step in and do what was necessary to either um close down the illegal apartment or point them in the right direction as to what they would need in order to make it either a legit apartment or to let them know that it is not allowed.

Okay, okay.

Um Jerry, yes, uh evening.

Good evening, good evening, Monica.

I'm sorry you can't see me.

We're just having a little technical difficulties.

Um, but I I wanted to welcome you again as Echo Roseanne to the team.

Um I'm a little concerned this is a very large appointment for you from what you're you're saying in reviewing your resume uh is the largest city or the job that you you've received.

Um I do like to bring um I wish you the best of luck with that.

I like to bring back the question to two things that you had mentioned.

Procedures.

Uh you said you wanted to bring in further procedures and or so I'm assuming my assumption I could be wrong.

You did review the SOPs already with the department.

And I want to hear from you as leadership, what off the top of your head, just uh a couple things of procedure that you would like to bring uh bring forward.

That would be my first question.

So what do you see overall?

What would be your as a as leadership would you think that procedures you would bring forward?

Enhance the department.

One procedure would be um we receive a lot of complaints that we don't f our department does not follow up with the public.

And so um I've been meeting with staff to get us all on the same page.

That uh if someone is has emailed you or reached out to you, please get back to them, even if you don't have an answer at that time, reply back to them.

You know, we will get back to you shortly.

Um that was one thing as far as um that wasn't occurring thus far.

How did how did you do an audit on that?

How did you know that that was occurring?

There were other complaints from the first complaint.

How did you know that that was occurring?

Um it was being brought to my attention from operations.

Okay.

So uh that was one thing.

So I've been meeting with staff to get everyone on board with if someone calls you, call them back.

That was um some of the complaints that we were getting from the public that our department wasn't getting back to people.

So um that was one thing.

Um, how do you develop that paradigm?

How are you going to be able to uh you know assess that asset?

I mean how what what is the process for that to follow up on that?

Taking some having a meeting, taking someone's word, uh emails, how how do you how do you quantify that?

So what we've what we have done thus far is all the complaints that come into our department that come to our department through a um enforcement email.

Yeah, all those emails come directly to me and to the staff we have um put into place um whomever is going to answer those emails or that particular email, they would let each other, we would let each other know, hey, by the way, I'll take this email or I will call this person.

Um so with everything coming in through my email, I can keep a track.

If it's something pertaining to permits, I will go and see the staff that takes care of the permits.

If it is referring to complaints, I will go and speak with the staff to say, hey, have you followed up on this?

Um that's what I've done so far since I've been there.

Perfect.

Um so that was one thing.

And as far as the complaints, it's the same thing.

Everything is gonna come through my email, and then I follow through with staff.

Okay, and the other the one of the other questions I have for you is it's a it's it's an excellent idea in regards that Bill had was um the expedited permits.

I would love to hear in the future, and I'll come back with this question to you at some point once you know once everything kind of settles down for you, is the expedited permits.

I think it's a it's a great idea, and I really think that my my humble suggestion is that you really would be able to look at look at that and come back to the board with that that suggestion.

Um I'm sorry, are you referring to um affordable housing when people can oh affordable housing?

Okay, yes, I would just talking about a building permit, Jerry.

But the actually is the entire process, David.

Going into start to finish.

Right.

Yeah, and I think it was a great idea.

We went through it last time, Mr.

Chairman, and I think that really need having to look at that now that uh we have uh you know uh the VEO um with us.

Yeah, and the last piece is I'd really like to hear your comprehensive plan, Monica, uh, in the future about the um the illegal development and housing that we have in Stanford.

It's an ongoing issue, and I'd really like to hear more about that come in in the future.

But th those are my elements.

Of course, Mr.

Mr.

Chairman, thank you so much.

Do you just following following up on one of Jerry's questions?

Is there a um when people back up when people have um requests for the city, they go into fix it Stanford and they put their request in.

And um I guess there's a a system for tracking those requests and then responding to the public.

Does um the ZEO's office have any computerized system where you log in and track who's handling who's handling each item and then each what they do each step that they take in the uh process.

Yes that's in the fix it um portal so how they do it is when someone complains it comes directly to my department so everyone in my department receives the complaint and then it'll get assigned to someone so to come in to me and I assign it to each inspector.

So we can any time go ahead it comes to you through fix it.

Yep.

Correct.

Ah okay okay um got it well um as you've heard one of the the probably the the major issue that um that we feel we've got is uh the illegal apartments that has um and I think that it's been a challenge over the years to uh deal with it so um I hope you're able to get a handle on it yes um it's definitely going to be a collaboration of different departments and um we're working on it okay okay good uh vanita or Ralph do you have any other questions okay uh board members anything else no Ms.

Chairman thank you almost set um okay do we um can we get a motion then please to um approve the appointment of uh monica sims as the zoning enforcement officer so moved second okay is there further discussion okay all in favor of the motion say aye aye aye okay any opposed any abstentions okay um monica congratulations you've been approved uh unanimously by the board thank you and uh I'm looking forward to working with you thank you have fun thanks yeah okay good um we are now going into the uh public hearing portion of the meeting um the first item we have is application two two five one eight toll northeast five corp and real view of connecticut 700 Fairfield Avenue and zero zero Cummings Point Road site and architectural plans and or requested uses and coastal site plan review applicant is proposing to construct 56 condominiums associated amenities and parking the property is within the cam boundary um is the applicant uh or the representative here um yes i did move um miss feinberg to uh panelist there she is attorney welcome thank you uh vanita do you see ray masio i do see them let me put them on as well he's on dave should be able to um join as well thank you uh good evening everyone um mr chairman i think i'll probably just pick up where we left off i think we only had a few uh little homework assignments um so i will yep share my screen here please uh introduce yourself for the record and then proceed sure ray masio uh land use consultant with redness and meet on behalf of the applicant there we go um so we had some items that i think uh were in the staff report or other departmental comments um that were discussed at the last meeting on the eighth um and we were asked to submit plans to reflect uh those small changes and those were submitted i think the week before last uh and shown up on screen here uh and they include adding uh a light poll which we've done so there was one here we've since shifted that down and added one uh at the entrance off of fairfield avenue here uh the other was putting back a little stretch of sidewalk from inside the site

And those were submitted, I think the week before last uh and shown up on screen here.

Uh and they include adding uh a light pole, which we've done.

So there was one here.

We've since shifted that down and added one uh at the entrance off of Fairfield Avenue here.

Uh the other was putting back a little stretch of sidewalk from inside the site out to the uh the top gallant right-of-way here.

Um so we've added that back here.

There's a a bus stop there, isn't there?

Or am I uh there what there is, there will not be in the future.

Okay.

Why is that um say that again?

Why is the bus stop uh not there in the future?

So the bus stop was not a public bus stop, but installed by uh I think PlayTex when they built the building, there's really more for their employees.

Um so when the building comes down, the the bus stop will come down.

Um but there are still plenty of bus stops in and around uh the Sound View Farms uh office park.

Um and then one of the other items was just confirming uh that the internal sidewalks are all concrete sidewalks, uh except of course where they uh where you're walking across uh a driveway, which is asphalt.

Um and then let me see.

Okay.

Um and then I think the only other item was updating the plant species selection, uh, which the landscape architect did here.

Um actually this plan shows the light poles a little bit better.

It's got the um it's got the photometrics on it as well.

Um, and then the species were updated.

I did go through just to note which ones were updated, and I've highlighted them here, and that was at the request of EPB to make sure that all the plant selections were of native species.

Um so we've done that, and I then I think the one other discussion item we before you get there.

You mentioned a photometric plan.

Yes.

Can you show us that?

I didn't I didn't see that on the top sheet of the landscape plan, sheet LS1.

It has it shows all the photometrics on that plan.

So all the light distribution from each of the light poles.

Is that the the kind of circle around the pole?

So the circle kind of shows the more direct footprint of the light, and then there are numbers which show the foot candles.

And the further you go out from the light, the lower the foot candles get until they go to zero.

And that's typically what a photometric plan shows.

I see.

Okay.

It's very faint.

I had not uh noticed that.

Okay.

Um and then we did update the street tree calculations.

We had some conversations with staff.

The street tree manual had actually been updated.

Uh we worked through that uh with staff as well uh and determined that we will have 26 trees along Fairfield Avenue, uh, and then have to pay the fee for two additional trees.

Right.

And the the question I think that came up last time.

Um I think dealt with sidewalks on top gallant.

Was that correct?

Or was it trees on top gallant?

It was sidewalks, I think.

Anyway.

Well, there was this sidewalk leading out to the top gallant right-of-way.

Okay.

Okay.

But because top gallant is private, it's not required to have a sidewalk.

Correct.

It's actually just a right-of-way.

It's it's not uh a pro it's not an accepted street at all.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Um, so that was it.

Happy to answer any other questions that the board may have.

Okay.

Jerry, any questions for um Ray?

Not right now, uh, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Well, okay.

Um Roseanne.

Nope.

Um, after reviewing everything before the meeting and uh the presentation, everything's answered.

Uh Bill.

All set.

Okay, and I I think it all looked fine.

Thank you, Ray, for providing that additional uh material.

Absolutely.

By the way, Mr.

Chairman, um if I may, uh just want to let you know I did review the the meeting from last time, which I wasn't here for, and it looks like a great project.

Wish them all the luck.

Okay, so you are qualified to vote on this.

Yes, yes, okay.

Umita, please make sure the minutes reflect that.

Okay.

So you reviewed the tape from our meeting of um whatever that was.

Yes, the 8th.

September 8th, Ms.

Chairman.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

Good.

Uh uh Vanita, are you are you set on um the materials we received?

Yes, I think they've addressed all the comments that I had on the staff board and the questions that the board had during the last hearing.

We have everything we needed.

Good.

Okay.

So um why don't we go to the public?

Uh is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this application, either for or against it or just ask questions about it.

Please raise your hand.

No hands yet.

Okay.

Give it another second.

Nothing.

No hands.

Okay.

Um board, any final questions before we uh No, I'm all set, David.

I can think we can close it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good.

Um, Ray, anything you were um attorney Feinberg would like to say before we close this.

No, I think just uh thank you for your time and we're really excited to see this one get done.

Me too.

Yeah, it looks like a good project.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So uh application 225-18 uh is closed, and we are now going on.

Um and Ryan Lisa, thank you.

Um we're going on to application 225-27.

Horn and Hoof Properties, LLC, 961 Long Ridge Road and 16 Wire Mill Road, site and architectural plans and our requested uses and special permit.

Applicant is proposing to construct nine independent living three-bedroom dwelling units with parking, landscaping, and other related improvements.

Um we has opened this the at our last meeting on the eighth.

So this is a uh continuation.

Um and um I think we can take this um whoever has got this uh landscape plan up and yeah, thank you.

Um and is uh this is attorney capelbo.

Am I correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay, uh can we um promote him to uh participant, please.

Thank you.

We all said um we don't see yet.

Or I don't see you.

No, I don't either you um I can see him.

Oh you can do you?

Yeah that's really weird.

Everybody has different views.

This is unbelievable.

The good looking guy in the corner.

Leave me alone, John.

That was me.

Yeah, I see him too.

Yep, now you're there.

All right, good evening.

Okay, good evening, everybody.

Uh Joseph Capalbo, I'm the attorney for Horn and Hoop, the applicant and the owner of this property.

I'm here tonight with Lendy Andrea, who's the architect, or excuse me, the engineer and surveyor.

Lyle Fischel, I believe, is on as well.

He's the architect.

Um Brenda Case, who is a member of the um LLC is available.

And um, I just got something here.

Hold on.

And um Matt Pott may even be on.

I don't know that we would need him.

Um can I share my screen?

Vanita.

Yeah.

All right.

We can see a screen now.

You can see it?

Yep.

Oh, that's good.

I can't.

All right.

So um this application, we're actually pretty excited about this application because about a year ago you passed some new regulations trying to promote housing for seniors and those with disabilities.

And this is the first application um that is gonna come before you um with uh with that in mind.

All right.

This is an application for seniors and those with disabilities.

And um, those are the two probably the biggest categories other than you know, below market rate housing that the city needs.

Um, and so we're pretty excited to be the first ones to bring this to you tonight.

Um the property is actually two contiguous parcels of land.

Um it's located on the corner of Long Ridge Road and Wire Mill Road collectively, it's right around 96,000 square feet, a little over two acres.

It's located in the R10 zone.

Um it has two Joe.

Yes, can you make it a little larger, please?

Is it is that possible?

Uh yeah, I think so.

Could you go to the slideshow mode, maybe?

I'm sorry.

Yeah, could you uh click on the slideshow mode?

Oh yeah, I can do that.

Um is that any better?

No.

No.

You click on the slideshow again.

Click on the slideshow, and then it gives you options below.

So maybe play from the current slide.

Yeah.

How's this?

Second, the second button.

Yeah, that that's that's better.

Yeah, it's funny.

Okay, so how's that better?

Yeah.

Okay.

So uh, as I said, the property is about 96,000 square feet, a little over two acres.

It's in the R10 zone.

Uh, there are two existing legal non-conforming structures on the site now.

One is a building of about 3100, a little over 3100 square feet.

There are some uh professional offices located in there.

There's also another structure, about 520 square feet.

It's more of a garage storage facility.

Those are all operating as we speak.

Um there's a rear parcel, and the rear parcel has been used uh for some years now as a staging area uh and an area to stockpile and parking for projects that are um uh I guess initiated by the DOT and uh they hire subcontractors to complete and they they uh use that site uh as a as an area um which obviously all goes away should this application be approved.

There is wetlands on this site, uh which we'll get into in a little in a little bit, uh quite a bit of wetlands.

The applicant had to prior to coming here apply to the environmental protection board, which he did and obtained a permit uh on this application.

Um the site, as you can see, is here.

Um it's surrounded on three sides by uh street.

There's Long Ridge Road to the west, uh Wiremill Road to the south, to the north is the ramp.

This is the ramp to get onto the Merritt Parkway, and this is the Merritt Parkway.

Um to the east is uh just about all single family housing.

Um most of it's zoned R10, some of it might be R7 and a half, but I think most of it's all R10 and it's all single family to the south.

Um there is mostly single family homes.

There's a sprinkling of some small commercial uses.

There's a corporate office park to the west.

To the north, as I said, is the Merritt Parkway, and just north of that is that small area on Longridge Road at the bottom of Longridge Road that's uh commercial in nature.

I think it's a CN zone.

Uh, but otherwise, as you know, everything north of the parkway is zoned uh residential.

Um the as I said, the applicant filed an application with the environmental protection board as a result of that.

There is a very robust, as they say, um uh landscaping plan that um it's taking its time loading.

And um this was a result of uh the approval at the uh environmental protection board.

So uh as you know, as and I'll get into there's intended to be nine units around the site.

There's a there is uh wetlands and there is uh pretty substantial natural buffer zone.

The board, of course, um asked for additional landscaping, which is what you see here.

So there is a um a lot of landscaping that exists, and there's a substantial amount of landscaping that's going to be added to this particular site as we go forward.

I'm sorry, we have this, right?

The color yes, you're putting up yes, yes.

Yes, you have it in the package.

Yeah.

And you say it's gonna change.

Is that right?

No.

No, this is approved by the environmental protection board.

It's it's a pretty substantial landscaping plan, and this is what uh is intended to go forward.

I thought you just said there's there will be more landscaping added.

Did I not understand that?

Yeah, I'm sorry, maybe that my terminology was incorrect.

There's all there's a substantial amount of natural landscaping, and there's more landscaping added, and that's everything that you see here in the trees and the shrubs that you see here.

Not more than what you see now, though.

This is it.

This includes the additional landscaping.

And I don't remember yes, I do.

Okay.

Yeah.

This site it's gonna be so well landscaped.

I think it's actually going to be at least this part, the you know, the residential portion of this site would be pretty difficult to see from the road.

Um, so the applicant is proposing nine units.

I think under the regulations as you wrote them for uh seniors and those with disabilities, you can get up to 14 units.

But in this particular case, he's asking for nine units.

They all seem to work pretty well.

There are currently two curb cuts on Long Ridge Road.

One of those will be closed.

There will only be one curb cut on Long Ridge Road, and that'll be here.

There'll be one curb cut on Wire Mill Road, and that will be down here.

The the uh residential community will be gated and it'll be separated from the commercial portion, um, except for the access way, of course.

Anybody can come in and out.

Right hand turns can come out of right of Long Ridge Road.

You can then access the Merritt Parkway, or you can go north onto Long Ridge Road.

If you need to make a left-hand turn, you can come out on wire mill road.

This is one of the few sites that has a has a um uh traffic light already built in.

So you'd be able to make a left turn at the traffic light.

Joe, just backing up, you said it'll be gated.

Yes.

Right here, you'll you'll see that that's a gate to allow you to be a mere portion of the property.

Okay, how about where it um off the street someone yes, turn in off of Long Ridge?

Yes, you could make a right off of Long Ridge Road.

You can make a right or a left off of um wire mill road.

I don't think you could make a left off of Long Ridge Road.

I think there's a there's an island down the middle of Long Ridge Road.

So any left would be have to come through wire mill road and then left on to the site from Wire Mill.

But you can't you couldn't enter the site from Long Ridge.

And you can make you couldn't enter it and get to the homes.

You would still have to go through the gate, correct?

No.

Well, you have to go through the gate in any case to get to the homes, but you could you can make a right-hand turn off of Long Ridge Road into the site and then make a left through the gate to the homes.

But okay.

I was asking whether you could get access to the site from Long Ridge without going through the gates.

No.

Okay.

No, you cannot.

Okay.

All right.

Um, so tonight, obviously, we're asking for uh site and architectural plan approval and a special permit to permit uh the construction of these nine units.

They're designed for seniors over 55 and/or those with disabilities.

And by that, I mean that the first floor is at the ground level.

Um, there's no incline uh to get in.

It's a flat surface, and you can get in.

Uh let me go to the um go to the plans.

This would be the first floor of the um of each unit.

They're all the same.

You have access to the front door, you have access through a rear door, you have access to a side door, and you have access to the garage.

All of them are level, all of them go straight in.

The first floor is designed as it's required to be designed by your regulations.

You have a bedroom downstairs with a bathroom that is compliant uh and wheelchair compliant uh with a shower, and then you have a kitchen family room combination.

This is a garage, and that comprises the whole first floor.

This is a three-season room off the back.

Um all of the uh doors, the front door is 42 inches wide, which is uh obviously much bigger than typical, and all of the doors internally on the first floor are 36 inches wide to accommodate one with disabilities, right?

And all of the doors internally on the first floor are 36 inches wide to accommodate one with disabilities, right?

That's not so on the second floor.

The second floor, which has two bedrooms, is built in accordance with typical standards, you know, 30 inch doors and your your normal uh bathroom shape and size.

Um the houses, the dwellings will look like this, right?

Oops, I don't know what just happened.

Let's go back to that.

Um you have it where you're showing us what they look like.

Yeah, it's left now.

I'm waiting for it to come back.

Um I'm sure it'll show itself in a moment.

The um keep the you know, the out the outsides of the house, there will be no, I'm gonna say this right here.

You go, there will be no vinyl siding.

The siding will be it's called um select, which is a it's a um it's a siding that's very it's a composite siding very similar to Hardy.

Um, and that's what will be used on the outside as far as color goes.

You know, obviously the market dictates color, but you could bet it would be something like this.

I had sent in other renderings of colors, not necessarily the house, but of other colors that were being considered.

But at the end of the day, um, you know, they'll the the market will dictate that.

Um as I said, no ethers, right?

No.

No either.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um what else?

The um as far as the uh building itself goes and the the development goes, um, it complies in every respect to the zoning regulations, the zone that it's in, and the special requirements for special permits.

It's got the requisite frontage, the lot area, the FAR that's required for this.

As I said, I think you can build up to 14 units on this site.

The applicant is building nine.

It seems to work extremely well for a lot of reasons.

Um it meets the building height, which is two and a half stories.

It meets all the setbacks and the lock coverage as well.

So it complies in every respect.

I think it's exactly what the board was anticipating uh when you passed this regulation just about a year ago.

Um as I said, it complies with all of the regulations, and every department I think has uh had the opportunity to take a look at this and has commented on it.

Uh, the only uh every every um department is satisfied.

The planning board has obviously recommended approval and EPB has issued a permit.

Uh building has some questions about it, right?

About the ADA compliance issues and accessibility issues.

Um we think, and Mr.

Mr.

Fischel's on, and he can certainly explain this better than I can, but we think we are in compliance.

You know, the one thing that we have to consider here is that this is for seniors and for those with disabilities.

So these these units are going to be sold.

And if somebody with disabilities is going to buy this unit, it's good the inside is going to be finished a certain way, right?

If somebody is going to be buying this who's 55 and older, it's going to be finished a different way.

So for example, if Mr.

Stein, when he turns 55 in a few years, decides he wants to buy one of these units.

But they have to be made so that two-foot kitchen counters are something that can be considered.

So at the end of the day, um, it has to be somewhat fluid in terms of um how the inside is going to be developed, whether it's for somebody who's 55 or older, or whether it's somebody for disabilities.

But the the basic fundamental design is such that it can be designed for either.

And that's what's important.

What level of ADA compliance is it designed for?

It's a great question.

And uh I I guess that's what we'll have to ask Mr.

Fischel, because my response to that would be I had no idea.

Um, but I think Mr.

Fischel is on, and and um that's something that we could ask him as well.

But other than that, I think it would be a good way to go to him.

Yeah, because I don't really have any other comments at this point.

Um, unless you have some questions, I think it would be a good time to defer to him.

Um tell us about what type of uh ADA compliance there is.

Okay, so uh let me explain.

I talked to David Schwartz at the building department, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, back up.

Can you introduce yourself, please for the while Fischel architect?

36 gift examined in Stanford, Connecticut.

Um I wanted to say about the ADA compliance.

We don't need to have any ADA compliance because it is a single family uh construction.

So it it you know falls under the um I not the IBC but the IEC, which is IRC, excuse me, which is the International Residential Code.

So um when I discussed it with David Schwartz, he said all of these would have separate permits and be considered single family dwellings.

So really it's the decision of the developer and the owner that these will be handicapped handicapped accessible, so there are no regulations for us to follow.

We are just making those regulations so that the elderly and senior and um you know handicapped people could live in these places and move around in these places, but because it's the IRC international residential code, there are no regulations for handicapped accessibility.

Don't they say it could be the IBC as well?

Oh I had that discussion with David, and he um David Schwartz in the building department, and he um schooled me, okay, and said that when you take out a permit on these properties, they will be single family residential permits, and therefore there are no accessibility requirements attached.

There are egress as um out of bedrooms.

We still need egress windows out of each bedroom, and we'll be sure that we do have those.

But as far as aggressivity accessibility, we do not have to follow any regulation here.

Don't isn't there a regulation a requirement in our regulations?

That's what probably Joe has a better handle on than I have a uh handle on.

But you know, I'm I'm just going by the IRC, International Residential Code, which is part of the uh Connecticut state code.

Um, and that's how I have been told to design and uh look at this.

You mean you were told not to you were told to ignore our regulations in designing it?

I don't know what your regulations were for the nine uh you know.

Maybe that's Joe.

That's interesting, Joe.

Can I jump in here?

So you know you have your building regulations, and obviously those are something that are going to have to be addressed when you go get your building permit.

As far as the zoning board is concerned, yes, in your regulations it says that it has to be ADA accessible.

Now there's no definition of what ADA accessible is, but what we take that to mean is that uh this has to be designed so that there are no stairs, or I assume if there are stairs, there has to be some type of ramp that the a wheelchair can get around the first floor in every respect, whether it's the bathroom or the kitchen, and that this can be utilized uh by somebody with disabilities and by somebody 55 and older or somebody even older than that.

And that's how specifically it was designed.

It's as I said, the insight has to be a little bit fluid because you don't know who the buyer is going to be, and these are all going to be sold, they're intended to be sold.

So each the the uh you know the makeup of the inside of these units may change from buyer to buyer depending upon their needs.

Joe, there as you know, there are four types of units that are accessible, four levels of accessibility.

You're aware of that.

I'm aware that there are more than one uh level of accessibility, okay.

Um the I I will just say in this that the with respect to these units, there are no elevations, right?

They are fully accessible by anybody with a wheelchair.

Okay, well, I I have to disagree that our regulations say that they shall be fully accessible.

Um I'll point out that they are fully accessible, obviously the second floor not, but on the first floor, everything is fully accessible.

Um and able to be changed, because that's part of the I think the type B, you know, we get into codes here.

They are able to be easily converted to meet any additional requirements that would be required by handicapped individuals.

So you're you're saying they're not accessible, but they can be made accessible.

No, I I'm saying that the owner has decided to make them accessible, but there is no code that's not our regulation.

that's part of the i think the type b you know we get into codes here they are able to be easily converted to meet any additional requirements that would be required by handicapped individuals so you're you're saying they're not accessible but they can be made accessible no i i i'm saying that the owner has decided to make them accessible but there's no code that's not our regulation but there's no state code that says these as single family so i i what i don't understand is there's a your Stanford zoning regulation all right mr and i'm asking you did you look at it and take it into account when you design these units did not yes we took in accessibility when we design these units and everything has a three foot door and everything is totally accessible by wheelchair but you didn't look at our our regs um i did not and i apologize for that's okay but i do we're gonna have a lot more discussion on accessibility um but our our regs say they shall be fully accessible they don't say they shall be they shall be possible is possible to adapt them to accessibility but Mr.

Chairman they are fully accessible not no they're not and if you look at the levels of accessibility the they are not um the not meet the accessible unit definition in you need to joe you need to look at the at what the levels are of accessibility um vanita maybe you could send that memo to joe um the the four levels are accessible unit that's that's the top then type a type b and type c and c is for uh is the lowest and it's for visitors um so mr chair where is that in our regulations are you keep what section i couldn't find that okay um did you have it handy or you should i look it up um so our regulations uh section four uh have you had the definition but independent yeah yeah look at the definition Bill you're talking about g the ADA accessibility um I don't have it in front of me well that's the only definition that I'm aware of in our regulations ADA accessibility one floor of all dwelling units and independent living facilities must be fully ADA accessible and there you go and have the kitchen one bedroom and a full bathroom on that level and that's what we have and they're all accessible it says fully accessible and both it's both one it has to be fully accessible and two it has to have those things it doesn't say fully accessible means this but David you were talking about four different accessibility levels where is that that's what I couldn't find that was in Vanita's memo when she sent us the memo from the building department if you look at her cover memo per cover email right but that's not our regulations that's that's not in our regulations it's not specified it's just what the conventions are for accessibility and you know in the standard referenced in the building code but fully accessible means fully anyway this why don't we um not waste a lot of time on it but our the definition bill does say fully accessible no I so that I saw David I agree yeah with that that's exactly what it says what I was questioning or actually just trying to find out when you talk about the four levels where that came from because that I could not find in the regulations and now you've answered that question for me.

Well and then and then my question is somebody needs to see specifically why these aren't fully accessible they will be fully accessible okay um I'm an architect so I design um and quite often there's a type B unit that you have to provide that's got you know extra support in the walls for the grab bars if someone moves in that needs handicapped accessibility there's a kitchen design where you kick out the the cabinet below the sink so the the handicap can roll underneath it so when I'm designing these units I need to be aware of those and show those in my detail this will be fully accessible um there will be no problem with accessibility to any of these units according to what Mr Stein has said.

Will this be a type B in a sense it could be but um I would have to refer to your regulations on that to understand the levels no no I'm talking about what did you design did you design it as a type B design it as a type B fully accessible it is a type B.

No, no, I'm talking about what did you design?

Did you design it as a type B?

Design it as a type B fully accessible.

It is a type B.

So everything either will be or can be easily converted to allow for the you know, whoever may buy them.

I'm having a hard time getting a straight answer here.

Are these units currently designed to meet the type B requirement?

Do they meet them as designed now?

They of course will be, yes.

What do you mean will be when well we get to the details?

These are only for your review, and I haven't really uh in included any construction documents okay.

I I can't support an application that's it's not it's that's half designed because accessibility because you're coming in as an independent um living unit, which is for seniors or disabled, we need I need to see that you've designed it for them.

Um if it so if the design is not completed yet, um I think that this needs to go back and get redesigned.

Could we add a condition?

No, no, no.

So let me let me just say this that the unit is designed to be completely accessible, right?

And by that I mean it there's access to this unit.

Now, if the the kitchen, for example, would is going to be designed differently for somebody with disabilities than it is for somebody 55 and over.

So it's designed right now to be adaptable either way.

So to say that it's completely accessible right now, the answer is no, it's not designed right now.

It's designed right now to be adaptable to be completely acceptable, uh, accessible to anybody who needs to use to use it.

But I can't show you a uh uh a floor plan right now that's adaptable to somebody with disabilities, and that that's not what's going to be built because the person buying it is 55 or over.

It doesn't, but that doesn't meet our regs.

The regs don't say it has to be adaptable, it says it has to be fully accessible, and you're saying it can be made fully accessible um by adapting it, but that's not our requirement.

But but David, if I'm 65 and want to buy one of these, I don't want a kitchen that has two foot-high countertops.

Right.

Oh, it depends on what your definition of fully accessible is.

Well, fully certainly fully accessible does not mean it can be adapted.

Right.

But we have lots of senior residents around the city that aren't fully accessible.

Well, I can't, I don't know if this regulation came.

The apartments that we are are not Roseanne, I'm just telling you what our regs say.

Um I I don't I don't read it the same way you read it.

Fully accessible doesn't mean two-foot high um countertops.

What is fully accessible mean to you?

That you can uh that a handicapped person can get in the front door, can get around the house.

That and I and I don't know why we have to I suppose I didn't realize that our um regulations group together senior requirements along with um ADA.

Yeah, could you I mean it's very different?

The they are, but it you're right, but it is what we did, right?

See I mean residents, everybody knows you just want all the living space on the first floor, right?

Agreed, but agreed and from hearing that from just sitting on the sidelines here.

Also, the the the other piece to this, the detail is the gentleman uh Mr.

Fischell said the second floor would not be ADA accessible, it would be it wouldn't be so that regulation it's in itself, if it's and I understand what Joe was saying, and if that if it's 55 and over, there is no need to have the ADA accessibility on the second floor.

But Chairman Stein is saying, you know, it is totally accessible, but that's what our regs say.

So you're you were we're parsing words here.

It's either it is or it isn't.

Now the regs, the regs don't say that.

The regs say that one floor must be fully ADA.

No, that's that's where I'm getting confused.

It says it will be fully accessible and in addition, it will have these rooms on the first floor.

It doesn't say fully accessible and defined as the rooms on the first floor.

The word and means in addition.

I understand that.

I don't I don't I don't disagree with that, but it says one floor of all dwelling units and independent living facilities must be fully ADA accessible.

One floor.

Okay, and the question is is the is the first floor when you look at the ADA requirements and the four levels.

The level called accessible, then should be the one they meet.

Because ours.

Okay.

And that's that's why the that's why the doors are 36 inches wide.

That's why the front door is 42 inches wide.

That's why there's no step up into the unit.

That's why the the bathroom is designed the way it is, and the kitchen is designed the way it is.

You're you you guys picked a few of the accessibility design items and you designed it that way, but it doesn't include many other design items because you guys didn't want to make them.

So um, I mean, even type B, which is the one that's adaptable, you didn't even come up to that.

So um this one is not doesn't to me does not meet our requirements.

Um David, you know, what happens is that you know units get designed where you know the the rooms are you know shown the the you know the access is shown, but you know, the the level of detail that goes into you know showing full accessibility comes at the building permit level.

So I think what we need to make sure is that these the way the clearances work, the entrances work, uh they can meet the level of access accessibility that everybody agrees that they should meet, and you know, if we can condition it that you know that they will have to meet a certain level at the time of the building permit, that you know, because that's when they'll have the level of detail for the you know, the countertops or the cabinets, because that's not something that you know the zoning board uh has to review.

I think it's I I disagree.

I would very much want the zoning board to review it to make sure that it meets our regulation of accessibility.

Um I don't and if it I guess it could come back to us, um later on, but it does it does need to be ADA accessible and not just can be made ADA accessible because that's not what our regs say.

Um anyway, um let me ask a question.

The Vanita, I think you said that there were some changes that were being requested, that it wasn't currently meeting somebody's requirements of accessibility.

Is that correct?

I so you know, and the building department, you know, Mr.

Island Ireland from the building department reviewed it.

Uh what he pointed out was that you know that needs to be one entrance that has the access requirement.

Um the garage the access, you know, didn't have sufficient clearance for it.

Um so that is something that may need to be modified.

Alternatively, you know, the entrance through the porch that will have to be act that could be accessible, like you know, right now there are two steps shown on the architectural plans, you know, the renderings really steps on the ADA accessible building.

Um there are no steps.

Vanita, I mean, maybe it needs coordination between the different plans.

So I think maybe I saw them on the elevations.

Yeah, I think the current coordination across the plans.

Yeah, I think the current plans show that there are no there are no elevations.

Okay, and we have those, Joe.

Yes, you do.

Yeah, they're the most recent plans that were submitted.

So why would building department think that there were steps?

I don't know.

I don't know where they that would be a problem.

I would admit that, right?

There are none.

There are none.

There's access to this uh three or four different ways.

There's not a step to get in, whether it's the front door, back door, side door, or through the garage.

There are no steps.

Okay.

I mean, it may have been a draftsman's uh mistake, and I may have overlooked it.

So yeah, there are no steps.

Okay, sure.

Um I've got a lot more questions, but let's go to the board and let other people speak.

Um, why don't you start?

Okay.

Um I feel a little silly asking this question, but I'll ask anyway since I wrote it down.

Um I was just curious why the applicant uh decided to uh use uh independent living facility regulations to develop this property.

Yeah, I had the same question.

I think that's a good one.

Yeah, so that's it's a very good question.

So, you know, as you know, or as you may not know, this uh particer piece of property has been looked to have been developed for quite a while now, and there were a lot of different uh alternatives that were explored.

There were some options that were tried.

I think at one point we were requesting 24 units and then maybe 18 units.

I don't remember even what it was at the end of the day, but um uh in this particular case, this this uh particular uh regulation was passed.

Um, and it just seems like the perfect um regulation for this site, right?

Um there's single family homes, which I think is what one of the uh issues that the neighbors uh really wanted.

So we were able to construct nine units here using single family homes.

It's by special permit and site plan approval, so there's no zone change or master plan change, or you don't have to go through any of those um um issues that this as long as you comply with the regulations is something that uh works at this site and something that's designed for this site, and uh it's the ideal place to put it.

Now, as I understand, since these units are gonna be for sale.

Uh occurs Bill, I'm sorry.

Can you stick with your question for a second?

I thought I was, but go ahead.

Um, Vanita, you sent in the staff report.

You showed the R10 standards and the independent living facility standard.

And the the you show that the project meets all of the R10 standards.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And there's no other standards that it would have to meet.

No.

So if the with the sorry why would so I guess I still don't understand the answer to that question.

Why not just go in under R10?

So uh can I can I maybe chime in here for a second?

Yeah.

Um go ahead.

On the R10, you would have to subdivide the site uh into 10 individual lots.

Um so this is basically uh some type of uh cluster uh development.

And if you subdivide a site, uh you would have to provide access to the individual lots.

Um and with the existence of the wetlands, uh yes, the the density you could get on a two uh acre uh piece of land with R10 zoning is uh those nine units or ten units.

Um but uh it is uh more difficult because you would have to go for a straight subdivision.

So the only difference is that it would need a subdivision.

It would need a subdivision and you would have to meet the distance, like the setback requirements between the buildings.

Uh so the site development would be under R10 under straight R10, you couldn't put nine units there.

That's that's what it comes down to because you have side yard requirements and rear yard requirements and so on.

Okay.

But the density is not shown.

This is not shown in the staff report.

Um could you please revise that so we understand it a little better, please.

I I could, but you know, a lot of it depends upon you know, laying things on the on a site, because what what cannot be you know put into numbers is that you know you'll have to have a driveway uh into the you know into the lot for access to each of those units, and that driveway or the roadway that goes in wouldn't count towards any of the lot areas, so that gets deducted from the total lot area, so you're left with fewer units than technically uh you know what you could get by dividing the entire lot area by uh the minimum, you know, 10,000.

Um but you know, there's I cannot, you know, somebody will have to do an assumption of what how big that roadway is to be able to deduct that amount.

Um and then I this death report says that they could do nine units in an R10.

I this is not based on any design, it's just theoretically dividing the entire lot area by 10,000 square feet to get an actual aren't there setback requirements.

So I mean I wouldn't I would also point out though that the regulations themselves state that the in this particular uh instance and for this particular application that the building should be clustered to maximize open space and distance from neighboring property owners.

And if you develop just under the R10 uh regulations, you're not able to effectuate that.

So David, if somebody were to practically do a subdivision, they might end up with six lots or five lots or or seven lots.

It really depends upon the design.

I couldn't put a number to it because really it comes down to how you lay out the road, how you cut the lots, how how you subdivide the lots.

It it will be a hypothesis to you know put a number to it.

Okay, so this is not the staff report though, then doesn't really answer the question.

It will be fewer than nine units.

That's what we we can tell for sure.

Okay.

Yes.

Okay.

There are some other benefits.

So if I can continue, Mr.

Stein.

Bill, that's our answer.

Less than nine units in R 10.

Yes.

Okay.

Bill.

Sorry, I interrupted.

Yeah, right.

And once again, there would be more less more impervious service under that.

Now I'm sorry.

Yeah, just one more consideration.

Because of the wetlands, there'll be undevelopable portions of each lot here because you're looking at the site in a consolidated manner, you're able to design them so that the units are set back individually, you know, set back collectively rather than having to deal with that setback on a parcel by parcel basis.

And under R10 development, you would have less open space more than likely.

Yes.

No.

Why would you have less open space?

Because you wouldn't cluster the buildings.

Yeah, you can't cluster the buildings at that point.

Well, you'd have the open space around the buildings.

Right?

They'd have to have more of a setback between the buildings.

Yes, but you need driveways to get you to the building.

So the buildings would be more spread out over the whole two areas.

I mean, here, if you look at the site plan, you have like substantial buffers uh against, I guess it's the east.

I mean, that's also where the wetlands are.

So they'll be more drive there.

Yeah.

And I would also point out that a year ago you passed uh, you know, regulations to promote housing for you know the elderly and those with disabilities, and this is the perfect location to do it.

If not here, where then you know you can make that argument at any any application that's going to come through with this particular uh intent in mind.

Yeah.

No, look, I I understand the benefits of cluster housing.

I I think they are it works very well, especially with wetlands there.

I mean, the the thing also here is the theoretically they could have built more units, they could have built 14 units, but one thing uh they also needed to account for, uh, which is deducted in the FAR calculations of the existing uh commercial uh properties here.

So that's something uh to consider that that reduces the number of units that can be built.

Um and uh I mean the the idea behind uh the senior housing tax, one of the ideas was uh to um create smaller units.

Um and actually the the floor area ratio that is permitted is um uh lower uh with uh uh those regulations for senior housing than it is under R 10.

So you could also build much bigger houses, going back to the whole uh discussion about um uh impervious surface, then you would be uh um under straight R10 regulations.

And I mean in a in in an instance like this where we're exit sorry wait a sec.

Ralph R 10 has a 0.5 FAR.

Well, this has just a point three.

Yes.

So how could you build bigger houses under this than under our 10?

No, under our 10 you can build bigger houses.

Yes, okay.

Yeah.

So you get more units, but you get significantly less floor area uh than under the R10.

And and that was on purpose, because we wanted to encourage smaller units um for empty nesters, people with uh uh um uh older older adults.

Uh and I mean the the uh the other uh goal behind that is to I mean I doubt that these will be uh very cheap units, but uh the idea is also uh if you build smaller units, they are more affordable than larger units.

That was the idea behind uh the uh the zoning, and you don't have to meet the distance requirements between the buildings, which you would have to do obviously uh in a straight R10 uh subdivision situation.

Yeah, no, I think that makes sense.

Okay, Bill, you have the floor.

Sure, let's see if I can get back to where I was now.

The um, I don't know uh if Mr.

Capalbo or Ralph, you want to answer this, but what you explained to me, so I'm 100% sure since there seems to be some confusion about this section, is what deed restrictions are going to be required if this was to get passed.

So um there would be um deed restrictions placed upon the land records that restrict uh the ownership of these units to somebody 55 years of age or older or somebody with disabilities, and that would be recorded on the land records, and that goes on forever.

Okay, and that restriction has to be filed regardless of whether you were seeking a bonus for this development, is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

Um see, we did this, we did this.

Um there is a uh just before I forget, I don't know what the hell I do with it now.

Um as part of the record, and this is just a reminder to to you, Joe, is that as part of the record, there's a letter submitted by Representative Carl Weinberg.

He has several questions, and it's sometime before we close this hearing.

If you could just answer the questions he has in that his letter, assumes that you have it.

Sure.

Would you like those in writing?

Yes.

Yeah, why not for our next meeting?

Why don't you uh give that to us?

Sure.

Okay.

Uh I think I'm gonna pass on.

I think I have other questions, but I can't seem to find that piece of paper.

Oh, you'll you'll have a chance, don't worry.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Also, uh Dave, also the um those four different levels of um affordability, uh, excuse me, accessibility that was uh Vanita sent out.

I've been trying to find it here, I can't find it.

Could you resend that as one page document, please?

Sure.

Thank you.

Now, Bill, understand that she lists the levels but doesn't define them.

Um I went online and had to find it.

Um because there isn't a short one paragraph definition.

It really is multitude of things that constitute what these different types mean.

That's the challenge.

There wasn't one easy quick definition that would summarize.

Can you send that forward to the whole entire board?

Sure.

I I'll send the link, you know.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you, Benita.

All right.

Thanks, yeah.

I'd also uh suggest that we set up a meeting with with Mr.

Fischel and with Mr.

Ireland and with Mr.

Schwartz, because we've got obviously two different interpretations of what this exactly means, so that when we report back, we could tell you exactly what the building department's interpretation of that is.

You can you can you can give us any interpretation you want from the building department?

I mean, you need to meet whatever their requirements are, um, but you also need to meet ours.

So uh what they say doesn't um change our regulation.

It just it just tells you what they are requiring under their regulations.

I I understand it with all due respect.

I do think we meet your regulation, but that's up for debate.

Um yes, it is okay.

Um Roseanne.

Well, we'll separately have to keep the conversation going about those four levels, and they're not part of our regulations.

And why have we never discussed ADA compliance when we've discussed other senior residences, but that isn't for the applicant?

Um my question now moves on to the design of these um homes.

And we don't um I looked through my paperwork again.

I don't think we have an image of them next to each other.

Like this image certainly looks like more than five and a half feet uh next to them.

So do you have um a design of them, showing the way that they will be next to each other?

Either the foursome or the five some five that's a good question.

I I don't believe I do.

Um I think this is as close as anything I have at the moment.

Yeah.

Um I don't know if if Mr.

D'Andrea has something um that I don't think we got anything in our packet.

Um, I don't think can you give us for next meeting?

Just get us a color rendering, please of that showing the view from the front of each group.

Sure.

And then is this a fairly final design?

Is this what you're intending them to truly look like?

Yes.

Yes, on the outside, yes.

And there, so all nine are gonna be white.

I don't know about that.

So I think that the um, you know, the market always dictates color.

I think that um that's a nice color what you're looking at, and it's probably one of them.

I submitted some other colors in the past, but you know, uh they may all be white.

I I doubt it.

I think there'll be some variations to them.

But um because I can't see the screen.

Hold on.

Are there there's a patio in the back of each of them?

Yes.

Yeah, and it's and the three seats.

It's also not shown on the color rendering, so well, yeah, it's not a bad idea.

Let's get it from the back as well.

I mean, it it shows it just uh yeah, yeah, like to get a really good idea of so individuals property will look like.

Yeah, if you want you want a row of them next to each other um from the back of the front.

Is that what you're looking for?

Yes, yes.

Yes, either the five or the four, it doesn't have to be both.

Okay.

Other than that, it's uh it's all the um ADA questions.

So I I don't have any other questions at this time.

Okay.

Um Jerry Thanks, Chairman.

Hey Joe, just a quick question, just changing gears.

Uh and I'm reviewing some of the questions here.

Uh it says it calls for, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's called sort of three additional wells to provide the water for the units.

That's correct.

Can you tell me if if any are there anything that's going to impact the neighborhood with having these wells and and the rate and usage uh to the rest of the neighborhood because of the well water from there?

No, I don't anticipate that there'll be any effect on anything.

They're just typical wells that are being dug if there were uh houses being built there for any reason, you know, the wells would be built.

I mean, they're built every day.

I don't, I don't think that that's going to be an issue.

Yeah, it was just one is what I just wanted to get on the record.

Thank you.

Sure.

Is that it, Jerry?

That's it, Mr.

Chairman.

Okay.

Um David, I got another question.

If I could sneak one in there.

Of course.

It has to do uh, and this may once again be for Ralph, maybe not, or Vanita.

The um, since these are going to be individually owned, and they're going to be approximately five and a half feet apart.

Um did how does the light and air requirement come into play, if at all?

Um, single sorry, for single family uh uh buildings you don't need light and air.

Um and I mean it'll be set up as a as a condo.

So yes, the units will be individually owned, but it's it's going to be a condo structure.

Okay.

So I assume that's why there's no windows basically on the sides of the buildings.

part um did how does the light and air requirement come into play if at all um for single sorry for single family uh uh buildings you don't need light and air um and i mean it'll be set up as a as a condo so yes the units will be individually owned but it's it's going to be a condo structure okay so i assume that's why there's no windows basically on the sides of the buildings yep and i mean also uh obviously the the units were designed in a way that that uh they the rooms have uh frontage to like the front and the back right unless to the sides yeah basically besides it's a blank wall in effect okay thank you thanks Dave okay hey um joe are there are there sidewalks being provided on either wire mill or long ridge no no are they is there an exception that permits no sidewalks on in our regs yeah I think because um it's less than 10 units um uh it doesn't qualify for a lot of the requirements that it otherwise would for example BMR and so forth just point out the reg to me please at the moment I cannot yeah yeah okay I could get that for you the reg as I read it and Ralph you need to tell me if I'm reading this correctly it says all new developments and redevelopments um it might yeah sorry go ahead is that definition um definition limit it just to more than 10 units uh it's not but there might actually be in in lower density single family district as an exception I'm not quite sure where the I'm trying to find it now 12 12k for exemptions yeah then I think yeah the R10 is one where it's not required it's 12k for a three okay even though they're not building as R10 but yeah it would still okay I mean the the the idea is that an R10 neighborhood it's relatively large lots uh if there aren't any sidewalks now uh there probably aren't going to be any uh that's why the large lot um uh single family districts are uh exempt from the sidewalk requirement there's no sidewalk down the rest of wire mill right no uh are there fire hydrants serving the property i mean are you guys putting in fire hydrant no not that i'm aware of no no i know we've been uh we work with the uh fire marshal um but i don't recall um a fire hydrogen being a requirement with them um i recall having a discussion about a tank uh that needs to be provided on site that's true um so that that was part of the one of the the discussions we had for with the fire marshal's office yeah there are underground uh tanks uh but not a hydro underground water tank yeah and for what purpose for uh fire fighting so the the um i think the the fire department had concerns that uh the wells would not deliver sufficient water so they wanted to uh uh a tank to be put in yeah yeah 20 000 gallon tank there yeah okay okay good um there was a the engineering letter and this is a comment maybe for vanita engineering letter says ttp approved required approval required for the curve cuts do we have do we have that approval letter it's not a separate approval letter uh you know they tdp reviewed the application and if they would if they had any concern about uh the curve cut locations they would have noted that i think they've mentioned the the the access and the curve cut on long ridge and whatever controls they want put there um yeah and no they could they say there's a specific approval but it's usually not uh i have haven't seen that at this uh you know the zoning board application level i don't know if they have something separate out of at the building can okay can you get that please from uh ttp sure they also say that it may need curb cut on long ridge may need approval from connecticut dot do we have any idea if that's correct yes that's i mean if the curve cuts already there they're they're closing one of them yeah we're actually eliminating

Okay.

Can you get that please from uh TTP?

Sure.

They also say that it may need curb cut on Long Ridge may need approval from Connecticut DOT.

Do we have any idea if that's correct?

Yes.

That's I mean, if the curb cuts already there, they're they're closing one of them.

Yeah, we're actually eliminating a curb cut.

Yes.

They're not adding.

And that that approval happens after.

Yeah, yeah.

But the the engineering letter says approval from city of Stamford TTP required for curb cut.

Okay.

So if you could ask them to provide that.

Do we have any concern?

Um, and I guess I'm Manita for you and and for Ralph as well, that the um one of the issues raised by Representative Weinberg was that the traffic study was done during COVID.

Is there any concern that that would be out of date and needs to be um updated?

Um the size of the the project is such that it doesn't necessitate a traffic study on its own.

It doesn't trigger the thresholds for for traffic study.

So the fact that if there was one done previously, I think is more than sufficient.

Okay.

Okay.

Um EPB in their letter, they mentioned the approval that they are that they gave the March 20, 2025 approval.

Um can we get a copy of that, please?

Okay.

Because I think what we would want to do is incorporate that into our conditions.

Um the conditions that they put in their approval letter.

Um we'd want to incorporate them into our approval.

Sure.

Okay, that's all I've got for now.

Um board, anyone else?

Um before we go to the public.

I'm sure.

Thanks.

Um David, um Lenny D'Andrea from the applicants team wanted to speak, but he was having technical trouble.

So maybe we can Len, are you able to unmute now?

I don't I don't I don't think he's able to unmute right now, but maybe we can come back to him later.

When whenever he can I think I'm on muted now.

All right, you all hear you.

Okay.

Um I've been sitting here a bit frustrated.

And this is uh Len DeAndrea uh speaking for the applicant as their engineer, and we also provide land survey.

Um I have some personal experience with this ADA accessibility, having a handicapped daughter confined to a wheelchair for which we designed our house around.

And we look at this as um what what does that mean fully accessible?

And of course, there's a very broad definition, but it's really being able to design something, in this case a home that has basically no barriers.

So when I look at this design here, we had a lot of input on it.

We said zero thresholds, garage, very important.

Make sure there is a ramp or uh zero threshold again.

That's what's been designed into these dwellings out the back the same way, avoid steps, doors should have uh lever handles, no no twist handles, those are very difficult.

Um the kitchen, for instance.

It may be someone like us that's the parent of an individual with a disability, and we can live upstairs, but we need a bedroom on the first floor, and this provides that.

Um a rolling shower that was uh designed in our house as well.

This makes the house fully accessible in our needs because not only that, um, take a door into a garage.

She can be home by herself uh for a certain length of time, but how do you get out of the house?

So in our case, we have um the uh garage door buttons are very sensitive and they're set very low for accessibility.

The door itself from the house into the garage has a very soft button that she can push to get in and get out, and so I I look at our houses meeting the definition as written in the regulation that it is fully accessible, and it can be modified for for someone who is completely disabled, such as changing the kitchen around so that you can slide right underneath and reach the sink.

In her bathroom, we have it designed just that way.

And if this was to be um modified a bit, that's what you would do.

You would have a sink that would be lower and put in the same location.

But the key is accessibility into the shower and to be able to have that full radius.

Um that's the that's my comments on the accessibility.

Also, on the um site distance that was talked about.

We chose this location because early on, geez, I think well over a year ago, we met with TTP um staff at the site, and we discussed the best location for our our entrance into this development, and that's why what you're looking at in the site plan is the location because it provides the access the uh visibility to the intersection, and with that as well, this is a somewhat unique project because as we exit this development from water mill road, we can go right or left.

If we go right, we go to a lighted intersection, and that makes the flow of traffic so much easier to uh to um control.

Um if you go left, what's the site line?

Oh, that it's very good in both directions.

As you as you look down, we um we stand there, we measure ourselves back 10 feet and we look and we didn't have any vegetation to take out on the right side, because again, they're coming around from the intersection, they're not traveling at a high rate of speed, and so we want to make sure we can see all the way to the intersection.

That was achievable as well.

Um sorry, go ahead.

If you're making a left out of onto wire mill.

Right.

That that has good sight distance.

Do you know how far that is?

Um well that was we were leaving that to the uh traffic engineer, but um, it was at least I recall about 200 plus feet.

Oh, okay.

I didn't remember it being quite that far.

Yeah, well, you know, two there are two ways to do it, and one is 15 feet back, and the other more realistic is 10 feet back, and that's that that's how we tend to measure these.

Yeah, yeah.

Your people are going to be right up on the street.

Correct.

We we have this this will also have, of course, a stop bar and a stop sign as you exit out.

Uh, okay.

I wanted to make sure too.

I I heard something about the gate.

Um, the the community is nine unit community is gated, but neither of the entrance or exit locations out to either Long Ridge Road or Wire Miller gated.

It's only at that location that enters you into the fenced-in new development.

Um the other thing too, as they look at it, there was the mention of fire.

Um the commercial, well then the commercial can get in and out.

They don't have a gate.

That's correct, no gate.

Okay, the um for fire suppression.

We met with the fire marshal, of course, and the recommendation we of course offered a 10,000 gallon tank, but they preferred to have a 20,000 gallon tank.

And this is set up so that they have um, I guess you'd call it the hydrant where they actually hook their pumpers up to that draw line and then feed their pumper truck and then feed the uh uh adjust the fires.

So that's a 20,000 gallon tank that will be full at all times.

The other thing too is there's um, I don't think it is right, the um fob, I believe it's called.

So one of the things they want us to do is where we have our mailbox stand, which is just outside the gate, is to also have a box for the fire department.

And if there's a call to a particular unit, the fire department can open that box, grab the key for that unit, and go in and access the units if should some the people not be home instead of breaking down the doors.

So again, we've met with the the fire marshal as well, and we've uh implemented some of their um suggestions.

Good.

I hey, I don't know if this is your department or not, but was there any did anyone look to see if where those trucks park, whether any of the soil was contaminated from oil and gas?

Um let's see.

We we have not done any soil testing because at this time, if we were to import the soil, we would certainly do that.

Um I don't know what that protocol is if we have to excavate or test the soil for the foundations.

We did do test bits, uh we didn't find anything unusual in the test bits for our drainage systems.

Okay.

Good.

Well, thank you.

I'm glad you were able to get on.

Thank you.

Finally.

Okay.

Umita.

We're back to anyone from the public who wishes to speak.

All right.

Um we have Mr.

Dan Lombardi with its hand raised.

Let me Mr.

Lombardi, you should be able to unmute now.

And as as people speak, please give us your name and address you're muted, uh Dan.

Can we unmute him or um he will have to hit the button himself, the mic button?

Um on my end.

Okay.

Well, he's working on getting unmuted.

Let's go to the next person.

Actually, I don't see any of the hands.

No other hands from the public.

Okay, I we have one.

Hello, Dan got here.

Yes.

I'm I'm very sorry.

I was having difficulty getting in there.

So thank you very much for um taking my questions this evening.

Uh, my name is Dan Lombardi.

I live at 249 Hubbard Avenue.

And um, I have a couple questions.

Since this is the first uh senior housing amendment um proposal, as Mr.

Capaldo said, and very excited about this prospect.

There are a lot of questions, I think, coming up.

So if you would indulge me, I have two or three questions I'd like to ask.

Um, my first question is um kind of what was brought up before uh that this these are lovely units.

I apologize the design of them.

Um they look they look very nice, they look very desirable.

Um in North Stanford, I would think these units would probably go for um probably over a million dollars, I would assume.

Do we know what the cost of these units would be when they hit the market?

All that we'll um get to all the your questions and anyone else's questions when we finish with the public.

So go ahead and give us your questions, and then the applicant will respond.

That's my first question.

What would the cost of these units be when they hit the market?

Um, as you know, when the senior housing amendment was sold to the public, it was sold as uh being a way to provide more affordable housing to seniors and those with disabilities.

Um I have a feeling these units would be well in excess of one and a half million dollars if they were uh not in the senior housing amendment.

Um so uh I think this reveals a flaw that was brought up for the senior housing amendment.

Um this is the perfect example of how developers will use that amendment in order to maximize the number of units that they could fit on a smaller piece of property so they could maximize their profits.

Um it's not clear that these will be affordable, which is what we um believe to be true when we approved the uh amendment.

Um so that's my first question.

What would the costs and how can these even be thought of as being affordable?

Um my second question was I listened into the planning board meeting about a week ago when Mr.

Cabaldo brought these up, and he said that these would likely be condominiumized.

And I would like to kind of understand what that means uh from ownership.

Um again, was the senior housing amendment meant to be uh creating units that could be condominiumized or turned into condominiums?

Um my third question is um according to senior housing amendment, these units have to be deeded for the owners to be 55 and older or have a disability.

Um my question is what's uh to keep someone who's 55 and older from purchasing this unit, especially if it is a condominium owning it, but then renting it out to people who aren't 55 plus or have disabilities.

There doesn't seem especially with the discussion earlier.

I've been on since the uh new um zoning enforcement officer was um presented and talking about the the the lack of teeth and the lack of um enforcement that is all over the city.

How can we be assured that someone 55 and older, which it's um you know, probably a great amount of the people who could invest in these kind of units, what's preventing them from owning it and then renting it out to families to those who aren't seniors, and um basically using this law in order to get around the fact that they could squeeze more housing, more density into a smaller piece of property when it would never be allowed if it was under the um the R 10 zoning.

So those are my three basic questions.

Uh thank you for taking them.

I'll look forward to hearing the answers.

Thank you, Dan.

Can I adjust those now?

No.

That's another if there's anyone else from the public, and then you can do them all at once.

Okay.

Next, we have Miss Marlin Moore.

Ms.

Moore, can you unmute yourself?

Um we can't hear you yet.

Um you have to hit the mic button to unmute.

Okay, well, um, Ms.

Moore is uh working on that.

Why don't we go to the next person and then come back to her?

Yeah, um, there aren't any other hands.

Actually, I have a follow-up question, if I would.

Sure.

Go ahead.

Um the other question I have is below market rate units.

Are any of these intending to be sold at below market rate units?

Again, to uh to meet that affordability issue that um this plan was sold to the public.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um we do have another speaker, Mr.

Michael Kelleck.

That's you.

Uh yeah, I'm surprised I wasn't called because I did register online.

I didn't, so I figured I would just raise my hand.

And anyway, um I was a little concerned about the traffic study because it does not take into account the projected increase in um in traffic from the residences along Long Ridge Rail at 800 or 900, which are being constructed, as well as some of the other.

So we're gonna have about 900 new 900 new units along the new development.

So that's going to increase the traffic on Long Ridge Road and on high and on Wire Mill Road as people traverse wire mill road to get to high ridge.

Um and the plan also states that there's 19 units and part of it, so it's a mistake.

We know there's only nine units.

So therefore, I believe the traffic study is actually out of date.

Uh so that needs to be updated.

And this I just took off by reading what was in the application on the website.

So I suggest that you review it and update the materials that are being presented to the public.

And I'm concerned about the condition of the soil, um, because see, particularly since there's going to be uh basements with these new units, and it hasn't been ground and checked for contaminants.

I noticed Mr.

Dan DeAndre addressed that, but I really think that um uh how this ought to be looked at, particularly since there's gonna be basements with each unit.

And is there a water main on Long Ridge Road that will be the water source for the units, or is it going to be well water?

I don't know the answer to that question.

I couldn't find it anywhere in the documents provided.

And I would like to see, and I could not find in the documents provided what the what the pro what the criteria are for seniors, i.e.

over uh 55, or um handicapped in the documents on the website.

So that all needs to be written in and fully developed before this project can really go on.

And uh it's not in the documents currently listed there.

I like the fact that there's gonna be a Knox box um with the mail mailboxes there, um, because there does have to be full accessibility to the EMS.

And also somewhere in the documents, it said that the traffic light at Wire Mill will be adjusted.

Um that would be great, but there should be more detail as to how that's going to uh transpire right now.

Though the lights on uh wire mill or on excuse me on Long Ridge Road are all out of whack.

Um so I'm a little con and so I think those are my major um comments for um at this particular time.

And I've read Mr.

Weinberg's comments and I fully agree with them.

So please uh I would like to see your comments back uh uh for for Representative Weinberg.

Um if those could be made public or post it somewhere on the zoning board's website as you address them.

And I think I'm within my three minutes, and I thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Um that's a good idea when we get that from the applicant.

Let's uh post that, please.

Yes.

Um we can go back to Ms.

Moore uh if she can unmute um Miss Moore, can you unmute yourself?

Um maybe try rejoining if you're having trouble.

I don't have any other speakers.

Okay.

Um well this will be continued anyway, so there'll be an opportunity for people to speak on it um at our next meeting.

Um attorney Capelvo, you want to uh answer the questions from our speakers, please?

Sure.

Um to go in the order I think that they came in.

Do we know what the cost um of these units will be when we they hit the market?

The answer to that is no.

Um, don't even know when they're going to hit the market, but they will probably be whatever the market rate is.

And um I don't think there's any indication of what that is right now.

Um as far as um the maximum number of units being built, we aren't building the maximum number of units.

That would be 14.

The applicant is only building uh nine.

The difference or uh what does uh condominium mean in terms of form of ownership?

Um it means that each unit will be individually owned.

Um and um you own effectively inside the four walls of your unit.

The balance of the property is a common element owned uh by uh uh a percentage of each unit owner will own a percentage of that property, and you pay common charges to maintain it, to remove the snow and ice to um to cut the good cut the lawns, whatever whatever um uh the requirements are to maintain.

Um the unit owners will each pay um uh a monthly common charge to uh address all those issues, but the units themselves are all individually owned.

Um deed restricted, um, one of the uh conditions of the um of this particular use of subsection I says that the unit of an independent living facility must be inhabited full time by one person who is a senior or one with a proven disability.

Um so uh that would prevent uh effectively prevent any individual over 55 from buying a unit and then selling it or excuse me, renting it.

Um there are no BMR units uh associated with this project.

Um as far as the um condition of the sorts Joe, just explain why, please for the public.

Explain why.

Why no why no BMR unit?

Oh, uh there are no BMR units because there are less than 10 units being constructed.

So the BMR, depending upon what you're building, either um there's either a 10% or a 12% uh BMR requirement, but you need to be you need to construct 10 or more units in order to qualify for that.

Um as far as the condition of the soil goes, I don't think there has been any uh soil testing that's been done up to this point.

I would imagine that uh when the time comes when construction is going to commence, the banks are usually the ones who require that uh testing occur, and if that's the case, then it will occur accordingly.

Um there water, there is no water main to this site.

They it would be it will be supplied by uh wells, and there will be three wells um constructed on the site.

There's been some preliminary work done.

Apparently, there's a lot of water in that area.

Um the criteria for seniors is you have to be 55 years or older.

Um I don't recall there being any other criteria in the uh regulation.

Um as far as the lights being out of whack on Long Ridge Road, I don't know how to answer that.

I think that's something that traffic and parking will have to address.

it would be it will be supplied by uh wells and there will be three wells um constructed on the site there's been some preliminary work done apparently there's a lot of water in that area um the criteria for seniors is you have to be 55 years or older um i don't recall there being any other criteria in the uh regulation um and as far as the lights being out of whack on long ridge road i don't know how to answer that i think that's something that traffic and parking will have to address i don't think we as the applicant can help and but he's probably right and i think that's joe just one thing i i if you could and i know the board knows the answer to this but maybe the members of the public don't why do banks require soil testing uh well you know the they can hand up having some type of liability if in fact they loan money on a site where there is contamination so um i i don't think that um uh this isn't typically the type of site where you would see contamination on right there was never a gas station here there was never a commercial zone here now there have been some trucks parked on this site as you know and so sometimes you get some surface contamination which is pretty easily cleaned uh but as far as there being um substantial contamination it's it's very unlikely right they weren't building something during world war two here that contained PCBs and that's where you generally find the significant contamination so it's unlikely that something will be here but I I have to believe that regardless it will be tested appropriately at the right time didn't understand from um Len that there was was some surface testing Len is that what you would said so we we did our you this is Lendy and we did our usual uh surface testing yeah the typical test pits for drainage uh design so we went seven to eight feet deep and don't quote me on the number but we probably did for let's see no quite a quite a few uh one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten to twelve test pits it looks like we excavated and we didn't smell or see anything that would concern us but if someone's going to escavate for foundations and need to export that they're very careful these days if there's any indication that it may have some contamination they're going to have it tested because they're gonna be liable for it right and the testing area included where the trucks are oh yeah oh oh for sure yeah oh yeah okay good um I think that um Ms.

Moore has come back in maybe uh can you yes can yeah go ahead I I allowed her mic so she should be able to unmute now okay you need to unmute please um well Ms.

Moore it uh it looks like you're not getting unmuted um there she goes oh hello yes can you hear me yes oh okay great uh sorry I'm using my wife's computer which is not my normal one so my name is uh James Moore I'm on Brockridge Lane Stanford um to the gentleman that spoke earlier about the traffic study I I agree it's a it's an old report that was done in 2023 but but more importantly it it says that that there were discussions with the department of uh connecticut department of transportation and the city which indicated that there were no approved developments that would significantly impact this area so that's clearly not true and to earlier statement that traffic study needs to be updated uh because of the other 800 900 and 120 Long ridge road developments are gonna create a real mess up there uh secondly on the traffic though the uh exit onto Long Ridge Road uh heading north uh I have a real problem crossing a ramp for the ramp on the uh people getting on the Merrick Parkway you know once that light turns green on wire mill these people have got their pet off the foot to the metal and they are really pouring on as as best as fast as they can to get on the Merck Parkway.

So that's that's a very dangerous uh set uh situation people crossing uh an entrance ramp lane uh I've been in a in the Fairfield contractor's office uh that sits in that and I I've experienced it myself you have to be very very careful uh and the other thing is that I didn't see any mention of sewers so I didn't hear anything about septic system so are there sewers that support this neighborhood and and I guess I'm surprised that there's no water that supports this neighborhood because wells represent a maintenance issue that the I guess the homeowners association is going to have to deal with that's all I have okay thank you do we have anyone else uh no i see mr lombardi's hand us to the race i don't i don't know if it was from and he spoke earlier no other hands okay good

That's all I have.

Okay.

Thank you.

Benita, do we have anyone else?

Uh no, I see Mr.

Lombardi's hand is to raise.

I don't I don't know if it was from he spoke earlier.

No other hands.

Okay.

Good um.

I think his hand has gone back up again.

Um Mr.

Lombardi, did you have other questions?

No.

I do.

Yes, this is Mr.

Lombardi speaking.

Um thank you, uh Vanita.

Um yeah, I just want to follow up on some of uh Mr.

Attorney Capalbo's um answers.

First of all, he nicely evaded the um issue of the affordability by not giving a projected price um when it hits the market because you can't do that.

Um I would ask does anybody on this board believe that these units are going to be less than a million dollars?

I mean, we're all adults, we all understand the market here in Stanford.

We know these units are not going to be affordable.

And Mr.

Lombardi, Mr.

Lombardi, that is not uh what is before the zoning board tonight.

Uh the zoning board is not concerned, it's concerned with land use issues and not with sales prices of uh real estate.

Okay, my question is about the senior housing amendment, however, which the zoning board passed.

That's how we can that's not part of this application.

Okay, but how does this conform to the affordability issue is my question.

It because it's less than 10 units, there will not be any affordable units here.

Okay.

Um so you can make your own estimate of what the uh price will be for the units.

Okay.

Um the other question I have is the um the point about the deed in for 55 plus and yes, as attorney Capalbo said, yes, it has to be deeded.

The owner has to be um supposedly living there, but again, with the zoning enforcement issues that we have in the city, where is the teeth that's going to prove that that 55 plus person or that's disabled person is actually living in that unit, and it won't be illegally rented out or illegally occupied.

That's my question.

And I again the senior housing amendment, this is a precedent that we're looking at for the very first time.

So I think some of these issues must be addressed so the public has the faith and believable believability that the zoning board is effectively um using its power to protect the intention of the senior housing amendment.

Thank you very much.

Can I can I just make a comment about that?

So um he makes a very he makes a very good point, right?

You have violations all over this city.

And how you know how do you how do you protect against that and what do you do to protect against that?

But you know, in this particular instance, I think there is a already a system built in uh for checks and balances because you have nine units here, they're all gonna know each other.

If somebody's renting a unit, it's gonna be blatantly obvious.

It's not something you're going to get away with, right?

They all live, they all have to live by the same rules and regulations, and they're all going to be living together.

So I think in in this particular situation that you won't find a violations as rampant as anything else that you'll find in town, that's for sure.

Uh yeah, just to follow up again.

Um I live in Hubbard Heights.

We have a house where there is multiple families, um, unrelated families living in a house.

We've called fix at Stanford multiple times, never got a response again to the zoning enforcement officers.

There is no teeth to anything that is being enforced in the zoning.

And I have perfect example of that.

And Mr.

Blessing, I reached out Mr.

Lombardiette.

Thank you.

This is not uh the place to discuss uh zoning enforcement.

Um all we can go by is what our regulations are, and um so thank you.

Uh Joe, were there any other questions that got asked in the last few minutes that you hadn't answered yet?

I I don't think so.

Uh I know there was concerned about people taking the right off of wire mill onto the on the long ridge and speeding up to get onto the ramp, and that might be a dangerous condition, but I think they meant a right a right onto Long Ridge from the property into the into the entrance lane.

Yeah.

You just have to wait till the light goes red, I guess.

And yeah, and I mean we can't control anybody who's not going to obey traffic laws or traffic signals.

You know, I think that it's designed properly, and uh all of the experts feel that it's designed properly.

That's that's all I can say about it.

Okay.

Um I think Manita, do we?

If I may, I think there was a mention, Lindy Andrea here.

There was a mention about sewer versus septic, just to make sure that's he's heard this answer.

We are on the sewer system and uh the public sewer system and the plans have already been reviewed by the WPCA.

The other thing on Long Ridge Road, we made sure that we closed there's two curb cuts on Long Ridge Road.

We made sure we closed the correct one, and it'll be reviewed by Connecticut DOT.

We closed the one closer to the intersection just to give a greater site distance from that location to the intersection.

Okay, thank you.

Um, before we continue this, anyone has any final questions.

Not tonight.

Okay, so let me just look at what we talked about here.

Um Joe, you're gonna provide to us um written answers to representative Weinberg's questions.

Yes, um, color renderings, 3D front and back of the houses.

Correct.

Um thenita, um, we need something from TTP approving the curb cut.

Or from engineering saying it's not required.

Um copy of the EPB approval.

Copy of the EPV approval.

Um the the question about the um the traffic group study is kind of interesting because it doesn't take into account the eight or nine hundred units that are going up since it was uh written.

Would could you just ask please uh Manita TTP to see if they need it updated to include those units?

I can check.

Um good.

And um yeah, I think that's it.

I Joe, anything else before we uh continue?

I don't think so.

I thank you for your time and I'll get you the information as you asked.

Okay, thank you.

So application 225-27.

I continue to our next meeting on October 6th.

Uh 630 on Teams.

Um we now uh have our next application, which is application 225-30.

Oh, let me ask, does anyone on the board need a break?

No.

No, good.

We're voting.

Okay.

Application 225-30 RMS hotel 1 LLC 909 Washington Boulevard site and architectural plans and a requested uses and special permit.

Applicants proposing to renovate the interior of the existing building to increase the number of guest rooms, create a restaurant, courtyard, and amenities.

Uh Vanita, did we get the certificate of mailing?

Yes.

Okay, and the sign affidavit?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh Roseanne, could you please read the uh planning board letter?

Certainly.

Uh dated September 8th, 2025 to Mr.

David Stein, Chair City of Stanford Zoning Board regarding CD application number 225-30 RMS Hotel 1 LLC.

Dear Mr.

Stein and members of the zoning board.

During its regularly scheduled meeting held on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025.

The planning board reviewed the above captioned application referred in accordance with the requirements of the Stanford Charter.

Applicant is proposing to renovate the interior of the hotel to increase the number of guest rooms, create a restaurant, courtyard and amenities.

William Hennessey, Carmody Torrent, Sandack, and Hennessy LLP made a presentation and answered questions from the board.

After some discussion, the planning board unanimously voted to recommend approval of ZB application 225-30 and found this to be in general harmony with master plan category number 11 downtown.

Sincerely, Stanford Planning Board, Jay Tepper, Vice Chair.

Thank you.

Do we have someone from the applicant who is uh presenting tonight?

You do, Mr.

Chairman William Hennessy.

Good.

There you are.

There I am.

Welcome.

Thank you.

And uh good to see you all.

Uh for the record, uh, I'm an attorney here uh in town at the firm of Carmody Torrent Sandack and Hennessy.

We have offices at 1055 Washington Boulevard.

And with me tonight is my colleague uh Karina Arundando.

Uh also here with us uh are the uh representatives from the architectural firm who worked on this project.

That is uh the Vinefield Architectural Firm, uh Celin Pather and uh Max Hodley are here.

Uh I see Lendy Andrea, our surveyor and engineer is here.

Uh and I believe Neil Olinski is somewhere in this crowd of tiles on my screen, and he uh is from SLR and looked at the uh parking uh aspects of this and met with uh TTP several times.

Uh we're all here on behalf of the applicant RMS One uh Hotel LLC, which is the owner of this property known as 909 uh Washington Boulevard.

The um uh colloquially, this is known, of course, as the Lloyd Hotel.

And uh on behalf of ownership uh with us tonight are uh Brandon Salvatore, who's the director of hospitality for RMS uh companies, as well as his uh father, you know father well, uh Randy, uh who is the uh president CEO of RMS.

Um this is a particularly important week for Brandon.

Not only is this uh hotel, the original hotel in the family uh before you tonight for yet another uh uh uh uh expansion.

But on Saturday, Brandon is getting married and uh hopes to leave, knowing that this is well under control and perhaps even uh approved.

So we have tried especially hard to be uh well prepared and well uh well I'm gonna use the term uh ginger leaf but manned uh for our uh job tonight in the hopes that we could uh move this along as as much as possible.

Um the uh uh Randy and Brandon are also here on a very serious note because uh while you uh know them, I think, more for their success and their reputation in the multifamily uh development world.

Uh they also have a very sizable uh portfolio of hospitality properties.

So I want you to understand that this is not a one-off hotel.

This is one of five that they own and operate throughout the state of Connecticut.

Uh and uh this is probably do we have the photo of the uh different hotels?

Put it up.

There you see the different hotels.

There's the Blake in New Haven, uh Hotel Zero Degrees up in uh Danbury, the um the watershed in in Norwalk on uh Route 7.

Uh the original hotels in the middle there, and you'll recognize that as the uh property presently known as the Lloyd.

And then the one that is probably operationally closest to this is in the lower right-hand tile there, and that's the Goodwin in downtown Hartford.

Uh I've stayed at the Goodwin several times uh while in Hartford, and it operates much like this.

There is uh there's no parking, but it's a seamless operation uh in terms of the valet and how it's all uh just um orchestrated for the for the guests uh operation.

I mean, for the guests' enjoyment, it works very, very well.

Um the uh the the uh reason we're here tonight is to I uh and I think of this as a very simple application.

What we have before you is a request to basically complete the conversion of this building, which was built in the early 70s from the YMCA Hotel, I mean the YMCA for Stanford into a hotel.

Um a little background uh might be helpful here.

The building you're looking at is what we see now, but when it was originally constructed, there was your typical uh hotel.

Uh, I mean your typical YMCA uh uh schedule of uses.

There was a pool, there was a gymnasium, there was a weight room, there were locker rooms, and then in that taller windowed element you see, the uh the one that is now part of the building that is now the hotel, was uh rooms, uh the rooms for rent.

It operated like a hotel.

It was your typical downtown Y.

And there was 136 uh rental rooms back in the day.

And um in uh 1973, when the building was built because the original Y was being displaced, the original one being on Atlantic Street, uh the new home it found uh was here, and it was deemed a good convenient location for several reasons.

One of which was it was going to be immediately adjacent to and abut the what was then the brand new City of Stanford uh parking garage, 750, 751 space garage known as the uh Bell Street Garage.

And um the what what why don't we, Karina, just circle the different areas of the building.

So what what Karina will do now with uh the cursor, the little hand, is show you where the um the tower is, if you will, and that's where the rooms were 136.

Now it's a 94-room hotel uh operated by the um uh by RMS and known as the Lloyd.

The gymnasium is that big box off to the left, and that stretches back to the east and it goes up into uh um uh the uh uh up to the parking garage.

And the um the area behind the tower is where the pool was out there.

The first floor, the ground floor, and uh I believe the second floor of the building was you know, the different functions of the Y.

They weren't rooms, but they were uh exercise rooms.

That's where the locker rooms were, all that stuff.

And uh it operated as I indicated very well.

Below all of this, the the entirety of the uh of the um uh uh of the uh uh site is uh occupied by a below grade parking garage, which um uh uh uh depending upon when when it was measured and what was going on down there, had as many as 44 self-park spaces and as few as 39.

Um and that really depends upon you know when you measure and whether there was uh additional elevator core put in.

But that's how it that's how it operated for many years, very, very successfully.

Um the real uh changing event was uh in about 2008 when the Y was experiencing financial difficulties, it worked his way out of the financial difficulties by selling the tower, the room portion of the uh of the hot uh of the building to RMS.

And that's when it became Hotel Zero Degrees.

And uh along with that came a portion of the ground floor.

So you would enter the hotel and there would be room at that ground floor area for a reservation desk, a little lounge area, things of that nature, not much else in terms of the hotel.

And then you would vertically go up to the actual rooms.

There was um uh variances granted for that.

Uh the uh first original version of the hotel had limited use of the very limited use of the parking below grade, but it all functioned well from day one, it functioned terrifically because the parking demand from this hotel was so small and continues to be small and continues to be well under.

Randy and Brandon are here to be able to uh uh talk to you about that.

And I say point three, I mean 0.3 spaces per guest room.

And it's really the adjacency of this property to the transportation center and to the main heavily populated office buildings in town, which are the old uh uh uh RBS building and the former Swiss bank building and 400 main and buildings like that that are still robustly populated.

Um that what worked well and about uh five years ago, five and a half years ago, came to the board because the uh hotel was undergoing a um uh major renovation and was converting itself from Hotel Zero Degrees to the Lloyd Hotel, and further renovations were needed.

And at that point in time, um this board granted what was then a brand new regulation, the section I think was called 12i at the time, and uh it was uh allowed to uh um uh uh share parking with the Y downstairs and also with the uh Bell Street Garage.

And again, it continued to operate very, very uh well.

So we're here tonight because uh just last year the Y closed its doors and uh effectively went out of business and stopped all of its programming.

Up until that point, it had a very robust uh uh collection of activities, included uh including an after-school uh uh program for young children uh at the Y.

So it was very, very busy place, but it wasn't financially successful or viable.

And I think just uh I'm surmising now, but I think over time, you know, things changed in the marketplace and other uh opportunities uh for exercise and fitness uh became available all over, including some pretty much right next door at Lifetime Fitness and things like that.

And you know, the the need for the Y, if you will, maybe uh maybe passed on.

And it was at that point certainly an older uh facility.

So at that point, RMS uh purchased the balance of the building.

Up until this point, and from the time that it originally entered the partnership with the Y, it was a two-unit condominium.

So the one unit was the Y, that is the gymnasium, the locker rooms, the pool, and uh the exercise rooms and all of that, and the other unit was the hotel.

Um, along with the Y unit came all of the parking below gray.

So when RMS purchased earlier this year, the other condominium unit, the YMCA portion of the building, it now controlled everything in the building.

It now owns the gym, the pool, and all the Y facilities, and importantly, it now owns and controls all of the parking, every bit of it.

So in converting the hotel and converting the use of the Y portions of the building to the hotel use, a couple of things will go on.

Number one, um the uh uh an area of the swimming pool, which will show you where it is in the building, will be removed and thus create the opportunity for a at-grade street level, although it won't be at the street courtyard, which will be surrounded by other pieces of the Y building, which will be a very, very nice element to the design of this building.

The other thing that will change is the areas that are at the grade level and uh at the second level of the building, which were Y related, will be converted just to hotel use.

A third major change will be the insertion of a floor at about the midway point in the gymnasium.

So if you think of standing on the floor of a gymnasium and you look up, you know, the ceiling is about 30 feet above you.

In this case, there'll be a floor inserted at about the halfway point of the gymnasium, and on that floor will be guest rooms.

It will act like a floor that is adjacent to it in the tower portion of the building.

And then the last thing of major change, I suppose you could call it, is the addition of a bit of uh floor area on the roof of the gymnasium.

And this area is needed for uh restrooms and just basic uh storage and um uh uh uh some kind of uh uh food service element that will serve what is hoped to be you know a rooftop amenity for the um for the uh uh area out there, which may take the form of an outside bar, something like that.

So all those things are depicted on the plates.

We'll show you there, but I just wanted to understand that this is uh really uh, in our view, and I hope you'll agree, a very, very minor sort of change.

We're taking away some floor area in the area of the pool, and we're adding a bit of floor area, mostly where the gym floor is added, and a tad just up on the rooftop of the um of the um uh uh the uh gymnasium.

Um so there are two uh uh pieces of the zoning regulation that uh bring us here tonight.

The first is the famous uh footnote uh 23, and I say famous because it served this board very, very well over the years.

Um it's the footnote that was created to enable the original um uh courtyard by Marriott Hotel to exist.

It allows for uh reduced parking, in this case 0.5 spaces per room, excuse me, and um uh up to 6.0 FAR in certain types of hotels, which are um uh deemed you know boutique hotels.

They don't have an inordinate amount of uh meeting room space uh nor ballrooms and that sort of thing.

They aren't the big hotels uh that we have uh mostly on the outskirts of our central business district.

Uh this was successfully used at the courtyard, it was successfully used at the residence inn.

It was uh recently approved for the hotel to be built in Veterans Park for the hotel to be built next to Crowley's Diner, and for the hotel that is uh undergoing renovation at the former um uh Union Trust Bank building uh on Main Street.

Uh and hopefully it'll be the the uh application and tool that we use to finish the conversion of this building.

So that that is one, and then the other uh uh section of the zoning regulations we're seeking permit uh uh special permit from is section 12 capital D 13, which allows for the reduced parking again and the use of valet.

So combining those two special permits would allow us to do two things.

Number one, get the little bit of extra floor area we need here, and we aren't going anywhere near the 6.0 FAR.

We're barely getting to 2.9 FAR.

So we'll be at about half of what we're entitled to do.

And uh the other thing uh that we'll be able to do is park at 0.5 spaces per room, excuse me, and uh utilize uh valet parking to do that.

And that valet parking will be a valet only garage.

There'll be no self-service parking uh located in the uh basement of this building.

That's our basic um uh the application.

A couple of uh things that I think are germane to your thinking here, uh or your uh thoughts and consideration here is this lot is of course in the CC district, um, is uh 30,000 square feet, 30,000, I think uh 230 square feet.

If this lot were 25,000 square feet, the parking requirement would be zero.

Uh but instead it's it's 0.5.

So we're just a little too big for uh for the uh invocation of that uh the that exemption, uh total exemption from parking.

And the other thing is since this building was built, probably by my estimation, within a year prior to the introduction of floor area ratios, it is instead of being at about 2.5 FAR, it's about 2.52 FAR right now.

So the introduction of even another square foot of uh floor area requires the um uh uh uh the the invocation of footnote 23.

So I uh I I just point that out because we're barely tripping these thresholds that require us to come to you.

Want to point out that the only things that will take place on the outside of this building is additional um uh fenestration, uh new windows and so forth.

And there, Karina's just put up the revised building, what it will look like.

And I I think uh you'd have to agree that you know the uh the extension of the current architectural treatments, colors, uh simulated wood uh and uh the the rich uh window panels is uh a great addition to the downtown uh and really makes the the building a uh uh a complete and very handsome uh building.

So let's take a walk through Karina if we could through the various changes and begin with uh now there's yeah, do that before and after.

So if you're coming down Washington Boulevard, when you go back to live meetings and you're driving to the uh you're driving to the cafeteria for your for your hearing for your next hearing, uh, and and now you see this.

And now you see this.

This is the the following image is what you will be seeing that that you'll be seeing that, which I think everyone would agree is it is a much nicer, uh much nicer view.

So here's what we have on the ground plane.

And uh the big square that's gray that you see there is uh the wide building.

If that that lighter gray area is the piece of the building that's a two-story piece that's going to be removed, and that will actually drop that portion of the building so that if you were standing on the surface of that light gray area, you would be in a courtyard surrounded by buildings.

You'd be actually standing on the roof of the parking deck, right?

You that would be the platform, but it will be a nice green courtyard there.

Um so that is one of the changes.

So that's a reduction in FAR, of course, right?

We probably should have put this one first, but this is the basement, okay?

And that just shows you the configuration.

It's important to you, I think, because in the uh right hand corner over there where the cursor is, is the uh class A bike room.

Uh so it's secure, it's segregated, it's safe, the bikes are safe.

Uh it's principally going to be for use uh by uh workers at the hotel.

So they'll be able to just scoot down the ramp there, uh, keep everything away from all the valet cars, and then uh come walk right over to the elevator and pop right up uh into the main floor.

And here is the excuse me, here is the main floor.

Uh currently um a little more, why don't you just draw the yes right around where that line is, not exactly, but that really today separates the uh roughly speaking, today separates the hotel portion of the first floor from the Y portion of the first floor.

So everything you see up front is really the um uh the hotel portion, uh, and then the rear of it is all Y portion.

Uh the green area you see is that inner courtyard to be created.

The other nice feature about this is like most of these boutique hotels, this one will have a public restaurant, which doesn't have that now.

And that public restaurant is right there in the middle.

You see that, and there's a nice uh private dining area associated with it off to the uh south there, too.

Um other than that, there's a lot of circulation, there's a lot of back of house, there's a small meeting room for the uh for the hotel uh and uh a lot of vertical uh circulation that will take you up in the building.

So let's go up in the building.

Uh oh, let's go down in the building once more.

Uh I'm sorry.

Yeah, uh, just take us over to the class Bike Room.

The Class B bike room is adjacent to the handicap ramp, so you can just roll your bike right up there and and and have it uh just uh stash there for your uh quick little trip in and out of the hotel, and you could come right back down the handicap ramp.

Uh and so now let's go up.

This is the uh next floor up in the hotel.

This is all Y space now.

This will be converted to hotel space.

You'd see it's just normal guest rooms.

And those rooms around the uh ranged around the courtyard, we'll have, of course, a nice view into the courtyard.

It's a nice light well, too.

This is the uh floor area to be added.

This is that uh interstitial level, that mid-level floor to be created halfway up the gym height.

Um and then uh go back one while I just say yeah.

To the right of that, you see the uh in the lighter lavender color there.

That's a typical floor.

Those floors go all the way up, and those won't be rearranged.

The rooms will be refurnished, but uh refurbished, but the but the um uh but the layout and everything uh stays identical all the way up until you get to the rooftop.

And so now there's the opportunity to actually exit uh off of the uh uh the next floor above the uh the gymnasium and uh access the rooftop of the gymnasium where there's planned to be some outdoor activity area.

And uh that, of course, when you do that, you need uh certain uh means of fire access, I mean egress, and uh uh you need restrooms, you need uh all sorts of uh health, life and safety and public health code uh uh amenities.

And um, so that that's really the project.

Nothing changes on the exterior of the building except the treatment of the exterior walls.

And of course, in that light well, I suppose the other thing that changes is the floor area is removed.

So it's uh it's a it's a little um uh uh different, but you can't see it from any public view because it is a uh uh surrounded by on the north, on the south, and the west by our building, and it's a butts on the east, the uh Bell Street parking garage, uh, which is a party wall building at that point, the buildings uh actually touch.

So the only thing it uh I I think you know, where the valet stand is, right where that little hand was, why don't you put that?

I'm sure you've driven by the building and noticed the valet stand out there.

uh uh surrounded by on the north on the south and the west by our building and it's abutts on the east the uh bell street parking garage uh which is a party wall building at that point the buildings uh actually touch so uh the only thing it uh i i think you know where the valet stand is right where that little hand was why don't you put that and i'm sure you've driven by the building and noticed the valet stand out there it's a valet uh valet only operation always has been um the uh uh the way it operates and brandon and randy can certainly amplify on this but you know if you uh make a reservation and you either email in or call in and you inquire about parking uh you're told that uh there's a ballet uh parking option uh it's 28 dollars a day uh and you're free to use that and if there's any uh desire to take it further than that you're instructed you're certainly have uh you're certainly able to go around the block and utilize the uh city public parking garage uh for a rate uh lower than the 28 dollars a day and you can self-park that's your option and at the second level I believe the Bell Street Garage there's a uh a door that takes you directly into the hotel you have to buzz it there's a little code uh and you can just you know bring your bags and just uh park your own car and then walk without going out of doors you can go straight from the parking garage directly into the hotel um it's about the most efficient operation uh of any hotel I think in town and with the valet uh only uh garage and the uh the hotel's ownership of the garage now uh makes it makes what was a workable solution a perfectly workable solution uh this might be a good time for me to stop talking and see if you have any questions um and uh if we can uh provide those answers to you okay Bill thank you um Jerry why don't you start with any questions no i i think it looks great it's pretty it's uh great workable space i you know i love the whole parking um way that was explained uh it just uh it it makes a lot of sense as well as the uh gymnasium adding the floors looks fantastic i wish them well they they're they're really organized uh a lot of respect for that uh for the developer so i have nothing right now thank you good thank you uh roseanne um i i don't have any issues or questions either i'm mostly sad that the city can't support a yMCA but um good use for the building and uh I like the design elements I think the whole property will look uh uh a lot nicer so I really don't have any questions about it good uh Bill yeah it's a good looking application I agree with both Roseanne and Jerry but I do have one point of clarification question and I'm sure it can resolve very easily it has to do with the document that was submitted by uh SOR uh the one that was uh revised September 17th yep and on page two of this document they're talking they're talking about the parking and they get into uh the Bell Street the Bell Street garage yes and they say that it has 751 spaces in total but the next sentence the one that threw me it says within the garage there are two handicap spaces yeah and eight A V spaces one handicapped space has an A V charging and one is it says Vince isn't there more than two handicapped parking spaces in the garage I think Neil Olinski's on this uh let me let me find out if if that was a typo or if that's the actual number of spaces.

Well I I know when I've gone into Bell Street garage I mean just handicapped parking I I I I find it's I think it's a mistake but yeah clarify that it very well may be um I'm not sure if Neil's still on I am on yes with SLR um he uh to be honest I don't know exactly but I suspect it is a an error on our part I'm there probably are more than two handicap spaces so I apologize you hope so yes yeah thank you I I do there's a flexor I mean it's got to be 40 if there's I know there's I know there's many many that are reserved for specific users and they're the best spaces in that garage I have noticed that.

No but if you go in there I mean you can see the handicap space and there's EV yeah yep from the moment you pull in off of the the alley off of uh what is that and I just wanted you to know and I'm sure you will it's the board does look at all the stuff you give us we read it and and that's that's proof and that's proof and that's it for me but anyway I'm very happy with the applications and good luck with it.

Thank you.

there i mean you can see the handicap space and there's e v yeah yep yeah from the moment you pull in off of the the alley off of uh what is that uh and i just wanted to know the and i'm sure you will it's in the board does look at all the stuff you give us so we do read it and and that's that's proof and that's proof and that's it for me but anyway i'm very happy with the applications uh and good luck with it thank you um yeah i agree i think this looks like a good application um just a couple of questions um this is in the architecture review district um is that correct uh turning hannase that it is and um it's my understanding and i i think ralph should be the one to confirm this but under the regulation he is uh required to uh obtain um the uh assent of the uh uh the architect it's not the architecture review board but it's the that might not be the the proper noun for it but i don't know that that board exists at the moment so the functional equivalent that's the d SSD I think the zoning board fills that role I think the DSSD does but I could be wrong uh we do routinely uh refer all the applications in the ARD district uh to the DSSD uh and ask them for any call-ins and input yeah is does the zoning board have a role there's certain you know thresholds like you know for large project like this it automatically comes to the zoning board but you know there's multitude of things that go to DSSD every sign in the in the ARD district every facade change so that it's a high volume of things they're really small approvals like you you know a small blade sign would even go to the SSD so yeah let me in in 5A6 a one the zoning board will review and determine compliance with the standards of the ARD overlay for all projects that are subject to issuance of special permit site and architectural plans yeah so it is the zoning board that acts as the uh the body which approves although I'm not saying we shouldn't get comments from DSSD uh we certainly should but they the regs have the zoning board as the yeah approving authority that I mean for projects does scale absolutely you know once it reaches the zoning board level um you know the approving authority so for you know any application that means a site plan or a special department right we are the architectural reviewing authority so we should make sure that our approval picks that up sure I agree um we do have a letter in the record from the DSSD as well if that gives you any if that assuages any concerns I'm I wasn't concerned I just wanted to make sure that we comply with our rights um uh the um footnote 23 says that uh there must be active uses on Washington Boulevard and Bell Street frontages um what are the active uses Bill well we have the uh on on the Washington Boulevard would be the entrance to the restaurant and the hotel I th you know I've always interpreted that to mean you know you don't you don't stack your parking there you don't do things that uh are um are you know deadening if you will uh here uh I think if you look at the floor plan can we get back to the floor plan yeah we have the it's pretty of all the things going on at Washington Boulevard this hotel might be about the most active if you drive by it well that may be true but it still has to comply with 23 um so the question is on Bell Street um it says on commercial streets so that would be Washington yeah um ground floor retail and ground floor hotel common areas so that's that's clearly um I mean it's that and or ground floor hotel common areas yes yep um okay uh will there be any additional landscaping put in I think the landscaping area everybody's very proud of and happy with I I don't think I don't think there's room for any more um and this is a pretty active area when there's drop off and pickups um and I think it's uh a rich ballot though we we aren't proposing to do anything okay what you can't see here is there's a nice little uh seating area by the sculpture do we have a way of of zeroing in on this at all or is it just you see where the sculpture area is right in there uh yeah yeah good job yeah see that it's it's very pretty in there yeah okay um and um is there any street tree requirement for bell street uh i don't believe so uh

Do we have a way of zeroing in on this at all?

Or is it just you see where the sculpture area is right in there?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, good job.

Yeah.

See, it's it's very pretty in there.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, is there any street tree requirement for Bell Street?

Uh I don't believe so.

Uh, I don't know that we have any.

We're not doing anything to Bell Street.

We're not doing anything to the exterior of the building, actually.

Um, what's what's the requirement?

Uh the street tree requirements at section twelve K 6, is it?

I think you may be right.

Yeah.

12K 6.

Where sidewalks are required, or where sidewalk is not required.

Street along such sidewalks one coins.

12K 6.

Okay, six.

Uh let's see.

Wherever sidewalks are required.

12K one.

So sidewalks are required.

That's 12K1.

Then there's the exemption from 12K one.

So it's all 12K1 is addition, all additions, alterations, modification.

Yeah.

Right.

But it has to increase gross floor area.

Right.

Um, I guess this does with the uh interstitial floor.

Yes, it does.

Yeah.

And then it and then some, I think the net net, once you because you remember you subtract out the floor taken out, then you add in the interstitial, then you add in about 800 square feet of restrooms on the roof.

So it's a net plus, it is.

Okay.

Vanita, would you please look at that question?

Sure.

We're gonna have to look at it anyway for the condition.

So okay.

I don't have anything else.

Um, I think it looks like a great project.

I'll let's go to the public.

If there's anyone from the public who wishes to speak on this application uh for or against it, uh please raise your hand.

Um I don't see any hand raised.

Okay.

Um Michael, yeah, Michael, Michael Michael Moore is in.

Of course.

Mike, you need to uh unmute.

There you go.

Mr.

Chairman, good evening.

Good evening.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Mike Moore from Stanford Downtown, head of Stanford Downtown, and I thank you for the opportunity.

Uh as attorney Hennessy has uh referenced, Stanford Downtown has supported uh sent submitted a letter in support of this project.

We're very excited to do so.

Uh Stanford Downtown expresses its strong support for the application submitted by RMS Hotel, LLC to renovate the interior of 909 Washington Boulevard and expand the hotel and restaurant throughout the building.

The proposed project will not only increase the number of guest rooms from 94 to 146, but will also bring valuable new amenities to downtown, including a restaurant.

The RMS present RMS, the RMS team presented this project to Stanford Downtown's economic development committee in early September, where it was overwhelmingly well received.

Stanford Downtown endorses this project for the following reasons.

The property lies within master plan category 11, which promotes a desirable mixing and interaction of people and activity, and compatible transitions to existing buildings.

The renovation and expansion directly support these goals while expancing, excuse me, the broader objective to maintain and augment downtown standing as a regional center.

Renovations to the Lloyd include a new restaurant, as I said it before, which will further enliven the Washington Boulevard corridor and strengthen Stanford's hotel market with centrally located lodging and expanded amenities.

I wish to emphasize this point.

Hotel guests will have convenient parking options including the valet service using 73 on-site spaces and self-parking at the Bell Street Garage.

This arrangement ensures there will be very little negative impact on traffic flow or off-street parking availability.

It's important to note this project will improve the Clark Street corridor that runs immediately north of the project and behind several restaurants that front on Main Street.

Stanford Downtown is firmly in favor of granting the special permits for this project approval will preserve the Lloyd as a cornerstone of the downtown streetscape and skyline while providing new amenities that contribute to the vitality and character of the community I thank you for your consideration I look forward to your support of this project and willing to answer in any and all questions you may have good thank you um do we have any other speakers no other hand raised okay um board members did anyone have any questions for um mike more before we uh let him go no no no mr chairman thank you no hey Mike you're you're off duty thank you thank you um okay i are we ready to close this application then board so okay uh turning hennessy anything you want to say before we close it uh only that you know the this footnote 23 together with this 12d 13 app uh uh regulation is something that uh property owners find very very helpful and useful and i would congratulate you and your staff on putting you know some of these important tools in the toolbox