Arlington ZBA closes hearings on three porch cases, adopts Mead Road decision

ARLINGTON -- November 25, 2025, Arlington's Zoning Board of Appeals closed hearings on three porch-related special-permit applications at its November 25 meeting, directing written decisions for all three to be adopted at the December 9 session. Chair Christian Klein and member Patrick Hanlon led extended deliberations on Docket 3872, 15 Foster Street Unit 1, where applicant Andrew Burns presented revised sketches showing an eight-inch soffit, vertical siding, and panel detailing intended to make a porch enclosure read visually as a porch rather than a front-yard addition; the board added a fifth condition requiring similar panel treatment at the first-floor level. Docket 3876, 19 Farrington Road, won early praise for its large windows and traditional corner detailing, Hanlon called window area "a feature that more than many other possibilities tends to create a sense that that's really a porch", with the application set to add approximately 546 square feet to bring gross floor area to 4,080 square feet on a 4,275-square-foot lot. Docket 3877, 29 Codd Street, a straightforward open farmer's porch reducing front setback to roughly 19 feet 9 inches, drew the only public comment of the evening, with neighbor Steve Moore of Piedmont Street calling it "an excellent addition." Hanlon, who chaired that hearing after Klein recused himself over a business relationship with the applicant's representative, added a condition requiring corrected dimensional and open-space calculations before the building inspector acts. The board also unanimously adopted the written decision in Docket 3867, 10 Mead Road, and welcomed new Select Board-appointed associate member Nick Rosenberg, a Boston civil litigator with 15 years of Arlington residency.