AI-generated transcript of Medford City Council Committee Of The Whole 10-26-22

[Nicole Morell]: 22-5333, Committee of the Whole, Wednesday, October 26, 2022 at 6 p.m. is called to order. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Present. Councilor Caraviello. Present. Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Present.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Knight. I don't see Councilor Knight. Councilor Scarpelli. Here. Councilor Tseng. Present. President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Six present, one absent, the meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Committee of the Whole on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 at 6pm via Zoom only. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss paper 22-533 regarding the scope of legal services to continue the Council's work updating the zoning ordinance and aligning it with multiple city plan documents. The Council has invited Alicia Hunt, Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Victor Schrader, Director of Economic Development, and PDS staff to attend the meeting. Further information, aids and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. So as the meeting notice said, the purpose of this meeting, the council through the budget process negotiated for $50,000 within the budget to continue our zoning work. This is to talk about the scope we'd like to accomplish with that. Vice President Bears and I did reach out to Chief Procurement Officer Fiona Maxwell to understand what the procurement process would be around if we wanted to continue with this, and I'm happy to share her response with the Council, but in short, the answer she gave with us is if we're engaging a lawyer, if we wanted to continue with Mark Wabrowski, if we're engaging a lawyer for their purposes as a lawyer, we are allowed to continue without going through the RFP process, correct? Vice President Bears, just stop me if I hit any parts wrong. Correct. Correct. If we if we want to go beyond that we wouldn't have to follow processes that's over $10,000 but we will, I will engage Fiona every step of the way to make sure we do this the right way. So, just want to open it up for discussion from the council to think about what is the scope would like to address understanding that $50,000. It's some money, it's not a lot of money. We can get some work done. We got a lot done with Mr. Bobrowski for about $45,000. So seeing what we continue with that. I'm going to go to Vice President Bears first, who already has his hand up.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for the introduction. I think you really captured the full picture of what we're doing. For me, I think this is really getting into that second phase of what we had been talking about as we completed the first round of the recodification last year and into the beginning of this year. So for me, my personal priorities would be now to take a look at the zoning map, our zoning districts, you know, the parking and loading table, the dimensional table. I'd also like to take a look at inclusionary zoning and look to see if there are any technical amendments. Maybe we hear from PDS or the new building commissioner or folks in the building department about places where the new ordinance maybe needs some tweaks. So that would kind of be my scope of what we should look at, as well as aligning along all of those categories, aligning with the city plans that we have been working on for the past few years. I am interested to hear from PDS staff after, you know, Councilors have a chance to speak just what, you know, what resources they may be able to bring to bear or. Um, how they could pretend potentially see Mark Brodsky fitting into, um, into the full process. I think that having Mark would be fantastic. Um, and, uh, you know, he did such great work with us on the first round. So I'm just interested to see if there's anything additional that maybe city staff are also planning to or thinking about around this process as well.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. racism bears going to Councilor Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you very much. Yeah, really excited to begin talking about phase two of our zoning work. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and I know it's been in the works since before I got on the council, so just excited to be getting this discussion. I think, broadly, my priorities are updating you know, taking a comprehensive look to make sure that our zoning ordinances are in line with the city plans that we've been reviewing so far. Just here, a comprehensive plan, housing production plan, climate action and adaptation plan. I have less experience than some in the room about, you know, exactly how to attack that. So certainly willing to defer to my fellow Councilors, PBS staff, et cetera. I think that we should Um. I'm not going to lean heavily on the expertise of PBS and our building commissioner as we're going through this, knowing that, um, you know, we do have, I mean. $50,000 sounds like a lot of money, but, um, it's not infinite how we can use our city staff to the extent that they have capacity to work with us on this, so as to really rationing the time that we do have with Mark Wroblewski, if we continue to work with him, so that we are, you know, making good use of the time that we have with him and using city staff and their expertise around zoning where we can.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Tseng.

[Justin Tseng]: Thank you, President Morell. I think what I have in mind is similar to what's already been said. I think Councilor Bears really said it well. I think when he said that we need to look at our zoning map, look at the parking tables, those are things that I've been hearing a lot from constituents. Those are things that when I was door knocking, particularly south of the Mystic, there was demand for, there was, quite a lot of demand for more density in certain spaces now. And obviously we'll have to look at that together as a council and to make sure that we're, we're making the most reasonable choices, but that is something that I've heard from residents about. Similar to what's already been said, my next big priority is making sure that our new zoning plan, that our phase two, aligns with the comprehensive plan, with the housing production plan, and with the climate action and adaptation plan. There's quite a lot throughout these plans about recommended changes to zoning, be it to, you know, for reasons of public health, for heat concerns, for affordability, displacement, and the like, I think it'd be helpful to get a scope, to get a sense from city staff about what is actionable now. what would be a reasonable and efficient use of our money right now to get passed through and to work with them on it. And I would personally like to see as many options on the table as possible that we have time and money to consider, and then to decide which paths we go forward from there. But there's I think the main point of what I'm looking for is something that aligns with our city plans, which already have had a lot of public input. There are two things that I've heard from resident groups, which I would totally understand if we don't get to it, if we don't have the time or money for it, but it is something that I wanted to put on the table or to put on record, and we can discuss it in the future. One of the gun safety advocacy groups in Medford has asked us to look at what we can do regarding gun shops in Medford, if we can put something in zoning regarding that. And a lot of Asian Americans, particularly the Tibetans, The Tibetan community and the Chinese community here have expressed worry at overseas police stations, which are popping up throughout the world. There are some in America right now. Given the increasing Chinese population here, there's worry that they there's nothing in zoning yet. And so they could reasonably open up shop disguised as something else. And there has been about 300,000 people sent back to China based on that. And so there are some residents concerned about that. It's a more specific point. So I understand if we don't have time for that in this phase of zoning, but it's something I wanted to put out there. And I did want to note, I do have to run to a community fund committee meeting. And so I will read the minutes to catch up on what all my other fellow Councilors have to say. But thank you for listening to me.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tsenga. Before I get to Councilor Caraviello, Mr. Giglio, if you could change your avatar, it's Councilor's campaigning, essentially, and we can't have, I know this is a Zoom meeting, but you can't campaign or have signs like that within the chambers, and as this is the virtual chambers, I ask that you change your avatar. Thank you, Councilor Caraviello for flagging that for me. Going to Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you, Madam President. Again, I think my first question is, have we reached out to Mr. Brodsky to see if he's willing to come back? Have we already done that?

[Nicole Morell]: I have not. I wanted to see kind of what the council was seeking. And my thought was to deliver him, you know, here's what we'd like. Can you come back to us? What's feasible?

[Richard Caraviello]: Yeah, I can say, I love to have the guy back. I'd like to, so we can keep some consistency onto what we've done in the past and going forward. I mean, Mark's work speaks for itself. If you look at, you know, the projects he's done in other cities and towns, you know, he's second in London. And I think, you know, we're on the final phase of actually, you know, doing the map and getting, you know, getting this done. So once it's for all and, you know, So we can actually see where the zoning is going to go and what we want in those areas. So I'm glad he's going to be coming back. And I think all my other Councilors have pretty much said everything I wanted to say about this. So I'm just hoping that he's willing to come back. And I hope that 50 is going to be enough to cover what we need to do.

[Nicole Morell]: I agree. Thank you, Councilor Caravielloo. Yeah, and I did also just one of the reason I hadn't reached out. Firstly, there's I did just want to affirm I know we had, we've talked diffusively about in the past. I just wanted to affirm that this is the direction of the council wanted to explore so I will reach out to him as soon as we close the meeting. I do. If there's see if there's any further discussion from the council I know, Director Hunt. has some insight she could share and she is a in demand woman with meetings tonight so I want to turn over to her unless there's further discussion from the council at this time. Seeing none. Give me a wave. There you go.

[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. Thank you, Councilors. And I appreciate it. I appreciate hearing what everybody's like interested in doing. There are, as you guys have expressed, there are in fact, some, there are actually some simple things that could move forward very quickly. We've, you know, run into. So, so you're aware, actually, we don't have the final version of the zoning that you all passed yet, like an official version up on the web. We've been giving out drafts to people who need to abide by zoning, because it's been in effect for quite a while now. But we don't have that final one that should have copy edits fixed in it. But beyond copy edits, we've been running into some unintended things and things that people are like, oh, now that we're trying to implement it doesn't quite make sense. I might call them tweaks. And so there's a lot of interest we've started compiling a list with the building department of things they've run into that are like, oh, that, you know, somebody shouldn't have to go to the, the great example somebody shouldn't have to go to the zoning a board of appeals for variance on where to put their pool equipment. in Medford because it's too close to their property line now. Those are the kinds of things that we want to sort of package together and bring forward. It would benefit from a lawyer to make sure that they're all done correctly. So there's those things. And then there's like really big things, right? Like What should we completely change the zoning in a part of the city? And something like that, you could imagine that we want to talk to the people who live there who own property in that area before we change the zoning where they are. So there's outreach that occurs as part of that because they need to have input and that takes some time. It's often done with a consultant to help with that kind of work. And then there's all these sort of in-between things that'll come up as well. Something that many communities do when they're looking at significant zoning changes is to actually take your current zoning and map all the variances that have been given out over the past 10 years. And if possible, map all the variances that have been requested but denied. Because that's where you know where people want to do things that are different from what you currently allow. And then you look at that information and you analyze it you say does this make sense, you know, of course they're denied that stuff that's ridiculous, but actually, this is ridiculous. Why are we making all these people go to the Zoning Board of Appeals for these things. So that's the kind of analysis that I think it would really benefit the city to have done. as well as some of the recommendations around corridors. You know, we all know, I think it's easy to say like, hmm, mixed use, you know, businesses should be allowed along Salem Street with apartments above. I don't think there's very many people who would actually ignore, like argue with that, but what exactly are those guidelines? What exactly do you allow, right? Which kinds of businesses do you allow on the first floor and how many levels above? And is it just the parcels of facing Salem Street, or do you go in a row or two, these are the kinds of things that we should actually think through. And there are a lot of people who are trained to help us think through attorney burowski actually mentioned that he often partners with Judy Barrett to do projects like that. Obviously we haven't discussed this with either of them. Judy Barrett is also the consultant who is working with the city on our 40 Bs. So she's a well-respected planner in the area that he mentioned many times during his work with you all that he likes to work with. One of the things that we were thinking about is that perhaps it would make sense for the council in our office to partner on hiring a lawyer and a planner together. And whether it would make sense and something that we could work on with you is to put together a scope. What do we want them to do? You know, we want them to do some things right away. We want them to do other things that'll take a lot of, take more time. So it might be built out for like the quick things and the long things. And then to, We could get some quotes in order to fulfill our procurement requirements, but we would be really happy to do something that's actually joint with the council that would allow us to bring some of the money from our budget to help pay for it. And it would allow both planning and legal services jointly together between the two, between us to get it all done at the same time. Another benefit to that is that we could do like some working groups, so like individual Councilors could meet with us with the consultants, and then we could come back and report back to a committee of the whole about like where things stand in order to help move like different Councilors could sit in on their areas of interest. In addition to having to have a committee of the whole every time you talk to the lawyer. So these are just some of the things that we were sort of thinking about and how to move this forward in a way that would allow us to get some things done right away to move forward some things that will take longer. And to work it through. I also just there's one other little piece that I think we're actually going to want to, we're going to need to engage the engineering office on. So the, the engineering office is responsible for the map. Our zoning map is literally a piece of mylar that sits in their office. That's the legal document. And it's, it's registered with the registry of deeds. We really need to have that officially digitized, the electronic version that you've seen it's always labeled like not official. So we actually need somebody to officially, where are these lines, so we can move the lines. Um, it would help a lot. And that's something that I want to pursue moving forward with the engineering office. I believe that that is actually under the jurisdiction of the city engineer to certify our farm on that, but I would like to check with him on that. Um, I know Tim and I had discussed it several times while he was city engineer. Um, because I think that you'll also find that when you start to move the lines, it makes the residents crazy because now they're in this zone or that zone. and that impacts what they can and can't do with their properties and their homes. And it makes property owners a little crazy. So it's easier if we have an electronic version and we can be certain who's on which side of the line. But it's also nice if there's some sort of consultant to kind of, to interact, to hold those meetings, to go out and talk to residents, to go out and meet with people specifically. It can be helpful to have. some additional help along those lines. And we have applied for a grant to hire somebody to work specifically on climate zoning because there was a climate grant that would allow for that. So fingers crossed that we get a grant that will let us hire somebody to work specifically on zoning out of our office.

[Nicole Morell]: So it's a lot to chew on. Thank you, director. Yeah, I think my just my top concern I was like, speaking as one member of the council, I'm, I'm eager to have a partner in this work, I think, especially in some of the bandwidth items that are essential to get feedback from the community that we simply, it's harder for us to run. But I think I would just want the assurance, which I think it's it's already exists statutorily that the council gets final decision power as far as these changes, we can work collaboratively, we can talk about options with the council the council's vote is the deciding factor for these changes.

[Alicia Hunt]: And legally only the council can actually vote on the changes and can actually make the changes. So no matter if my office went off and did a whole effort and came up with a whole bunch of proposals and the council wasn't engaged and didn't like them, it would be a whole lot of our wasted time. So it's in our best interest to work collaborative with you on it because we can't pass anything.

[Nicole Morell]: Right. Thank you. Um, any cancer Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you President wrong Thank you Alicia for for those thoughts, I. You know, in general, I think that this speaks to a lot of what's on my mind in terms of not the financial scope per se of this project, but the scope of ambition. I think that, you know, from reading the city plans, it sounds like there are some projects that are, I don't know if they're short term, but they're more fully formed. They are zoning changes or additions that have been more or less prepared by city staff, which could be implemented more quickly. And then, as you say, there are the medium-term and the long-term projects. I want us to be as ambitious as possible because there's a lot in our housing production plan and comprehensive plan and climate action adaptation plan that I think we really need to implement at some point, and a lot of it is urgent. This is really interesting to me because it seems like a framework for working, setting up a structure for working better together from the outset, so that the things that we are closer to the finish line on already, we can consider collaboratively, we can push those along on an appropriate timescale, and we can be partnering effectively from the jump on those projects that we do very much need a lawyer for, but we also need a planner for. So I'm curious to hear how my fellow Councilors think about such a structure or a structure for moving forward in general. But I think for me, the headlines are interest in trying to set forth a scope where we can do as much as we can to implement the changes that the community has been calling out for. put into these plans and kind of an organizational structure for how we're going to get through that. Thank you.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. Councilor Caraviello.

[Richard Caraviello]: Thank you. Alicia had mentioned how she didn't have the final draft of the Pringles that we originally did. In speaking to some of the building department, before we do that final draft and get it actually into print, I think we need to sit down with them. They have some questions on a few different issues that some of the things that kind of been big wish and they want a little bit more of a definitive answer on a few things. Nothing that was too crazy, but there was three or four issues that they wanted to clarify with us, which would be good. And I think it would be a good chance to bring in the new building commissioner to bring him up to speed and see if he has any questions also. So maybe if we take a step back before we take a step forward and clean that up. I don't think we need Mark to do that, but I think we need to do that on our own end before we proceed going forward. So I'd like to get that cleaned up first.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I'm happy, I see Director Hunt has her hand up. Yeah, I'm happy to take that in the form of a motion to have a future meeting with the new building commissioner around some of those questions.

[Richard Caraviello]: And if you can make that so they can ask all the questions that they had with regard to the last draft, so we can get that squared away.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: so if so I just want to make sure everybody's clear if you have a meeting with the building department that is literally just to convey like this is what we were thinking and how we think this should be interpreted. that's fine and it doesn't matter if you have the final draft or not if you're thinking about because we would change the words in the zoning. And it's not because it was a Scribner's error. They left out an S or a comma. There was supposed to be a period there. Like those things can be edited. Those are Scribner's errors. But if it's like, oh, let's reword this sentence because that's not clear, then you actually has to be a motion. It has to get referred to the planning board. The planning board has to weigh in on it. It has to be legally publicized. There has to be a council hearing. You actually have to go through that full process. you may intend to make any text that makes change, that changes the meaning or the words that are there, unless you can legitimately say, oh, he left out a comma or a period or he used the wrong tense of the word.

[Richard Caraviello]: I don't know if they're looking to change that, but I think they're just looking for some clarification from us on what our intent of the language was. I think that's really where it's going. Maybe some minor changes, but I think it's just trying to get out what our intent was when we wrote that way back during the process. If changes need to be made, then we'll go through whatever process it has to go through.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just want to make sure, like if you're saying, well, before we get the final version implies because we might make edits. And I will actually venture to say that if at any point, if we publish the final version and we find that a period is missing, right, or you meant to say, you know, left and we said right, like it was like a legitimate, like little word error, you can go back and change that at any time as a Scribner's error. Mr. Clerk, correct me if I'm wrong on that, but Scribner's errors are very different from, we need to make this section more clear.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I am hesitant to weigh in on a legal matter, but that is my understanding, yes. Okay.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director and Councilor Caraviello. And I just wanna know, I have been in talks with a few of you about that final draft, and I feel like I might be stuck in a cycle of kind of everyone saying someone else is responsible for the final draft. So I just wanna raise that again.

[Alicia Hunt]: We, we sent copy edits to Mark Brabowski and it was my understanding that he was going to look at them. And if they were simple copy edits type things, he was going to just incorporate, like accept those changes and his secretary or somebody on his staff was supposed to generate a table of contents because it would be a lot easier to work with this thing with the table of contents. It doesn't exist. And then, but he had indicated that if it was significant work, then he'd be looking for an additional hourly rate to do that. If it was more than an hour or two's worth of work. That was the last we'd heard from him.

[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Clerk, are you able to follow up on that? And then I can authorize any small hourly work.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I will reach out to him tomorrow. I also left a message for him a couple of weeks ago. I have to follow up anyway on that. So I will, yes, I will follow up with him tomorrow.

[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Vice President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam President. I think what I'm hearing is there's kind of a couple next steps coming out of this meeting. One would be that we have a committee of the whole where we invite the building commissioner. And it sounds like also planning development sustainability has some suggestions, I think, for tweaks. I think it would actually be good to hear Um, both the questions about clarifying intent and the questions around tweaks, because that could allow us to kind of separate out the, you know, things that have cropped up with the new zoning ordinance. Um, so we could, you know, maybe there's actually overlap between those two things and maybe we can answer something by saying, this is the intent that we passed it with. And maybe there's some items where we do have to make actual updates to the language that have to go through the zoning process. So, um, I would move that we hold a committee of the whole with the building commissioner and the planning development and sustainability office to discuss issues around the issue. Needed changes or well. outstanding issues with the current draft or the final draft of the zoning recodification from the spring. So that would be one thing. And then I think there's the second piece, which is the broader question of updating the zoning and zoning the phase two of this process. And on that, I would move that the council president meet with procurement and planning and development and sustainability to come up with a draft scope of work for this project and also however we want to go about that. I could see it happening in a few ways. So I think it would just be best if the council president met with those folks and came up with something that we could then approve for.

[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, for a draft scope of work to be presented to the council.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, that'd be great.

[Nicole Morell]: For debate, okay. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: And Madam President, we're happy to start working on a draft and maybe more than one version, just to, sometimes we'll present like a menu of options. Here's the base, and then we could include this, we could include this, we could include that. We're happy to start working on that over the next couple of weeks.

[Nicole Morell]: So it'd be great.

[Zac Bears]: I would just add to the motion as well, that it just be based on this committee, you know, the minutes of this meeting is on the committee report.

[Nicole Morell]: Okay, so I have two motions on the floor from vice president bears. Second, Madam President. Thank you. Mr. Clark, or a, let me know when you're ready.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Quick second just finishing typing is Council carry on a second of both of these motions. Okay, first motion, Vice President Bears moved to hold a future meeting with the building department staff and PDS staff to address outstanding issues from the zoning codification for the spring. That's got a second from Councilor Caraviello. Would you let me call the roll on that one?

[Nicole Morell]: Yes, please.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight, I believe is still absent. Councilor Scarpelli.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Tseng, are you still here?

[Nicole Morell]: He had to jump off. He's gone.

[Adam Hurtubise]: President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the inferno, zero in the negative, two absent, the motion passes. And the second motion, when you're ready.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Let me just type this up. Second motion, Vice President Bears moved to ask the council president to meet with procurement and PDS to come up with a draft scope of work to be presented to the council based on this committee report. That's also got a second from Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Okay. Here comes the roll call on that one. Vice President Bears. Yes. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight is absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng is absent. President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent, the motion passes. Before we adjourn, is there anyone from the public who would like to speak on this paper? Seeing none, going back to the council for any further discussion or a motion? Motion to adjourn. On the motion of advice, give you a promotion on the motion of cancer Kirby hello to adjourn seconded by second cancer Collins Mr. Clerk please call the role.

[Unidentified]: Vice President Bears. Vice President Bears.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Thank you. Councilor Caraviello. Yes. Councilor Collins. Yes. Councilor Knight is absent. Councilor Scarpelli. Yes. Councilor Tseng is absent. President Morell.

[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Five in the affirmative, zero in the negative, two absent.

[Unidentified]: Motion passes and the meeting is adjourned.