[Nicole Morell]: 19-070 subcommittee on climate sustainability and transportation meeting, Tuesday, October 18 2022 at 6pm is called to order Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Present to present zero absent. I'm sorry, one absent the meeting is called to order. There will be a meeting of the Metro City Council subcommittee on climate sustainability and transportation on Tuesday, October 18 2022 at 6pm in the Metro City Council chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall. The purpose of this meeting is to make edits to the proposed tree ordinance 19-070 the subcommittee has invited Alicia hunt director of planning development sustainability. The subcommittee has also invited members of Trees Medford and the Medford Energy and Environment Committee to attend. For further information, aids, and accommodations, contact the city clerk at 781-393-2425. Sincerely yours, Nicole Morell, Council President. So we called this meeting here today after meeting in Committee of the Whole last month, I think. We made a number of motions that were adopted at that meeting. One was to send the paper to the subcommittee, so that's why we're meeting here as opposed to Committee of the Whole. Another was to send the brief edits we had to KPUA to make edits to the ordinance. They have not. Those were just about separating out sections that should be applied for zoning, where it should go for zoning, general ordinances, where it should go for general ordinance. They still have not made those edits. And then the other there. Oh, and the third resolution was to send this to folks in finance, PDS and DPW for comments. So the reason we are meeting tonight, as we still wait on those edits, as I had talked to Commissioner McGivern, he had given us comments back in May. And he said that at this point, he would like to see what the Council wishes for this ordinance before he gives further comments. So I know this is an ordinance that has a lot of interest from the public. The this type of ordinance is also referenced in our climate action adaptation plan as well as the draft comprehensive plan. So this is something I want to keep moving. So my hope is that tonight we can go through the draft ordinance that we've been working off for the past year, year plus at this point, and go through line by line and say what we as a subcommittee want to keep what we are open to suggestions, and what you know we really, I guess, you know, don't carry their way and just understanding that we get a document that we can send to our city hall administration partners, and they can give us comments back and understanding where we stand with this. We've also received a number of comments from residents by email, as well as in past meetings. So I want to make sure that those are referenced in this updated draft as well. So I can share this document. But before we get started, I wanted to offer a Councilor Tseng if there's anything you'd like to start with.
[Justin Tseng]: Um, I think it might be best for the meeting for us just to get into it. And there's some some points that residents have made that I've I've also that I concur with that might be good to talk about, but it might be more efficient that we talk about it whilst we go through it.
[Nicole Morell]: Sure. And I would ask if you if I could kind of delegate to you if you want to reference those just because I'll have my whole screen taken up by the document. So if you're able to reference the comments that have come through from residents. That would be great.
[Justin Tseng]: I'll try my best.
[Nicole Morell]: So I do. Councilor Scarpelli is running late and he's going to join us on Zoom, but we can get started. So share my screen. Oops. Can I get screen sharing or co-host so I can share my screen?
[Unidentified]: There we go. All right. All right, and we are seeing this Word document. Yes. Is that screen on? All right, so Councilor Tseng, if you would like to stop me at any point.
[Nicole Morell]: Also, I guess I need to make it, yeah, so I can see people raising hands. If you could let me know if folks have their hands raised, Mr. Clerk, in the process as well. Okay. So starting off the intent and purpose of this ordinance. So this is what are we trying to accomplish with this ordinance? And I think there has been even this very first sentence, there has been some back and forth on this. So the ordinance is enacted for the purpose of preserving and protecting both public trees pursuant to general law chapter 87. and certain trees on private property. So understanding that under the general laws, there are certain protections around public shade trees already. And there is, in conversations with Attorney Stein from KP Law, it has been, you know, is this an ordinance that we just want to strengthen things around public shade trees, or do we want to go to private trees as well? I believe what is listed out in the comprehensive plan draft, as well as the climate action adaptation, it does reference private trees. My thought would be to address private trees as well. I think that folks would, I mean, we're definitely dealing with the public shade tree issue as well, but I think to really make this ordinance have the highest impact, private trees would need to be addressed as well.
[Justin Tseng]: I definitely agree. I think we would be remiss not to address the impact of cutting down private trees as well. Of course, there are interests that we have to balance and consider as well. But I do believe that there is a route which we can take that I think sufficiently addresses those private concerns with the understanding that even trees on private properties have public impacts. have impacts on renters and neighbors and quality of life, quality of air that I think are particularly necessary to address as well.
[Alicia Hunt]: Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability. I understood what her comment was to be was not to question whether this was also addressing private trees, but rather there's a different place in the ordinance that already protects public trees. The public trees can't be cut down. And so that it might be that you should consider that this is actually only about private trees in this ordinance and that you would incorporate any appropriate changes to the already existing ordinance on public trees, rather than try to make this about public and private. Yep.
[Justin Tseng]: I see. So splitting it up, I think, as what would make sense is according to what you're saying.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, that this this ordinance is only about private trees and not questioning whether or not it should be about private trees. But actually, that to say that this applies to just private trees and that public trees are addressed. And I was trying to find the Division 2, Article 3 that she refers to, because I called them, in Muni Code, they're listed as chapters.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think that's a really good point because I do think part of the kind of modeling we've been challenged with as we're trying to work on this is trying to serve public and private, and have you write an ordinance that addresses both with the same language. And so I would be open to a motion to strike the public part of this ordinance and save it for the public part for a future date.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I would move to strike the public part of this ordinance and to to ask us to schedule a meeting to address the public part of the ordinance at a later date.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great. I think that if you were going to refer to this, you would just say it's chapter 86, article three refers to public trees, so that you have the correct, so that people are able to find easily. If they wanted to say, you know, public trees or address this, you may or may not want to say that in the ordinance, but in your communications to the public, It would be chapter 86-1. And it's actually, there's not a lot here, but we should look at that, I think, separately. Chapter 86, article three.
[Justin Tseng]: Would the president think that it'd be wiser to work on both side by side, but as different ordinances, or to really just hone in on the private ordinance first, and then scheduling-wise,
[Nicole Morell]: My thought would be, my opinion would be to work on the private first, because I think, to Director Hunt's point, there are protections for public shade trees at this point. So I think we're trying to really kind of stem the bleeding on the private side. And I think, to Director Hunt's point, if we get to something that we really like on the private side, we can see what from that we could apply to the public side that isn't already in place, would be my thought.
[Justin Tseng]: That makes sense, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Let me actually read to you, because it's one sentence, what's in The current ordinances that I think is what's completely relevant here says no person shall be allowed to cut trim or top off any tree standing in the public ways of the city. Unless he shall have first obtained the permission of the tree warden such work shall be as provided in mgl a chapter 87 sections three to five and should be performed under the direction of the tree warden. So those are also, that refers to the fact that they're protected already. Public trees are protected by state law. So a lot of what you're discussing in this ordinance, the public trees are already protected.
[Justin Tseng]: Got it, I see. So I think, yeah, I think that motion probably that I've made makes sense then. Focus on the public now and then.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, and my thought is as we're going line by line to take motions as they come, otherwise we may be referencing motions move so far past that we're forgetting them. I do, is Councilor Scarpelli iPhone? I did see iPhone joined. Okay, as we wait for that, I see Sue Brown with Trees Medford. Sorry, you have your hand up. Name and address for the record, please.
[Sue Brown]: Hi, Sue Brown, 127 Pine Ridge Road, Medford, Massachusetts. I understand the thought behind taking two ordinances, one for private and one for public. I will say that the intent of this ordinance, in my view, is to enhance the current state protections on public trees in a very specific way. and in conjunction with the private tree. So, councillor saying suggestion to work on ordinances side by side, it seems complex and yet gives me some comfort that they'll both be, both categories of trees will be discussed in this conversation.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Sue. I mean, my just thought to that is just like, again, knowing we're looking at a complex document that we're trying to make actionable from a number of different angles is if there's something specific that Trees Medford is trying to enhance from the public existing, the public shade trees existing general laws, if that could be like spelled out explicitly, as opposed to us going through, you know, trying to figure out where in this document That is.
[Unidentified]: Oops, sorry.
[Sue Brown]: Yeah, I can understand the logistical issue there. I'm just wondering if starting with the private trees is the best starting point. But I don't I don't have I don't have another suggestion so okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think I'm going to President as I'm sort of scrolling through again the some of the difficulties in a big picture way is that this ordinance defines things that are already defined in our ordinances and the appropriate legal thing if I might venture to say that is that we wouldn't create a new ordinance that redefines them, but rather for things like the definition of tree warden, I have, if the goal would be to change the, that's just a really obvious tree warden is defined in chapter 86, division two, that we would actually edit or pass an ordinance to change chapter 86 division two around the jurisdiction and duties of the tree warden, not create it in a some other place in the ordinances. So I think that would be sort of an example of trying to make it more integrated with our current ordinances. And I believe that this occurs other places or other positions and things that are defined that are already defined in our ordinances.
[Nicole Morell]: So not to get weird. So yeah, the next section is definitions.
[Justin Tseng]: Um, I think that I think that there's support on on the wider council for separating out, you know, parts that I think are cases that Dr. Hunt saying, as we've discussed during previous meetings, there's quite a lot in here that could be just that could or probably should be separate or separate amendments. So I think that makes sense. Um, I think we can keep talking about the public-private part. I will say that the way that the motion's worded right now doesn't mean that we're going to table talk on the public stuff until far, far later in the future.
[Nicole Morell]: I mean, if we want to just keep going and then we'll... Yeah, we could do that. We'll keep going and then we'll... I am curious, just so folks know, the draft we're working off was in large part drafted by Trees Medford, with some using a lot of the research or some of the research that was done by members of the Energy and Environment Committee. And it started in zoning in the 2019 council. I believe it is, it's largely still the same document at that point. So I think there will be times you'll notice me asking folks from Frees Medford what their intent was. And that's simply because were working off their wording. So I am curious if someone from Trees Medford, you know, with the definitions, is the intent there to redefine some of these positions or you all were just looking to add, you know, include definitions of terms that were gonna be referenced in this?
[Unidentified]: Going back to Sue and then Amanda.
[Sue Brown]: Yeah, thanks. Well, I don't think I appreciated that there was an existing ordinance in Arlington. We took a ordinance submitted in 2019 and worked off of that along with that research that you suggested. We also looked at what other cities and towns had created in drafting this ordinance. And I'll stop there because I'm sure Amanda has got some more to add.
[Nicole Morell]: Sorry, I have a dry cough. Amanda Bowen, if you could just provide your name and address for the record, please.
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, Amanda Bowen, 57 Madison street. I just, I wanted to say 1st of all about the public and private. 1 of our concerns as we were working on this was that. We were concerned that some of the basic. Public tree provisions in both maybe the existing ordinance, which I'm not sure we knew about at the time that existing city ordinance and certainly the state law. We weren't sure we're being applied all that. Well, and so we were trying to. Um, make sure that we kept kept, we really, um. Considered the, what was optimal and, um, and, but I, it did muddy the waters considerably to be overlapping with what the state law says. Um, and as well as, um, what, what turns out to be a city ordinance. So, um, I can see why there would be reason to, uh. to separate them out and work on each piece separately. I think there will be some, well, I won't go there now. But anyway, that is the background for what we were up to.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, thank you. So again, just trying to understand a tent a little bit around the definitions. So if I included the definition of a tree warden, per se, that was based on trying to define a term within this document and not necessarily trying to redefine what is already defined at the state level, because Dreadson, if you could correct me if I'm wrong, tree warden is a specific role that municipalities are required to have, correct? In Mass General Law 87, absolutely, it's in there. Okay, great. So just so I know, as we're, as we're working through, I don't want to, like, suggest we, you know, completely get rid of something if there was some intent there as far as transforming things, or if it's just duplicative of something that already exists within, or an instance of FGL. So I appreciate the clarification.
[Alicia Hunt]: If it's helpful that, if people wanted to, Mass General Laws Chapter 87 is shade trees, and it includes the definition and the powers of a tree warden. which honestly I would feel the need is my understanding that we can't make, we can't contradict state law, but like we could add additional duties to a tree warden. But if the state says that she has to water all the trees, we can't say that she doesn't have to, but we can say she also can water the plants, right? We can add duties.
[Nicole Morell]: to create some moving forward and Councilor Scarpelli is here. Okay.
[George Scarpelli]: Sorry, Madam President, I got caught up at work and so I had to jump on and zoom so please forgive me.
[Nicole Morell]: Of course I yeah I just wanted to give some background I gave as we start the meeting why we're meeting again. It's just I had talked with CPW Commissioner McIvern and he didn't feel comfortable giving us more edits to this document as we had requested until we get, you know, fold in some more of what the council actually wants because there's still a lot of questions in the air. So in the interest of there's been a lot of public comments and just to keep this moving because there's great interest in this, I wanted to just kind of work through line by line and see what stuff the council is open to changing, what stuff we absolutely want to keep and then give that document again to our partners at City Hall to get their feedback.
[George Scarpelli]: I really appreciate that and I, it does, it is a daunting task. So, I appreciate the momentum. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you. Okay, so we've gotten through one line. Moving forward so mature tree canopy. So this paragraph. is a little different, I would say, than some ordinances, is that it talks about the background information. So there's the intent and purpose, and this talks about a mature tree canopy, maintains the natural beauty of Medford for all to enjoy today and in the future generations, and protect the community in critically important ways. It reduces energy consumption and ambient summertime temperatures, air pollution, flooding, and soil erosion. It provides privacy, observes noise, and boosts mental health. It supports wildlife and increases resilience to climate change. Protecting the city's tree canopy is less an essential community function, and their protection requires the city to manage its urban forest. My only thought here would be to ask KP Law or council, should we ever get it, for an opinion on something like this, is if adding kind of this narrative, if someone were to challenge this, does this just give them something else to challenge? Like, does this strengthen the ordinance or does this give, can they come back and say that this just, you know, this isn't factual in it. So that would just be my one thought here. Councilor Tseng.
[Justin Tseng]: Similar question, the same question. Um, I know I've seen narratives like this and other ordinances in different cities, but I do worry that it's something that doesn't substantively that might not substantively add policy wise to the conversation yet is again something that we could. could invalidate other parts of the ordinance, which would be worse. I would motion to ask KP Law or council as to their thoughts on this section, this paragraph.
[Nicole Morell]: So I have a motion from Councilor Tseng to ask KP Law or other council for their comments on this section specifically, which adds a bit of a narrative to this ordinance. So on the motion of Councilor Tseng, seconded by
[Adam Hurtubise]: Seconds, apologize, my phone's acting up.
[Nicole Morell]: No worries, you're gonna be kind of on deck a lot.
[George Scarpelli]: Yeah, yeah, NAMIA.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, correct, Mr. Clerk. So the motion of council is saying, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Councilor Scarpelli?
[Justin Tseng]: Yes. Councilor Tseng? President Bears??
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. And then I gave the motion passes. So I'm just gonna make a note in this document as well. So that it's easy for,
[Unidentified]: to follow in the future. Oh, did you? Do you want to keep that motion Councilman about the separating?
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. Did you want to withdraw that or keep it?
[Justin Tseng]: Um, why I don't I don't think Councilor Sarpelli was here for the conversation. Why don't I withdraw it for now? And then we can come back. It's a big picture item. We could come back to it at the end. What do you think?
[Unidentified]: Sure. Sorry if anyone's getting seasick from
[Nicole Morell]: this document. To achieve this purpose, this ordinance establishes a tree committee and empowers the committee to promote the planting and protection of trees throughout the city. This ordinance outlines the procedures that the tree warden and building department's code enforcement officer will use to regulate the removal and replacement of trees in certain circumstances. This ordinance also establishes a tree fund to supplement the city budget for public tree maintenance, tree planting, stump removal, and tree planting site preparation, as well as a fund for city residents to petition to fund private tree maintenance. Do I have any comments on this? My one concern here is, I mean, I can say comments on this as we see how the tree committee functions in the rest of the document. I would just be really curious the thoughts from Director Hunt's department as far as establishing a separate committee to oversee and enforce. a lot of this I just I think there's an intent to use the bandwidth of a committee is my thought and she's meant for folks please jump in if I'm wrong. But I don't know if it adds a layer of bureaucracy where PDS is still having to manage or work through what what a tree committee is doing where it might be more effective to have no very clear ordinance and a very clear structure of enforcement.
[Justin Tseng]: I guess I would add on to that, does director hunt think that. there's another committee that would be appropriate for this or another enforcement structure that would be more appropriate in this situation. I know there are different committees and perhaps maybe if we gave it to the Environmental and Energy Committee, that might resolve some concerns about how we balance the development of the tree canopy with different energy concerns. But I don't know what Director Hunt's thoughts are and I would be curious to know.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. So I'm sort of refreshing myself. Pardon me, I have been looking at a number of different things recently on the role. I, in sort of a big picture way, feel like it's great for ordinances to regulate sort of what we can and can't do. But when we start to talk about how we do it, it really ties our hands on things that evolve over time, right? There is a state law that says we have to advertise things in newspapers of local circulation. Those don't exist so well right now, right? And so I don't like things that say this is exactly how it's going to get done. I like it when it says the DPW will ensure that this is followed and has these penalties if these bad things happen. When you say it's because they're going to issue permits online in two days, you have suddenly created a level of bureaucracy that isn't able to respond to changing situations. That's not your exact answer. But as I started to reread the definition of tree committee, having a tree committee is possibly not a bad idea, actually. So actually, Bob is here. He's the chair of the Energy and Environment Committee, and Gaston is the incoming chair of the Energy and Environment Committee. and they're actually here this evening, but that committee has really spent a lot of time and looks at heat pumps and solar and everything. And honestly, they've also spent a lot of time debating tree issues over the past couple of years as well. There's certainly not consensus. It's also a committee that's designed to be large in order to do things, work on projects and run things like the Energy Festival, as opposed to when you have a committee that has to make decisions, a board that has to make a decision on whether or not a tree should be saved, you want to have a number more like five to seven people because they can come to consensus, disagree, hear each other out in a timely manner. When you have a board with 12 to 14, it's hard. You can't even hear everybody out in a reasonable time, but you want a large board when it's, let's do projects and subgroups and stuff kind of groups. So they're sort of functioned differently. And it's unclear to me if the, so I see both that this is to be advisory and that's, so when we do boards and commissions and residents, advisory roles are great and outreach and education is great. Trees Medford has been serving a lot as a tree committee and they've been doing great work. I will also point out that because they are not an official body of the city, they have the ability to do levels of lobbying and advocacy and outreach that appointed, that people who are appointed by the city can't do, right? So you do have to sort of balance that. It is actually excellent that we have an active vocal advocacy group in the city working on these things. But the things they want to do around education and promoting equity and providing, creating manuals, those sorts of things, it does help for a group to say, I'm doing education on behalf of the city because I've been officially appointed to do that. It gives them a level of authority to go do those things. I'd feel that I'd want to go a little bit more line by line through it to see exactly what it should do. I have a nitpicky thing I would not address the issue of compensation in this we as an equity issue have been think that board boards and commissions should all be compensated for their time. And if we are silent on that during the creation of new boards and commissions and committees that allows us to address it as an issue holistically. throughout the whole ordinance city structure without having to find every little instance in our ordinances. So I would strike that line and not because I'm arguing tonight one way or the other, just don't address it here. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: A lot of what's here.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know that I really truly answered your question. I think having a tree committee is not a bad idea. I like having it separate from energy and environment. These guys are nodding. So I think that that that is pretty firm. And that they would have a separate role. I would be happy to hear from members of trees Medford how they're envisioning it if they were thinking because they've actually been going out and getting grants on behalf of the city. And there's also this thing where they're a separate body, and then they're a separate nonprofit, and that allows them to do things separately, and then we're their partner. And when you are a member of your body of the city, then that money has to come into a city account, it's under the city's nonprofits number, and it has to be guided by city procurement law. And so that's, it makes, it's more red tape. And sometimes it's highly appropriate, but it really takes down the nimbleness of their abilities.
[Nicole Morell]: I am curious in your experience, so this line, to achieve this purpose, the ordinance establishes a tree committee and empowers the committee to promote the planting and protection of trees throughout the city. That to me feels both too specific and too broad at the same time. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, moderator, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her, she-her.
[Alicia Hunt]: Page six of your document, the Medford Tree Committee will promote a diverse, healthy and sustainable urban forest that will provide for the health, general welfare and quality of life of Medford citizens and the beauty and quality of the environment. That's great. But again, that sounds like something an advocacy group could do. Why is this an official body other than that gives it that like these people are actually speaking on behalf of the city. That's important to remember when you're an appointed board member, you are speaking on behalf of the city if you're speaking on that area of expertise or that area that you're appointed to. And if I skip over appointments, the duties, they work with the tree warden on public tree hearings, including documentation of tree hearings. That sounds like it's giving her a little bit of staff support.
[MCM00000558_SPEAKER_00]: and visions.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I get nervous when it says ensures the city adheres to the provisions because ensures the city adheres makes it sound like a watchdog group, right? And that I'm not clear that that is an appropriate role for an appointed board.
[Nicole Morell]: And I haven't heard this about this committee, but I have in other companies we've been working to establish, I have a concern of folks saying language like that makes it seem like they can subpoena people or do things that it may seem like they have a legal power that it may not make sense to or wouldn't make sense to give them.
[Alicia Hunt]: I guess I would, that is the kind of thing. And it might be helpful for us to flag very specific questions for KP law. So I would actually flag that section and ask them, like, is this something we're seeing in municipal ordinances? Is this something that is concerning or if this actually means something that we're not understanding here. Because if this has actually been taken from other cities and towns, for example, well, how is that? Are we not understanding what the intent is? And I am a big fan of using extremely clear language so that it doesn't depend on the person who wrote something to interpret it later.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I'm having the same concerns.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't like interpreting other stuff.
[Justin Tseng]: We're in section six, number three, B. It might make more sense, given how you want to structure the meeting, just to do that when we get there.
[Nicole Morell]: I have written it. I know we're kind of bouncing around now.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I'll motion it when we come to it.
[Nicole Morell]: All right, let's go back up.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, so looking back, I mean... Right, I honestly, with the two intro paragraphs, I do feel like you kind of have to deal with the content and then come back and say, does the introduction now reflect the content we have landed on? Yeah, that's a good point.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, that's a great point. Perhaps it makes sense just to move on.
[Nicole Morell]: Let's keep cruising and then we'll come back. Okay, so now we're going into the definitions.
[Unidentified]: Let's see if we have a comment from KP Law here.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, this section in particular, this is what Attorney Stein said regarding the definitions. This section in particular will need to be reviewed, clarified, and revised after consideration of the general comments contained herein. Additionally, where terms are defined herein, I recommend that they be consistently used throughout. You may want to define public satire using the definition found in Chapter 87. So yeah, what jumps out to me here is, code enforcement officer as that's something that is definitely defined in our ordinances and zoning elsewhere.
[Alicia Hunt]: Then perhaps that one should say as defined in zoning. Sorry, I don't have our new zoning open.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I can also.
[Nicole Morell]: Can you find, I forget your computer, are you able to grab our zoning while you're? Yeah, I can look it up.
[Justin Tseng]: Do you have an idea of where?
[Nicole Morell]: I think in the definitions, I mean, I would just.
[Alicia Hunt]: There is a definition section that's only in the final version.
[Nicole Morell]: And then community forestry management plan, which is defined as a plan to identify the city's goals and priorities for managing its public trees, describe the current status of the city's urban forest resources and its management program, and to document the methods, resources, and personnel that will be used to achieve these goals in the next five years. Sue or Amanda, is that something that was, is that a definition at a larger, I see Amanda with your hand raised. Just yeah just seeking where this definition came from for the community forestry management plan.
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, I mean, it's obviously an aspirational thing and I can say that two grants that we're working on right now and a conversation I had with Commissioner McGivern, this is very much, well, it's a goal that's in the climate plan. And so it's just, it's something that doesn't exist, but we want it to happen.
[Nicole Morell]: And this is the title of these things that some grants are requiring?
[Amanda Bowen]: Um, there, yeah, there's a bunch of different language. That means more or less the same thing. Okay, management plan, that kind of thing.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, so based on your experience, this is something that's open to kind of our titling and.
[Amanda Bowen]: Well, in general, and I just want to say quickly about the definitions in general that there, you know, we tried to make this so that we defined everything that was in the document and as the document is taken apart, some of these things. We'll go elsewhere and probably should be made less specific. And just 1 further thought I was going to say what I've been part of a group, a larger tree group that's tree groups from all over the state and several people have mentioned that. It can be much easier to have a very general ordinance and then other ways of getting specific about the, as, as Alicia said, I think not wanting to put the specifics in a way that is more flexible and can be changed more easily. Yeah, so that's that's just a general comment about about what you might what we might end up with.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, great. Thank you. That's very helpful.
[Alicia Hunt]: Moving through, we do have a... What I believe is our most recent version of our zoning ordinance, and we do not define code enforcement officer. Okay.
[Nicole Morell]: But it would... Okay. It's just like one of those ones you can't shake. I appreciate that. Okay, so it feels like a larger question, because it feels like that, I mean, does that exist in our ordinances?
[Alicia Hunt]: I did not find it in our ordinances when I searched otherwise, and I believe that it is in our CAF structure. The other thing that I was going to flag when we get down there,
[Adam Hurtubise]: So actually enforcement.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, we do reference a code enforcement officer three times in our ordinances under peddlers, plastic bags, and university and college accountability, but it is not defined. So it feels that, in my opinion, we would actually make a recommendation to add it to the definition section of our ordinances rather than have it hidden. Because in the long run, five years from now, it'll be hidden in here as opposed to in a general section. We actually define a lot of, a lot is a strong word. We define several positions in the city under officers and employees. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It's 11 positions out of the 100 people who work here. Their positions are defined in our ordinance. There may be others further in. The other thing to flag is that that particular position is one that was part of the building department that joined the union. And so the ability to change the description is something that we should flag for actually labor council to look at and say, can we just do this?
[Justin Tseng]: Okay. Would it make sense for us to ask, for example, the rules and ordinance subcommittee to do that? Because it seems like it'll have to be something separate of the tree ordinance and something that's out of, it seems quite kind of out of the scope of this ordinance in particular.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, absolutely. I think I think we're not, we're trying to solve trees tonight. And with this, we're not trying to solve every thing that now naturally we seem to have stumbled upon that's missing throughout the document.
[Justin Tseng]: So yeah, I mean, if you have a motion relative to that, yeah, I would, I would motion to or can we send things to another subcommittee or can we? Oh, I think he's put on the agenda for the next general meeting.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. I think he has to go. I don't actually know, so I would be speculating here, but I think we go from subcommittee to committee to another subcommittee, but I don't know that for sure.
[Nicole Morell]: It might be easier if I just put on the... Yeah, I think a resolution also just relative to... There might be other positions that are not defined that are referenced in ordinances. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, I feel like you could just reference it in the ordinance without ever defining it. And that is the safest thing to do without getting into the weeds.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's that can of worms that opens up if now you're defining every position. That's again, that whole, how do you, do you actually care which position is enforcing it other than you're giving the authority to this person or, and in some places actually in our building department, section of the ordinances, it says the building commissioner or their designee. And that allows the building commissioner to designate people to enforce building standards. And so I'm wondering if this is, I'll have to think about it or talk to maybe our new building commissioner about how could we reference it to say we're empowering them to do these things and enforce people, but if he decides that this week it's Joe's job and in six months, it turns out, it should be Larry's job or Jane's job. It shouldn't be that he has to get the ordinance changed because that's how work things work better in his office.
[Justin Tseng]: Right. It sounds like it might make sense. for us just to move forward, to keep on every... Can I get a motion to strike this though? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Motion to strike.
[Nicole Morell]: Code enforcement officer definition.
[Justin Tseng]: From definitions, right? Great. Second.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Tseng to strike the code enforcement officer definition from this draft ordinance, seconded by councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. dying to make like an actual track chain.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I think it makes, I mean, I can still introduce a resolution during the general meeting, but I think it makes more sense for like rules and ordinances to take care of something like this.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, and I think, Director, and I think you make a very good point here, Mr. Clark.
[Justin Tseng]: This is a strike definition code of code enforcement officer definition.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[George Scarpelli]: Yes. Yes. Sorry.
[Justin Tseng]: Motion passes, strike that right and director hunt makes a great point that, you know, something like that might hamstring our ability.
[Nicole Morell]: Absolutely. And I think considering, you know, we're going through a number of staffing issues at City Hall to sort of think as their staffing shakeups that we wouldn't be able to enforce a much desired ordinance, because of how specifically it's written. That would be a shame. So I think we get to that later. Construction permit, there was concerns about this from Attorney Stein, which I would agree with that is, you know, I think this is referencing a building permit, which I would hope a building permit is probably defined somewhere.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'm looking.
[Unidentified]: So right, I would definitely, I believe they're referring to building permit.
[Alicia Hunt]: permit chapter night section 94 dash 61 of our ordinances. Is the section is entitled building permit. So any building. So an interesting thing so there's a section section 94 division two is permits. And then it starts with building permits and it says that building permits shall be issued only if it is in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. So, but I think that the goal here is not to define a building permit, but rather to say if a building permit is issued. Right, like I think the question here for me is how is this used later in the document. because building permits are defined in our ordinance.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Yeah. And I think I have similar questions about construction and demolition as they're defined. So maybe we should advance a little bit and come back.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, sorry, by the way, that was in zoning.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I should be looking at the other document, but they are defined.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay. Are there any concerns scrolling through the rest of the rest of the definitions?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Justin Tseng]: I believe a resident wrote in about the six inches for the protected trees. And they noted that in Austin, Newton and Somerville, they've adopted a diameter of eight inches, and it wasn't a hard ask, but they suggested that it might be in the interest of our city to reduce the workload of the forestry division by upping six to eight.
[Alicia Hunt]: In the definitions here, they're only just saying how you measure diameter of breast height and that four inches. So in this section, it's saying that you measured at four and a half feet from the existing grade, and that's an industry standard, what a diameter of breast height is.
[Justin Tseng]: I believe this is for protected tree.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, later, but it's not in the definition. Okay, where?
[Justin Tseng]: Oh, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, further down. Thank you. Okay, thank you. I did not get that far.
[Justin Tseng]: That might be a question more for BPW to get back on us. So I would motion to ask BPW whether they believe that we should up this to eight inches for functionality.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay.
[Justin Tseng]: Second.
[Nicole Morell]: On the motion of Councilor Tseng as seconded by Councilor Scarpelli and Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you're ready.
[George Scarpelli]: Justin, you're going to keep me busy tonight. I'm missing you too much. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Mr. Burke, please call the roll when you're ready.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Green in front of zero. And then I have a motion passes. I do see some hands up, I think are going up. They're going down. Okay. Oh, yeah, just going to mandible first and then we'll go to Brown.
[Amanda Bowen]: I just want to say about the inches that numerous towns around us, including Arlington, have just gone from eight down to six. And this is very much of a current number. And they're feeling strongly that protecting eight is not enough to keep useful trees. And so I just want to say six is a good number. Okay, thank you.
[Unidentified]: And going to Sue Brown. So are you there?
[Nicole Morell]: Maybe just a lingering hand up. Okay.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I mean, I'm personally not opposed to six. I believe that if we can protect more trees, the better. But, you know, we also have to consider what we can do and what we can enforce to make sure that by doing what we have the means of doing where we're not kind of overstretching the department and letting certain cases of trees kind of go under. Yeah, there was another note about both the definition for protected tree and significant tree. And this is something that perhaps Director Hunt can help us with. someone suggested that we exclude invasive and noxious species from the definitions of protected and significant trees. And the reason behind that was they believe that we should allow for those invasive and noxious species, those types of trees to be cut down and that we replace them with more native species or species that are better adapted for Medford. What would your thoughts be on that?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, actually, I saw that comment, and I actually agree with that, that there are trees that some people love them, but there are some that are growing like weeds, and you think it's a nice tree, and they actually are causing damage to the environment by pushing out beneficial trees. There is a formal list of Massachusetts invasive species, And my recommendation it's actually Massachusetts prohibited plant list that might don't remember one of the comments that we received. reference that and, in my opinion, we should read, we should reference the state prohibited plant list, because that is an evolving list that they manage and is not. something that we reference. I noticed that one of our local communities pointed to a file on their own server. And when I went to click on it, that file was no longer there. By referencing something specific, such as the Massachusetts prohibited plant list, it has a broader, there's more science behind it than anything we would ever do locally. And if it's prohibited by the state, then I don't think we should be protecting it.
[Justin Tseng]: So I would motion to add references to the Massachusetts prohibited plant list to the definitions for protected tree and significant tree.
[George Scarpelli]: I would second that.
[Alicia Hunt]: We may want to have a definition or somehow reference invasive plants and that they definition is to reference the Massachusetts prohibited plant list. And however, if somebody from Trees Medford has more information on that, I would welcome. It's not my area of expertise.
[Justin Tseng]: So to clarify, are you saying we should have a separate definition for invasive species and then reference invasive species in the definitions for significant and protected?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think that you might want to, and I have to look at where in the document this belongs, and it might be near the beginning, either in the introduction, probably under applicability and non-applicability, saying that this would, that all invasive trees, or all trees on the Massachusetts protected, or what is that, the list I just said, are exempt from this, and do not need a permit to be cut down.
[Justin Tseng]: I see. So instead of putting in definitions, put in applicability.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Because it's, we're not defining it.
[Nicole Morell]: Right. And that's where we're going to, that's the first section after.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, that'd be, I guess I'll withdraw my motion. We can tackle that in applicability.
[Alicia Hunt]: I guess you could say under protected trees, trees on the, Massachusetts prohibited plant list are excluded from this protection, or excluded from this definition.
[Justin Tseng]: Do you think there would be a better way between the two to go about it, between doing it in definitions and doing it in applicability?
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't like duplication, but I feel like it belongs in both places. Although, I think under applicability, what does this apply to?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, so I guess in the section.
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, I was just going to say about that that Norway maple, for example, is a is a is on the protect the prohibited plant list. And if we were to cut down every Norway maple in the city, the city would be have a lot fewer trees. And I, I just, I just question being. stringent about that because, in some cases, they can be maintained in ways that aren't too awful.
[Alicia Hunt]: They spread their seeds like crazy. I'm still pulling them out.
[Amanda Bowen]: I know, but if we cut down trees, practically no trees.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right.
[Amanda Bowen]: There's a lot of them, both city street trees and private trees, obviously.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, but to be clear, what we're not saying is that things here have to be cut down. They're just not protected and you're not penalized if you decide to cut down a tree that's invasive.
[Unidentified]: Right, which is what's currently happening.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[Unidentified]: Right, right.
[Alicia Hunt]: Before you scroll too fast, pruning, it's been raised, we should have a definition of what does pruning mean. Okay. I don't have a great suggestion. Bob might've had an idea on that one, but we need to know like at what point, because you can prune a tree to kill it. Right, right. And that sort of, so like what level of pruning is allowed? What level is pruning before you're destroying the tree and saying, oh. Right. I don't know if we want to just put there pruning needs a definition or, and then ask, for further input on that. Sure.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I assume Aggie would probably be able to give us a much better definition of pruning than we can make up ourselves. Right.
[Alicia Hunt]: And then the next one, public trees. Public trees are defined in the state law, but they are only defined as public. So public shade trees are defined and they're on public ways, shading streets. So actually adding public parks and public land to the definition of public trees is a very good idea. However, private ways are not public ways. They're not municipal roads, and we do not necessarily have authority over them. And they, in my opinion, should be regulated the same way as other private trees in this ordinance, but we should not define trees on private ways as public trees. Does that make sense? If a tree is on a private way, it is not a public tree. at this time, it's not a public shade tree. However, there's no reason why they should be exempt from the ordinance, just exempt from this definition.
[Justin Tseng]: So if we were to take it out of this definition, would we have to... I don't know where else, where this definition is used in the document. Public tree or... Right, so like...
[Alicia Hunt]: So trees on private ways belong to the people who own that street. So they are just as responsible for them as the ones in their lawn.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I guess, I mean, I think it totally makes sense to, it does make sense to strike it. I mean, especially to protect the rest of the definition if it's challenged, but poetry is referenced throughout the ordinance. And so I guess, how would we reconcile taking that, the private ways part out of this definition, but yet still have the ordinance covered?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think we have to watch for it as we go through. It's actually a very interesting question. I have a practical experience with that. I live on a private way in Medford, clear. And my neighbors were concerned about a tree that they felt was on public land leaning over the street. But there's actually this sliver parcel and nobody knows who owns the sliver parcel. But the street itself is not, they assumed it was part of the street, but the street is a private way. So it couldn't possibly belong to the city unless the city owns that tiny sliver and nothing else there. And so there was a whole debate with forestry came in and the tree warden like and they had to look at is this a public tree that they're responsible for pruning or is it the neighbors. So this is something that comes up and is actually a real problem, and I think some of the concern I feel the concern that we hear from the dpw Commissioner on this is that. we don't have other responsibility in the private way. And so to suddenly take responsibility for the trees when we don't have responsibility for the curbs or the pavement is odd.
[Nicole Morell]: Not to further complicate this, but so it is the same for private ways. There's the public safety aspect where private ways are plowed because it's a public safety issue, things like that. I also live in a private way. Yeah. After whatever recent storm, we had some big branches come down. We didn't call them, but DPW was out there, you know, taking care of the larger branches, making sure they didn't, you know, break off and hurt someone.
[Alicia Hunt]: And that's so that's the public safety piece of it. And it is my understanding that and obviously the DPW commissioner could correct me if I misunderstand this, but it's my understanding that if there's a public safety issue, they may deal with the situation on private property. If that tree was in the middle of somebody's lawn and its giant limb was hanging out over the park and was gonna fall on the park, the city could cut it off for public safety. If it was hanging only over their own lawn, nobody would touch it. But that's actually true. Most people don't realize that if a tree is on your neighbor's property, but its branches hang over your property, you have the rights over your property to take care of it and deal with it. You can have your neighbor arguments about it, but you have the ability to, if it's over your property, deal with it. So, so I would strike private way from the definition of public tree, and then we'll have to watch for it elsewhere in the definition.
[Nicole Morell]: So can I get a motion for that and also do we want to do a motion to add the word pruning and we'll get a definition for the tree word.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, so motion to strike the words private way from public tree, and to add a definition for pruning.
[George Scarpelli]: But if I can, Madam President, again, I think that without legal reference to this, like Ms. Hunt said, taking something out might be enhancing what our DPW has to do on both sides of the situation. So I'm still a little leery about striking private way.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, we could flag it for legal opinion or.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, yeah. So I guess, yeah, I'll motion to flag that flag private way for legal, for legal.
[George Scarpelli]: I would second that. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: And I do see Sue Brown also has her hand up for a comment on this.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I just wanted to say, yeah, I think I want to hear from Tresvant for both.
[Nicole Morell]: Go ahead, Sue.
[Sue Brown]: Thank you. I just want to point out that, what is it? I think a third of the city streets are private ways. Is that correct? It's an awfully high number.
[Nicole Morell]: Higher than a third, yeah.
[Sue Brown]: And the city invests in planting public trees on public ways. And so I would assume, I would think those are public trees.
[Alicia Hunt]: Not on private ways. So the city does not plant trees on private ways?
[Sue Brown]: It does plant trees on private ways.
[Unidentified]: In the last 10 years?
[Sue Brown]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Then we should refer it to Tim because he thinks that we would never do that right now.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think that's a really important question.
[Sue Brown]: And if it does not, then I would love to see this ordinance speak to that, given that so much of the city is considered a private way and that so many residents aren't eager to support growing a tree canopy by requesting trees to be planted.
[Nicole Morell]: I will note quickly that the ordinances and rules subcommittee meeting subcommittee subcommittee is meeting next Tuesday at 530 to have a general discussion around private ways and updating our ordinances are just seeing what kind of space we have in this because to your point to everyone's point. We tend to bump up against private ways and a lot of things we try to do and the understanding of it is, I would say, muddy at best. So there will be a meeting next Tuesday for those interested in the private ways conversation.
[Sue Brown]: Thank you. So I would say that I appreciate that the councilors are saying to keep that in for further discussion.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Tseng to add the word pruning to the definitions and seek a definition from the tree warden as well as get legal opinion on reference to private way within the public tree definition. Okay.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, motion to add definition for pruning. I know that's how I said it, but I would amend it to ask the tree warden for it.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I have to ask someone for the definition.
[Justin Tseng]: However you put it. You put it really well.
[Unidentified]: Is that private way for the tree warden?
[Nicole Morell]: No, sorry. Private way is for council. And the tree warden will aid us in the definition of pruning.
[George Scarpelli]: Second.
[Unidentified]: Definition for pruning as a result of the tree warden. Sure. Great. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay, moving through, if there's anything that turns out of folks.
[Nicole Morell]: And then I think to the point that there's some stuff that we referenced later in the document that we'll come back to, maybe come back to in a future meeting, because we are at page three at an hour and 15 minutes in. So cruising right along. But this is, I think this, this is why, you know, I called this meeting is I think there's a lot of work to be done and a lot of opinions on it for good reason. So applicability and not applicability. I do know we had at least one comment from someone about affordable, a reference to affordable housing as far as this applicability. So I'll read through. So any land disturbing activities that involve a building permit or city approval that would impact a healthy tree or trees under applicability. One within residential and non-residential lots is prohibited to remove a protected tree without a permit during construction or within 18 months prior to application for a demolition or building permit for construction activities within the drip line of a plug tree that may be damaging a tree, demolition of an existing structure of 250 gross square feet or greater, construction of any building or structure on a tree breaking lot, construction of one or more structures or additions to structures or construction of retaining walls. Any comments on that first section at this point? And again, knowing that we will be sending this back again to Director Hunt's department to finance and back to DPW for additional comments. Okay, moving to two. So any project otherwise for the construction of low and moderate income housing meeting the standards established pursuant to any city, state or federal housing program designed to assist low and moderate households. So this is saying that this specifically does apply, correct, to
[Unidentified]: low and moderate income housing. That's how I read it.
[Justin Tseng]: Okay, but there's a note that we that we should ask.
[Alicia Hunt]: So what what Attorney Stein is referring to is she asks about how this. So one thing that is, I think perhaps you should know is that it would be superseded by 40 B. But that 40 be is to build affordable housing and it supersedes all local regulations. And they are all combined into one permit with the zoning board so in theory. Anything. that address the construction of lower moderate income housing wouldn't necessarily be superseded by 40 be only when a developer is invoking I am using the 40 be permit process, which is a highly regulated process which I am intimately familiar with right now. So it wouldn't prevent all low and moderate income housing. And so that 40 I think the conflict with 40 be is a red herring and we don't need to worry about it because read because 40 be would supersede anything we passed. The other comments about the fact that applying it to the construction of low and moderate housing. So the way it's worded is very general right now any housing in the city of medford that's 10 units or more. has a requirement to include a certain percentage of the units as low or moderate income housing, or low income housing. What I think the, if I might say the intention here is that if it was a low or moderate income development, so if the housing authority was building public housing, or if a nonprofit housing developer was coming in and building housing, that they would be This is saying they would be automatically included. I don't know why that has to be called out, honestly, because in theory, they get the same permits as everybody else and they are regulated as well. And so I'm not sure why you would flag it saying that they are covered by it. But you can that you're just saying they're covered by everybody else. It's really expensive to build housing. It's hard to build affordable housing. It's hard to build low income housing because of the cost of construction. And so anything that adds to the cost can derail an affordable housing project. In theory, this could add to the cost. It might, if we were trying to do something that was more equitable, you might say that lower moderate income housing must do everything in its, you know, must make every reasonable effort to save protected trees. And maybe you would say that they can't cut down significant trees, even they can't. But it is a lot to burden affordable housing with this. And the ones, if the intent was to capture the 40B projects, That's too bad I don't think we have the authority to do that. And I think that's what Attorney Stein is referring to.
[Justin Tseng]: Um, thanks. Um, you you roughly so you said that all housing with more than 10 units have to build on low and moderate affordable housing rate. And so if we were to create some type of exemption, right, as a compromise, would we have to define what percentage of the units were lower affordable?
[Alicia Hunt]: I would strongly recommend it because also mixed housing can make it more affordable. So some strategies we've looked at is like, should we do a project that's 50% affordable housing because then the market rate units help subsidize the affordable units. You would absolutely want to use a number you would want to use a number like 50% or more. When you talk about 20 or 25% you're right there in that sweet spot of 40 be. And they're they're just going to use 40 being go around it anyhow, and if you use 10 or 15% those are standard. housing developments. That's what a for-profit developer builds 400 units, 15% of those have to be affordable by our inclusionary zoning.
[Justin Tseng]: I'm open to different opinions, but perhaps on this specific issue, this is something that your office might benefit all of us if your office took a look at it and proposed a number for us.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. If you want to refer this section 3, section 2 to my office, for a recommendation?
[Justin Tseng]: Right, right, yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: And then we can.
[Nicole Morell]: I do see, so we have Amanda Bowen from Trees Medford, and then I also want to go to Barry Ingram. I'm just going to go to Amanda first in case you'd like to add some just background on this specific provision.
[Amanda Bowen]: Yeah, the specific provision was there in a way to say that we want low income housing to have trees. And we did not want to exempt them because there are examples all over the Boston area of really serious disastrous tree removal in order to build affordable housing. And I know an argument can be made and Alicia's got some really good distinctions about how this would be handled in the whole designation of what housing is. But the reason this is here is because we felt it was important to have trees for people in low-income housing. And that's really the basis of it.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Amanda. Going to Barry Ingber. Barry, name and address for the record, please.
[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street in Medford. So I want to thank Ms. Bowen for the explanation of the reason for that provision being in here. But I think it's misguided. As a person who is a very strong advocate for trees and also a strong advocate for good affordable housing, I find it comes across as a gratuitous slap. It is the only specific type of development mentioned in this entire ordinance as having the tree ordinance applied to it. And I I'm very nervous about the tree ordinance being used as a tool to prevent the construction of sorely needed low and moderate income housing in the city of Medford. I would respectfully ask the committee to strike this provision as completely superfluous and unnecessary from the ordinance.
[Justin Tseng]: very cancer sites, um, I think, in order, I think this is why we have a department that tackles both development and environmental issues, because there's so many issues like this where there's so much overlap and. conflicting policy choices. I think both are very well-intentioned. Both choices in this case are very well-intentioned. I think we have to find a balance. And so I would motion to ask the OPDS for a recommendation when it comes to this section, this number two in applicability.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Tseng. On the motion of Councilor Tseng, as seconded by... Second. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Unidentified]: Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you're ready. Councilor Scarpelli.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, three in front of zero the negative motion passes. So moving through applicability. There's any other comments I mean I do see private ways reference but we have already made a motion as far as getting legal opinion with regards to folding that in here. And then also moving on to not applicability if there's any comments there.
[Justin Tseng]: We already had a discussion about the trees that are on the Massachusetts prohibited plant list. I think this is probably where we'd put it in. And so I would motion to add reference to the Massachusetts prohibited plant list in the non-applicability section.
[Unidentified]: On the motion of Councilor Sagan, seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you are ready.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yes, they're in front of zero and the negative motion passes forward to section for the tree warden.
[Nicole Morell]: My concerns with this section are, and this is a fairly substantial section, outlining additions to a role which is guided by state statute. My only thought here is, I wouldn't want to be gummed up by this section, trying to do the legwork of the other sections. Possibly the same for the code enforcement officer. this may be stuff that is better used to just get comments from those specific folks that already exist, you know, DPW. That's my thought here. I think just seeing that we have so much before us, these sections that work to further define existing positions, I just have concerns about because of just the sheer amount of work ahead of us.
[Justin Tseng]: would you be saying that it perhaps makes most sense to ask the relevant city departments for their opinions on these issues?
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, my thought would be, you know, in looking at what we delivered to them as, you know, an updated draft, in looking at them, do they see the need to, you know, add these specific details to these roles? Or do they think that as defined at the state level, these roles are able to meet the goals of this ordinance is my thought.
[Justin Tseng]: Okay. I think that's completely reasonable. Um, so I would, I would motion that I would motion to ask relative relevant city departments, whether we could tackle section five in this as well? Yeah, I think so. So I would motion to ask relevant city departments whether they think the additions in sections four and five are necessary, or whether they think that existing state law and this existing municipal law is sufficient to meet these goals.
[George Scarpelli]: I would agree.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Mr. O'Connor. And I think this also goes back to, it may go back to Director Hunt's point about being perhaps too prescriptive in an ordinance that can be challenging to actually accomplish what the ordinance seeks as things change.
[Unidentified]: Let me know when you're ready, Mr. Clerk. Yes. Next to the tree committee itself. Comments on the tree committee at this time.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think this is where you were going to ask in section three duties be to ask KP Law about the ensure the city adheres to provisions.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, yeah. I'll make that motion. So I would motion to ask KP Law Legal Counsel, whether section B in duties, I'm trying to find a good way to word this, to ask for comments about this point. and ask them if this is something we see in MUMIS board, which I believe was the president's question.
[George Scarpelli]: Was that a formal motion?
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, yeah. So motion to ask KB law or legal counsel for comments on section B, ensure the city adheres to the provisions of national law 87 and ask them if this is something that we saw that we see in municipal ordinance.
[George Scarpelli]: I regret to say that we're giving money to the KP law for these, something a city solicitor should be doing but I do, you know, in, in, in sake of process and movement, I would second that so we could take out I'd be happy to amend it to take out people.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, we can just say legal counsel, whoever that may be at the time, right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right, but however, he will advise at this point, right? But second, thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: I think it's seeking general comment, if this is something that other municipalities are defining this role as such.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Justin Tseng]: Much better at much better devising these than me.
[Alicia Hunt]: I want to make sort of a general comment on this section, and it may be that I need to follow up with legal counsel because it's something that has come up for some of these. committees, so we have the like I was saying before the kinds of committees that have hearings and make decisions and issue permits they do all their meetings and public meetings and everybody understands that. then other boards and commissions, every board and committee has to have, do the work in public meetings. They can't deliberate. And there's some question in my mind about how much can they do outside of public meetings? And therefore it bogs things down. When somebody says, you know, well, we want the energy committee to give a letter of support of this. Well, then you actually have to wait until the next regular meeting of the energy committee, which is monthly. before you can get a letter of support, although you could perhaps get a letter of support from the chair, which we have occasionally done when we know it's something that the committee itself obviously supports. But the idea that there's a lot of things here, and which of these things are we actually, by trying to put more people who are volunteers and who are not costing the city a lot of money, is actually bogging things down and I'm seeing things like reviewing management plans from utilities to promote appropriate pruning of public trees. Can they only do that once a month, right? And there are just a few others that I'm nervous about and I'd love to actually get It's been on my to-do list, but hasn't been urgent enough to get some legal advice on, like, I'd love to sit with the lawyer and say, what of these things can these members work on outside of a public meeting? Or do these things have to occur? And does that mean they don't occur until a public meeting occurs, as opposed to volunteers who can actually work on things as they choose to work on them?
[Nicole Morell]: As time permits. I wanna take this motion first, and then yeah, continue this conversation. Oh, sorry. No, that's okay. I didn't realize you didn't vote. We didn't right.
[Justin Tseng]: No, no, no, no, we haven't.
[Nicole Morell]: Sorry. Apologies. So on the motion of Councilor Tseng second accounts for Pelley and the score please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, they're in the front is there the negative motion passes Yeah, I mean, to your point, Dr. Hunt I've in past meetings. I've expressed my concern. just the sheer amount of what is included in the establishment of the Tree Committee and if it makes sense to separate it out. And I think we did make this motion to separate it out into its own establishing ordinance separate from the, separate from this ordinance itself. So maybe we move forward with that one question, understanding we voted in the past to separate this out and we'll revisit the Tree Committee at a future date. Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: I guess I'm concerned that if you take the tree committee as a whole out of this ordinance, then you're really taking out a lot of the meat of, I mean, I guess there's the whole permitting system is one thing.
[Nicole Morell]: I mean, my thought, and I absolutely see your point. My thought, and I think to your point, you're kind of, you may have circled around is, how much strength do we have in an ordinance that is largely enforced and empowered by a volunteer committee, right? Because I think we do have things like the Cannabis Advisory Committee, that's all city staff. We have things like the Behavioral Health Committee, that's also all city staff. So I think like this is an ordinance that covers the whole city, that covers a contentious issue. And my concern is just, you know, we're trying to do it in a way that is as cheap as possible. Let's be real. But also to your point before is like, are we then going to slow down the entire process?
[Unidentified]: So we'll save money, but we'll lose time. Right.
[Alicia Hunt]: And honestly the creation of a committee, maybe belongs in our ordinances under the section that is creations of boards and commissions, right and I think that was why we passed that motion in a prior meeting.
[Justin Tseng]: but it probably shouldn't even be in this ordinance. At least that was the council that we got back then. And so I don't think it's that we're necessarily opposed to the creation of a treat committee at all. I think we would support it. And I think the council seems to, I think there would be support for it on the council. And I think that people see its importance, especially for this ordinance. I think it'd be more of a side by side kind of effort. So not getting rid of it, but rather working kind of on it as a separate ordinance or separate amendment to an ordinance.
[Alicia Hunt]: So in other words, to sever it in order to create a separate ordinance under Chapter 2, Article 3 boards and committees to create this commission in that section of Medford's ordinances.
[Justin Tseng]: Precisely, yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: Because I mean, me personally, what I'm really interested in is hearing from code enforcement, hearing from Commissioner McIver and saying, here's what we have the bodies to enforce right now. If you pass this tomorrow and it goes into effect in 90 days, here's what we can do. And understanding that we may be able to do more and different and broader with the tree committee, but just getting a straight answer about what we can do with the city staff we have now. And then working on this supporting complimentary committee.
[Alicia Hunt]: And actually, as I read through this, the tree committee supports the tree warden helps the tree warden does education. In my opinion, pass an ordinance creating the tree committee next week. And it would take some staff time to fit to put a post an announcement and vet resumes and make appointments. But it would not be an ongoing burden on the administration. It would just now be another committee that somebody has to work with to help get things done. Some committees take up a lot of staff time and others don't take up any. They're very independent. This could be, like Therese Medford is very independent and gets a lot done. Whereas other pieces of this ordinance are very time-consuming for staff.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, and we could decide at the end of this meeting or at a future meeting, as we're waiting for comments back on the substantive ordinance itself, do we want to meet and talk about the establishment of a tree committee while we wait for the more comments on the broader ordinance? So just throwing that out there.
[Justin Tseng]: Right. And I think that makes sense. I think, would we need a motion for that? Or maybe we could just schedule it.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think you had motion to take this out of this draft and sever it as a separate draft. We did.
[Nicole Morell]: So would that be assigned a paper number? If we already made that motion, would it just get like a B on it or an A? I can go get my 1,000 page Roberts rules. Yeah, I have a copy of Roberts rules at my desk. I think we're deep enough in the. Yeah. Okay. So I think just noting that, yeah, I'll explore.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: I'll explore how to figure that out.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah. We'll have another meeting on this anyways. We've already passed the motion to separate.
[Nicole Morell]: So we're by the letter of the.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah.
[Justin Tseng]: I just wanted to know two things that we, so I, We don't have to do anything on it right now, but I just wanted to note that we wanted to look at the purpose section of this, and I think we can do that at a later meeting if we tackle this specifically. And then this is something that might be, it might be helpful for Director Hunt to give us an answer now, I think might be simplest. Essentially, one of the residents who wrote in wondered if One, Director Hunt, this is actually a question that you might be able to help us answer. One of the residents who wrote in to us wondered if the arborist, kind of the arborist sentence in there, under appointments 2A, whether that was too narrow in that, too narrow a credential and whether it would be better for us to broaden that and ask for someone with training in forestry, natural resource development or ecology. And I was wondering if you had an experience with whether that line about having at least one member of the committee holding a license as a Massachusetts certified arborist or international certified arborist, whether that was too narrow. It's 2A and 6.
[Alicia Hunt]: I will have to admit that I am not familiar with those specific licenses. And I know that the state law has this It just, they do have, so the state has a way of licensing them. There was some question, I think, right, about whether it should be a broader, I don't know enough about what they all cover. And I think that the intention was to make sure that you had somebody with a certain, that at least somebody on the committee had a certain amount of expertise. And that's one thing that we do sometimes for committees would be to say, we recommend that one or more members have expertise in these areas. When you require that they must, then you run the risk of holding a position open because you don't have anybody with that certification willing to serve in the volunteer capacity. So at least putting in some language around at least one member should, you know, like there should be an effort such that at least one member has this, but not, you don't want the position to hold open for two years when you could have had somebody with a forestry degree or, right?
[Justin Tseng]: Right. Would you be comfortable if we motioned to ask your office for a recommendation on that?
[Alicia Hunt]: Honestly, I think that we ought to ask Aggie for a recommendation because she's much more familiar with the different certifications. We'd have to go do research and find out what these things mean.
[Justin Tseng]: I see. OK. So then, OK, that totally makes sense. Then I would motion to ask the tree warden whether she thinks that the arborist's requirement in 2A of section 6 is too limited or too narrow. a requirement.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I would second that.
[Nicole Morell]: I also think I do see Barry Ingber, his hand up.
[Unidentified]: I do. Go ahead, Barry.
[Barry Ingber]: Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street, Medford. Um, I was the person who submitted that comment. Those are not certifications, but, but they are advanced, they are college advanced, they are graduate degrees and college degrees. A person with expertise in forestry would be someone who understood trees and understood management of the forest. They wouldn't necessarily be someone who knew how to prune a tree. Similarly, for natural resources management or ecology, they would be people who understood the role of trees in the overall environment. who could identify the role of a tree in the environment, could certainly distinguish a significant tree from a pest tree. But those are not licenses. Those are academic degrees.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Barry. Um, so on the motion of Councilor Tseng to get the true words of pain on this second by a second. Great. Thank you. Uh, call the role. Mr. Burke.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes, three in the front of zero passes. Checking right along. How's everyone doing?
[Unidentified]: Okay. Okay, so we're going back.
[Nicole Morell]: So we already discussed the public trees earlier in the document.
[Justin Tseng]: There was one note I had for the trees. And this is actually, it came to my mind because of a conversation that we had with Director Hunt on, I think it was the climate plan. There's a sentence in there that says replacement of trees should be made with native trees and within the year whenever possible. I would like your opinion, Director Hunt, on the native trees part, because you said in order to prepare for climate change, we might actually be we might actually want to plant some trees that are from some more temperate zones. And so maybe this native line, while I think we all agree that native trees are super important, maybe hamstrings us a little bit in terms of what we're planting.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Councilor. And actually, yes. That is a concern and it's something that we've been looking at and our tree wardens been looking at is what are the appropriate trees to be planting given the rainfall and the temperatures of the Medford climate and to be keeping an eye on this. One suggestion, so we are attempting to move forward on some grant opportunities to get a forestry master plan. So we've applied for a grant that would set us up to apply for another grant that would get us the funding we would actually need to do a forestry master plan because it would be a significant undertaking. But I say that because in theory, what would be best would be to say replacement trees should be made based on the recommendation of the forestry master plan when available, and then maybe something in lieu of the, you know, if one is not available, then a, with attention to appropriateness to location and climate. Because if you're paying attention to location and climate, I mean, part of it is that you would not plant invasives, right? I don't think we need to say the city should not plant trees that are, on the prohibited list, right? But there is that middle ground of things that are not invasive, they're not prohibited, but they're not from around here. Once we have a forestry master plan, this is easy because that will take into account, what do we have? What is our tree distribution? What are the different types? What are the conditions? Aggie likes to frequently say, right tree, right place. And that's something that Medford does not have a history of doing. That's why we have trees growing up into our power lines. You don't have to plant tall trees under power lines. But yeah, I guess I would be careful about the use of word native, but I think that you might say should be made with native trees when appropriate, you know, stuff like that, right? If you couch them a little bit to say, well, it's not always appropriate.
[Justin Tseng]: So I guess you've proposed two different ways to say it. I think, for me personally, both sound good. They both, I think, reinforce this idea that we should be paying attention to what trees we're planting here and recommending that we're planting native trees when appropriate, as you said. But would it make sense for you to take some time for your office to take some time to think about how you wanna word it or?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I think, and I would work with Aggie, I think that we might just rearrange it a little bit and have like the line about the community forestry master plan first, and then something that says if that is not available or not current, then care should be taken to use native trees or trees appropriate to the Medford climate.
[Justin Tseng]: Okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Justin Tseng]: Yes. Yeah. So, um, I would move a motion to ask the, um, office for planning and sustainable development, um, and wrong word of words, opposite planning and, um, OBDS and, um, the tree warden for, um, um, appropriate language in the section.
[Alicia Hunt]: So one of the things that I notice is that it says that trees should be planted in replacement. If I could speak for DPW, we take down trees when there's something dangerous. Great, they should be replaced. The other time I have seen it in recent memory where I was like, but that's a healthy street tree involved rebuilding the street and there was not room to put an ADA sidewalk and the tree and either the sidewalk was gonna meet ADA and be wide enough for people in wheelchairs and baby strollers, or it was not, and therefore they had to take the tree out. So there are situations, given the way our streets have developed, that replacing the trees is inappropriate. And we then try to plug a tree somewhere else, or we say to the resident who lives abutting that, can we put a tree in your yard? Sometimes they say no. So I think that we should be careful that we don't put ourselves in places where the city becomes in violation of its own ordinance in order to stay in compliance with state or federal ordinance laws.
[Nicole Morell]: I think to that point is where your recommended language would be really helpful here.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So we're not- Let me make a note about that one.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Tseng as seconded by councilor Scarpelli, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Negative motion passes. I mean, here's where I think there's a lot of decisions that this section, I think we've gotten some great comments from folks that are here as well here. I'm a little nervous to make suggestions until we get comments from the departments that would actually be enforcing this, because I think we could make some beautiful suggestions and they wouldn't be possible to be enforced, is my thought here. So along with mitigation, scope, procedures, you know, do we have the people that can address the scope? Is this mitigation something we can follow up on? Are there opinions? Bob, do you wanna speak? Name and address for the record, please.
[Robert Paine]: Robert Payne, 15 West Street. Even though I'm a member of the Energy and Environment Committee, these are my private comments. I sent you comments about two areas of the draft ordinance that don't seem to be mentioned. One is how to deal with emergencies when you have to, could the tree warden be everywhere 24-7? I doubt. If you have to remove a tree, can't get a permit for you can get a permit other other cities have provisions for having a permit done after the fact. So I think it should be a section added to spell out how we're just easier to help. The other thing is I look at a lot of Boston Somerville Cambridge Newton. They all have waivers for for example Waivers for payment for older occupants of a lot containing one, two, or three family dwellings who reside at the same property as demonstrated by the issuance and they have a residential exemption. So this ordinance does not address that issue that seems to be in many other cities. Should there be a waiver applied for that type, you know, that type of residence.
[Nicole Morell]: So I just want to make sure I understand that once we're talking about like, there may be like a two family on a lot and they're worth asking. So like two different residents like dwelling units aren't paying for the same tree removal.
[Robert Paine]: Is that what I'm just not, I would just direct you to those citations that I sent. It's basically if you're a homeowner and you live at the property, let's say you just have one family, it's for simplicity. Many other ordinances allow for either a deep discount or no payment required to remove a tree. That should at least be considered because it's not mentioned at all, but it seems to be in every other City Ordinance that I've looked at so far, and I have looked at a vast, a whole lot of them. I've looked at Somerville, Cambridge, Boston, and Newton, and those are progressive communities.
[Nicole Morell]: So just to make sure I understand, the thought is that it's essentially an owner-occupied exemption. And the thought is that if someone lives on this property, they would have a very legitimate reason for wanting to remove this tree. Is that what the thinking? I'm just trying to follow the thinking.
[Robert Paine]: Other ordinances give you a waiver for having to pay
[Nicole Morell]: So you would still have to get the permit, but you wouldn't have to pay.
[Robert Paine]: You have to get a permit, but you don't have to pay the fee for having to remove it.
[Nicole Morell]: I understand.
[Robert Paine]: Definitely. I think there are restrictions. For example, I've seen examples where somebody has bought a house, there were a lot of trees, and they cut them all down immediately. There should be some 18 months of waiting period to discourage that. And a lot of these city ordinances have waiting periods, or even after you sell it, if you get this waiver, but then you cut down the fees, but you sell it immediately and you leave, well, you, I don't know how you're gonna track this down, but you have to basically say, you have to pay up, but you have to track them down. I don't know how this is gonna work, but there are examples of these types of waivers that I think, and there's also, for people who just can't pay, if you have a hardship case. I think it's something that should be looked into as other city ordinances do this, and it's pretty uniform, in my opinion.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think that's an excellent point. And I think I appreciate all your comments. They were well thought out. And obviously, you know, we talked about, I'd be curious if, you know, there'd be a motion to add the comments that have been submitted, because we have yours as well, Gaston, to add them to the committee report so that we can then share the committee report with the departments to get their feedback on these comments. Because these are very thoughtful comments.
[Justin Tseng]: I think you're reading my mind.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, I'll make sure I get you. Yes.
[Robert Paine]: Certainly, we wouldn't want to have we wouldn't want it to be abused. So we have to be careful about waivers and exemptions to waivers waivers that should not be granted. But there there are lots of examples where this is a big deal.
[Nicole Morell]: Right, I think that's that's a really good point. I think you're bringing up kind of just like a blind spot that might exist, right?
[Justin Tseng]: I wonder if we would also have to send this to legal counsel to review in terms of wording in terms of because we would have to essentially create a section on scratch.
[Nicole Morell]: Kind of yeah, yeah. I think maybe once we get the yeah, we can get the opinions and then yeah, we can work in our in our future meeting. We can bring some. Draft language.
[Justin Tseng]: Cool, so I'll keep it to the city departments first.
[Nicole Morell]: That's my thought at this point, just because we have a lot.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, that makes sense. So I'll motion to attach the common sense and by residents to the committee report and to ask for relevant city departments to provide feedback.
[Unidentified]: Second. Thank you Bob.
[Nicole Morell]: The motion of Councilor Tseng, a second my Councilor Scarpelli, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Really frozen and I get motion passes. If you're ready.
[Gaston Fiore]: Sorry, Gaston Fiore, 61 Stingney Road. I'm also a member of the MEPFOR Energy and Environment Committee and the MEPFOR Bicycle Advisory Commission, but I'm here speaking just for myself and my opinions will not represent that of any other members or any of the committees or commissions. I mentioned this at a previous meeting. So I also strongly believe that there should be an exemption for people who own and live in their houses as their primary residencies. I think the ordinance should target developers. So I believe Bob mentioned this, but the city of Boston and the city of Somerville have waivers for this. and I think what he was referring to was um so I think it's in both cases.
[Nicole Morell]: Just for clarity, waiver for costs or waiver for just applicability?
[Gaston Fiore]: Waiver for for the replanting and the removal tax and um I also provided links to the audience as this should go and be checked with their official documents but I wrote it down here so uh Boston and Somerville is the same thing so it only applies to owner occupants of a lot containing a one, two or three family dwelling. So there has to be, that is checked obviously, because they have a residential tax exemption, those cities, so they do it through the assessor's office. They do have the 18 consecutive months that the owner occupant has to live there exactly to avoid the situation where someone could come in, claim that they live there and that's their primary residence, cut trees and then they leave. So I think it's something that needs to be looked carefully, because if I remember correctly, on one of the audiences, then let's say that someone comes, claims they live there, by some reason they get approved for a waiver, they cut some trees and then they leave and then they sell the house. The new person that buys a house could be responsible for, because now the waiver doesn't apply anymore, so it might have to pay penalties and the three mobile tax as well. So it has to be handled very, very carefully to make sure that someone that shouldn't be penalized isn't penalized. Now I have an example that I think shows one of the problems with not having any sort of exemption. So the city of Cambridge actually doesn't exempt you fully. So it makes you pay 10%. So here's like a quick example with numbers. So let's say like we try to remove a 32-inch tree and we plant zero replacement trees. So in Cambridge's example, then the mitigation payment for the developer, for example, it would be $40,800 for a 32-inch tree. Whereas for a regular resident that would pay only 10%, it's $4,080. So the developer in Cambridge would pay $40,800 versus $4,080 for the regular resident. In our case, with the proposed tree ordinance, according to the version that I read at least, which is the one from March, I believe, mitigation payment will be 32 inches and $300 per inch. So $9,600 both for developer and the resident. So the developer went from paying almost $41,000 in Cambridge's case to about $10,000 in our case. And the resident, the regular resident went from paying $4,000 to almost $10,000 in our case. So I see that this is having kind of like a the wrong sort of incentive so it's our audience it's penalizing more the regular resident and it's penalizing a lot less the developer so this is unfair because like a resident that owns a property lives there as a primary residence is invested in that and you know we might not agree on why they decide to cut the tree uh but uh but it's not the same motivation as a developer that's just trying to get you know trying to make a profit so um So that's on one side. So I also think that since in the Metfors case just the fee would be only $10,000 versus $41,000, the developer might be able to just pass it. So buys a house, flips it over, sells it back, might be able to pass that $10,000 on to the home buyer, like exacerbating the housing affordability problem crisis. Whereas in Cambridge's case, $41,000 is a substantial number that might not be able to pass, to be passed to the potential buyer. So they might decide to actually not cut any trees. And then the last point that I want to make is, so on the last committee of the whole meeting, there was a resident for rented that was mentioning that for renters, this is particularly bad because they don't own the property that you might get cut, they get cut from the public trees as well. So by not having an exemption for people that own the property and have it as a primary residence, then we are... So in Cambridge's case, the landlord is the developer, so they can't get the 10%. So if they wanted to remove this tree from the property that they're renting out, then they would have to pay $41,000. which it's an exorbitant amount and might decide against it, whereas in Medford case, the landlord, which has paid $10,000, which is also a huge amount, but they have less of an incentive to basically cut any tree. So I think we should strongly consider this. One, because I personally consider it's a fair thing to do based on the investment that people have in their own property where they live, and second, We should try to think what we are incentivizing or we trying to penalize and who we are not. That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, I think you bring up excellent points and I'd be really curious for, you know, especially planning development and sustainability where, you know, the competing goals of development and sustainability, which they weren't competing but often they are so I, you know, getting that feedback will be essential.
[George Scarpelli]: Madam President, Madam President.
[Nicole Morell]: How's the Scarpelli?
[George Scarpelli]: Thank you for those comments. And you could see the discrepancies, especially when it comes to residential. But I think we have to take a second and understand what we're trying to do here in Method that's so different. And Cambridge right now, Cambridge is virtually landlocked when you're talking about pig development. We're in the process is really to look at redeveloping some big areas and putting some, you know, this type of, policy in place could be, you know, detrimental in the fact that what we want to see in when we do when we do ask for. a big development project that's needed. So, I mean, it's twofold, I think. So, it's interesting. It's very, you brought up, the Citroen brought up some great points, but it's also, when we use Cambridge's examples in some instances, it's not apples to apples. So, it's just, it's a very slippery slope at times. So, we just gotta be careful for that.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate that Medford has had a history of saying, well, we can't disincentivize development at all because then nobody will build here. They will leapfrog over us and go further out. And that is actually something that has been a concern. Over the past two and a half years, we've seen significantly increased development pressures where developers wanna build here. But we're seeing two kinds and I'd wanna look at things. closely enough, if you're developing a life science building, this is like a $20 million project, $50 million project, $100 million, right? You're talking in the millions, and that $40,000 tree isn't gonna stop you, but it might make you think a couple of times about, eh, can we work around it? I'm also reviewing in my head, where are our large properties and our industrial properties where we're seeing the big developers? And most of those are parking lots. And the developers are not cutting trees. For the most part, they're adding them. The places that we're seeing the trees cut are the small developers who are building clear cutting a lot and putting a single family house on it or two or three units or four units. And it's actually those are the ones that we're really concerned about. That's where the trees are. It's those smaller developments for whom a $40,000 tree is a big deal. And we also, I feel it's really hard for me to just say off the cuff, we don't need those as much. We do, we need the small developers. But we also need them to respect our trees and like there's a balance there. There was a lot of upset when a developer came in and clear cut all the trees up in the Macklin Road area before he built his houses. In theory, it's cheaper and it's easier to build a house if you cut all the trees down off the property first and then you build. But you can actually protect the trees, leave some of the trees and still build your house on the property. It's just, it's a little bit more work, it's a little bit more effort. And then it's up to the developer to decide, is it $40,000 worth of effort. Yeah, maybe you know you can, and maybe it's not, you know, and then you can pay into our fund and we'll plant more trees somewhere else. I guess I guess I'm saying I'm not I really I think that guest on is a good point with this one that it's not going to stop a major developer. We don't have a wooded lot covered with with mature trees that they're going to clear cut to put in a beautiful building. We have small tiny lots covered in mature trees in between our other houses. I actually we just We are unable to stop, they're splitting a lot into two up in North Medford, and because when it's split into two, they can build two houses, they will need to cut all the trees on that lot in order to build the second house, and there's absolutely nothing that we can do against it. They can do it completely as of right, and the staff in my office look at that and go, we wish we could stop them, but we can't. So this would allow us to at least put a little paint on that, maybe make it not as cost effective.
[Nicole Morell]: And I think having that specific insight is really what we're seeking. So it's your professional opinion as far as an action, but also these are stories we may not necessarily hear. So it's really valuable to us.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I'm trying to think through some of the larger developments in front of us and whether there've been any trees on the properties at all that they're cutting. in order to build them. Right. And really, maybe one or two here or there, not certainly a group of something nice.
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you, Director Hunt. So I think at this point, we've essentially, you know, the remainder of the ordinance, we've, you know, we're continuing to put out for comment, just, you know, asking for comments on all of it, because it is so specific, the remainder of the ordinance, so.
[Alicia Hunt]: I have one other, comment that occurred to me, sort of as a big picture thing as I was sort of reading through and listening to the different things. In the vein of being overly prescriptive that's making it harder to then implement, I might suggest that we look at rather than saying these permits would be filed with the tree warden and these with code enforcement, I'm not clear why they would go to tree warden. We actually have an online permitting system used by the building department that it seems to me would be very easy to add an option in that now you're applying for a tree permit to remove a tree. And those are date stamped automatically. Reports could be written to get reports out of them that like list all the tree applications that have come in in a window. We don't have those sorts of reports right now, but it's a database, we can. So I might suggest that we reconsider stating that the permits will be applied to, will be sent to the tree warden and that that person will review them and that they have to decide and rather say that permits will be applied for with the city and the city has so long to apply and to review them. And that puts some additional flexibility in I think that we should consider that those should, why do construction ones go through building and separate others go through the tree warden? The building department has the economies of scale of their department. Maybe they'll need another person, I don't know. But they already accept permits regularly, issue permits, review permits. with some language that they should consult with the tree warden. Like, how do they decide when to give the permit and when not to? I was sort of digging into that a little bit. And maybe they go to the tree warden as an advisor. on them or four very significant ones.
[Nicole Morell]: Do you have in front of you what section that's referenced?
[Alicia Hunt]: I was looking at five, let's just see, under protected and significant trees. Then there was three procedures, that's right. There it goes to the tree warden, but four goes to the code enforcement. Okay, five was non-construction, went to tree warden.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: So I think that if one was to generalize the language a little bit more.
[Nicole Morell]: To be the city as opposed to the specific.
[Alicia Hunt]: The city's receiving them, the city has this line to act. That also allows for the staffing where the staffing exists and to move things around a little bit. Because I think there was a little bit of heads exploding over like, how many more staff would you need in DPW? And DPW doesn't issue permits, but that's where the tree warden works.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, and if it's possible to do it with our existing staffing, I think that's the goal. Right. Yeah.
[Justin Tseng]: I think this is the type of thing that our last motion covers, just general feedback about this whole section. Yeah.
[Unidentified]: I'll note to myself just for... Yeah. So any further public comments?
[Nicole Morell]: Comments from the public, rather?
[Gaston Fiore]: Question 361, stick me around again. Yeah, so sorry, I didn't mention it before because I thought we were still going to cover the section. So this is about section 10, penalties and enforcement, and specifically section 3 penalties. So this is 10.3 and 10.4 D. So yeah, I went through this section and I don't know how to describe, but I have an example about this. So penalties. So in the case of the proposed METFOR3 ordinance, so the penalty would apply until remediation is approved and acted upon. So which means that the person would get to, would have to apply for a permit and the permit would have to be issued, which also includes the penalty of the removal tax. So according to the proposed gerunds, it might take up to 20 business days for a tree removal permit to get issued. So the penalty, it says it should be no less than $500 a day. And let's consider back the 32 inch diameter tree example that I gave. So okay, so penalty of no less than $500 a day. Now, however, Significant Tree, it is stated that the removal of Significant Tree requires an additional penalty of $250 per every inch of DBH per day. So $250 per inch of diameter per day. So if we do the calculation, this will give us a penalty of $500 plus $250 times 32 inches, which amounts to $8,500 per day times 28 days that it might take for the permit to be issued. That amounts to $238,000, $238,000 of penalty.
[SPEAKER_10]: So we should add, that's not it.
[Gaston Fiore]: We should add, it costs $50 to apply for the permit. And remember that we still need to add the removal tax.
[Nicole Morell]: So with the example again, there's- And I will just say what I believe Bob submitted. He didn't do the math, but he did submit, I think it was you or Barry. Someone submitted a similar comment of just the unending, maybe it was Barry. So we still need to- Unending, yes.
[Gaston Fiore]: We still need to add the $9,600 for the removal tax. So the total amount to pay will be $238,000 of penalty plus $1,600 of tax plus $50 of application fee, which amounts to a grand total of $247,650. So $247,650. So I have to ask the question.
[SPEAKER_10]: Like, has anyone thought about the extreme distress, the dire consequences that a bill of $247,650 can cost on a Medford family? This is a Medford family, this is not a developer, because remember, there's no exemption, there's no waiver for, you know, regular owner occupants.
[Gaston Fiore]: So imagine that, you know, someone goes, cuts the tree, didn't know about this, and particularly at the beginning of the audience,
[SPEAKER_10]: And then, you know, apply for the permit, have to wait 28 days. They will get a bill of $247,650. I mean, it could ruin a family. This could literally ruin a family.
[Nicole Morell]: I don't think, I mean, I don't think that's the intention. And I think there's also limits that we run into as well, as far as- Well, there's no limit there.
[Gaston Fiore]: So that's why this section about-
[Nicole Morell]: This is very much a draft and this is like the first time we've ever gotten to like the last page of this ordinance while looking at it specifically. And I'm not trying to dismiss your comments. You're absolutely right. I don't think it's anyone's intention on this call to charge a mentor family $250,000 to remove a tree.
[Gaston Fiore]: Sure. Yes. This is what has been written though. So it just makes me question. I mean, I just, I don't know. I yeah, this is just, I mean, maybe the developer got a bill like this. Maybe I don't know, but if a regular Metro family gets a bill of $250,000, I think we can all agree that I mean, yeah, there are stipulations.
[Nicole Morell]: I don't know if it applies exactly here. Not legal counsel, but that we've run into in other ordinances where under Massachusetts General Law, you can only charge a certain amount.
[Gaston Fiore]: Yeah so I have so just to conclude um I have the I looked this up so Cambridge the fine is of no more than $300 per day. I couldn't figure out when it stops. I think you get issued the stop work order and it actually you don't have to pay anything but I couldn't verify so it's $300 per day and I don't know when it ends. So Boston, it's only $100, so not $100 per day, it's only $100 if the property owner applies for a tree permit within 30 days of the removal. So if you just apply within 30 days, you just pay $100. In the city of Somerville, it seems that no penalty applies for the property owner if the tree permit gets applied within $30 of the tree removal, again. So just to compare, we would have, if Medford's family would have to pay $250,000, In the other cities, it would be 100, 300. So this needs to be looked up.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I mean, as you said, this is... Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, I'm sure we're gonna say the same thing. It's just, I think it's just, it's the first time we've gotten to this stage and I'm sure it's oversight that It's a good thing that we've caught now. I think, I'm not sure who we should go to to revise this section though. Does the president have a suggestion?
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, it may be, I mean, it may just be up for, I know, cause it's like, I don't want to leave it in there to alarm people, but at the same time, I know some of my other Councilors are just better at, they're more experienced in suggesting like the kind of structure of, you know, penalties kind of thing. So I mean if we do nothing tonight it doesn't, you know, nothing's fine.
[Justin Tseng]: As long as he gets a dress because it's just not acceptable. There is actually a second, I think, There's a problem here, which is related to that one when you were doing the math. I actually had done it slightly differently and I think that's because the penalty section. So there, it seems like. There's a penalty section that's 0.3, right, 10.3. And then there's another penalty section, 10.4. For significant trees, correct. And so my question is, does this penalty section in 10.3 also apply to significant trees, or is it just the affected trees? Yeah, so are there two different systems of penalties for protected trees and significant trees? Correct. Or is it that you have this first layer of penalties and then the second layer of penalties for significant trees?
[Nicole Morell]: Right.
[Gaston Fiore]: I thought that it applied because it says, so my case was the example was for a 32 inch tree, which is a significant tree because it's greater than 30 inches. So, and according to the text, it says the remote significant trees requires an additional penalty of $250 per every inch per day. So that's why I did the $500 a day. And then to that, I added 250 times 32 per day as well. So if it was, if it was a tree of less than 30 inches, I think it would just be 500 times 28. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess actually I missed that word. So it's still 500 times 28 compared to a hundred dollars. Right. Not per day.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Gaston Fiore]: It's, it's, it's, I mean, it's out of this world. Yeah.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. I think this is just a decision that council would have to make. Like, you know, we could ask opinion from finance. You could ask, I think this is literally just a policy decision we have to make.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah. I think it would come back to us.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Any other members going to Amanda Bowen with Trees Medford?
[Amanda Bowen]: Just one quick thing, which is that if you apply for a permit, you don't pay penalties. You just pay if it's agreed that you can cut the tree down. So if you apply for a permit, none of the penalties apply. The penalties apply if you don't apply for a permit.
[Nicole Morell]: Okay, so it may need to be, you know, very little, very, very explicit.
[Justin Tseng]: Yeah, I think it might have to be very explicit. I mean, I think the way I think, obviously, we want to disincentivize slash, I, there have to be consequences for not applying for, for a permit. But I think there's a point to be made that you know, someone could make a mistake, right? And be bankrupted by the system of punishment. Or, I mean, it's not really the system, it's just the amounts. And so we'll have to, obviously we need to disincentivize it and we need to, there have to be consequences, but we have to make this a little, maybe a little bit more reasonable mathematically.
[Nicole Morell]: Yeah. For sure. Any further comments from the public? Seeing none, do I have a motion to members of committee or, I mean, Senate?
[George Scarpelli]: Would we report out, Madam President, so we can get these questions?
[Nicole Morell]: Thank you.
[George Scarpelli]: Second.
[Nicole Morell]: So on the motion of Councilor Scarpelli to update your draft and the questions. Seconded by Councilor Svend.
[Unidentified]: Mr. Clerk, please call the roll when you're ready. Yes.
[George Scarpelli]: Yes.
[Nicole Morell]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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