[Mike Caldera]: All right, welcome. So today we have a special meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals pertaining to one of the 40B applications. We're just gonna start off by taking a roll call.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Jamie Thompson. Present. Jim Tirani. Present. Yvette Velez.
[Yvette Velez]: Present.
[Mike Caldera]: Andre LaRue. Present. and Mike Caldera present. So we have five members present. We have a quorum. Also, as I mentioned at the last meeting, Jamie, who is our associate member, I appointed him a voting member for the rest of this hearing. And we've had some board turnover since then. So I'm now no longer the acting chair, I am the chair. Um, and yeah, so, so yeah, we've got our full five member board, uh, Dennis, could you please kick us off? Yes.
[Denis MacDougall]: I had it up and then I just bounced around and lost my place.
[Unidentified]: Forgive me.
[Denis MacDougall]: On July 16th, 2022, governor Baker signed into law and act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. which among other things extends the expiration provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2023. Specifically, this extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and to provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The act does not make any new changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from July 15th, 2022 to March 31st, 2023.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you and can you read the first item on the agenda?
[Denis MacDougall]: 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway case number 40B-2022-01 continued from March 13th, 2023. The resumption of consideration of petition of MVP Mystic LLC and affiliate of Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC for a comprehensive permit pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 40B for multifamily eight-story apartment development consisting of two buildings located on approximately three acres of land at 4000 Valley Parkway, property ID seven dash oh two dash 10. This proposal will be developed as an approximately 350 unit rental apartment building containing a mix of studio one, two, and three bedroom apartments with 25% of the total units being designated as affordable housing to low or moderate income households.
[Mike Caldera]: Awesome, thank you. So I see we have Mr. Alexander here from the applicant. The plan for today's meeting is we received a response to the traffic peer review, which I believe the applicant would like to go through first. And then also an updated plan packet, which we'll have an opportunity to go through. I don't know what level of detail you wanna go through it with today, but yeah, those are the two things on the agenda for today. At our last meeting, I did not specifically state whether we would or wouldn't take public comment. And so I think unless we get super deep into the updated plan packet, let's plan to take the public comment on the updated plans at our next meeting, which based on the schedule we sent out is also when we're targeting updated peer reviews to reflect the latest plans. So that's the agenda for the day. Mr. Alexander, would you like to make a presentation?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yes, good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Nice to see you again. Thank you for that overview. And that's exactly right. Our plan, and hopefully this follows what we laid out last hearing, was to walk through the high points of our response to the traffic and transportation peer review, and then allow, obviously, the peer reviewer and the board any questions or other comments, and then we can move on to the architectural response to the architectural peer review as well, and do a similar presentation and Q&A. So I actually first would ask Andy Arsenault is here from Van Ness, who works closely with Jeff Dirk, who you've seen on prior hearings. And I think Andy is going to give us just a quick overview and the high points of the response document that you received last week.
[Mike Caldera]: Sounds great. Please go ahead.
[SPEAKER_17]: Thank you. Good evening. For the record, my name is Andrew Arsenault, representing Van Nassen Associates, and we perform the transportation impact assessment and the subsequent responses to the peer review comments. Tonight, as mentioned, I want to discuss the responses, and I will do my best to be as brief as I can. First and foremost, the comments were all relatively minor in nature, and they consisted of points of clarification and verifications, none of which would result in a material change to the overall findings of the initial report itself. Just to quickly step through some of those key comments, the initial report was based on traffic volumes gathered pre-COVID. As requested, we went out and we gathered some more current data earlier this month to verify the traffic volumes and ensure that those volumes were still reasonable, which in general they were. We also looked at the latest motor vehicle crash data available within the study area, and which again was generally consistent with those reported in the initial study. We took a look into how many non-motorized trips the project would be expected to generate, which ended up being around 30 to 35 transit users and around three pedestrians or bicyclists during the peak hours. We performed some field verifications of the current infrastructures in the surrounding area available to those non-motorized users, and we provided a graphical summary between the site itself and Wellington Station. We provided some clarification on the bicycle and EV accommodations within the project site, and as well as the loading operations expected to take place. And the last sort of family of comments was about the vehicular access to and within the project site. We provided some vehicle turning curves and analysis. The only real spaces of note being the center spaces on the basement level. A driver parked there would need to back about two to three car lengths to pull out of that space in one smooth motion. However, as these are the last spaces in the garage, there's really limited conflicts and very limited activity around those spaces. Finally, we provided some sight distance triangles for the exiting vehicles. The only thing of note on that would be the driveway on commercial street, which would require the use of a three-step maneuver, which is fairly common in urban environments. The first step is to observe there's no one in the sidewalk, no pedestrians or bicyclists. The second would be to creep out into the sidewalk area, but still outside of the traveled way. and then to observe that the travelway itself is clear and that you can safely finish your maneuver. That, I believe, summarizes the contents of the comments and their responses. I'm available for any questions. So if it pleases the board, I can move on to that.
[Mike Caldera]: Yes, thank you. Sounds good. So let's move on to any questions we have from the board about the response to the traffic peer review. Okay, well, while others are formulating their thoughts, I did have a few clarifying questions based on my review. So first of all, you had mentioned two to three car lengths for those center spaces. I thought I saw somewhere in the report that it was, closer to 65 feet. So is that, I guess, okay, I guess I'm splitting here. So, um, but so, uh, just, I'm, I'm not, I don't consider myself an expert in, um, interpreting some of these turning radius graphs. And so I believe the figure, uh, trying to illustrate this, if I'm understanding correctly is, uh, do you want to, um, do you want me to share it? Yeah, sure. That would be great. Yeah. Maybe you could walk us through just how to interpret your pictures.
[Unidentified]: Um, let me just bear with me. Um, may I have share permission? Thank you.
[SPEAKER_17]: You're all set. Thank you very much. Um, can you see my, my screen that figure one B yes. Okay.
[Unidentified]: Let me see if I can zoom in on this. So what I, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_17]: Um, so this is the space in question, this kind of middle one on the far end, the blue car. And if you were going to do it in one movement, put your car into reverse back all the way out to the corner and then pull through, um, you would go back. Uh, it, my apologies that may be closer to four, four car lengths, but Um, you would, you'd be backing out to that, uh, to that turnaround.
[Mike Caldera]: And so the, the different blue squares are these different, uh, focal spots in the, um, in the exit is that, is that, so this is a single car and it's just trying to illustrate. If they were to do it in an optimal way, for lack of a better term that they would. pull out and then they'd end up, um, kind of where your cursor is right now. And then they would sort of back into that corner and then drive straight. Is that, is that right?
[SPEAKER_17]: That's correct. Yeah. The, the, the program kind of shows it as the car is traveling along that blue car is all just one motion.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. And then on the, the other, um, adjacent spaces. So the, the path out, can you just describe that for us?
[SPEAKER_17]: Sure. Sure. So they have enough room that they can kind of cut the wheel, get perpendicular to the spaces and then cut their wheel back to do it in without having to back up any distance or at a reasonable distance. They're just coming straight out. Well, let me see if I can go on this.
[Yvette Velez]: As you're explaining that, could you let us know or indicate if it's realistic for folks to only go in one direction? So, for example, you would never recommend somebody to back into those spots or things of that nature?
[SPEAKER_17]: Sure. So that was kind of as sloppy as I could draw the motion that that end vehicle will take. They'll be able to kind of back out perpendicular to the spaces, put their car into drive, and then leave directly out. As far as if they would, they'd have to back out if they entered or exited, it would sort of be preference, but they would have to travel in reverse in one direction, whether it's entering or exiting, that's up to the driver, I'm sure. if you park in that space every day, you would, after a week or so, you would figure out what works best for you and it would become old hat pretty quick.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. Thank you.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: And so, um, sorry, would it be okay if I interjected for one second, please go ahead. I just wanted to point out that, um, oftentimes in our developments and communities locally, we will assign, you know, those spaces would be numbered and we would assign a specific car to that space, especially in this instance where we've got two separate buildings with separate parking garages. And what I would expect would happen would, given those spaces being the three in each building that provide a challenge, We would hold those out to the very end and they may likely never be assigned or rented by or used by a resident. So it's something we can watch, certainly appreciate the detail on it. I just wanted to point out that practically speaking, we could find a way to make sure that that's, you know, of the 400 or so spaces, that would be, those would be the last six that would ever be put into use.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[Mike Caldera]: And so just so I'm clear then the, so there's one space on each of the basement levels and that's the figure 1B that we just looked at. And then the figure 2B is describing the other four spaces at issue and these are on of mirror images of each other on the third floor, is that right?
[Unidentified]: Correct.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, I think I have an understanding of it now. Are there any questions from the board regarding the the turning analysis?
[Mike Caldera]: I also know we have Mr. Reardon here from Tetra Tech. I know, Mr. Reardon, you haven't really had a chance to review this in great detail, unless you got an earlier version of it. Do you have any thoughts at this time, or should we just wait for the response at our next meeting?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: No, I mean, to the applicant's point, I mean, these are just like three or four spaces and otherwise a field of 400. I guess my recommendation would be to consider just foregoing one of the three spaces and just putting two 90 degree stalls in the other location. And you really wouldn't have these issues. They'd be able to back out of the spaces just like everybody else does and move along.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Noted, thank you. Any other questions from the board about any aspect of the response to the traffic peer review?
[Unidentified]: So just know that the one thing I want, the chart indicates that those cars that were used for the evaluation are 16 feet. Yeah, so that would be a mid-sized SUV. If there were a large SUV, it would be up to 17 and a half feet.
[SPEAKER_17]: Correct. That is the vehicle we used. We used, I believe they're all compact spaces, those last three.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, okay. Any other questions or comments from the board?
[Mike Caldera]: So one other clarifying question I had, it relates to the updated traffic analysis. So if I understood correctly, it looks like the volumes were collected over the course of two full days, the 15th and the 16th of March, is that correct?
[SPEAKER_17]: That is correct, yes.
[Mike Caldera]: OK. And it looks like the volumes are substantially lower than the earlier analysis, which I see called out in the report, that we should interpret the earlier analysis as a conservative estimate. I believe that first day, the 15th, there may have been a snow event. But if I was reading the graphs correctly, it seems like the pattern looked pretty similar both that Tuesday and that Wednesday. Am I interpreting that correctly?
[SPEAKER_17]: Yes. Let me just see. With the actual intersections, the peak hour ones, the bottom half of that table, that was actually collected the next week. That was collected on the 21st. I see. That was the peak hour ones. The average daily, the two-day count, was that commercial street north of Route 16. And that is averaged out over the course of the two days.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right. Other questions from the board? I'm just wondering if, looking on the parking,
[Andre Leroux]: Once more, if there's been consideration to do what was suggested by the peer review, which is maybe take some of those compact spaces that are really in challenging locations and just reduce the number, reduce them from three down to two, if they're barely functional, and what would the impact of that be on the overall parking?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: It's a great question. We haven't looked at it super closely, to be honest. It is our experience that in a structured parking, as was mentioned by Mr. Reardon, there are sometimes a few spaces that can be more challenging than others, but we can certainly look at that elimination of one or two spaces. We always try to maximize the parking, but obviously only to the degree that it's usable and practical. Where we are with the current parking count, I believe just over or into where 1.1 spaces per residential unit. I think if we lost two spaces, we would still be at that 1.1 ratio, which was just something we're comfortable with as the operator.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: And Mr. Chair, if I could add to Tim's point, yeah, there's a lot of creative parking that goes on in garages in Boston. My concern is just that what you're doing is, so in authorizing an awkward sort of backing maneuver that I would classify as atypical for a standard building layout, if anything should ever happen, if during the course of that 60 foot backing out maneuver, someone hits something, then all of a sudden the invariable question is gonna be, why did you endorse a plan that had that? So what we're doing is just saying, for the sake of two spaces or three spaces to just use a traditional more defensible pattern that doesn't sort of open us up to those kinds of criticisms.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, thank you.
[Mike Caldera]: So my last question based on my review of the response has to do with the bike storage. So it looks like there's bike storage for 20 bicycles on both sides or in each of the buildings, so 40 bicycles total. Is there like a typical appropriate sizing for the bike storage for this many apartments? I just wanted to better understand the thought process behind that being the number.
[SPEAKER_17]: I can take a look on my end. I don't have it handy, what the storage number was based off of. I don't know if Tim has that.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I can jump in. And actually, I apologize. I think the Van Ness response came in a little bit before we finalized the tweaks to the storage rooms in the architectural I'll note that in that, and Andrew Stevens from TAT can correct me if I'm wrong, but in the architectural plans, we're actually showing basically bike rooms on the first floor of each garage that each could hold 48 bikes in what's assumed to be a two double stack, if you will, configuration where there are bike racks on the ground, and then there's another right on top of that, which is a fairly common bike storage layout. I actually just saw it two weeks ago at the Locust Street project at Windsor-Mystic River. So all to say, I think we're showing today, we're showing just under 100 bike storage spaces between those two rooms. Our thought was, and we're happy to coordinate with city staff on this, too, to make sure they think that's appropriate. That feels appropriate to us for this, you know, call it ex-urban or semi-urban condition. And, you know, obviously, I also, I heard at the Locust Street project that the city staff has or I believe has preferences on a mixture of the different types of storage racks. And so we're happy to work with staff on that as well as we get a little bit further into the final design and permit.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, so Mr. Alexander, I remember when you mentioned in an earlier meeting the parking ratio chosen that it was informed by past experience. Essentially, we run a bunch of these communities and then we happen to know that this is a good number. Is there Is there sort of a target number of bike spaces based on that sort of analysis? I'm just having trouble. I certainly think that 96 is plausibly in the range, whereas I was skeptical of 40. But is 96 the right number? Or is it 120? You know, I just, I don't really have a great basis for comparison. I'm wondering if you, if you have like a typical usage pattern from similar communities.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: It's a, it's a great question. Um, there, I would say there's not typical, it's very dependent on sub-market and neighborhood and part of, of the area. But that said, um, let me, let me go back and double check what our utilization rate is on our Cabot Road community that we developed and manage. My sense is that it's well below what we're proposing here, but we can double check and we can be ready with that info for Mr. Reardon and others at the next hearing, if not before.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, sounds good. Other questions from the board? Go ahead, Andrew.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, just on this issue of the bike parking and bike infrastructure, I'm wondering if someone could share their screen and just walk through where everything is. That would be very helpful so I can see it visually.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'd be happy to do that. I have them up right here.
[Unidentified]: Recording stopped. Recording in progress.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I'm hoping you can see my screen. Yes. So this is from the architectural plan set that we submitted on Friday. This is the ground level, of course, and shows the drive aisle off of Commercial Street. And then I'll zoom in. um, bike storage, um, clouded in here in these corner, you know, right in the corner of the garages. So, uh, fairly easy entrance through the garage as a bicyclist, and then into the, um, into the bike storage rooms that are sort of symmetrically laid out in each building. There's a potential, depending on whether Depending on whether we find this space to be adequate, which I do think it will be, but there's actually a similar size room on the second level of each garage as well. So that would obviously mean, you know, up the ramp or maybe up the elevator if needed to get to that room. But I suspect that these two rooms will be sufficient, you know, based on our experience, but we'll confirm that.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, and what are those rooms used for right now on the second level?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: There's not a specific use called out. Let me see if I can get up there. Yeah, so they're shown here, and they're not annotated with any specific use right now.
[Andre Leroux]: OK, that makes me feel better, at least that there is space to expand, because I would say that you know, maybe that's adequate, but for, you know, apartments that are right across from a river with community paths, I would say you're gonna get a lot more usage than usual. I mean, I'm a casual bike user, but I live across from the Mystic and I use my bike all the time, you know, just because it's safe, it's fun. You know, you can get to Assembly Row and Wellington and other places. So I wouldn't be surprised if you need that space.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: couldn't agree more on all the reasons why it's a great biking location. So we'll confirm and check back with the board on utilization and then confirm that we've got enough space.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, I see two hands. I saw Director Hunt first, so I'll do Director Hunt real quick and then we'll do Jim.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thanks, I just wanted to clarify something because when I was looking at the letter, we're talking about response number 40, comment 44, and it talks about each bicycle room can accommodate 20 bicycles. It appears that on the diagram you showed, the floor one, the 48, I took that to mean 48 bicycles in each room. And I just thought we should just have a little clarity because the language 20 in each room, two rooms, 40 bicycles is clearly I think everybody agrees isn't sufficient. Whereas this higher number is a rational number. I agree with Andre that you probably want to expect it on average one bicycle per apartment, thinking that there'll be two and three in some apartments. But I just wanted to clarify that discrepancy. And then when you move to blue bikes, I just wanted to ask about that before we move to a new topic, but I'll hold that.
[Mike Caldera]: That's good. Thanks. Yeah. Mr. Alexander, if I understood you correctly, you're just saying that that's been updated. So now it's, it's the 96 rather than the 20. Is that right?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: That's right. I think the 20 assumed a single height storage where it's very common to have that double height. number in each room. Okay, thank you. Jim, go ahead.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: I'm all set. I was wondering, I mean, do people ever bring their bikes in the unit, fold up bikes?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. Yes, so what our experience has been is that the commuter type and more serious cyclists and bikers will generally keep their bikes in their apartment home. They'll either hang it on a wall or figure out a way to store it. And it's the more recreational or folks who aren't using the bike every day who may use the bike storage room. So yeah, we definitely see both. Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay. And I just, I just want to, maybe you're going to be doing this, but I want to get back to my original question, which was to kind of walk through all the bike infrastructure, not just the indoor storage. I know director Hunt mentioned the kind of the blue bikes, but I'd also like to see the outdoor racks and things like that as well.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Oh, sure. Yeah. My apologies. I'm happy to do that now. Or did director Hunt have another question at the same time? your bike locations.
[Mike Caldera]: That's good. Yeah, I think it was the exterior bike locations and then the comment with respect to the blue bikes.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: And just before Tim moves on, just Tim, you might want to just check that 48 because if you look at basically the room is the effective size of about a parking space and a half to put 48 bikes in that kind of space. I mean, Admittedly, I have seven, eight bikes of my own, and it takes up almost a full parking spot in my garage. So just might want to check that to make sure that 48 is actually accurate.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely, we'll do. And Andrew Stebbins, if you have the background behind that number that you want to provide, we can do that now or we can circle back with that.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, now would be great if you have the rationale.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we just, uh, Andrew Stebbins, uh, TAT for the record. Um, yeah, the graphic is from a, um, a bike rack, uh, website. I don't have it, uh, handy right now, but we can, uh, certainly provide that. And as Tim had noted, um, the original was just a, a floor rack with just the, somebody wheeling it in. And, um, This would be a, you know, the dual height, or double height bike rack would happy to buy the, the product data on on the selected rack.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I just say, just keep in mind the collective instincts of the, the review consultants and I think the board is that. you know, there's not a whole lot of space devoted to what is considered a primary commuting function. So for 350 some odd units, this seems like a relatively modest space of bike storage.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: We're happy to follow up on that. Appreciate the comment. And let me, um, can folks see now the rendered or color site plan? Yes. Great so and Rob Adams is here from Halverson who can correct me if I if I'm wrong, but I do, you know, there are 4 primary locations for external bike racks that we've denoted on this plan. 2, and they're, they're shown as sort of 3 lines. The 3 lines, I believe can hold are shown to hold roughly 6 bikes each. Is that right, Rob?
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yep, correct.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: So the three lines shown here, which are just outside of the primary residential entrance on either side. So these are six and six here. And then on Mystic Valley Parkway, we're showing two more sets of racks, one here by another residential community entrance, and then over here as well by the retail entrance as well. We've got four locations there that we've called out on the plan.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: 24 short-term parking spots total. Then on the blue bikes, we haven't designated an area specifically. We have plenty of opportunities along commercial, and even some along our little pull-off area along, yeah, right there. And so, you know, obviously defer to Tim on the project's response to blue bikes, but there is the real estate available to provide this.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, as an owner and operator, we're certainly all for that as a use. It's just a question of understanding whether the blue bikes folks see a demand and whether they would think it would be an appropriate location.
[Mike Caldera]: Director Hunt, did that answer your question or do you have additional?
[Alicia Hunt]: I did just want to sort of clarify something in the response letter in comment. So it's comment 45 about the blue bikes, it says, which is fully fine if deemed feasible and desirable to the applicant the city, the applicant will, and they say, will make available space within the project site that's accessible to the public to locate a blue bike station. We have been finding in a number of our projects play large projects, asking the, the property owner, the developer to actually pay for and maintain the blue bike station. There are operating costs that go along with it annually. And so in some of our projects, we are including that as a condition. And so I just want to put that out there for consideration.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Did you want to say anything in response to that, Mr. Alexander?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Nothing, you know, nothing specific. I certainly understand that and I've seen actually that in other jurisdictions as well. So I understand the concept.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, thank you. And then the, so in the report, it also mentioned some of the improvements and the condition of some of the pedestrian elements. And so perhaps we could just walk through that to make sure that the board has a good understanding of what's being proposed there.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, my one thought is we're sort of transitioning a little bit into the broader architectural peer review comments, but we're happy to go through a little bit on pedestrian now and then Um, can come back to it if need be.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, that sounds good. I just, it was included in the report. So, um, yeah.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. So I'll do a little bit and then, and then Rob, obviously please jump in if, um, if you need, uh, or if I'm missing anything, but. A couple of things that were added, and I'll just go back to the, so the original plan that was submitted is the one that's on the screen now. And as I click ahead, you can see where there are a few crosswalks that have been denoted, you know, not only here on this sort of rendered plan, but they show up on our civil plan as well, which is really where they get picked up by the construction audience. So, you know, making sure that folks coming off Fistic Valley Parkway, if they need to other crosswalks shown in this location. I think what's also important and probably more important than the other two is the crosswalk and the pavement marking shown here and what we'll call the plaza area between the two buildings. This is something I think we talked about even way back in the first hearing is that this is obviously This is an area where you're going to have a combination of pedestrian and vehicular traffic and travel, and not a unique circumstance to have those two interacting. But we want to make sure that while it is possible for vehicles to get in and out there, that the look and feel of this area is still very pedestrian-first or pedestrian-centric. Which is why we're showing you know the opportunity there for a stamped the two minutes, you know concrete area, or even some pavers in these areas to, you know, make it feel more pedestrian so it doesn't feel like it's dominated by vehicles. And then obviously taking that step further is the fact that we've got
[Andre Leroux]: Tim, can I jump in on that? So I appreciate what you're saying, but I think that it would be a better treatment if you had the sidewalk crossing at the pedestrian level. And correct me if I'm wrong, but, you know, the cars should be moving up over the pedestrian and not the pedestrians moving down into the vehicle plane, if you know what I'm saying. So there should be like a little ramp up into the driveway at the sidewalk level. And I'd like to see that, you know, the sidewalk kind of looks like it, you have the white sidewalk there, it looks like it sort of ends and then you have a different treatment and then commercial street, the sidewalk starts again. I'd really like to see that sidewalk connect all the way around both buildings.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I can jump in just briefly. I think our intent was just that to have everything at the pedestrian level. So as you leave commercial in a car, you would ramp up to sidewalk elevation at commercial. And then once you get up to that sidewalk elevation, everything remains flush. Divers are stamped concrete. Um, and then, uh, evolving into, uh, stamped concrete there at the garage entrances and remaining at that higher level until you get to the, essentially the loading, uh, short-term parking area. And then we go back to a drop curb situation and we found, uh, beneficial for lots of reasons. One, uh, drivers are more on notice. And then with the stamped, stamped asphalt and unit pavers, it also has an audible component to it. And so pedestrians are also on notice. And so. agree with you 100% of making pedestrians be the predominant and then using bollards, benches, plantings, et cetera, to provide safety and protection in those areas.
[Andre Leroux]: If you could provide a rendering or an example of what that would look like at the pedestrian level, that would be super helpful to me.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: We can provide a section. Yeah, we'll provide a section.
[Unidentified]: We'll find a graphic to illustrate that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, any other questions from the board about the response to the traffic peer review?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Mr. Chair, if you wouldn't mind, could I make a comment? Yeah, please Mr. Bowman. Because I think earlier on you were asking, there was a question about standards that were being applied and I think I'd recommend Cambridge publishes a really nice booklet about bicycle parking standards. It covers everything from ratio parking, number of bikes per unit, as well as whether or not it's allowable to lift up a bike as opposed to just wheeling it in. But I would just suggest it's a well thought out booklet. that the city has been developing for years.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look. Boston has one now as well.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: That's right. And I think the ratio is certainly low compared to those cities for sure. But there are other restrictions as far as size of spaces and whether or not whether or not you're required to lift a bike to get it into its storage space.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. All right, any other questions? I think we're about ready to wrap this and transition to the updated plan packet. Last call for questions on this topic. All right, thank you. Mr. Alexander, please go ahead.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Great, great, thank you. So I think we want to transition now to an update on the response to the architectural peer review as well as the plans that were submitted on Friday that are sort of comprehensive for the project, architectural, civil, and landscape Um, yeah, and first I want to just, you know, acknowledge, you know, we, you may not have seen these until this morning. So I understand a, it's coming, you know, sort of right before the hearing. And it's also, um, you know, a number of different documents and plan sets to review. So, um, you know, apologize for the late or, you know, the sort of the, the, the submission that comes right before the hearing. Um, I also just want to explain that when we send in a plan set like we did and the various imagery and all the different pieces, there's a lot of coordination that goes into that. I think we still hit the goal that we set out to in terms of getting it to you before the hearing. Tetra Tech and the Davis Square Architects and what we heard from the board already was our intent and so hopefully we were able to bring all that together.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, Mr. Alexander, to that point, I would say, you know, you did alert us that it would be tight. And so certainly was great to see a plan packet. We didn't have a lot of time to review it as you called out. And that's why the intention here is really to talk through just like the kind of the biggest elements, maybe you give an overview and then I think we'll have a better opportunity to discuss it in full at the next hearing when we also that's when we're also requesting the updated peer reviews but so yeah, sounds good. Thank you.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Great, great. Absolutely. Thanks, Mr. Chair. And that's what we'll do. So a combination of of Andrew and Rob and I will walk through the high points of what was submitted. As you saw, there are a few we've created one Let me share it actually. We created a document that I can find the share button. Here we go. A document that calls out some of the improvements and enhancements on the ground plane that are responsive to really all three peer reviews. And then Andrew can walk through some of the, you know, architecture and building revisions and enhancements as well. I did want to thank Cliff for his coordination over the past couple of weeks. We wanted to make sure that as we were making revisions, we were able to discuss them with Cliff. We were able to do that middle part of last week. But obviously, we want to welcome any questions or comments he has tonight as well, and obviously, at the next hearing. So I'll just do a couple of high points, and then Andrew and Rob, please jump in. There were a number of well a couple things we already talked about right added crosswalks and making sure the pedestrian experience was Was prioritized The other thing that came up quite a bit, you know We talked at length about at the last hearing or two was the idea of short-term loading and unloading Delivery so that could be move-ins. It could be delivery trucks the the the proposed shuttle bus that we will be running to and from Wellington. And so we created an area here between the two buildings that is long enough to hold a, you know, sort of the largest moving truck you could have, or certainly more frequently have multiple vehicles pull off there if needed. And we feel like that is really well positioned at and near the building entrances to be both useful and also approximate. And then a couple other things that we did that just show up here and we can go into a little bit more detail is we really appreciated the ideas from Mr. LaRue about enhancing that corner park and not just making it you know, sort of a standalone entity, but trying to make it part of, of Medford, right. And bring in some, some ideas from the city and its history to bring the space to life. And so I'll let Rob talk about that in a minute, but that was something that we really grasped onto. Did I miss anything here, Rob or Andrew, just on this specific slide before we jump to a little bit more detail?
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Sorry, I was on mute. The only error in our part that we corrected, the sidewalk connection there along Mystic Valley Parkway to the retail we had brought up on that is planting. And so change that here on this plan as well as our landscape plan.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. And Rob, while you're unmuted, why don't I jump ahead so you can talk through a couple more, a couple other of the slide that you created.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so Rob Adams with Halverson Design. We had an opportunity to speak with Cliff last week, and then also, as Tim said, compiled a lot of the comments from earlier hearings, as well as other peer comments, and I think Really, what you'll see is a more detail around commercial street, this idea of play space for tenants, and then the suggestion around murals are interpretive elements so we'll hit on those three kind of high items. The part that I think is important twofold on Commercial Street is one of the great work that Andrew has done, and you'll see that in a little bit, to improve the articulation of the building, really put in some setback balconies that I think all of us have agreed have really improved that facade. But one of the big things, increase the buffer by 20% between back of sidewalk and face of building. And I think, you know, there's Cliff brought up as well as others, this idea of what's the future of Commercial Street, thinking about complete streets, street trees, etc. And I think our strategy has been to provide an adequate back of sidewalk buffer so that it's a quality pedestrian environment, the buildings feels buffered and protected, tenants feel buffered and protected, and we're providing the most opportunistic ability for shade trees to grow at a large scale, right? Street trees and grates in urban conditions never fully realized their mature size. We found that by providing back of sidewalk you know, full depth planting medium, we get much more robust, much healthier shade trees, obviously achieving that heat island goal that we're all interested in. So this is just a quick section of Commercial Street. And on the next slide, Tim, you'll be able to see, you know, prior projects. This is out at Alewife with a very similar buffer width, literally week after it was planted, so to speak, these trees have grown and matured quite a bit. And so you can see with that 12 to 13 foot buffer, you get plenty of soil volume for the shade trees, but also start to have some texture to the understory planting. And so we're pretty confident that what we're providing provides a good solution on the interim and doesn't include any sort of future road diets, any future narrowing or multimodal options on commercial because all this work is happening on back of sidewalk. No one likes to cut down trees in the future and so we're pretty confident that this is the right solution moving forward. So that was commercial street. Next, Tim, if you go forward. There was also this idea around play space down at grade and so for a lot of reasons around the team. One of them being commercial play space. In today's litigious world, the fall zones are so large that these pieces of equipment start taking up a vast amount of space. And according to some of Mill Creek's prior projects, the actual number of toddler or younger children is not that high. And so the ratio of space devoted to play greatly outweighs the number of tenants that it serves and it also starts to fold in this whole kind of responsibility liability issue of having a play space that's pseudo accessible to the public at grade which isn't really mill street's business and so on other projects we found much more advantageous to use one of the interior courtyards in a more flexible adventurous manner And you'll see imagination play space which is on the bottom left there's a lot of parts, similar to this are easily stored within the amenity spaces can be brought out by tenants. And so this idea of the two courtyards serving different purposes one more pool kind of active adult, if you will, and then the other one more passive and geared towards families has been a real, I'll say a success story that we've seen on other projects and so proposing this I think this has been well received in our conversations with Cliff and others. And then lastly, before Andrew gets into the discussion about the building. I think the concept of making this contextual to the neighborhood and to the history is something that was a great idea, a great suggestion last time. And so Andrew's TAT has provided an opportunity along and Mill Creek is committed to pursue this idea of allowing a mural to exist there by the retail space. And then we've made some changes to the small park at the corner to make it a little bit more enclosed, a little bit more niche space. And then in projects we've done in the past, you can see in the bottom right, worked with local groups, whether it's Boston Harbor Now or others, DCR, et cetera, have historians, local historic groups to create a small interpretive piece, right? Whether it be a map, This one has some engravings in the stone as well as a small mosaic. But it's a really, I'll say, expressive way to work with local community, local artists to tell a little bit of story about the space. And so we've envisioned that in this small park on the corner, there would be a piece similar to this seating around it, an opportunity for interpretation and history to be provided. So embracing some really good suggestions from the last couple of months. And I think Andrew has renderings, or you, Tim, have renderings of the architectural improvements.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, great. Thanks, Rob. That was great. If it's okay with you, Mr. Chair, maybe we'll just continue on with the architectural, or the building sort of revisions, and then we can pause after that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sounds good. Let's do that.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Great. So the next thing we can show, and hopefully it's helpful to see, you know, sort of before and after, One of the sort of key points, if you will, of the Davis Square peer review was making sure that the commercial street facades and that sort of relationship between the building and commercial street was appropriate. And so that's something we spent a lot of time thinking about and looking at and taking into consideration. Not only that feedback, but then a couple of the ideas that Cliff put forth as well during our last hearing. So, Andrew, do you want to walk through? I've got the renderings pulled up now. Sure.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: to Ken Andrews-Stevens, TAT. I think, once again, this is a great example of collaborative process. We love it when comments and process wind up with a better solution. So we're all for that. We feel like these adjustments are quite meaningful and I think address Mr. Bowmer's suggestions and concerns. which we agree we're not completely unfounded. So we really looked at is the commercial street, both buffer and also building envelope. And just sort of the notion that the South side here on the right had a lot more depth and a bit more interest because of that depth and the commercial street was more flattened in nature and the buffer. also was really at a minimum, you know, we can plant trees at a 10 and a half foot or 10 foot plus chain dimension, but really, you know, especially with the help of Rob and Halverson's images, we thought that the nearly 20% increase was meaningful. So Tim, I don't know if you can just toggle to the next slide. So here's the proposal. So really just taking, I think there's 28 balconies along the commercial street facades. We took our 28 that we're projecting, I would say, because we do have some of the corners that were recessed. Taking 20 of those 28 and recessing them has a very, very big impact. Yes, if you could toggle. So you can see here, not only, the volumes are more pronounced, the blue volume in the middle, but also the volumes in the other side, I think just more dynamic and more interesting and a much better sort of experience here along commercial. And then the impact of the setback is also meaningful when you toggle between the two slides. Rob was helpful in generating this slide and noting that our tree heights were really undersized. So we bumped those up to, I think it was 25 feet or so. So you'll notice that in between the two toggles as well. And then we also updated the, if you look at the corner park here, the original design was sort of just right on the sidewalk. As Robin mentioned, we like the revised design, which obviously engages the sidewalk and creates a nice spot for people to wait as they potentially cross over to the park, but also provides a bit of buffer. And we're excited about his, as always, Halverson has always great ideas about how to incorporate history and sort of signage to enhance the experience. So it's not just, It's not just a park that you just pass through. It's something you can sit and look at and read and sort of and sort of enjoy as you're sitting there. Next slides were the commercial street will never really be pulled back this far. This is really, really in the empty lot next door. But this once again, this is the before and then the after. So not as not as impactful because you look at more frontal, but really the the experience really is going to be more the original sort of axial sort of view. But really, this also shows the slight, I'm sorry, the pushing back or pushing east of the building. So the question is, you know, and I guess one more, we'll have the last slide, we can go through that. So this is a slide of the Mystic Valley Parkway. So one of the ideas between the original submission and now is to potentially provide an exterior deck opportunity. So it really provides yet another exterior option for all residents to enjoy. So this current scheme, I mean, the previous scheme was we liked, but we thought that an opportunity for any resident to come out and enjoy the outdoors with an elevated park view and potentially views of the city beyond would be sort of more of an inclusive sort of move. And once again, provide another varied sort of protected exterior amenity. And also here you can see the slight. If you look at the the change of the the recess, I'm sorry, the pushing of the building. So we did. We did push the building. We did have to change the building to to be able to push this the Southern sort of building one over the two feet to the East. In the plan set, there's a. On the upper floor you can see the clouded areas. If one were to review this, all the revisions are these clouds. So you could go to the old plan set between the two and look at the old and the new. So at the bottom of the page, you can see we've changed to recessed balconies. So we clouded those. But at the top of the page, you'll notice the A unit there has been clouded. That was previously a type B unit. So by sliding that exterior wall over to the right, plan right, by the 25 feet and reducing that unit size, we're able to afford more space between the corner of the building and the sidewalk, and thus be able to push that building east. And we did similarly did that on the north building as well, which didn't quite have that encumbrance, but we just verified with Hancock that that setback, that move would still be able to work the site with, and they confirmed it was still enough room. There is a cloud around the amenity space, so one of the ways we were able to get the roof deck, which is, I think, on the next page. Yeah, so up in the other stair there, there'd be a small amenity lounge with, I think it's about a 700, So square foot roof deck area. We decided to take one of the units, the corner unit there and recapture it as a unit and fellows more, more useful as a, you know, to have that additional exterior opportunity and the roof deck on the top level there.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Andrew that's a great explanation and I think a couple things I would just add one is on the on the rooftop amenity you know that was sort of born somewhat out of Mr. Bowmer's question about how do the amenity spaces interact with the courtyard. We have in our Modera Framingham community a very similar size room as what's shown here So we were comfortable in saying that this is a really, given the ground floor amenity that's in this building, then you'd have a little bit on the courtyard level, and then even more at the rooftop level. We've had great success in sprinkling through, if you will, amenities through the residential buildings. So that was spurred on as well by the peer review. And then I thought I would just say one more thing about the about the change you know the shifting of the building because I know it may seem like sorry I'm going to go back to a slide here you know we're we're we feel really good about the change but I want to explain why you know it there why we did what we did and and one of the things just to point out is the southern building specifically as Andrew pointed out that we had to massage know we're it's just because we're dealing with you know there are constraints sort of throughout a building that as you know design like with the obviously the drive aisle here for emergency vehicle access that's something that's you know fairly constant although I'll come back to that you know we obviously then didn't want to compromise or shrink down the courtyard in order to accomplish this and there's another sort of Not shown on this slide, but obviously the parking configuration and then the ramping and the, the, the grade of the parking is something that's super important as well. It can't be. If you push and pull on that too much, then it doesn't work and it's not practical. So, you know, making this move that we did is meaningful, but also we, you know, had we been able to go a little bit further, we probably would have. It's just a question of all the other constraints. The last thing I'd mention is, as we showed this to Mr. Bowmer last week, he rightfully asked, well, this is a 20-foot one-way drive aisle. That's fairly common for emergency vehicle access, and we certainly understand why the fire chief requested, if not required that when we reviewed it with him pre-submission last fall. But that's something we can, if needed, we can maybe reopen that discussion with the fire chief and say, hey, given the fact that there is a sidewalk here of six feet, generally the need is not only for the emergency vehicles, but for an outrigger as well, if it's a large fire truck. And so we may ask the question of potentially going from 20 feet to 18 feet, it may allow another couple So I think, so that's really what we wanted to do, accomplish, right? We wanted to walk through some of the major ground plane improvements, and then obviously the building improvements as well, as we went through the architectural peer review. I'll just note that in addition to these plans, we also submitted, I use the word submitted lightly because what we did, and I'm just going to pull it up here. We submitted a matrix of the comment and the response very similar to what we did for Tetra Tech's civil engineering peer review. But it was brought to my attention about an hour before the hearing that what we submitted was actually only one page of this and not all six or seven pages. So I've sent that along to Dennis before the hearing and probably not in your hands yet, but make sure that it is in the, I wanna obviously make sure it's in the board's hands and in Mr. Bomer's hands as well for full review. And then I understand, obviously come back with their sort of revised peer review for next hearing. So I'll leave it there and happy to open up to questions or comments.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, sounds great. Thanks, Mr. Alexander. So on that last point, Dennis did send it to us just before the hearing. So thanks for sending the, for touching that and presenting the updated one.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, so questions from the board on this update? Go ahead, Andre.
[Andre Leroux]: I just want to say thank you for listening to a lot of the suggestions we made and for incorporating them. I do think that the facade improvements makes a significant difference, particularly on Commercial Street and really appreciate that. I like the sprinkling of the amenities through the building. I like having the additional roof deck over the Mystic Parkway. And just in terms of the just a couple of comments. One is, you know, the 20% increase has been mentioned a lot what is that actually in feet I mean I'm assuming that's like a couple feet.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's right. I believe we went from just over 10 feet to somewhere between 12 and 13 feet. So, yeah, and that's, it's a great call out and that's part of the reason
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, which is similar to those images we showed. And I realize that doesn't seem like much, but there's something magic about increasing a buffer by a couple of feet. It allows a diversity of plant materials that you can't get in narrower spaces.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I definitely, I understand that. I love the fact that at least in the renderings, the trees are bigger. I don't know if you were, that was just a visual change or if that was actually you're putting bigger trees in there. So I'm curious about that.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: That was just the trees that were in the original rendering were just grossly undersized. Architects, no offense to my friends, have trees in front of their buildings. And so they will render a tree smaller. And so I just said, hey, in three years, that tree will be 25 feet tall. So let's show it.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay, yeah, that's not, I mean, that's not the size that it's going in as though.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: No, probably three, we typically do three and a half to four caliper. And so they go in maybe at 15 feet from ground to top. And then within, you know, five years growth, they get another 10 feet on them.
[Andre Leroux]: PB, David Ensign --"You know, I love the additional balconies. I'm curious, how many of the units have balconies now versus black balconies?"
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I can, you know what, I can look at that in a minute. I can get back to you on that.
[Andre Leroux]: And then a comment that I have, again, I obviously appreciate, I made the comments around the art in the park and the mural. So I really appreciate you incorporating those. One thing that I do wanna ask is, so Mystic Parkway kind of bows out a little bit right at that building. So it is a very significant corner, commercial street, PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. design element right at that corner that's maybe on the commercial side. And I know you have a lot of balconies there and windows and everything, but I'm wondering if there's might be an opportunity for something, you know, simple just to highlight that corner. Cause I do think it's going to be very visible for the, you know, the traffic moving West.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I mean, I can comment and maybe Andrew can as well. I mean, Mystic Valley Parkway, most parkways are historic in their kind of context and character. And I think we had explored an option where there was a, I'll call it a high reader, if you will. I don't know, it felt a little foreign to Mystic Valley Parkway as an object. And so we deferred back to something more at a pedestrian scale, made that pocket park feel a little bit more lush. I know that doesn't have the same Iconic kind of feel to it, but I'm not sure that, you know, iconic is really the context of Mystic Valley Parkway. I mean, we expressed, you know, the mural on the retail, and we can continue to explore that. Maybe there's an architectural quality, maybe there's a lighting component, right, that's a little bit more ephemeral on that corner. But as a kind of high reader, it didn't seem to fit into the larger context.
[Unidentified]: That's why design is so subjectively elusive.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right, thank you. Other questions from the board? Well, if nobody else jumps in, I do have one other.
[Andre Leroux]: It's more of a question for Cliff. Mr. Bomer, I mean, given the changes that you're seeing here, you know, what do you think? And would you recommend exploring trying to get another couple of feet on the commercial street side, seeing if we can get the fire department's permission to kind of narrow that lane on the east?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Andre, you read my mind for sure. I think there's, well, let me say first that I did have a discussion with the development team last week. I was out of the country, but we did manage to align our time so that it worked. And since that day, there has been a lot of work done. So I just want to say that I concur that certainly on the building elevations, there's been big progress, I think, in making the elevations work much better, it creates a much more unified look to the building. There was kind of an A side and a B side in the previous version. And now it's much more of a whole singular kind of look at around the building and it's broken up into smaller pieces that I think will really work much better. There were three or four things that I just wanted to suggest. to continue the development. I'll start with what you brought up, Andre, about the setbacks. I think I would really encourage a developer, and we did talk about it, and I appreciate Tim bringing that up. What the fire department likes to see, and it's in the fire safety code, is a 20-foot fire lane. But if they could be convinced to count the width of that sidewalk, theoretically you could move building one significantly further to the east. And that would do a couple of, I think, really nice things, or at least three things. One is it's only in building one where you have ground level units and along commercial streets. So you'd create a bigger buffer from the sidewalk for those, whatever it is, three or four units. that are along that West elevation along commercial street. I think that's a good thing. I like the fact that the pocket park now is more spacious and I think having more setback for building one will kind of create more continuity of that pocket park. So I think that would read really nicely having the pocket park kind of wrap around the corner and continue along that elevation. And the third thing is, I think misaligning the buildings is a good thing. It breaks up that wall along commercial street into two pieces instead of one continuous piece. And it would accentuate that corner entry piece on the second building, on the number two building. So I think it does a lot of good to be able to move that building further over to the East. Building two is more constrained because of the shape of the site. And I don't think that would necessarily need to move. I think it's actually a good thing if the buildings aren't in alignment. So I would encourage some thinking to be done, I hope, by the next hearing. And in my experience, the reason the fire department wants the with is they like to be able to put out outriggers on their equipment. And I don't think the outriggers really care if one side is lower than the other side. So they could theoretically use the side book. So that's one point. Another point that I had, and I did manage to read all of that, all of the response, even though it came in just a couple hours ago, There are, the team did proceed with annotating the elevations that designated the building materials. My suggestion is that, and they called out the siding essentially as cementitious panels and different, you know, cementitious materials. It is a big building. It's an, you know, an eight story building. And there is a, pretty broad range of quality that's available in cementitious siding materials. So I'm really hoping a building of this kind of stature and visibility would opt for the higher quality cementitious siding materials. There are a number of brands that I know the architect knows, Nichiha is one of them. They're materials that have homogeneous color throughout the depth of the material. It's not something that needs to be painted regularly. So it costs more upfront, but it's a significantly superior material. So I would kind of push for that. I think that tonight that discussion about the bicycle parking is extremely important. That combined with the the maneuverability of some of those spaces could very well result in a shift of the parking ratio. So I do hope the development team looks carefully at that just so that they're in step with other communities that really have worked very hard at developing bicycle, really meaningful bicycle parking and access requirements The bike rooms are in a perfect location that is great that bike riders can go through the garage door, park their bikes and they're near the elevators. That's a really good thing. Um, for now, um, I think that's all I have to say. Uh, I'm, I'm, uh, really appreciative of the amount of time that they have made. And I think there's a lot more depth to their thinking as is typically the point coordination. will be ongoing and at some point all of the plans need to be saying the same thing. So the board knows what they're really getting. One final comment that came up in the discussion in our phone call last week is, I think Halverson made a really convincing case of putting a play space in the courtyard. And we did discuss the need for there being really easily accessible They were, at least at the point of the conversation, they were looking at some play equipment that was movable or large scale sort of things that kids could play with. And we talked about the need for having significant and really easily accessible storage for that so that it really happens if it, and in The building two is the building that has the larger amenity space. So I think, you know, really carving out a significant piece of that immediately adjacent space so that you really can be dragging stuff in and out easily could really make that work. So I was convinced by that. It's not a solution I've seen, but I think it could work well. I think that's kind of all I've got now, given the amount of time I've had to review it.
[Mike Caldera]: Thanks, Mr. Bowmer. So actually, your last comment is a good segue into one of my clarifying questions I had. I'd love your take. I'd also love to hear from the project team. So I understood some of the rationales that cut against the idea of having an exterior top lot. The part that I wasn't understanding as well is just kind of the expected usage pattern for the community and sort of the implications of the current proposed decision. So in particular, the In building one, we've been talking about this more active space where there's the pool. And then building two, there's the space that was previously being described as a much more quiet space. It's a little bit bigger, as you mentioned. And so it sounds like with the current proposal, essentially, if you do have a kid, in this community, whether you live in building one or building two, the primary proposed space for your kid to play is in one of the two buildings. And it's in the courtyard that was previously being talked about as sort of a quiet retreat. So I guess there's like this dissonance, at least in terms of how kind of I'm thinking a kid might want to use the space and maybe an adult, who's either doesn't have kids or isn't with their kids, you know, might wanna use that same space. And so I just wanted to get a better understanding of, you know, sort of how is, yeah, like how are these kind of seemingly conflicting uses gonna meld together for this singular space for kids to play?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's a great question, Mr. Chair. I can jump in, and then obviously the team can add as they see fit. So I think a couple of things. One is that when we started thinking, well, I should say, when it was brought up as a concept and the desire for dedicated space, the first thing I did was check at our resident And frankly, it was actually a surprise to find. So that's roughly just under 300 residential units. And the population of children under 18 was about 45. And the population of what might be an age you would use play-type equipment was about half of that. So in the range of 20 to 25 children in the age of, say, 4 to 15. So I thought that was actually a bit lower than even I anticipated. So I bring that up to say we're not talking about a huge amount of potential, at least what we've seen in our existing community down the road. So to address your idea of location of that, I think it's a great point. One of the things I worry about is that if we were very strict about active courtyard and passive courtyard, I think that might over-program that pool active courtyard. And so our thinking is that even in a quote-unquote passive courtyard, a lot of things can happen. Generally, what that is sort of code for, it's a little bit more unstructured and provides the opportunity for a number of different things. Somebody can fly out and read a book Kids, you know, even before we sort of started to contemplate the play equipment, obviously it was already an area with a turf area that could be used to kick a ball or throw a ball or, you know, some sort of more active use. So I don't see it as a huge departure from, you know, the quote unquote passive and maybe that we're just using the wrong word and talking and saying passive that would denote that it's, you know, 100% of the time it's only, you know, folks reading the book or reading the paper. Rob, what would you add?
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think maybe flexible was a better term for that. I mean, I only find the screams of my own kids bothersome. So, yeah, I mean, as Tim said, there's not a huge population demand and having that courtyard kind of this flux, you know, passive, kind of small child, you know, none of this is big, kind of jungle gym equipment, it's more flexible adventure play. And then I don't think we can, while there's no technical play space over at the On DC ours land at the parkway I think it's still an important component in the larger structure for recreation of any sort right children, adults, etc and so I don't well again it doesn't have a play space play area per se, it still provides I think an outlet for for that kind of activity so. This seems like the right solution for development of the scale and the proximity that it is.
[Yvette Velez]: So following up with that as a flexible space and having these movable play equipment, is that part of the upkeep of like uh, money and reserves, um, that you utilize for like the pool, like, is there additional monies for that? And is there like a plan to maintain all of the flexibility of the space?
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: I'll just speak to the product itself. There's a lot of these products. Imagination Play is one of them. They exist actually in public parks that are slightly more controlled, if you will. They're quite durable and they're actually quite fun. And they come in a variety of scales and kind of kits, if you will. In the brief discussions we've had, that would be just a part of CoB, Jay Sugnett & Hillary Holt-Potter.: : Right, so the amenity package that exists and they would be stored within the amenity space and readily accessible to tenants I don't know, Tim, if you want to.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Tim Kolesary, PB – He, Him, His): yeah. Tim Kolesary, PB – He, Him, His.: : Just on the in terms of you know, building that in it would be certainly built in both to our up front. Tim Kolesary, PB – He, Him, His.: : We call we call it. Tim Kolesary, PB – He, Him, His.: : furniture fixtures and equipment, so we have a budget line item for. you know, any kind of furniture that's in the amenity area, fixtures that show up in the courtyards and beyond, anything that is, you know, call it not attached to the building. So yes, it would fall into that budget item for us from the construction side, you know, from the initial bill. And then our operations budget would certainly include, you know, as Rob said, maybe over time, a period of years, we need either refurbish or replace. That's something that would be built into our operating expense budget as well.
[Unidentified]: You know, sort of capital reserves.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. I just want to check in with Mr. Bomer. I know you haven't had a lot of time to review it, but what's your take on the suitability of this solution? You mentioned you hadn't seen it before. You thought it was creative.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: I think I'm convinced. It might be different if they were lower buildings. The courtyards are up at the third level in the building. I think if the size is right, and if, as I said, if there really is the ability to make flexible spaces work, if the furniture's really there, I think it could work. What I was thinking about as we were, as this discussion has been going on is, would there ever be an argument for skewing the unit mix so that one building had more family units than the other building? But at the same time, you know, kids love swimming pools. So I'm not sure which way you skew it. You're as likely to get kids who want to go swimming as playing on uh, homemade climbing structures. So I think it can work and it is protected space and playground, you know, play spaces or, you know, generally get much more use in nice weather anyway. And I'm not sure that the courtyard disadvantages that, um, at all, as long as it's kept clear of snow and maintain, you know, maintains its usability might even be more useful. I think, you know, for me, I noticed in the landscape plans, and again, forgive me for not having tons of time to review it. I think it maybe just needs a little more fleshing out. Rob has designed these before, I believe, and I think maybe seeing some more images of it. I think on the plans, on sheet two of the revised plans, It says resident play opportunity. To me, I think I would harden that up a bit and say it's resident play area and here's why it works. It provides more detail potentially. Similarly with the, on the plans where it talks about a mural opportunity, you know, depending upon the scale of that, I think it's something the board would really want to know what it is, what that mural is and how big it is. But anyway, I think it can work. I think it's an interesting idea. I do think that the noise or the sounds that children make is generally not considered to be a bad, bad sound. And it's generally pretty limited in time, hours of the day that is. I don't know if I'm meandering a bit too much.
[Mike Caldera]: That's helpful context, at least for me. I guess my overall suggestion is the following. It's even in a community, that doesn't expect to have a lot of kids. I think it's still important to have a strategy for kids. You're going to have some, and it really, you know, it's almost amounts to an inclusivity issue, right? Like, so it's not just, yes, okay, sure, there's less kids. So, you know, how do we kind of fairly distribute the space? There's a class of resident in this community that has needs, and there just needs to be a strategy for that. You know, I do, I do like this idea that maybe a portion of this space could be flexible use, you know, so that way you can potentially justify when it's needed having a larger space devoted to those residents and then, you know, have some strategy to kind of put it away. So you're not permanently, you know, taking up that space that other residents might like to enjoy as well. And the last thing I'll just say is, you know, the ratio of kids that live in the building is just one factor. You know, there's quite possible there's grandparents who live there, or maybe they have, Perhaps they help care for their grandkids, perhaps they have visitors. So I don't want to delve too much into personal anecdotes, but there was certainly a period, you know, where my parents who live in a community not unlike this, you know, would have really struggled if they didn't have access to a playroom in their apartment building or a, you know, In their case, there was a playground in the back. So I don't think there's one particular way to meet that need, but I just want to call out that need exists. And it was more than just the ratios. It's just having a strategy to make it a welcoming community for families with young children.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I agree. A couple comments I would add is that the building, the rear building, building two does have the larger amenity space. And I see that as potential, you know, kind of multi-generational space where grandparents could, you know, as long as it's laid out that way, we don't really know what's going in there at this point. So again, maybe fleshing it out in more detail could really help. you know, help convince us all. I would say, I think it is important to note that if that park across the street didn't exist, we would be having a different discussion, for sure. You know, I don't see these courtyard spaces as being appropriate for 14-year-olds, you know, with Frisbees. That's not gonna work.
[Adam Hurtubise]: other questions or comments from the board. Okay.
[Mike Caldera]: Well, so just to let folks know kind of how I was thinking about this meeting going in and my current thoughts. So I echo Andre's sentiments. I really appreciate the thought that's gone into adopting some of the suggestions that were made along the way to really improve elements of the architecture. So my concern just from a sheer timeline perspective was if we didn't leave today's meeting with general alignment on things such as footprint, we're really going to be cramping the schedule. And so I think there's some feedback regarding the you know, just wanting a little bit more details on exactly what this flexible space looks like for the younger children, exploring the conversation with the fire chief to explore the possibility of shifting the building over, the question about the adequacy of the bike storage, which by the way, I did look up the Cambridge guide, and I'm not saying that's necessarily the only number we should index on, but My read of that as it would be on the order of like 360 some odd spaces would be their recommendation so. big enough gap, I just want to call out that perhaps the applicant should just think about the sizing. Maybe 96 isn't really the right number. Maybe it's not 300 some odd, but as Director Hunt mentioned, we're well under one space per unit in an area that does have access to a park, is going to have some bike commuters, and so on. But, and then there was a turning radius on some of the spaces. But my take and I'd like to just take a temperature check to the board is in terms of the not yet settled discussions I'm not seeing anything on there that would require such a drastic change to the footprint or the architecture plans that essentially it would prevent us from continuing to hone the discussion and sort of move on to the next important topics on the agenda. And so I'm comfortable if the rest of the board is comfortable not scheduling a formal work session to iterate on the design. It seems like we're getting close and we'll have an opportunity to hear Mr. Bowmer's more detailed feedback and Mr. Reardon's more detailed feedback at our next meeting on April 12th. So just wanted to check in with the board in case anyone uh, has concerns that would like to raise. I'm certainly happy to consider setting up a work session, but I don't want to do it if, um, if folks are aligned that, that the design itself is converging and that we're, we're in good shape. Any thoughts? Go ahead, Andre.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, no, I feel pretty good. I'm glad we made a, you know, a significant step forward. And, uh, I think that we're on track. I don't see major changes needed.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Other thoughts from the board? I also feel the same. Vat, Jamie, what are your thoughts?
[Unidentified]: I definitely agree the progress that's been made has been definitely on the positive side, the shifting of the building has definitely made the concerns we had about first floor residents on commercial street. And the spread of the amenity space. I think is a good design change the deck upstairs of the roof is going to be really nice. And although the loss of that amenity space on that building, I think that passed through and being able to use that as integrated with the courtyard is a great idea.
[Yvette Velez]: I'm comfortable with the progress in what was shown and the detail that was given to us.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, wonderful. Thank you all. So then in that case, so there are a few logistical items I want to go through. I just want to do last call for questions from the board on the architecture update before we move on to housekeeping items.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Mike Caldera]: Um, so we did send, um, a schedule, um, to the, the applicant mid last week. Um, and so, so we already have one, um, additional meeting on the books, that's Wednesday, April 12th. And that one is focal because the intention is we would like to see any updates to the peer reviews, as well as any outstanding department head letters. So there are department heads that haven't sent us letters that we're holding off. I would like to see those in the April 12th meeting. I do think that we've identified a few areas where we'd certainly appreciate if the applicant can update us if they've made progress in the intervening weeks. But since that's the requested by date on the peer reviews, I just wanna check in first with Mr. Reardon and then with Mr. Ballmer on whether you think that's a feasible timeline for you. Go ahead, Mr. Reardon.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's definitely a feasible timeline for me to get a letter back and I think the issues are relatively limited. I do have a conflict on the 12th I have a hearing in New York that evening that I may be able to get out of it, maybe by eight o'clock and hop on a zoom call but pretty busy that night, but hopefully I can get everything well articulated in a letter and maybe even have someone here in my stead just to sort of answer any questions if they come up.
[Mike Caldera]: Sounds great, yeah. I'm certainly amenable to, you know, if you have a conflict and you're able to write your letter in advance and share it with us and just have, you know, some representative present, you know, that would be, I think, suitable for our purpose.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Great, thanks.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Uh, Mr. Gomer, does that plan work for you?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: It does. Um, but I repeat what I said before. I do hope that we see movement on some of these directions that you restated. Um, I just think we, the project would, would move. I just think parts of it aren't quite working yet. So if we can. keep moving as well. We've seen a lot of movement so far, and I don't doubt that it can keep getting better. But I can certainly have a response to their response in time for that meeting. And I am available that night as well.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: And just to add to that, if I could, Mr. Chair, it's great to have these discussions and sort of You're alluding to possibilities, but when it comes right down to it, the information needs to be part of the drawing set so to the extent that these ideas can find their way onto a plan so that the board can can know with certainty that they're going to be part of the scope of the improvements that would be really helpful to yeah. definitely.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah. Yeah. And so to that point, so the thought process is, is as follows. So, um, we need articulated in writing some of the kind of remaining concerns. And so I think the plans have converged to a point where we're hopefully it's straightforward, um, you know, for, for each of you to do that. The, if not, let us know. But the, when we, when you gave the initial, um, peer review letters, I believe both of you made comments to similar effect, essentially saying, well, you know, I don't really have enough detail to do this properly. The intention here is that, you know, with some additional details that have been provided to either we're at the point where we're getting close to it, where, you know, you feel comfortable that, you know, in general, that at least for the big items, you know, that, they've been articulated sufficiently well that you could just sort of put on paper your thoughts. And then it is my hope that as you have been, if dialogues happen in between meetings and continued collaboration and that's able to improve the plan or help to refine it, I certainly think that's the goal and the hope. Um, but then what we will do is, um, Since there may be certain items that just don't converge where there's just a agree to disagree situation in the, the, the meeting that follows the April 12th. Um, That's when we want the applicant, essentially like the final response to those written documents. So this is when we would ask for what I'm calling the final draft of the proposed plans. I'm not trying to, you know, freeze the ability to iterate, but we just need this to converge because otherwise we start really getting into this window where we're not going to know what we're voting on or what the waiver request list is or things of that nature. So yeah, that's the plan, but I just wanted to give each of you an opportunity to weigh in if you're not aligned or if you have concerns with how we're planning to proceed.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, don't see any concerns raised.
[Mike Caldera]: So go ahead, I thought I heard somebody, was somebody gonna say something?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: No, that was me, I was just saying I'm good.
[Mike Caldera]: Good, okay, wonderful. So then I will ask Dennis to at some point soon send out the invites to the remaining hearings that we're planning to have. So we did check a few dates. There's Monday, April 24th, Monday, May 8th, Monday, May 15th. And then that's when we get into the territory where it's essentially our last week within the 180 day window. And so intention is to close the hearing on Monday, May 22nd, and then we've budgeted Wednesday, May 24th as a buffer in case we get off track. And so, yeah, I think we have a plan in terms of the next steps. One housekeeping item that I just wanna double check with someone who's a little bit more plugged into state politics than I am. I think the Senate passed the budget which contained the extension to remote hearing. So are we good there? Go ahead, Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: So where it stands as of Friday, and our lawyer promised to update us as soon as she knew more specifically, is that it is in front of the governor for signature. So it is not passed, but there's every expectation that she is going to sign it in the next few days.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. And then Dennis, when To meet all of the timelines you're required to for posting and such, when is the latest this would need to happen in advance of the April 12th hearing for us to be confident that it could be remote only?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, Dennis is thinking about it.
[Alicia Hunt]: And if it helps, under current law, if for some reason it's not, The requirement is that the board needs to be in person. There's never actually been a prohibition about having the public or applicants remote. It just is a much more complicated meeting for us to run. So I just wanted to put that out there.
[Mike Caldera]: Mr. Rainer, it looks like you wanted to say something.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you. For the record, Chris Rainer from Goldstone and Storrs. I've been wrestling with this on a couple of projects. I think the trick is that the board needs to vote what date it is continuing the hearing to and what method it will be continuing to. And so I'm not sure that we can continue the hearing tonight and make a decision in the future as to whether it's remote or in person. Dennis, I don't know if you and Alicia have you know, wrestle this through with your lawyer, I think the conservative option right now would be to, and safe option would be to continue the hearing to an in-person hearing on April 12th. Something else we could do, again, I'm trying to be creative here and thinking a little bit on the fly, like Director Hunt, I was checking at the State House and really hope we hear good news today. If there was a date that worked before April 12th, the board could conceivably continue the hearing to that date in person, but plan at that meeting to take no testimony and just vote at that hearing to continue it to April 12th. And by then, hopefully the governor signed the legislation. That could be an interim step if you don't want to continue it to April 12th in person. which I think is probably the proper move, because if the governor doesn't sign for some reason, we're in a bit of a quagmire.
[Alicia Hunt]: So one alternative that's similar but not as complicated, because the board would have to show up to do that voting, right? Even if they said there was no testimony, is that we could vote to hold it hybrid. And we actually, some of you may remember, we actually held the opening meeting hybrid, And Dennis and I sat in a room by ourselves while the rest of you were remote. And that can be done. It is perfectly acceptable to move rooms within City Hall. Like if we're scheduled for room 201 and you have to move to room 208, that's legal. You just put a note on the door saying we're down the hall. Because we used to run into that all the time with the bookends. You can't send people to a different building. But we could send, you know, we could have a couple of us. As it is, Dennis is sitting in City Hall tonight.
[Mike Caldera]: Right. Yeah. Okay. I have some thoughts, but I think, uh, at least one of the strategies proposed, um, would still require an answer to the question I asked Dennis. So like, when's the, so, so for example, if we did the whole, we'll do a hearing just to have a vote to do another continuation. When would like, when, when do you need to post, like how much notice do you need to post the, um, the one we really wanna have, the April 12th. Is it just the 48 hours or is it something else?
[Denis MacDougall]: My understanding is we have to announce tonight during this meeting when the next one will be.
[Mike Caldera]: Right, understood.
[Denis MacDougall]: As long as we do a public hearing during this hearing, that becomes, and then 48 hours prior, I have to post the notice on the city's website in the clerk's office, things like that. That's when, so that's where the 48 hours is from just prior to the hearing, but we have to basically pick a night for the next one publicly here and say how it's going to be.
[Mike Caldera]: Right. Understood. Jamie, you had something to say?
[Unidentified]: Since we have a regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, would it be inappropriate to schedule for a vote for the next meeting on that day?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I think, oh, I see.
[Mike Caldera]: So we could, in principle, if I'm understanding correctly, vote to continue this hearing to the 31st, either right before or right after, or probably right before would be ideal. Our schedule- That would be the 30th. I'm sorry, the 30th. right before our scheduled meeting on the 30th. And then with the intention, so that would be a remote meeting and the agenda of that meeting would be set as voting on the next date for our, basically just the only thing we're gonna do is continue it. And we could just communicate in advance. That's all we wanna do is this is a meeting to pick the date for the next meeting. Yeah, I think I like that idea because I believe that if we were to try to give maximum time for the governor, then we run into the problem of we can't really continue it in a virtual only past The 31st. And so, yeah, so I'm amenable to that idea that we would continue this hearing to the 30th, you know, maybe. after 7.20 p.m. and just, is there any reason we need the applicant to even be present if we decided now that we would just be doing this procedural vote? I mean, I wanna check with the applicant. Hypothetically, I mean, we could talk about it, but I guess we could, you know, take a date or a mode that's problematic to you.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: So yeah, I mean, are you comfortable? I think this is a great suggestion by member Thompson. I think this solves the issue. I think I would, with my personality, have a hard time staying away, but I'm happy to zoom in for five or 10 minutes. I also understand that there are other non-remote hearing Um, uh, matters of, of, of regulatory and legislative change that unwind on March 31st, if the governor doesn't sign, um, the bill that's on her desk. And so I think there's going to be a lot of, um, focus on this. And so I'm really confident this will get fixed by Thursday. So I think that's a great solution.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah. It sounds great. And so in the event that the governor doesn't fix it by the 30th, We could, in principle, continue it and just checkpoint on the 31st. I think no matter what, we're going to have enough information by then to know if we just have to go hybrid. I don't want to presume hybrid given how flexible it seems to be for some of the participants. And we know that, well, open question whether Mr. Reardon will even attend, but we know we'll have some folks who may struggle to make it in person. And so I think this will just retain flexibility and hopefully the procedural problem will resolve itself. So yeah, I'm supportive of that plan. Any other housekeeping items we should be discussing that have slipped my mind? All right, well, so in that case, I think we've accomplished everything we set out to today. Since our next hearing, we don't intend to see any presentations. We won't be taking public comment, assuming the motion I await passes. So I believe, We are ready. The chair awaits a motion to continue the hearing for 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway to Thursday, March 30th, after 7.20 p.m. to be held by remote means only.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So moved. Do I have a second? All right. Um, Jamie. Hi, Jim. Hi. Hi, Andre.
[Mike Caldera]: Hi, Mike. Hi. All right, so the hearing is continued to 720 PM this Thursday, March 30th. Hopefully we have good news from the governor by then. Thank you everybody for your time. It was a good meeting and I look forward to our review of the updated peer review letters at a later hearing. Do I have a motion to adjourn?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to adjourn. Do I have a second? All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Thanks. Good night, everyone.