[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, folks, I think that we can get started. So I'm going to open the meeting I'm going to welcome everyone to this special meeting of the methods on the Board of Appeals. This matter we're going to be discussing a 40 B issue that's in front of us. We have present for members we have a that fellas. We may also be joined by our associate Jamie Thompson. He's not yet on. And then for members of staff who are present, we have Alicia Hunt and Dennis McDougall. We also have Judy Barrett, who is a special 40B consultant with us. And then I believe, do we have Sean Reardon? Oh, there he is. And Sean Reardon is with us, and he is from Tetra Tech, and he's one of the consultants who's working with us on this project. Okay, so Dennis, could you please read out the, the zoom, what you call it.
[Denis MacDougall]: On July 16 2022 governor Baker signed into law and act relative to extend and start extending certain state emergency accommodations, which among other things extends the expiration of provisions to meet the open meeting on March 31 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 other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote hearings from July 15, 2022 to March 31, 2020. OK, thank you, Dennis. And could you call the matter? 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway, case number 40B-2022-01, continued from January 25th, 2023.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, Dennis, thank you so much. So we are going to we're going to hear from Sean Reardon today, who is one of the consultants working with the board in reviewing this application. And we are also going to hear from the applicant. And I actually to the applicant, I apologize, I do not have my notes from our last meeting in front of me. Did you? Did we agree that you folks were going to have your architect speak today? Is that what we agreed?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Good evening, Madam Chair and the board. Yes, this is Tim Alexander from Mill Creek. Yeah, we have both our architect and actually landscape architect on as well and have 10-12 slides that we can present and get into a little more depth on this.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, so I'm glad that I remember that correctly. Why don't we start with you folks, and you can just walk us through whatever you'd like us to see, and then we can see if board members have questions, and then we can talk to Mr. Reardon.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Okay, great. That sounds great to us. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure, so Andrew Stebbins from TAT has slides to share. Dennis, I presume, is it you who has to make him a co-host? Are you set? All set. Okay. So great. I'll do just a 30-second intro to make sure you know the folks and then I'll pass it off. So going back to our first hearing in November, I gave a really high-level discussion about project design and layout. And given that we are in a moment in time here where the peer reviewers have the materials, haven't quite put together full comments, we got their letter Friday afternoon. But we thought this was a good opportunity to provide a little bit more detail on the thinking behind the design and the way the building operates and the amenities both inside and out as well. Andrew Stebbins will lead off. He's the lead architect and project manager at the architectural team. Andrew's office is actually pretty nearby in Chelsea, just next door. We've been working together as a firm for 10, 12 years, and Andrew and I have worked together for five plus years. Andrew will get into some details, and he'll also include Rob Adams, who's online from Halverson Design Group, who's our trusted landscape designer as well. And so just quickly, we've got just a broad overview, as I said, 10 to 12 or maybe 13 slides. Wanted to talk through the site a little bit more, obviously the context that plays into the design and siting of the building. Andrew will talk about massing and context and how the buildings were generally some of the programs, talk a little bit about design and how the, we call it the skin, but the exterior materiality and color palette, et cetera. And then we'll get a little bit more into interior programming and a couple of questions that we had in the last hearing centered around amenity programming and retail and the thought behind those. We'll get a little bit more into detail there and then talk about the courtyards and other landscape amenities as well. So without further ado, Andrew, why don't you take it away?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: Great. Can anybody hear me okay and see my screen? Yes. All right. Good evening, everybody. My name is Andrew Stebbins. I'm an associate with the architectural team. As Tim mentioned, I'm going to be talking about the design. How did we get to where we are today? It's very important, I think, to everybody to stand. There's been a lot of thought. that's gone into this. It's a building, as any building, needs to work for the city and the context that it's in. It needs to work for the resident, which we feel it does wonderfully. And so I thought, we've got this presentation here with some slides. Some of them are kind of geared towards some of the comments and questions that we've heard, but I'll run through these, then I'll hand it off to Rob to talk a little bit about the landscaping. So I'm gonna go kind of macro outside the building, and I'll go inside the building a bit to talk, as Tim said, about the planning, and then I'll hand it over to Rob to finish this off, so. So the slide may look familiar. It's one Tim had shown previously. We just wanted to really highlight this is really a fantastic site. It's a dream site for anybody who's interested in walkability and TOD transport-oriented design. You know, there's a lot of resources that are within walking distance, within biking distance. And also, I believe, Tim, you said there's going to be a shuttle for this project as well, correct? So on the screen here, we get some of the walk times. I don't go through every one of them, but, you know, three major grocers, you know, within an eight-minute walk. In typical Massachusetts fashion, there's two Dunkin' Donuts that you can get to in under 10 minutes. a dozen restaurants, just a great spot to be. And then I think one of the most important things is the park. To me, I feel like this park is serving the project and the project's also serving the park. I've driven by this many times over my 25 years at TAT and I almost never know how to get into it. So I haven't seen too many people in the park. So I think this is a great opportunity to have the park be used and be more active and have people be able to take advantage of the park and the Mystic River and the waterfront, which is always a great thing. So as a reminder, here's the existing site. Quite a lot of impervious surface. Existing is approximately 93.6%. The courthouse to the right. And the park down on the page. So most of the exhibits are going to be shown with the park on the right, but I'll tell you when we flip flop. The proposed site has 81.9% impervious. It's about a 12% improvement over the pervious to impervious surface. So one of the first things here you see is this line. It's really kind of a loose datum line. There is actually a formal setback, 25 foot setback. state setback from the property line. In reality, it's really more like 46, 45, 46 feet from the edge of Mystic Valley Parkway to the building. But in terms of site setback, we have this 25, I think it's 26 is the actual number. And really just following the data line that exists up and down Mystic Valley Parkway, you can see We're pretty much following what the existing building is, the courthouse, Bertucci's, and even up to the right, I know the Ford dealership is also snugged up to the parkway as well. And in our case, what it really allows us to do is provide this two-building scheme with the ability to have more open space there. And I think it's a great advantage to organize it that way. So just a little bit more about the context, and not maybe in two dimensions, but in three. So it really sits right along Mystic Valley Park, next to the park to the left, obviously. There's an existing 114 foot high set of buildings to our west, Mystic River Park condominiums, 12 stories. And on the right, sort of modeled in here, the approved rise together project, which is also eight stories, but due to it being a lab with any mechanical requirements, the top of that screen is 165 feet, which is nearly double what the proposed building, which is eight stories and 85 feet. Here's another look at it from more frontal view. Same concept, so fits well within what's there today and what has been has been approved. So. So the massing is more than just just a box. Obviously we need to break down. That box too. To give it some life and we've done that with a. with a lot of design concepts here I'd like to talk through. So it is an eight-story building, but it is highly articulated with a combination of material changes, varying balcony types, window types, some material changes as well. So you can see along the two faces, the Mystic Valley Parkway faces to the right. We have sort of a base and top, The areas that have the retail and amenity spaces would have large glass, storefront glass. And then the residential areas would have more of a punch window effect. And instead of having like just a static punch window that's consistent and sort of banal, we've really tried to create some movement and some interest in the facade, some of it by the small projection and color change, but also the window patterning and grouping the windows and randomized patterns to create some life and interest. Also in the facade design, we put these nodes, you can see them on the right side, addressing on the corners. So the park face has this recessed balcony in the middle with the two wings on the end. And then in the left side, you can see the commercial street where we've sort of repeated that. It's another node. It's a major entrance node for the building and pedestrians and parking as well, which I'll go over in the building planning. Just a few slides here.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Andrew, can I jump in on two quick things? Absolutely. You mentioned the windows, which is extremely important, right? One is to use them to sort of in the design to break down the building massing, but there's also an inside out component and thing that Andrew and I worked on before we submitted in October was to make sure that the way these windows are organized also lines up appropriately with all the interiors. So, you know, spaced and spaced evenly and working with basically living rooms and bedrooms, which are generally on the outside of these apartment homes. So to make sure there's adequate light and obviously operable windows for the residents to use. And same goes for obviously those balconies appropriately located either off of a living room or off of a bedroom in some cases. So it's not just an architectural feature, but it's actually usable for the residents. The one other thing I wanted to mention is what's not on this picture of this rendering is signage. And with something we'll get into later, I don't want to spend a lot of time tonight, but I just wanted to note, you know, we need to be, we have been, and we'll be thinking about, you know, building ID signage, whether it's on the ground plane or whether it's above our front entrances or potentially even you know, sort of a blade sign that may be somewhere on the building for identification. And then obviously, with our retail component, we'll have appropriate signage for our future retail tenant and business as well, or multiple. So didn't want to think that just because it's not on this image doesn't mean that we haven't been thinking about it, and we can probably tackle that a little bit down the road.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Tim. Those are good points. Yes. Appreciate that. Here's an image from commercial street. This is that node between the building one on the right and building to lower level here you see the sort of ground floor amenity space for building to then go through that planning, a little more detail and plan view. I forgot to mention before, a variety of balcony opportunities, and this goes along with the variety of exterior opportunities. We have recessed balconies, balconies carved out of a corner and projecting balconies, and then balconies that face all directions. The great thing about a project like this is going to be a great variety of units and unit choices and also sort of exterior choices as well. And not every unit gets a balcony. It's also part of the sort of the method of providing options for potential residents. Let's move on to the next. Let me talk a little about the building planning and how we got here today. I think the breaks out of how the project sort of lays out one of the great things I think about the planning is the sort of hiding of the of the garage. As you can see, the garage is wrapped in on three faces, the most public faces on missing Valley Parkway along Commercial Street. And also we have it on the entry way here. And that's, that's done purposefully to so that you're not not seeing a wide range of garage face. So the project is eight stories. So it's a what it's called, we call it a five over three, which is podium construction. So it's five levels of of FRT, fire retardant treated wood, exterior wood construction, over three levels of concrete. And so the way these, so all this in this plan, this is the ground floor plan, this is all in the other concrete. And the way the garages work, a resident would come in here and then the ramps go up and down. This goes down a half level and goes up and spins around. It's well-placed, convenient to the residents to get from their covered parking to their units. There's also a couple of other programmatic elements that are typically in these garages. One of here is you can see the trash rooms here. So these are internal trash rooms with storage or space for the two chutes that come down from above. So residents would drop their trash drop their recyclables and trash into the chute and then we have a corral of extra two yard bins that get brought out. When the trash truck comes, the maintenance staff will come out and bring the wheel out the two yard bins and they'll pick up the trash and be on their way. The other elements that we like to put in here and we're currently planning for is a healthy amount of covered bike storage. So these are bike racks that are sort of security, you know, sort of covered and protected from the elements and, you know, being available for everybody to come over and take. The way the building wraps around, so you can see the resident areas on these plans will be in the blue shades. Leasing amenity and retail are facing Mystic Valley Parkway as it stands today. We actually had the retail further in the corner here, but when we thought about movement and the use of the retail, I really didn't want to have to walk by the retail space to go behind their sort of back of house. So this will allow the residents to move from the exterior and also get to the elevators here without having to walk too far. And along Commercial Street, see here, we have a few resident units. They're shallow units, 15 foot deep. Interesting units there. Like I said, there's a, you can see just by the rectangles, there's quite a variety of unit types. So these, though they're shallow, they'll have more exterior wall and exterior windows. So they'll be quite nice little units to occupy. It's going to be occupied. And then here's the leasing sort of amenity I pointed out in the elevations. So when you come into the lobby, you get greeted. There'll be sort of a common area mail room, lounge. There's some typical amenity spaces up here on the left. We haven't programmed them out. Obviously, it's very, very early. But we have leasing. Work from home is a big amenity these days. dog wash, fitness and yoga center on site so they don't have to leave, no excuses, mail rooms and package rooms. And along with the bike storage, I'm sorry, I usually have repair stations as well, so I'll throw that in there. So that's the ground floor planning and you can see the relationship of the building and this pocket park and I'll leave Rob to discuss sort of the thoughts and ideas of why the park should be there and what its function can be in the realm of the context. So I think somebody asked about not only how the program works, but how the courtyards work or feel, and I'll get into that. I'll stick with the programming for now. So this is a level four. So level four is where the, like I said, the concrete's one to three, and then level four is where the wood starts. And so what we do is we carve out an area of each building, like to keep it close to the vertical circulation. So when residents are coming from down or up there, they're right there and not walking around the entire building to get the amenity space. But these are the types of spaces that would have like a club room or a tech lounge, like a game room. Club rooms oftentimes can get rented out for parties. More home office pods and maybe another conference room. So we'll work out the details of that if the project moves forward. Let's see, we have... speak a little bit about the planning and the building planning relation to the courtyards. I'd say generally we really like to, it's a rule of thumb, we like to stay one to one of width to the height of the space. So really the limiting factor would be the width and then you have to consider the height there. So with this, and Rob can get more into the actual design, but Just wanted to make sure people understand. So this is a, you can see the section key up here. This is a section through building one, Mystic Valley Park, which is over here. Here's that garage, which is lined by programming and not exposed. And then just to be clear, the courtyard space doesn't really start until level four. And so the building that's wrapped around is not eight stories, it's just five. And we've got some images to try to give you a sense. What does that mean? What does one-to-one mean? What does this all mean? We thought best to provide some representative images. The one on the left is really closely aligned with the sort of physical nature of the proposed courtyards. The courtyards that are proposed are are probably 60 feet wide and 55 feet high. So 60 feet wide, 55 feet high. And this one on the left here is about 58 feet wide. It's actually narrower than what we've got and a little bit taller. And so you can see, it doesn't feel closed in at all. There's actually quite a, Actually, both these slides are great examples of what we call an active courtyard, active use courtyard, pool, outdoor ping pong. And really, it's a great space to be in relation to, you know, to being at ground plane on Mystic Valley Parkway, which is really quite, it's really quite noisy there. We had a walkthrough with some folks from the town earlier on, and they were, talking in the back of the building, we came around to the Stick Valley Parkway and nobody could hear anybody talk. So he quickly moved away from that area around back to the back of the building again. So, you know, these interior courtyards are great places for, you know, for a respite or for, even if it's inactive, it's just a great space to, it's like, It's almost kind of like, in a sense, this one's more like an outdoor room. Some are more landscaped. I mean, there's different options, and Rob can talk to you about that a bit more. But I just wanted to highlight that this is really kind of the feel that you're looking at for the proportions that are being proposed. The image on the right is also a one-to-one. This actually happens to be a six-story, 65 feet wide and 65 feet high. project in Somerville. These are all kind of local projects that are recently, pretty recently built. The one on the left is actually, and both these images are, I think, decent shots of what a passive courtyard could be. A little quieter, no pool, place to hang out and read. And the one on the left is actually from Medford, Modera Medford. This is the smaller of the two courtyards, but it's another great example of what one-to-one means. So this is only 45 feet wide, 46 feet wide, sorry, and 45 feet high. So keeping that sort of relationship one-to-one similarly here. And I think this slide on the right really is another great example of just because the grade plane is in shadow doesn't mean that it's not a great place to sit and hang out all day. So I think this is another good example of a passive courtyard experience. It's someplace you can really just sit and enjoy quietly. I think. I think that's it Rob you want to talk to these slides or do you want to.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, no, I think. Yeah, we can talk about this, I think. So hi, Rob Adams with Helverson design we're. landscape architecture design firm principal worked with Andrew and Tim for quite a while. As Andrew pointed out the beginning of the slide, you know we're doubling the amount of permeable area which I'll admit is not a difficult goal to achieve, but I think most importantly, what we're doing is creating some just fundamental simple moves to really improve the quality of the space. So large street trees, improve pedestrian sidewalks, bump outs along commercial to help define the parking and limit crossing, better transition to the wetland with a vegetated edge. So all those kind of small moves while not earth changing or shattering on their own I think fundamentally make a better project and better site here. And as Andrew alluded to, you know, early on this idea of creating just a small pocket park on the corner of commercial and mystic. Um, it in itself, uh, it's more than, uh, it's not the park. It's not a large scale park, but it's more than just a bench on the side of the sidewalk. And so it creates a small respite, a small kind of gathering space. If you lived here or worked in an adjacent building, it's a great place, you know, to meet your neighbor, meet a friend before you cross into the park and enjoy the mystic. Then Andrew, if you want to go to the next slide, I think also touched on the just simplicity of doing fundamentally simple things, combating heat island and climate change by the introduction of large shade trees. The project via its side yards, as well as frankly the commitment of the proponent, To create places for shade trees to thrive right we're not looking to provide plant material that struggles or just survives but providing an opportunity for large scale plan material to thrive. willing to work with. CoB, Jay Sugnet – He, Him, His): The parkway to see if we can install some of the missing teeth there's some pinnacles along the parkway that are missing along our our portion. CoB, Jay Sugnet – He, Him, His.: : and happy to see if we can start to fill the fill that gap so happy to answer, you know, a variety of questions, but again just some really simple fundamental moves, I think that we're trying to do to create a project that fits better and has has some real public benefits.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, Rob. Could I ask you to expound a little bit more? Andrew, if you go back two slides, we have that sort of precedent image for a reason. It was really to think about size of that park. And you reminded me last week that I think it's roughly 30 feet deep.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: 30 by 40, yeah. I mean, it's a good size space, right? And it's, again, more than just benches on the back of a sidewalk. It's not a neighborhood park by any stretch, but it is a pleasant little pocket park. Again, the mature trees on Mystic make a great edge. It is that spot where we're hopeful that both new residents here as well as existing residents can find that moment to meet and gather before they cross into the park. Again, it's a good scale open space.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I was just going to go back to what Andrew was saying. We know that today, Mystic Valley Parkway is you know, dominated by vehicles. And, you know, it's not necessarily a calm and relaxing walk down the sidewalk. And we've tried to at least design the outer edge of that to be a little bit protected. So you can see the sort of gray area, which is where we'll have seating, tables and what other programming, but there is also a sort of an external sort of low planted area that sort of tries to serve as some protection for that pocket park area.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Yes.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: So, Andrew, anything else on your end or if not I think that I'm sure we're happy to answer any questions from the board based on what you saw or anything else obviously you want to.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Sure. Okay, thank you so much. Why don't we. Why don't we leave this up for the moment and then I can just, I'm going to open it up. I might have some questions, but I think I'm going to wait until we hear from Mr. Reardon regarding his initial letter. So I'm going to open it up if any of the board members have any questions they want to ask of the applicant at this time.
[Unidentified]: Mike, I see your hand, go ahead.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, just a clarifying question about the entrance to the retail space. So in the graphic, it looks like grass. Is that?
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, that's just an oversight. Apologize. That's an oversight on my part. Just didn't update the plans with some of the building changes. So we would have a generous paved entryway to the retail, probably even a bench for people to gather there outside the retail as well.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, so if I were in the pocket park sitting on a bench and then I wanted to go over to the retail space, I would likely make my way up to the sidewalk and walk along Mystic Valley Parkway and then cross through the parking? Or is that whole strip going to be
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: I think that CBD, we may create a small about in one of those parking spaces, you know shift some of the parking around a little bit or have the walkway up against the face of the building, I think as we evolve the design. Right, okay, we'll work with that. But yeah, clearly pedestrian safety is a priority and obviously access to the retail is a priority as well. I know that the door may shift, you know, one way or the other. And so again, like oversight on my part for not showing that connection, but yes, there will be a connection to the retail.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, thank you.
[Unidentified]: Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.:
[Andre Leroux]: : Any other Rob well yeah thanks Jackie Rob i'm just wondering if you could also speak a little bit more. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : In about the landscaping in the courtyards.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: CoB, Jay Sugnett – He, Him, His.: : yeah I think you know Andrew touched on a good point, and I think now, there are some questions at the last meeting about the quality of the spaces, and you know we found that. CoB, Jay Sugnett – He, Him, His.: : simplistically having an active courtyard and passive courtyard have been really beneficial for the residents and. I think Andrew's spot on around the relationship with the scale. You know, most of these images that you see here are projects that we have either been affiliated with or have studied and are successful open spaces for the tenants. And so we're confident that the scale of these spaces are comfortable and successful. And then as Andrew said, you know, it's about the kind of capturing of light and air We often call them the lungs, right, of the project. And so while yes, there will be some shade, the reflected light, the general openness to the sky, they're all very successful spaces and become, you know, kind of home, the backyard, if you will, for the residents. And again, having this active and passive solution has proven to be really successful. And so we're, again, proponent committed to providing enough soil volume to get large-scale trees. This image on the right is a project we had. Honestly, there's only 12 inches of depth between the structural deck. and the finished floor, but we're able to creatively either use curbs or low retaining walls to build some soil volume up. So something we've been doing for decades and engineering open spaces within a courtyard is proven to be pretty successful.
[Andre Leroux]: I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit about how during the cooler months the courtyards are used and or
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, right. So I mean, COVID has taught us a lot about. the simplicity of local space heaters, et cetera, to really extend the shoulder seasons for the courtyards. And so in the summer, obviously the shade is welcome as the shoulder seasons come, you know, frankly, while we all live in New England, the beauty of those shoulder seasons. And so we find these courtyards to be activated quite a bit. And then in the winter, right, obviously people aren't using them as actively, but they are that source of light and You know, we pride ourselves on a rich and robust plant palette, so there'll be winter interests, seasonal interest all year round. But there is some small moves, right? Gathering a seating area close to where the sun is predominantly for their shoulder seasons is a simple move that we'll use in this solution as well.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: A couple things I would add too in our, it's not on this slide, but in a recent courtyard we included a double-sided fireplace feature. So with seating on, you know, basically two-thirds of the whole circle around it, that's a good for off-season use when the pools close, for instance. And, you know, I think what one thing I want to mention that I don't, you know, don't love actually about the image on the left, that's a lot of hardscape. And I think what we liked about the next slide too is really the mix of softscape, landscape and hardscape. And that's something that we really, Rob does a great job of making sure that, yeah, you can see here, right? So while we're gonna have a generous pullback and we know from our existing communities that we operate You know, the pool is largely about the deck, people will get wet, but they're not, you know, it's mostly about being able to lie out and lay out. And so we want to provide that deck, but we also want to provide a lot of the softness as well. Whether it's a turf or real grass or softscape.
[MCM00000624_SPEAKER_08]: in terms of plantings, that's something that I want to make sure gets across and that this slide does a good job of... Right, providing that buffer, right, important providing that buffer between the social uses in the middle of the courtyard and the individual units along the edge. And you can see that in that second slide, the just heavily planted buffer between the green lawn and the open space.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Andre Leroux]: One question for the architect. The ground floor units, will they have their own entrances, or will there be only an internal entrance?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: Customarily, we keep them internal. Rarely we'll do townhouse sort of feel, but, you know, go either way, but this this proposal is all internal. So you can see the the access points here and these a few patios that are at grade. I think there's only a handful here would have to have like a rail around it. So, you know, rail and plant things around it. So there'll be a bit of a physical buffer between somebody just walking up to the to the door to the unit.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's right. So it can be busy and somewhat confusing if those units did have direct access to the exterior. I think it can be a common first perception of these is to look at them and say, wow, this is a little bit removed from the rest of the residential square footage. It might feel like a little bit off. I have to say, our pet owners, these are often very desired units, just because pet owners can walk down the corridor outside. You never have a problem with these.
[Andre Leroux]: I think your sound's in and out a bit. Oh, I'm sorry.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I was just saying pet owners like these ground floor units. Sorry about that.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Is it quiet time or did my sound go off? Just checking. I have a brand new computer and I'm like struggling with the light and everything, so I didn't want sound to go down.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, yeah, sure.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Mike, go ahead.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, so I wasn't sure the right time to ask this, but if you could go to the view of the fourth floor. So when I saw this and when I saw the amenity space in here, and then also you've mentioned previously that one of the courtyards would be more active, the other would be more passive or restful. It just got me thinking, is there an opportunity to connect the buildings on the fourth floor? Like, I'm just thinking about if I were on the wrong side to use the amenity space I wanted or the courtyard I wanted, I'd have to get to the elevator, go down, cross the street. And I know there'll be some traffic calming elements, which we'll talk about later, but cross through traffic, go in the other and then up again. So, I mean, it wouldn't quite cut the elevator use in half, but for that kind of use case, it would, right. I'm doing one elevator trip instead of two. Just wondering if, if like technically that's even feasible, if there's some reason why that doesn't make sense, but from like a flow perspective, I think that would be a potential, a real kind of quality of life improvement to just have the buildings connected somehow above.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: It's an interesting idea. I'll just take a quick, you know, I'd love to hear Andrew's thoughts too. It can be structurally challenging to build something like that and lay it out in the building so it works. But I think it's an interesting idea. One thing we do proactively is not that each building will sort of have duplicate amenities, but the more often used items, right? Well, certainly, you know, the everyday items like a mail room will be one in each building. And then the amenity spaces, right? Like a club type room, that's very flexible use. Some people like to work from home in a club room or work from home space in each building to make sure people Your point, we won't have two pools, right? Holding on the left and they want to use the pool, they need to, you know.
[Unidentified]: Anyway, I'll multiply, interesting idea.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Andrew, have you done that before in a project, in a program like this? I've not seen it locally.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_02]: No, I haven't seen it either. Yeah, I think the expense of it versus the, The use of it may not be in alignment for a project. The real moments you really don't want to, I mean, obviously there's a shortcut, which is great. Obviously it's very walkable as well, but if it's inclement weather, you know, at least the courtyards likely won't be under heavy use or, you know, Rob talked about, you know, like the sort of three-season aspect of some of the spots in the courtyard. So I just think that the amount of use it would get, because you still, in all honesty, unless you're on the fourth floor, you know, you still gotta travel up and down. And, you know, the amenity spaces, will be, I'm sure they'll be handled differently, but there'll probably be a little bit overlap. So we'll have to talk to this more with Tim, but it does bring up a good point. You know, do we try to put a sort of rentable room in each building so that you don't have to, if you want to rent out a room in the middle of winter, go down outside and go back up. But I think both buildings will have sort of major elements you'll want to see out of, internally, you'll want to see out of a program space, such as the bike storage, the bike repair, the home office. We'll probably be mindful as we do plan it with the fact that that's not the case. If we did do it, you could imagine you would have an opportunity to not have to do that, which is kind of a bit of a savings. I don't think it would, you know, align to the costs of the bridge. The other piece is, this is also a fire department access point. So we typically, we need like 14 feet. It'd be close with the structure. It'd be close, you probably could arrange. Arrange it and still get underneath with the fire department, but. But yeah, we haven't seen that in this in this sort of product.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, so for me, I don't want to really harp on it at this point, but I'm just and I also can't really predict what other residents would do, but for me personally, like if I lived on any floor except for one in this building, if I wanted to get to the amenities or the the courtyard or the amenity space on the other side, I would 100% of the time go if it was connected go to the fourth floor cross through the bridge and go over because it like it and in the world where it's not connected every time I decided to do it or needed to do it, I would groan, because I'm going to have to go all the way to the first floor. Then I'm going to have to cross. Then I'm going to have to wait for the elevator again. Then I'm going to have to go up. So I hear you on the cost. And yeah, I'm not really the right person to speak to some of the safety elements and the trade-off. But I don't want to. I really do think it's a functional improvement in the world where there's any amount of desire for these residents to be cross-utilizing the functional spaces on the fourth floor.
[Unidentified]: Anyway, that's all. Thanks, Mike. Any other board members have any questions or anything they want to clarify with the applicant? Okay, Mr. Reardon, you are up.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Welcome.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: We received your letter, I just want to double check to the applicant have you received a copy of this letter.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, yes, I think, Friday afternoon we received a copy and. I distributed to the team. I'm not sure how much of a chance we've had to review, but yeah. Okay, great.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you. All right. So Mr. Reardon, I'm going to defer to you in terms of, do you want to, is there anything you want to either present to the board? Did you want to highlight some things to the board? How would you like to sort of go through this a little bit?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, sure. Just a quick little introduction and just sort of you sort of brief little description on what we do and how we do it and why we do it. And then maybe touch on a few of the key items. We draft a letter specifically so we have a good record of all of our comments. And the letter usually speaks for itself and gives the board and the applicant sort of an administrative tool to track things. Doesn't mean all the comments have equal weight, certainly don't. But we do try to capture everything, both as a service to the board and to the applicant as well because we see our, our roles, kind of as a reviewer for them to to sort of identify issues that potentially they may have overlooked or having considered. But real briefly, I'm Sean Reardon. I'm a vice president with Tetra Tech. We're an engineering firm based out of Marlboro, Mass. Do a lot of this 40B review project. I'm also a developer's engineer, to use a phrase. So about 60% of my time is more on the development side, about 40% on the review or the expert witness side. Our goal is never to be obstructive, but we're also not going to just sort of rubber stamp things. Our goal really is to is to help the board make informed decisions and to make sure the record is as clear as it can be so that when things get hopefully resolved in a decision, all the information's there so the decision's easy to write and we're just pointing to a set of plans rather than to a complex set of agreements. My initial takeaways is, yeah, this is just an awesome site. So I was out there actually today and I was like, wow, this is yeah this is perfect locations fantastic stuff nearby is fantastic so really. kind of everything you want from a good site. The other thing as a civil engineer, second thing I noticed was, yeah, it's all paved. Great. So everything that we do out here to add green spaces sort of going to net out a positive thing for both the community and the infrastructure nearby. We did have some questions on stormwater, more out of just that there wasn't a whole ton of information provided. Not that we have whole host of concerns or we see any problems, more on the lines of just looking for a little bit more documentation so we can be certain that we won't have issues going forward. Probably our biggest takeaway was, you know, as most 40 B projects are, you know, the density gets sort of upped up a bit, leaving sort of not a lot of space to construct a project. So what we like to do is sort of get a little bit better understanding about how construction is gonna be affected so that if there's a plan to use the public way to support construction, if there's a plan to sort of borrow space from a neighbor, that that all gets laid out so the board could consider it as part of their process. Otherwise, if it sort of gets just left up to the ether that, it ends up being sort of points of contention later. So that if what we don't want to do is have something come up that wasn't considered as part of this process. So those were my two big takeaways were really just the construction related issues. And then maybe the plans and a lot of the information that was shown tonight wasn't in the document set that I saw. I didn't see a landscape plan. I didn't see a lighting plan or anything like that. We just want to make sure that we can have as good a documentation as possible and as consistent a documentation between all the drawings so that, again, to avoid confusion to make the decision-making process awkward. One of the other things too is probably as you can imagine, it's going to be a pretty tight site with a lot of people. We want to make sure that we have a good understanding about you know, how's snow going to be removed? How's loading going to be accomplished? How are deliveries going to be planned for? How's move in, move out planned for? And things are kind of tight. So not that those things can't be solved, just more of just let's put them on the record so everybody knows going forward that they've been thought through and that they were planned for. Also, one thing that sometimes gets overlooked. In these situations we're taking what was sort of an industrial facility single-story building and substituting a residential use with a lot of new people. This is going to be a lot more water use and a lot more sewer use. Not that that's a problem. We're in a pretty urban location so we would expect the utilities to be robust. But we think it's important that there's a document so that the board can refer to it to just basically set the record straight that there's adequate capacity in the water and sewer system. Really doesn't have to be a lot of work, but should cover a few basic things. For example, what's the current status of the sewer out front? Are there any issues with it? What's the projected amount of sewage that's gonna go from the facility out to the street? just more along the lines of just documenting it for the record so that we can sort of comfortably and confidently say that there will be no issues related to water and sewer. We were also tasked with looking at sort of the environmental components of the wetlands. That's a pretty straightforward issue. The wetland out back is really well defined. We took a look at that. We don't see any problems with that delineation or that clarification or qualification of that as a particular type of wetland. so don't see too many issues with that. The board, I'm not certain what the board's responsibility is under the local bylaw, but keep in mind that under the 40B process, the CONCOM, the Medford CONCOM still maintains review authority under the State Wetlands Protection Act. So regardless of what the board does here, the local CONCOM still has to review and approve the project under the state law. So to the extent that the board doesn't feel like sort of conducting a parallel wetlands review, I would suggest you consider sort of relying on the the state regulations, which are usually pretty consistent with local regulations, and just let the Conservation Commission handle that. And then if the CONCOM is concerned about your waiving any particular requirements in the local bylaw or the local regulations, that they can just ask you to consider them as part of your decision. Right now, our traffic consultants are reviewing the traffic study, so we expect that will probably be done this week. What we'll do is we'll issue a subsequent letter just on the traffic issues, and then we can present them as well. Then after that letter gets issued, what we'll do is we'll combine all the comments into one document so that they can all be tracked to closure in one single document. But in closing, good projects certainly looks well-thought and well-planned. My personal opinion is that it's much better than that first project I saw, which was a single building so you know a lot of good things about it. But a lot of sort of some more detail could help sort of close the loop on some of the questions.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, thank you so much. We really appreciate that. I just had a, my general takeaway from reading your report, which I really appreciate the level of granularity that you gave us, was that there were some issues in terms of construction, where we're gonna be, where equipment is going to be, how that's gonna be located on the site, given the massing of the building, and then also afterwards, some massing issues. Would you say that those are probably the two primary concerns?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I think it's that and just recognizing the fact that you don't have a lot of space to fix things later. So it puts a real premium on thinking through all the little details now. For example, light fixtures. If there's a light fixture along the driveway as it comes in off of Mystic Valley Parkway, there's not really a whole lot of room between where the wall and the edge of road is and the in the courthouse next door. So it's these little details that may seem piddly right now, but when you don't have any other space to solve them later, they really sort of need to be thought about now and work through now. And same applies for construction. I know there's a way to build it, but it would be great if everybody sort of had a common vision on how it's getting built so that there's no drama later.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: PB, Lupita D Montoya PB?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s iPhone 2?s Um, we spend some time now, um, asking Mr. Reardon about our questions from the letter. Um, and then it sounds like from the applicant, but please correct me if you're wrong, if I'm wrong, that you folks might need a little more time to, um, respond substantively to what. Um, is in this letter. Uh, so, so board, uh, uh, Mr. Alexander, is that correct?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that that's right. Um, you know, not that we're. I think what would be probably most helpful, we'd love to hear whatever questions the board has about the peer review. We, I'm sure we'll block out the next steps, but one thing that we can do is similar to what we just did on design and landscape, we have our civil engineer who can provide a little bit more detail on a few of the items that Mr. Reardon just discussed. And I would suggest too that, I totally understand that the, the questions and the sort of review about, you know, constructability and operation of the community once it's built. This is where we're fortunate to have, you know, our construction firm in-house and obviously our property management as well. So we can come to a future hearing, whether it's the next one or the one after that with a little bit more detail and walk through our thinking that's going into it.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, yeah, that seems like a, you know, not necessarily knowing when these letters are gonna be coming in. That seems like it might be a good structure. If we've gotten it, the board reviews it, we have questions, you know what our questions are, and then at the next meeting, you can maybe substantively give some more responses to that with your engineer, et cetera. Okay, all right, so board members, folks, does anyone have any questions for Mr. Reardon?
[Unidentified]: You can just go right ahead. None? I mean, maybe it's a perfect letter.
[Mike Caldera]: Hardly. All right. I can chime in. So Mr. Reardon, I just want to make sure I correctly understood a few comments in here. So number eight, You say, please explain why the walkways between buildings one and two do not connect to the landscape area, can you just elaborate on. kind of what you're referring to there specifically and and also it feels like there's you're you're implying that perhaps there was a better. approach and so I'm just trying to understand sort of what the alternative would be.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and this could just be a matter of just drawings not be updated. So I comment on the plans that are part of the record and even for example, some of the plans that were shown tonight show that walkway being connected, but the preliminary site plan in the drawing set, the two sections of walkway that are in that space between the two buildings didn't connect through. didn't know if that was part of a plan. I didn't expect it to be, but just again, just sort of, just to sort of make sure that it doesn't get lost in the mixture of issues, just wanted to document it on there as being something that needs to be fixed.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, noted. Thank you. And then, So number 11 on here, I mean, this is the one that you called out that has me potentially concerned as well. So yeah, so you're calling out that it's not designated in the plans, but I'm I'm curious what would be customary for a project like this? Is it just that it's not marked or is it that in fact, it would be really tight in general for the typical loading and staging operations that a building like this would expect to have?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: As someone who's probably reviewed 40, 40B projects municipalities, I don't know if anything's customary other than usually density. There's no indication of sort of where things happen, but I'm sure the applicant and their other facilities have strategies. There's strategies for super urban locations with no site space. So really it's about sort of making sure it's been thought through and that it's part of the the discussion so that everybody has a sort of a common expectation and that we just confirm that it isn't something that got forgotten and we're not sitting here after the building's constructed wondering why we never thought about it before.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, thank you.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: For example, even in the presentation earlier tonight, one of my questions was, what's the strategy for trash? And so clearly in this case, it looks like it's got the vertical transportation system into a trash room the containers get wheeled out through the garage door, which I think is a reasonable approach. The garage door has two lanes of traffic. So we have some space there to maneuver. It's a good place for a truck to pull over and queue for a bit. So it's just really a matter of getting all these things on paper so that we know we have a plan for each of them.
[Mike Caldera]: OK. Thank you. I think that covers the questions I have.
[Unidentified]: Anybody else? Board members? No? Okay.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: So I think in terms of what we can do next, we really are having very efficient meetings. We have our next meeting is on the 27th. Dennis, is that right?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: I think it is.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you, Sean.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Because Cliff and I spoke today about his availability on 27th.
[Denis MacDougall]: OK, sorry, I haven't I didn't switch the calendar over. So I was looking at January and completely baffled. So.
[Andre Leroux]: OK, so Madam Chair, sorry for interrupting, but I'm wondering, I think Tim said that Mill Creek's structural engineer was available and could make some comments. At least preliminary ones, was that correct?
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, maybe I misunderstood. I thought that he was saying the next meeting. Sorry about that. Did I miss that?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: No. Um, I think, yeah, you, uh, what I meant to say if I didn't was that I think at the next hearing, uh, once we've had a chance to, for our team to review the letter, um, we can respond. Our civil engineer and whoever else needed at that hearing is
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, sorry I just wanted to make sure it's no worries if I missed it I always want to I always want to hear. So, um, so I think that we've covered what we said that we were going to be covering today. I want to thank everybody who came, Mr. written in particular, thank you very much. And so let's plan at the next hearing which is on February 27. We will go through, the applicant is going to have their engineer come and they're going to respond formally to this letter. In the meantime, if we have any other consultant letters come in, Dennis will get them to you right away. And if you have time, I think it would be great if you're able to comment on any of those substantively. If there's time enough in between getting them in the next hearing, I think that just can help all of us as well. Okay, anyone have anything else they want to add before we vote to continue?
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: A quick question for me, Madam Chair. So typically it's very productive if I can have a dialogue directly with the applicant's engineer and consultants. A lot of the stuff civil engineers talk about is pretty boring, but important to us. And if I can save you guys the pain and discomfort of having to listen through some of that, it certainly could be a help for you.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: I have no objection to that. I just want to make sure, Judy, is that that's allowed? Oh, it's definitely allowed. It's up to the board, but it is customary. Is it up to me?
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: Or should I make the decision?
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, OK. And as chair, I would say that I agree and would highly encourage that. I would appreciate that a lot.
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: So just to be clear, Cliff Bomer is planning to meet with the board on the 27th. That is the date that he expects to be with you. I just wanted to make sure everybody understands that. The architect fair review is the next meeting. OK, great.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: That's wonderful. We should be ready for traffic at that time, too, if we want to do that all in one night. Sure, that would be great.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I think anything that we have for us rather than trying to space stuff out. I think the sooner we can get things discussed with the board by the public and to the applicant, the better. So if we have multiple things on in one night, I'd prefer we go through them all in one night. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, folks, thanks so much. Could I get someone please to motion to continue this hearing until February 27th?
[Mike Caldera]: But Jacqueline before we do that, we're gonna open it to public comment again.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: We were not going to do that at this meeting.
[Mike Caldera]: So when's the next, what will the pattern be from here on out?
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, so my understanding from Judy is we had to open a public comment, which we've done. And then I also indicated that I intend to do it again. But we didn't intend to do it specifically at this one. You know, I don't know that I've made a decision that we've really decided on that. Did you have a preference? I'm open to suggestion.
[Mike Caldera]: So I'm generally in favor of letting the public comment on any Aaron Sussman, PB – He, Him, His.: : kind of distinct topic once so you know the the we open it for general comment subsequent meetings we're going to hear in greater detail about specific elements, so you know if we're having a focused meeting on transportation. or at least a portion of a meeting on transportation, I feel like that would be a meeting where there should be public comment permitted on the topics of the agenda and so forth. So yeah.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: I think that's a good idea. What if we say that at the next meeting we'll open for public comment related to what the applicant's gonna say regarding this engineering report that we've gotten and then also since The we're going to have the architect consultant with us. We could open public comment on both of those. I think that's a good idea. Okay, thanks, Mike. That's a great idea.
[Mike Caldera]: Sounds good. All right. So then you were awaiting a motion.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: I was indeed.
[Mike Caldera]: It's to continue to February 27th. Okay, so I motion to continue this hearing to February, you said February 27th?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Mike Caldera]: At 7.30 p.m.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Do I have a second?
[Mike Caldera]: Second.
[Unidentified]: Okay, and how do you vote, Yvette? Aye. Mike? Yes. Jim? Yes.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Andre? Yes. And Jacqueline is yes. Okay, folks, we will see you on the 27th. Oh, I'm sorry, I have a hand. Thanks.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: I assume this is a for the record, Chris Rainier from Goldston did zoom again on.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: Yep, it'll be Yeah, good call. They will be zoom on the 27th. Okay, don't know what will happen after that. But the 27th will be soon.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah, I think the Authorization may run out at the end of March.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: That's right.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: I'm sure folks are focused on that at the State House.
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: They better be.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Oh, please. Call your legislator.
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. Oh, boy. All of you guys who want to attend these remotely, call your legislators. Oh, we have, definitely.
[MCM00000612_SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
[MCM00000614_SPEAKER_16]: All right. Well, folks, thanks so much. Have a great night.
[Unidentified]: Thanks, Sarah. Thank you.