[Unidentified]: So in that sense, let's get going. So I'm going to call the meeting to order. Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the 40B special meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals. Dennis, could you please read the introduction for us?
[Denis MacDougall]: On July 16, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law an act relative to extending certain state of emergency accommodations. which, among other things, extends the expiration of the provisions pertaining to the Open Meeting Law to 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 Law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from July 15, 2022 to March 31, 2023. Thank you so much.
[Unidentified]: Um, okay. So folks, um, first we're going to start doing a little bit of a different structure to, uh, start off. So I'm going to do a roll call attendance for all of the members. So we have, um, Michael Caldera present. Is that Veles present? Jim Torani is currently absent. Jamie Thompson.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Present.
[Unidentified]: And Jacqueline Daugherty is present. Okay. And then, Dennis, could you just let everyone know who we have for staff on the call?
[Denis MacDougall]: Sure. Myself, I'm Dennis McDougal. I staff the zoning board of appeals and we have Alicia Hunt, the director of planning, development, sustainability, and William Forty, the building commissioner.
[Unidentified]: Thank you so much. And then we also have with us Judy Barrett, who is our... Yes. our special 40B guru. Okay, Dennis, could you please call the case or call the matter?
[Denis MacDougall]: 4,000 Mystic Valley Parkway case number 40B-2022-01 continued from January 9th, 2023. The resumption of consideration of the 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 a multifamily eight story apartment development Consisting of 2 buildings located in approximately 3 acres of land at 4,000 Mr. Valley Parkway property ID 7 dash to dash 10. This proposal will be developed as an approximately 350 unit rental apartment building, containing a mix of studio 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments with 25% of the total units being designated as affordable housing to low or moderate income households.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you so much. So at the last meeting folks we designated that at this meeting, what we would be doing specifically two things one would be to review the, the letter from the Community Development Board. that we've received. I had a number of suggestions for the board regarding this project. And then we've since received responses from the applicant to each of those. And then the other thing that we said we were gonna be doing is opening up for public comment. So before we get into that, I just wanted to check in with the other board members. I've taken a look at, now that I've had a little bit more time to go through the letter from the Community Development Board, and the responses from the applicant. My instinct is that it's still maybe a little bit premature. for us to get into some of those issues. Because the other update that we have is that we don't have any of the peer review reports back. The consultants have just received their contracts. So we're gonna have a little bit more time before we have that information back. So I just wanted to check in with the other board members to see what your thoughts were on waiting to go through some of that substantive information until we have some of the peer review stuff back.
[Mike Caldera]: Um, so for me personally, um, I think it would be helpful to, um, at least have an opportunity. If a member has, um, a clarifying question or, uh, um, request surrounding some of the points in the response, um, to just have that opportunity here. I, I share your reading of it. There were a number where essentially the, the applicant said that they'd prefer to wait until after the peer review. And I think for the vast majority where they said that, I'm agreeable. But there might be a few where it's at least fruitful to get the clarifying questions out there just so that when we discuss it in further detail at a later date, we're not hashing these things out for the first time there.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Why don't we do that then? Why don't we open the floor? If any of the members have any questions or want any points of clarification regarding that community development board letter and the applicant's responses, we can go through that now and then see if the applicant has anything they wanna add to that before we open for public comment. Mike, did you have any?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure, I can go first. I'm just viewing for the specific
[Mike Caldera]: item. So we have the rendered landscape plan. So perhaps we want to discuss that today. Then the request for real papers and site access. There was a request to do that after peer reviews, which I'm cool with. Same thing on the parking.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Same thing on the building manager.
[Mike Caldera]: So I do have some general questions about the ground floor retail, and so I don't think we'll resolve all of them here, but I think that my questions in that vein will at least inform future discussion. So I'd like to have a discussion about that. I don't know if I should start the discussion now, or if I should just call out other things.
[Unidentified]: My suggestion would be, if there's a question, let's just get into it.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. So just for. So we all have the same baseline. So in the CDB recommendations, it states the board should request more information on the intent for the retail space on the first floor, identifying the intended uses and more detail on how about how much space and how many units will be available for commercial use. In particular, parking and traffic concerns cannot be fully understood without this clarity. which the applicant responds. Ground floor retail space was added to the project in order to respond to the request by the city. They would like to review it at a future hearing, as would I, following the peer reviews. Still have some clarifying questions we'll come back to. Current Tennessee is unknown, although we anticipate amenity-based retail that serves the project's residents and nearby community, destination retail not proposed given other uses in the area. given the modest size of the retail space. It's intended to serve the building residents and nearby properties within walking distance. And so for me, actually, my question is really more about the current proposal for some of the ground floor amenity spaces across the project. So in one of the presentations you gave or that was in the presentation In the packet we received there was talk of amenity spaces including things like a leasing office I think a gym Maybe a mail room and so I would just like to have an understanding of Sort of what are the operating assumptions that fed into the the current? Distribution of the amenity spaces and do you have a any intention as to how they'll be used? And lastly, like, how do we know that this is a reasonable amount of amenity space, you know, given the size of the project?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure, I'm happy to jump in there and answer a couple of questions.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: So thanks members of the board and Chairwoman Dougherty for having us again tonight. specific to the question about both, you know, rental floor retail programming, and then, you know, what we call community amenities. So just one thing I'd add to the retail response, or at least the initial retail response that we gave in the CD board letter. One question was about, you know, sort of how many tenants might there be? It is early to know that. I just would point out that, you know, the size that we're proposing, roughly 2000 gross square feet, You know, if we do indeed end up with, you know, community serving neighborhood serving retail uses coffee shop, etc. It could be one user that takes up that entire space I would say there's a chance that could be split into device into three different retail spaces. It really depends on the type of use and obviously the specific user. But I just thought I'd point that out in terms of how many total retailers you might expect to see there in that proposed square footage. And then the second half of your question about amenitization, placement within the building. There are a couple of things that are driving the location and the size. One is the recognition that the Mystic Valley Parkway and the ground floor area fronting the Mystic Valley Parkway really does want to be activated. Whether it's the retail use or whether it's an in-building amenity such as a fitness center, for instance, that's space that we don't want to be dark. That should show active use. If it's not 24-hour use, at least it's morning, noon, evening type uses. That's why we've at least initially conceptualize that area, that frontage on Mystic Valley Parkway hosting either a leasing office that would be, you know, certainly occupied, you know, throughout the day, plus a fitness center, which would have 24-hour access to our community residence. In terms of locations, you know, this is an interesting one, right? So I know you all know our initial proposal and submission contemplated a single building And when you split buildings into two, or the project into two buildings, we had to make sure that, or we were cognizant that we wanted to make sure that each building had an appropriate amount. And there wasn't one building that had everything and another building that had nothing, so all the residents would have to, you know, jump back and forth. So there's a fairly even split of both ground floor amenity space and then actually up on the courtyard level. to sort of interact with the courtyards, whether it be an additional club space or meeting space on that courtyard level. Those often, and we've done it in recent projects in the Boston area, it's a nice supplement to the courtyard space for residents, whether it be an active courtyard with a pool or a more passive courtyard with more relaxing landscaping, as you've seen in our conceptual landscape plan. So lastly, in terms of sizing, and what's appropriate. You know, we spend a lot of time thinking about this and what might be too much, what might be too little. We wanna make sure that there's certainly appropriate uses. We've talked about fitness, we've talked about, you know, meeting, you know, sort of party space, if you will. Work from home spaces, certainly they were a big deal prior to COVID, now they're a really big deal. And so we wanna recognize that and understand that we have spaces outside of people's apartment homes where they can work during the day if they're not going to the office. That's something that we've been very successful with in the projects nearby. And then many other uses, whether it's a specific, you know, theater media type use. We've had success with what we call maker spaces, which are really flexible spaces for people to come if they want to put together a piece of furniture or paint a piece of furniture or do their Christmas or holiday wrapping. Those are the type of things that can happen in those spaces. We've left it to date fairly flexible in some of these areas, recognizing that, you know, whether it's input from you all or input from peer reviewers or others that we can be, you know, we can be somewhat responsive as we specifically lay out those spaces and start to close up into different uses. I'll stop there. I hope that answered the question, but let me know if not.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, I think it did at a high level. So what I'm hearing is that For the time being, it would make, you're of the position it would make more sense to wait until we get the peer reviewer comments and feedback from the board before we get too deep into identifying how the amenity space is divvied up and used, which would certainly make sense to me. I guess what I'll just share at this point, when I'm thinking about kind of the function functionality of the the proposal kind of questions that come to mind are So in in the comprehensive plan The intention the stated intention for this area is mixed use with the retail it is mixed use There's this frontage on mystic Valley Parkway Only part of that's being used for retail. So I you know, I just love at some point in this hearing to get an understanding You know, is there? Is there a reason, whether it's kind of the available amenity space in totality or something else, why the majority, if not the entirety of the frontage on Mystic Valley Parkway could not be retail amenities? So that's one question. Another question is just generally, I'd love to understand the trade-off It seems on the first floor, there's a lot of amenities space or like a high share of it. But then there's also some first floor units. And so what's the trade space there? Is there a reason why it's not just all amenity space? And similarly, I certainly want an understanding of where the leasing office goes versus the other amenities because Perhaps you disagree, but I'm of the opinion, there's ways to make it clear that you're leasing that don't require using the MVP frontage and so you know I think the the natural position might be on commercial street somewhere instead, which would then, you know, potentially free up. room for more commercial on that stretch at the front. And then lastly, I saw your response elsewhere to the CDB's questions about the open space at the front of the property. And so I think I understand your position on that generally, but I would like to understand what is and isn't possible in terms of kind of open space I don't know if amenity is the right word, but essentially to facilitate the residents and pedestrians who are going through this area who might then be crossing the street into the park. There's certain things that we know from a design perspective can be helpful like benches and things of that nature. And so by the end of the hearing, I'm gonna want an understanding of what's possible there. And if we aren't including some of these amenities known to be favorable to pedestrians or folks just trying to enjoy nature, just what's preventing that. So yeah, I just wanted to get those thoughts out there now. It's possible there's some really great reasons why things are this way, but just wanted to float them in case there is an opportunity to have those discussions. I will ultimately wanna know
[Adam Hurtubise]: answers to those general kind of questions at some point in the hearing.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Sure, I can certainly appreciate that and I think at least my, you hit on a lot of different points there. I think in totality it does make sense once the peer review architect, and I'm not sure if Tetra Tech is specifically doing a landscape peer review or if that's falling under Davis Square as well, but we absolutely want to have those you know, more detailed conversations. It does feel like perhaps, you know, as we wrote a few times in our responses, it makes sense to do that once those peer reviews are in hand.
[Unidentified]: Would now be a good time, maybe? I know we have the new landscape plan in. Maybe you could just walk us through what we're looking at. We could pull it up, maybe screen share that.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I'd be happy to.
[Unidentified]: Okay, great. Thanks.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: No, just knowing that I won't do quite as well as our landscape who's not joining us tonight, but obviously he'll be in a future meeting.
[Unidentified]: Might just be helpful because we've just gotten it in and we're chatting about it just for anybody watching to get a sense of what we're looking at so far.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Sure. Dennis, I'm not sure if you have it. I'm happy to share my screen if that works.
[Unidentified]: I have it up as well. I can do it.
[Denis MacDougall]: Hi, Tim. I just made you a co-host, so you can open it up. I figured it would probably be easier.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: So just a couple things I'll note on the rendered conceptual landscape plan. The first is, as was just mentioned, is the frontage on Misty Valley Parkway. The first thing that we did way back when was make sure that we respected the 25-foot setback that is off of Mystic Valley Parkway right of way. So that's 25 feet from, you see my cursor from here to here. That's, to be honest, given that the parkway was conceived and built many years ago, that's actually a fairly large setback to sort of the current standards, but we understand the importance of it for sure. And what it does is allows a couple of things. You know, this idea of a pocket park on the corner of Mystic Valley Parkway and Commercial Street, really, that has meant a couple things. A, respite for pedestrians. Maybe they're walking from the west, from the rink, from high school, or I'm sorry, from the golf fields, walking from the west towards Wellington, or vice versa. Or maybe they're enjoying whatever a retailer ends up being on our ground floor. ice cream, coffee, what have you, and they're not necessarily making their way into McDonald Park across the street, but this is meant to be a sort of public respite. Now, I do want to acknowledge, and I think most of you probably already know this, or all of you do, but I remember specifically during the site walk with Mass Housing a few years ago, walking along Mystic Valley Parkway during the day, it's a very car-centric, vehicular-centric, area, a bit loud, obviously, you know, the cars moving quickly and, you know, in large quantities. So we want to try to find that balance between providing useful open space on that frontage, but also recognizing that our residents and even passersby or pedestrians or bikers might be more comfortable down commercial street, quite frankly, or across the street in that's a discussion we should have in a little bit more detail when we do have you know peer reviews in hand and we have a landscape team on hand as well. A couple other things I'll note obviously we'll talk about transportation but you can see how we're conceiving not only the sort of emergency vehicular but the movement of vehicles through the site off of Mystic Valley Parkway and talking about having know special paver or paver unit paver markings here so this really becomes while it is a vehicular passageway certainly to get into the garages of the two buildings it is also seen as a pedestrian first area i would stop short of probably calling it a plaza because i don't think that's fair but it is important to note that this is not an area that's going to be solely solely given over to cars and vehicular traffic. We want to make sure that there's safe, calm passage here between the buildings for our residents and pedestrians. Last thing I'll mention, and I'm sorry I don't have the dimensions right off the top of my head, but we can certainly provide them, but you mentioned earlier our idea of two different types of port yachts. This is something that We actually did down the road in our Cabot Road community, Madera-Medford, but we do this all over the country, quite honestly, which is, you know, different courtyards, different uses. And you can see the southern courtyard here is a bit more of an active use. That would have our pool, you know, pool deck area. It may have some other active games and such. And then the northern is, you know, again, conceptually rendered here, but this has shown us a much more passive relaxation type courtyard wanna give our residents. And then the last thing I'd mention is, you know, certainly we're talking about, well, maintaining the tree line along Mystic Valley Parkway. If specific improvements to the existing canopy are needed, we will be interested in doing that. And then, you know, increasing the, as much as we can throughout the site, knowing that today it's largely building an asphalt. We think there are certainly some opportunities here to add tree canopy, street tree at a regular interval, plus obviously plantings within the site as well. And then lastly, you can see how we're looking to incorporate other pedestrian connectivity on the north of the site to either get folks off of commercial if they want to cut the corner. I know there may be a desire at some point to provide pedestrian access into our neighboring property to the east. That's something that we would want to think about and talk about. But that's certainly the idea of what we're showing here. I think I'll leave it there for now and happy to answer any questions.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Thank you so much. Sure. Mike, did you have any other questions? or anyone else I suppose on this?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, I have a question.
[Andre Leroux]: I know this is Andre. I know we're going to have to talk a lot more about this plan later, but just in terms of the corner of Commercial Street and Mystic Valley Parkway with that pocket park, It seems like that's a good opportunity for a real strong focal corner, but it looks like it's just, it's not an entrance. It's just a kind of an isolated pocket park. Is that correct?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: If you mean it's not an entrance then that continues on from the building? Right. That's right. As currently conceived. And I think part of that is we need to think about exactly where the retail entrances are. We want to think about where we want to invite our resident and pedestrian access as well.
[Adam Hurtubise]: What's right for them. Not to say couldn't, I guess is what I would say. Right.
[Andre Leroux]: And also just a clarifying question. I assume that the larger trees on here are existing trees that you're going to retain. Is that correct? That's certainly the case along with Misty Valley Parkway.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I was going to say, I know we did that in our initial submission. I'll admit that I haven't double-checked here to see if those trees are sort of trying to match existing locations, but that is our intent. There are a few trees as well, as you mentioned, along the east boundary line. They're currently, if memory serves, a bit encased in asphalt, so they may not be the healthiest, but that's something we look at. obviously creating a new buffer zone there where we could plant that and create a good buffer and hopefully new canopy.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay, any other questions on the landscape plan while it's up?
[Unidentified]: Okay, I think we can probably stop the screen share. Alright, did anyone else have any other questions for the applicant related to what we saw in the Community Development Board letter or any of the responses?
[Yvette Velez]: I don't have a question. I have, I guess, more of a comment and because I would agree that all the responses really need to be. Still, we still need to receive all the information in regards to the show that will be provided by the I don't know what's typically provided for your buildings in the past. And I think I'd like to see what that could look like for this particular building. And then is that a shuttle that you end up contracting out or does it need parking on the property? Does that take up space? So just a little bit more detail about what that proposed commuter shuttle would look like.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Sure. Yeah, I'll give a quick answer and we should follow up with more detail. It's not a perfect analog because the Cabot Road property that exists actually shares a shuttle with one Cabot, the office building. So that is shared and does run at, pardon me, at the hours appropriate for commuting. And it is contracted out, but it runs five days a week and doesn't necessarily require more parking because it's then parked offsite during the evening. That's most likely what we would likely propose here. I would just say we're not probably quite as far down the line as whether we would purchase and own and manage it ourselves or whether we would contract it out. I'm happy to share. Yes, we get a little bit further into it and maybe specifically at our hearing that's focused on transportation, we can share your sort of size and imagery and some precedents for how we've done in the past.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thanks so much.
[Andre Leroux]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman, PB --"Actually, sorry, Jackie, I just thought of a couple more quick things. So the parking that's along the property on Mystic Valley Parkway is the idea that that parking would be reserved temporarily for, you know, for the retail and it'd be like a, you know, 30 minute, 60 minute maximum or something like that and And then my second question was, along the rear of the property, what does that look like in terms of like topography? And is there, you know, the fencing, is there a retaining wall? Is it like a drop-off?
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Sure. Yeah, great questions. Thank you for those. The parking in front is interesting because we would, so yeah, the short answer is yes. We would propose that it would be short-term. We don't want that to be resident parking there all day, all night. I would probably stop short, though, of specifically tagging it for retail use, mostly because whether it's a quick visitor parking or rideshare, which is certainly here and not going anywhere, we feel that's a good opportunity in that front area for those kind of pull-in, quick pick-up, drop-off concepts. To, you know, short answer long, yes, it would be probably short-term parking that could serve both the larger part of the community and the retail use. And then in the back, I know, and I think I may be picking up on this because I think it was a topic of discussion a couple doors down on the RISE proposal, on the life sciences proposal. They have a much, well, I shouldn't say much, but I knew they had a grade change between the back of that parking lot and the wetlands to the north. We don't have that same grade change. There may be, and we've shown this, I think, conceptually in our grading plan, there may be a foot or two where we might need a seat wall to have a grade change. It's not anything that is, at least it's currently conceived and created.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's not anything that's a large wall of any kind.
[Unidentified]: Mike?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Mike Caldera]: So then in terms of, I guess my other main takeaway from the response to the CDB letter, I'm clumping things together that aren't logically clumped, but just for the sake of being succinct. Um, so. Point 16 through 20, the responses to those aren't sufficient for me to understand whether the concern has or hasn't been addressed. And you're not explicitly saying we'll discuss them in a future hearing. So I just want to call out that ultimately. I'm going to want to understand. Well, so there was a request for the for an actual transit plan, which is something I'll come back to. There was some other requests beyond the CDB response that we had made. Um, last meeting, I just want to make sure we have general awareness of when those will be ready. But, but yeah, like the, the transit plan for the shuttle, I'm going to want to see that I'm going to want to understand how the waste facilities are in fact sized appropriately for their expected use, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I would say broadly speaking, 16 through 20. the response alone isn't sufficient for me to understand whether the concern has been addressed. And so just wanted to call that out. I look forward to discussing those at future hearings.
[Unidentified]: Thanks, Mike. Okay, so I think that we should I don't know that there's many people on, but we said that we were gonna open for public comment. So if I could get someone to make a motion, please, to open for public comment.
[Mike Caldera]: Motion to open the hearing for public comment.
[Unidentified]: Do I have a second?
[Andre Leroux]: Second.
[Unidentified]: Okay. And then in, how do you vote? Mike Caldera?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yvette Velez? Aye.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Aye.
[Unidentified]: Jamie Thompson. Aye. And Jacqueline Daugherty. Aye. Okay. Dennis, who do we have?
[Denis MacDougall]: Let me unmute myself. So folks, those of you who are on the call, if you wish to make any public comments, we'll be asking you can, there's like a little reactions button, just do a little hand motion sort of saying, I'd like to speak, or if you want to, just, you know, give us, let us know. And, or you could send us, uh, if you're watching this at home, you could also send us an email. My email is, and I'm going to put it on the screen right now.
[Unidentified]: And then for anyone watching, we definitely said we were going to open for public comment tonight. So if anyone's here, we're going to hear from them, but we do anticipate that we'll open for public comment again in the future as well. Um, so this won't be the only opportunity. Nobody.
[Denis MacDougall]: Nobody here on the call seems to have any emotion, but if we give maybe a little bit of time, I'll just check on my emails. Okay, that sounds good.
[Unidentified]: Sure. And I don't see anything in the chat.
[Andre Leroux]: Um, okay, so, Jackie, in the meantime, can I jump in with one more kind of question?
[Unidentified]: Go right ahead.
[Andre Leroux]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I think your first question, that technically does not include set aside retail parking. The thought is that the, we just talked about the short-term parking out in front and the existing parallel parking space may be able to sufficiently service a retail of that size that we're proposing. the visitor spaces and other, you know, and I think we'll get into this later too, but potentially, you know, we've got some bike storage that obviously will have to be included and other for odds and ends would be, you know, within the garage. I'm not sure if we put this in our response or somewhere else, but just wanted to note too that the specific, the amount of parking spaces obviously isn't accidental in terms of you know, ratio of spaces per the number of homes we're proposing. We actually did a, we did a utilization study of our existing community on Cabot Road to see, you know, overnight how many of those spaces are actually being used. And so that our 1.15 spaces per home ratio is actually just a little bit over what we're seeing as utilization. down the street. So we can get into a little bit more of that when we have our NS who's our transportation engineer.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They can explain a little bit more detail there. Does that help?
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I was, I guess in terms of the visitor parking, do you know what's being reserved for those spaces? No, I'm sorry.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I don't know off the top of my head, but we'll make sure we have that ready for you know, that the transportation focus here.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Thanks. Also, I would just, just a comment. I would assume since this project is significantly closer to Wellington station and within walking distance, they would be less parking utilization.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for saying that that's our hope as well. It's always a delicate balance. Um, we want to make sure we're serving the market. Uh, we don't want to overbuild parking and invite more vehicles than, than we need or that the neighboring area wants. We tend to think the same. I think utilization is going to continue to go down, certainly in this area as transit improves and continues to be a big part of the Wellington sub-market.
[Andre Leroux]: In the new zoning language that has been passed recently, I know there's a transit-oriented parking language, and I wasn't sure whether you're inside that radius or not.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: I apologize, I'm not sure either.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. If I may, I checked and they're not so close, but on the wrong side of the threshold.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, Mike.
[Unidentified]: Okay, so folks, it doesn't look as though we have anyone here for public comment. So could I get someone to make a motion please to close public comment portion of the hearing.
[Mike Caldera]: I motion to close the public comment portion of the hearing for this meeting. Do I have to say that?
[Unidentified]: I don't think so, because I think we can always reopen it if we want. And my understanding is we were just required to open it once. We're going to open it again. But yeah, I think you're good on that motion.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. Yeah. So motion to close the public hearing.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Do I have a second?
[Andre Leroux]: Second.
[Unidentified]: Okay. And all in favor. Mike?
[Andre Leroux]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Jamie? Aye. And Jacqueline is aye. Okay. So we've closed the public comment. I know that we, I touched on this a little bit. We're still waiting on the peer review reports. The consultants have just gotten their contracts. So the good news is that they're moving along. We don't, I don't know, Alicia, if there's any more information that we have on that front. just we're so we'll just see when they start to come in.
[Alicia Hunt]: i'll just comment that we know they're looking at documents, because they have sort of said this document references that document and we don't see it, where is it so we know they're looking.
[Unidentified]: Okay that's great um Chris did you want to add something.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you. I'll see if I can lower my hand. Chris Rainier for the record. Yeah, I was just going to follow up with an inquiry to Ms. Hunt just to see if she had an estimate of when those reports were coming in, and she just answered that. But, you know, happy, as we said, to work through Dennis to facilitate any communications with the peer reviewers. But I think our next hearing on the prior schedule was maybe February 6th.
[Unidentified]: That's correct.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: And in an interest of time, if we won't have a peer reviewer back, or a peer review of questions or reports back, I wanted to ask that the chair and the board, whether, and Ms. Barrett, whether it would make sense for us to bring perhaps our architect in and do a bit of a review of the project, cognizant of time. Some of why our responses to the CDB letter were pending peer review comments is we don't want to chase our tail. We don't want to waste the board's time, but I did want to just question if the peer review responses aren't going to be in until, you know, two hearings from now.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, which is February 27th. Yeah, so that's for 27th is the one after that. So we'd be looking at about a month. I don't know what the best move is on that. Judy, what are your thoughts?
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: I think if the applicant wants to bring that presentation, if it's going to help the board, I think that's fine. Do we know though what the peer review consultants are indicating for rough turnaround on their reports? Or is that something I can help you try to expedite? I want to.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I think it wouldn't hurt if Judy felt that that was appropriate for her to sort of reach out with them and check in. They had originally told us about four weeks for the first letter once they had everything that they three to four weeks to go through all the documents, review things and to figure out if there are any issues. I think it would be at least four weeks from when they started looking at this before they could have real letters back. But it might be helpful given all our timing if Judy were to just reach out to them and check in.
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: Okay. Do they have the meeting schedule for this? Do they have the hearing schedule, the dates that the board has agreed to meet? Do you know anyone?
[Alicia Hunt]: I know that I gave Tetra Tech these first two in February dates, but I don't know that we sent them the full schedule. I just don't remember if Dennis does. We certainly, Dennis has an email that he listed the dates and he could certainly forward that over to them.
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: Dennis, it would be great if you could do that maybe tomorrow. It just might help me sort of politely badger them a little bit. You know, to get them in because, you know, it might be helpful to the board if the applicants architect is going to make a presentation perhaps to have the peer review consultant there at the same time. I'm just trying to figure out a way to sort of help the board. You know, not rush through this but be able to kind of use your time.
[Unidentified]: Well, yeah, my, my. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, she-her, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-
[MCM00000619_SPEAKER_04]: Well, even if the peer review consultants report isn't done, it might be very helpful to have him present to be able to hear the presentation and, you know, maybe ask some questions. So I mean, I have the schedule. I have no problem contacting them. I know them both. It's fine. OK.
[Unidentified]: I mean, that that sounds great with me. OK. OK. And I'm yeah, Chris, I'm happy to to to plan on having the architect come and give a presentation at the February 6th meeting. That sounds good.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: That's great. So let me next just making notes here so I don't forget. let us confirm whether our architect is available for the next hearing. But maybe what we can do is work through Dennis over the next couple of days after Judy reaches out to the peer reviewers and just confirm they're available. See if they say, oh, it's a miracle, we'll have our letter. Maybe we can transition for the next hearing. But I do want to try and keep providing the board information I don't think we have anything else. We went through public comment. The only other thing that I would say,
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, so Jacqueline, I just wanna check in with the applicant, whether they have any estimates on when they'll have ready some of the other things we requested last meeting. So I have the list available, we can go through it. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. So I guess we'll just go bullet by bullet and you can let me know. So the updated waiver list to reflect the new zoning,
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Do you want to give the list or do you want us to respond as you go along?
[Mike Caldera]: Up to you. I could give the whole list and then you could, yeah, maybe I'll give the whole list if you're taking notes. It looks like you're taking notes. So there's that one. The updated zoning analysis to reflect the new zoning. I haven't personally, I don't know if the board has seen the 2019 traffic impact assessment that was referenced by the updated impact assessment. So I'd like to see that. I think that one exists, we just need to get it. There was a request from the CDB for an updated traffic impact assessment. There was a request from the CDB, which we made as well, for a transportation demand management plan with increased pedestrian slash bicycle improvements and amenities. including regular transit to Wellington station. I know you're providing transit to Wellington station, but I'd like to see the plan. Shadow studies for the interior courtyard, courtyard facing units and proposed common areas.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And then that's it. The landscaping plan you provided.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah. So, um, The 2019 traffic assessment, that should be with the board secretary. But if not, we can have that shared through a Dropbox link. Dennis, with you tomorrow, just send us an email about the way that you would prefer to receive that, whether that's Dropbox or some other form of electronic media. I'm happy to do that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think that can be as early as tomorrow.
[Denis MacDougall]: Chris, I have that, so I can, the original 2019 survey, that should have been in the other, in the big link of things you got, but maybe it just didn't end up in there. So I've got that, so I can make sure you guys have that.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Okay, thank you. The updated waivers and zoning analysis, oftentimes through the process, there are tweaks that are made to projects that could affect waivers and the zoning analysis. And frankly, we thought that getting the peer review comments, you know, if a peer reviewer said, you know, we think that a 30-story building would be totally appropriate here, that would affect obviously the building height. We don't think a 30-story building is appropriate here, by the way. But if there were comments to the proposal, both from the board and informed by the peer reviewers, that might tweak and modify things that could affect the waiver list. And so we thought we would do that once or at when informed by the peer reviewers at that time. We can advance it earlier if it's the board, if the board prefers. But again, we wanted to be helpful and informative. On the updated traffic assessment, our traffic consultant did do an updated memo to bring forward the 2019 assessment to current conditions, recognizing there was a drop in the number of units and a drop in the number of parking spaces. So I think we need a little bit more information to understand what's looked for there. And I would expect that the board's traffic peer reviewer may have some questions and things that Tetra Tech wants us to traffic, so I think we should get that information request from the peer reviewer and then we can have our traffic consultant respond. On the TDM plan, my experience with those is that's more of a written document where the project's traffic engineer works to say, here's the written TDM plan. It's going to include a mixture of bike parking, a shuttle, there might be some, you know, a zip car in the building. We're gonna, you know, locate a parking space or for ride share, so that it's not used in the public way. And so a TDM is often a written document, but I wanna make sure that's what you were describing, Eric Aldara, or if it's something different, And then we can also loop back with our traffic consultant, make sure that that's something we can prepare.
[Mike Caldera]: Just through the chair to answer some of those questions. So I'm certainly amenable for things that are going to be contingent on some of the peer reviews and possible changes to wait until those are ready, as long as we get them. I will say in the current waiver list, which was based on the old zoning, but it references a portion that didn't really change. One of the requested waivers, if not granted, would require a study that might take time. In particular, a solar study. Requested waivers includes waiving that section of the zoning, and there's a corresponding section in the new zoning. I just want to call out that I'm not at a point where I would feel comfortable making that waiver. I don't feel like I understand the rationale for wanting that waived. And so that's just one thing I want to bubble up that perhaps merits discussion sooner rather than later. But beyond that, I think everything else. Yeah, it would make sense to to wait until we that is like we get we make sure there's no big changes. And then the transportation demand management plan. Yes. And then the updated traffic impact assessment for that one, that was one of the CD board requests. And you did provide a response stating that the traffic study did not rely upon the public transportation that they said necessitated this updated study. So, you know, if it's your position that you don't need one, the current one's up to date, you know, I'd like to ask your position, but you know, I either want an updated plan or you to assert that this is the updated plan. Like there's, there's no need to do an additional study.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Yeah. My recollection is that what that answer was, was trying to address is that, um, the updated assessment, uh, that our engineer, uh, prepared referenced, um, an MBTA bus line. that had existed in 2019 that has been discontinued. That was an error in carrying that forward. But when we talked to our traffic consultant, he said, in terms of intersection impacts from the project, he was conservative and did not assume that people in the project would be using public transit. to generate an artificially conservative, i.e. high, trip gen number so that he could look at the intersection. So what we're trying to say is the update assessment, while it referenced the now discontinued MBTA bus, the 2019 study did not assume any of our residents were using public transit to, again, have that artificially high. Now, that's that's me doing my best traffic consultant, Jeff Dirk, who is a real traffic consultant can do a much better job when he appears before this board but that's that's I'm trying to paraphrase him.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, yeah, I'm personally happy to come back to that when we discuss trap in greater detail. And it does seem from the response that perhaps your position is that, you know, because of this conservatism, it's not necessary. And then I think the only one I listed off that you didn't speak to specifically is the shadow studies for the interior courtyard, courtyard facing units and proposed common areas. This was actually a suggestion by the subsidizing agency. And so I would like to see that. I'd like to make sure that you know if we're going to have beautiful trees and pools and stuff that in fact like it's usable space with the design. So the shadow study I think is important.
[B3oaa8YVtBA_SPEAKER_16]: Thank you for reminding us. We'll check with TAT on that tomorrow.
[Unidentified]: Okay thanks. And then Bill did you have a comment?
[Bill Forte]: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair, through you. So I did notice on the site plan that none of the balconies were located on the setback limits. And my only concern is that because they're not really located on the site plan or within the footprint, they may encroach onto the public way. I just wanted to make note of that, that I didn't see it on the site plan. So if there's going to be any changes to it, you might want to indicate your closest encroachment to the property line, especially on both commercial streets and Mystic Valley Parkway. I did see that you do have some balconies there. And I just want to clarify what the extent of those structures are because they are, you know, they could potentially be over the public way, which I believe would be a violation. Just something I wanted to know. And just for the record, I did get some clarity on the affordable housing plan unit. And so I'm clear on anything that has to do with that. But other than that, that's all I have for you tonight, Madam Chair, thank you.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you so much, appreciate it. Okay, folks, anything else from the members or staff? Okay, so I think that that's it. I just wanna say again on the record, our next meeting is scheduled for February 6th. The plan as of right now, subject to change, is that the architect for the applicant is going to be making a presentation to us. We'll have more discussion. And then I do intend to open for public hearing again at some point in some of our subsequent meetings. We did do that tonight. I'm not sure exactly when that'll happen. So if I could just get someone to make a motion to continue until the next scheduled hearing on February 6th.
[Mike Caldera]: I motion to continue the hearing for 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway to the February 6 special meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals.
[Unidentified]: Do I have a second?
[Mike Caldera]: Good.
[Unidentified]: Okay. And all in favor, Mike?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yvette?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Aye.
[Unidentified]: Andre?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Jamie? Aye. And Jacqueline is aye. Okay, folks. Oh, Chris.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Is that 730 again?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, yep. Thank you. Okay. That's it, folks. Thanks so much. For the non applicant, we'll see you all tomorrow.
[Mike Caldera]: Motion to adjourn.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, motion to adjourn. Be great.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, everyone.
[Unidentified]: Thanks. Thank you. Do I have a second? Okay. And all in favor, Mike.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: I Andre.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Jamie. Hi, Jacqueline is I. That's it. Thanks, folks.
[MCM00001600_SPEAKER_05]: Thank you. Good night.