[Mike Caldera]: Hello, and welcome to this special meeting of the Medford Zoning Board of Appeals. I'm going to take a quick roll call, and then we'll get started. Jamie Thompson? Present. Jim Tarani? Present. Yvette Velez?
[Yvette Velez]: Present.
[Mike Caldera]: Andre LaRue? Present. I think Mary Lee is running a bit.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: Recording in progress.
[Mike Caldera]: And will join us, but I'm just double checking. Do we have Mary on yet? Okay, yeah, that's what I thought. So not currently present, but we have confirmation she'll be joining in a little bit. Mike Caldera, present. So we do have five members of the board present. That's a quorum. Dennis, can you please kick us off?
[Denis MacDougall]: On March 29th, 2023, Governor Hilley signed into law a supplemental budget bill, which among other things, extends temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law, March 31st, 2025. Specifically, this further extension allows public bodies to continue open meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at any location and provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. Language does make any substantive change to the open meeting laws in extending the expiration date for the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st, 2023 to March 31st, 2025.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you, and can you please read the first matter?
[Denis MacDougall]: 970 Fellowsway, case number 40B-2023-01, continues from January 30th. Resumption of consideration petition of DIB Fellsway LLC and Davis Companies. Comprehensive permit pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40B for multifamily six-story apartment developments located in approximately 3.4 acres of land at 970 Fellsway. Property ID 7-02-10. Proposal will be developed as approximately 289 units, consisting of 278 units of multifamily housing, 11 townhomes, and 73, 25% of the total units of them being designated as affordable housing for low or moderate income households. Hearing will discuss the design of the proposal and engineering considerations.
[Mike Caldera]: All right. Thank you, Dennis. So folks, this is a session of a multi-session hearing. The comprehensive permit process typically involves a number of meetings on the project. I believe the intended agenda for today, in our last session, we reviewed a conceptual site plan. the applicant received some feedback and a request to consider that feedback, to meet with city staff and with the peer review consultants and to come back tonight for us to talk a little bit more about kind of what the intended site plan to move forward with for this project will be and to just have some answers prepared for the what's and the why's. My understanding is those meetings did happen, that there is a presentation surrounding that that we'll be considering today. I also heard that there's an interest and a desire to have some initial of feedback from engineering on the project tonight. And so I'm intending for us to go through that as well. And so, yeah, we'll kick off with a presentation from the applicant. I would like to then immediately go to Cliff Bomer, our peer review consultant, just for his take as well. And then the board may ask some questions, and we may open up for public comment. especially if there's new things presented that the public hasn't already had a chance to speak to. And then, yeah, that'll be the meeting for tonight. So with that being said, I see we have several folks on for the applicant. So yeah, Attorney Tam, please go ahead.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Good evening, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, members of the board and members of the public. We, again, appreciate your time this evening and that of professional staff in Medford who've been very helpful in the past two weeks since we last met with you. With me this evening remotely, Mike Cantalupa, the Chief Development Officer at the Davis Companies. who's standing in, capably, for Pat Noon, who just had a baby, or his wife just had a baby. So Pat gets a night off, allegedly, and Mike is here on behalf of the Davis Companies. You also will be hearing from Eric Samuelson from Cube 3, who will be doing the bulk of the presentation this evening and providing updates to the board and the public. as well as Masoud Bagheri, who you've met at a previous session, involved with landscape design on behalf of Bowler. There are others, including my colleague Pat Gallagher, Ed Marchant, our 40B guru, Steve Martirano, and others from Bowler are here to answer questions as well, to the extent that would be helpful. We have a brief agenda with some visuals. And if you'd allow Eric to post that, we'll get right into it.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. Sounds like a plan. Dennis, can we please get Eric some screen sharing permissions? OK. Eric, you should be all set.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep. I will be sharing now. So what we'd like to do, Mr. Chairman, is briefly bring you and the public up to speed. And to do that, I think it might be helpful to review kind of where we've been and where we're at. You all are familiar with the site at 970 Fellsway. We're essentially taking the, this visual is looking south, but we're taking the western 3.4 acre portion of this site. And again, the comprehensive permit application does not involve the self-storage building. on the east edge along the Fellsway, but we will be talking and considering the impacts and the interrelationship with that building to remain. Next slide, please, Eric. The focus of this presentation is really going to be on what we're calling the preferred alternative plan. It's not a plan that the board has seen yet, but it's one that we've involved and we've developed based on your input from the last session, that of staff and that of your professional design consultants. It's going to address a number of issues that we heard, including those that members of the board and the public have raised about enhancing the public realm even further, addressing some surface parking concerns along the edge of Amaranth, further refining site circulation, and that continues to be a work in progress and will be further informed by consideration with your consultants and our design engineer. a request to consider some step down in building height, which we've looked at seriously. You'll see a preliminary shadow impact, particularly on the adjoining residential properties that are subject to the greatest impact, and those are on the west side of Amherst. So we'll be able to show you that, at least on a preliminary basis this evening. And there was a request for additional information on parking, which we can share at least from a market perspective to show what our parking will be in context. Next slide. I'm not going to go through all of this, but it's fair to say the last two items are relevant. And Mr. Chairman, you hit the nail on the head in introducing this. that we had some homework leaving this meeting with you on January 30th. We did the Q3 team, the design team with input from Bowler went back. And I would say the plan has been further refined in consultation with your design professional uh, Cliff Bowler of Davis Square, um, who attended a meeting along with others, including, um, um, Dennis and, uh, Danielle. Um, that led to, um, a brief update meeting this morning, um, where, uh, those same folks, uh, and, uh, Director Hunt, um, were also involved, um, to provide a quick update, but nothing more than a quick update. And that's led us to this evening. Next slide. So I'll hit on the first topic here. Just to remind the board, the scope of the project remains one, which is to redevelop the western side of this site that you see here. which is entirely impervious. It's an existing industrial use. It's been in a historic industrial use. It's zoned industrial for housing. And that housing will facilitate a number of important municipal and regional housing goals that are identified here and that we've identified throughout this process. The goal here is to develop approximately 289 units in a mix of townhomes and multifamily. 25% of which will be affordable and will meet a number of key housing goals that the city is advancing in their housing production plan. I'm going to turn it over to Eric to take it from here.
[SPEAKER_12]: Good evening, everyone. Building off of what Peter was just discussing, we're looking to provide public realm improvements along the site publicly accessible open space, enhancing the Amaranth Ave streetscape. enabling connectivity to the future rail trail. You know, a lot of that ties into the, you know, the site being 100% impervious. The stormwater management through new stormwater design will significantly, you know, significant reduction in the impervious area. There'll actually be a much better stormwater management plan with the new project than is currently on site. We'll also have improved circulation in and around the project site. So just a brief history, not going to go into a lot of detail on these two plans. I think we hashed them out pretty well in the last couple of meetings that we've had. But on the left is the original site plan. Our building was, the large multifamily building was located primarily as far west as we could get it on the site, you know, kind of to the southwest. was about 10 feet off the property line in this condition. We had six stories right up along Amaranth Ave. And so it really pushed our massing close to our neighbors here. We had a lot of internal parking and not a lot of open space in that plan. So we listened to some comments in this plan on the right. And at some level, we may have overcompensated a little bit listening to some of that feedback. We shifted the building basically as far east as we could in this plan. We moved parking over to the west side between the building and Amaranth. We increased the amount of open space that we have, but it led to a few other items and comments that we discussed in our last CBA meeting. So we're pretty excited about our next iteration that we're about to go through. We feel like you know, between the original site plan, the alternate site plan that we presented a couple of weeks ago, that we're really kind of in the sweet spot for what we want to do on the site. And I think we're excited. So here you'll see the updated site plan, I'm going to kind of talk through some of these items. And then we're going to go into some blow ups within the plan to kind of get to a little bit more detail. But I just want to cover this higher level here to start. So touching on what our project objectives were and how they are being accomplished in this site plan. So we have publicly accessible open space that's increased versus the existing condition. Our impervious area is significantly reduced versus the existing condition. We have less curb cuts than we did in the existing condition. Our building height along Myrtle Street and Amaranth Ave has been reduced by a story. You'll actually see the lighter gray portion of the multifamily building is five stories, and the darker gray portion is the six-story setback, where previously the building was entirely six stories. We reduced the surface parking along Amarath Ave and made it all internal to the site. And the setback along Amarath Ave has increased versus the existing condition and the original proposal. So I'm going to go into this a little bit more detail. I'm going to turn the laser pointer on here. Hopefully everyone will be able to see this red dot here. I'm going to try and use this to help point out in a little bit more detail some of these items that we're discussing. So you'll see the list on the left, one through six. That ties to the numbers that you're seeing on the site plan on the right. And we're going to kind of go one by one as we work our way around the plan and discuss. So number one here. is a step down of building by one story along Myrtle Street. It's along Amaranth Ave as well, but in this view, we're primarily focusing on the Myrtle Street side. So you'll see here the stark gray portion is the six-story piece, and then the frontage along Myrtle Street is the five-story portion. Two, so at the corner of the building along the ground floor, we have a resident bike shop storefront. So in here, you'll see very activated bicycle storage and shop area for the residents. Three, along the ground floor, this will be our main entry with amenity and leasing space tied to this. This will be directly across from our drop-off space. Four, we have our outdoor amenity areas for the public and the residents. So this will be a combination of play area and other items. We'll touch on some of these in a couple of slides when Bola and our landscape team can get to a little bit more detail on what those items are. five, which is certainly new from the last time we presented. So we're proposing to widen Myrtle Street and add parallel parking by shifting the sidewalk toward the property line. What that means is we're pulling the curb edge into our property line to widen the street so the parallel parking is within our property line. And that does not mean the parallel parking is for the project, that is still street parking for the residents in the neighborhood or for the neighborhood. The reason we are widening the street is we heard a lot of comments about the width of the street not allowing for two-way traffic. By widening the street, it will create more room for the two-way traffic while still providing the parking. Six. the Myrtle Street entrance for drop-offs, deliveries, pickups. So this is coming in off of Myrtle Street. This red area here that you're seeing, you'll see a car here. So this is the drop-off area. The reason we have this shown as a different color is, you know, it really helps with, you know, traffic management and, you know, speed control and making sure that this is a well-known pedestrian area. We don't want cars coming, you know, we want pedestrians to be the primary, you know, around this area. So we don't want the cars to come, you know, with any speed or anything like that. So it's a calming measure. And that's why we have it shown this way. So we are coming in off Myrtle, we have our drop off here, we have a few visitor spaces, and then we have a connection to our internal portion of the site. So here are just a few examples of projects that CUBE 3 has worked on that were either recently completed or are in the area and are good comps for this project. So we have the Caldwell and Lynn. So this is a space, a fitness and kind of multifunctional room on the ground floor, something that you might see similar to what we are proposing in this project. This is Rivers Edge 150 in Medford. This is the ground floor amenity entry and leasing. So this is actually the leasing counter for where new residents come in. You know, we'd be looking to do something very similar, you know, off of our front door. We have the right in Waltham. This is an example of a bike room. You know, we would have, you know, fun graphics, there'd be bike storage, be areas for, you know, residents to fix their bikes. It's usually a very active space. And then we have Cambridge Park Drive, which is just an example of what you might see from the exterior as far as the storefront and the feel along the front of this building. All right, so now looking along the Amaranth Ave side of the building. So number one, we have a few more of these. So a step-down building by one story along the Amaranth Ave facade, increased setback from existing addition and original proposed. So again, you'll see in the dark gray, this is the six-story piece of the building. And then this lighter gray is the five-story portion. So we're really pushing the massing into the site and allowing, you know, the shorter portion of the building to be out towards the neighborhood to create a better, you know, step down towards the neighborhood. Two, we substituted all the surface parking we had in our plan from two weeks ago. and expanded the landscape buffer to improve the streetscape along Emirate Ave and enhance opportunities for engagement connection. With here you'll see bullet number three, we have enabled the pedestrian connection to potential future bike trail. So what we're really doing is creating a pedestrian experience along Emirate Ave that is not there currently. The existing condition, admittedly, is a bit barren with the current building being right on the property line and right on the street edge. So we believe with this added landscape buffer, the added walkway, the greenscape, the active and passive landscaping we can do here, that this will create a much better experience along Amaranth Ave. Item four, we believe with this move that we are doing, we can provide additional on-street parallel parking spaces along Amaranth Ave for the neighborhood. And five, we have our secondary and emergency vehicle access to the site. Again, we reduced a lot of the paving and parking along Amaranth Ave, but we maintain the original curb cut that's there now on Amaranth Ave. So this is just the current existing conditions along Amaranth Ave. As you can see here, the industrial building on the right, which is currently on the site, is right on the property edge. There's no real sidewalk on that side of the street. It's a bit barren. There's no green. The street itself is even hard to be defined. So we believe with what we're proposing here, we can really make Amarathap a very nice streetscape, more inviting to the neighbors, more inviting to residents to use, and the future development of the rail trail would only enhance that. And I just want to turn over to Boulder Landscape to just kind of talk through a couple of the representative images they have here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Eric. My name is Jay. I'm with Bowler in Boston, filling in for Masoud who has some MBTA issues. So, happy to have the opportunity to discuss the plan. Eric touched on many great points of the updated site plan. One of the benefits is the wider green space along Emirates and There's a lot we can do with that. One of the items is a, I don't want to call it a multi-modal path, but a wide sidewalk and bike lane or bike path that could go along the Amaranth Ave from the middle side of the building, connecting to the bike room, and then down along the side to the potential rail trail. But this would be maybe eight to 10 foot wide pathway that would be boarded with vegetation. Next slide. We also have the opportunity to provide additional screening along that side of the building from the residents along Amherst Ave. So the bottom couple levels of the building would be screened with evergreen vegetation, deciduous trees, perennials. So a nice, lush, vibrant edge to the building. And that would actually carry along around front side of the building as well into the green space that we're creating along Myrtle. The next slide. And then one of the opportunities, again, with the Emirates corridor is activating that space with benches, potential fitness equipment, but just a great way for the neighborhood to engage with the site, which they currently can't do today with a fully impervious site by creating green spaces and activation. It's great activation with great interaction with the neighborhood. So looking forward to that. Thanks, Jeff.
[SPEAKER_12]: So I'm just going to work our way back into the internal of the site. Here, you'll see a number one bullet here. Majority of surface parking is now internal to the site. This had moved around a little bit. It was along Amherst Ave. We heard and listened to everybody. So that has now moved internal to the site. It's been reduced a little bit by moving some of it within the building, but it's now all, majority of it's all internal to the site. Two here is our main vehicular entrance and exit from the garage. That's where we would anticipate the main entryway to the, within the building. Three is the shared parking and loading for existing extra space storage building. So there are loading docks at this end of the building. And then four, we have our internal amenity courtyards. And just a few examples of what that is based on, you know, prior Q3 projects that are similar in nature. So we have Navarre and Chelsea Mass. We have the Rivers Edge 150 in Medford. And we have Mystic River in Medford. Here you'll kind of see a mixture of active and passive uses. It's usually, you know, hardscape and greenscape and areas for people to sit and relax. trellises, and we have a pool there at Rivers Edge 150. Sometimes there's TVs or barbecue stations in these spaces as well. All right, so I'm going to go through some preliminary shadow studies. I want to highlight that these are preliminary. We certainly have more information that we would like to share with Cliff and members of the board, we're not all the way there yet. So we want to touch on high level what we're seeing with our preliminary shadow studies. We can get more into it, I think, at a later time. But for now, we want to be high level with what we're seeing. So the existing building cast shadows on Amherst neighbors all year long in the mornings. Now, that can vary. In the summer, it could be very little. Towards in the winter, it could be a lot more. That's just with the angle of the sun in the summer is a lot higher, and the winter is a lot lower, which causes more shadows. So that's why you'll generally see between the months of, say, September and March, you'll see more shadows because the sun's at a lower angle. So the preferred design results in a similar shadow impact as the existing building. While there is an increased height from the existing building, there is also an increased setback that we have been working towards. So there's a lot of colors here. We're showing the proposed site plan that we have been working towards. I'm going to kind of walk us through one color at a time and what these all mean. We also have a section perspective that we'll show in the next slide as well that might help demonstrate what we're seeing here. So based on the previous slide, which is the existing building and the shadow that it's casting, this is a morning condition. So the sun is coming from our right. So the red is the outline of the existing building shadow line. Now, we kind of pulled it around because it's hitting the edge of these buildings along Amherst. But that's what you're seeing for the existing building. Now, the blue, which is the original submission from two years ago, that was a six-story building right up along Amaranth and had more of a shadow impact. So you'll see that along blue, that shadow extends a bit further to the west, and it also climbs onto the roof of these buildings in this specific morning condition. Now, in this lighter green-ish color, mint color, this was the previously proposed from a couple of weeks ago. So you'll see here, this had, because it was also six stories, it had less of an impact than the original submission, but also was hitting along these buildings along the edge here. Now we have the preferred proposed building, which is our current site plan. And that's what you're seeing in this burnt orange color. And that's highlighting the shadow that is shown on the plan. So you'll see that it's actually less than both the previous proposed building, as well as the original submission. And it's similar to the existing building, while admittedly slightly more. So you'll see it wrapped around along the buildings, hitting kind of the building edges, wrapping between and cut through. So again, I know there's a lot of colors, a lot of information here. We're going to go to the next slide. Hopefully it helps clarify some of this. It might not because shadow studies can be a lot of information, especially comparing four different buildings. So again, all the colors are the same here. So in red, we have our existing building right on the street edge of Amherst. And this is the same morning condition casting a shadow against the neighbor building. And blue is the original submission. Six stories tall, only about 10 feet set back from the existing building, cast a relatively significant shadow more than the existing building did. And then in mint, we had the one that set back the furthest, but it was also still six stories. So this one cast a shadow more than the existing building did. Now, our preferred proposed building, which is the building you're seeing in section here in the burnt orange, is closer than that last iteration from a couple weeks ago, but it's a story shorter along this edge of the building, which is going to significantly help us with these shadows and get it a bit closer to where the existing building was in this condition. So here, you'll see that burnt orange come in, while a little bit more shadow than the existing building, it is significantly less than that original submission we had. Now, I just want to reiterate, we're looking at one time of day here in the morning condition. We understand that there is a lot more information we can provide with these shadow studies, but we wanted to give you kind of a preliminary overview of what we're looking at here and how we're seeing the shadows affect the airport building. And we believe that with the setback that we have and the drop of a level along Amarath and Myrtle, we're seeing significantly less shadow impacts than we did with that original submission.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Eric, before we turn off the shadow discussion, can you provide some context as to when these shadows clear, if they do? And Secondly, can you clarify whether this is a worst-case condition that we're representing here? Lastly, can you talk about where this cross-section, what it represents?
[SPEAKER_12]: Absolutely. I'll work my way backwards, I think a little bit. This cross-section is happening basically along the center of Amherst Ave looking north, And so while you're not seeing that sixth story, it is because it's set back so far out of frame in this view. So it'll be way off to the right in this view. So we basically cut this along the center of Amaranta up looking north because we felt like that was a good representation of where it was. We weren't trying to do anything different than that. We just cut it along the center line. This condition, would not be the worst conditions that you would see. That would happen at the winter solstice at probably your early morning hours. Generally, like I said, you would see between September and March is when you're going to see the sun at its lowest. That would usually mean your shadows are most impactful, I'd say, between sunrise And by 10, 11 a.m., depending on the time of year, is where you'd see your most significant impact. Typically by 11 a.m., you're not seeing, based on our preliminary study, you're not seeing much of a shadow impact on the neighboring buildings.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, I would only add that This exercise was intended to provide you and staff and the public a sense of how we've tried to situate the building in such a way that it has a comparable impact to the existing building, but also provide for some publicly accessible open space will be of real benefit to the community while still allowing a building that meets our goals and that provides for limited internal surface parking.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I think just to close out that thought, Peter, we wanted to share just some parking comps based on some comments we heard regarding parking count and ratio for this project. So we looked at a lot of project comps in the area, and typically what we're seeing is that what we're providing is right around where you would see those parking ratios be. We're slightly under, but we feel like that's a good number for this project, which I'll also add is below the Medford zoning for this site.
[Adam Hurtubise]: On that note, Mr. Chairman and members of the board, I think there was interest in clarifying and ensuring that there is adequate parking for the project for the residents that is on site without impacting and negatively impacting the neighborhood parking availability for other residents. I think we've done that, but what this will require is that we update our waiver list because, as Eric points out, this is below the parking that would be technically required for this use. In addition, our traffic impact analysis that we're updating will include a shared parking analysis because the adjoining industrial use, the self-storage use, technically requires more parking under your ordinance than demand really requires. Some of that surface parking that's represented on the overall site plan will in fact be shared between the use. We think there is some synergy and it's appropriate to do that with the self-storage use being a relatively low driver in terms of parking demand. and residents of the project departing during the day to go to work and elsewhere. So that will be forthcoming, but we want to be clear that that's an integral component is something that this board will consider based on feedback and review from your consultants.
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I think I just wanted to close it by kind of thanking members of the community, uh, the ZBA planning boards, uh, or peer review or cliff. I think we got a lot of great feedback over the last couple of months, last couple of weeks. I think, you know, I don't. I want to kind of speak for everyone on the design team and our client that I think we're really happy with what our proposed plan tonight. And I think we all really believe in, in where it ended up.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So we know Mr. Chairman that you and members of the board and members of the public will have comments as well as your design consultant. I'll just emphasize that what we're showing as our preferred alternative is very much conceptual at this stage. So we do not have all the answers, but we're prepared in terms of Um, details, but we want to get to that next step at this stage. So that that's you know, we're really looking to the board at this time for clear direction to proceed with this as the preferred plan.
[Mike Caldera]: Understood. Thank you. Um, Appreciate the presentation. So what we're going to do just to streamline this meeting, we're going to go directly to Cliff Boehmer next. Sir Boehmer, we'd love to have your overall thoughts and any context you can share from what was discussed in some of the working sessions. And then we'll go to the board for additional questions and comments.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely, I'm happy to be here. I think, and I'll try to keep it brief as well, because I think the presentation covered certainly all the bases that we discussed at the working sessions. I don't think I need to point out that I think the feedback that the board gave at the last hearing was taken very seriously. And I think as the more I looked at the plans and listened to the adjustments they were making, it was very clear that I would say maybe the biggest one that has made a really huge impact is the figuring out the right distance from Amaranth, the reaction to kind of following through on making, completing Amaranth, with a really nice streetscape. So I think I expressed, or if I didn't express it at the hearing, I did in the working session, some concerns about moving the building further west from the previous proposal, but my concerns were really abated with the loss of an entire floor on that side of the building. So I think it was a nice, balancing act with the, I think, really significant added benefit of more benefit, more public benefit. At the beginning of this project, I think what I was mostly concerned about was really what I was calling lost opportunities to enhance the public realm. And I think the direction it has moved, from my perspective, has been pretty, and we haven't looked at building massing in great detail, so it's been limited to site-planned exercise. But I think having even more programmable open space has been really a nice benefit for the public. I think the redistribution of the massing, so moving the massing further east, which moves it further away both from Myrtle and from Amaranth. And then I think that wasn't discussed in great detail tonight, but creating that parking area along Myrtle so that the travel lane is actually closer to acceptable standards for two-way traffic were all public benefits that came largely from comments from the board and then discussing them in more detail at the working sessions. Having said that, I think the presentation tonight has pointed out items that aren't resolved yet. There's been, and given the kind of effort that's been put into working on the site plan, I'm confident that There will be a similar effort put into refining the massing of the building. One point that I've been a little bit concerned about, but I can't really comment on it until we start really looking at massing as the Northwest corner of the building. I think that's one issue, but it hasn't really been discussed. The other is, and the applicant's attorney referred to, Traffic studies, I think that kind of choreography between traffic that is dedicated to drop off only and traffic that is for residents. And then of course, how that interfaces with the existing storage facility is not determined yet. That's still open issue, but I think the infrastructure they're proposing could very easily work to solve those issues. But for me, that's about it. It has been going, in my opinion, it has responded to the concerns. And I think given that we're talking about really a limited discussion about site plan. For me, really increasing the benefits from the public realm, both from a negative impact perspective, but really providing a usable outdoor space that's open to the public is a very nice benefit that I think has come from this process. I don't think I have anything to add to that. It's been, for the applicant, a very busy couple of weeks because there's been a tremendous amount of work. I will say that the shadow studies, from what I've seen, are accurate. Technically, they make sense to me. It is important to note that For me, it's really important to note, it isn't just shadow, it's about view of the open sky. So even if it's not a direct shadow on your building, part of your experience, and it certainly is a real light source, is the bright sky. And I would add that I've been looking at the shadow study from that perspective as well. And I think it's pretty much exactly the same argument The current condition, given the minimal setbacks, even though they're not very big buildings, but minimal setbacks are really not all that different from what's proposed in this current plan as far as view of the bright sky in addition to the shadow studies. So I would just add that I do think it's important to see the full range of shadow studies so that people do understand that question that came up now that was just discussed about when does it go away and what time is there light going right up the street. And given the orientation, that will be really interesting to see. So I think that's what I have to say. At this point, I certainly can answer any questions.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. Yeah, so with that, I'm going to open it up to questions and comments from the board for either the applicant or for Mr. Bowmer. So what questions do we have for it?
[Yvette Velez]: I don't have any questions per se, more of maybe comments. And I know, again, this is like preliminary, but was there any discussion or talk about, you know, having You know, a garden or green space on the roof now that you're. You're going down towards the neighborhood. If that was anything that had come up.
[SPEAKER_12]: I would say it has not come up yet, but we would certainly look into it.
[SPEAKER_13]: Just clarifying what the question is, is a garden or open space for the apartment community or publicly available open space? Because we wouldn't be able to provide publicly available open space on the roof to have people pass through the building.
[Yvette Velez]: No, that would be for the tenants themselves, quality of life and just thinking of, You know, green initiatives and whatnot and and what that would could or would look like it may be a building that's brought into the neighborhood that is. You know, going from 1 extreme of commercial to residential, you know, these maybe is that a way that. Something y'all can consider.
[SPEAKER_13]: We definitely can consider it.
[Yvette Velez]: No additional questions or comments at this time.
[Mike Caldera]: All right. Thank you, Yvette. I see Andre has his hand raised. Please go ahead, Andre.
[Andre Leroux]: Great, thanks. Good evening, everybody. I just want to say, generally, thank you for the changes that you've made. I know this is still kind of a conceptual high-level stage. But I really appreciate, you know, the changes to emerald that the step down in particular, and, you know, rearrangement of the parking so I have a few just questions. I'm wondering if you could talk us through the circulation, a little bit more through the site now. In particular, curious about where tenants would move in, for example, where would those trucks go, and if you've thought about that. Also, if you could explain, I know you said that the main entrance was going to be on the internal northern part of the site. So is it only going to be an exit on Amaranth Ave or I'm just curious, is that also a two way entrance that you're thinking of? So those are a couple of. Circulation questions. I'm also curious about the first floor. So now on Amaranth Ave, we have that landscaping, which is great. And I'm wondering what is that landscape going to be fronting on? Is that going to be first floor, I assume, parking, and then residences, second floor and above? So I'm just curious about that. And then just a comment I have, which is, So many of these projects that come in are just boxes from the outside, so I think the step down is is going to be very helpful. And I would almost, I don't know if Cliff was getting to this at all, but that northwestern corner, I'd almost wonder whether you could go down one more, step it down one more on that corner, just to make it a little bit more visually interesting. I know you're not really at the design stage, but this is a big project, a lot of units. I don't know if a few units, sacrificing a few units to make a better design. would be in consideration.
[SPEAKER_12]: Sure, absolutely. Sorry, I didn't realize my camera had turned off there. Yeah, those are great comments, Andrea. I'll try and touch them all. If I miss one, please remind me if I miss one there. So just kind of working backwards here, northwest corner comment about dropping down another floor. I think we need to start reviewing the maps in more detail as we have refined the site plan. I'd say, you know, a big item with dropping that corner is going to be the efficiency of stair egress, being able to properly egress that floor when you're splitting a building is really where the challenges come in, without having to basically double up your fire stairs and things like that, and making sure that your fire department can also easily navigate the building without dead ends. But I'm not saying, you know, we can't do anything, but I'd say we'll definitely have to take a look at it as we get into the mapping. Working along Amaranth Ave, so we have parking along the ground floor along Amaranth Ave for a decent portion of it along the front of the building is where we'll have amenity space, fitness, bike, leasing, those sorts of things to activate the front portion on the ground floor. Along this side, we are We'll have parking within the internal of the building. Our plan is not to have the be open parking so that you're seeing it. We haven't, again, designed it to this level yet, but we really want to make sure that we're marrying how this building meets the ground with how that landscape's working. So while it may not be a unit within that space, we do want to make sure that we're working with our Bullard team to marry those two things together and make sure that, you know, that landscape edge is, is successful. As far as the garage entries, we do believe this is our primary garage entry here on the northwestern side of the building. We currently do have this secondary garage entry. We would promote this as our primary, but we do have this one as far as Max's point within the garage. at this time. I will add kind of high level before you can get to your next piece, your next couple of questions. You know, we're still reviewing this in a bit more detail with our transportation consultant, who I believe Scott's on the call tonight. So there's certainly more information that we need to provide for you and, you know, for the members of the board. So I don't want to say we have this 100% nailed down and solidified as I kind of talk through the circulation. I'm just kind of talking about where we are right now and kind of what we're seeing. So we have the south of Amaranth Ave. This is a two-way access point through the site. We also have our two-way access off of the Fellsway. This is obviously right turn in, right turn out off the Fellsway. And then we have our access off of Myrtle Street. Right now, we're seeing this as a two-way, in and out, off of Myrtle. We have a drop-off point here that we have in red. And this is where we would primarily expect to see our move-in, move-out within this space here at the very front of the building. And that's where we would typically see the drop-off and pick-up as well. And then this would flow you know, either out and onto Fellsway or could potentially turn around onto Mercer. I think that was all your questions.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I know that was. I mean, I know we're not exactly at the stage of answering all of these things, but obviously, we're going to be looking at where that movement happens. Thank you for clarifying that. Right now, you're thinking that's going to be that drop-off area towards the front where it looks like there's more room for trucks to come in and maneuver. I think that makes sense. But obviously, also waste management, where is all that stuff coming and going from? want to know. And, you know, the screening that you talked about on Amaranth Ave, the first floor parking, I mean, there's some interesting stuff you could do there, either with, you know, green walls or public, you know, like mural art or what have you, so.
[SPEAKER_12]: Definitely. And I think we're open to those things. And, you know, those are the level of detail that I think we want to get into. We're just not able to get there quite yet.
[Andre Leroux]: Actually, the only other thing that I would add is that with the southern parking areas, you're not showing an extra entrance on the southern side of the building, but I'm just wondering how people parking there are going to access the building. That would be one more question that I have.
[SPEAKER_12]: Sorry, you're saying with this garage entry or the south parking down here?
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, the outside surface parking, like where are people walking into the building if they're parking there?
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, so we will have a, you know, a small five, six foot sidewalk along the edge of the building. There will be resident entry only along different portions of the outside of the building. We'll have egress stairs, you know, kind of spread evenly throughout the building where we need to. Um, we'll probably also have potential for, um, in an elevator or other access point towards the backside of the building that, you know, we might be able to have an access point there as well, but that would be, you know, resident, uh, only access where the front portion of the building, um, but for the, the visitors and recent, you know, piece.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: All right. Thank you. Other comments or questions from the board?
[Mike Caldera]: All right, well, then I will chime in. Just wanted to double check and make sure I'm understanding correctly the impact of the step down. So I know the number of parking spaces changed from what was last presented to us. But there's also been a lot of added public space and open space. We didn't talk at all about units. So was there an impact? Is there any change? in terms of the number of units or things of that nature from the step down?
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, that's a great question. Sorry, I didn't touch on that earlier. So you'll notice in the previous plans, we actually had an open leg to the building in each iteration. So here in the original set plan, we had the southern piece. In the other plan, we had the northwestern piece. So what we did was close the building. and be able to reduce that top floor that allowed us to maintain the parking count that we had previously, but be able to reduce the height of the building along the Amarath Ave and Myrtle Street sides. So it's still at, we're planning on 283 units within the building and six townhomes, similar to the previous plan.
[Mike Caldera]: Great, thank you for confirming. That was my only question. My comment is I can certainly see the work that went into this and just appreciate the progress that's been made in the past two weeks to address the feedback from the board, the public, the city staff, and our peer review consultants. So yeah, it's exciting to see these changes, this progress. All right, I'll just double check again with the board. Any other questions or comments? If not, I'm inclined to open to members of the public for any feedback on the changes to the conceptual site plan. Do I have a motion to open that?
[SPEAKER_13]: Motion to open 970 Fellsway for public comment.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, I'm going to take a roll call. Yvette?
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Jim? Jamie? Andre?
[Andre Leroux]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Mike? Aye. All right, we are now open for public comment. Members of the public, if you would like to speak on this matter, you can raise your hand on Zoom. You can turn on your camera and raise your hand. You can type something in chat. You can email DennisDMcDougall at Medford-MA.gov. And so for those members of the public who are unfamiliar with this process, public comments are part of the public record. The board has heard previous public comment in a session on the prior conceptual site plan that was presented. So we especially welcome comments on the changes and any feedback from the public on this. It's labeled as the preferred conceptual site plan especially. I see a hand raised from Christina. So I'm going to call on Christina. Could you please state your name and address for the record?
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I am Christina Katch. I live at 130 Myrtle Street. For some of the applicants that have yet to visit Myrtle Street and visit the site location, 130 Myrtle Street is the pathway, the house pathway is now the, is now directly across the street from your delivery area. So if you're looking for some context of where I live, it is that house directly across from your pickup and drop off location. And so I want to take a moment just to acknowledge that it was stated that today was just a summary and that we don't have all the details. So with that in mind, I less have a question, but wanted to bring up a few informational gaps that I felt were not addressed during this call that I'd like to see in those future detail conversations. The first of which is, as we've mentioned before as residents, there still has not been an answer for us on how the enforcement of the parking is going to go on Myrtle Street in Amaranth, how the applicant and the building is going to ensure that your residents aren't taking our spots on the street. Having enough parking on property, of course, is one way, but I still haven't gotten that detail on the enforcement of the residents not using our neighborhood streets. Second was in your shadow study slide, in the current state drawing, There was no shadow on Myrtle Street because there are no townhouses there. In your proposed future state map, there was a shadow coming from the townhouses on Myrtle Street, but it was not at any point addressed in your overview of the townhouse impact to Myrtle Street shadows in the sun. So I'd like to see that come up, if not an answer today, in one of your future sessions. And my third thing that I'd like to see when you come back with more details is who in your neighborhood you did a interview and what your sample size was for us local residents on these green space ideas. You keep talking about how we're going to use it and we're going to get the benefit of these open spaces. But as far as I have been on the calls, I haven't seen the summary of your findings from neighborhood interviews about what we would and wouldn't want in those areas. And it's quite possible I wasn't part of your sample size. But if you could bring that to a future session, I would also really appreciate that. And also, when is the next session?
[Mike Caldera]: Great question. So I can address the last one right away. So we have our next hearing scheduled for February 27. Thank you, Mike. You're welcome. So to some of those points, on the issue of enforcement, it's certainly something we can talk about as appropriate through this hearing. In general, that's governed by city ordinance. So there's potential opportunities for signage where appropriate, but the city is responsible for enforcing the street parking ordinance. In terms of the shadow studies, I know the applicant has promised that there will be a full shadow study. I don't know if the preliminary study included the particular question about the shadows on Myrtle Street or if that's something you would expect in an updated presentation when we have the full study.
[SPEAKER_12]: We'll definitely make sure that's incorporated in the full study. That's a great comment.
[Mike Caldera]: All right, thank you. And then in terms of the open space, the board intends to discuss this in much greater detail at a future session. So I think everything depicted here is intended to be conceptual in nature. I interpreted the use of the word public as members of the general public would be able to use a number of the spaces depicted here. So the stuff in the interior would be restricted to the residents. And much of the other space looks like it is open to members of the public. But this is just conceptual as I understand it. So I anticipate at a future session we'll be reviewing in greater detail the landscaping plans for that. There was a question about neighborhood interviews. I know some of these changes were made recently. Has there been an opportunity to discuss with neighbors the potential use of these open spaces?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, there has not. But as we indicated in an early slide, there was a neighborhood session. It's been now some time. But I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the site is entirely off limits to the public at this time. It's entirely impervious. And the fact that we're adding green space, we're adding pervious area, and we're working with a client, the Davis Company, who's prepared to make available to the community areas of this newly created open space as publicly accessible, not fenced off, is entirely elective. Combined with the fact that we're responding to comments that we heard from neighbors that are on this meeting to provide for off-street parallel parking on the property as opposed to on public property. That means moving the curb line and the sidewalk onto private property. I don't want to lose sight of those significant public benefits, but you're quite right in terms of the programming, we expect that that will be detailed. If in the context of this hearing process, it's made very abundantly clear to us that the public are not interested in making use of these spaces, there's no need for us to keep it open to the public. So that is simply the idea we're exploring based on the feedback we've heard from you all.
[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Chair, sorry, you can just jump in on that. I mean, my interpretation, Attorney Tam, was of what Christina was saying is a little different. I think that it sounded to me like the residents have an interest in providing feedback to how the landscape, you know, amenities are designed. And I think that, you know, it's still an appropriate time as we get into the the design phase that the landscape architects could engage with the residents to understand what that might look like.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, through you, we'd welcome that. We're happy to reach out to any residents who have interest in seeing what the outcome is there.
[SPEAKER_12]: I would just add that the images we showed tonight were inspirational and concept images. They aren't necessarily a final design that we're showing either. They're what we've seen popular and well used at other areas and things that we were looking to incorporate here, but in no way solidified.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. So a few things for members of the public. Like I said, we will be having a future session where we go in much greater detail into the landscaping. And so the board will be taking public comment in that session. Additionally, members of the public at any point during this hearing are welcome to email the board. You can send an email to our clerk, dmcdougal at Medford-MA.gov. with your comments to get those in the public record. And then, yeah, it's a little unclear to me if the applicant has a preferred way for members of the public to reach out directly for feedback. So is there, it's not the board's purview to determine how the applicant chooses to engage, but is there a preferred way that members of the public should reach out directly if they wanted to share some thoughts with the applicant?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think anyone on the team is available to engage. I don't need to be the only point of contact, but I'm sure Eric and others will make themselves available and can share emails.
[Mike Caldera]: OK, wonderful. So yeah, if you're a member of the public and you don't happen to know where the emails are, just reach out to dmcgoogle at medford-ma.gov and we can get you connected. All right, do we have other public comment? Any other comments from members of the public?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Just going to double check. No one's on camera raising their hand.
[Mike Caldera]: I'm not seeing it. All right. Chair awaits a motion to close the public portion of this session of the hearing.
[SPEAKER_13]: So moved.
[Mike Caldera]: Do we have a second? Second. All right, we're going to take a roll call. Yvette?
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Andre? Aye. Jim? Aye. Jamie? Mike, aye. All right, the public portion of the hearing is now closed. Just want to double check members of the board. Any other questions come to mind after hearing the public comment? Yeah, Jim.
[SPEAKER_13]: I just think I just want to say I think the progress was great. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Jim.
[Mike Caldera]: OK, so. I know we have some representatives on from data, which the city has retained as its engineering consultant. My understanding is that the initial report is not yet available, in part because there's been some discussion and proposed changes to the design. But they are on and available to give some initial feedback. So, yeah, I'd like to turn it over to. To a representative from beta for those initial.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_05]: Comments yeah, I can start my name's Jeff max to this from the beta group. Transportation planner. Yes, I appreciate the time here tonight. We kind of new new to the. The project, we have seen the previous submittals, but we haven't gotten to details yet. So as far as the traffic transportation side, we're still waiting the traffic impact study. So until we have that, we won't be able to go into details. And Bill McGrath is with me tonight, the site civil engineer. Until we have revised design plans, we can't get into those details. So I'm sure that will answer. All the questions that we have, but just overall. Um, you know, things will be looking for, um, you know, offside impacts to the project, um, in terms of, you know, roadways and intersections. Um, pedestrian, bicycle safety and movement. In terms of what we've seen tonight, I'm encouraged by a lot of the elements, particularly the potential connection to the rail trail. The pedestrian amenities, some things mentioned by board members, we'd be asking about such as, you know, loading docks, garbage dumpster activity, moving truck movements. One thing we'll be looking for is a transportation demand management plan as part of the project. We'll be interested, obviously, in parking, particularly in Visitor parking, the demand to visit a parking will that be adequately supplied. And how that will operate in the shared parking operation. 1 question I have for the team is, you know, the fellows way it is a jurisdiction roadway. I guess my question is, do you know if you need an access permit from MassDOT as part of this project onto a state jurisdiction roadway? So that's one question we would have. The drop-off area, we'll have questions about that, about the activity and circulation. The board member had the question about the parking space and pedestrian access. I agreed with that. Visitor parking and location to the front access of the building. I heard the question from the resident about enforcement of on-street parking. I think that's a good one. Yeah, so we'll be looking for more details as the, you know, and we understand this is just a concept and those will be developed over time. But we'll look for the opportunity to review those. And my colleague, Bill McGrath, Bill, you have any initial comments, questions, insights?
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_10]: Thanks, Jeff. Again, Bill McGrath, civil engineer. I'll be looking at the civil site piece of the project. Jeff, I think you touched on most of it. I will say from a stormwater management perspective that the increase in green space and the decrease in impervious space is a positive development. I think we may want to look for opportunities maybe within that green space for some water quality enhancements. The fact that impervious area is being reduced is going to address peak flow from the site and mitigate that. But there may be some other opportunities for stormwater management as well. We do want to get a better understanding of circulation, some of the issues that were mentioned, as well as emergency access, making sure that public safety is comfortable, that they can access the site as they need to. And when we get to the point If we get to the point of getting closer to construction, I think we want to talk about construction management, managing construction vehicles, accessing the site, noise mitigation, dust mitigation, those types of issues as well. So I look forward to working with everyone on the project.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. So I know that was mostly just a short introduction and some high level comments. Do we have questions from the board for beta? Okay, well, yeah, I'll just say certainly looking forward to get into some of those details. Those are all areas that are important to the project and to the board. So yeah, looking forward to get into those in the near future. Okay, so one of the requested outcomes of this meeting was a guidance for the applicant on whether to go ahead and proceed with this conceptual site plan. I haven't heard any feedback, objecting to that. So double checking with the board, what are our comfort levels telling the applicant to proceed with this and to layer in the additional details so we can advance the hearing and get a little bit more into the kind of lower level details of the project. I certainly am comfortable doing so. We kind of talked last time about the desire to do exactly that. I am mindful of the timeline. And so when we see this much progress over a two-week period, addressing a lot of the high level feedback the applicant received. I think this makes the project rather better in a lot of the dimensions that were concern areas raised in the prior session of the hearing. So yes, thank you for the work you put into this. Please proceed. So this conceptual site plan, we'd love to see how that translates now into the the full design and some of the engineering plans and related plans. So with that being said, our next hearing is scheduled for the 27th. of February. And it sounds like for the engineering review, there's still some some details that are missing that are required. So what? Realistically, can we review on the 27th based on where we are today?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, I I'm going to like to respond and invite representatives of both Bowler and Cube 3 to chime in. But in taking notes, I think we would expect, based on this sort of informal feedback that we're receiving tonight, that the design team, both on the architectural and the civil side, will now be drilling down to update the project plans, that means all the civil plans to your consultant's point. We have detailed plans for the original project. Those will all be updated, and that includes a complete civil set. It includes new floor plans, new elevations, new renderings, new landscape plan, grading, circulation, parking, drainage, the works. All of that gets updated. I suspect in two weeks time we can report to you on progress, but we're not gonna have all those items. I think secondarily, we have a traffic report that's being updated, and I believe Scott Thornton from Vanessa's is available. It may be possible that that report can be submitted, and he can update this group be on that updated report at that time. But I suspect it won't give us time for Beta to have reviewed it, at least in any meaningful way.
[Mike Caldera]: Yeah, so I saw in the chat earlier that Mr. Thornton had to drop for another meeting. I guess he was double booked. So yeah, I know that that's the area where there weren't as many changes. But yeah, we don't know for sure. So I share your sentiments. I'm just pulling up the schedule right now.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And I see that Mr. Ballmer's hand is raised. I don't know.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, Cliff, go ahead.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: Hi. This is, I think, a question maybe for Beda. I've been trying to think through this. I can't figure it out, is knowing that part of the project is truncating the existing building. And I'm imagining that the current state of stormwater management is certainly doesn't meet current standards. To what degree would Beta be looking for an analysis of that existing building in its new form and where the water from its roofs are going at the very least.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_10]: Mr. Chairman, if I can respond. Please go ahead. It's a good question. There's been a preliminary stormwater management report done already. Um, that currently addresses existing conditions on the site. Um, and more geared towards, I think the original. Design of the buildings in the site, so that that needs to be updated. Um, but we do want to understand where all the runoff on the site is going. Both the new building and the existing building to remain as well. It's classified as a redevelopment site under the DEP's stormwater management standards. But there still is an obligation, even as a redevelopment site, to try to improve over existing conditions. But I think that's what we want to look at, both in terms of peak runoff from the site as well as water quality and how we can make those improvements. I don't know if that answered your question.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: No, it answers mine, I think. It's a big change in the existing buildings. And as I said, I think current conditions are insufficient. I just don't know to what degree by making that kind of modification that the new development takes on the responsibility of dealing with the stormwater issues from the existing side of the site.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, if I might. Please go ahead. I don't disagree with anything that Mr. McGrath has said, but it's important for the board to understand and your consultants can confirm that in dividing the site, the comprehensive permit, which is before you, will be the Western uh the western portion of the site we we recognize that you know it's that 3.4 acres that will effectively be divided by the internal drive the existing self-storage we acknowledge is there is a good deal of interdependence here both in terms of access stormwater drainage and the like and uh so the stormwater report, the operations and maintenance plan, everything that is going to be updated will show where connections are. But in terms of meeting DEP stormwater guidelines for a redevelopment site, we are focused on the western edge. We do not have obligations under the comprehensive permit to effectively address issues with respect to the stormwater from the self-storage which will remain in place. That said, I think as Eric pointed out early on, it's obvious and apparent that there's plenty of opportunities for improvement to stormwater quality and quantity just as a result of what we're doing here.
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_10]: And Peter, if I could, and Mr. Chairman, if I could just add on there, Steve Matarano-Boehler, I'm the civil engineer looking forward to working with Bill to solve all these issues, but we do. We will all the impervious areas, the parking surfaces, driveways, those will be intercepted just by the nature of where the water is going. So there's, there will be some inherent improvements to even the existing parcel, just because there are commingled access drives and portions. like that, but the roof is piped out independently out to the city system for the existing self-storage building, and there is not an intent to undo that infrastructure. But there will be improvements to even the other lot just by the nature of some of the co-mangling drive circulation patterns. And then the preliminary report, While preliminary was thoughtful, and I'd like to think that the changes here relative to that, we do have to move components, but I think the approach will be pretty consistent to what we took in that preliminary approach. Obviously, we'll adjust. We have a lot of work to adjust and to bring some detail into the stormwater report, but we will be doing that as part of this next iteration.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_10]: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, sorry. I didn't mean to imply that. I thought you had an obligation to improve stormwater on the adjacent site, only on the site that you're redeveloping. But as you mentioned, there is some interdependency between the two. So that's all. Thank you.
[Mike Caldera]: All right. So yeah, looking at the schedule, original intention was anyway for the 27th to be a focus on traffic. And so in light of Attorney Tam's suggestion and what we just discussed, I'm inclined to stick to that plan. So the focus on the 27th will be traffic. I would like a short update on the status of updates to the architectural and civil plans as a result of picking this preferred conceptual site plan. And yeah, so we'll focus on traffic on the 27th. If for some reason something changes, the applicant can reach out directly to city staff and we'll adjust accordingly. And then we will determine at that point the agenda for our March 14th session, which is the next one scheduled. Does that work for you and the applicant, Attorney Tam? Oh, well, I want to double check with Attorney Tam and then Andre, you can chime in.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think it does, and especially because our traffic consultant had to leave. So we'll put the burden on him. But we're expecting his report. We would anticipate sharing it with you and with your consulting team well in advance of that date so that they at least have a few days opportunity to review it in advance if there needs to be any consultation, I suspect. I guess I would ask the board and that we can continue consultation expert to expert.
[Mike Caldera]: in the interim. Yeah, absolutely. Andre, what did you want to?
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, it's the point of inquiry. I mean, Mike, I was just, it sounds like from what the attorney just said, that we'll have the full transportation study, but I was just going to say, like, if we don't have that, if we don't have the new, you know, design documents, I would suggest skipping the meeting on the 27th until we had all that information. So I think if we don't, you know, if we don't, for some whatever reason, have the you know, a robust transportation study to look at that, you know, it's not necessarily worth meeting so quickly.
[Mike Caldera]: Well, so, Andre, my understanding is that we will have that study. So it's possible some of these changes impact the study. Unfortunately, Mr. Thornton's not on to speak to whether that changes things. The applicant can reach out and let the board know if that has changed things materially, but I'm reluctant to cancel any meetings in light of the many things we need to discuss as part of this process. And especially here, since the plan all along was traffic and nothing has been communicated to the contrary to indicate that we won't have that detailed plan, I'm inclined to keep it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chairman, I can tell you, you will have it. And to your query, our understanding from consultation with Mr. Thornton is that there's no material changes as a result of these site plan adjustments. All right. The only thing I cannot commit to is when you'll have it. But as I told Director Hunt this morning, our goal will be to provide it to you at least 48 hours in advance. Ideally, we'd have it to you next week. But I will personally confirm with Dennis tomorrow when we can deliver it.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. Sounds good. Yes. Speaking on behalf of the board, We appreciate having focal information available to review in advance. And so I understand the last two meetings, there were some kind of late breaking changes. But in general, I think two days before is a good rule of thumb when possible, just so we can all do our homework and show up prepared. All right. Let's proceed with that plan. On the 27th, we will be hearing the presentation on the traffic, as well as the update on how the design is progressing, and then Just need to pull up. So I think that's all on this matter. We do have a couple of other administrative items on the agenda. So the next one's administrative updates. Just want to check in with the administration. Do we have any updates?
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: Not for me, Mr. Chair.
[Mike Caldera]: Right. And then I didn't see any meeting minutes.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, that's on me. I forgot to send them to you. So, Rachel has done an exceptional job turning around much, much better than me. So, I apologize to her for not getting into you, but you'll have them prior to the, I'll get into you before I leave tonight. I'll send them up. We'll have them ready for the next meeting. You do approve.
[Mike Caldera]: All right, thank you. Sounds great. So that brings us to the end of the agenda. Chair awaits a motion to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, just a point of order. We need to continue it. Yeah, I'm sorry. My bad. Thank you. I did that once before in another one, but we didn't do it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's getting late. I appreciate it.
[Mike Caldera]: Chair awaits a motion to continue this matter to our special meeting on February 27th at 6.30 PM.
[SPEAKER_13]: So moved.
[Mike Caldera]: Do I have a second? Second. All right, we're going to take a roll call. Andre? Aye. Jim? Aye. Jamie? Aye. Yvette?
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Mike, aye. All right, this matter is now continued. Now chair awaits a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Thank you. Good night.
[Andre Leroux]: So moved.
[Mike Caldera]: All right, we're going to take another roll call. Andre? Aye. Jim? Aye. Jamie? Aye. Yvette?
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Mike, aye. All right, we're now adjourned. Good night, everybody.
[Andre Leroux]: Good night. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.