[Mike Caldera]: Hello and welcome to this special meeting of the Medford Zoning Board of Appeals. We're going to take a quick roll call and then we'll get started. Jim Tirani? Present. Jamie Thompson? Present. Andre LaRue? Present. Yvette Velez?
[Yvette Velez]: Present.
[Mike Caldera]: Christy Aveda? Present. Mary Lee. I don't know if we have Mary yet. I think she's planning to join shortly. No Mary yet. And Mike Caldera present. So we have a quorum. And let's get started. Dennis, can you please kick us off?
[Denis MacDougall]: On March 29th, 2023, Governor Haley signed into law a supplemental budget bill, which among other things, extends to temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting on March 31st, 2025. Typically, this further extension of public bodies, can you hold in meetings remotely without quorum of the public body physically present at the location and provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The language is not making substantive changes to the open meeting law, other than extending the expiration date and temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st, 2023 to March 31st. Thank you. I can read the first item, please. 970 Fellsway case 40b-2023-01 continue from April 11th. The resumption of consideration of petition of DIV Fellsway LLC of the Davis companies for a comprehensive permit pursuant to Massachusetts general laws chapter 40b for multifamily six-story apartment development located in approximately 3.4 acres of land at 970 Fellsway property ID 7-02-10. This proposal will be developed as an approximately 289 units to 2 or 3 units, multifamily housing, 11 townhomes with 25% of the total units of them being designated as affordable housing to low or moderate income households.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you, Dennis. All right, folks, for those unfamiliar with the 40B process, this is a multi-session hearing. So we've been having hearings on this matter since last November. Today, the focus area, as I understand it, is going to be responses to the traffic peer review as well as updates on the architectural plans. I believe that's correct, but I'll double check. I see we have Pat Noon for the applicant. Welcome. Please go ahead.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Thank you for hearing us this evening. Just jumping right into it. And as I jump into it, I'll just update. So Eric Samuelson from Cube 3 is going to be doing the majority of the presenting this evening and will be sharing his screen. So as I talk, I'll ask him to pull the presentation up. To specifically answer your question, We are not presenting on traffic this evening. And I'm sorry if there's any confusion on that. To provide a general update, we had a very productive peer review session with Beta. Last week, at the outset of that session, it was agreed that we would not be presenting this evening. The team from Van Ness, Scott Thornton and his team are preparing formal responses. And we are planning to package those responses with responses to comments that we received yesterday from the beta civil team for a presentation on traffic and civil at our next hearing. just the nature of the comments from Beta on traffic and the level and the depth of the discussion that we have had, we just felt warranted more time for us to come in and formally respond to those comments. So this evening, the presentation is focused specifically around the architecture and the design and responding to the comments that we received from Cliff Bowmer from Davis Square Architects. And so picking the presentation off with that in mind, we did have a peer review session with Cliff as well and members of the planning staff. Last week, it was a very productive session. And so the thought process this evening is to walk through those comments, address questions that have been previously raised, provide some clarity, provide some updates on where we have taken the design since the last architecturally focused presentation and some of the feedback that we've gotten and hopefully the outcome of this hearing being in a place from a design perspective where We are proceeding with the design that we have presented and giving Cliff the information that he needs to provide his final letter and letter of recommendation to the board. So that is the focus of our presentation this evening. and let Eric jump in and share the screen. I can pause, Mr. Chair, if you want to respond to anything that I've said just regarding the topic this evening before we do that.
[Mike Caldera]: Thanks for the update and clarification. Sounds good. Yeah, the update I received via email It left a little to the imagination. So it was just a misunderstanding on my part. But it makes sense to me for us to do the civil and the traffic together at our next hearing. So yeah, sounds like a plan. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right. Good evening, everyone. You should be able to see my screen here. Yes, we can. All right, perfect. All right, we'll jump right in. So we have our proposed agenda. So we're really kind of providing an update to the architecture that we presented about a month ago now. And some of this is in response to the peer review comments we received from Cliff, as well as the session that we had with him beginning of last week as well. So we'll go over some of those comments and then jump into the plans, perspectives, elevations, and then a quick update on some of the site plan and amenities pieces. So, not much to harp on here, just re-familiarizing everyone with the site, the project site here at the corner of Myrtle and Amarith. All right, so we have our current site plan here. This was the same site plan that was presented two weeks ago at the last hearing that we had that covered civil and landscaping. So, on the left here are a list of requests that we received from Davis Square, Cliff Bomer. A few weeks ago, following the session last month, so our aim is to provide an answer to as many of these as we can tonight. So, working through this detailed landscape plans, these are actually provided in the. Last session that we have, but we also have these updated and ready to resubmit. We have detailed plans of bike rooms, internal courtyard plans. The garage plan, including EV and electrical bike that we will be getting to. Roof plan with mechanical equipment that we'll be getting to. Some updates with the building elevations. The material call-outs we're ready to speak to tonight. The garage ventilation strategy. Sustainability narrative we will not be getting to tonight. Civil drawings. This was actually touched on the hearing two weeks ago, so no update there. That one's good to go. And then opportunities for introducing public art to the project. So we're going to try and hit as many of these as we can tonight. Some of these were answered two weeks ago in more of the site planning presentation. So we'll be touching on more of the building tonight. So here we are, ground floor plan. So again, this is rotated at an angle from the site plan. You can see the north arrow in the lower left. Let me get my laser pointer out as well. So, the 1st thing I want to discuss with the garage plan is that we are planning an open air. Garage strategy, so it will not be mechanically ventilated. We are planning for the garage to be open on the South side. Which is the left side of the screen and the East side, which is the bottom of the screen. There will be some louvers along the west side, along Amarath. The exact quantity we don't know right now, but you will not be able to see into the garage from Amarath Ave. That is not our intent. You'll need to work through the exact open garage calculation. The total parking that we have is 324 residential spaces. There's 235 within the podium first floor of this building. We currently have 89 exterior spaces accounted for the residential portion of the project. And we are planning for 65 EV spaces, which is 20%. And that will be a mix of both internal spaces to the building and external spaces to the building. We have our bike storage room in the upper right of this plan. I have a blow up here on the right side of the screen just to show that in a little bit more detail, but we are planning for 100 bike parking spaces, and this will access both from the garage and from the exterior for access from the residents. We also have temporary bike parking on the exterior that is shown within the site plan as well. No major changes to the typical building plan. So this is the second floor plan, units wrapping around. We have our courtyards located above the garage. The amenity space is called out. Moving up, this is what we consider our typical floor plan. And then as we get to the sixth floor, we start touching on the updates to the roof plan. So we have updates to this plan as well as the upper roof plan above this. So here you'll see a layout with a condenser layout, roof hatch for access. We're also calling out for an ERV, which is an energy recovery ventilator, also heat recovery unit. So this is very early on. We do not have an MEP design on this project yet. That usually comes as you start progressing towards Further into the project, but basically what we're expecting is there will probably be one unit that is slightly larger. That would probably be the ERV would probably be about 6 feet in height or so. And that would basically allow for and it would take the air from the building. either heat it or cool it and it could get you kind of a 50 to 70% energy savings than a typical unit just pulling outdoor air. So it allows you to kind of recycle some of that heating and cooling. The condensers that you see located around the roof, those are typically about three feet in height or so. And we have these shown within our perspective. They're modeled within our 3D model in between the parapet height and the views that you see. You'll be able to see that you won't be able to see them from these views. And then moving up to the upper roof plan, we have another set of condenser runs on this upper roof. We have another potential ERV location here. Again, this is very preliminary. We don't know if You know, if we need two of them, we might only need one. So we'll have to work that with MEP to kind of finalize what that design is. And then we'll, we're also calling out our elevator overrun, you know, our trash overrun and some of these pieces as well. We're not expecting anything on the roof to be over six feet high. So I'm going to jump into the updated design. So some of the comments that we had heard and kind of talked through a month ago was that the Amarath Ave side was a little too flat. We needed a little bit more articulation along that side. And so we showed the scheme with Cliff last week and it was, I don't wanna put words in his mouth, but it was fairly well received by Cliff. He felt like it was moving in a better direction. I'll let him expand on that at the end of this. So, what we tried to do here was pull some of the design language that we were working with on the north elevation and pull it around the building to the Amaranth side, kind of let some of these pieces, you know, this brown siding come down to the ground and start to, you know, ground this side of the building, but also break up the extents in the length of this building by providing these two kind of outbound pieces that come down the ground and break up, you know, the elevation along Amarath, but also tie it back to the north elevation. In addition to kind of reworking the pieces along Amarath, we started to add a little bit more detail and articulation on some of the other pieces along this design that we had been working with, including some more articulation within these volumes along the front that you know, to help break them up a little bit rather than just being, you know, one solid piece, you know, adding a little bit more character and, you know, with an archway kind of across this, you know, canopy along the front of the building. So really just starting to, you know, dive into this a bit more. You'll see that there's kind of some trees along the front here that are ghosted. We intentionally try to make those as transparent as possible because If I turn them all on without transparency, you won't be able to see the building. So we just wanted them there for reference. So that's what you're seeing kind of ghosted through here. So this is the view from across Myrtle Street on Amaranth Ave. And we're just going to work through kind of a few different views. We're providing more than one in this to give people an idea of what this looks like around the site. So this is a view, and we have the key here in the bottom left. So this is the view from entering the site from the Fellsway. You can see the extra space storage building here on the left. And looking back, you have the townhomes on the right side, and then you have the main entry right here for the new multifamily building. And you can start to see kind of the angle that we're working with with this entryway kind of aiming right in towards our front door. And then this is just a view taking, you know, a couple hundred feet forward, more internal to the site. You can still see the edge of the townhomes on the right and starting to see the kind of edge of the building that faces against the self-storage building. You can see some of the openness of the garage on this side that will be facing that building, but also some of the detail that we had started to add along that portion of the building as well, which you'll be able to see a little bit better in some of the elevations too. And then jumping over to onto Myrtle Street, we have the townhomes here on the left, and then looking in towards where we currently have the main entry of the site and our front door of the building. And starting to see kind of that corner of Myrtle and Amarath, and how we're hoping to kind of see this activated corner. Not really work for the project, but as well as for the street. And then just spinning around, this is in the back corner of the site, kind of the end of Amarath towards the connection to the potential rail trail looking back in towards the building. And you're seeing some of the updates we had made to this Amarath Ave elevation. You'd see some of the louvers that we discussed before that you wouldn't have the views directly into the garage from the side. So we would make sure to shield that. just there's, you know, from the last iteration to this one, I think there's just a lot more character to the side of the building than we had previously had, but also introducing some of this kind of warmer tone siding, you know, throughout the building, even towards the back to just give it a little pop and a little connection around the entire building. And then the last view here, kind of at the corner of Margill and Amarath from the other side, looking back towards the site, you have the townhomes here on the left. You can see the self-storage in the back. And then you're getting that side view of the building. This is Amarath running, you know, across the screen here. And you're seeing the corner of the amenity space here at the ground floor. But just seeing how this building meets the neighborhood at a few different angles. All right, and just working through the elevations, I think, as I've said previously, you never really see the building from, you know, these perspectives, but they are a helpful tool to kind of see how the design's coming together. So, along the north side, we have the, you know, two warm tones on the left and right of the elevation, kind of pulling that, you know, warm tone siding kind of throughout this, you know, masonry piece that we have here and having the amenity coming to the ground and kind of elevating, creating this entryway here at the front. you can see some of the equipment we have shown here on the roof as well. And then the west elevation along Amaranth, you know, pulling that, you know, that warm color, you know, down this facade with, you know, two protruding bays kind of coming to the ground on this side. We have a siding that, you know, mimics what we, you know, what we have with the masonry on the front. Well, you know, a more residential like material, you know, not, it won't be the masonry, but you know, we wanted to have it as a setting, but kind of pull that same color. So that feeling was kind of coming down this side of the building as well, to really tie these together. And then as we wrapped to the back of the building, we have the south elevation facing towards the rail trail. So we have a kind of lighter gray piece coming down towards the ground, splitting, you know, the siding coming across, and we use some of those warm tones. It's just a few areas to pop on and relate to the other sides of the building. And we do something similar along the east elevation that we say faces the Fells Way, but there's also the self-storage building here as well. And then we have the townhome elevations that we did not provide any current updates to. And then we just had a couple of updates that we are talking through with the landscape. Masoud, I didn't know if you wanted to touch on these pieces.
[SPEAKER_12]: Sure, absolutely. The main thing as in response to some comments that we received last time we looked into some opportunities to integrate public art basically and I think if you, the rest of the side elements are pretty much the same. If you go to the next slide. These are two main spots that we think are great to embrace the opportunity. The landscape buffer provides us a good outdoor space, public space to both introduce some sculptures or sculptural elements or interpretive signage, or in general, engage with the city to figure out how to use that space to the best. way possible. And once the existing building is broken to the two lots, I think the self-storage building, the west facade is a good opportunity to create murals that will both create a better outdoor space and also elevates outdoor space for residents and neighborhoods as well. In the next slides, I also included some present images of some of the things that we could expect and look into in terms of scale, material, and aesthetic in similar situations within landscape buffers and within public spaces, both in terms of sculptures and murals.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thank you. And I believe that is all we have. If there's anything I've missed, I'm obviously more than happy to expand on that. Pat, I didn't know if you have any closing comments.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can just jump in to wrap up quickly just to make sure, as we present across disciplines over the course of the hearings, make sure that points get translated meeting to meeting, even despite the fact that different members of the design team on my team present, just going back to an earlier part of the presentation, from an EV parking perspective, just driving this point home, we did meet with Cliff, we did study The code element that Cliff referenced in our previous hearing confirmed the quantity. So this is not a site plan review, as you noticed, and trying to keep civil and this civil as a separate presentation, and this presentation focused on architecture. But in terms of the quantity of EV spaces, which was a topic that we discussed at length at our last hearing, did confirm the quantities that We need to meet and are intending to do that. So Eric referenced that it would be a combination of interior and exterior spaces. So we'll be able to present proposed locations for that as we get through our updated site plan. But I just wanted to drive that point home that we did hear that in the last hearing. And that was something that we were able to confirm and are now able to incorporate and commit to from an EV charging perspective. Another just clarification point in terms of the roof, as Derek mentioned, getting through some of the MEP design on the roof, what is being reflected is something that Q3 feels would be a condition that they have seen implemented on other projects. So, for a typical multifamily building and design that utilizes condensers or units and having them located on the roof, we felt like this was representative of something that could take place and wanted to share that and model that. And this isn't necessarily saying this is how the roof will look, but in a condition where. the MEP design winds up utilizing this equipment, this is a likely outcome for how it could be configured, respecting distances to the edge of the roof and maintaining the Um, the privacy of that equipment on the roof, and I think, as Eric mentioned, when he was presenting this slide, as you get to some of the perspective views from the neighborhood, just reiterating that, as you are at that ground floor perspective, these pieces of equipment were included in the sketch of models and. These pieces of equipment were not visible as you are standing on the street along Myrtle, along Amaranth, along the Fells Way. When Eric presented the elevations reflecting the equipment on the roof, that's from a perspective that is not standing on the street or standing in the neighborhood. I just wanted to clarify that. Then the last piece was something that we've been exploring. Eric hinted at it in the elevations and just trying to pick up on some of the comments that we've received over the course of the presentations, over the course of the hearing, that trying to find ways to creatively incorporate some of the historical elements of the building, whether that be through some of the public art, the sculptures that were presented, but also, On that front elevation of the building, you are noticing more of an arched opening over the front doors. That's something that we've shown subtly here and would like to incorporate into the project as a reference to some of the unique arched masonry openings on the existing industrial building. So you're seeing a subtle change there, but just wanted to highlight that as well. Just those are my closing points for some of the notes that I was taking, wanting to make sure that everything that we wanted to hit home hit. And we trying to answer any of the questions that I thought may arise, just relating some of the previous presentations to today. So that's all I have.
[Mike Caldera]: Great. Thank you for the update. So before we go to the board for questions, I want to check in with Cliff Bomer, our peer reviewer from Davis Square Architects. Cliff, could you just provide a brief update on the working sessions and the peer review process and any kind of high level thoughts on the design we're seeing here today?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: I will. And hi, everybody. The working session was last Tuesday, I believe. And I think this is a good slide to look at because it does, I think it accurately references my memo that I did send. And I think during the working session, I was satisfied that everything was looked at that I wanted to have looked at, understanding that these are very schematic plans. They're evolving plans, but they are schematic from an architectural perspective. They are truly schematic drawings, but they had pushed forward on all of the issues that I had identified. I'm seeing some of these images for the first time tonight, too, and some of them are specifically views that I did ask to see, so I'm happy to see them. I don't want to, really, I'm not the person, the entity who decides of what's really working best for the community here. That's, of course, the board. But I do want to make a couple of comments. I think from day one, my focus has really been on the primary views from the public realm, the interface of the building with the public realm, which in my mind are the framed views on that northwest corner. They're framed by the townhouse buildings. So for me, that's very important, that old northwest corner. But also as importantly is that new street that's created along that southern extension of Ameren. It's not really a street right now. It feels like an access alley on the east side and a residential entry on the west side. Those have really been my primary issues, I think, for obvious reasons. And on the site planning perspective, I think it really has moved in the right direction. I do think the importance of having a front door and a well-articulated front door is really critical to the project. And I support where it's been going on that. As far as the working session specifically, there were a couple of other things discussed at the working session. One of them was, I think, the further clarification of any traffic flow that's associated with the front. doors, so to speak, which is a little roundabout entry off of Myrtle Street. And there was maybe a little more discussion about that western wall of the existing building, which is a new facade that's being created, even though it's not part of the residential development. We heard a little bit tonight and saw some images that I hadn't seen before about ideas for public art along that. facade. I think some of the other things we talked about during the working session was the balance of it being a big building. There's no denying that it is a big building. And to what degree do you want to break up the massing and how do you break up the massing either through articulation of the volume itself or change of materials. And there's certainly, I think we looked at maybe four different ideas of how to do that. And the one that you saw tonight for me was moving in the right direction. But I'm not sure there was consensus about color of the masonry, but I do think overall that thinking about how you take a big building, really highlight the most important elements of that building that interface with the public realm, but still respond through smaller gestures to the neighbor. Well, here you can see specifically across Amaranth really is the primary point of reference to existing context. We talked about other things that could potentially be different in the studies that they presented last Tuesday that would have to do with more variations in the cornice height of the building that might help tweak the volume to a degree where it creates a kind of smaller scale. But at the same time, it is a big building. I think having a coherent reading, we did look at some ideas of how to break it up that, in my opinion, really had a kind of cost as far as the building really reading as a coherent whole, which is, of course, what it actually is. To me, it's in a good place as far as where to move forward from. But again, that's just me. That was a working session. And I think the images that are presented tonight are advancing some of the things we talked about during the working session. And I'm anxious to hear what the board's response is. And obviously, I'm here to answer any questions you might have. I will say one last thing that I think there was another image that we saw tonight, and it wasn't this one, but I think really focused in on what I was calling one of the most important views, which is really focusing in on that entry piece that is framed through the townhouse buildings. And I think that has advanced. We did talk about of whether or not, because one of my issues in the letter, there you go, in the letter that I wrote was perhaps moving the more transparent first floor elevation further to the east on that north elevation would be good. But actually, I think that the kind of figure that's created by that two-story entry piece and the corner piece works well. So I was comfortable with not advancing that study of increasing the transparency of the first floor, even though it is public space. It's not public, but it's a common use space in the new building. But I think that's all I would say. We did talk about Sustainability, we talked about EV parking. We all know that Medford has adopted the opt-in code. So I think we know where this building is headed from a sustainability perspective just because of that state building code. So I'm comfortable with where this building will have to land as it designed advances. So I think that- That's about it for the moment.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you, Cliff. All right. So now I will open it up to questions and comments from the board.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Andre, please go ahead.
[Andre Leroux]: Thanks. And I have a number of questions and comments. We'll see if I remember them all at once. First of all, I just want to say thank you. I do think that this is a good step forward. I do like the introduction of the lighter colored vertical elements on the facade. I guess one quick question is, what is that material? Is that like a brick facade or faux brick?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so on the north elevation here, we're calling for this to be masonry in this kind of darker field here. The warmer tone color, we're looking at as a siding. We're not assuming it will be masonry. We're assuming it will be some sort of siding with a residential feel to it, a little bit softer. But I think we're still reviewing exactly what material that will be. But a warm tone siding.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah. I appreciate the archway in the front. One question is, on Cliff's list of things that you mentioned you'd be addressing, I didn't see anything about the interior courtyard and what the units looking onto those courtyards might, might look like. I don't know if you have any advance on that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have it in this presentation. I thought we had touched on some of that in our prior presentation in examples of what that could be. I know we had shown previously some examples of courtyards that we were expecting to kind of incorporate, you know, within this based on prior projects we've done not only in Medford but with Davis and elsewhere. but I do not have those handy within this presentation.
[Andre Leroux]: Here, this leads into maybe my biggest point, which is I had mentioned, and I say this for every housing project that I review in Medford, is to try to maximize the amount of balconies and access to open space that the units have. I appreciate I see some, but my calculation looks like just from visual approximation, about 32 units. So maybe 10% of the units have a balcony here. And I'm wondering, I'd love to see more have that. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to see if you had any renderings of what the internal courtyard facades were going to look like, because I'd like to know whether there are balconies there as well. If I could share my screen for a second, I recently saw a building that I thought did balconies in an interesting way. And I remember, I think at the last meeting, someone said, you're trying to maintain a more industrial aesthetic. And I thought, this building reminded me of that. I can just just going to throw an image up real quick then we can go back to yours. So, this was in DC obviously it's a different context but I did like the fact that really maximizes the balconies of all of the. You know, the units here in a facade, and it maintained sort of an interesting industrial look to it using kind of metal work and lattices and things like that.
[Mike Caldera]: So, just briefly to interject. I'm not sure what everyone else's experience was, but you may have to. click to change the view to see the image that Andre's sharing. So I'm seeing it now, but at the top, there's a view options and you can pick whether to see Andre's or Eric's view. Just wanted to let folks know that.
[Andre Leroux]: Are you able to see it?
[Mike Caldera]: So one strategy might be just for Eric to temporarily stop sharing, and then I think that would avoid the issue.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: I can see it now. Just throwing that out there. Okay.
[Andre Leroux]: Anybody else having trouble seeing it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good now. I just got there for a second though.
[Andre Leroux]: Anyways, this is, you know, it's not like a kind of an exact match, but I just wanted to give the sense when I saw this building, I thought it was, I liked the way that they maximize the balconies. I liked the kind of the industrial kind of aesthetic that it uses and was wondering whether, you know, there are opportunities to, you know, to do, more with the facade to introduce more balconies. That's just one idea maybe about how to do that. Both internally as well as externally to the building.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's a great point. I know Pat and I have been talking about this back and forth about balconies on this project. I think we're still reviewing those opportunities. Pat, I don't know if you have anything you wanted to expand on there.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can yeah, thank you. I think Andrea, your comment is helpful. I think it is something that we've studied. It is. It is challenging for a project like this to accomplish something like that. And I think we have presented. We have presented the exteriors of the building with balconies that we think makes sense. I think going above that is something that would be challenging for us on the interior. There's another opportunity there for us to continue to study that as Eric mentioned. The level of design that we're at as Cliff referenced is very schematic still and just getting to the deliverable that we are trying to provide here and finding that right balance of. Of getting to a level of design where we're answering all of our questions and providing intent without being able to study everything to its full completion. I think we will definitely be providing outdoor spaces, balcony access, but the. you know, the full access across a facade like that is not something that we believe we would be able to do. And frankly, I think it's something that just as we studied the market and some of the multifamily buildings in the area, not something that you see very often for this product type, you know, this would be a wood frame podium construction type, as we've mentioned in the past, it's not that, you know, the precedent image that you provided would be very unusual for that type of construction to accomplish that level of detail. So I think we definitely intend to find the right balance on the balconies, and what we are presenting is sort of hitting on the intent of what we're trying to meet.
[Patrick Gallagher]: And if I can respond to that as well, Mr. liver, thank you for the comment I I do think it's important to highlight that you know looking at open space holistically. While we are not focused as much on. Open spaces for individual units we've tried to really maximize the amount of public realm open space on a site that today is a 100% impervious and so. If we had to choose and where are we prioritizing on the site? It was maximizing the green space. That's going to benefit both the project and its residents, but also the neighbors. And I think another consideration that we had talked about internally, as we were looking at the question of balconies and Eric, I'll let you check me on this if I'm speaking out of turn, but I think. in the neighborhood context, there's a little bit more of a consideration to not having folks looking down on neighboring residences in the same way as in the more urban context.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's a fair comment. One thing I just wanted to note real quick was I seem to have lost my screen sharing capabilities. I don't know who can hand that back to me.
[Mike Caldera]: Um, okay, I think you all set. Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: So, you know, I, I understand I would be, uh, uh, you know, would frame over podium is different, very different construction than what I showed. Um, But I still think that to the extent that we can try to maximize access to airflow and fresh air would be helpful. Obviously, something we've learned a lot about over the last few years with the pandemic. I see Dennis has raised his hand, so we could just. Go ahead, Dennis.
[Denis MacDougall]: No, sorry. That was an accident. I was just trying to hit another button.
[Andre Leroux]: Sorry, was anybody else responding to that?
[Patrick Gallagher]: I can just add on to that too. I think these are the types of details that we certainly don't disagree with you. And I think these are some of the design questions that are addressed later in the process. And I think we're getting to the point where We need to start thinking about how to frame conditions and things like that, where the board is comfortable moving forward based on the designs that we're showing you today. But knowing that there are conditions built in and that we're going to continue to work with the board as the design moves further along in the process.
[Yvette Velez]: I have a couple of questions and comments. Can you hear me well? So thank you, Andre, for bringing up balconies and whatnot. And just to add to that, and I apologize if I had missed it. My connection was not as great. The windows themselves are, you know, You know, we keep talking about hearing that it's an industrial design and, you know, so are they oversized are they, you know, is their ability to have them to be oversized and maybe a compromise to the comment of like, you know, access to this. You know, fresh light and things of that nature that Andre talks about and or the, I think they're called like Juliet balconies and things of that nature. So there's that question and comment and then in regards to the public open space. You know, the trash barrels for the public in these more community spaces. Like, what does that look like? What does that feel like for folks? You know, especially even the townhouses themselves of their own trash and how it gets moved and where it is sitting. You know, is it on the side of the community or is it on the side of, you know, like what does that look like and show? Bike parking for like the general community because I feel like this is such a development that is touching the community in such a way that like those public spaces could very well be public spaces in that way. And so, you know, if someone's come in with their bike and their kid to hang out in that That, um, you know, is there a space for that bike and that. Uh, those, the kids bikes, um, and then, um, just comment that I was glad to see the public art. Spaces and utilizing all the, all the spaces, including the building across the way. But, you know, and but hopefully considering that, thinking about and making sure that the process for that to happen is, you know, is a wider process, a thoughtful process. a bit more equitable in regards to asking who contributes and whatnot. Because I know you had made reference to possibilities of textures and things of that nature. So I just wanted to put that out there as well. So if you need me to repeat anything, let me know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I got it. I was taking some notes here as you were talking. So I'm going to try and answer a couple of these. And Pat, I'll probably lean on you for a little bit of this. I'm going to jump to, let me work backwards here. So one of the things that I did want to touch on was the public bike parking. So some of the things that we're showing in our site plan currently, so item number 10 here that we have labeled as a potential blue bike station on our site plan, which was located near the Fellsway, near the bike stop here. So that's something that would be internal to our site that we are reviewing. But there's also item number four, which is the bike racks, which we are showing a number of bike racks along the exterior of the building. Those are accessible spaces as well. So we do have those two locations called out currently within our site plan, proposed landscape plan. And then working back, trash. So currently for the multifamily building, we have our trash room located here in the bottom left corner. This would be, again, the south side with the plant rotated here. So we have the self-storage building down here. So the way this typically works and how we're proposing currently is that there are trash routes internal to the building, which you can see kind of the trash room here located throughout each floor of the building. So every floor has those trash rooms, those trash routes come down to the ground level here. And there's usually either bins or a compactor here. There's kind of a variety of different devices that we could do to handle that trash load. Some of that will come depending on, you know, as we bring management on board. but we'll have basically the trash internal to this room. We will not have the trash external to that room on a typical day, but on trash pickup, we would essentially be able to wheel this right out, trash be able to pick this up, and we'd be able to wheel the bins right back inside. So our plan would not be to kind of have a lot of trash just hanging out outside the building. This room is really meant to hold that internally to the building. The townhomes, I don't think we had a full trash plan configured, Pat, but I don't know if it will be private to the site itself or if it will be public, but I think the trash load from the townhomes is a lot less than, well, it will be a lot less than the multifamily building itself, but I think we're probably still reviewing a little bit on that piece of it, unless, Pat, you tell me otherwise.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Eric, I'll let you wrap up and then I can jump in and close it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: The last piece was just on window sizes and Juliet balconies. Right now for window sizes, we're obviously showing a variety of window sizes. Some of the typical ones we're showing are anywhere from three feet by six feet to six feet by six feet. There's a variety of sizes. I don't want to say we're necessarily locked into that size. Some of this is going to come as we run through our passive house feasibility studies and the type of window we use. There's a lot of factors in play that could affect the exact window size that we use. I think in general, we want to provide a lot of natural light to these units. It's better from a leasability perspective to have a lot of natural light in these units. We're certainly not trying to make them as small as possible, but there are a lot of factors that we'll be reviewing as we do it. But we're currently showing a variety of different sizes and trying to make sure that there's plenty of natural light within each of the living spaces, bedrooms, living rooms. Every bedroom will have natural light within it. Every living room will have natural light within it. So we'll be certainly doing our best to do as much of that as we can. And so I think, Pat, I'll let you handle Juliet's and the other trash piece.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Uh, sure. Yeah, Eric just raised the point that I was going to regarding the windows. There's a, there's a review and an energy modeling process that we will go through in determining the passive house feasibility for the building. And that does help inform the window sizes. So, you know, I think. That's the type of information that we would be able to get to in our next level of design jumping into some of the other points and I guess I'll go and just go back in the order that the questions were asked on the trash pickup. Eric Eric touched on the building function. You had, I think, maybe taking this to the next level and answering another piece of the question that you may have been asking just around the site. Our final landscaping plan would include trash receptacles located throughout the site. So, located at the dog park, located along the winding path, located at the playground, and those would be managed by the building operations team. Those bags would be collected and emptied and loaded into our trash room for the site trash pickup. So, trash around the site and in the courtyards as well. commonly located trash along the common areas and exterior areas of the building. For the townhouses, Eric did say we haven't proposed a specific plan. I think we would certainly be open to hearing the town's thoughts just with the townhouse product being differentiated from the rest of the site and from the multifamily building and being more in line with the context along Myrtle Street. Managing those units with a trash pickup that coincides with the rest of the neighborhood is something that we think would make sense. If that's not something that there's an appetite for, there would be the opportunity to coordinate it with the private trash removal for the rest of the building in the site. But I think specifically for the townhouses, there's an opportunity to to have trash pickup be on the trash pickup day with the rest of the neighborhood and the houses along Myrtle Street and have their receptacles maintained in their garage areas and brought out to the curb when trash pickup takes place. So that's something that we can continue to find or have to find in our conditions. But I think we would certainly propose that if the city is open to managing it that way. And then just closing out on the public art, Message received the intent of our precedent images was was to provide some. Some thought and inspiration as far as process goes, you know, this is this is. An element of the of the site design and the project that members of the board and some of the neighbors have have brought up that we have responded that we're certainly open to but in terms of inspiring the specific design or coordinating. or directing the specific process, I think we'd be looking for the city to certainly weigh in and help us there. I don't think that we are coming out and specifically committing to a certain quantity of public art or sculptures. I think it's something that given the city's desire to see it, that we would like to coordinate with you on and find the right locations and program for it. So hopefully that answers your question. And in doing so, finding an equitable process, an inclusive process, and the right program for what that does look like. We would expect the city to have a voice there.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. I see Director Hunt has her hand raised. Director Hunt, were you going to speak to some element of this as well?
[Alicia Hunt]: The city has a trash policy that I thought would just be helpful, just so you know. Multifamily buildings are required to do their own trash and recycling. Recycling is required by the city. It is my office's recommendation to include compost pickup, and I'm happy to talk to you about that offline, because as we're rolling it out to all under four unit buildings citywide, you'll start to get pressure from your residents because of that. The policy is buildings that are one to four units are on the city's trash pickup. These townhouses are one of the more unusual type situations because they each have a front door down to the street. So I think that's honestly negotiable, but with myself and the DPW commissioner, we're in the process of rolling out A new trash contract where we're making this a more defined situation and working to move other some legacy multifamily buildings off the contract. So, you could just if you want to, like, just take that offline work with me and we'll we'll see what we can work out for the city send of the trash part.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Sounds good.
[Mike Caldera]: Thanks director, just 1 clarifying question just. So the board understands, so if the current policy were. Literally applied here, the townhomes would not be eligible because it's 6.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's actually what we're trying to work out, because we have found that there are a number of townhomes that look like this, for example, in Amaranth Place, which are on the city's pickup. And if they were condo units and individual owners, it would just only make sense for them to be on the city's trash pickup, right? Like if they were individuals. If those if those are rentals, then that's sort of a little bit of a different question, because then you still have a management company involved there as opposed to the individual. The street entry of that. So that's why I say it's it's something that there are an extraordinarily few number of properties that have this kind of layout. And so we're trying to flush out which are they and just make sure that we're going to make sense on them. I apologize that that's a little wishy washy. The city is full of gray. We're trying to fix it.
[Mike Caldera]: All right, thank you. I just want to check back in with Yvette. Yvette, did you have any follow-up questions or comments?
[Yvette Velez]: I guess my only follow-up in regards to, again, I know we're trying to move on from trash, but for the townhouses themselves, and if you could show what they look like, that front, that front visual again, because like, You know, again, when I think of, like, is it a big barrel is a small barrels and, you know, what that would look like for the neighbors. And I know you may have mentioned this, but I also think you said garage, but that doesn't look like it would fit, but. So, it's more of a comment and then I'm done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. Yeah, I can speak briefly to that. The garage space would have enough space for both the car and trash barrels. I don't think we'd be putting in a dumpster-sized trash barrel for the townhomes. I think the thought would be that they'd be your individual barrels that you'd have for a typical single-family home, and each of these units would have them.
[Mike Caldera]: Just to follow up on that, these front doors to the units, do they have easy access to the garage?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's direct access through these doors, both to stairs that go up, but also to the garage space behind it. Got it, OK.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Great, thank you. Other questions or comments from the board? think some head shakes, no.
[Mike Caldera]: So I would just like to chime in and say, I'm really pleased at the progress made in improving this design and addressing some of the the peer review comments. I do tend to agree with Cliff, this is this has moved substantially in the right direction. So my main Actually, I have two clarifying questions and I think a general comment related to one of them. I'll start with the potential roof decks. I know it's just listed as potential, which I interpret it as there's a lot in flux. We don't know yet. They seemed a bit undersized just at a glance for something that would be kind of a shared amenity. Do you have a sense of what is the opportunity for a roof deck in terms of sizing? Are these as big as they're going to get, or is there a chance that these roof decks could be larger?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I can answer that. So As part of the building code, you're not allowed to have amenity space on the fifth floor of a wood frame building. So in order to keep these under a qualified amenity space, they have to be under 750 square feet, under 50 occupants. I see. So that's really what's limiting the size more than I think.
[Mike Caldera]: And this even applies to indoor amenity space. So you couldn't have like an indoor amenity space for say a function room that then goes into the 750 square foot deck?
[SPEAKER_02]: Correct. Not on the fifth floor of a wood frame building. You could do the fourth floor, but unfortunately there's no, you don't have a roof on the fourth floor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. And then my other, Uh, clarifying question. I think when the potential public art location was displayed, I misunderstood the graphic. So I'm now my current interpretation is the proposal is the public art opportunity would be on the facade of the other building, the one that's not subject to the comprehensive permit. So, um, okay. Um, So I agree that is a potential good opportunity for public art. I'm unclear on the degree to which the board could really opine on that and impose any conditions that would be consistent with that, just because it's not on the property. So yeah, I don't know. I know we have Paul Haverty on. Paul, do you have a recommendation as to how the board should engage with the potential public art on that facade of the other building?
[MCM00000760_SPEAKER_14]: The chair, I think that the board's authority, I think you are correct in that it's limited because it is not part of the 40B development. That being said, if the applicant is willing to provide this board the ability to review and comment on whatever arts or they want to put on that property, you can certainly put that in your decision as a condition. with the understanding that it's allowed to be there because the applicant has agreed to it.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, so if the board, and on the prior comprehensive permit, we got very deep into the language and I don't remember the exact wordsmithing, but it would be within the board's authority to impose a condition that said something to the effect of the proponent will work with the city to explore opportunities for public art on the facade of the adjacent building, or does that go beyond the authority of the board?
[MCM00000760_SPEAKER_14]: It technically goes beyond the authority of the board. However, if the applicant is okay with it, there's really nobody to challenge that condition and you can have it in your decision and ultimately it would be fine.
[Patrick Gallagher]: Okay and Mister chair if I if I may I I think you know speaking on behalf of the applicant I think we would certainly consider and review that condition but I think that's precisely what we're proposing here.
[Mike Caldera]: Noted. Thank you. That's helpful. Those were my specific comments. So really pleased with the progress. And then it sounds like I have my answer on both of the two specific fronts. So all right. Other questions or comments from the board? All right.
[Andre Leroux]: Mr. Chair, just two, these are in the realm of suggestions, I guess, as planning goes forward. One is that, you know, along Amaranth Avenue and that walking path with the art, It'd be nice to think of it as a unified design with the public amenity space that's in the front there. I don't want to say what that could look like, but if there were, for example, sculptural elements that small children could climb on, then that helps extend that amenity a little bit more. That's just one suggestion to consider. Another one which I think is just best practice probably for your landscape architect, which I'm sure is a matter of course, but we'd want to make sure they're native plantings and maybe even consider trees with edible fruit on them of some kind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think those are good comments. And I think we're certainly planning to have native plantings. But noted.
[Mike Caldera]: Great. Thank you. So at this point, chair awaits a motion to open public comment on the architecture and design. Do I have a second? Second. All right, we're going to take a roll call. Andre? Aye. Yvette?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Jamie?
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Jim? Aye. Mike, aye. All right, public comment is now open on the architecture and design. If you're a member of the public and you'd like to speak on this matter, You can raise your hand on Zoom and turn on your camera and raise your hand. You can type something in the chat or you can email Dennis McDougal at Medford dash ma dot gov.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And I give it a few minutes.
[Mike Caldera]: All right, I see. and Allison D, please go ahead, state your name and address for the record.
[MCM00001504_SPEAKER_11]: Hi, good evening, everybody. Allison D'Agostino, resident of 1022-1044 Fellsway representing the D'Agostino Family Trust. So really didn't have a lot of comment, but now I feel like I'm just a reoccurring person. So might as well just give my two cents very quickly. I think design wise I mean, it is tough to, I appreciate the visualizations I think for me just, I'm not a builder, not someone from construction background so it is still a little bit hard to picture the elements of. the design and how it would fit. I mean, you know, most homes around the area, we are two family homes with, you know, vinyl siding. So, but again, I understand the industrial piece and having to match the brick, I guess that would be my only public comment is just making sure the coloring would align well with the remaining structure of the storage unit. But really just more clarifying question, because it wasn't necessarily clear to me. So from a, I guess, outdoor space, I know the mention of the roof deck got me a little nervous. And quite frankly, I'm happy to hear that there's not going to be a full expanse roof deck available where that clearly would present a noise issue, you know, quite frankly, but can you just clarify what exactly will be those common spaces on this plan and exactly where they would be situated? Just again, just was a little unclear for me to see and it might not be the purpose of this one, this, but
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, just to clarify, are you specifically asking about the ones open to the public?
[MCM00001504_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I mean, honestly, I, you know, I've had some conversations with Davis company. I mean, I would prefer everything to be internal. I don't really want. there to be a lot of public access. I have no desire to go onto the site and use any of the facilities. If anything, I want their residents to stay there and we can use our space in our homes. But yes, I'm trying to clarify just where there might be public space, where that might access the neighborhood, just from a noise perspective. I think alluding to the trash perspective, just trying to get an idea. But this visualization is very helpful.
[Mike Caldera]: Would anyone like to speak to that for the applicant? I agree this outlines a lot of it.
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: I can jump in. The enumerated plan here we've tried to differentiate different areas and uses of the site. So, mainly focus on what would be the left of the screen. At the intersection between myrtle and amaranth and coming down amaranth would be areas that we would. Um, that we see as as being, you know, open and accessible for the public, um, the winding bike path that connects down to the, to the, to what would be the rail trail, some of that outdoor fitness equipment, obviously being able to to, um. Observe and appreciate the potential for the public art and the sculptures down there and then, yeah, turning that corner out and at the along the intersection and the playground area there. I think it's our idea that the dog park that's more internal to the site. likely facilitates the residence of the building and the pets and not something that the public would generally want to come all the way into the site to use. So I think really just sort of bifurcating how the in terms of public access being able to come down the side of the site along Amaranth Ave there. But hopefully I'm answering your question. So it's Along the left side of the site along that winding path, there's outdoor outdoor fitness equipment. There's a winding path. There's some bike access and bike racks and then transitioning into a playground and play area as you meet the intersection and then and then moving plan right to the dog park would be really the other public. facing open space for the building where there would be pets on the side and outside of the confines of the building.
[MCM00001504_SPEAKER_11]: Gotcha. No, that definitely answered my question. I really appreciate that. You know, I mean, with all respect, again, I've engaged with the Davis Company, Pat, specifically. It's been very open to conversation. So I very much want to just say that publicly as well. I really appreciate that. And, you know, again, there's nothing really I can do. This building of this scale is obviously going to go here. But yeah, from my public opinion, I think, and I can't speak for the residents, but I'd rather whatever access, I don't see the public here wanting, we don't want this building in this neighborhood. So if it's going to be here, I think isolating, I appreciate the dog park being isolated. You know, I'm obviously very concerned about having that many pets in the neighborhood, much less people. But, you know, I do appreciate the design. I think it is an improvement. So thank you for the time.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. I see we have a Christina Kach. Who has their hand raised? Christina, please state your name and address for the record.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: Christina Kach, 130 Myrtle Street, Medford, directly across. I have two thoughts. One is a quick question, and then one is Allison, great minds, because I'm saying the same thing you did. Will your units? be furnished with blinds and curtains. And I ask because based on the renderings presented earlier, being a resident of Myrtle Street on the second floor, I will be able to look directly into those townhomes and higher level units, like direct. So I want to get a confirmation from Davis that they will be supplying lines and curtains in those units and not relying on tenants to put them up themselves.
[Mike Caldera]: And Christina, is this specific to the townhomes or everything on the... So the townhomes are going to be a direct line of sight into their houses.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: I do believe the floors that will be above the trees on the larger unit your warehouse-y looking building, I will be able to see into those as well.
[Mike Caldera]: Could someone please speak to that?
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you for the question. Frankly, it's not a question that we had thought about yet. So it's helpful to have you ask it because I think we, we need to think about it, given your concerns, typically. The way that we approach things like this would be that for rental products would we would provide some sort of blinds or window treatments and in for sale products, there would be, it would be the owner's responsibility to furnish. uh to furnish their own window treatments or blinds or curtains or what have you so um i will for the multi-family building it's definitely the plan for us to provide um blinds in those units and for the um for the townhouses as they are currently programmed as as rental units although we hadn't thought about it specifically just They're a different style of product. That would tentatively be the plan, but we haven't gotten to that level of design yet, I guess. So I guess the question is certainly appreciated. I hope that gives you a bit of an answer, just without being able to definitively say one way or the other at this point.
[MCM00000654_SPEAKER_00]: OK. And then for my second comment, I said all the way back in the very beginning of this thing in November that the residents are not going to use your outdoor spaces. We told you not to put them in. You went ahead and designed them into this property. And to what Allison said, we don't want this building here. We are not going to use those amenities. It's going to add a lot of noise to Amaranth and Myrtle Street having them, especially number two and number four there in the front. And I also will never feel welcomed on that property. I know those tenants are going to know that I am not one of them. You see the comings and goings of who lives in your building. I'm never going to feel comfortable going over there and using that because I don't belong. And Allison already said it perfectly of we're not going to use them. We didn't ask for them. You've pitched this on numerous occasions as adding something to the community when a playground and a bike rack and a little open pathway, five and six, that ain't it. That is not enhancing the neighborhood with activities. So I just wanted to tag onto what Allison said of we're not going to use them. So it's just going to be loud noise. So nobody has to answer that. I was just calling back to my comments from all the way in November that we've all said it before, and we all being the residents. Thank you.
[Mike Caldera]: Thank you. I do not presently see other members of the public with their hand raised. Are there other members of the public that would like to speak on the architecture and design? Seeing none, chair awaits a motion to close the public portion of this session of the hearing.
[Mike Caldera]: All right. We're going to take a roll call. Andre? Aye. Zet?
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Jamie? Aye. Jim?
[Mike Caldera]: Aye. Mike? Aye. All right, the public portion is now closed. Yeah, so I hear the residents on the open space. I think there does need to be some sort of balance, right? There might be young kids living in this building, and it's just as disruptive if there's nowhere for them to go. So I do think that it's worth considering noise impact in terms of the placement, absolutely. But yeah, it's hard, as a member of the board, I'll just say, to extrapolate on what the neighborhood in its entirety wants. Definitely hear the concerns on the noise. know, playgrounds, at least for during the day, typically. Yeah, just wanted to get that out there. All right. Would so actually, I want to check in with Cliff again. Cliff based on what you've seen today and what you've heard today. Do you feel like you or is there anything that you are missing that you would need to produce your final peer review letter?
[MCM00000653_SPEAKER_06]: No, I think I'm good on that. I've listened carefully and picked up a couple of suggestions. But no, I think I'm good with where we're at with this set of documents that we looked at tonight.
[Mike Caldera]: OK, great. And so at the prior comprehensive permit where you were also a peer reviewer, I'll just say I found it helpful that in that letter you did, I don't think you wrote them in the legal form, which was fine, but you did mention areas where you felt it would be appropriate to have conditions. And so if you could just keep that in mind as you're writing the final letter, that would certainly help us as a board. Will do, thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Mr. Chair.
[Andre Leroux]: Just a couple quick thoughts about like thinking ahead to possible conditions based on some of the things that have been discussed. One might be to consider, you know, just making sure there are like Doggy bags on site and that the management company is going to be providing those. Um, another thing might be, uh, you know, I know there's not like a design for the outdoor space right now, but if there's going to be sort of a, uh, you know, some kind of playground structures or other kinds of structure, then, uh, you know, maybe there's a, uh, the management company sort of has control over opening and closing it, um, you know, at a certain time in the evening, um, just something to a couple of things to consider.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you, Andre. Uh, other thoughts from the board?
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, so we've gotten to the end of our planned agenda. I'm just going to pare it back my understanding for our next meeting, which I believe is on May 9th. So the intention there is we will discuss the civil engineering peer review, the applicant's response to the civil engineering peer review, and the applicant's response to the traffic peer review letter that we already had. Am I correct in that understanding?
[FGwns8hP0DA_SPEAKER_00]: That's correct from a civil perspective, we have scheduled a peer review session with the beta team for Friday afternoon to discuss the comments. So, the plan will be to to formally submit responses in advance of the hearing on the 9th and allow the beta team to have time to to receive and digest those and. on the date of the hearing to present our responses and any additional dialogue or information that we would have from the peer review session that we do have. And then on the traffic, it is our intention to submit formal responses this week. To the letter that we received from data and ideally follow up with potentially another review session with them if warranted ahead of the hearing on the 9th, but to be able to present our formal responses to the comments that we received on traffic as well. So, both disciplines, we intend to present on at the next hearing.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay, great. Sounds like a plan. And so then my ask to members of the board, especially now that we have the civil peer review letter, so we got that yesterday. Please come to the May 9 hearing with your thoughts on potential Conditions, they don't have to be written in the proper form, but things that you'd like to see that are not just standard conditions on every comprehensive permit. I would like us to bubble up as many of those as possible on May 9th, because May 16th is when we're going to be discussing those in greater detail. in the proper form, so we'll have a draft set of conditions to review. This is also when we'll be going through the waiver list and just making sure that we understand and are good with all the waivers being requested here. And so my recollection is that the waiver list is up to date, but I know that The architecture and civil have changed a bit. And so please just review the waiver list, make sure nothing has changed, because on the 16th, we'll be going through that list as though it's the list. So if we catch something great, we'll adjust. But it should be the correct set of waivers at that point for us to do our work.
[Patrick Gallagher]: Mr. Chair, if I may just jump in on that and you beat me to the punch, I was going to suggest that given that we are coming up toward the end of what we've circled as the schedule, it would make sense to take another look, especially now that I think we're all in a good place as far as the architectural design and site plan. The waiver list was last updated when we submitted our supplemental materials last November, so I think certainly it should be close, but there may be some additional updates and some updates may come out of the final peer review on civil and traffic as well. So we'll, I think, be going through that live and making sure and working with Attorney Haberty so that we're all on the same page. But I do think that in, you know, between now and the 9th, as long as this works for you and for the board, I think, you know, we'll talk offline with Attorney Haverty on starting to get the waiver list and any standard conditions that we can work through teed up as best we can just to be efficient with our time and with your time.
[Mike Caldera]: Yes. Sounds good. Thank you. Please do that. That'll be much appreciated. All right, so it sounds like we're on the same page. We have a plan. So chair awaits a motion to continue this matter to Thursday, May 9, 6.30 PM. So moved. Do I have a second? OK, we're going to take a roll call. Andre? Aye.
[Yvette Velez]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Jamie.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Mike Caldera]: Jim. Aye. Mike, aye. All right. The matter is continued. Thank you, folks. Have a great rest of your evening. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Mike Caldera]: All right. Thank you very much. Dennis, what's next on the agenda?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I thought you were on mute.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, sorry, I'm using my phone. So the mute I feel like physically touch the phone to unmute myself. I think I'm not sure. I might be able to do in a computer room. Not really. I'm centering and I'm rambling. I'm sorry. Next item on the agenda is administrative updates, which. The only thing which I can sort of tell you, I mean, we do have the start of the other 40Bs starting next Tuesday, and we've reached out, and Cliff is going to be back as design peer review, and we've got Tetra Tech back doing the civil review for that one. So we've got, we haven't technically gotten their offers yet, but, you know, they've agreed to it. So we're just waiting to hear that, and then we'll submit them to the applicant. you have to check so we can get them rolling on the peer review as soon as possible.
[Mike Caldera]: Right and so yeah so the on that Tuesday meeting we will um the the board intends to weigh in on any topics requiring board authorization for the city to to do those things and correct yes beautiful okay and the applicant says they're just going to make a brief presentation at the sort of the beginning just to overline their intention for the project but no you know
[Denis MacDougall]: full details from, you know, engineering or architects or anything like that. It'll just be like a quick little, what my intention, their intention was just a brief overview of the project and show some slides and sort of discuss the general project.
[Mike Caldera]: Okay. Great. Great. Um, and then we have new minutes. I, I didn't get a chance to you.
[Denis MacDougall]: I did send them out for the 26th and the 11th, but if people haven't chance to review, we can hold off on those.
[Mike Caldera]: Well, I'll check in with the board. Has anyone had a chance to review? Amy, yes.
[Andre Leroux]: I haven't. If we could put it off to next time, that'd be great. OK.
[Mike Caldera]: Sounds good. So we'll review those. And tonight as well. So one of that one. So before the May 9th one. Sounds good. OK. All right. In that case, chair awaits a motion to adjourn.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to adjourn.
[Andre Leroux]: Seconded.
[Mike Caldera]: I'm going to take a roll call. Jamie? Aye. Andre? Aye.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I. I don't see Jim anymore. Mary. I. This.
[Mike Caldera]: Oh, you can't. I'll interpret that as an eye.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, you've got some issues with logging off.
[Mike Caldera]: Got it. Mike. I. All right. We're adjourned. Thanks folks.