[David Blumberg]: call the meeting to order. Tonight is meeting for February 15, 2023 of the Medford Community Development Board. As always, I first want to say good evening and welcome. Thank you for being here with us and to read some obligatory messages for your entertainment. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort will be made to ensure that adequately access the proceedings, as provided for in chapter one of seven of the access 2022 reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress. They do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. If despite our best efforts, we're not able to provide real time access will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of the meeting tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Project materials for matters before the board tonight and any other night we have a meeting can be found on the city's website, new and improved website. If you simply go to boards and commissions, you'll find alphabetically community development board. That's us. Click through, you'll find materials, information on the board and whatnot to keep you informed on what we're up to. We always start our meetings after those messages with a roll call of our members. Let me begin by saying I'm Dave Blumberg, the chair. Again, welcome. Vice Chair, Jackie Furtado.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Klyce Andresen. Present. Christy Dow.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Emily Hudson.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: And George Fisher.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Excellent. Present. Thank you. Amanda, if you don't mind just for members of the public and others to know who from the city might be in attendance tonight so.
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure, so myself, Amanda centrality planner in the planning development and sustainability office, we also have Danielle Evans, who is our senior planner on the call and. Alicia hunt, who is the director of planning development and sustainability will probably be joining us shortly in the next couple minutes or so.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Nice to meet you both. You're just sort of a preview of a coming attractions. You're not voting tonight or participating in a formal way, but we wanted to say hello and wish you a good time as you onboard and become members of the board. Thanks for being here. Okay, excellent. Amanda, I think we're ready for our first item, which is a revisit of the accessory dwelling unit PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. So the board is familiar with you and has obviously been through your presentation, gave me some feedback on that, but this is a public notice. So I guess the first thing I need to do is to read the public hearing notice as a formal step. Let me do that now. We're conducting a public meeting tonight. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. So Mike, if you want to give us an overview, quick kind of snapshot run through on what you are proposing to do at your property.
[SPEAKER_03]: So what we're trying to do is be the first in Medford to use the ADU accessory dwelling unit to increase the housing in Medford. And also we live at 11 Paul road and we want to be able to use this as a family structure or whatever we want in the future. Um, we, we proposed all the plans and everything with all the setbacks, the dwelling was here and now we just want to, uh, we complied with all the requirements by the city and we are asking for acceptance of the unit itself.
[David Blumberg]: Do you want to, for benefit of the public who might be in attendance tonight, maybe we could see a few images or could walk folks through that just a bit to give them a sense. Amanda?
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm happy to share screen, Michael, if you're comfortable with that. And we can start maybe with the plot plan and also look at a few photos.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you both.
[Unidentified]: Just bear with me one moment as I pull it up. I believe this is the screen.
[Amanda Centrella]: And are people able to see this plot plan?
[David Blumberg]: We can see it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the plot plan itself is by the town ordinance and building department. All the setbacks and everything are correct. There's no encroachment. It is a garage that was built originally with the original home. And then we updated the garage a few years ago. And now we're trying to go and get the ADU for that existing garage.
[Amanda Centrella]: So for reference, this is the existing dwelling unit and the garage in question back here is located in the rear corner. There's a drive aisle that extends kind of from the road here back towards the garage. I can also switch to like a Google Maps overhead view, which is sometimes a little bit easier to digest. Does that sound amenable?
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as you can see, we are a private road in Medford. We have approximately two full parking spaces in front. And as you can see, the driveway can probably house five or six cars. We have a designated spot that is assigned for the audience for the ADU, which is to the upper left-hand corner of the garage itself in the rear. And that's it on that. My lawn looks nice.
[David Blumberg]: Is there a floor plan or something that we could see and understand the size of the unit as that is a limitation under the ordinance?
[SPEAKER_03]: The stairs are on the right-hand side, you come up the stairs. When you come up the stairs on the right-hand side, there's a little small kitchen area. And then it's just an open, we use it as an artist loft right now. And there is a full bathroom there as well on the upper left-hand corner. It does require, I'm sorry, it did fit into the ordinances of the square footage that had to be for the spatula home itself.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, I believe the square footage is 484 square feet. Correct.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have the pictures of what it looks like when it was done a few years ago? So that is what it looks like now. It matches the house. It has the windows and the siding. That is all the same as the house. It fits in, I feel, very nicely into the neighborhood. Just to give you an overview of what it looks like.
[Unidentified]: That's what it looks like in the front. and to the left of my car is where the designated parking space will be.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, Mr. Shravan, that's good. Thanks for the overview. Is there anything else you want to add before we open things up for any comments from the members of the public?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I'm good. I'll answer any questions.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. Amanda, do we have folks who would like to participate?
[Amanda Centrella]: So we did receive two written comments that came in earlier today, which I'll read into the record. And then maybe we can ask anyone else from the public who may want to provide comment if they want to queue up.
[Unidentified]: Sounds like a good idea.
[Amanda Centrella]: OK, so I read. Okay, so this is a comment from Paul Demos at 3 Roosevelt Road, and he wrote in to say that I support the construction submitted for 11 Paul Road. Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. A second comment also came in from Armine Boyajian. I've spoken with her since she initially submitted this and she requested that a portion of the comment that was provided in the meeting materials not be read into the record as it refers to kind of like a civil matter that is not relevant for the board's purview to this evening. So our money is at 15 Paul road to make concern regrettably I must attend awake and I am unavailable to join this evening zoom call regarding the special permit for an additional occupancy dwelling at 11 Paul road. I was not aware of the applicants plans before the city notice and I remain uninformed of the applicants intentions. I strongly oppose changes to the zoning of the neighborhood for added living dwellings or multifamily housing, especially for commercial purposes. The neighborhood is small and with limited parking already. I was unable to locate the application in details, which may help alleviate my opposition, but I don't want to change the neighborhood structure. Yep, and that is the entirety of their comment. So with that, if there are any members from the public on the call this evening who would like to provide comment, if you could either, there's a raise hand feature. If you look at the bottom of your screen and click reactions. Okay, good. I see one person already. And then you can also use the chat feature if you're unsure about how to locate that. So the first person I see in the queue is Donna Barry. And if you could just say your name and address for the record, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, this is Donna Berry from 7 Paul Road.
[David Blumberg]: I'm very welcome. Thanks for being here tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me. We are on the other side of 11 Paul Road and just wanted to express our support of the plane.
[David Blumberg]: OK, thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: OK, I see a raised hand from an account named iPhone. If you could state your name and address for the record.
[Lisa Serio]: Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, cool. My name is Lisa stereo Vino I live at 19 Paul road.
[David Blumberg]: Hi Lisa welcome to the meeting.
[Lisa Serio]: Thank you. And I just wanted to say I'm in support of the structure I'm in support of. Whatever Mike plans to do, the building matches perfectly with the neighborhood. It matches perfectly with his house. There was a structure there originally and he basically matched the structure that was there. So it's not invasive at all in terms of like the way it looked before and the way it looks now. And I also have asked Mike a couple of times already. I want those plans. I really want to do that in my yard. So I just want to let you, I don't have a garage and I've always wanted a garage. So. That's my thoughts on it.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. We appreciate it.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. Any other members of the public who would like to provide comment? I'm not currently seeing any hands.
[Unidentified]: I'm going to check our city really quickly. Okay, seeing none there.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, great. So just as a reminder, this is a special permit that we're considering tonight, and it requires a finding that the construction and occupancy of the at you will not be detrimental to the neighborhood. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: So there was a there's a comment from. I believe it's a number of a neighbor at number 15 Paul road and said that they didn't have enough notice and i'm just a little confused by that. They didn't have enough notice for which meeting this meeting or because it sounds like they were readily not able to be at this meeting tonight but um. I just I'm not understanding and then they didn't have a chance to read the application is sound like there was like some was that on our part or was it it was available correct.
[Amanda Centrella]: answer to that. Yeah, I had a chance to talk with them. So mailings were sent out and are required to be sent out for a butters notices at least two weeks prior to the public meeting, which, which we did do. And I think that they maybe were confused about how to access the materials, but they ended up following the instructions on the notice and did have a chance to look at them by the time that I spoke with them this morning. So I think in terms of due diligence and public procedure that we were following the appropriate noticing guidelines.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you, Amanda. And I suspected as much, but I wanted to just have that on record before we move forward. So thank you so much for clarifying that.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Any other comments either from Jackie or from other board members? Okay. Is there a motion? If folks are feeling positively inclined to grant the special permit.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'll make the motion. And once again, I will second it based on our deliberation in previous meeting and making sure that the construction accuracy of the structure will not be detrimental to the neighborhood structure as was a concern.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. And I imagine we will hear from our friend Gabe Chicarello tonight.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Chair Bloomberg, I'm just going to just remind you and speak on the record for the public. I will be recusing myself of this project.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Thank you.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Gabe Chicarello is currently at the Conservation Commission meeting, which is happening at the same time. So we've decided to have take this meeting in its place. And my name is Natalie Jensen. I'm with the Cambridge Housing Authority. We've been working as development consultants with the Medford Housing Authority on the comprehensive modernization of Saltonstall.
[David Blumberg]: Great. Welcome, Natalie. Thanks for being here.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, and thank you so much for having us. So I'm going to give a quick introduction to why we're back in front of you. So Saltonstall, as you know, is a Medford Housing Authority owned and operated public housing high rise that's located 121 Riverside Ave. It's scheduled for a comprehensive modernization. So the project had a site plan that was initially approved by the board in November of last year. And then we came back on January 4th this year in order to clarify the relationship between area B and area A and MHA's intention to develop more housing on area B to also clarify the office addition that is being done as part of this Comprehensive Modernization as well as the location of the transformer on the site. At the time in January, our understanding was that there's a part of the site plan that is owned by the Department of Transportation. And the site plan that we showed on January 4th had parking spaces that were located on that DOT-owned site. And the expectation was that the MAJ would enter into a long-term lease agreement with the DOT for those parking spaces, based on the fact that that is the historic relationship between the Medford Housing Authority and DOT, and also because the use of that land has been parking for a long time. It was only after the January 4th meeting that in conversations with DOT, which have been occurring for a year, that the DOT was uncomfortable moving forward with a lease arrangement, because that lease arrangement would ultimately have to be between the DOT and the borrower entity for the comprehensive modernization project. and they felt uncomfortable. They didn't see a path forward doing that, given that the borrower entity has to be a private entity. So it was only in the last two weeks after a lot of conversation with DOT that a solution was identified for the Saltonstall modernization project that DOT feels comfortable with and is currently working with the Medford Housing Authority on. And that is essentially for the DOT to convey that land that has been historically used for parking to the Medford Housing Authority. We submitted a letter that the DOT wrote expressing their intent to convey the land to the Medford Housing Authority. And what's noted as part of that is that there is a process that will be required for the DOT to follow. and that will take at least a minimum of 60 days. So where we find ourselves right now is that we have to close on the financing for the modernization of Saltonstall. We have a projected closing of mid-March, and that is in order to be able to hold onto the construction pricing that we've received for the project, and that works with the budget. That will be in advance of the conveyance of the land, from the DOT to the Medford Housing Authority. So essentially what we've had to do and why we're back in front of you today is that we've had to revise the site plan to locate the parking that is required for the project in terms of zoning on the portion of the Sultan Stalls site that is owned by the MHA. So the building commissioner has determined that for the project, both the residential and the office use on the ground floor, that a total of 111 spaces is required for parking. And so the revised site plan that we submitted and that we will be looking at today shows those 111 parking spaces being provided on the Medford Housing Authority owned land. And that essentially allows us to have a plan for this project and have a site plan review that essentially allows the project to stand on its own in terms of zoning without needing the DOT land. So, I will pass it on to Ben Wilson, the architect for this project, to briefly run through the changes between the site plan that you saw on January 4th and the site plan that we submitted for today's meeting.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Good evening, and thanks for hearing us again on such short notice. I will share my screen.
[Unidentified]: I think I can do that directly. Okay, what I'll, let me. Apologize, there we go.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Okay, the plan that was submitted on January 4th that updated included the transformer screened area that included the limits of what we're calling area B for future development. And it included the addition to the admin space. So this is just wanted to bring you from the January 4th presentation to what we're proposing here and be able to identify all the changes that have occurred on the site plan. So that is where we are. We lose access in terms of this exercise, the access to the parking spaces across the top of this area here, we lose these accessible spaces here. And we also lose access to these parking spaces. So it was a total of, I believe it was around 54 spaces that we lose. So actually it was more like 64 spaces. And now we need to pick up an additional 14 spaces. So this is that previous plan. And what you're seeing are the areas, the blue areas are areas where we're cutting into either landscape or open space to create additional spaces. So you see these, blue rectangles, we're picking up this and the northeast corner. We achieve that extra space by shifting the driveway to this location where this pink square is. And actually I've missed five spaces. We're also picking up five spaces along this side and we do that by shifting the sidewalk into the area B on this side here. You'll see that in the next plan. And then all of these blue additional spaces here are accommodated by the removal of half of the tree islands in this area and the tree islands on this space here. And we can move those trees into other parts of the site. These red rectangles represent spaces that we currently have that we lose because of accommodating additional accessible spaces. So this plan then translates into what we've submitted in this hearing here with our updated package. And you can see the blue asterisks on the plan represent spaces that we're adding into the site plan. The small red asterisks are areas that we've lost spaces that we currently have. And then these additional parallel spaces in the front and across the backside are also part of that reconfiguration. And you can see the driveway was relocated here that allows us to pick up an additional parking space, and these parallel spaces are cut into that area. So that, in a nutshell, covers all of the site plan changes that we're proposing to make this shift away from, compliance away from the requirement of the DOT land. Natalie, you wanna? PB, David Ensign — He.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Him. PB, David Ensign — He. Him. PB, David Ensign — He. Him. However, the Medford Housing Authority is continuing to work with the DOT on the conveyance. There is just a process that it will have to follow that takes a while. But the intention of the Medford Housing Authority is that upon the conveyance, that it will seek an administrative modification that would allow this project to advance the January 4th plan that was approved as amended by the board. So we'd love to hear any comments or feedback. I'm also here with our attorney, Hannah Kilson, who can answer more questions related to the DOT, as well as Jeffrey Driscoll, the executive director of the Medford Housing Authority, and Gabe Ciccarello, the director of modernization and procurement. Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the presentation. Before I ask for other board members to ask questions or provide comments for you. Can you just touch again on. I mean this, we have an existing plan. This is a proposed plan it doesn't sound like necessarily this is really what you guys want to do. But given the circumstances that you've described you have to be prepared to move forward if do t for some reason doesn't cooperate or things don't come together. So is this, should we be thinking about this as like, this is plan B, but it might really come back for plan A at the end of the day, if things go the way you want them to. Is that, is that right?
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Yes. I mean, that's the intention. The intention is to keep working. with the DOT, we're very confident about that process. They've expressed their interest in conveying the land. It's just that they have an internal process that they need to go through in order to do that. And so in order to be able to close and meet the requirements of the investors and the lenders, we need to be able to show that this project can stand alone without the DOT land. But the expectation and the intention is to get that lands and then come back to essentially advance the January 4th plan.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you. Let me open things up to other board members who might have some comments or questions. I can't see everyone when we're sharing our screen, but.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Ben, maybe you could unshare your screen.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. I don't have any questions. Thank you, David. Okay, thanks.
[David Blumberg]: Any others going once, going twice? I think what we've been asked to do here is essentially to, PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Is that right? Would then be the site plan that would sort of control the project. And we would keep in the back of our minds that we might see you on an agenda again sometime in the future if things turn around. But in terms of a motion, I think it'd be a motion to approve the replacement of the existing site plan with this modified site plan titled MP1-REV5. Is there a motion to that effect from amongst the board?
[Jenny Graham]: I'll make the motion.
[David Blumberg]: I will second the motion. Excellent. We'll move forward then to a roll call vote, starting with Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'm sorry, my position, due to my position at the state, I wanted to recuse myself of this one.
[David Blumberg]: Yes, forget that I'm rewinding the tape like I never said, we'll go right to place and race. Hi, Christy. Hi, Emily. Hi, George Fisher.
[Jenny Graham]: All right.
[David Blumberg]: And I'm an I as well. OK, thank you, Natalie, to Ben and to the others on the MHA team for your presentation. Thank you.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_16]: Thank you all so much.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Have a great evening.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Good night, Gabe.
[SPEAKER_16]: Bye now. Thank you, David.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: Next item on the agenda, site plan review for 161 College Ave. This involves Tufts University and some work on the athletic fields at Tufts, which comes to us by way of a revision in our ordinance that says that this type of property owner needs to come before us to obtain a special permit for this kind of use. With that, let me read the public meeting notice. I should be able to find that here. Public hearing. Okay, great. Okay, this board shall conduct a public hearing tonight, February 15, 2023. via Zoom relative to an application for site plan review submitted by the trustees of Tufts College to construct eight new tennis courts, new lighting, and portable bleachers at 161 College Ave. City of Medford zoning ordinance section 11.8.2 requires site plan review for Dover amendment uses prior to the issuance of a building permit. And so we are sitting as site plan review or site plan review granting authority tonight. Anyway, I imagine Attorney Dash or others from Tufts would like to present and let us know what it is that Tufts is up to tonight.
[Dash]: Yes, Mr. Chair, thank you for having us. Attorney Adam Dash, 48 Grove Street in Davis Square, Somerville, representing the trustees of Tufts College. With me here we have our entire team, Rocco DiRico, the Executive Director of Government Community Relations at Tufts, Jonathan Hickok and Carl Lebo from the architecture firm CHA. Jennifer Whitney who's the project director at Tufts, Alexis Mastronardi who's the for the athletics department at Tufts, Nicholas Piscitello who deals with parking at Tufts, Mike Barry from Musco Sports Lighting, Nathan Scott, Associate Director of Capital Projects at Tufts, and Lisa Sletten and Dan Cook from Windover Construction. So we've got everybody here. If any question comes up, we feel we can answer them.
[David Blumberg]: Welcome to you and to the entire roster. Thank you. Welcome.
[Dash]: Thank you, thank you for having us, as you said this applications for site plan review for Dover men use under Medford zoning section 11.8. Namely, to construct a new tennis courts lighting and portable bleachers on a portion of the existing athletic field, known as 161 college avenue, also known as zero and over street or field a. permit, as you know, per Medford zoning section 11.8.3 the Community Development Board is to review the Dover amendment uses by making two inquiries. One, whether the use qualifies for Dover amendment protection per mass general laws chapter 40 a section three. And I would note that per the case law provided in the application, particularly the Bible Speaks versus Board of Appeals of Lenox and Forster versus Town of Belmont, school athletics is an educational use protected by the Dover Amendment. And just for the board's edification, that municipalities cannot nullify a Dover Amendment protected use under the guise of regulating bulk dimensional requirements and such. Number two in the inquiry in the zoning is that in light of that case law, what reasonable regulations concerning these items should be imposed upon the use. What we're next going to just after setting the table, because I know you don't get a lot of these cases, I wanted to call upon John Hickok, who's going to run you through some slides to show you what we've been proposing. John.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Mr. Dasch. I'm John Hickok with CHA Consulting. Washington Mall, Boston. I do have a few slides that I'd like to show, so I'm going to share my screen real quick here.
[Unidentified]: And if you can just tell me when you can see it, that would be great. We're good? We can see that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfect. So as Mr. Dash indicated, we're in front of you tonight, and thank you for having us to review the addition of eight tennis courts to 161 College Avenue, 0 Andover Street. and specifically Field A. Field A is under the yellow dot on the screen, which is basically west of College Avenue, excuse me, east of College Avenue, west of the side street here and the new baseball field that was just built. The project is just a bit north of that. Next slide. I wanted to just kind of touch on why we're here. Why are the tennis courts moving from where they currently live or reside to the athletic precinct at College Avenue? Middle picture here, big picture is that there are existing eight courts that Tufts has, which is located at the intersection of Pickard Avenue and Professors Row in central part of Tufts campus. During the COVID pandemic, the tennis courts were converted to use for isolation trailers for students that potentially had COVID. Those trailers are pictured on the right here and how they laid out on the tennis courts, deeming those tennis courts unusable at this point based on the need for utilities that were routed to those trailers to support those needs. The trailers are currently still in use. The pandemic has subsided, but those trailers are being used as campus housing. As you may know on the phone, on the call here today, is that some of the campus housing was used in hotels off campus, and this allows those undergrad students to come back on campus and not be housed off campus. The real estate here is more aligned with campus use rather than athletic use. So through a study, it made more sense to move the athletic use of tennis to where the athletic uses are on campus, which as I indicated are at College Avenue across from the Tisch Center. The Tisch Center is the home of all Tufts athletes. So their locker rooms, their support services from sports medicine to strength and conditioning are all in that facility. So bringing the tennis courts closer to the Tisch Center and the Cousins Gym also provides some efficiencies associated with coaching and coaching staff and where those athletes spend the majority of their time. Also, as I indicated on the previous slide, that existing court location can be used as housing. And the new courts, the old courts were starting to get in disrepair anyways. The new courts will be constructed out of concrete and an acrylic surface. And it'll provide superior crack resistance and consistent play for NCAA use. As Mr. Dash had indicated, and I think you read it in the opening, all the improvements to the courts will exceed or meet handicapped accessibility requirements from handicapped parking in an existing parking lot to areas adjacent to the bleachers for handicapped seating. Furthermore, the tennis courts are would be located on on field a field a is currently lit with sports lighting. That is an older technology. I that I has a significant spell the new lighting is a state of the art led lighting that is very directional and will. will help with the spilling of the light off of the property. And I have another slide that I'll review that a little bit closer. And then lastly, a huge benefit to the university is that with the courts down here and the lights, the academic needs of the tough student can be utilized during the day and the athlete can still practice in the evening hours with the lighting. And furthermore, the community use of the courts has always been available for Medford and Somerville community. And I should have mentioned the courts up in the campus site are in Somerville, they're not in Medford. So we are moving the courts to Medford, but the courts would still be accessible by the community certain hours when the team is not utilizing those courts. So we wanted to review a few of the design considerations that went into planning and putting some design documents together for for this facility as we have indicated. It's eight tennis courts as you can see on the right there. But one of the considerations being that it is in the northeast corner of the facility adjacent to the Fleming Street is that we wanted to provide a more robust plantings along Fleming Street. Currently, there was one or two trees there, not providing a great visual buffer from the residences that may be across the street. So we are proposing 23 trees and shrubs of varying heights and sizes at their mature level to provide a good screen buffer between the residences to the north and Fleming Street to the east, as well as with the lighting that's on the courts. which I'll review in a minute, there is a scoreboard. The scoreboard will not be facing any residents. The scoreboard is located on the east side of the court, facing west towards the new baseball field. So none of those digits or lights would be visible from the adjacent residents. Next slide is just some renderings that we put together as it relates to that planting plan that I showed and at mature level what these trees would do. Basically, the trees are in that northwest corner of the courts. And we took a variety of vantage points from adjacent residences and across the street, the cross-flowing street from those adjacent residences to show the varying heights and varying types of plantings that are being divorced. Next design consideration is lighting. As I indicated, there was existing lighting on field A. You can see some of the light posts in this aerial photography. That field was always used for athletic purposes. It was a recreation field used fairly regularly that we would be removing all those lights in their entirety and adding the lights associated with tennis. As I had said in the previous slide, these are state-of-the-art LED lights that have great directionality and provide the foot candles and the light levels that we need at the court level for NCAA competitions, as recommended by NCAA. But they also have the ability to dim. So when there is recreational uses on the courts, those lights can be dimmed to a lower level. Not only is that an energy savings for the university, but that is also a way that we can limit the spill of the lighting. The diagram that we're showing on the left, just to put into perspective the better quality light that we're proposing here, is the green line that you see up to the backs of those residences and the fronts of the residences along Fleming Street is where the current lighting spills to. Low, very glare. high glare ratio to those buildings. The new lighting being very directional will allow us to be at zero foot candles at the teal line, which basically means that there is no detectable light beyond that line from the cutoff of the LED lights. The yellow line is at one foot candle. So that's a parking lot level type lighting. So it's gotten very dim from a 75 foot candle level at the courts to a one foot candle level at the yellow line. So we just wanted to present those differences and how this lighting will be beneficial to minimizing the spill and glare that's currently in place. Another consideration we wanted to point out is drainage. There's definitely been some reported flooding issues with this site. And I know Tufts has gone through some various designs and storage items on some other projects to try to control flooding. There was still some concerns. So what you're seeing here, these pictures are actual pictures of the facility. These are not stock photos. These are taken about three weeks ago, where Tufts has pulled a building permit currently to construct this storage facility. Those orange storage vaults that you're seeing there are approximately five feet high and six feet wide. So they have a great volume that we can store water so that we can meet or exceed the city's DEP regulations for stormwater flow and quality or quantity. The stormwater had been reviewed with the city engineer prior and has been approved based on the plan. And if we are approved, this system will also accommodate the task force. So not only is it helping the current drainage, it will also be able to accommodate the proposed tennis courts. The contractors currently working on this system are about 50% complete. They're installing some of the collection items at this point, but great benefit to the project. And lastly, the other design consideration we wanted to talk about is parking. There were some comments as it relates to parking and how bringing the tennis courts to this facility would potentially affect parking uses. And we wanted to, and I know, I believe there was a memo submitted, but we wanted to hit on the highlights. The tennis matches that will happen here are seven to nine times a year, typically in the fall. So it's a limited number of times that there'll actually be a home match where spectators would be attending. The turnout for tennis matches is not enormous. It's anticipated that there would maybe be an additional 20 cars that would require parking. And typically those are parents that come to the facility. The Tufts encourages all their students, faculty, staff for athletic events to walk or bicycle to the facility rather than drive their car. And also people that may come to other athletic events, there's also the green line and the red line that can get them there through public transportation. But when all else fails, people will drive their car. And the parking options are, there's definitely parking options. The cousins lot, which during a school day is, you know, at its peak capacity. It has about 200 spaces, but it does fill up. During the tennis matches or tennis practices, those happen after school or school time is out. Therefore, that parking lot has available capacity for those additional cars. Furthermore, the Dahling Garage recently constructed up on Boston Avenue, which is in the kind of the left-hand side of the page, it has about 500 spaces available, and it's usually only 20 to 30% occupied. So during any athletic event, Tufts would utilize their security when this lot is full to direct people first to the Dowling Garage. If the Dowling Garage were to fill up, there are two other options for parking that Tufts owns surface lots to the north of the facility, one at Elliot Pearson's lot and the other at 80 George Street. 80 George Street is at the top of the picture here and the Elliot Pearson lot is just beyond the Tisch Cousin Center. The walking from there is fairly short. And one thing I did not mention is that when there are athletic events, all parking on campus for the spectators is free. So they have a QR code that gets them into those parking lots free of charge. Therefore, spreading out through the neighborhood, trying to find parking spaces that may be free is not something that Tufts recommends and or would endorse. And that's why they provide the free parking for them. And then lastly, I just have some renderings of the site the top left looking from the northeast or Fleming Street is kind of down here on the bottom. And the additional plantings that would be along that east side. The top right is a view from kind of over the baseball field looking back at Fleming Street and the backs of the residences to the north. And then the lower image is just a lower lower vantage point of the facility of the six competition or the eight competition courts for the facility. That concludes my remarks. I would be more than happy to take any questions.
[Dash]: Thanks john I just wanted to close up and just state that the it's just be clear the athletic use of the this Adam dash again, by the way, for the record, the athletic use of the property is not changing just the actual type of sport played there. The as you saw the improvements to lighting and drainage, while providing the Community access to new tennis courts having nearby free parking and the green line station makes this whole thing a very. synergistic positive benefit to the city. We hope you would grant site plan review tonight for this project. And thank you, our team is available to answer any questions.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the very thorough presentation. Let me see, Amanda, this is a public meeting, so I wonder if we have members of the public or is there any city staff that wants to weigh in at this time before we turn to the board?
[Amanda Centrella]: I haven't received any comments ahead of the meeting from members of the public and I'll just take a moment to ask if Danielle or I don't believe Alicia has been able to hop on, but if if any if Danielle had any comments she wanted to or questions she wanted to ask before moving to public comments, not to put you on the spot.
[Danielle Evans]: I know I mentioned the parking counts took into account all of the activities that occur in the in the gym for that lot. I know there's some public uses that there as well.
[Dash]: Yeah, I guess we could talk to ask. I'll ask Rocco if you want to talk about the parking situation with regard to it. I mean, obviously, other facilities are staying the same. Rocco?
[Rocco DiRico]: Yes, thank you, Danielle, for that question. Yeah, those parking counts are taken on an average workday. So that includes our typical workday when students, faculty, and staff are all on campus. And as John mentioned, our matches are usually at night or on weekends. So those are times when faculty and staff are actually not on campus. So I would actually say our parking is even lower than those percentages reported in the reports during the matches.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Anything else, Danielle or Amanda, you're on watch for members of the public for us?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so again, not seeing any comments coming into our mail, but I just want to invite any members of the public who would like to provide comment or questions. They can do so by, if you'd like to use the raise hand feature, it's in the reactions button at the bottom of the screen. Or if you're not sure how to find that, you can just put a little thing in the chat and I'll call on you.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, I do see a hand up, Amanda.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, great. So I see a hand up with iPhone. So if you could, I'll ask you to unmute and if you could provide your full name and address for the record.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hi, my name is Linda Sheehan.
[David Blumberg]: Hi, Ms. Sheehan, how are you?
[SPEAKER_06]: I live on Bowdoin Street. And currently, our yards get flooded. The drainage problem on the other side of the field from Tufts University floods all of our properties from the end of the property of where Tufts owns Walnut Hill Properties owns a lot, a vacant lot. Now it's vacant because they had to clear it out because there was a lot of rats and debris on the property. And about four of our houses get flooded that we cannot use our second pieces of property. And I'm wondering how the new drainage is going to affect the outflow on the other side of the field on Wellesley Street into Bowdoin Street.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure. So this drainage, not to get super technical, but this drainage area does not currently drain to that side of the facility. So this drainage actually goes to Fleming Street. And the outfall of the storage would also go to Fleming Buzzle Lane drainage system. So it would not go to the Bowdoin side of the facility. Currently the boat inside of the facility is draining other fields outside of this project area.
[SPEAKER_06]: And is there any plans to actually correct it so that our land does not get flooded? I have not been able to use my piece of property and neither has my neighbors with the amount of water that gets drained and the landscaping that's on that side. You guys have been doing so much work. It looks lovely, but we cannot use our property. It's really awful that I'm paying taxes and can't use my piece of nice land that I own. The piece of land that you guys own for Waterhill Properties on Wellesley Street, it's all filled with glass and the rest of the debris that they didn't clear out after they cleaned up all the debris. And all out, they didn't they didn't stop sloping is making our lands flood even more. And so I'm glad like it looks nice and wonderful on the other side. But what do you either pull up nice trees for the other people? So nice for that side? What about what about this side? When are we going to actually have tufts do things for people on the Wellesley Bowdoin street side? that have had to live with debris, rats, construction debris, we get all the foot traffic, we get all the people that have to walk around your enclosed field, that litter, throw all their trash from the games, the noise, everything, just everything. Nothing's been done on our side. It's like the forgotten no man's land on our side. And it's really unfair. All the money you guys are spending on the other side, but I side we cannot even use our properties at all. I have a puddle of sewage was like sewage water. That's been in my yard, it hasn't dissipated for like a month and a half it's been it's been there for like a month and a half, and you still have animals, you have rats in there, and it's, it's disgusting. And I've talked to Rocco in the past. I've gone through the right channels. And me and my neighbors have just about had it with all the flooding that we're not able to use our property. And that's why I'm just really concerned now with the drainage, because that wasn't supposed to happen, that we were supposed to get all that water when you guys did the drainage from when you put in the new fields. We got more of the water. We just keep getting more.
[David Blumberg]: If I could just interrupt, it sounds like we're talking about a parcel that's outside the scope of tonight's meeting and that's not to minimize your concerns and the things that you're raising. I wonder if there's someone on the Tufts team who'd be willing to talk to you outside of this public meeting to try to address your concerns or explain more about what they may have done or are planning to do to address some of the concerns that you have raised here with us. Attorney Dash, is there someone on the tough side who perhaps could get in contact with this resident and talk more about her concerns?
[Dash]: Sure, Mr. Chair. I think Rocco DiRico, the Executive Director of Community Relations, would be the ideal person to handle that. And it sounds like there's been some conversation, but you are correct. This is sort of outside the scope of what we're talking about tonight. But not to minimize it, of course.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was just because you mentioned the drainage facility, and we weren't supposed to when they added the new drains to the field. We weren't supposed to get all that water so that's why you're adding more drain so I was hoping maybe some of the water would get diverted away from our properties but it doesn't sound like it is it's going to flooding. I was just wondering if you know we could actually correct, some of the stuff and not get as much water that that we're getting now.
[David Blumberg]: Amanda, is there a way for us to collect our residents' contact info to make sure that we don't lose? contact with her and she gets in touch with Rocco on this matter?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, could I, and forgive me, I can't recall your name, but I can message you on this chat feature here and just grab your name and the best means to reach you and share that with the Tufts team if they're amenable.
[SPEAKER_06]: Rocco has my name, my information. We've talked to him multiple times, so he knows exactly who I am. But I would like to give you my information if you would want it also, because I really would like to have more people involved, more people that know, try to get this cleaned up on this side of the field because we didn't bought it directly. It looks nice on the other side, but not on our side. I wish people from the city would actually look on the other side of the field to see what's going on.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'll send you a message and if you could just respond with your info, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you so much.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[Dash]: I would note for the record, Mr. Chair, Adam Dasch again, that we did hold a neighborhood meeting on this project prior.
[David Blumberg]: OK, thank you for letting us know. All right, to board members, board members with questions or comments for the Tufts team.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Alongside the, sorry, George Fisher here, question is George. Alongside the drainage issues you're discussing, I think, you know, sometimes we're worried about lighting. And I was wondering if you had the lighting information. You mentioned that, you know, a kind of distance from which the light spill would not be an issue. And you mentioned a distance, you know, where there would be less than one foot candle. What would be the maximum foot candle output of the lights? And what's the typical foot candle output? for a NCAA game.
[Dash]: Yes.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Go ahead.
[Dash]: You want Mike Gary to handle it for Moscow lighting? You could, for sure. Go ahead. You did bring the lighting expert with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: We brought him.
[SPEAKER_16]: We might as well use him. Thank you. The design is to meet the NCAA requirements for competitive tennis. So that's 75 foot candles in the courts area. And what John was showing is the cut off in terms of where that light and how fast that light depreciates to just beyond the edge of the parcel to where it's at zero. So zero foot candles is that secondary line that he showed. Does that answer your question, George?
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Yeah, and what is that comparable to 75 foot candles? Is that daylight?
[SPEAKER_16]: No, daylight's several hundred foot candles. It's hard to really quantify what 75 foot candle is. It's the amount of light in a one by one square, but that's what's deemed by IESNA and NCAA as terms of the needed light level for competitive play so that the athletes and spectators can see the ball and react in a timely manner. So that's what dictates the foot candles.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: And would that be kind of comparable to like a parking lot at night or?
[SPEAKER_16]: A parking lot is typically in that one to five foot candles depending on the area and the level of crime in terms of what's called for. So it's substantially more than that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah. Any other comments or George, if you had a follow up. No further questions. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[David Blumberg]: We did have a few submissions from city departments, although not a ton here. Let me just run through real quick just out of respect for what they provided to us. I think the fire department concerns, it doesn't sound like access and those sorts of things are changing at all. Attorney Dash, speak up if I'm speaking here, but
[Dash]: You are most correct, Mr. Chair.
[David Blumberg]: OK, excellent. So far, so good. Also a submission from our Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, which all seem to be focused on accessibility and ADA concerns. I recall from your presentation that you'll be ADA and accessibility compliant with this project.
[SPEAKER_02]: John? Yes, yep. The facility will utilize the existing handicap parking spaces that are there, as well as the accessible walkways and accessibility, accessible locations at the at the portable spectator seating.
[David Blumberg]: Right. For spectators. OK. City engineers seem to be OK with what you've proposed. Board of Health seemed to me to be things that are sort of ongoing. The one that presented a few more items would be from Todd Blake. traffic and transportation comments that you know in large part were related to how the site interacts with the neighborhood, the condition of the fence, maybe parking in the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the site. I'm again summarizing very quickly his comments but Any response to those maybe from Rocco or these things that you're familiar with, things you're working with the city on, just looking for some feedback from it.
[Rocco DiRico]: Thank you Mr. Chairman yes we did take Mr. Blake's comments very seriously, and they are things that we are willing to work with the city on a large portion of his comments related to increase signage around the facility, and our parking directors on the call and he has agreed to increase the signage in the area. on our campus property. The other thing that as Attorney Dash mentioned, complaints that we had received from neighbors before were about spectators parking on neighboring streets. So our athletics department has agreed to provide free spectator parking. So to incentivize spectators to park on campus and not on neighboring streets. So we're in agreement with all the recommendations and happy to implement them.
[Dash]: I would know though as far as Mr. chair Adam dash again that the one thing is the there was a recommendation about tough putting parking signs out on city streets, and we have conveyed this back through to Mr. Blake through miss and Trella that we just can't go putting signs on city streets that's not something tough can do or is insured for. Certainly, put them on the campus. We can put them on the fence facing out on the campus towards the public, but we can't go down Fleming and start putting street signs up. Other than that, we're fine with it.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the clarification and for the answer and the fact that you're being proactive to work with the city on the concerns. Any other comments? absent any we could entertain a motion.
[Amanda Centrella]: I have a yes sorry if you don't mind and maybe it's kind of a moot question but there's a lot of very strong interest in Medford and I think surrounding communities in Pickleball and a lot of there's a whole core cohort of folks that regularly convene all throughout the year to play and they're always looking for court space. I know these are intended for tournament use, and there are probably certain standards that have to be adhered to. But I wonder if, just for consideration, if there's any possibility of striping any of these courts to accommodate pickleball. Because as we've learned in some of our projects here in the city, you can have tennis courts that function as tennis courts and still accommodate those. that the pickleball striping.
[Dash]: Right. This is Adam Dash. We do have the folks here from Tufts Athletics, but I was told that the NCAA rules do not allow there to be extraneous striping on the courts because they're used for NCAA tournaments. You can't have pickleball lines and tennis lines. It's like one or the other. So that's one of those that we looked into. Originally, it didn't sound like a bad idea, but it just sounds like something we can't do, unfortunately.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you very much for the question and the answer there. Is there a motion the board might want to entertain here to approve the application for site plan approval? Members like to
[Jenny Graham]: This is Christy down, I'll make a motion. To move forward with the approval.
[David Blumberg]: Excellent motion to approve. To prove sick. I'll second with the application for say plan approval. There we go.
[Jenny Graham]: That's my second. Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: All right. And, as you know, votes are by roll call tonight. So, we'll start off with the vice chair at Jackie for title. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Dash]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[Unidentified]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[SPEAKER_15]: Thank you. Thanks for getting this on the agenda so quickly. Thanks for Amanda for all the back and forth this week. This project, I can actually share my screen here. I can forget how to do that. Oops, close out all this. Everything I've got open. So this is an ongoing project that's been going on. Obviously, Wellington T Station development has been going on since the 70s. Basically, this is the final land swap that needs to happen between DCR. This was part of the Wellington was previously owned by MDC and partially by the T. So the final land swap is to generate some parcels along the Malden River to extend the Wellington Greenway. So in 2017 BSC had prepared this land swap plan, basically an approval not required plan, showing some parcels that were agreed to, agreed to be swapped in a 1972 unrecorded agreement between MDC and the MBTA. So that agreement, like I said, was never recorded. The plan was never recorded. And as in a lot of things with the T, it kind of got dropped for many, many years. Fast forward to 2017, They finally wanted to swap those parcels or to actually grant those parcels to DCR. And the plan was also not recorded. So there wasn't really any vehicle with which to enact that land transfer. So we put this plan together 2017. You can see it was approved by the previous planning board or one of the previous planning boards in Medford. That was 2017, got dropped again for five years. Now they're finally picking it up and the goal is to get it recorded and get the land transfer complete. So the goal was to do this with kind of as an administrative item, but Amanda went back and forth with town council and decided that would be best to hear it again, just to dot all the I's and cross all the T's. So that's why we're here. to see if there are any questions or concerns in creating these parts and getting them transferred to DCR.
[David Blumberg]: Any initial questions from the board? I don't think any of the current members were on the board when this was decided.
[SPEAKER_15]: Maybe not anybody recognized their signature on here.
[David Blumberg]: Before the ball was dropped. So this is going to, I guess you've already said it, but just to try to make clear if there's anything from the public who might be tuning in, this is going to help continue that greenway sort of around the horn and close the loop up by Revere Beach Parkway. Is that the deal?
[SPEAKER_15]: It won't go all the way to Revere Beach Parkway with this because there's the old KIS-108 lot that's up there, but basically the walkway comes down through here now. Actually, this land is not owned by DCR, that a portion of the walkway is on. That land would finally be transferred to DCR, so they finally have control of it. further to the north here, the goal, the ultimate goal is to extend the walkway all the way along the Malden River. As far as they can control at this point, like the old KISS 108 lot, it's going to end right here for now. But as they redevelop or as the T redevelops the bus maintenance facility potentially on this property, they wanted to get all of this working at the same time so there wasn't multiple stages of construction over here.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[David Blumberg]: Questions from board members? It's an unusual one. We don't see a ton of these, but the ones we see are almost always for the development. Someone's moving their lot line around so they can build a home. Sure, right. A lot of these kind of plans and pathways to the end of the line here.
[SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, this one's a little weird too because the The 1972 agreement between MDC at the time and the T kind of locked in the parcels that were agreed to. So they wanted to try a different vehicle to do it, but they realized, DCAM realized pretty quickly that any changes to the parcel lines would basically affect Article 97 land and the whole process would have to go to a legislative process and everybody's trying to avoid that. So these are basically the exact same parcels that were agreed to in 1972 that are just being kind of codified at this point.
[David Blumberg]: I see Director Hunt, you have your hand up. Good evening.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good evening. My apologies for being late. I hope Amanda conveyed that I had to go in front of City Council this evening on a different project.
[David Blumberg]: She did.
[Alicia Hunt]: I did not realize that the presenter this evening doesn't actually have the construction information for this project. This is actually a project that our office is working jointly with a private developer. John Priato has been funding the design and construction as he did the other segments of it. And we've been working with the DCR and the MBTA and MassDOT about getting this project done. So we actually have construction funding and there is a parcel along the former Kiss 108 property that off the top of my head, I believe it is an easement that the DCR has to take it the rest of the way. And we actually have construction funding. And this evening, the project was actually approved by the Conservation Commission. So they vetted the entire construction project this evening. And I just wanted to convey that to the board. I didn't want people to then be like, wait a minute, they didn't tell us that when I knew all along, I didn't think it was fair. It's actually the subject of a federal earmark for this. And I was just informed today that, so it's gonna be on the tip, the transportation improvement plan for the state, and the city has a verbal approval. The project review committee recommended it, and we're gonna get an approval letter of having this on the tip shortly, I'm told. So I just wanted you to have that full context and not be like, well, you didn't tell us and you were sitting right there, so.
[David Blumberg]: That's good information, thank you. Okay, other comments from board members? Otherwise, we could move to approve. This is always the oddest thing to approve the approval not required plan before us.
[Unidentified]: I make a motion. Is there a great, great enthusiasm.
[David Blumberg]: I will second. Excellent. Okay. Roll call vote. Of course. Um, our vice chair, Jackie for top. Hi, Clyson, Jason.
[Jenny Graham]: Hi.
[David Blumberg]: Hi, Emily.
[Jenny Graham]: Enthusiastic.
[David Blumberg]: I George Fisher. All right. And I'm an eye as well. Thank you very much for your presentation, Sean.
[SPEAKER_15]: And thank you very much.
[David Blumberg]: And the history going back to this one. It's an oldie, but a good one. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you. Next item on the agenda is consideration and hopefully approval of the minutes from our meeting of January 4th of this year. Any comments, deliberation needed here or with the changes that were made over the last week. Those updates are reflected in our minutes now. Absent any discussion, a motion for approval?
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'll make a motion. I'll second.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Back to our roll call again now for the minutes. Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Anne Klyse Andres. Aye. I only have George Fisher. And, and I'm an eye as well. Okay miscellaneous updates Amanda Do you have some updates for the board to discuss at this time.
[Amanda Centrella]: So just a quick note that the March 1st tentative meeting is canceled. No need to convene. So that evening is yours once again. We are confirmed to be hearing some items on the meeting after, which is March 15th. So you can obviously keep you all posted on that, but feel free to reach out if you have any conflicts that night. And what's confirmed for that agenda so far is the raising Kane's proposal and it will require site plan review and also Special permit on two different kind of items. So the board will be reporting to the Special Permit Granting Authority, which is in this case City Council. So a little bit different format than what we've kind of been seeing as far as site plan review, but it's all the same content and just, you know, the reporting out is a little bit different. Other than that, we've received some application materials from our first planned development district request. It's at 100 Winchester Street. And we'll, as our staff kind of dig into that and get a better feel for things, we'll update you all on what to expect there. Any other things, Alicia or Danielle, that we should let the board know about?
[Alicia Hunt]: I think that we did want to mention that in our zoning, we've always, if there's a special permit by city council, then it's supposed to be referred to this board for an opinion. In the update of the zoning, they added zoning board special permits to that list as well. I don't remember us discussing that during the zoning change. but the idea being that this board would not have a site plan review, but rather just issue opinions, thoughts to the zoning board on projects that go in front of them for special permit, even if they don't qualify for site plan review. We just sort of processed that like two weeks ago. And one of the things that we've been discussing in the office is that a referral can be done administratively. So it doesn't have to be heard by the zoning board, referred to this board, and then go back to them. But actually, because it says in the zoning that it needs to be referred to the CD board for an opinion, that we could just have the clerk of the ZBA send the materials over, send them to this board, to render an opinion on them. There wouldn't be all the different filings or documents unless those came with it, unless the ZBA was requiring them. And the level of scrutiny is not the same as a site plan review scrutiny, but I just did want to let you know, because that would increase the number of things coming through to this board. And I'd like to let the idea sort of sit with you all and whether this makes sense. In the short run, this is going to happen. But whether this should be on the list of things that we should reconsider as we look at zoning changes going forward on whether it makes sense. So anyhow, I just wanted to give you a heads up because it came up because we thought the marijuana cases that without site plan review would never come to this board, but they require special permit by the ZBA and therefore even if it's an internal building project that doesn't otherwise trigger site plan review, it would trigger requesting an opinion. And so there's one of those in front of the ZBA, and it's actually next week, but we didn't really honestly put this together fast enough to be able to get the materials to you all in time to render an opinion for next week's meeting. So just letting you know.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, David Ensign --"So Alicia, would that be, if I can ask the, um, we would, it's not like somebody, somebody would do a presentation for us. It would simply be, there's a special permit that's present, that's requested for whatever reason. Maybe they'd flash, you'd have a copy of the packet that had been submitted to the, to the city that we would look at?" So does it feel a little bit more like what we did for the 40 B, although the packet wouldn't be any nearly would not be nearly as long, where we just kind of came up with some ideas and thoughts and a recommendation.
[Alicia Hunt]: It right, it feels exactly like that. I was actually just pulling up the language here. And I think that what in my mind, but this is this is absolutely open for discussion, is that we would give the applicants the opportunity, like we could say to them, if you want to present it, if you want to attend, you have to. It's unclear to me that we need that we ought to or that it would be necessary or good to require them to present. And our level of language of recommendation can be like, you know, if you want, you're welcome to, or it can be like, we recommend it, but we don't require it, right? Like we have flexibility there. But that is basically what we were thinking about. I was just trying to find the language Now that's cycling view, sorry. Sorry, I'm not good at multitasking today. I had the page number and then I didn't find it. 116 is special permits.
[Danielle Evans]: I just found it. 11.6.4 referral. The City Council and Board of Appeals shall forward any special permit application to Community Development Board. Community Development Board shall within 45 days, or is this site plan review? No, this is special permits. shall within 45 days review said application, make recommendations as it deems appropriate and send copies thereof to the city council or board of appeals and to the applicant failure of the board to make recommendations within 45 days of receipt by said board of the application shall be deemed lack of opposition thereto. And I know other communities such as Watertown that is in the ordinance and the board has made recommendations you know, the decision that they're not going to review certain types of applications, like they don't want to jam up their agendas reviewing dormers.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, there's actually a lot that goes to ZBA for special permit. And it's, right, that's sort of why I wanted to also just flag that as Like for something big-ish, like for a marijuana shop that is not so big that it otherwise triggers special permit, I can see an argument for it. For a dormer that requires a special permit, I don't get it.
[Danielle Evans]: This is another example of, you know, things are put into the ordinance and it wasn't thought out. the ripple effect. Not saying that was, didn't mean this was authored by someone else, and then it was just a lot. So, right, because I think special permits for uses would make sense, but special permits for like something like, you know, altering a non-conforming structure might not rise to the level of needing to be reviewed by this board.
[David Blumberg]: Well, maybe the easiest thing for us to do because we haven't done it before is just to see what we get and then kind of develop our practice accordingly. So if there are categories like the dormer sounds like an obvious one, we could sort of have a category where we just don't, we don't deal with those or we just flip through it and say, is this one of the dormers? Again, we're not going to decide. I don't know. But if we see what the volume is or what the examples are, then maybe we can inform the practice. I appreciate that we have the flexibility to be silent or dig deep if we want to, or just skin the surface. That sounds actually kind of liberating.
[Alicia Hunt]: I do want to make sure that we end up with a process that allows that if this board isn't going to comment, it doesn't delay a ZBA hearing by 45 days. That seems undue and unnecessary, especially if the whole reason is because this board doesn't feel that it's necessary for its time, right? There should be some way of just right back letting them know that there'll be no comment. And does it actually mean that a special permit has to wait to be on the agenda here before the ZBA can hear it? That's sort of like, I know that for a homeowner doing work, time is money. For a contractor, time is money. And the idea of delaying things because of the meeting schedule of our boards for things that are not consequential feels unnecessarily hampering.
[David Blumberg]: I guess another way to do it is if you look back over the past ones, and you kind of came up with a list in the last 18 months we've had four dormers and three of these and four sign requests and whatever we could then have as part of one of our upcoming meetings like a discussion of the categories if if it lends itself to that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, we can easily ask Dennis to pull a list of special permits from the last 18 months. I do think that things are changing with the new zoning. Different things are requiring special permits under this zoning than required them before. It's actually been fascinating for people who were really in the weeds of this document to still, as we go to use the document, find things that we don't remember seeing before.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[David Blumberg]: Is that, is that enough guidance for now? Does that give us a plan? Okay. All right. Perhaps any other items to discuss is, oh, Christy Dowd.
[Jenny Graham]: Well, I just have one thing because I am on the community preservation committee as a representative of the community development board. And I term out on that committee at the end of April. So I wanted to bring that up so this board can think about if any one of you would be interested in taking over that role and have the time come April, it may be good for the next meeting or two to come and kind of shadow and just be prepared so they don't lose a rep. from community development board, you know, there's no gap. So I just offer that. And I can have a conversation with any one of you to explain the time commitment, which is not much, but it's important that one of us has a role on that committee.
[David Blumberg]: Right. And presumably we want someone who's going to have some term left.
[Jenny Graham]: Yes, yes. So then I turn off this board in June.
[David Blumberg]: So yeah. Right. Amanda, what do you think? Could you coordinate kind of soliciting some interest? And does that make sense?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, definitely. So I can I can send out an email to folks and just say, you know, and respond to me with with your interest. And maybe we can loop in Christine. Go from there. Yeah, happy to coordinate.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, it's I staffed that board for five years, a little over five years, still staffing it. But it's about monthly meetings. We skip every now and then if there isn't anything. We try not to meet unnecessarily because everybody's time is important. The crunch time is during when you guys are making decisions for during the funding cycle. So there might be more meetings. Some of the longer meetings will be when the applicants are presenting, but we try to keep it short and sweet.
[David Blumberg]: And I think if Ari or Peter had an interest, they should express that as well, given their pending admission to the board.
[Danielle Evans]: A little over $2 million a year that that committee weighs in and decides how it's allocated and makes, you know, so it's city council that appropriates the funds, but it doesn't get to them unless the CPC recommends it. So there is a lot of responsibility and actual power, even though it's a recommending board. So affect a lot of change. That's great.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the info.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm so sorry. And I think kind of going off this note of term limits and membership. So I'm sure sure most folks are aware Deanna has been kind of in this holdover status to help us out as we've worked to fill. that vacancy, and with the addition of our new members, she'll be, you know, finished with her term. She's not at this meeting, but I've conveyed our thanks, and she's been a real asset to the team. I'm not sure that she'll be back at our next future meeting, but just wanted to let you all know. Yeah, what was going on there.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the update. All right. Absent any other new news, a motion to adjourn could be entertained.
[Jenny Graham]: I'll make a motion. I'll second.
[David Blumberg]: OK. And for our final roll call of this evening, let's start with, as always, Vice Chair, Jacqui Verta.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[Jenny Graham]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
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