[Roberta Cameron]: So pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting of the Medford Community Preservation Committee will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via this meeting link and no in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted and public participation is by remote means only at this meeting. And, excuse me. I mentioned that this is a meeting of Medford's Community Preservation Committee on Tuesday, May 10, 2022 at 6.30 p.m. Actually, we're starting at 6.34. We actually only have a few things on our agenda this evening. Most significant of which is, well, actually we could begin with approval of the meeting minutes from March and April. Is there a motion to approve the minutes?
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: If there's no comments or any objection from that, I'll move to approve.
[Jenny Graham]: I second that.
[Roberta Cameron]: And that's for the meeting minutes for both March 8 and April 12? Yes. Then I'll call the roll. Sorry, I have to change my view. I can't see all of you. That's better. Danielle? Yes. Christy? Yes. Heidi? Yes. Doug?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: And Losa? Yes. And myself? Yes. So meeting minutes are approved unanimously. Now for the annual plan update and application materials. Thank you to, I don't know how much of a role that you had in helping to prepare these materials for this evening, Amanda. I thought it was very well written. I don't know if everyone has had a chance to read over the plan. And Amanda, I don't know if you are prepared to present. I don't know if anyone is prepared to present the plan.
[Amanda Centrella]: I can certainly throw it up on the screen and we can talk through it. Yeah, why don't you do that? Happy to do it. Yeah. Sorry, let me just get my screen in order.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't know if someone has already cleaned it up. I did a lightning round of editing suggestions today.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, yeah. Danielle and I were looking and I think we, some of them accepted and kept a bunch just to have like, you know, things to talk about. Okay. Or to keep things kind of clear. Okay, so let me share screen. Here we go. All right. Can folks see the draft document?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. All right, so before we dive in, just a reminder, I think Danielle had put in her message that the formatting is not yet finished. So most of the commentary will be about the content, and then we'll be moving it off of Google Docs into Word, just because it makes things a lot simpler. And there's just more formatting capability there, I think. But if folks have suggestions for photos or if they have photos and other visual pieces that they think would make a lot of sense, please feel free to let us know. With that, we have our acknowledgements page. I'm not sure how we want to go.
[Roberta Cameron]: Could you increase the size a little bit? Thanks. Yes. Is this better? It is for me.
[Amanda Centrella]: All right. So yeah, I'm not sure how we want to go through this. But maybe I can touch on kind of pieces that underwent, you know, more significant change. And we can just pause and see if folks have, you know, any input per section. Does that make sense? Okay, so. yeah introductory section kind of kept it pretty similar to as it's been in the years past I see there's been some suggestions here to kind of clean up the language so definitely will take those into consideration, and we move this so I could see. Oh, yes, so we'll streamline the captions in our formatting so that when they show projects, they say when they were funded and what the project is. This section goes over what's happened in the past year in terms of the funding round and how funds were allocated. And I think Danielle did a lot of this portion. So you have some of the numbers here. And yeah.
[Unidentified]: OK. Nifty map, which we will update with the correct screenshot.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so yeah, this is kind of, I'm sorry guys, I feel like I'm not getting a great presentation. I'm not sure where we want to focus all of our energy and time.
[Roberta Cameron]: You're doing great. I again I also don't know since I've already obviously read through this I love to get feedback from other committee members as well, although we are hoping to get to approval this evening so it's very short notice to ask for your feedback. if you haven't had a chance to read it already. But I thought that you did, that the team of you did a great job of describing, giving an overview of what we've done in the past year and then over time in general. I liked the way that you described the, the updates and activities related to CPA throughout the city.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks. I think before we go into the next section, does anyone else have any feedback about the overview piece of what's happened in the past year?
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm sorry, go ahead, Doug.
[Doug Carr]: Well, I know that Roberta, it looks like a lot of these edits were made within like today. So I wonder because there's obviously a few board members, commission members who are not here. I wonder if we could have maybe general approved, but give the opportunity for people who are not here to provide just maybe some final comments or just beyond tonight, if that's possible, just so everyone has a chance to look at what I think is a a final version because a lot of your comments, there's a lot of strikethroughs here, a lot of edits in process that are on screen that I'm seeing. I think it captures things pretty well, but I think I'd like to give people a chance to really read a final draft.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a good point, Doug. I think maybe it's a committee can help to to think through an answer to this question together. We are opening our application period beginning in June. With the eligibility determination forms due in July so if we were to call this said. and actually approve the plan at the first meeting in June, at the meeting in June, which would be June 14. Would we want to open up the application period on, you know, as of June 14 with the final, everything finalized as it is being presented in draft tonight? or do we feel that we want to leave more time for people for the application period itself? So the eligibility determination forms are due July 29th, according to our calendar that's in this plan. So should we hold off approving this until June or, get the application period started after this meeting.
[Heidi Davis]: So this may seem obvious, but so this the annual report, of course, is very important, but it doesn't have an actual bearing on applications and for those that apply. So I don't see that it's a conflict. Okay.
[Jenny Graham]: I was actually going to say the same thing, like it's not going to make or break people applying for if their application is approved, like approval worthy or not. You know what I mean?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. The goal was to have this released at the same time as we open the application period so that people could use this as a guide. But you're right, it's not It's not essential that they be done together. I see Steve has joined us.
[Unidentified]: I'm going to stay on mute, though. I'm up at the soccer field. It's very windy up there.
[Roberta Cameron]: Understandable. Thank you. OK. So then what the committee members are suggesting is that we go ahead and open the application period as of, say, the beginning of June. That gives a couple of weeks for our CPA staff to get the applications online. And then at our next meeting, which would be scheduled June 14th, we could approve the final plan and that would be ready for the applicants to be able to use as a guide. Great. Okay. Thank you. That's a great, great input. So we could continue going through this and then committee members can be prepared for what to look for as you have a chance to read it yourself.
[Heidi Davis]: I caught a small, a tiny typo, I believe, right above the table too. I think archeological dig is A-E-O, unless it's accepted to do both E-O like that. Is it acceptable to do both?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think it might be.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. Well, I like it. I like the extra vowels. Great. So okay, I might take that then and go to this section. So our community needs and priorities by program area section. I can speak a little bit more to this. For open space and recreation, we went through and looked at what was heard in the survey, what was heard. The city had a public meeting about parks and paths in March. We've had a lot of outreach over the past year that were specific to other parks projects, but had areas or open-ended questions that allowed folks to talk about what they wanted to see. All of that went into this and we pulled from it a couple of tenets or ideas, goals, strong emphasis on making spaces accessible and accessible in different ways. We've continued to hear a lot from community members about a desire for cooling spaces and whether that means water features or shading or just other ways to kind of mitigate heat a bit. uh, to have some sort of, or think about solutions to, um, for, you know, folks that have dogs and dog owners, um, creating intentional spaces or programming for, um, for dogs to kind of help mitigate some of, I think what's been, um, you know, some conflict or areas of tension, sharing spaces and where there's been kind of inappropriate dog play and things like that. And in particular, providing more spaces for teens and young adults. And so we've heard, you know, skate park, parkour activities, and outdoor exercise equipment as examples. And we'll move to actually maybe I'll just pause there to see if folks have any other things that are any comments.
[Roberta Cameron]: I don't know that this is, that it counts as a comment received during our review period, but I just happened to see, I think yesterday on Reddit, somebody posted asking where there's outdoor exercise equipment in Medford. And I'm not sure anyone had an answer for that person. I don't know where any is, so. There's somebody looking for it.
[Unidentified]: The DCR owns one. The setup is off the parking lot. I always do that.
[Jenny Graham]: I always put Sean's face on Thomas's body and Thomas's face on Sean's body.
[Unidentified]: If you're looking to answer the person's question, there's one there.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I think there's definitely interest for those kinds of facilities. I think there's some talk of incorporating them in the Gillis Park redesign. So one potential spot.
[Roberta Cameron]: And I also wanted to mention just, I've been consuming too much social media. On Facebook, in the Somerville group, somebody posted looking for pickleball courts. And the one at Duggar Park was like the nicest, nearest pickleball facility that served their need. So that was nice that Medford has something that other communities can benefit from as well.
[Jenny Graham]: I think they're also gonna put a whole bunch of new pickleball courts at the car park design, I think also had like designated pickleball courts where I think the other ones maybe are tennis courts that are also pickleball lined. But there's quite a few in Medford right now.
[Unidentified]: Great.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Losa? Yes, I just was towing this idea that when they're doing like what you mentioned, the outdoor exercise in Medford, if they ever come up with that, that if there's thought of having something that folks who are on wheelchair that's looking to exercise will be able to utilize as well.
[Amanda Centrella]: Definitely. Yeah. And I think that I just have the Gillis Park project in mind. I think a lot of the improvements that are being considered for that concept design are oriented towards making the park more accessible. So that's speaking to it overall. And then I think an important aspect of that would be, you know, if there are these other amenities, like outdoor exercise equipment to be, you know, having accessible facilities there. Okay, so for this section, I actually may wait until Danielle is back. She drafted this and could speak with much better command than I could to it. So we'll move through that for now. So historic preservation, I had a lovely conversation with some folks, Doug included from the Historical Commission, as well as a member of the Historic District Commission. And they spoke to a couple of different priorities and opportunities upcoming in this program area. There's I think a desire for and a need for greater support to the Historic District Commission as they, you know, strategize about how to create additional local historic districts. And there was conversation with both groups about different ways of offering protection to historically significant sites and thinking about the logistics of setting up those protections as well as the kinds of incentives that they might offer. For example, a historic district designation might hold more appeal if there was some sort of a funding program or funding available as match for significant sites. So, you know, in the event that any sort of renovation were to happen. folks could apply for that funding. I know that this is a early conversation that I want to say actually Danielle has been considering and exploring, whether there's an opportunity to have a grant or some program seeded with some CPA funds for rehabilitation of homes and in particular historic properties. other kinds of so there's historic district designation, there's a historic like, designation for you know, a property. And then there's also, this has been a conversation in the past, thinking about preservation restrictions. I think there's been some initial exploration of how we could How preservation restrictions could happen or be organized in Medford for city owned properties. There's some challenges there. And I feel Roberta could probably speak better to them than I could. But I think something that was interesting that members of the Historical Commission raised is that these different kinds of protections, maybe they make sense for different scenarios. there's an opportunity to think about how they might be used either in tandem or where it might make sense in one place versus another and logistically, what's easiest or convenient to pursue.
[Roberta Cameron]: I might actually jump in there and offer some observations and suggestions with respect to the PRs or the way to protect city-owned properties. We explored over the last year whether we could maybe partner with a preservation restriction. Let me back up because not all of you may be familiar with preservation restrictions. Preservation restrictions are a deed restriction that provides long-term or perpetual protections of the historic elements of those properties. Any improvement or change to the property would have to be approved by the body who holds that deed restriction. And so the city of Medford cannot hold deed restrictions on its own property because we would not be able to enforce a deed restriction on our own property. We need another organization or entity to hold that deed restriction. So as it says right now in the plan, there are very few organizations who will do this, private organizations, and it's very expensive when they do. It's very complicated and challenging. An alternative, an option that we had explored last year was to see whether the city of Somerville might partner with Medford to have an exchange to hold each other's preservation restrictions. Many years ago, Somerville had explored this with Medford and we weren't open to it at the time, but times may have changed. Now that we're looking at this as a potential good idea to meet our need, Somerville was not particularly receptive. So I'm not sure whether we can find enough interest on both sides at the same time to be able to make this happen. But another option that I see happening in Somerville that might be able to resolve that problem would be to create local historic districts. for the city-owned historic properties, and then the approvals that are required for local historic districts would apply to the city-owned properties. That could be a much simpler way, not a foolproof way, but a simpler way to be able to protect city-owned historic properties to the extent that we're willing to hold the city to the regulatory standard of the local historic district.
[Doug Carr]: That keeps it entirely within Medford's boundaries, right? That's the advantage of that approach?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes.
[Doug Carr]: Okay, that makes a lot of sense to me because I think there's There's a lot of things here that are talked about in general terms, but if we're about to open up applications for next year and we have none of these mechanisms in place, I can't imagine anyone applying this round successfully because they don't even know other than it's a concept, right? Is that a fair statement? It's not a critique of us or anything or the ideas, but it's just the reality of where we are right now.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, we can right now, put a preservation restriction on a privately owned property that we would be inventing the wheel to the extent that we'd have to draft for the first time preservation restrictions and kind of establish our method of writing them. I think that's not insurmountable. We could do that if need be. If a private organization came to us that we felt we needed to place a preservation restriction as a condition of giving them funding, we could do that. But for city-owned property, that's where we felt that some protection was needed, but we didn't have the mechanism available to us, so we went ahead and gave the funding without making that condition. But I think we could go back after the fact and create local historic districts for city-owned properties to protect them if, in fact, the regulatory protection would be sufficient to protect those city-owned properties. They could be one property districts and that may not be an insurmountable challenge to get that done.
[Doug Carr]: Well, let me ask a question if you sound like you have a lot more because obviously the only historic commission, we deal with different set of issues than the district commission because they they are in charge of the, the actual few districts in the city of Medford. for the preservation restriction will hold versus the actual historic district, whether it's an area or it's one property. Can we just talk about that just briefly, what the levels and what's appropriate for which conditions?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think that it would be wonderful to ask yourself or other members of our historic mission to talk with members of Somerville's Historic Preservation Commission or their staff in order to get have a more expert answer to that question. I have observed that they have a similar review process. They have criteria to make any changes, improvements, projects that seek permits that are in local historic districts are required to get approval by the Historic Preservation Commission. They have one commission that does both what our two historic commissions do. The process for properties that have preservation restrictions will be almost identical. In fact, most of the projects that have preservation restrictions are also local historic districts and are already subject to the level of review that they will have to go through in order to undertake any changes or improvements to their structures. But the preservation restriction is in perpetuity and it can't be removed except, you know, the city owns that deed restriction. So it's in the city's under the city's authority to hold it in perpetuity. Whereas the local historic district, the property owner could petition to change it and it would be a regulatory change to be removed from the local historic district.
[Unidentified]: That's highly unlikely, isn't it? I've never heard that happening ever.
[Roberta Cameron]: In Somerville, they feel that it's a sufficient risk that they require properties to have all CPA projects to have a preservation restriction in perpetuity.
[Doug Carr]: That makes sense. I guess the overarching concern I have here, and we obviously had a conversation with Amanda last week about this, is that there's a lot of language in this document. It's not inaccurate. But the reality is that there's virtually no movement of historic districts, new historic districts, whether areas or new ones. And that's primarily a lack of expertise and funding to make it happen. And if we don't do that this year, this budget year, this document will be exactly the same a year from now, because it's not happening and the need is there. The need is actually pretty significant. We just don't see it happening because there's not enough activity to move it forward, willpower or expertise or some combination of the two. And we want it to happen. We absolutely do. But this document kind of implies that it's in the process, but it's really not. It's just talk right now. And I don't want to give people false hope that this is happening when the reality is where we're just probably a year or more from, if the will was there and the funds were there tomorrow, it could probably be in place a year from now, but I don't see either. So I'm just struggling to kind of close that gap of perception and desire and see if we can move it forward.
[Roberta Cameron]: Is this is perhaps a question that would be great for us to talk more about offline. I don't want to take up too much of this discussion getting into the weeds of what we can do with respect to historic preservation but it is indeed and I think it's. I think it's great that we're getting into the level of detail that we are in this plan.
[Jenny Graham]: Like just not write it that is as if it's like almost a done deal and is happening soon, but some way just write it into like. Yeah, there is this overall goal and if these other things happen, then we can. Move to that process.
[Heidi Davis]: And that it's both a need and a goal, right?
[Jenny Graham]: But certain conditions need to be met, like, actually. I think that's a really good point. I think that's a good point.
[Roberta Cameron]: situation in Somerville is that they pursued from the outset a strategy of creating single building local historic districts instead of actual districts. They actually have 433 local historic districts in Somerville. And so they have a, if you want to do a, If you want to permit any development project or improvement to your house, the first thing you need to do is to look up on the list to see if your house is a local historic district. If it is, then you have to apply to the commission for approval of your project first. That's a different strategy than what we've applied here and maybe could be a more manageable strategy.
[Heidi Davis]: That's really interesting. Who would be the approving body to create these plans?
[Roberta Cameron]: I think it's City Council would approve the creation of the local historic district. But I think that they also have to be approved by the Mass Historic Commission, if I understand correctly.
[Amanda Centrella]: I think there is a single house historic district. It's mentioned in this. Yes, the Toro. You'd think it was there. Oh, sorry, guys.
[Joan Cyr]: Right next to the monument, the single property historic districts in conjunction with PRs.
[Amanda Centrella]: I think actually it might be a little further up.
[Joan Cyr]: Down.
[Amanda Centrella]: So created the first single house historic district at King House, 21 Toro Avenue.
[Roberta Cameron]: But see in that paragraph, it says it's not the first time it's mentioned, it's King House. And then at the bottom, the last sentence, it's King's House with apostrophe S. I'll look up the correct.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Amanda Centrella]: reference.
[Heidi Davis]: So there is a precedent already.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. Did Danielle join us? I don't think so. No, okay. So continuing the goals and priorities, I believe have not changed since previous plans. Correct. So it would be helpful to get feedback, particularly from newer members. I think about half of us have been here since the beginning and help to write these the first time. And these goals and priorities came out of a broad public engagement process that we had during the period of time when we wrote the first community preservation plan. I think it would be helpful to revisit and check in on them to make sure that we still hold these priorities and feel that they reflect what we've learned of the community needs. So the overall goals are to be highly visible projects, accessible, generating broad benefits to the community. The application should demonstrate public input or gathering of support. Projects must not replace funding from the city budget or other sources. That's actually more of an eligibility requirement and not a priority. Priority is given to projects that leverage funding from other sources and or fill a gap where other sources are not available. Projects should demonstrate cost sensitivity, both in the short term use of CPA funds and the long term maintenance or lifespan of the resource. for which the funds are used. Priority is given to projects for the public sector or non-profit applicant or co-applicant above private individuals or for-profit applicants. So these are just the overall strategies. Any thoughts or comments about these overall strategies?
[Jenny Graham]: I think they're pretty straightforward. Okay.
[Doug Carr]: I don't think we've actually done a lot of consideration for people bringing matching funds. I don't remember that really being a factor. I think we wanted it to be, but I actually don't think it has. I'm not sure if there's any metrics on that, but most applications, I mean, some do bring money, but most don't. I think the vast majority don't.
[Roberta Cameron]: Speaking of metrics, this is actually something to maybe put a pin in for the future, too late for this funding round, but something I would love to see us be able to do is to document how much money we have leveraged with CPA funds for other projects, for the various projects from other funding sources.
[Doug Carr]: I agree, I think that would be a valuable thing to know that if we're spending two plus million dollars a year. If somebody else is bringing a half million or a quarter million, it's obviously stretching the projects and getting more as a leverage. I think you're right. Maybe going forward, we just do that. It's probably difficult to go back five years at this point.
[Roberta Cameron]: It may be worthwhile if we can, but that might be a tall order. at least for now. All right, Amanda, we could move on to the next. So the next is for each of four program areas, open space and recreation, we kind of treat as one, but in the original plan, it was broken into two program areas. So for each of these, we identified goals and priorities. The priorities in particular, I think, are or can be used in our evaluation of projects, especially if it was the competitive funding round and we didn't have enough funds to go around, we could prioritize projects based on the criteria on this table.
[Joan Cyr]: So can I can I suggest that maybe we combine open space and recreation because it is one program area. Okay.
[Heidi Davis]: I also feel that open space often gets subsumed by recreation, though, and I want to make sure that it remains a priority. Yep. I also am just looking at this language and I'll articulate it better later, but enhanced open space is a land use asset. A use? So I wonder, is that an ecological use or is that an individual? It's an interesting phrase.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah. lifted from the CPA.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, no, I made that up. I'll admit to it back in 2017. And this was like really stretching because of the fact that like I wanted to be able to have priorities, but really, the priority for open space is I think, well, I'm trying to think of what I what I was thinking back when I made this up. And I think, um, I think that I was thinking of open space as a land use asset is, for example, providing open space for passive recreation in neighborhoods or preserving open tracts of open space that create the character of the neighborhoods. That's one thing that's unique to Medford is having the Mystic River and the Middlesex Fells and the Brooks Estate, these large tracts of open space that we have, we want to have them be have a positive impact on the neighborhoods and not just to be a waste. I think that's what I was trying to say, but I couldn't think of a way to articulate all of that in a few words.
[Joan Cyr]: I think there were a lot of comments in our feedback sessions around the fact that the Mystic River runs through Medford Square and nobody knows it's there. Why aren't we using that as an asset for the city?
[Heidi Davis]: Of course, coming from where I do, I would interpret open spaces as enhancing habitat diversity and ecological function.
[Joan Cyr]: That's how you roll, Heidi.
[Heidi Davis]: I can't help but go there, Joan. Who's to say that isn't an open space? That's right.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that's one of the things that concerns me is. So first of all, what you're saying, Heidi, is what's meant by the second. priority here, supporting resiliency through open space. Ecological function is what I had in mind when I used the word resiliency. Taking out the word land use and just enhance open space as an asset might be sufficient, but I also wonder whether the priorities whether first and second are appropriate because in some cases they're equal priorities. I had that same concern under historic preservation as well because we have considered some of our privately owned, our non-city historic properties to be high priority assets in the city. So I guess This page alone is I think a very good reason for us to take a pause and approve something next month and maybe take our time this month in this meeting or by following up with individual comments that you could send to Amanda and Danielle to suggest some changes to this table. So for example, would we want to eliminate the first and second? Would we want to maybe call them values instead of priorities?
[Heidi Davis]: I like that. Or just have bullets.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Jenny Graham]: You could just make them non-specific.
[Roberta Cameron]: So not specific to the program areas?
[Joan Cyr]: Or to the first second designation.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: To the first second, yeah. Bullets would work. And if we take away the words first and second and just make them bullets, then priorities, they're all priorities. They're not in any order.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. Okay. And then, I mean, I created this table in the first place and given how it's formatted, I think I would like it if it was reversed and had the priorities first and then the goals. but I'm going to have to do that myself because this table is too, I don't want to wish the job of formatting this on anyone else.
[Joan Cyr]: You sound very ill.
[Roberta Cameron]: I have a cold. Need a little water.
[Joan Cyr]: Okay. Um, we might consider in the historic preservation priorities. We can shorten that to just be preserved city-owned and non-city-owned historic resources. You can put them in the order of city-owned and non-city-owned in the sentence.
[Heidi Davis]: Under historic preservation, in addition to increasing public awareness about local history and historical sites, do we want to increase public awareness about the tools in which to do so, given our earlier conversation? Just an idea.
[Joan Cyr]: Did I miss that part of the conversation? What tools are we talking about? individual districts.
[Roberta Cameron]: How about tools and methods for preservation?
[Heidi Davis]: There you go. I like that. I was just struck by that there's only one building that has this individual designation. How did that happen and why is there just one when Somerville has how many? 433.
[Roberta Cameron]: Summerville is kind of unique in that way in many ways. It was a strategy that they undertook. In many cases, I've seen efforts to create local historic districts be thwarted because one or more of the property owners in the proposed district don't consent to be designated a local historic district. But here, if you can get one property owner to consent, then you've created a local historic district. That's why they have so many, but it's created the ability to protect a lot of their properties.
[Joan Cyr]: Losa?
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yes. I have a little bit conflict about the with affordable housing with the goal to second provide support for households to access affordable housing. Is do the committee preservation actually directly support that or because I'm just trying to figure that out.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes, so an example of that would be the emergency rental assistance program that we funded two years ago. And also even more directly, the move-in assistance program that we funded after that, which provides funds for first and last month's rent for households seeking to live in Bedford.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Okay, the reason why, because I personally, I've never, you know, this is the first time, thank you for clarifying this for me, that this is also a tool that I can also provide to folks that actually in needs of that, because I was not aware of that, but thank you. Sure.
[Doug Carr]: Regarding that assistance program is no longer active, is that correct?
[Roberta Cameron]: And we don't plan to do that for this year or is that not the rental assistance program has completed. It was totally funded. I mean, totally utilized the move in assistance program has been unexpectedly slow to be taken up. I'm not sure that we funded any. households to be assisted yet for one reason or another. That's a problem to be solved that we've been working with ABCD on, but that is still available. We also have a third housing assistance program, which is through Housing Families, Inc., provides funds to pay rental arrears in combination with pro bono legal assistance that they're providing to people who are facing eviction. So those are the fun the programs that we have supported today other communities have their there are not many examples of CPA funded assistance programs but Somerville has a few additional ones beyond what what we've done here.
[Doug Carr]: But at some level, we're committing to a strategy with this document, I think, going forward. And is the strategy to build more or build rental assistance or a combination, or is there, like, what are the components? I know that, look, I know Danielle was at the housing meeting tonight, so things are happening. I'm just trying to understand, the strategy that's here, I think, is probably the same We're pretty close to what it was five years ago when we started. Is, in fact, the strategy still the same? I'm not clear on that.
[Roberta Cameron]: So the first message that we've, I think, clarified this evening is that we would prefer to eliminate the first and second priority rankings so that everything is equal priority or to be considered on a case-by-case basis how important it is to us. So if we eliminate that ranking, then we're saying that we are just as happy to support the second as we are the first under affordable housing as well. It's our prerogative to state if we prefer to fund construction rather than support. Most housing support programs that I've seen have used very small money, whereas the emergency rental assistance was probably a one-time occurrence that we committed a large amount of funding to that program. Since then, the state and federal government have filled in with a lot more resources than what were available at the time. We felt that we had, the ability to do something locally that wasn't being done that was really an emergency and needed at the time. But if we had been hampered by the priorities and only allowed to fund the first priority, we couldn't have used our process as we've spelled it out to be able to fund that project off-cycle as we did.
[Doug Carr]: But all that support has basically gone away, right? Eviction stuff is over and rents are actually skyrocketing now. I mean, they're back to where they were. I'm just not clear. We did the right thing, don't get me wrong. I'm proud of that during the COVID that we spread that money as quickly as possible to as many people as possible. But I'm just hearing about dramatic rental increases across the city, left and right, and I'm just wondering Is there the crisis isn't over that the COVID crisis over but the housing crisis never went away.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Do we want to? Go ahead. Sorry. Unfortunately, Doug, the COVID crisis has gone down and the panic for COVID emergency funds is really have gone away. But unfortunately, the urgency for housing and affordable housing and rent hasn't gone away and is just increasing, especially in this area here. It's not going away anytime soon either.
[Roberta Cameron]: Actually, I wonder if this is a good time since we skipped over the housing needs section, waiting for Danielle to be able to join us this evening. Maybe what we want to do is to go back and talk about the housing needs. Then if we need to come back and reflect on the affordable housing goals and priorities.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so I'm here now. I popped in about 20 minutes ago. So we don't have a housing production plan adopted yet. So that's basically the planning document that we have. That's the planning process that we went through two years ago and then through COVID. So there's a bunch of different strategies and goals and increasing supply of housing, both rental and ownership are high priorities. Going back to the, whether we were to prioritize one over the other support or creating units, I mean, I think they're both equally important. Yes, the emergency rental assistance and moving assistance, you know, goes away. And the emergency rental assistance, it does seem sort of like a bandaid at the time. But I mean, that was people that weren't, you know, thrown out of their homes. So I think it was important, even though, you know, it didn't, you know, fix a problem. I think it was important. And, you know, we like to brag about that program, because we were one of the first municipalities to get a local emergency rental assistance program off the ground and the fact that we spent all those funds so rapidly just shows how successful and nimble we were with that program and helped a lot of people. Let me see. Let me open the document since I can't scroll this.
[Roberta Cameron]: I just wonder if actually to Doug's point and as Doug and Losa have both been saying that there's such an urgent sense of urgency right now to address the housing needs. If we want to begin this housing context section with a paragraph about the something about the urgency of housing needs at the moment. So we begin with a discussion of what CPA can do. And then a discussion of what planning the city has been undertaking. But I think what's missing is an acknowledgement of what, you know, what the community is experiencing.
[Joan Cyr]: I like that idea. Is it fair to say, and I'd have to go back and read the applications and the awarding documentation, but is it fair to say that the Emergency Rental Assistance Program really came out of the fact that during COVID businesses were shutting down, people were losing their jobs, it was just like a rapid descent? which is different from the everyday housing crisis we have. And that's what that was really geared toward, sort of putting a little cushion underneath that rapid descent when COVID hit. Is that a fair statement?
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, definitely.
[Danielle Evans]: One of the requirements in that program was that some of the folks that were seeking assistance were experiencing a loss of income because of COVID. The idea was that it was bridge a time of crisis. We knew that it was not going to take that long. We thought this was a couple of months of flattening the curve and then everyone will go back to their jobs again.
[Heidi Davis]: Right, that didn't happen but so there there was both that crisis and there's the chronic and escalating need for affordable housing. Right.
[Danielle Evans]: So the emergency rental housing doesn't really help with, you know, someone. You know, like chronic inability to pay rent.
[Joan Cyr]: Right, and that's what our friend Mike Lewis was saying when he was a member, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: But it wasn't meant to go, you know, for that situation. And those people need, you know, to be in public housing and be in units, you know, deeply affordable units. So like emergency rental assistance that you have to, triage the situation and see what is the best way to handle that situation. And that's what housing family does. If they know you're so far behind in rent and you're never gonna catch up, they don't use the rental assistance. They're like, this is just throwing good money after bad. They would locate, find a shelter or some other living situation, because they realize that just throwing a few thousand dollars isn't gonna help, that they need something like a more strategic approach to handling our situation. But I mean, in general, we need to create units and it's whether it's affordable units or just supply in general. And some of that will be, you know, you know, kind of, you factored in with the MBTA zoning requirements where all of the MBTA communities are mandated to create multi-family housing districts at very much increased density by right or you lose access to different state aid and funding resources. So that was a huge You know strategy that the state has handed down to get communities to make it easier to build housing, a greater density in places that makes sense, just next to transit. I don't know if we talked about that in here.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, I was just thinking that maybe I don't know if it's worth mentioning that the city is looking at potential zoning changes to increase housing opportunities. But I'm not sure. Yeah, it might be worth mentioning.
[Danielle Evans]: And in conjunction with, you know, we're going through a comprehensive planning process, which is that new zoning changes, you know, thinking about it in a thoughtful way, like ideally you would finish your comprehensive plan before, you know, trying to figure out where to put these districts. And also before this recodification that just happened, that was more than a recodification. There was a lot of new stuff put in there. You know, like some low-hanging fruit, like now accessory dwelling units are allowed. Oh, are they? They are. We have a short-term rental ordinance now, so people just can't be running rampant with their Airbnbs. That's not allowed anymore. They're very much regulated now. So there were some zoning changes that were put into effect that hopefully will address some of the housing issues that are exasperating the housing crisis. And also there was some changes to parking requirements, just very modest changes, because oftentimes the parking ratios are very onerous and makes it very expensive to build housing at the density, that would make sense because you'd have to provide so many parking spaces when car ownership rates don't match the requirements.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great, that would also be good to add. So just a paragraph about zoning.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I wasn't sure how much to put into this document because it could get really big.
[Doug Carr]: Yeah, it's tough because it's almost a city master plan.
[Danielle Evans]: which is being working on right now.
[Doug Carr]: It's hard to know where to stop.
[Roberta Cameron]: Exactly. But I think that it's kind of helpful to have in one place just a few pages each for each section that kind of gives an update on what the city is doing that year in that area. So like we went into that kind of detail in the store preservation section, although there's not nearly as much to talk about as there is housing in terms of what the city is actively working on. And there are really important things happening in each of these areas. So I think it's worth just highlighting what those are this year.
[Doug Carr]: Great. The last comment I have is more of a, again, kind of questioning the strategy thing. I'm looking at how the pie broke down this past year. We've been quite good about almost being exactly a third, a third, a third, not only every year, globally over the five years we've been doing this, which I think is a tribute to being the spirit of what we're trying to do, this pie. But knowing that we're spending about $700,000 on housing a year, that's basically three and a half units, if you were building it, is what that means. And I know that some of it was seed money for larger products that could be a couple hundred units, which is great. I don't disagree with anything we've done, I feel like it's spitting into the ocean a little bit in terms of having an impact on affordable housing. And I'm struggling with how to make it more impactful. I don't know the answer, I'm just raising it.
[Roberta Cameron]: Find more funding sources.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, so tonight was the committee of the whole about starting an affordable housing trust. And that's a discussion that the CPC needs to have I don't know if you guys have talked about that yet tonight, but what, of how we would want to handle CPA money, you know, going towards a trust, do we want, like, how much would we recommend, you know, being transferred to the trust, like, off the bat? Do you, like, I know in Somerville, what is it, is it 40%?
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm going to give us 50% affordable housing right off the top.
[Danielle Evans]: And the CPC doesn't see any housing proposals, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, that goes right to the affordable housing trust.
[Danielle Evans]: So that was a controversial thing tonight.
[Joan Cyr]: But does that mean that the city council then doesn't get to approve what is spent in the by the housing trust?
[Danielle Evans]: Correct. to a degree, depending on how many powers they wanna limit on the trust.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, I mean, Somerville's CPA fund is $3 million last year versus our $2 million. So their 50% was 1.5 million. and leaving 1.5 million for the other two program areas. For us, the same split would have left one million combined to the other two program areas. It's not what we have wanted to do. But we did in the one year that we had funding left over, we put that funding into affordable housing so that we could try to keep the affordable housing side as well-funded as the other two sides.
[Joan Cyr]: Can the housing trust apply for CPA funds?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yes. There are different ways that this is done in different communities. Somerville, the CPC just They designate a portion to give over to the Affordable Housing Trust when they do their budget at the beginning of the year. Then they actually transfer it when they approve, when they recommend funding for all of the projects. At that point, excuse me, they also recommend the funding for the Affordable Housing Trust, but they earmark it for the trust at the beginning of the year. But what other communities do is their affordable housing trust will submit a proposal like anyone else, an application for funding, and the CPC will recommend as much funding as they want to give the affordable housing trust. There are some CPCs that will only give the affordable housing trust funds, if they have a specific project that they want to fund so it kind of defeats the purpose of having an affordable housing trust, but most communities with affordable housing trusts will. designate an amount of funds in advance that the CPC wants to transfer to the trust each year and transfer those funds so that the trust is entrusted to use them by their discretion. So it would be up to us to determine what kind of a partnership we wanted to have with the trust.
[Joan Cyr]: So say we said we were going to give the 10% that we're required to set aside for historic preservation, I'm sorry, for housing into the trust every year. Yeah. Can they, if they had work that exceeded that 10%, can they apply to the CPA for additional funding?
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Whatever.
[Roberta Cameron]: So that could be like a hybrid method. We would just automatically.
[Joan Cyr]: That might make the city councilors feel a little bit better because, you know, it seems like they're a little concerned about letting go of their ability to approve funding, you know, and know what's going on with the funds.
[Danielle Evans]: There was also Jack Driscoll, the executive director of housing authority, also like there was concern about whether the housing authority would still be able to receive CPA funds you know if the trust would be um like he wouldn't be able to get the money in the out of the housing trust yeah i mean and i tried to like ameliorate that concern saying that The trust, the housing authority could apply for funds from the trust just like they could apply from the CPC. I think there was some confusion about if the CPC transferred a third of our dollars to a trust, then the housing authority was completely cut out and this funding stream for them would dry up. You don't want the trust, you don't want the housing authority to think that they're in competition with trust, because it's not, it should be a collaborative relationship, and it's always good to have more people working on housing. So I just think, you know, we just have to, I don't know if that is a valid concern or not.
[Roberta Cameron]: No, because the housing authority is trying to play the role of developer and the trust would be playing the role of funder. They'd be so where we have 1 source of funding our CPA fund, a trust could aggregate funds from multiple sources. And they don't have to have every individual transaction be approved by city council. So those are the two benefits that a trust has that we don't.
[Danielle Evans]: It just makes it so much simpler to do things when you have all this money assembled and aggregated and just lost hoops to jump through to get it released.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: We would have to figure out more funding sources for the trust. We don't have affordable housing linkage. We don't have cash in lieu or fractional payments with our inclusionary zoning ordinance, which would all would be good ways to fund trust.
[Roberta Cameron]: That's a problem to solve at another committee. that CPC can advocate. Yes. Actually, yeah. Turf Wars. I'm gonna take a note of that and bring that up later. So I think we've covered everything in the plan except for the public engagement. So I don't think that there's a lot that we need to discuss in the public engagement, we kind of went over that when we had our public hearing last month. We got a preview of the survey results and discussion of what we've learned from talking to people. So But this is all documented. It's all written here. So when you have a chance to read the plan draft, you can see what's said and if you have any further comments.
[Joan Cyr]: All right. So just everybody knows it's really only 28 pages. The rest of it is the survey. OK. We didn't mean to scare folks. Don't get scared. I'm halfway through it. I have not had a chance to finish it. To your point, Danielle, are you still there? Yes. For the additional funding that came through for Riverbend Park, I can just up the amount on the existing tag on the website if that's a more appropriate way, because it wasn't really, as you said, another application.
[Danielle Evans]: We might want to do that for Fellsway West as well.
[Joan Cyr]: Right.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, because it starts to look like more projects. Of course, there are votes, but we want the map to show projects.
[Roberta Cameron]: And maybe you want to do that for the Brooks estate for the manor. Anyway, you could keep separate projects for the grounds or maybe have the grounds be one aggregate of projects and the manor another one. I don't know.
[Joan Cyr]: or do you think there's a separate applications, these were not these were letters coming to us saying oh my God the price is crazy. The application separate. So those way West and Riverbend Park to.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, that's the only ones I feel like there was something else. I guess there was botchy courts, they came back for more. But I think that that was only on the map once as well.
[Joan Cyr]: It is only on the map once. Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: I can't.
[Joan Cyr]: Because it was probably the same year. This is different years. It felt like a new application, but OK. OK. Other than that, the map is updated, so.
[Roberta Cameron]: OK. So the FY23 budget recommendation. To my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, Danielle, the best budget figure that we have for now is the one that I estimated last month for the presentation that I gave.
[Danielle Evans]: Was that adding 2.5%? Yeah, that was just adding 2.5%. And then last year's match?
[Roberta Cameron]: And last year's match.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, and I talked to the assistant finance director and he thought that was an appropriate approach.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay, so that's what's in the plan that we just looked at. So I don't know if you want to bring up that page, Amanda, and project that again. Sorry, remind me. It's in the plan. I forget the page. It was in the financial section. Toward the end of the financial section, the estimated budget.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. Sorry, just need one moment.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Roberta Cameron]: Was it this table? No, this is go further down. Keep going. There, right there. Projected revenues by program area. So, as we've been given a go ahead to use this estimate, of $2,150,000 being our total CPA budget for FY23. Then using the minimum 10% per program area, and maximum 5% for administration. That would give us the budget that's projected on the screen of reserving $215,000 for each program area and reserving $107,500 for administration. for the year, and unspent administrative funds, by the way, go back into the general reserves at the end of the year. So then that would leave 65% or 1,397,500 in the general reserves, which is flexible funding that can be used in any of the three program areas. So, the discussion for the committee is whether we want to stick with the minimum 10% allocation or whether we would want to use our discretion to increase the amount of funding for any of the three program areas.
[Joan Cyr]: You mean at the beginning of the year? Yes. What would be the value?
[Roberta Cameron]: The value would be to ensure that any one of the program areas would get more than 10% at a minimum in case, for example, we didn't get any proposals in that area this year. But it's been our strategy up till now to keep the maximum amount flexible and if you all agree with that strategy, we can continue to use the percentages that we've done in the past.
[Joan Cyr]: The idea being that someday in the future, we're going to get a massive application and we won't have the money in, let's just call it affordable housing to be able to meet that application. Is that the idea? And if we start saving some money in these three bank accounts, that when that big application comes in, there'll be some money there. We can do that. It might mean that some, you know, other application doesn't get funded, you know, and we'll have to we'll have to cross that bridge. It's coming. It almost came this year. Yeah. But I guess we can go back to our priorities and say, what are our priorities, right? So if affordable housing is a huge problem in the city, and we all, I think, agree that it is, should we be saving the money for the rainy day?
[Roberta Cameron]: That's really the question is, you know, affordable housing is really the one program area that I think we'd be likely to feel the pull to raise the bar higher for affordable housing.
[Joan Cyr]: Yeah. I mean, we can just make a decision year to year, right? So we can decide to put in, you know, 20% to affordable housing this year and
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, we don't have. And then if next year we want to go back to 10 or up to 30, it's every year. It's our prerogative how to set the percentages.
[Joan Cyr]: And it doesn't decrease. It decreases the general reserve. It doesn't decrease the others. Correct. I think that's a great idea. I mean, it would indicate our sort of I don't wanna say priority, but our recognition that this is a big problem that's gonna need big money someday coming down the road. Sort of a underhanded sort of point to that one program area. What do others think about that? Putting 20% in instead of 10%. And I'll shout out at once now. I stand with you on that.
[Roberta Cameron]: Do you want to make a motion to to then approve the budget to set a budget that has 20% affordable housing, 10% open space and recreation, 10% historic preservation, and 55% general reserves, and 5% administration.
[Joan Cyr]: I would like to make exactly that motion, but Christine may have something to say. She turned her video on. No? Okay. I'm trying to eat dinner at the same time and I don't want you to watch me chew. Yes, I would like to make that motion exactly as you just stated. I will second that motion.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you. Then I will take a roll call vote. I'm going to have to play with my screen to see everyone. Danielle? Yes. Christy? Yes. Doug?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Joan? Yes. Heidi? Yes. And Losa? Yes. All right, so. And myself, yes, sorry. The motion passes, so our budget this year will be set at 20% for affordable housing, 10% for the other program areas, and 5% for administration. And that would be, so what we will be recommending to the city council then, is our budget based on the estimated funds divided according to those percentages. Is that clear enough, Danielle, do you think? Yes. Okay. I don't know.
[Doug Carr]: Does that mean that we're moving away from the third to third to third goal?
[Roberta Cameron]: I'm not sure. Well, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd, the 3rd,
[Danielle Evans]: When you can just see this is what's in the bucket, right?
[Roberta Cameron]: So, um. Yeah, so we can draft a budget to submit to city council and maybe. We want to preface our communication to City Council with this budget, acknowledging that the CPC sees an urgent need for funding for affordable housing, and thus we've raised the reserve, the level of reserve for affordable housing. even though we are still committed to funding each of the program areas or something like that. I just feel like because we're making a change, we ought to make a statement to city council explaining our reasoning.
[Danielle Evans]: And we should have the real numbers, well, the estimates probably in a couple of weeks. Okay, good. If some of you don't know, our assessor is leaving. She's taking another job. It's not a bad thing. No one's leaving on bad terms. Oh, that's good. It's just a really good opportunity for her. But she's not leaving us high and dry. She's going to clean up, tie up all the loose ends, and get us our forecasts. And right now, I know she's calculating all the new growth revenue, because you have the Prop 2.5 that goes into the iteration of how much we can expect to see. So I think generally that would be next month is usually when it goes to council with the budget.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. Okay, so will we need to revisit this again next month with the actual numbers? We haven't done that in the past. Okay. All right. So we've just decided on what our budget is going to be, how it's going to be divided, and then you'll submit that with the actual numbers. Yeah. Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: Because there's still estimates.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. the actual estimates instead of the estimated estimates.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Okay. All right, moving on, public comment. We don't have any members of the public that I see with us today, but I did want to take a moment for other business for a couple of updates. First, I wanted to share my screen. I have a, Hold on, that's the wrong thing. I need to bring up a document that I wanted to share. Yeah. The document that I want to share with everyone, which is a calendar for the CPC for the year. I don't recall whether I've shared this with Medford before. This is a template that I developed for Somerville, but I find it very useful and would like to be able to share this with my committee members here as well. So it provides a calendar for the whole year with all of our meetings dated for the year on the left column. And on the right column, it has the application cycle deadlines. And then what's happening each month with respect to the application cycle. And then the center column has what we anticipate being on the agenda for each month. This is a document that we can share with the committee members, but I wanted to look ahead and run by all of you to see what we may want to cover in the next couple of months on the agenda. We've just talked about in June, the need to approve the final plan. And did we, I just want to refresh my memory at the beginning of our conversation about the community preservation plan update. Did we say that we want to release the application plan and instructions by the end of this month, regardless of the fact that we still want another month to work on the plan. Yeah, so I put, it's highlighted because I don't know what date we want to give, sometime be the end of this month, which would be Tuesday the 31st after the holiday weekend. So maybe we wanna keep it at the 27th, Friday the 27th being the date of, I don't know. I don't know if it makes a difference or if you have a preference. Danielle or Amanda for making the application instructions go public.
[Amanda Centrella]: The only thing I'll mention is I'm going to be away from the 19th to the 25th. So if there are administrative things about getting things onto the website or different ways of circulating, it might be helpful to have a couple more days after that point, so I can get it done. But that's just my two cents. I'm happy to make it work earlier too.
[Heidi Davis]: Okay. It is a holiday weekend. Perhaps people won't be applying or might have other plans. That's right.
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah. We could maybe move it up a little bit more even.
[Joan Cyr]: The first week of June. June 3rd.
[Danielle Evans]: When do we launch the cycle?
[Roberta Cameron]: That's what we're asking. The date that we're trying to set is when we launch the cycle.
[Joan Cyr]: So that's essentially giving people two months to submit their eligibility determination forms. Yes. Seems fair. Okay. And we will have, you know, very close approximation of finalizing the plan. It's a week away or whatever. It's not going to make a difference. We will be at the beach. You know, they all write them on, you know, the 28th of July. It's okay. Yep. Okay.
[SPEAKER_07]: So for June, we'd be approving the final plan update and
[Roberta Cameron]: One of the things that I have on my to-do list that I would really like to get to sooner than later is reviewing the CPC ordinance. In particular, discussing the appointment procedure that's in the CPC ordinance. And the one thing I was only able to attend part of this evening's meeting with the the committee of the whole regarding the Affordable Housing Trust, but I think Danielle mentioned that they're considering whether to require or recommend that a member of the CPC actually serve on the Affordable Housing Trust. And I think that that would require a change in our ordinance to enable that. to allow that because I think that right now only the statutory members are allowed to serve on two committees and that otherwise the at-large members are not permitted to have any other function in the city. Oh, really? I thought it was just you couldn't be an employee. I think I'd have to go back and see how it's written either way there's no reason that we couldn't change it to be able to you know if if we're asked if we want to ask for a change now. For other reasons that we need to this would also be good timing to ensure that whatever is in our ordinance is consistent with what we want to do for the affordable housing trust. So yeah, so for June, reviewing the ordinance to see what recommended changes to make. And then in July, just a reminder, I forgot to do this last year, but officer elections come up. And I think it would also be a good time to look at what our goals are as a committee over the year. I think could identify some actions that we could be doing, such as what was mentioned earlier, advocating for an affordable housing trust. Or, I don't know, we have a couple of months to brainstorm and think about what are things that we think that we would like to be doing over the next year. And then a break for a social meeting in August. And then we're on to gathering materials. What's that, Losa?
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: No, I'm just reading out loud. I'm sorry. I didn't realize.
[Roberta Cameron]: Although as I'm looking, I realized that I don't know if we want to reverse July and August so that we could actually review the eligibility determination forms in August. Take a break in July. Review the eligibility determination forms in August as well as officer elections and So these steps I think need to be worked out going forward, but see if you have any other suggestions.
[Joan Cyr]: So are you going to share this document on the Google Drive? Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Maybe. There, I think that. That might work for the months going forward. So a couple of updates I wanted to ask about was, first of all, do we have any update on the city posting the opening for the committee member?
[Danielle Evans]: It should be going in the paper soon. It's going to be a legal notice. There's issues, but so the Medford transcript and the Somerville journal are merging.
[Joan Cyr]: I think it starts next week, yeah?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah.
[Joan Cyr]: Transcript and journal.
[Danielle Evans]: real original name. I was like thinking it should be just like that. This should have been something more clever. Yeah, so that's gonna run, I think, next week and then the following week.
[Roberta Cameron]: Great. So then finally, we can collect candidates and be able to fill the open position. And the other thing that I wanted to ask for an update about is those nifty signs that we got last year. Are we ever going to be able to install the signs? What can we do?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I mean, I think we got direction from Commissioner McGivern that, you know, as long as it's not on the part of the sidewalk you walk on, then we can put them wherever, I guess. Do you guys know what signs we're talking about?
[Joan Cyr]: You're talking about the big acrylic ones that Doug got?
[Roberta Cameron]: No.
[Joan Cyr]: Or the little ones that look like, oh, that one there, yeah.
[Roberta Cameron]: Curve markers.
[Joan Cyr]: Curve markers, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, they're like the storm drain ones, they're similar. So I don't know.
[Roberta Cameron]: It's like the size of a. Do we need to coordinate with the with the grantees for installing the signs where they think is most appropriate?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I don't know if it should go on like the sidewalk or. For what projects? For all of them. All of them. And it's like and also like projects that kind of like you can't like see it, you know. Like say, like the historical society and museum, like the projects, like, so we funded three things there, but there's nothing that you could see. And then you could just, plus you wouldn't want to put anything on the building because it's historic. But if you have one of these nifty guys and you've got it on the granite curb, you're like, hey, CPA is in there.
[Joan Cyr]: have a bigger. More appropriate time if it's not that big, you know, this could be in addition to the historic buildings.
[Danielle Evans]: We've discussed that. You know, it's not always appropriate. To stick our sign on the
[Roberta Cameron]: Yeah, and this is also the idea for the curve markers is that there'll be a universal marker throughout the city like right now we already have 75 projects probably at 50 unique sites. So if we have like 50 signs the size that we have in the playground, they're going to be, you know, and growing, it's going to become clutter. But these little signs, people will start to notice them everywhere and be aware of where CPA is without it.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay. It's kind of like a scavenger hunt. Yeah, I guess. Once you point them out, like the little sidewalk markers, Roberta's like, oh, like those things. And I'd never noticed them before. And now I see them everywhere. Like, oh, this is like the little markers here and there. It's just an extra thing.
[Joan Cyr]: I like it.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Where would they place the sign? Is it in front or on the ground?
[Joan Cyr]: The top of the granite curbstone.
[Roberta Cameron]: Granite curbstone. Maybe in some places there might be something appropriate like a stair riser where it could fit very neatly, but the curbstone might be the most uniform place to be able to put them.
[Joan Cyr]: All right. I'm starting to lose.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you, everyone, this evening.
[SPEAKER_07]: Motion to close the meeting. I make a motion to close the meeting. Second.
[Roberta Cameron]: All right. I'll call the roll quickly. Losa? Yes. Heidi? Yes. Doug? Aye, everybody.
[Losa Julie Genevieve]: Yes.
[Roberta Cameron]: Krusty? Yes. Joan. Yes. Danielle. Yes. Thank you everybody. Have a good night everyone.
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