[David Blumberg]: 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 the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 107 of the Acts of 2022. A reminder that anyone I would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may 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 we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. As an additional reminder, materials for this meeting and our other Community Development Board meetings can be found at the city website, most easily accessed by going to the page for boards and commissions, going to the Community Development Board, and then clicking through from there. We start our meetings with a roll call of the board members. Welcome again, my name is Dave Blumberg, and let me call out the other members of the board, our vice chair, Jackie Furtado.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Deanna Kennedy.
[Claes Andreasen]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Klyce Andres.
[Claes Andreasen]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: Christy Dowd is a member who is absent tonight. Emily Hedman.
[Claes Andreasen]: Present.
[David Blumberg]: And George Fisher. Excellent. Thank you. Before we get started on the first item on the agenda. Just wanted to check with the city staff director or Amanda, whether we have some members of staff members of the city, other than the two of you in, in our presence tonight, and participating. And if there are any opening remarks you have to share with us.
[Alicia Hunt]: Hi, thanks, David. We do, I actually thought it would be good form to make sure that the beginning of all our meetings we do introduce any staff on the call in addition to the roll call just so that members of the public, et cetera, know who's here. So I'm the Director of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, and technically, the Technical Director or Technical Advisor to the Community Development Board. Amanda Central, as you all know, is one of our staff planners and Amanda has been staffing the CD board. But I did want to introduce you all at the beginning of this meeting to Danielle Evans. Danielle has been with our office for many years. She's actually been with the city for about five years now, but Danielle was just appointed this week as a senior planner in our office and she will be transitioning with Amanda and will be eventually taking over as staff to the Community Development Board. Danielle's actually been a planner for 17 years and she's worked in Westford and Watertown and Somerville as well as at a regional planning commission in New Hampshire, so she comes to us very experienced and she spent on the order of 15 years on the Somerville zoning Board of Appeals, as a member. So I just wanted to introduce you all the Danielle give her a chance to say hello to the board for right now she's not taking over that role yet. Community Preservation Act manager here with the city. That job is now posted on our website. She's also been serving as a housing planner with the city for the past three years. And that job is also posted as a full-time job on our website. Both of those are full-time jobs now. So any planners watching, we're hiring around here. And I'll just mention what we're also hiring for an economic development director right now. So Danielle, did you want to say a word or two to the board before we get into their business?
[David Blumberg]: Welcome, Danielle. Hello. Hi. Thanks.
[Danielle Evans]: I'm sorry to be taking Amanda away from you guys. She's been doing a great job filling in after Annie's departure. I don't think she knew it was going to be so long, but I know. But she's she's done great. We just said I spent a long time staffing planning and zoning boards and serving on boards myself so. Hopefully, I can. You know, be an asset to this board and work together to you know, improve the city. And yeah there's a lot of positions advertised but it's not because we're running away. It's positions being added and shifting around. We're a great team. I hope nobody seeing all the job advertisements is scared away. It's because we're growing and it's a great place to work.
[David Blumberg]: Great. Thanks, Danielle. We look forward to working with you in the future. That's great.
[Amanda Centrella]: Sorry to interrupt. I just realized that I forgot to hit record. So I'm going to do that now.
[Alicia Hunt]: And as you're doing that, I will also one of our graduate student in recording in progress this evening, when we didn't warn you, you don't have no need to say anything. I just wanted to make it clear to all the board members and the applicants in the public who were staff on the call. So when PSK is a grad student at Tufts, who has been working with our office this year as well. She's actually been doing a lot of the minutes for these meetings, right? Yeah.
[Unidentified]: Thanks, Ryan.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, sounds like we're ready for the first item on our agenda this evening, which is in connection with the Medford Housing Authority at 121 Riverside Ave, a request to modify the approved site plan that you'll recall from maybe a month or two ago. So let me start things off by reading the public hearing notice. Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a meeting on today at this time, relative to modification to clarify the approved site plan submitted by Medford Housing Authority at 121 Riverside have the Community Development Board approved an application for site plan review submitted by the Medford Housing Authority at a public hearing on November 10 2022. Clarity the Medford housing authority has submitted a modified site plan for the review of the board demarcating a portion of the existing lot for future development and the expansion of an existing first floor office space by 1500 and 17 square feet. I guess we should start the meeting by inviting folks from Medford Housing and their team to present to us. I just wanted to help focus the discussion, as I just mentioned, in the public hearing. The site plan was already fully reviewed by this board, so this is but an amendment, a clarification, if you will, that MHMA is trying to receive from the board. your presentation to save everyone time and our discussions tonight to also save everyone time should be focused just on those couple of points that MHA presents to us today. One being this expansion and the second is just a point of clarification on what they're calling parcel B. So that's as I understand it and I'll turn it over to the team to give us a focused presentation. Thank you.
[Ciccariello]: Hey, happy new year everybody. So as Dave, my name's Gabriel Ciccarello. I'm the Director of Modernization and Procurement with the Medford Housing Authority. For those of you that may not be familiar, we're coming before you regarding the south installed building at 121 Riverside Avenue in Medford. It is currently a 200 unit, elderly disabled, high rise, 11 story building. And through some kind of building or bedroom count configuration mixing, we're going to be creating, we're increasing it from 200 units to 222 units. As David stated, mainly why we're here before you tonight is for clarification on a couple items, specifically the administration office and the lot A and lot B designation. But there are a couple small items that we're going to review with you. I'm going to turn it over to Natalie Jansen, who will get into the particulars of those items. And Ben Wilson is going to have some demonstration material to present to you all this evening. Thank you. Thanks, Kate.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Hi, good evening. My name is Natalie Anson. I'm a senior project manager with the Cambridge Housing Authority. We've been working as development consultants with the Medford Housing Authority on Saltonstall. So there are essentially three things that we wanted to discuss. One is as part of the site plan review, we needed to clarify the location of a transformer on the site. And in a minute I will give the floor to Ben Wilson from BH Posey to show a plan showing where that would be. The other two items are clarifications of two items that we had originally submitted as part of the site plan review that was reviewed on November 10. But essentially need to have those items reflected in the decision so we felt that it was appropriate to come back. One is the expansion of the office space and then Wilson will also show some elevations or renderings that that was included as an alternate. In the case that the project would have sufficient funding to do that. It will essentially allow the housing authority to more effectively perform its duties and serve its clients. Now that alternate has been accepted. So, the project will proceed with that. which was also included in the original site plan review documentation and discussed was the site plan as it relates to a future development opportunity on the site to add more deeply affordable housing in Bedford. So I'm going to let Ben show the location of the transformer and also some images at the office and then we will come back to me and I'll explain the future development opportunity and what we wanted to clarify as part of the site plan review and the decision.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Good evening everyone.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let me see if I have, I still don't have clearance for sharing.
[Unidentified]: Sorry Ben, one moment. Okay, there we go.
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Okay, I believe my screen is now shown. I'll try and get this to... Nope. Okay, so I would like to start with a quick, just a refresher on the general site layout. Saltonstall building 121 Riverside Ave is off of Riverside Ave, Mystic River on the side, and the proposed parking strategy that we took was a circular drive aisle around the building with parking areas. The long parking area on the east side is an existing lot and the block of parking on the southwest corner is a reconfigured site. And then we've done some minor modifications to the front and side. The two items that are that I wanted to address really are the, the focus on the location of the, the administration expansion area that was It was an alternate in the bidding process. I think when we came to you guys in November, it was in the original site plan package, identified just in an outline form, and we didn't go into any of the detail on that. And so this triangle that I'm pointing here is the... I hope you can see this on the screen, it's always hard to tell. That zone right there is really what we're what we're presenting or we're adding on to the building. And it's a fairly small, 1,500 square foot, but it sort of changes dramatically what happens inside the building and the usefulness of some of those spaces in the interior of the office space. And this is all done on the ground floor level. It's a single story addition. And There is a request to present what the additional floor square footage represented in terms of design. And what we have submitted into your package with the board is the documentation that was part of the alternate bid, which was the floor plan and a reflected ceiling. And we have also included some elevational material for those facades that we're adding on. These don't really mean much without any context. So we have produced a fairly simplified rendering of the addition as it stands. The addition really is a, picks up, the existing building comes to this corner, right in this area here. So that's really the corner of the existing admin wing. And we're filling in that triangle of space between the outer corner of the residential tower and this corner of the admin. And so that's really the, excuse me, that's the extent of the addition that we're looking at. And what it does is it reorients the entrance area and provides some infill expansion of the office spaces. So this is a sort of an axon metric diagram of the addition relative to the rest of the ground floor. So, I think that that's probably enough to say about this alternate. I think the intent is to keep it as clean and low profile and as simple as possible. And the square footage that adds to the administrative operations is really pretty relatively small percentage, small square footage, but very valuable to their operations. So again, just going back to the renderings, that's the exterior effect of it. It'll be exterior walls or ephos, which is also used on the remainder of the ground floor, along with fiber cement panel rain screen on the entry area to sort of help identify the entrance to the public. Jump back to the site plan. So that was item one. Item two, and I come with a bent knee here. We didn't include the generator and transformer location in the original package. It was actually was shown on the landscape drawings, but the civil drawings didn't pick it up. in the final submission. So in November, we were still working on arrangements with National Grid for the final location of the switchgear, and we got this approved, and then we realized that it wasn't shown in the previous submissions to your group. So what our intent is for the emergency generator, which is currently in the corner of the building, tucked into the building right here, in a location that's actually not code compliant because of proximity to the building as well as the emissions from the generator this close to operable windows is a problem. So the intent was to relocate the emergency generator and tie it in with the service that comes into the building, a new service, let's say an upgrade service that can accommodate the new lower or higher electrical consumption of the building when we transition from much of the gas load. proposed an enclosure for both of those systems, pretty close to the street. We're about 15 feet off of the sidewalk and then another eight feet to the curb line, I believe is the total. And the intent, I'll zoom in on this, The intent would be to enclose the entire area with a decorative fence that would be similar to the treatment we're using on the trash area screen wall and on one of the, at the other end of the building, a mechanical screen. And the fence would be generated with a panel design using the same cladding system on the building. So it has a little bit of a color and material connection to the building that would give it a feel a little more connected and substantial. The reason that we have it located in this area in particular is a number of reasons. One, the electrical service is coming in from the riverside out. The other reason is that the hillside of the, and this drawing doesn't show it very well, but this is Interstate 93. So this area, the interstate is 15 to 18 feet above the street front. And the embankment of the interstate goes directly up from this property line. And it's fairly heavily vegetated, which sort of helps to give just a backdrop, call it a buffer, to the presence of the generator in this location. I believe, I don't want to say too much on that. The intent would be an eight-foot fence would give about 90% coverage over the generator and would completely conceal and screen the transformer and switchgear. So those are the two items I wanted to present. And then this is the area known as, referred to as parcel B, and I'll hand it back over to Natalie to talk us through that.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Thanks, Ben. So as Ben started talking about the future development potential here on the site, so when we originally submitted the site plan review submission, some of the drawings had an area demarcated for a future development. This is an excellent site to add more housing. There's also, it's a very large site, so there's room to add more density here. And so we noted that there was a hope and a desire by the MHA to do a future development on the site, but it wasn't explicitly noted in the site plan that we'd submitted back for the November 10th meeting, nor was it reflected in the draft decision that we received. And that's why we wanted to submit the site plan and to discuss it a little bit more directly. So what you're looking at here is, this is one site, we've designated two sections here. One is called parcel A, which is where Ben's cursor is, and that's 157,000 square feet. And that site provides for all of the zoning needs, of the existing salt and stall apartments. Parcel B is what's not needed in order to meet the zoning needs of Parcel A and as you can see the site has been designed in such a way to allow for a future development of the site with intention of it being more affordable housing in Medford. And so the reason why we're back is because we wanted to make it explicit in the decision that it would acknowledge this future development potential on the parcel, and that essentially parcel A is what's needed to meet the zoning needs of Saltonstall Apartments. There was a zoning table that was submitted and it outlined the total square footage for the entire site, and then also showed how parcel A meets the zoning needs of the Saltonstall apartments. And this is important to the project, because we want to make it very explicit to the project's lenders that parcel A as designated here is essentially what's needed and that the site is not relying on parcel B to meet the zoning needs. And so I also wanted to note that we're not looking for any zoning approvals at this point for parcel B or a site plan review for that portion. What we wanted to do was just clarify the relationship between what we're noting here as parcel A and parcel B. So we'd be happy to take any questions that the board has. And thank you so much in advance for your time.
[David Blumberg]: OK, thanks. Alicia, you didn't mention any other staff members other than folks in your office. Is that still the case, Amanda? Do we have anyone else to weigh in?
[Amanda Centrella]: Nope, that is still the case.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So, um, so this is a public hearing. So if there are any members of the public who would like to provide a comment, you can raise your hand, um, using the raise hand function and I can call on you. And if you could just provide your full name and address for the record, um, or if you're having a hard time finding that feature, um, feel free to type in the chat and I can call on you and, um, we can go from there. So I'll just give everyone a moment to respond.
[David Blumberg]: Would you like to mention the email opportunities for folks as well, Amanda?
[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, yes. Thank you, David. Yes. And if you would like, you're welcome to email our office with a comment. Just please provide your name and address for the record. Our email address is ocd at medford-ma.gov. I'll put it in the chat. OK. And while we're at it, I'll check that account just to make sure something hasn't come in. OK, seeing nothing there, and I'm seeing no hands at this time.
[David Blumberg]: OK, excellent. Let me open it up then to the board and just for kind of to help streamline focus our discussion. I wanted to mention the parcel B question kind of at the end and maybe if we can focus our comments on the proposed addition and the enclosure with the generator at first and provide feedback and throw questions on those two topics, at least initially. So is there someone who'd like to take the floor for us today?
[Jacqueline McPherson]: David, this is Jackie, vice chair. I just wanted to, one of the things I did not mention at the beginning of the meeting is that I will be recusing myself from discussion of this particular project due to my involvement with the state and which one of the proponents that gives direct funding. And although I understand from the proponent that funding is not from the state side, I still want to be safe rather than sorry.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, Jackie. And we recall that you did that the first time around with the full interview. So we appreciate your, your thoughtfulness there. Any other of my colleagues who'd like to ask some questions or have some comments on the other two elements there, the generator or addition. All right. Do we, I'll ask a question then, and maybe best to Ben, is there an image that you have that can give us a sense of what the fencing is going to be? You have an enclosure around this generator and electrical equipment, and you mentioned that the material would be the same, which sounds like a good idea to mirror what you're gonna see on the front corner of the building, which is closest to the enclosure. I wonder if you had a shot of that.
[Unidentified]: I have something that I can take a second here to find. Okay. On the south end of the building,
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Down at this end of the building, there's a mechanical screen, which is a steel post fence with the panel design that we were discussing. And this is the the design that we're proposing for that end and something similar to that at the front of the building where the trash enclosure is. So that's the general idea that it would be a freestanding post. I think in the generator enclosure, the panels would come lower. This is raised up because of air circulation, but it's a general idea.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think this is the best example of what what we would propose. And again, I don't have it next to the building. So is that helpful?
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, thank you. Okay, let me, let me then ask on the parcel be peace. And I note that there's been some language that's been suggested to city staff or city staff is shared with us. sort of acknowledgement from the board. So I thought I would just read that and make sure that people know what's being proposed here, which would read an acknowledgement. The board acknowledges that the portion of the property shown as lot B, or maybe it's parcel B in this instance, is intended by the applicant to be the site of potential future development, but any such development shall be subject to further site plan review, as well as any other necessary zoning relief, all is required by the Medford zoning ordinance. So my understanding is that's the specific request that MHA has presented to us. My own comments on that it seems like that's consistent, essentially with what was discussed initially, and I realize you're trying to get things either ducks in a row a little bit, maybe it wasn't reflected on the paperwork explicitly but it does match what I recall from our discussions. Are there other board members who want to share thoughts on that. Heading in this direction, I don't think that we would be engaged in a subdivision or approving that part. Everything would have to be approved and go through the normal process. It's just maybe a note for future, a note of their intention, some preliminary statement, if you will. But I don't see this as being something that would be an actual.
[Claes Andreasen]: I could ask a couple of questions, please. So I'm assuming that in the future there would need to be some sort of easement put in place to access the parcel. Is that right?
[David Blumberg]: I'll let the applicant respond to that, but I have my own opinion on it too.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[Unidentified]: We'd expect that there would be some easement for access to parcel B. And so removing parcel B
[Claes Andreasen]: from the equation here, the lot meets all the necessary constraints. The one I'm thinking of specifically is open space. Is that correct?
[Unidentified]: That is correct.
[Claes Andreasen]: Okay. And then parcel B as a standalone would be subject to just its own when and if something was built here, it wouldn't be then combined with parcel A, correct? It would be its own. It would have to be, right?
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: That's correct. So we'd expect that they would be two standalone developments in terms of how they're structured. Okay.
[Claes Andreasen]: That's all I have.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, and to follow along with what Clyce is saying, I think you'd have to come back to the city again, right? I mean, the parcel B would have to be viewed on its own and stand on its own in connection with zoning. And as it stands at the time of the application, all that sort of stuff would still apply, notwithstanding anything that we might acknowledge in our amendment tonight.
[Claes Andreasen]: And I got to think it would be pretty constricted by
[Unidentified]: setbacks from the water as well. But I'll offer discussion when and if this happens.
[David Blumberg]: Any other comments from the board? If not, let me ask Amanda, do we have any late participants from the public?
[Unidentified]: seeing none at this time. Okay.
[David Blumberg]: All righty. So we should then.
[Deanna Peabody]: David, I just had one question. How is the parcel A not include the parking lot? Is that at the top part of the
[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: This portion of the parking lot is an easement from the DOT land, from the MassDOT.
[Unidentified]: Okay, thank you. Okay.
[David Blumberg]: So unless there's more discussion, maybe we could contemplate a motion. It seems that a motion would need to amend the site plan approval to include the enclosed area with the transformer and generator. Would need to amend the site plan to approve the 1,517 square foot first floor addition to the building. And the amendment would include the acknowledgement that I read and that was presented by MHA.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent, thank you. Roll call vote then. Deanna Peabody.
[Deanna Peabody]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Clyson Dresen.
[Deanna Peabody]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedeman.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: George Fisher. Yes. And I'm an aye as well. Thank you.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much.
[Ciccariello]: Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, well, we're on to another item, which is a new one for us, brand new, hot off the presses here with our revised zoning ordinance in Medford, is the possibility that a Medford resident could apply for a special permit for an accessory dwelling unit at their residence. And our first applicant, first in the shoot here, Michael Sarabian, Michael, welcome.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much.
[David Blumberg]: I thought that before I turn the floor over to you and and or anyone that you might've brought here on your behalf. I thought I might mention a couple of things because as a board, we really haven't, we haven't had to face this at all. And so we should be reminded that there are some conditions for an ADU here in Medford. They're found in our ordinance at 8.2 on those conditions, which most of which are conditions for your application itself. There are other things like there can only be one ADU on the lot, there are size limitations on the ADU, no greater than 900 square feet or another measure, but in this case, probably the 900 applies, and discussion about parking, exterior materials, that sort of stuff. And we're asked to grant special permits under the zoning ordinance. If we have a finding that the construction and occupancy will not be detrimental to the neighborhood in which the subject property is located. After considering a number of factors that are elsewhere in the ordinance inconveniently located at 11.6 98.2. And so there are some things that we should keep in mind as we're going through this. And they are really very general points. Social economic community needs, are they served by the proposal, traffic flow and safety, adequacy of utilities and other public services, compatibility with the size, scale, and design of other structures in the neighborhood, impact on the natural environment, and the proposal's compatibility with the city's comprehensive plan. So that's really by way of background to share with the board and if there are members of the public who maybe are interested that hey this is the first ADU to be in front of the city what the heck is happening and what do people consider when someone applies for one of these things. That's how you can find the information and that's what's before us tonight. So all of that said, I think we're going to find a lot of these ADUs, like Michael's, are not having huge global citywide impacts, notwithstanding the principles that we're going to be applying in looking at your proposal. So that's Big academic background, I'm sorry to take so much time on it. Hopefully it's beneficial to someone out there, but let me turn the table over to you then, give you the podium to share with us your plans for your property and the ADU that you propose. Thank you.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much. First of all, thank you, Amanda, for helping put this together as well as the building department. The building department's been up here a bunch of times because we're trying to do it along with Amanda. We're trying to do it correctly from the beginning being number one, On the list, it's been a little bit challenging, but we've worked well together, I believe, Amanda, to kind of move forward and figure it all out. The structure is already here. The structure is being, it's already been existing. It's a brand new structure a couple of years ago. I'm already being taxed on the structure through the city of Medford. We're just trying to figure out the ADU portion. We adhere to all the guidelines under the ADU compliances. And the only thing that was in question that I really don't know is I live on a private street in the city of Medford. I have two parking spaces in front of my house and where the ADU is located, I have approximately four or five parking spaces in my driveway. So I don't know what the requirements are, but as far as allocating a parking space for the ADU, It's the one right in front of the garage, according to the picture on the left-hand side. So, I mean, I don't know. I should not be highly, I should not be any impact in the neighborhood because it's already here. It's just the residential neighborhood method. And from what I understand, Method is trying to move a little bit towards Somerville and Cambridge because we are running out of housing and we're trying to go along with it. But I do like that we are starting from the beginning with a lot of guidelines so that it doesn't get out of control because I think I've been here for over 30 years and my family's been here for over 100. So I do like that we are trying to do it right from day one and move forward, that's all.
[David Blumberg]: Excellent. Michael, let me open this up to board members who might have questions.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Did everyone get the materials that Amanda had, by the way?
[David Blumberg]: Sorry. I was going to say, you shared some materials with us, and we have some images of the lot, and we have some images of the building. OK, great. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Excuse me, David, is there somebody who could share screen? It doesn't have to be Michael. It could be Amanda or one of us.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: I hope it's not Michael.
[Alicia Hunt]: Just to show for everybody.
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure, I can share screen.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: You guys even know where my street is? Does anyone know where my street is in Medford, Paul Road? Probably not.
[Alicia Hunt]: I had to look it up.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: It's up off of Roosevelt at the top of Forest Street, an old fashioned neighborhood. Roosevelt is a horseshoe and Paul cuts right through the middle of it. There's only six or eight houses on my, maybe like five or six houses on my street. just the quiet little sleepy little street. It's actually really nice, it's convenient, 93. Not too many people, even who have lived in the city for a long time, have been on the street, so.
[David Blumberg]: Amanda, maybe you can show us the image. I think Michael gave us one of the separate structure. Okay. That's fine too.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. So that is the, that is the existing structure that is new. We had an existing garage that was taking down. I was definitely, um, built original with a house. It was an old carriage garage. Um, we complied with the building department, uh, zoning and lot lines and all that kind of stuff. And that's exactly what it looks like. There's a garage on the bottom and it was unfinished at the top. And then we finished it off. Um, if you look to the garage door, uh, man, if you go, can you go to the other Google earth view, looking down the driveway, uh, on the right hand side, if you see the garage, uh, if you see the ADU on the left and the back. There's parking there. You'll see my truck parked in front of the door. You can actually put three across right there. Right where the cursor is right now is where we can allocate the designated parking spot if you want it. Again, I can park, I don't know, by that picture, six cars in the driveway. I have six cars anyways. As far as being any detriment to the neighborhood as far as parking and stuff like that, see it being a problem, but it's up to you guys.
[David Blumberg]: Michael, can you let us know, is there any expansion of the existing building?
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: No, that's it. That's the whole structure. If Amanda goes down to the next level, that's what it looks like. That's the side view from my yard. That's what it looks like. It's gabled in the front, gabled in the back. I think we did a pretty good job at it. It matches the black windows and doors and everything matches what the house looks like. The siding and everything matches the front. So pretty good.
[David Blumberg]: So in connection with this project, there won't be any modifications to the exterior. We won't see anything different.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Nope. It's all done. It's already been done.
[David Blumberg]: Yep. And the interior, can you tell us about the size and what's, what's the living area or not living area in.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: So the second floor is the ADU portion that we're going for, and it's around approximately 440 square feet, which complies with the square footage needed from the original home. under the requirements. Under those requirements, it had a little kitchen area, it has to have a bathroom, it has hot and cold running water. We took it a step above because we wanted to do it right. Ours has an addressable fire alarm system that is connected to the home. It has its compliance with fire extinguishers that were not necessarily needed, but we went above and beyond, and I like that. So that's what it looks like. right there. There's a refrigerator, a little kitchen area, bathroom area, and then downstairs is a garage area.
[David Blumberg]: And Michael, if you could also let us know Are your intentions, I think the ordinance wants the owner to live either in the ADU or in the principal structure on the lot. What are your plans in terms of where you will be going forward?
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: So we live in the house. We use it right now, as you said, a little office area. I'm hoping eventually someday to possibly use it as an ADU. I'm trying to fight my kids from not coming out here and living out here. Um, but it's, um, no, it's just, it's, it's a great little unit and it's, I don't know, it's, it's quiet area and we're not looking to do anything. You know, we own the house, we live in the house, which is part of the requirements. Um, I don't know, maybe someday when I get older, I'll come out here and the kids can have the house. I'm not really sure. And I know it has to be rented. Um, if I remember, uh, no short term rentals has to be a month or more from what I remember. which I think is a good requirement. That's it, really.
[David Blumberg]: OK. Other board members have any questions or comments for our trendsetter here, Michael? Pathblazer, Michael? Yeah, thanks.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: I hope you guys thought it was nice looking and it matched the house. That's what we were really going for from the beginning.
[David Blumberg]: So I'll just one person's opinion. I think it looks nice. I think that's key. You have plenty of parking. I'm sure we'd love for you to have less parking than what we see in your lot, but it is certainly not a concern in your neighborhood. Personally, I think it looks nice. I think the fact that it matches and the existing structure is certainly a plus in terms of things that we might be looking for going forward. You met the bill there. Any other comments? Otherwise, we can move forward to a motion there.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I would go for a motion, David, because as you echoed yourself, there's plenty of parking. It looks great, and it's not increasing area footage. There's no extensions being done. It seems like everything is well within reason, but that's just my opinion.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I am very supportive of projects like this and hope that we see a lot more come across our collective desks. Kudos to you, Michael, for being the first to cross, well you will see it, but you know, the first to do this.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: It really wasn't that hard to be honest with you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can we quote you on that?
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you can because I knew, I'm familiar with Cambridge and Somerville and what they were trying to do. And I'm not a big fan of the Airbnb short term rentals, all these people come and go in the neighborhoods for the weekend. That's my own personal opinion. And I knew eventually that when we redid this, I'm like, you know what, we're gonna go correct from beginning to end. And that's why it's easy to come to you to say, look, this is what we did. This is how we did it. And hopefully no one has any So that's why we plan on going this way. Because I think we also own property in the city as well. And, you know, we do plan on staying here for a while. And we want it to be, I hope you guys moving forward stick to the standards that you kind of have now. Because I think when it's done correctly from the beginning, it's a lot easier. everyone falls under the same standards. There's no other separate guidelines for me than there are for them for this person.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Michael.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: And the building department was fantastic as far as helping me through the process and that kind of stuff, because it's all new to everybody. Yep.
[David Blumberg]: George, did you have something?
[Adam Hurtubise]: No comments here. I was just kind of echoing everybody's comments. It looks good. OK, sounds great.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. based on a finding that the construction and occupancy of the accessory dwelling unit will not be detrimental to the neighborhood in which the subject property is located after consideration of the factors in section 11.6 of Medford zoning ordinance.
[Amanda Centrella]: So- Just wanna acknowledge that I think Alicia, Director Hunt has her hand up.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, I'm sorry, Alicia, I didn't see you.
[Alicia Hunt]: I thought maybe you didn't, and I just keep being confused about one thing that maybe I should have noticed this during the application process and asked for it. But isn't the process normally that you need permission to create an ADU and that that's what this is, and then you build it? I'm very confused by the whole build it first and then come get permission afterwards part. And, but you said you were working with the building department on it. Maybe I should go ask the building commissioner that I was just perplexed. Did you build it as something else?
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Oh, so, so we, we started off as a garage with just art space above because it got great light and we just kept going as far as, so the whole thing came up as far as I was just using it for storage and art space. And then the ADU part came up. And I said, can I convert this into an ADU? Because that's the way the city was going. And they said, well, if you can comply to these guidelines, you'll be the first one in the city. So it wasn't like I was building and then became, so just happened to fall into the same thing as method change. I don't know, is it called the zoning law or whatever to accept the ADU? So it just kind of fall in place altogether.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I might, I might, I will later reach out to the building department just because I'm perplexed, right? If somebody wants to build a building, first they come and they get their special permit and then they get their building permit. That's where I was sort of confused by it.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so this unit's been here for almost a year, two years almost.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Because now that ADU came up, we want to apply for the ADU permit. So I see where you're going, and I don't disagree with you, but it kind of was going as a new structure. And then the A.D.U. came into method.
[Alicia Hunt]: OK, because I know that there's been an issue with in-law apartments and stuff, the things that are illegal in the city, and then they have to tell people to rip out kitchens and stuff. So the kitchen's already there.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's a small kitchen. When we submitted our plans for the for the unit, for the out space, we had a little sink and a little kitchen area for washing stuff out, yes. And the same thing with the bathroom. And now it was finished, so.
[Unidentified]: Go ahead, Danielle.
[Danielle Evans]: Through the chair, I'll be recognized by the chair.
[Unidentified]: Go ahead, Danielle. Oh, sorry, sorry.
[Danielle Evans]: I will just also add, I'm not opposed to the project, but I think it is not in line with the intent of the ordinance, which is So you can have a user by right within your existing structure, if you want it in a separate structures by special permit, but it's supposed to be an existing structure. I don't believe our ordinance has a time frame of how long that structure has to be in existence. and previous municipalities I've worked in, there's actually been time frames, like the structure has to have been there for 10 years. Otherwise, you know, it's sort of a loophole where you build a separate structure and now you can create a unit when ADUs, the selling point of getting them passed you know, by council and allowed in single family zones is that it doesn't create the appearance of more units or increased density, that it looks like it always did. So it's a garage, it's always been a garage. And with some slight modifications, you can add another much needed unit generally. In some municipalities, this sort of proposal is absolutely allowed, building, you know, a separate dwelling unit on a property, you know, as a good example of infill zoning. I just want to make sure that this isn't the order of operations of how these are approved going forward. It can be a slippery slope, because I know with city council approving it, this didn't change the built character in a meaningful way. because these structures have always been there. The property looks the same. Even with parking, you would add permeable parking so that you're not increasing stormwater runoff from the property, just really minimizing the impacts, but being able to add the much needed smaller unit sizes that hopefully would rent for a lower price.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's something. I think you guys would have to kind of button up on your end going forward, or I see what you're saying.
[Danielle Evans]: If that's that is that the intent and how the ordinance is written, if, of course, you know, ordinances are a living document and can be amended. And if that is the direction that we want to go, we need to be sending that message.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do we have any? It feels like we're getting some feedback from city staff live in the meeting. I don't see any documents in the project file from any city departments, any recommendations. Danielle, seeing that you came from the city of Somerville, I'm sure, I used to work there. I'm sure you're familiar with.
[Danielle Evans]: Your name looks familiar, maybe that's how.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I was on the SRA. But there's certain recommendations that come out. Right. I think it's fine if we get recommendations from city staff, but in order for this process to be, in order for us to manage expectations on all sides, I think maybe this is something that we chat about beforehand.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, I just yeah typing it because this is the first time I saw it on. Maybe I should just say in the background but one thing that I wanted to moving forward is having actual staff reports and recommendations. The boards and metric have not had any meaningful, you know, staff report, like staff reports or like real planning assistance, like the support that I would get on the summer zoning board, right? Get tones, like dense recommendations, recommended conditions. So that everyone was very prepared and knew what staff would take input from the public and no boards are, of course, you're not rubber stamps, but you take the planning staff, you know. Our recommendations are our thoughts, our findings, and, you know, take what you want, you know, take what you don't want, because you guys are the decision makers.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yeah, and forgive me, I actually, right, jumped, everything is, and I understand that every 351 cities and towns within Massachusetts have its own local ordinances, but overall, with my agency just passing the House and Choice Law, I saw this as a great opportunity. I thought the kinks had already been ironed out behind the scenes, so that's where I was coming from. So recommendations from the city prior to would definitely help us with a good flow so that everyone's on the same page because Again, I'm seeing it at the state level. And I'm thinking that it was already approved at the local level.
[Unidentified]: We're the first. OK.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I think that some of this is that this is the first one that's come through. And I somehow didn't quite realize when I saw the application that it was an already built structure. Like I didn't have the impression that it was permission to build the first ADU. So.
[Danielle Evans]: Well, I didn't know either.
[Emily Hedeman]: Has the garage already been demolished, Michael?
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yes. Yeah. Yes, that was demolished. What we do is it was unsafe. That's why we petitioned. We didn't petition. We built a new garage. Yeah. It was unsafe was falling apart original to the house is an old carriage house.
[Unidentified]: So, yeah.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman, he or her. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, he or her.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we should provide opportunity for that too.
[David Blumberg]: And obtain that special, which, you know, has time limits attached to it and conditions and that sort of stuff. But it certainly makes it a more marketable asset going forward. So I'm not sure where this leaves us with Daniel, with your point about existing structures and new structures and that sort of stuff. But I think we're probably going to see some folks who already have them fully constructed and have had them fully constructed for a long time, as opposed to maybe Michael's more recent work, but.
[Emily Hedeman]: And, you know, personally, as a renter, I'm assuming this is a rental. It basically has to be a rental property because you're not going to subdivide it. But the more rental units we can get in the city, the better. You know, housing continues to be a crisis. And in a spot like Paul Road, it's close to the highway. It's a nice neighborhood. got some good amenities around there, access to the bells, you know, that'd be a really great place for some renter to call home. So whatever we can do to make stuff like this happen, I support.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: COB, Bethany Collins — she, her, hers, hers. COB, Erika Vandenbrande): mildly confused by his order of operations on this one, although it may have happened before he came on we've only had the building missionary since October so i've actually it sounds like all this. PB, Jorge Boone & Peter Vitale PB – David Ensign – He, Him, His): was before him yes.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: PB, Jorge Boone & Peter Vitale PB – David Ensign – He, Him, His): it's from the previous. establishment. PB, Jorge Boone & Peter Vitale PB – David Ensign – He, Him, His.:
[David Blumberg]: : Okay. If there was any interest in the potential motion that I laid out there for you. If not, someone could offer a different one, but anyone interested in the motion to grant the special permit that I read out 10 minutes or so ago.
[Emily Hedeman]: Before we do the motion, do you mind, George?
[David Blumberg]: Emily, would you go ahead?
[Emily Hedeman]: So just walking through the process, because it sounds like that may not have been something that was done with this ADU ordinance. If we do approve the proposal at hand tonight, are we setting the proponent up for failure? You know, could there be an issue down the line for somebody to base the validity of this ADU because of the topic we're discussing this evening? We don't know.
[Danielle Evans]: Someone could appeal it, but if they don't, if it doesn't get appealed, then it's approved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. But people can appeal anything at any point, right?
[Danielle Evans]: During the appeals period. Okay. There's a 20 day period.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Great. Okay. How many days is the appeal period?
[Amanda Centrella]: 20 days after the decision is filed.
[David Blumberg]: So it is a special permit, and the motion I was putting on the table there is as to the construction and occupancy. So you need a special permit to occupy the thing, even if it's already constructed.
[Unidentified]: I think it's still relevant.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to approve this project then with the special provisions.
[David Blumberg]: Is there a second?
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'll second.
[David Blumberg]: Thanks, Jackie. We'll call a vote. Jackie Vurtado?
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Kweiss Andreassen? Yes. Emily Hedman?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Lurch Fisher? Yes. And myself, I'm a yes as well. Mike, thanks for helping us out and being the first in the shoot here.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. I appreciate it. If you have any questions or you need something from my point of view, just let me know.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you.
[MCM00000997_SPEAKER_03]: All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Amanda.
[David Blumberg]: OK, friends, we're on to item number three on the agenda. And this is relative to a Chapter 40 B development at 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, David Ensign --"Amanda, do you or Alicia want to give kind of a big picture on the projects and then I'll talk about what limited role and what limited goals we might have for tonight?" Does that make sense?
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. Yeah, I can. So, I'll just read a quick. This is as the project was advertised and noticed. So, the Board of Appeals will hold a public hearing on the resumption of consideration of a petition for MBP Mystic LLC, an affiliate of Mill Creek Residential Trust LLC, for a comprehensive permit pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40B for a multifamily eight-story apartment development. It consists of two buildings located on approximately three acres of land and the address is at 4000 Mystic Valley Parkway. This proposal will be developed as an approximately 350 unit rental apartment building containing a mix of studio, one, two and three bedroom apartments with 25% of the total units being designated as affordable housing to low or moderate income households. And this is in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 4 to B, Sections 20 through 23, which I included a couple or those pieces in your reference materials if we need to pull them up today. In this case, so essentially the Zoning Board of Appeals is the kind of comprehensive permit granting authority, and they've requested that a number of department heads and boards provide comments on the project for their consideration. So for those of you who have been on the board and done kind of site plan review for projects that require zoning relief, it's not dissimilar from that where they're asking, the permit granting authority is the zoning board, but they're asking for recommendations or comments from the community development board. And I think David will probably speak more to this and Alicia, but because of the Chapter 40B filing, technically the board can't outright deny a project like this, but they can include reasonable conditions for approval. So specifically the zoning board may ultimately include conditions and requirements on any aspect of the project, such as height, density, site plan, utility improvements, or long-term affordability, provided that these conditions don't make the development economically unfeasible.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. So I guess my thought tonight was that we could just sort of talk about, and we're not going to hear from the applicant, they wouldn't appear before us, because it's a comprehensive permit, they're going to deal with the ZBA and the ZBA alone on this. But we could, for the benefit of our ZBA members, we could sort of kick around, maybe brainstorm a little bit. If Amanda brought up a Jamboard for us, we could put down comments, we could put down questions, we could just identify issues that we want the ZBA to keep in mind, ask about, et cetera. You know, usually with a site plan, we'd have, be driving toward a list of conditions. This doesn't have to be even that formal. It can be a list of issues, questions, comments, that sort of stuff that we can collaborate on. And if we come up with a list of things that we think are worth noting and sharing, then We could turn that into a letter and we could send along to the ZBA with our kind of collective thoughts. So if that sounds like a reasonable way to approach this, again, we're not going to get a presentation on this. We have to rely on the materials that have been shared with us. I can ask Amanda to bring up the board and we can maybe start a discussion on this project and what we think of it.
[Amanda Centrella]: And if at any point folks would rather I have up the, um, so, you know, any of the materials that were shared out, um, just for reference and also happy to do that.
[Claes Andreasen]: David, maybe, maybe this is, uh, and Alicia question too. Um, You know, in looking at all the materials, there's, There's a number of variances that the project is seeking. And that's sort of the reasoning behind all these sort of misalignment with the current zoning on the site is that ties to the 40B, correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: So if it's helpful, the way, like in the big picture, the idea of a 40B is to increase the housing stock and increase low income housing or availability of deed restricted affordable housing in Massachusetts. And so this is to help streamline the process and to allow people to build it where it wouldn't otherwise be allowed. But they feel that it's economically feasible, that it's affordable to do so. and that the state wanted to support that by putting this process in place. So what they are asking for is, it's not technically variances, variances are a legal term and there's a very high standard to meet them. What they're asking for, they've called out, I'm not even sure that we use the word Waivers, although I for I believe it is be helpful to have them pull them up myself in a second, but basically they're asked to call out what are all the local rules, whether their rules regulations or ordinances or zoning that they would like to that they are planning. to not abide by that they, okay, they do use the term waiver, that they would like a waiver from. And the city cannot deny them other than for some specific reasons around health, safety, public welfare, right? We can't say, well, we didn't really want housing there. We're not allowed to say that. We're not allowed to, by the way, schools impacts on school facility, city facilities off the table, cannot discuss that. Um, anything, but we could like, we can't say like the look and feel of it. On the other hand, if you say I hate the look and feel, and I wish it was all brick instead of this other cladding, they could take that feedback and could consider your suggestion. Um, but they don't have to do it.
[Claes Andreasen]: What about like the eight stories versus seven or the, the The thing that really jumped out at me was the side yard, front yard setbacks, all those things. Those are the ones that seem pretty egregious to me. What is the reasoning behind being able to do those things when they're clearly, whether it's an antiquated zoning law or not, they're currently in place and they're just saying, well,
[Alicia Hunt]: Too bad. Right, and that's actually what the idea, but I hate to speak to the idea of the law because I was not as privy to the understanding of that. And actually, Jackie may have more background on the 40B law and its creation than I do, because I wasn't working in, wasn't around when they were even thinking about this. But those are the kinds of things that from a state perspective would say, that's not health, safety, welfare. That's how you want your community to look and feel. And that's not really on the table. I mean you could ask them you could say like, well we'd like it a little bit more and they could consider it, but you can't require it in this.
[David Blumberg]: But I should say, just to follow up on that, I don't think that we have to be so self-screening that we don't share comments. Because the ZBA is going to be, not only the ZBA, but they're actually going to be advised by outside consultants on the issues that Alicia is speaking to, which is like, can you really say no to these sorts of things? So I feel like if, if we're looking at the project and whether we want it to be brick or we don't like the setback or we don't like the front yard or whatever that might be. I think those are fair comments now when the ZBA actually looks at it among all the hundreds of other comments. There might be someone who says you can't raise that. But I think we would be doing our job if we did raise it, because it's something that we usually talk about and usually weigh in on, usually provide feedback on when we are in a site plan review. So the way we look at the world, those are the kinds of comments that we would always share. So it's OK to share them. And we can let CBA screen them out or redact them when it gets to that stage. Does that make sense?
[Claes Andreasen]: Yeah. Can I, can I ask one more question that that's perfect. I like, I like that a lot, David. I've heard, and I'm a little embarrassed because I did a 40 B myself, but it's been a couple of years, but there is something called a friendly 40 B and a not friendly 40 B. Can, can you, can someone talk about the difference between those or are we not there yet?
[Alicia Hunt]: So there is a technical difference. And technically, if it was a friendly 40B, they would have come to the city and said, we want to do this at this location. And the city, somebody in the city would have said, staff would have said, we agree, this is a good project. It's outside of our zoning. We see that because often the thought is that if we streamline everything, it makes it more cost effective for you to do this project. And then we would agree together on what it would look like and how they would do it, and they would use the 40 B process they wouldn't have to go through all the different hoops that they normally do, but it would be done together. This was not that this was a company coming in saying here's what we're doing. The city did fight this. However, the ZBA, this is sort of like not literally technically a friendly 40B, but they came in, they made changes, proposals, and the ZBA came back and said, you know what, what you're proposing now, we're willing to hear. We're going to stop fighting you and let this just go through the process now. We don't feel the need to drag this through court anymore. So it's not, friendly by technical definition, but they did agree through their lawyers to come back to the table on this. And I feel like we should just make sure you all know is that we have hired some peer reviews on the peer reviews are stormwater. civil engineering, traffic, those are all going to be through Tetra Tech, and architectural design review. And for that, we've hired Davis Square Architects to do the architectural peer review on it. So we will be getting those peer review comments. Those reviews have not started yet. And the applicant has to pay for those.
[Claes Andreasen]: Is that Cliff Bowmer from Davis Square?
[Alicia Hunt]: I want to say yes, but I'd have to, I want to check my notes.
[Claes Andreasen]: He did my 40 projects.
[Alicia Hunt]: Then probably he does a lot of 40 projects.
[Claes Andreasen]: Yeah. Okay. Um, I mean, I'm ready to, to, To start the list, unless anybody else has some comments, I think I saw Danielle has her hand up, but.
[Danielle Evans]: Oh, sorry, I just wanted to add that in general, a friendly 40 B is when a city or town already meets the requirement, we don't meet our 10% affordable housing stock or one and a half percent land area. So, you know, we don't have the leverage, whereas a friendly 40 B, City complies, but let's use this flexible zoning tool to put in this good project because you know outdated zoning it doesn't work there. So that's more like a more of a friendly for me usually it's because you meet it and we're just going to use this as a flexible tool.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: And not to mention, and I thank you for Daniel for saying that because one of the things that was missing here is that we don't have a safe harbor and pretty much, it leaves you, unfortunately vulnerable to the not so friendly 40 bees, and they're flexible sort of conditions and not being able to do it under a friendly which is a process. And I'm not even sure this is totally separate I'm just wondering is has Medford met it's SHI. Yeah, no, no, you're like a little over 7%.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, but since we haven't approved housing production plan that gives you a safe harbor, right? Well, once we make incremental progress towards our goal. So if we approve, just as an example, say if this one is approved and a second 40 B is approved that we may be seeing soon, that would be the incremental progress needed. It's a percentage of units I forget the number right now, but then your housing production plan becomes certified and you get safe harbor for either one or two years, depending on how many units we made approved.
[Claes Andreasen]: It's all coming back to me now. I remember on my project, it actually went while we were in the process, it went above 10%. And it got really weird then, but yeah. Yeah.
[David Blumberg]: PB, David Ensign — He-Him, He-Him. He-Him.
[Claes Andreasen]: PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him. the Bertucci's project. We talked about a master plan for this area, what the look and feel of this sort of swath of development could and should feel like. The way that they've set up the site here, it just seems like they're going, I don't know, Alicia, where, it started, I can't even imagine, because I look at it now, I'm really horrified. And in particular, that front area where, you know, I just feel like the parkway has this sort of very verdant look and feel to it, and it should really retain that. And they have basically like an entry and a handicapped spot, like three visitor spots, Like there's no landscaping and there's like, the buildings are pushed up against the lot lines on every side, except where there's a road that's cutting through. Like, it's like, there's no relief anywhere. And, you know, you could imagine if a project, you know, just, not that this is gonna happen, but if a project were to try to go in next door, it would, potentially do the same thing. It would just be so dense and so tight and so out of character and scale for this area that it would just be, I don't know. I just feel like, I think there's probably some good things about this proposal, but in my mind, just making sure that that frontage is, integrated into the parkway is really important. And they're just not doing that now. It's basically a driveway parking lot. And it's tight to that side as well. And then you're gonna go up eight floors. So I guess the second thing is the height. I don't know why they can't conform to the height. just one extra floor. It seems like a really odd move considering the extra expenses involved in going up to high-rise and only going for a single story above that and triggering high-rise. So I don't understand why they would do that, but in any case. And then I'm just sort of spouting things off, but there's not a loop road around the back which I was really surprised to see the fire department didn't make a comment on. As far as I know, it's wetlands back there and there's like no access. So I'm very surprised that the fire department didn't ask for a loop road around the whole entire project. I thought that was a little strange.
[Alicia Hunt]: Would it be helpful if I clarify a few things? Because zoning there at that location is two stories. So, because you were just saying they're only going up one story above zoning.
[Claes Andreasen]: Sorry. No, when you, if a building is over 75 feet, it triggers high rise. Oh, okay. Right. Which has a lot of extra costs involved in construction. So it's curious to me why they wouldn't just stay under the 75 and stay out of high-rise. I mean, that's sort of neither here nor there for this discussion, but it's odd. It's like they're trying to hit a certain number of units or something.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's like... That's actually very helpful because the way you had said it, I thought we might interpret that as... Yeah, I just wanted to be clear about what they were, how it was off from the other thing is that the. So we talked to them, we didn't like the idea of having vehicles, driving all the way around that building on that that would be detrimental to the wetland. So the way it's designed is that they would have. pavers and patio all the way around that fire trucks can drive on and can have access to, but would not be open to vehicles in general, so that the appearance will be patio-like, but that it would have significant fire truck access on most sides of the building. There's one area that they wouldn't go back to, but would be within hose length, if I remember correctly. I was trying to pull it up for myself.
[Claes Andreasen]: That sort of makes sense. I looked at the plans quickly, and I was like, no way that a truck could drive. Yeah, they put in the grass pave or whatever. I just looked at the plans, and it seemed like that wasn't possible. But if that's what they're doing, I mean, I guess that's OK.
[Alicia Hunt]: We've been trying to work with the fire department on options so it doesn't look like big paved roads all around all of our buildings but that it can function that way for them in the event of an emergency.
[Claes Andreasen]: Yeah that's fine.
[Alicia Hunt]: So yeah I just wanted to make it clear that and we really did not want vehicles back there near the wetland.
[Emily Hedeman]: I really like that modification and as somebody who lives in a building very similar to this right now who does have a ring road around it, we get stray cars driving pretty quickly on what is actually a pedestrian road. So I think that's a really thoughtful adjustment. Do the plans that we have, the civil and architecture files, do those show that modified paver concept?
[Alicia Hunt]: Amanda, do you know? I assumed so. I looked at them when they first gave them to us, but I didn't look at, I assumed that Amanda sent you what was given to us. I'm just flipping through them.
[Emily Hedeman]: The planter retaining wall. There's commercial, and then there's a road.
[Unidentified]: It's page three.
[Emily Hedeman]: Page three.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I don't see it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Concrete walk.
[Unidentified]: as a retaining wall.
[Emily Hedeman]: Go on the back.
[Unidentified]: With a width of, what, seven feet? So if you pan down, other way, sorry.
[Claes Andreasen]: See, this is what I was looking at. Yeah. There's no way a truck's getting back there. No. There's no way.
[Alicia Hunt]: So this looks different from the slides that they showed at the ZBA meeting and the slides that they walked us through. So I was actually just looking at what was in front of the ZBA to see if that slide set was there because it was much more illustrative than a civil set. The civil set is not so useful for comments. And that can be one of the suggestions back to them that you want to see a landscaping plan, you want to see that kind of stuff because that's honestly that's what's come back from the building commissioner is basically that he wasn't given enough information to really give that level of comments on.
[Claes Andreasen]: Yeah, I like that. I'd love to see, I'd definitely love to see the landscaping plans. I mean, just draw a green, a thin green line, and there you go.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: One of the things, and I'm just, because I haven't worked on this side of it for site eligibility for determining the 40B before, but if I'm not mistaken, this has been taken into consideration, even though not to our liking or to, by the state before they even approve site eligibility or project eligibility, isn't that correct? These are some of the things so it's really hard pressed to get someone to conform unless you can consider like safety and everything else. And that's why there's a need to like pretty much come together with the neighborhood and other department heads and things like that to try to have an appeal proof reason if a proponent doesn't want to kind of be flexible, isn't it? It's just my understanding that this is something, when they take this into consideration for site eligibility, all the wetland resources and things like that. I'm just trying to remember at the state level if this is something that they've done on their end or if they've tried to do. They won't take into consideration neighborhood character, but they do take into consideration like space and right of way and public assets and roads and roadways and things like that. Is that correct?
[David Blumberg]: I can't speak to that one.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: I'm just wondering on the site, I've seen a few project eligibility applications for 40 B's and I'm just wondering, this is something that they've already, they go over. And so I just, I guess to be very specific here on what we're recommending, that's all.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: This will go to the Conservation Commission as well. They're not exempt from or getting a waiver from the Wetlands Protection Act.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Jackie, did you have additional comments? I have a few.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: No, I don't. I was just pretty much asking questions alone.
[Emily Hedeman]: All questions are always good.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, David Ensign — He, Him, His PB, Harmon Zuckerman. He, Him, His PB, Harmon Zuckerman. He, Him, His PB, Harmon Zuckerman. He, Him, His PB, Harmon Zuckerman. He, Him, His PB, Harmon Zuckerman. He, Him, His things that you experience when you go from the neighboring parcels through this one to another beyond. And then I think then the verdant comment was just, this is a parkway that's been designed to have a certain natural feel to it. And the development should reflect and not negatively impact that longstanding historic design to the parkway. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, Moderator, Select Committee on the City of Santa Cruz, he was talking to just about, I mean, just sort of an open space, green space sort of requirement too. I think I heard that from you as well, Clyce, that it just feels like you've got nothing, you know, a road and a drive lane and a building.
[Claes Andreasen]: Well, that's exactly right. And if you look at the, the waiver requests, it's, it's like the, the number, the, the, the variance from that variance, the difference from the open space requirement for the site versus what they're proposing is like a really big number. Like, I can't remember exactly what it was, but it's, you know, it's, it's shocking. Okay. The thing I keep thinking about too is like when we, I think way back when we looked at a project off of Mystic Ave and we really talked about like how these projects are valuable and they're good, but they need to be considered within the neighborhood that they're in. And it just feels like this building is just like, here you go, boom. And it's just gonna be this huge thing that's just sitting there. And, you know, I don't know how else to put it, you know, I think, obviously, there's a there's value in 40 V projects and getting more housing, all that, and that's really important. But I think planning is, is important to and considering, you know, the places where we're all going to live.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman.
[Emily Hedeman]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. You know, those are including a larger retail ground floor, and I think that's a true second floor, but 123456 stories, six stories by Wellington, which is kind of like a mini town center, effectively. To Clyde's point, this is going to stand by itself. Not with. As of today, not with any adjacent buildings, so I do a few other comments, but. to echo Jack's approach, maybe this is just a question. How can we, how can the developer fit in with the character of the neighborhood, which I know can be kind of a polarizing word, but the character of the neighborhood from a scale perspective, playing with items like setback, like parking, because if they are truly trying to hit a unit number, Their parking podium extends from looks like a basement floor all the way to the third floor. Are there additional parking reductions that can happen to enable more units, maybe even just one less floor? I think that would help.
[Claes Andreasen]: I would actually trade. I would keep the floor and take more open space.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, the setbacks and maybe, you know, it's more of like a stepped building, at least coming from all these horrible directions, but I drive by this road every day, but, you know, at least coming from the West, you know, maybe there's a little bit of a step to it. You know, there is the Mystic River Park condominium building, which is fairly tall along Mystic River Parkway. That is how many stories? 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11. That's 11, but to compare those two, you know, there's, I would say at least two times from a front setback. They're really generous kind of yard to the side, you know. I don't mean to counter my earlier statements as somebody who is pro rental units. But I think I was, as other board members are saying, we want to be really intentional with this. So that's all I'll say about that. But I did have a few other things I just wanted to bring up as comments. As someone who lives in a very similar building, we have a shuttle that stops outside of our building from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. And then again from like 4 PM to 7 PM and it just does loops from our building to Wellington. There are two other buildings. Three other buildings, I think that have similar shuttles and they're all kind of running the same loop, so I would request that any sort of transit plan, especially if it includes transit to Wellington, which it appears is the closest station, account for future development and take a collaborative approach to a transit plan rather than an individual building only approach, because seeing those four shuttles kind of do that loop for six hours a day and knowing that my building may or may not have sustainability certifications attached to it blows my mind. So that would be one comment. And I would encourage them to have some sort of transit to Wellington, especially if that can reduce parking, increase setbacks, increase open space, et cetera.
[Amanda Centrella]: Emily, I'm sorry. I feel like I missed a piece of that. So would account for future development and I feel like you mentioned like following kind of planning.
[Emily Hedeman]: Like a collaborative transit plan.
[Alicia Hunt]: We have a TDM in that area. Is that what you're thinking, that they should join the TD? Maybe. TDM? I don't know.
[Emily Hedeman]: We can't, again, we can't ask them to really do anything through this process, but I think that would be beneficial. And then also coming from a development background, you know, running a shuttle for six hours a day versus sharing one, probably, you know, financially not appealing. So. sharing is caring, see what everybody else is doing. I did want to talk about trash and dumpsters, everybody's favorite topic, especially since there is what looks to be wetland directly behind this site. So as somebody in a very similar building, we have a trash problem with our dumpsters. It feels like the trash goes directly from our dumpsters into the street, into the woods, or into the stormwater management areas. So what I would encourage this developer to do would be to site, and I couldn't really pick it out, I don't know if PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she-her, hers PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she-her, hers PB, Lisa Smith-Miyazaki, she-her, hers trash area which has dumpsters which receive the trash and the dumpsters are pushed out to the curb and picked up potentially on a daily basis. But given the volume of trash that this number of units would generate, which is very similar to mine, I would encourage them to really take a really thoughtful approach to where the trash is stored, which it looks like it's at the back end of Commercial Street for one building. And then, yeah, they're both on Commercial Street, but still, just make sure your trash isn't blowing into the wetlands. Thank you for thinking that very thoughtfully, Amanda.
[David Blumberg]: Probably citing it and sizing it too, right? Yes. I'm hearing that.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then security. I was really encouraged by the Who had it? The building commissioners comments about a security system. I highly recommend that they implement the security system comments, including providing a security plan to the police chief, fire chief, and building commissioner, which includes, which shall include, shall is the fun word, but not be limited to closed circuit video, 24 hour security, remote access voice loudspeakers. Yes, and I'm hoping that that those conditions are related to the actual operations and occupancy of the building, because we have issues at my building related to related to theft. related to health and safety, and we don't have closed circuit videos, we do not have 24-hour security. There's all sorts of issues, so I would highly encourage them to take that condition and implement it and build it as part of their business plan for this building. And by that comment, Amanda, and I hope that it's related to occupancy. I want it related to occupancy and not related to the construction of the site. Because it's cool you want to protect an asset as it's being constructed, prevent theft, prevent injury. But if residents are going to live in this building, if they're going to have visitors, if the building is going to be a good citizen of Medford, we want to make sure that there's some support there. And the last point that I'll bring up is related to the comments from the fire department. So as somebody who lives in a very similar building, we have fire alarms going off at all times, at all hours of the day. Typically, when most of you would be sleeping, as somebody who rents and does not own, I do not have any control over that. And it is, awful. So whatever, whatever systems the applicant has installed in previous buildings in Medford, please learn some lessons from those. Because it would really be a shame if future residents had to deal with it. And I think that's it. Overall, in support of more rentals. And, yeah, I'm curious to see how this moves forward. And that would be the life safety system, Amanda. Specifically fire alarms.
[Unidentified]: Thank you guys.
[Emily Hedeman]: I know the Medford Fire Department does not enjoy their frequent trips to the building.
[David Blumberg]: That sounds miserable.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's one word for it, David.
[David Blumberg]: I'm sorry to hear you have to go through that.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's fine. Things are great. Sitting in a unit B1 right now.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, goodness. Yeah. Deanna, George. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Do you guys want to throw away.
[Deanna Peabody]: Those are all great comments.
[David Blumberg]: Okay.
[Claes Andreasen]: I guess maybe the summarize my, my comment about the, the entry. And the, and the loop. I think maybe a way to. Address my comment would be to move the drop off. And the visitor parking. protect the open space against the parkway.
[Emily Hedeman]: That may also decrease traffic congestion as well.
[Claes Andreasen]: Yeah. They have two curb cuts on Mystic Valley Parkway. It'd be nice if they just really just had one and if it were like a and out only, you know, that would be ideal, where you would enter the project off commercial. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, it reminds me of like the Harmons by Alewife too, right off RootTail.
[Claes Andreasen]: I think I know the architect of that one. You're looking at.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, they're nice units. But yeah, any lessons we can learn from that, you know.
[David Blumberg]: Amanda, I had a few items for us to consider. One is the public transportation. I guess this in some way gets to Emily's point on the traffic management. But I don't think this area is serviced by enough public transportation to support these kinds of developments. I think it's going to receive less with the MBTA proposed plan, as I understand it. But I noticed in the traffic study that there was reference to the 710 route, and that route's been discontinued. So I was a little perturbed. Please don't type this in your thing, but I was a little perturbed that they were relying on a In part on the availability of a route that's been canceled by the MBTA, it just didn't feel right to me. And in fact, if a development like this goes in that location, it seems like you need more public transportation, whether it's MBTA provided or as Emily was suggesting, if it's something that's provided by the developer on an ongoing basis to allow people to get to an asset like Wellington.
[Emily Hedeman]: Because the walk to Wellington is not.
[David Blumberg]: Right. I think the nearest stop otherwise would be going to the mall. Yeah, that's, I think for a lot of people would be a hike. It's sort of indirect.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: And I'm right across the street from the mall and that's not ideal for me because the 134 is a regular so to have other people trying to rely on that route. It's just not feasible. They could go the opposite way, pretty much and meet image but that case they should just keep walking the Wellington is just, it's one of those just catch 22 areas where it's like you can walk but by time you walk, just keep going.
[Unidentified]: OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, this could be really interesting, especially with the McDonald Park as a public amenity across the road. And the last thing I'm ever going to do is suggest a pedestrian bridge, because I know better. But as somebody who drives on Mystic Valley Parkway and sees the limited turn, the limited turn timing to go north on Commercial Street, pedestrian crossings from this block to McDonald Park are not not going to be great. So it's
[Jacqueline McPherson]: You cross at 61 local street or you use the underpass right there at home stadium, or you wait until you get to CBS to cross and come back to McDonald and that's just me living there, or you risk your life.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Ratio would be helpful I have some other smaller things too. I don't know if these measure up or it's probably silly in light of the size of this project, but I just, I didn't see where they're going to put their maintenance assets. You're going to have to have a lot of equipment to maintain these buildings. And I just didn't see a place like where does, where do the snow plows park? Where's the equipment room? I just didn't see those things on the plan. I felt like maybe they were leaving them off.
[Emily Hedeman]: So as somebody who lives in a very similar building, they hire a lot of contractors for that work who will come on site. And because Mill Creek does own another asset, not even five minute drive away, and I'm not sure what their plans are for that asset, but it could be a shared services approach from a maintenance perspective. Um, but regardless, it's a good question.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. And did anyone see kind of our, our usuals that we always ask about, um, bike storage, electric vehicle, uh, spaces. Um, is it the subject to solar? I imagine given the size or is that 40 B doesn't play that way.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[David Blumberg]: I didn't pick up on those elements on the materials that I reviewed.
[Unidentified]: I don't see them either.
[Alicia Hunt]: I am going to double check this with our legal counsel and our consultant, but I was under the impression that anything they wanted a waiver from they had to ask for in that, like, including the solar. It may have been an oversight on their part because it's an unusual Not many communities have that, but it was passed before their original filing with the city. So I'm going to check on that and what's the correct process to ask for. I'm going to reach out to our consultant to confirm the process to ask for additional files. Anything additional they have to submit to the ZBA and then they can be shared with others to be considered part of the public record. and I did check the CBA's files online that they did not have a copy of the slides that they presented at the public meeting.
[David Blumberg]: So maybe the way we could deal with a laundry list like that, Amanda, is just to have an item like request more information about, and we could, you know, colon bike storage assets, electrical, vehicle, you know, solar, A couple of other things we always ask about on the larger projects, and I see some balconies here, but you know, operable windows, more balconies, fresh air, and additional light into the building. Those are always things that we pursue with folks with these kinds of proposals.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I'd also be curious to hear about the retail space on the first floor. You know, what their intent is for that. I might see bike storage in the south, east, and southwest corners of each building, close to the lobbies along Commercial Street. But regardless, we should just get clarification because they're not labeled.
[David Blumberg]: Do you have that in your building, Emily?
[Emily Hedeman]: We do.
[David Blumberg]: And does it work?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, it's great. We have electric vehicle storage and electric vehicle charging stations, bike storage, mail rooms, trying to think of what else. We do have more outdoor space. It's right along the Malden River. So we benefit from the Malden River walk, which is really nice.
[David Blumberg]: Is it fair to ask maybe as well about what the plans are for the courtyard? Because as you're mentioning that to me, Emily, I'm thinking, where do you sit outside and have a sandwich? Where do you have lunch? Where do you take the kids?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, are these pools? Are these open spaces?
[David Blumberg]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: So, these three, along with MHP and mass housing and the other housing leaders agencies, they put out the design review for 40 B, it's gosh it's over 10 years old now, and it's like a worksheet. I think we've done pretty good on our own. But I don't know that anybody has the time to read a 35-page document at this point. But it's an awesome process where they literally go through some of the things that we were all saying, and especially where this comes in with building height, like Clayce was saying. And it literally keeps you within the lines of how to stay straight with these projects. And building height and setbacks, why unacceptable? Facade length and articulation, why unacceptable? Continuing in and I guess anything that's outside of that outside of the worksheets that they've not that they're not open for content but I guess. It sort of just keeps you aligned with what a 40B project, to keep its flexibility for the project. It's just something to think about if anybody wants to look at that document. Again, it's from 2011. It hasn't been updated, but it still circulates from those agencies on 40Bs. I just found it. And I don't know if it would help. I mean, again, we've already made headway tonight, but I don't know if it would help when the proponent is actually before us. Prior to them coming before us. Recommendation of helping the ZBA with further recommendations, I don't know.
[David Blumberg]: Well, if you think it's helpful, I mean, we wouldn't necessarily have to interpret it, restate it. We could attach it or make reference to it on our list for the ZBA to consult whatever this is called.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yeah, it's I'll send it to you, David, and I'll send it to everyone. It's just a handbook approach to chapter 40 we design reviews. And again, it's just, it's literally for the board. It's for the design reviews for anyone that's actually working on the process.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can we send it through Alicia or Amanda? I'm sorry, Danielle, just to make sure that open meeting law wise, you know, we're, we're okay.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, definitely. Yeah, Jackie if you could share it with me and I'll circulate it around.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: They are pet friendly too.
[David Blumberg]: Any, any other comments. I think if, if, uh, if the rest of the group is in agreement, I could maybe just work with Amanda to Amanda can work up a draft based on the meeting. And I could be a second set of eyes for her. And then we could try to convert this into some sort of format that could be delivered to ZBA, which I imagine would be some type of a letter with a, with a list, like what we're looking at. Does that, does that work for everybody?
[Unidentified]: Sure. Yes. Thank you, David.
[David Blumberg]: Great. We're not sort of voting on this as much as just, I guess, some motion to close this item on the agenda tonight. Motion to move on? Or do you want me to just move on? I'll move on. Okay. Thanks for your input on that. Appreciate that. I think the last item for us are the minutes. October 26. Before we go to miscellaneous items and other updates. Did folks have a chance to look at the minutes. Any, any issues with those or a motion for approval.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion for approval.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent. Oh, roll call vote. Start with Jackie Fratato.
[Deanna Peabody]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Klyce Andreessen.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedeman.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: And George, is George still with us? Maybe we've lost George. Anyway, I'm a yes as well. record will show that George was offline.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, I believe he had to drop off at 8 30.
[David Blumberg]: Right. Okay. Miss Linnaeus, other updates. Amanda, we're going to turn the podium back to you. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. So we do have an upcoming meeting on the 18th. So it's a Wednesday, 6.30, which will be our meeting time moving forward, unless we all decide to shift that. The items set for that agenda so far are so we have a comprehensive plan final draft that will be going to the board for final review, and if you feel so inclined potential and adoption. So a couple of you have, maybe all of you were a part of the meeting where we had kind of that initial book in the summer. Perhaps some of the newer members might not have been fully on board yet. But since then, the draft has been available to the public and also receiving comments. We closed that comment period kind of late fall and have been working with the consultant team to make those final adjustments. So we'll share that with everyone ahead of the meeting and the meeting materials and have a discussion then. The other item set for that meeting is there is a proposal for a life sciences development at 283 Mystic Ave. They're not quite at the point where they're ready to submit a full site plan review application, but they had a couple of pieces that they felt like they would find it really helpful for to receive comment from the board on. And so they had requested kind of a pre-application meeting just to get a sense of if they're on the right track for You know certain portions of the project or if there was specific feedback that the board might be able to provide as it pertained to a couple of questions on the site. So those are the two main pieces for that meeting and. Oh yes, and we're in the process of reviewing proposals from attorneys to assist the board in drafting zoning for what we're expecting to be an upcoming planned development district application. So, Maybe I'll provide to you all in an email, some more information about that process, it's new to our zoning as part of the update. Some of you may recall, and so it's a it's a new process to us, or it will be like this will be the first iteration coming through the board. And Yeah, so I think I'll send out some more materials about that over email. And if folks have questions, you should please feel free to reach out and either myself or others from our office can provide a little bit more information, but back to my main point. Sorry, go ahead.
[David Blumberg]: And just to elaborate on your point there, this is an opportunity for the board and I guess the city in turn to get some advice on putting together what would have to be an amendment to the zoning to allow the PDD to occur and the advice that the board slash city would receive would be paid for by the developer. It's one of those outside consultant kind of situations for us.
[Amanda Centrella]: Correct. And the last piece is we've interviewed a few candidates for board positions and are hoping to make a couple recommendations to the mayor, one for a full member role and one to fill one of our open associate member roles. So that is not formal or official yet, but I just wanted to give you all a heads up. Deanna, you and I can can chat about what that means for future meetings with you. But I think, yeah, so So you and I can can do that as we get a little bit more information, because as you all may recall Deanna's role. She has been graciously fulfilling this role and kind of a holdover position, since her term technically ended last year. So yeah, I guess I don't, I don't want to, not to tease you all with like limited details, but once we have a little bit more information, I'd be happy and excited to make some virtual introductions. And yeah, so I'll keep you posted on that front.
[David Blumberg]: Great. Thanks, Amanda. Is that it from on the miscellaneous side?
[Amanda Centrella]: That's all I have unless Alicia or Danielle have any additions.
[David Blumberg]: OK, sounds like it's time for a motion to adjourn. I'll make the motion. I'll second. OK. And we'll go right to the roll call. Vice chair, Jackie Furtado.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody.
[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: Clyce Andreessen. Yes. Emily Hedman.
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: I saw the nod. And I'm a yes as well. So meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much for your input, comments, and your time tonight. Much appreciated. Welcome aboard, Danielle. We'll see you soon.
[Danielle Evans]: Good night. Take care. Thanks.
[David Blumberg]: Have a good night. Happy New Year, everybody.