[SPEAKER_07]: actions or on the questions that, um, how opposed comes to present bears.
[SPEAKER_06]: Go ahead. Thank you, vice president Collins. I just think, um, in this case, we should, I think, try to keep it simple. We're not, uh, Seattle, you know, we're not a city of that scale. And I just think we should reflect the capacity of our staff and also the, you know, sometimes we're not working with, giant, I don't think we, I don't even want to implement a policy that is too much for some of the smaller folks who might want to be developing something here. So, um, I think we should err on the size of user friendliness while also maintaining, uh, green priorities, but I could see how we could go down a rabbit hole pretty quick. Something that I've talked about is, you know, instead of having it be a score between zero and one, let's do between zero and a hundred. I think people really understand that scale. All you have to do is multiply everything by 100 anyway, so it doesn't really change the substance of it, but just trying to make it a little more comprehensible to the average person, I think, is something we should consider here as well. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, President Beres. For myself, I agree, I think that This is a less is more situation, especially when we consider that any sort of green score that we do apply is a big improvement in terms of the new features and benefits that will get from that over what we currently have, which is you know we don't have this type of worksheet we don't have these types of regulations right now. So I think that the most important, my number one priority is kind of making sure that we are crystal clear on what goes on to that worksheet, what are the goals and the priorities that we're formulating the rubric around. I agree, I think that we could have, there's certainly a lot of rabbit holes to get into, especially we I'm sure we could have a very fun conversation about exactly what types of plants and trees we'd like to see in different districts around the city. But I'm going, you know, as one Councilor, I think I'll challenge myself to take this big picture. I'd be curious to hear from city staff on that question of if we're, you know, if we're trying to pick three major topics that we want to organize the rubric around, whether it's heat mitigation, functional landscapes or another feature on the question of, you know, capacity for managing this policy. How much do we think that we can fit on the menu? What feels like the most important thing to have on it in terms of goals?
[SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully this thing is on. Building Commissioner Scott. I'm just asking if this is being done in concert with the engineering department, which already has stormwater retention regulations in place that affect new properties and existing properties. And the trigger is 200 square feet of new impervious area, so a deck. or a sidewalk can trigger their requirements, which involve engineers and other stuff. So I would hate to see these two clash with each other when it's all done. And that's something we've been doing for a period of time now.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just think that that was something I wanted to bring up too. I think how this interfaces with the stormwater work and also the potential tree ordinance, you know, those are gonna be two questions. I think there was a discussion where some of the green scores leave the stormwater element out of it, since stormwater regulations are handling that separately. And that might be the road we want to go down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I've seen usually this complements the stormwater management. For example, I think it's in Somerville, they have an urban forestry department, and they will be in charge of decisions that will be in here. This only affects the this is only applying into the lot, the private lot, so nothing about the right of way. So this is only, and it only takes into account the private lot. And usually this is regulated by the Department of Public Works. But it's something that this, whenever we go through the language, that it's something that of course we need to take into account and we need to see in the language how we should do this and obviously take into account the stormwater regulation to see that we are not doubling anything. So yes, we will take this into account, absolutely. Whenever we start with a draft, we can get more into detail.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you, I'll recognize Planner Evans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good evening, Danielle Evans, Senior Planner. I just wanted to kind of piggyback on that. I'm not an expert in the stormwater regulations and how you can comply with the stormwater permits, but I believe that a green score would have more kind of things that would help with urban heat island effect and just overall greening, whereas the stormwater permit could be satisfied, I think, with systems and things that are below the surface that don't necessarily cool or sequester carbon dioxide, things like that. So maybe this could be a way to incentivize achieving some of those goals through you know, bioswales, you know, versus, you know, underground retention system. And as far as what this could apply to, I feel like anything that would trigger site plan review could be subject to a minimum green score. I think that would be manageable from our office. And I think it would make it easier if there was, you know, a calculation, like a metric to, see if, because we have performance standards, but they're kind of subjective and it's kind of wishy-washy, whereas having a score that we could calculate from a menu of options, I think would be easier for when we're reviewing to make sure that it actually complies in some way. Because each site is unique and some things won't work on some lots that would work in other places.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate that. I'm hearing that in terms of capacity and making this doable. Apart from, let me know if I'm mishearing you, apart from the rubric of the green score itself, having a metric that just quantitatively says if a property, if a site is subject to green score or not would also be helpful so that that's not getting into the more arbitrary using your best judgment side of things, which would add another layer. Is that correct? Yep, just making it super clear. Yeah, I think that makes sense. I think that if we are, I think that it'll be important to have a very, very clear user-friendly frame around what properties are subject to this and which are not, if we're getting into, you know, drawing lines around. If this is to be not a universal policy, which it seems like, Paul, please correct me if I'm wrong, in all the cities that you gave example from, it sounded like it was targeted at larger developments and that size threshold was different based on district and building usage. Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, Kit, I lost you for a second. Are you asking me something?
[SPEAKER_07]: In the examples that you reviewed, it's true that in each case, green score only kicks in for buildings over a certain size threshold, but that size threshold is different depending on the zoning district.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it now. So it depends on the decision of the city. Somerville applies to any new building, it doesn't matter where it is, only special districts are exempt, but for the rest it applies to every building, residential, commercial, any size. Seattle and Washington, because they ask a bit more, they only apply it to the buildings that actually have a bigger impact in heat island effect, for example, so higher density. Washington has a threshold of square footage so they apply the minimum to after a certain they apply a green score after a certain square footage and for Seattle it's not applied in residential also not in Washington, also never residential, from one to four units. So when it's multifamily, more or less, I would need to check better. But mainly low density residential, they do not have to go through green score.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you. Well, I think for myself, again, trying to thread that needle in between pie in the sky, let's use this mechanism to, you know, robustly elicit more of the things that we know we want to see in our city between we have the staff that we have and let's make this a policy that we can really put into action and make sure that this is manageable for, you know, developers of all sizes in Medford. You know I'm inclined to have green score focus on, you know, greening our urban landscape here in Medford focused on functional landscapes that bringing more diversity to the green spaces that we do have on our lots apart from just lawns which don't improve the environment as well as some other options as well as, I think, mitigating the urban heat island effect is really important and some of those. Greening the landscape options are, of course, you know, rhyme very well with that goal. When it comes to how far should this extend, where should this kick in, and how ambitious should we be, I'm kind of of two minds. I think that You know, we can look at what's simple to implement and then think about like the consequences to city staff and the consequences on, you know, smaller scale developers. It's interesting to note that in some of all the supplies to all districts and to note that smaller scale development, you know, those small development projects are still going on at the same time. I think that there's also an argument to be made for this having kick in concurrent with site plan review, especially if we're hearing from planning staff that that's what's doable. Though I do like the idea of expanding this to all new development in the city. I think that that might have to be paired with maybe for a small development, you only have to reach like 50%, for example, whereas for a big commercial development, we'd want them to get all the way to 100. And I think we need to think through how to change the score depending on the size of the development without making it confusing or onerous. I'm curious to hear from my fellow Councilors if we have general agreement on at least the goals of functional greening and heat island effect and to kind of try to reach a decision about how far this should, how maximally this should apply to districts and developments in Medford. Any other considerations from our fellow councillors at this time on this topic? President Bears?
[SPEAKER_06]: Just given what we've discussed, I think site plan review makes a lot of sense, and I think we should move in that direction as a threshold.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay. All right, I'm hearing consensus around prioritizing. Councilor Callahan, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_10]: I just want to chime in. I totally agree. I think it's important to be involved, and I'm excited for it.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you, Councilor Callahan. I caught that, were other people able to? Okay, okay, great. We got you, Councilor Callahan, yeah. All right, great. Well, Paola, thank you so much for this overview. I'm really excited to work together on a policy that focuses on mitigating urban heat island effect, functional greening of the landscapes that runs concurrent with site plan review. In terms of next steps, I am curious, what does a green score policy look like on the city council side? Is this a matter of just putting enabling legislation into our code of ordinances and then like the planning department develops the rubric based on our priorities or do we get into that level of specificity. In a language proposal on as part of this process. Paula, sorry, that was to you. What can we expect in terms of... Sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sure. So I think that we would like to review about this new threshold and start preparing some language so you can already see it in more of a zoning, how it will be applied in the zoning. and what are the different documents that we can provide. We also want to talk with the city to see if they can help us to get the list of plans, to get a bit of the documentation that goes around it. I think that Alicia mentioned to us that that was a possibility, and that they will be willing to give us, for example, the list for native and adaptive plants that will be interesting to use in Medford. So we will just go ahead, give maybe several proposals, give different options on when those thresholds appear, and what type of scoring we will be doing, and start to preparing some standards, the element standards, so that we can review it with you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, great, thank you so much. Appreciate that, look forward to next steps. I understand our next topic on the agenda is, would that be incentive zoning? Yes. Great, I believe we have public participation on this item, so just quickly before we go on, Gaston, if you'd like to be recognized, you have three minutes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you very much. I just had a question given that this is also called a cool score. So unfortunately I have to replace the roof in my house and I did a lot of research on roofs and I was interested in using cool shingles, meaning shingles that have solar reflecting granules, which are for example, mandatory in California or at least some areas of California. And they're not available in the Northeast, unfortunately. The same manufacturer, they just divide the country in regions and they don't make them available here. So I was just wondering whether it would make sense to try to incentivize, maybe not small houses like mine, but commercial development to use solar reflecting paint, for example, in flat rooms, or even in bigger developments um that uh something like uh singles that again are readily available in other parts of the country thank you so uh yeah so the cool score for example that's something that cambridge uses and uh that um
[SPEAKER_00]: in a way incentivize the use of materials with, I think it's a lower solar reflect, a higher, yeah, so a higher reflective index. And this is the topic that I was talking about that it is a bit, there is a lot of controversy around this. and that is on the studies that have been made, all the variables that are being taken into account, for something like roofs to prevent heating, so to prevent that the heat goes into the building, having a reflective material, so with a lighter color, it would make sense. But what is always a lot better is going to be to have green. So because of not only that part of with the soil, and it's a lot more isolated, with water, it's a lot more isolated. So the incentivize for certain projects, and that's why maybe residential, we are not taking into account, it's because it's going to be a bit more costly. It's to have a green roof, that will be the best, to have green or blue roof so that it can also accumulate water. Not that it's bad, but I don't have still a lot of the information. So to say that it's very, very efficient, I think other things are more efficient because they don't take into account the porosity of the material, for example. They don't take into account many other variables that also play a very important part on the absorption of heat. So it's better, for example, gravel, even if it's darker or with a lower radiation, than white concrete, because of the compact capacity of the material, etc. There is no ventilation. No place for water that it can refresh the material. So there are a lot of things I think it's very technical and to incentivize I don't know how effective it is, as I said before, in exactly the same. going for a lighter material or with a higher solar reflective. Yes, that's great. But maybe what we want to do here with also stormwater collection, I don't think that is the best incentive to use. I hope I answered your, but I can get a bit more information on the matter. I also want to, so I will look a bit more into it and see if that has that type of element should go into the green score.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much, Paola. All right, let's get on to incentive zoning. Thank you. Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. So incentive zoning is going to be a bit similar to green score in the method that we use. Well, it doesn't have to, but it can be very similar. So it provides a menu of options that we can choose from. That's the part that is similar. Incentive zoning is not going to be mandatory. This is a very much voluntary program. And so the idea is to mainly negotiate with the developers that in order to let them build extra floor area, the community gets amenities in exchange. So we know that we have certain dimension standards for every district. And let's say that these maximums can be altered through this incentive zoning if the community gets certain bonus from it, certain benefits. It's usually only applied to certain areas, to certain districts, usually with higher density so that it's easier to build higher and more or floor area. And the requirements can be very site-specific. So it can be that certain, a corridor, for example, is going to be different than, or it can go neighbourhood by neighbourhood better. So it depends on what the neighbourhood needs. The requirements of the incentive zoning are going to change. So what do we have for developers? So for developers, they will get, it can be density bonus, this is the most usual one, fee waivers or exemptions, parking reductions or expedite permitting. These are the things that we're going to focus today on the density bonus, but just to know that these are also possibilities. And what is getting the city? They get more affordable housing. For example, the green score can be ideal, or you can have a better building score in terms of sustainability. You can have underground or cover parking. You can have public amenities on site, or you can have that they pay, they contribute into a fund that is going to be used for a community project. So those are the things that we will negotiate, right? And so in zones where the incentive zoning is going to be available, we have this kind of a base and a maximum building coverage or a base and a maximum high limit. This means Whatever I have by right is going to be my base. And whatever I can do and whatever I can get through incentives zoning is going to be my maximum. What are the different methods that we have? So many cities around are applying incentives zoning in thousands of different ways. So I'm just putting two so that we can, and what I'm going to, what I want to hear from you is what, how do we do this? What is the one we would like to have? And so there are these two different methods. I'm just sharing one in the city of Portland. And what you see is this base height that we were talking about, this pre-bonus height. They only allow it in three districts. And it's only in very specific, for example, in one of them, it's only one street. So they have the pre-bonus height, which is four, six, and four stories. And then they have these different benefits that they want to have. And this is a mid-block permeability, for example, a residential density, a green roof, or affordable housing. Depending on where you are, some is not applicable and some are. and then all of them will give you one story. So if you give mid-block permeability, this is basically that they have the lot in between two streets, two public streets, and they open it to passages to public so that they can cross from one street to the other through their building. And so Each one of these has obviously certain standards. So the green roof is not going to be just a very minimum green roof, but I guess they have a standards where it's going to be at least a minimum of thickness of soil so that they have a good absorbing, a lot of storing water, certain, I guess it's more about an intensive green roof. And then the affordable housing, which is, not the affordable housing that the city is already requiring, but a big percentage over that minimum required. And so with each one of this, you get one story. So this is the kind of the simplest way that we can have this. So just a few of them, not a lot, and then you get one story for this, each one of those. The maximum that you can have, so the height with bonus, the maximum per sub-district, is just going to be one more. So they only permit that you do one story up, and you can choose why there is going to be the mid-block, the residential, the green roof, or the affordable housing. Depending on the site, depending on the economical feasibility of it, you're going to choose one or the other. And then you have that bonus floor has to follow a certain step back, and in here is the 15 feet. So this is one way that a lot of the cities do it. They just give very minimum selection of elements, very much citywide in the sense that it's, well, unless it's the non-applicable for some reason, maybe because they don't have this requirements, maybe because they have a lot of green in that area, so they don't need so much the green roof. And they really need the affordable housing. And so they just, you can only get it if you do affordable housing, because that's the only thing that we are interested in incentivizing in that district. So this is one method, one way of doing it. The other one is, for example, a bit more complex in the sense that this is more like the green score system where you have some points. And in order to build one floor, you need to reach a certain amount of points. And so you have more the citywide kind of things. And in this case, it was rent reduction, then delete silver or any kind of sustainability for building. and there are the amenities, indoor or outdoor pedestrian, that whenever it's amenities in place, the maintenance will have to be done by the owner of the building, not by the city. So if we propose a plaza, that plaza has to be taken care by the owner of that building, of that development. And then we have a range of different amenities that we can get, different points that you can sum and then whenever you get to 15 points and you can have from two stories to three and a half, maximum floor area can be increased from 0.7 to 1.1, etc. There are different things that you can get from benefits that you can get if the 15 are reached or 20 are achieved. So this is the other way. So when we compare these two different methods, the City of Portland would be more simple. It's pretty much that they have two or three needs, And that's it. And they want to make sure that they incentivize only those. The other one, it depends on the area, and it is a lot more flexible, and it could be a lot more adaptable by district. And so, for example, if we have a neighborhood where we need a lot more green because it's very compact, and the city is not, there is not a lot of space in the public realm to do it, a way of incentivizing it is through incentive zoning. and to have these amenities and incentivize or give more points to the green areas, for example, and even in other areas you do have a lot of green and that's not your what you want to achieve, then the points that we're going to have for green areas, when you don't need it, it's going to be lower, and you have a lot of need for affordable housing, then you increase those. So these are the two ways. One is a bit more complex, but that gives it a lot more flexibility, and that gives us that it can be a lot more adaptable by the district needs. And the other one is more simple, but it doesn't mean that it's worse. It just means that depending on the needs, if we really know that we have two things that we really need to get, and this is a way of incentivizing, maybe that's and you don't want to go very high, you don't want to give a lot of stories or to densify a lot, then that will be maybe your better choice. So until here, I'm going to stop sharing so that any any comments, anything that will help us as well to start building a language and to start, if it's something that we want, which, for example, I would see working very well in Mystic Avenue, for example.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much, Paola. On the last question, yes, we should do incentive zoning. I think it's a very well-suited for Mystic Valley Corridor and other areas of the city. Just quickly before I recognize Councilor Leming, just for my notes, was that example from Portland, Maine or Portland, Oregon?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say it's here, Massachusetts. I can check very quickly. Sorry.
[SPEAKER_07]: All right, that's okay. Probably main then. Councilor Leming, go ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for the presentation, Paola. So the question I have is that we have a couple of programs that are proposed on our wish list, which sort of relate to zoning incentives. So I've been pushing for the transportation demand management program to be implemented in some forms that we could get developers more involved in the regional TMAs. I've also, but there's also other aspects to this, like an inclusion, like affordable housing overlays and a few other programs that could affect, that could affect a developer's decision to build, to build housing, like the linkage program they were discussing last night. I guess my question is, in the other cities that you've been studying, do they normally have a bunch of different incentive programs overlaid with each other that are integrated, or is it normally better to keep it more or less simple?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's a great question. So it really depends on the city. And I've seen many, many different ways. The usual is where they have less things and bigger cities that usually don't have problems on developers being able to develop. Or that in any case, you will have developers because the market is it's more demanding, they will be a lot more complex and they will be a lot more, they will make a lot more requirements. So for example, I've seen that, I think it was in Seattle, where they asked for transportation management in the incentive zoning. So if you do that, you have to be part of the transportation demand management. So it really depends on the cities, because a lot of the cities have the need for affordable housing. A lot of them use it for getting more affordable housing. And so it really depends on the goal of the city to make it more simple, more complex, and depends on the need. I really like the idea of the amenities and to be more on neighborhood based, because then you can really make a difference from different neighborhoods and ask for whatever they really need. and so not only go for the affordable but maybe in neighborhoods that you already have some affordable and that is not your priority and maybe the public realm starts to be the really neat because there is no space, there is no area that is very, I don't know, that there has a quality public space, then I will try to go for a more point based because there are a lot of different needs in the city. It's something that really we should look into that we can start working with you and to get your opinions. so that we really want to get the more complete and better, whatever fits this city the best. I don't think that there is one that is better than the other. It depends on the city's need. That may be what I wanted to say.
[SPEAKER_03]: personally speaking, my end all be all is Medford does need more affordable housing. So whatever our zoning can do to disincentivize developers from building luxury units and to integrate more affordable housing and to make that more profitable for them would be ideal and whatever the best mechanism to do that is, I would support. I would also, though, like programs that incentivize developers who come into Medford to sort of be more integrated into what's happening in the surrounding communities, just so that we're not so isolated. And that's why I'm pushing for the TDM to be an important part of the ordinance. So that's where I'm coming from. And then the third thing on my Christmas list is to make it so that it's not some, all of these rules put together are not some Byzantine kind of overly complex structure that developers can't really understand. So I understand that that could end up getting a little bit contradictory after a while, but it's sort of those three things are what's on my mind right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and to be honest, there are areas where if you could only increase one floor, then it gets very difficult, because then you don't have so much from where to choose. So it will be like, oh, or you do the affordable, or you do amenities, or you do whatever, because you only have one extra floor. You cannot give too much. But in places like a corridor where we have Mystic Avenue, that we can go quite higher. You can have affordable, you can have, if you have a point-based system, then you can have affordable, you can have amenities, you can have different things. You can have the TDM. We were also talking about activating ground floor. So you can have a lot of things, not only one, and that depends on the area. If you can really give an incentive of building because you have height, then you can do more things. In the areas that we don't have a lot of height because of the neighborhood, because it doesn't fit the area, because it cannot be very much dense, then in those you can have be very more simple and say, okay, you have affordable, you have the TDM, or I don't know if the TDM is for any anywhere, it will be only for the bigger corridors, I think. But, but yeah, there is a lot of research to do. And I think that it depends a bit on the area if we have that ability to grow versus if we can only do it in in a smaller, in just a smaller increase in increment.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Paula. I recognize President Burris.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. I think this is a great start. I think there's, I kind of like the Portland model versus another point space model. Although if we did a point space model maybe for this and for TDM and for green score and we could use the same scale for all of them that might be a way to also use a point space model and have the simplicity. I just think we don't want to overload this I think, you know, to me. . I think we are talking about you know, district squares and corridors only at this point. So, I mean, I'd be open to thinking about it in other ways. Maybe the overlays and the infill are ways to go into the neighborhoods and not have this incentive zoning model be the same application. but to me, right, if we're talking Salem street, the quarter we've been discussing, you know, we're talking about four by right. And then the incentive would only go up to six with a step back. So, you know, really all you could say is if you do a certain amount of affordable housing, you get two, or maybe if you do additional ground for commercial and investment in improving the transportation infrastructure, you get one story, something like that. Um, I think, uh, mystic ab is a little more open. Um, I think we're talking like maybe a, by right eight up to 12 or 14. So there's a little bit more room there, but I still think you could get there pretty simply if you left your incentive categories relatively simple, and then also did it by floor. And then we could treat like green score and TDM as separate things since most of these are, we're talking all of these, everything I've just talked about would trigger site plan review. So that might be the way to kind of, to be able to. Avoid this Byzantine bureaucracy and still do, uh, all three of these things at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a great way to put it. So thank you for that. Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: I agree. Great. Thank you. Go to Councilor Callahan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks Um, yeah, just quickly that I puts the work on us and not on the developers. Because the developer will be like, oh, what is it for this neighborhood? Ah, it's fairly simple for this neighborhood. It means that we have to do the work in advance, but that the developers may have more simple instructions because there will be neighborhoods where we're not worrying about one thing or another thing.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Councilor Callahan. And yeah, I think what I keep coming back to in this conversation is, we're talking about a mechanism that is mostly going to be seen and useful in those zones where there is a larger potential discrepancy between minimum allowable by right height and that maximum bonus height. That's our squares and our corridors, especially the corridors. that are currently a mix of or aspiring to mixed use and commercial. And so thinking about it in those terms, focusing it there, I think that this makes sense to target on the squares and corridors, because that's where we really have the space in terms of those potential bonuses to curate that tight list of priorities, but know that at development of those scales, we might be able to see developers who are able to have those negotiations to get affordable housing and some dovetailing with investments in transit street infrastructure, because to me that's really the use case of this. So I agree with what my colleagues have said. I'm really excited to see this pushed forward and I think that this is going to harmonize really well with some of the other incentive schemes that we're working on and kind of thinking of site plan review as a bit of a like organizational mechanism. I know that we're considering a bunch of different incentive schemes now, but I hope that there's, you know, I think that we can stay in conversation about how to make sure that that process stays streamlined so that it's achievable for planning staff and, you know, becomes a legible, followable rule book for developers. It seems like we have a path forward on this. Any further comments on incentive zoning from councilors, staff, Paola, do you feel like you have a read on where we're at on this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I think that I really agree with you. We don't want to make it so complex that then it's very difficult to follow. And so we will try to make it as simple as possible, but also getting the most of it so that we can really see per neighborhood a bit of the needs or mainly per corridor and squares. What are the needs? I have seen it also in sensitive zoning in just incentivising affordability in residential where they are multi-family units. And so they will say, you can build two more units if, or you can build until, for example, if the maximum is four, you can build until eight, if two of those at least are affordable units. So it's only, and that is the incentives only for the district in order to get as much as possible the affordable units. So we can try, Next time, the next steps will be try to see what are these, where do we want to apply them? And what are the incentives that we want to do? And to have a menu, if it's a smaller, bigger, and try to feed a score that makes sense and that is similar to the green score. I think that's a great idea. And yeah, and see and share it with you.
[SPEAKER_06]: I just, I want to throw out the idea too. I think that the, um, let's say that these are kind of, and I like what Paula just said about in the neighborhood, like we have the square and corridor districts, then we're going to have the neighborhood districts. I think something like what was just mentioned, like in the neighborhood districts would make sense for, It's more about the units and the affordable housing. And it's a little bit simpler. Like if it's three, maybe you could get four. If the fourth is affordable. I mean, that's probably not going to work. We saw in Somerville, they tried to do, you could do triple-decker, but one of them has to be affordable. Nobody built anything. So they went citywide triple-decker. So I think at that scale, but the four to eight with two affordable or one affordable, you know, you're still talking about a 12, 12% affordable, even if one of those units is affordable deed restricted, which is, I think higher than we're requesting right now in a 10-unit building, if I'm remembering the inclusionary right. So something like that might work. I just think another thing that would be helpful, um, let's say we went with ground floor commercial, uh, investments in improving transit infrastructure and affordable housing as three things for the incentive zoning. Um, and then we can have green score and TDM also as out there as well. I think it would be useful for like the community development board to make an recommendation on a regular basis about, um, minimum thresholds, like if we were to do ground floor commercial, would it be 20% of the ground floor, a certain amount of square footage relative to the size of the building? Affordable housing as well, I think is a little simpler. Transportation funding just to factor in. exactly that situation that I was just mentioning out of Somerville where they said, Oh, we'll do triple deckers everywhere, but one has to be affordable. It wasn't an effective policy because it didn't build any new housing units. Um, so I think we want to make sure if we were to say a hundred percent of the first, if you get extra floor, it's 15 foot step back. So it's only 60% of the square foot of the first floor and the whole first floor has to be commercial. that's not going to get us anything. We're actually reducing, you know, it's a countervailing force. So I think some element of the zoning where the CD board is, who's reviewing these in site plan review is kind of making a recommendation every so often based on their experience as to what these thresholds should be for different incentives, I think would be helpful too. And some of that's from William's email. And the other part of it, that I think is harder is adjusting to market conditions. I, you know, I have a harder time saying, well, if the interest rate's 7%, then we should only ask for half as much affordable housing or half, you know, that's, I think, a much harder argument to make. But I think at least getting it right and getting those recommendations based on the CD board's experience and site plan review of how these incentives are playing out will be really useful.
[SPEAKER_07]: Definitely. Thank you, Mr. Pierce. Great, well, thank you for laying out the next steps on that, Paola. Really excited to start reviewing draft language around a incentive zoning policy and get into the details on exactly what districts that we discussed will comprise it. Thank you so much. Let's move on to our next agenda item.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes. So we also have the condominium conversion. This was Emily reviewed, Emily Ennis, the director of Ennis Associates. She reviewed the Vice President Cullen's research on the condominium conversion topic. Um. She, um, came to the conclusion that maybe Somerville's the section 7 64 is the most complete and could be an interesting pursuit. Um but this is a city ordinance. This is not a zoning by law. So we can discuss these a bit more internally, and we can help with
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you for making that determination. I appreciate it. I'm not sure who it was that told me condo conversion was definitely a zoning ordinance, but whoever it was, it was two years ago. I'm shaking your head. I wasn't accusing you, definitely wasn't you. All right, great. Let's move on to housing definitions. Thank you so much, Paola.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah and sorry today I had five public meetings so I'm sorry but I'm a bit my brain is a bit half gone um so it's a bit more harder for me for today to talk um but I will go through the definitions I think that I will go through them and then we can please make any comments. This was also done by Emily. I'm already saying this in advance.
[SPEAKER_07]: Can I just cut in here? Can you just begin with a little context on, are these all new definitions that we're considering adding to our zoning bylaws to have them in place when new zoning ordinance makes reference to them? Or is there other context that we should know about these?
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are mainly new. I think that there are some, but they should be the, you have some of them that are the original definition. But what we wanted to have in here is to compile all the different ways that people could live together. And so we had the definitions for co-living, co-housing, multi-tenant, congregate housing, And so we have some that are your original definition, some of them, and I think I have the notes so I can go through them, and some of them, if they are not, they will tell where they come from. So where are we taking the definition from?
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you. And if that sounds good to my fellow councillors, just with understanding, I know you've had a very long day of public meetings, I'd love it if you could give us an overview of these. And then if councillors have questions on where the definition came from or want to get more into the weeds, please just wave your hand at me and we can pause there. But otherwise, I think we can just go through the definitions themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely. And this is nothing that I'm going to say here is going to be, this is it. This is supposed to be the base so that we can talk about it. And you can say, look, the co-living, I think it's interesting. Why don't we research a bit more on that? Or we definitely do not need this type of I don't know, congregate housing. So this is just to make a conversation. This is nothing to be set in stone. And we can actually, I would love that this is sent around through the councillors, and that you can give us comments. That we really appreciate, because you better know what you really want, and so it will help us to get your feedback. So I'm going to start, we have co-living, a building in which a group of four or two eight residents occupy a single unit with private bedrooms and share living spaces, including cooking and sanitary facilities. GoHousing, this is a group of buildings in common ownership, which include small single unit or two unit buildings and a single building with shared living spaces, such as a common room, library, dining room, kitchen, etc. The congregate living, we have different ones that use different terms or that are specifically oriented, for example, in Cambridge to the elderly. So in Somerville they use congregate housing, it's a residential occupancy of a dwelling unit, by more than four unrelated individuals that are handicapped as defined in 42 U.S.C. section 3602 or have a disability as defined in 42 U.S.C. section 1202. Both terms are defined as physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a record of such an impairment or being regarded as having such an impairment not including the current illegal use of or addiction to a controlled substance. In Cambridge, they use elderly-oriented congregate housing, a form of elderly-oriented housing in which each individual or two-person family is provided with a separate quarters which contain living and sleeping space and which may contain kitchen and bath facilities. Each such living space shall be considered the equivalent of one dwelling unit. Such housing shall also contain common dining, kitchen and social facilities. Limited supportive services may also be provided. And in Arlington, it will be a group home. And this is a dwelling owned or leased by a state agency or a nonprofit organization on behalf of the state agency, operated as supervised residence for adults with severe disabilities, which may include educational, social health care, and other supportive services. Otherwise, in contrast with dormitory, We have Cambridge, any dwelling other than a sorority or fraternity house owned or controlled by an educational institution and occupied primarily as a place of temporary residence for persons whose permanent residence is elsewhere and who are employed or enrolled at the educational institution. in Somerville, residential occupancy of a building or portion of a building in dwelling units or rooming units exclusively by full or part-time students, faculty and staff of an educational institution and any housing owned by or affiliated with an educational institution. And here, for example, is Medford, your current definition of dormitory. Building designed for or occupied as a residence for students or staff, owned by or under the supervision of an institution or an educational youth, which is not operated as a gainful business. Then we have the definitions of single room occupancy. In Medford, the current is the lodging house. And this is a dwelling in which living space without individual kitchen and with or without kitchen privileges is designed, occupied, or intended for occupancy by or led for compensation to five or more lodgers, including a rooming house or a boarding house. but not including a senior housing facility, hotel or motel, dormitory, fraternity or sorority house, or other building of institutional or educational use. Somerville rooming house, residential occupancy of four or more rooming units by individuals or up to two persons related by blood, marriage, adoption, or foster care agreement. Rooming houses include boarding houses, lodging houses, and single room occupancy buildings. Cambridge, lodging house, a dwelling where lodgings are led to four or more persons, not within the second degree of kinship to the person conducting it, including fraternity housing, but not including dormitories or charitable, educational or philanthropic institutions. Burbank, they have single room occupancy hotel. means housing composed of individual efficiency dwelling units where each unit has a minimum floor area of 150 square feet and a maximum size of 500 square feet. To qualify as an SRO, no more than 10% of the units may contain individual kitchens and bathrooms. Any unit not developed within an individual kitchen or bathroom must have access to common areas containing kitchen and bathroom facilities. SROs are not linked to any on-site or off-site services, including but not limited to life skills counselling, childcare or job training and placement. And then we get to shared housing or multi-tenant housing, and this one comes from Salt Lake City. a building or portion thereof that is designated for residential purposes and contains individual housing units that may be occupied on a weekly or monthly basis. Each individual housing unit consists of one or more sleeping rooms, and may contain either kitchen or bathroom amenities but not both. Whichever amenities are not contained within the individual unit, the kitchen, bathroom or both shall be provided as a common facility within the same building to be shared with other tenants or of the shared housing development. And this definition comes with The following standards, housing will be subject to the same lot and bulk requirements as multifamily dwelling use, but not the density requirements of the underlying zone. A maximum of two people per sleeping room may reside within an individual shared housing unit. A minimum floor area of 100 square feet per sleeping room is required for a single tenant. and 120 square feet per sleeping room for two tenants. Communal areas, including but not limited to libraries, lounges, recreation rooms, and dining rooms, et cetera, must be provided and must be accessible to all tenants. The minimum floor area of communal areas exclusive of kitchens, bathrooms, hallways, and maintenance and storage areas is 20 square feet per sleeping room. A property manager is required to be inside 24-7 in communal areas, except bathrooms must be continuously monitored by security cameras. A shared house in development can include an office and private living unit for the property manager. This private living unit can include a private bathroom and kitchen. and this is it. These are all the ones that we this is a for us a working document so we will continue to research if there's anything that you really like and say this this is it otherwise if nothing really fits what you need we can continue to to look And we can continue, and this, what we want is to continue to research in all the different ways that people can live together. Any thoughts?
[SPEAKER_02]: I definitely want to take a look at this doc later with a little more time. First thought is that, you know, want us to encourage more density within buildings we have a lot of homes that have four or five bedrooms and one person living in it. And I think that we want to go ahead and encourage folks to live with each other. to relieve our affordable, our sort of housing issues that we have here in Medford. So I just wanna make sure that if we're making definitions that we're not sort of defining anything as more than four people living together, it's like a separate sort of definition of living. And I just wanna be a little bit careful on that front. It looks like some of those definitions are like anything more than four and you're defined as a strange form of housing. So that's my only thinking without really having time to sort of look more deeply into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we would love that you can look at it and give us any comments, even exactly what you're looking for and that we can continue to search. These are the ways that we have seen in the areas that are around Medford. that how they have it, but we can totally continue to look even further and see if there is anything that makes more sense. So absolutely we want your feedback, we want your comments and exactly your vision and that we can we can try to find it or create one definition.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great. Thank you, Paola. Yes, like Councilor Callahan, I think, you know, this is the type of thing that I can't really digest for the first time in a meeting. I think now that we know that committee members have these range of options, we can consider these, come back at a future meeting and I'm sure we can quickly arrive at a consensus for which it makes sense to go with and come back with more informed considered opinions on modifying some of these examples and making sure that all the best parts from different cities templates are present in the definitions that we go with, and of course, we'll want to also consider the expertise of city staff when we're putting forward new definitions into our zoning code. Any other initial comments? And Paola, I believe I have a file of this PowerPoint from just before our meeting, so I'll make sure that's circulated to committee members so that folks can have time to review this before we consider it again. Thank you. Any other comments on this topic tonight?
[SPEAKER_06]: One, actually, just we should make sure that none of this conflicts with the changes we made about the definition of family and people living in a household. We removed a lot of language around blood relations and things that courts have said we can't actually legislate. And we don't want to add anything back, obviously. Kind of what Councilor Callahan was saying, similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely. These are just bringing in if there is anything that is interesting in those definitions. And of course, we will adapt them to the language that we prefer to use and we want to use.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you. Seeing no other comments from councilors at this time. Paolo, is this the last item on our agenda for tonight? I think you're gonna just touch base on the status of corridors for our next committee meeting in two weeks, but we'll be saving our substantive conversation for then, is that correct?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the quarters we will present a draft for the next week and then to talk about the sorry in two weeks and to present the, uh. West Medford and Medford Square.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great. Thank you. We look forward to that. Um before a solicit any final thoughts from
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Vice President Collins. So, quickly, I just wanted to add that when we consider affordable housing, that we take into consideration all possible approaches to achieve that goal. I'm worried regarding what President Perez mentioned that, for example, by trying to get developers to include an affordable unit in whatever they're building, we're actually disincentivizing them from building affordable housing. And I would like to see a study of how a policy like that compares, for example, with making the permitting process a lot easier, a lot simpler, lowering development costs in such a way that, you know, units become cheaper, more affordable, because I also fear that, you know, we might end up with a few affordable units versus a lot of more affordable market rate units. I haven't done the analysis and I don't have a solution right now, but I would love to see all, you know, a bunch of different approaches considered and some sort of analysis so we can actually pick the best approach, the optimal approach to achieving the goal of affordable or at least more affordable housing in Mexico. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you, Gaston. All right, well, thank you all so much for this robust discussion, kickoff discussion about green score and incentive zoning and I'm glad we got to lay eyes for the first time on those new additions to housing definitions within our code of ordinances. I think we have our next steps for our partners in zoning on green score and incentive zoning and really looking forward to getting some draft language on corridors and squares at our next committee meetings. That's a big step forward. And so much of our prep work on zoning this year has been gearing up to those really major goals. So it's exciting to be at this point. Thank you so much to my fellow councilors, city staff for guiding us in this process. And of course, to you, Paola and your team and associates. Looking forward to some really substantive work between mid-November, sorry, mid-September and November. Any further thoughts from my fellow Councilors before we adjourn? Seeing none, do I hear a motion? Motion to adjourn, seconded by Councilor Leming. And let me check if we are still hybrid.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, we are.
[SPEAKER_07]: Great, thank you Councilor Scarpelli. Whenever you're ready Mr. Clerk. No.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't always get my way.
[SPEAKER_07]: Five in favor, none opposed. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.