[Adam Barnosky]: There we are. So I will, again, I'll just reintroduce this, which is, this is a project for 100 Winchester Street, and this is the neighborhood meeting relative to the proposed 65-unit residential building. With that, I'm gonna pass it over to Peter Quinn to walk through the design.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, thanks, Adam. My name is Peter Quinn of Peter Quinn Architects right in Davis Square. Adam, somebody had just mentioned in the chat. If we could just explain a little more about the new ordinance, how it relates to this particular project I think that might be a good frame to talk about.
[Adam Barnosky]: Sure, sure. I mean, I can certainly talk through it. Victor, I know, and his team have been working through that process. I know Alicia Hunt is now on the line as well. I'm happy to talk about it too, but Victor, Alicia, do you want to tell, explain anything about kind of how the process works from the city side?
[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, thank you. I'd be happy to jump in. I'm Victor Schrader, I'm the City of Medford's Director of Economic Development. This past year, City Council approved a number of changes to Medford's zoning ordinance, and included in those changes was the creation of what we call a planned development district. It'll be referred to as a PDD for short in some cases. These districts allow a project similar to this to create a zoning called an overlay to allow the project specifics that they're looking for. So typically a project would come to the city requesting what we call relief or variances for certain changes to height or density or parking. In this case, the proponent will submit the project through the community development board, our planning board for review and city council for review. of the specific zoning district for this project. If that zoning district is approved, then the project can continue through to site plan review, which means that they'll go back before the Community Development Board for review of things like landscaping and design and traffic. those items that Adam mentioned earlier in the presentation. So this is a little bit different process for Medford. There's a couple of additional steps which means there's more opportunity for input by the public but essentially it's a custom zoning district for a project.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Well so assuming that by law you don't have to notify any of the neighbors when you're changing the zoning.
[Victor Schrader]: Neighbors were notified for this particular project, do you mean?
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Changing the zoning or creating these special zoning districts, one would have to be sort of tracking the zoning board or the city to know that these things are happening, right? You're not going to alert the neighbors that you're changing the zoning in their neighborhood.
[Victor Schrader]: We will. There will be public notice requirements for the Community Development Board public hearing, and for the City Council public hearing, and then again for the site plan review process with Community Development Board.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: It's confusing because you made it sound like past tense, like the past year Medford has undertaken creating new zoning areas, but I don't remember getting notification of that.
[Victor Schrader]: I'm sorry, that was to change the zoning ordinance to allow for this process. And then moving forward, as these planned development districts are proposed, there'll be additional notification for the public hearings for each specific project. I apologize, that wasn't clear.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I should also add, we have not made any formal application yet. So all those public notices are not in process yet.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Correct. And the PDDs, that's what you're calling them?
[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, that's the zoning term for the plan development districts, which is kind of the process for proposing.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: So, so our neighborhood now has a PDD in it.
[Victor Schrader]: Nope, not yet. It's allowed for in Medford generally, but we don't have any in the city at this point. So this would be the first project that's proposed under the new order if the proponent decides to apply, which as Peter just said, they haven't.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, so I'll introduce the site first. I'm sure a lot of people know the site very well, but I know this is a potentially citywide broadcast this evening with people from outside the neighborhood, so I think it's a good idea to talk a little bit about the site itself and all of its complexities. As you can see in this picture here, if you can see my screen, it's a big L-shaped lot. That's the tan area. And Winchester Street is a vertical street here on the left where my cursor is. And then we have Albion Street, which runs along another side. And then there's actually frontage on a third street, which is Alfred Street. So it's quite a large lot. It's almost 50,000 square feet. Kind of unusual to have such a large lot in a fairly dense area. And, you know, it's been that way for many years. It also has quite a bit of slope in it, if you go from the high point out here in the corner of Albion and Winchester to the low point at the low end of Alfred. It's over 14 feet of drop. So you can imagine it's like a story and a half of building, even across the site from Winchester to Alfred is a is also about six or seven feet. So there are a lot of grades to deal with here and to try to get the building to fit into the site without it becoming overwhelmingly large. So with that in mind, we have come up with a site plan that does a number of things. First of all, this is just a diagrammatic site plan. We'll get into the landscape in a few minutes. with our landscape architect to explain, you know, how the green systems work around the yard, around the building. But the building is essentially two buildings fused together. We have the Winchester building, which is out toward Winchester. is because they're at different heights. Not only the roof height, but also just the way they are stepped on the site in order to adjust to those grades that I mentioned just a few minutes ago. To orient you on the site a little bit, I'm just going to show you some existing condition photos. So this is the corner of the property on Winchester before you get to the I'll be in order. So, our first existing bills here, you take them down. We have an employer over here with a big driver runs a masonry business there and then these are these, this is a view into the site itself, where we have a distant one of the existing building. then looking directly into the site, which is mostly parking lot right now, and buildings. And then you can see this historic corner building, which we hope to restore to a limited extent and to expand on. This is a good corner shot showing you from- Is that your stack? Alveon coming in from the right and Winchester from the left.
[Victor Schrader]: Peter, I don't mean to interrupt you, but would it be helpful if you made one of the city staff co-hosts so we can manage muting? And I think, Adam, you made Peter the host.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, I don't think I can handle talking in.
[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, just as folks are coming and going in the room, it's helpful to have folks like that.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay. And as we go around Albion Street, you can see the house that I just mentioned, the existing house. And then Albion itself is two and a half story, mostly two and a half story buildings. And then on Alfred, this is actually the site right here. where it has a little bit of pre-growth and some shrubs, and then just beyond that is a parking lot that I mentioned before. You can see how this site slopes here quite a bit along that. That's the orientation I'll get into. So in addition to our step building responding to the higher Winchester side and the lower Alfred side, we've introduced a driveway ramp on Winchester Street that's wide enough for traffic in two directions. And this will go into an underground garage that's built into the hillside. And then that garage provides a platform that allows us to build the building on top of it. There are actually two garages. There's an upper garage, which is on the Winchester side, and then a lower garage, which is on the Alfred side. They actually are about, you know, almost a story apart. And at the corner where we have the existing blue building, we're proposing to take off the rear part of that building and build a new alley that would house the potential commercial at the corner and save that existing tree, which is really quite beautiful, and do some other things with landscaping that Katya will explain from our landscape architect in a few minutes. So it's a complicated site, but I think we managed to get some good order to it. There are sidewalks that allow access for emergency and the like on all sides. We also do have a ramp coming in from Alfred, but this is exclusively for emergency use only. The fire chief will want to be able to get to one whole side of the building. So these will actually be grass pavers, and we'll try to blend it into the landscape as best we can. But there'll be a breakaway gable bollards here that will prevent any traffic coming out onto Alfred. So all the traffic will exclusively into the Winchester Street. And there's plenty of room for cars to pull in and out and have waiting space while traffic is going by. Now I'm going to show you some 3D views that we've created. This view I've seen on my first sheet. This is a view of the existing in the front. And then the L edition that I mentioned on the rear, the tree's actually much bigger than what's shown here, but you get the idea. There's also potential for a small parklet at the corner that would be perfectly accessible. Fatsia will show you that in a few minutes. In addition to that, there's space between this existing building and then our new building. And you can see that we try to break the mass of this building. It is four stories, but it's done in such a way that the main body of it is three stories. And then we step back to create the fourth story right here and use a different color. And it really helps to break the mass of the building up a lot. This is a view, aerial view looking down. at that same, approximately the same location. You can see the existing building with the L in the back, commercial use, and then the proposed building on the Winchester end. And you can just see here, it's starting to show how the building steps down at the Alfred Street side. The Alfred Street side is only three stories. This is a view looking into that ramp that I mentioned. You can see how there are multiple levels, two levels to the garage. It's further down. It follows the site as the grade recedes and lowers it to alpha. Again, three stories and then the fourth story setback. This, what you see here is a stair tower. And second, this is an aerial view of that same shot. And as you can see on the roof, we're embracing quite a bit of solar area. There'll probably be more than what's shown here once we have a better handle on mechanical systems. And you can also see how things are stepping down as we go toward Alpha. This is a view from Alfred Street. It's a simpler version of the facade. There's no entry here. There is an egress coming out of the basement on the left-hand side here. And this is this breakaway gate or fire gate that I mentioned before with the grass pavers that would allow a fire truck to get in there.
[Unidentified]: That's an aerial view.
[Adam Hurtubise]: looking down onto the building, and you can see how the Winchester Street side is higher when it steps down. We're still, we're having a little bit of force. Poor story. Yeah, now we can. All right. Can somebody mute their line, please?
[Adam Barnosky]: Yeah, Peter. Peter, can I just interrupt you for a moment? I think now that you are the host, do you have the ability to mute? Peter, you do have the ability to, now that you're the host, to mute all others? I'm sharing the screen, but I don't think I'm, you know, I'm going to see if I can reclaim myself as the host. Can you hold one minute? One minute, please. I'll call you right back. Hi, are you there? Carol?
[SPEAKER_08]: Mr. Edelman, can you mute your line, please?
[Adam Barnosky]: All right, I'm gonna mute everybody here. Sorry about this, everybody. Okay. One moment. So Victor, I'm trying to make you a co-host, but it looks like I can only make one person a host at a time. So now that everyone's muted, I might pass it back to Peter for now. Peter, you can finish up your presentation. We'll just take it one step at a time. You can hear me OK? I haven't been muted?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Yes. So an aerial view from Alfred, you can see we have quite a bit of landscaping along
[Adam Barnosky]: But I think you're going to need to re-share your screen.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's give that a second to come up. OK, great. So you can see we've started to develop a little bit of landscaping along Alfred, create a park-like condition there. So again, I'll show you that in more detail in a few minutes. And from the other corner, also on Alfred, from the left-hand side, similar type of view. We'll see how the building stepped down very logically from on the grids. That's an aerial view of the same. Most of the units have small outdoor decks or patios of one kind or another. So it's a nice living arrangement for most people. Getting into the buildings a little bit, this is a typical one of the two garages. Both have about 25 parking spaces each. And between them, between the upper garage and the lower garage, here's the upper garage, there are elevators and bike storage and trash areas and that kind of thing. All of that's contained within the building. And then the units themselves are all one and two bedroom units throughout the building. No studios, per se. Some small one bedrooms, but no studios. And these are the four plans. Of course, we'll be able to show those in more detail later on. There's some nice amenities, such as a living room for the whole building that looks out into Winchester Street. and then there's the roof deck that you might have seen here as for the residents up on the roof. Again, that's very sheltered and inbound of the edges of the building quite a bit so that it's not intrusive to the neighborhood. Just a couple more things. I'm going to send it over to you, and why don't you just tell me what you want me to bring up. This is a landscape plan.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: This is Katja. Yeah, hi. Thank you, Peter. My name is Katja Pasablo. I'm principal at Verdant Landscape Architecture. I'm going to walk you through our proposed landscape design. I have four or five slides maybe to share. This is our one overall landscape plan that will kind of dwell on for a little while and then Peter I'll let you know when I want you to go to the next slide. I'm going to try to be brief so we can get to your questions. So the way I wanted to present this landscape is to talk about pretty basically first the landscape component that supports residential use around the larger portion of the larger building to the north of the site there, the larger sized piece to the north. And then I'll focus on the area around the little historic house and the landscape around that zone and the little public pocket park that we've designed on the corner of Albion and Winchester Street. So to begin, how is the landscape designed around and supporting residential use around this residential building? As Peter already described, I'll try not to repeat too much here. The building is designed with these sort of like two faces, one that's facing Winchester Street and one that's facing Alfred Street. So you could imagine there could potentially be lots of coming and going from both ends. But in fact, the Winchester Street side has the primary main front door for the whole entire building. It also, as Peter described, has the main driveway entry and exit for all the cars coming and going garages which are below you know in the basement level which is really nice because as you can see there's not any parking on site you can't see any cars sitting around on the site they're all concealed below in the basement which is great. So like I said, on the Winchester side, we have the front door and the driveway down to the basement. And that side is treated like the public side with slightly more formal plantings. And you can see some symmetry on that left-hand side in front of the building in the planting design in the front yard. And of course you have a set of front steps going to the front door, centrally located on that facade of the building. And then they're flanked by plantings that are somewhat mirrored on both sides, more or less. So it's more formal. It's also open there isn't any fencing around the front that's feeling very welcoming as far as getting to the front door for mail delivery or that kind of thing visitors. There's also an accessible route around the right hand side to the front door if you're in a wheelchair so of course there's accessibility. And then on the other end of the building on the Alfred Street side we designed a much quieter yard area that's more natural in its composition so there are Peter showed some existing condition photos of existing trees along that property line and we're proposing to thin them out a little bit and give the nicer ones, a better chance at having some. enough sunlight to thrive. And then under planting them with a lot more kind of woodland style plants and understory small trees and shrubs, no lawn spaces here. So trying to create like a woodland setting. You can see them, you know, if you were to zoom in and there are going to be a couple enlargements, we can do more zooming in later. But you can see we're showing some stepping stones through this area and a little bench, a place to sit down. So residents who live here can have a really nice wooded green space to enjoy as part of the entire landscape experience, in addition to those patios that Peter mentioned. And at the same time, we're maintaining some nice overstory trees that can help create a sense of scale to the proposed new building. The access into the driveway on this side is only allowed for fire trucks. There's a breakaway gate. So if there were an emergency, only the fire department can unlock that. And it would otherwise look sort of like lawn with a special kind of paving system that is structured so that a fire truck can drive on it. But it otherwise would need to get mowed and plowed for the fire trucks. But its overall view is more green than it is pavement. It's also permeable, so that's a good benefit of that kind of paving system. And we are proposing a little fence around that right side. And you'll see an image of the kind of picket fence we're proposing, but a little more open in character. So it feels a little bit more, it's not as like concealed behind like a six foot height wood fence, which we're doing at other private property lines where we want more privacy. But on that right hand side, trying to create a little bit more air circulation and light into that woodland area. So it feels a little bit, not as mysterious behind a dark wall or anything. And then one last note is that the walkway areas that go into the residential zone from this side would all be FOB entry only. So people who live here would be able to unlock them with their FOB, but in general, other people who don't live here wouldn't have those keys, so they wouldn't be able to get through. And that's a matter of trying to maintain security on the premises and eliminate people from trying to use this as a cut through for security purposes in the neighborhood. And then zoom out just a little bit more along the north and the south sides of the building, Peter already showed and I'll just reiterate that there are a number of terraces and patio shown, which provide the units that above them to have their own private patio or deck space. There's some terraces along the northwest edge. north side of the building along the western half and then also on the southeast side that are actually built above the garage. They don't have big garden areas, but instead they'll be more like porches or decks where people can add planters and some patio furniture and that sort of thing. Then you do see that there are some patios along the south edge of the building on the west side mainly that would be on-grade patios. And then you can see a lot of green spaces that we've planted up with lots of trees and shrubs to help create a really pleasant green backdrop for each of those private patio areas, as well as to help buffer between our project and then the residential uses that are to the south of our site. Something to note our property line is actually a little ways away from the fence line that you see depicted in our drawing here, there's a right of way that passes through the backyards of the residences. But as a matter of, you know, it's not like we're going to. program that in any way, but because a building is coming down along the edge of where a new fence line will be replacing that building wall with a six foot height wood board fence to create the privacy that will be lost when that existing building is removed. So have no fear, people who live in these houses, maybe some of you were on tonight, there will be a privacy line maintained along that edge. So now let's look at the landscape around the blue house on the corner. As Peter described, we're maintaining the historic core. of the building architecture, which is along the top part of that area. And then we're gonna protect also there's an existing shade tree that's located just to the south of the house, the green circle. So once the addition, it's also in blue, along the right is added, there's gonna be this nice central shaded courtyard area that's formed by that new L-shaped building with the central focal point of a tree. And in order to keep that patio area more or less level, because as Peter said, there's a lot of slope on this site, we're proposing a small retaining wall along the left edge of that patio space. So that patio would then step down a couple of feet. It's not a very big wall, but to keep that area nice and flat, we needed a little wall. And then it steps down to that little, that pocket park zone that you can see on the bottom left there at the corner of Winchester and Albion The front door to the house will be maintained off Winchester, straight up to the front of the house. And then an accessible route from the Albion Street sidewalk has been developed from the southeast corner of this portion of the site up into the patio area, so there'll be accessibility as well. There's also a couple of egress doors along the right side of the building that will need to be included. So there's a walkway that goes around that edge, but we're providing a lot of buffer plantings along that edge as well for privacy between the existing residences to our east. So the final piece of this area is the proposed pocket park that you can see in the bottom left. at the corner of Winchester and Albion. So originally we thought we might be able to create like a little semi circular shortcut with some benches along the edge of this little path that cut the corner. But based on some comments we heard from the community and also because of some grading issues, we decided to cut off the ability to take that shortcut. Instead, we're developing this little green seating area that's more or less surrounded by nice green plant beds and some new trees and shrubs and things. And you also have this little backdrop of that little retaining wall. So if you're sitting on one of these benches, you might get a nice view of the intersection where there's been a lot of other nice crosswalk and curbing and plant bed improvements. As well, you could probably see across to Broadway, of course. So the other enlargements that preceded this page, if you wanted to, I don't know if it's worth it, we've already kind of looked at them. This is the space along Alfred Street showing some of the materials that are being proposed. The upper right is that checker block paving that's the fire lane paving. So it does have some pavement to it, but it's mostly green. The style of bench we're proposing and then some more friendly, slightly lower fences for this pocket, not pocket park, but like green space area around the edges to privatize it, but allow for views in and out, because it'll be quite pretty. Some stepping stones to get through, a little more naturalistic in its composition, like I mentioned. And then the previous enlargement shows the front at Winchester, which zooms in and shows a little bit more about the planting and materials at the front of the house or the building, which, you know, some unit paving at the front steps or front entry walkway. And the style of, you know, basic basic six foot height would board fence being proposed at our butters to the north, as well as to the south where we have residential butters. And then the last page I wanted to land on which is like the fifth in this series I think Peter, there it is. Thank you. is what I haven't described in great detail, really, is the planting palette, which, of course, we, as landscape architects, think a lot about, but don't really explain a whole lot because it gets into some nitty-gritty detail. But if there's anyone here who wants to discuss planting, I'm happy to talk with them about it. So this is our specific planting plan that annotates all of the new plantings and provides a full plant list. Throughout the design, we kept in mind the need for hardy and, of course, drought tolerant plantings. And we also thought about compositions that would have four seasons of interest. So it's not just blank in the winter, et cetera. And if you were to take a close look at the plant list, you'd see that we have an emphasis on species that are native or native adapted to help promote biodiversity and sustainability. So Peter, I think that's it. Hope I didn't go on too long. Fill in anything I missed and if there's more architecture to share, go for it.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Let's see. I think that's about it. Perhaps, Adam, you could come back on if you want to manage questioning.
[Adam Barnosky]: Great. Well, thank you both. Yeah, with that, I think it'd be a good opportunity to take any questions. If anybody has any questions, maybe just for the sake of, or if you want to raise your hand on the chat function, that might help. Turn on another light here.
[Unidentified]: Let's see. Okay.
[Adam Barnosky]: Josh and GF. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead, Josh.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hi, thank you so much for presenting the proposal. It was very well put together. I was curious about any commercial space that's in the plans. And if not, is there a chance to possibly put a little bit of commercial space in there?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, Josh, this is Peter. So the intention of the existing building is to make that a commercial use building. It's about, with the addition, it's a little larger than 4,000 square feet plus an unfinished basement. So yeah, there's quite a bit of potential there for a nice commercial space. It could be any number of different uses that are allowed in that zone. And we've been talking with the city a little bit about what they would like to see, but I'd certainly love to hear from neighbors as well. What are your thoughts about it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, I mean, being so close to the to the train line, having, you know, more commercial space, I can't I can't imagine being a bad thing.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
[SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, whatever, whatever commercial space, I think you can cram in there would go well for the for the city.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The city allows encourages this kind of commercial space by giving you a parking exemption for commercial uses under 5,000 square feet, potentially, in this kind of district. So that really makes it much, much easier to develop something like that.
[Adam Barnosky]: Thank you, Josh. Let's see. GF, that's the name.
[SPEAKER_08]: Hi, thanks for taking time to do this presentation for the neighborhood. I have a couple of questions. One is for Katya about who's going to maintain all that landscape? Is that you guys or is that other people?
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: Well, my firm doesn't do maintenance. We just do the design. So unfortunately, I don't have that kind of capacity, but I'm sure the owner can probably elaborate more on that, but whoever takes over the operational and maintenance people who would run these buildings would hire people to maintain the landscape.
[Adam Hurtubise]: The type of plantings that are selected are actually ones that don't require a huge amount of maintenance because they are native plants. They occasionally need some trimming and the like. I think Katja would agree with me on that. Most of it is just kind of a naturalistic setting, like you would have in a woodland expand as it grows, but it's not a high-maintenance kind of landscape.
[SPEAKER_08]: And then my other questions are just kind of surrounding. Alfred's a one way and there's constant one way violations of people going the wrong way and causing issues with kids around here and now a ton more cars. I'm concerned about that being, the police department hasn't done much. City Hall hasn't done much. Like, I don't know how to mitigate that and you might not be able to, but there's gonna be more cars with less parking. You're having more, It seems like you've allowed for more cars than you have spaces for. The speeds on Winchester are scary a lot of times, and there's a massive rat problem in this area. So I'm kind of curious how all of these big things are going to be addressed, or is it going to be left to us to deal with it, which is kind of how things are going now, which is frustrating at best.
[Adam Barnosky]: There will actually be, I think, a good opportunity site plan review portion of this application. As we mentioned at the outset, but for those folks who may have joined a little later, this is a preliminary meeting. And I think that we're gonna address things like parking, traffic during the site plan review process with the Community Development Board. And I think that that would be a good opportunity to vet any issues you have with this specific proposal, but also it might be a good opportunity with any of the other municipal boards or departments about issues that you're having on Winchester Street, et cetera. I think that the idea here is why this development works well now is that the hope is that it'll attract residents who are not using vehicles primarily, you know, it's close enough to public transit that we hope to kind of promote a lifestyle away from car culture to some degree, although obviously there will be more people and more cars.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I just want to add to that that, you know, this public hearing process especially through the site plan review will probably result in some mitigation that is done by, you know, at the expense of the owner in the neighborhood, which could include traffic calming measures that are paid for by the development and, you know, crosswalks and these kinds of things. And so I think, you know, the neighborhood has the ability to influence that. And, you know, for me, I'll be right there with it. But, you know, I think I think, you know, with the site plan review process is fairly holistic in that everything is looked at, including, you know, utilities and, you know, traffic and pedestrian movement and so forth, so.
[SPEAKER_08]: When are those reviews?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So once we go through the zoning approval, we come back, that's what the city council, and correct me if I'm wrong, Adam or Victor, we come back for a site plan review. So that's, again, that's a noticed meeting, you know, you get a notice and people know about it. And before we even get into the room there, there will be lots of communication with various departments in the city, responding to their to their concerns or their suggestions. I've been through it several times in Medford, so just speaking from that.
[Victor Schrader]: Peter, this is Victor from the city. Those meetings are noticed to abutters within a certain radius. If you're interested in following the project, you can email our office, Planning, Development, Sustainability, or Adam Barnowski directly. If you're not within the radius, that's the way to keep track of the status of this project and follow along.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I noticed too that the city website, the planning department's website does now list current developments. And so I would assume this gets regular update on the city's website.
[Adam Barnosky]: All right, Martha. Yeah, Martha.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Yep, we've been handful of questions over here. The first one, this would be to Victor or Rick or someone from the city will people that live in this building, be able to acquire parking passes for Alfred Street.
[Alicia Hunt]: Vick, if you want, that's something that I can handle.
[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, Alicia, do you mind?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Hi, I'm Alicia Hunt. I'm the Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability for the city. And actually, I'm also on the Traffic Commission per that position. So that is actually the kind of thing that would be negotiated both through site plan review and then afterwards to come to Traffic Commission for a special permit. Many large developments like this, one of the conditions put on it through site plan review is that the development is not allowed to get permits for street parking. And that street is not large enough, and you can't allow like, oh, two people from that building and not all of them. That street is not large enough to handle parking permits from 65 additional units. So it would seem to me that that would be one of the things that we would negotiate through site plan review is that they would not be eligible. for street parking permits. And people may not be aware, hopefully if you are a nearby at Butter, you're aware that the city is now just passed but has not yet implemented permit parking on all the streets in that region that are city of Medford public streets. So there aren't going to be streets that people could just decide to park on. One would hope that real estate agents when marketing the units, people when leasing the units would be clear with renters that there is not parking associated with that. So that people could make that educated decision as they're deciding to choose to live there.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Thank you, appreciate that, Alicia. I live right across the street from the property, so I'm very aware of what parking is and is not available on Alfred Street. I have a second question and then I'm going to turn it to a neighbor. We're here on a group call. I don't know how one goes about sort of specifically objecting to any part of the plan or when that happens, but I have an extremely serious issue with a party deck on top of this. HAB-Charlotte Pitts, she-her, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she-hers, she- I don't wanna hear people partying. I wouldn't even want the balconies, but I'm putting the hard pass on that party deck.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So noted.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: And then I'm gonna turn it over to, sorry, go ahead. I thought someone was gonna say something.
[Adam Barnosky]: Thank you. Did you say there was someone else on your line that had a question?
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Yeah, I think someone was unmuted and so I thought it was someone else. So I'm gonna turn it over to our neighbor, Fran.
[Francis Avola]: Hi, how you doing? Thank you so much for the great presentation. One of my questions I had, the driveway, I live at 9 Alfred Street, which right on the property line of this building. And I'm just, you know, I'm going to be losing a little parking anyways, even though it's going to be an inactive driveway, we have to have it open at all times, obviously for the fire apparatus. But I'm also concerned on where the property building is off the property line, like how many feet back, because I know you have the driveway and you also have a little bit of grass and then you have the building itself. I was wondering if anybody would have any accurate measurements from my property line where the building would actually be off the property line.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, so I can answer that approximately. It's about, let's see, we have 25, it's about 27 feet to the building from your property line.
[Francis Avola]: Okay. And another question I had was, you know, it was a very good point that you brought out with the elevation droppings from the front to the back. Um, how is that your property line where it meets my property line?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Um, the elevate the those two going to be even I mean, what's yeah, they all have to meet at grade existing grade at the property line.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: Can't my property line?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: So in other words, I think he means a retaining wall along the north edge, which we do have, because our garage, excuse me, our driveway does drop down to meet the basement level. And therefore the northern property line does include a retaining wall that starts at zero. And as the driveway slopes down, appears taller and taller from our side. But from your side, I believe if you're to the north, Frank, Frank, Frank, then I believe you would only be seeing a six foot tall fence from your side.
[Francis Avola]: One of the questions I had, I looked at some of the drawings and are they accurate as far as the entrance of the garage? If you look at the garage closest towards Alfred Street entry, if you look at my plot plan on your drawing, that actually shows the entrance at the rear of my yard. I just want to have a verification on that because you do have another drawing where it shows the garage down almost entering to the addition of my home. I just want to know like, which one is it? You know, just for verification. Also, I don't mean to ask so many questions. If you could give me a, how far back from the property line is that first garage? door go, so I could get an accurate measurement from the front of my property to where that first garage from Alford Street would stop.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Can you see the screen now, Frank?
[Francis Avola]: Yeah, I'm looking at it.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: No, you're not sharing.
[Francis Avola]: I'm not seeing any architectural. OK. Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So I think maybe the best thing to do is to we can have a conversation separate from this meeting and go into all those small details. And I can also show you more kind of visual, like simple 3D things so you can really see what is going on there.
[Francis Avola]: That would be great. I don't want to tie this all up, but I'm just looking for accurate measurements.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, absolutely. And I just hesitate to give them out because I don't want to give you inaccurate information.
[Francis Avola]: OK, that would be great. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. So we'll contact you and figure out a way to get it together. And sir, could you, what was your name?
[Francis Avola]: My name is Fran Ogola.
[Adam Hurtubise]: And you're at nine Alfred, I heard. That's correct.
[Francis Avola]: Yep.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Adam Barnosky]: All right. Thanks. All right. I don't have any other hands raised. Any other questions?
[Adam Hurtubise]: There's a few questions in chat that I think we need to pick up. Let me just go up here a little bit. Thanks. A rat problem has come up in a couple of these. So usually when you construct a building like this, you go through a whole road mitigation process before you start demolition. Um, and, uh, and that, that is actually requires some certification from, from the, from the exterminator. So that, that you should just, you know, it's not like you just go start knocking buildings and, and, and, you know, the rats go running. Um, so that, that's something that we'll, you know, we'll go into more detail, um, and actually becomes part of the, of the condition, the conditions of approval.
[Adam Barnosky]: Then there's also a comment here requesting that the applicant consider spaces for zip car in the garage and to promote less car use to consider a co-working space and a gym that the public could access for a fee. So we can pass those comments along as well.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Generally, zip car will not go into a private garage. unless it's a public type garage with a attendant. So that's, we've tried many times to get Zipcars in private rental garages or condos or anything like that and they just won't go. So. We have a hand from Lucy.
[80br4JUepho_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, can you hear me. Yeah. Okay. One thing I did notice missing from your drawing is Somerville has put in a big traffic bump out right in front of that house at the end of Winchester Street, so it narrows the entrance and exit for the traffic at Winchester and. Yeah, we will be a huge hindrance to traffic there as well.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, that may be a good thing, right?
[80br4JUepho_SPEAKER_21]: Well, only if only if you're not trying to access that into the street.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. So, yeah, some people has been doing a lot of things over there. They're also about to implement this big bicycle, you know, lanes. They may have already painted them. I know they were starting it earlier in the summer. So, you know, we haven't quite caught up with all those in terms of getting them right on our drawings, but we will at some point.
[80br4JUepho_SPEAKER_21]: It severely narrowed the end of Winchester Street. So all the traffic, you know, if you have three cars trying to get down Winchester Street, it brings everything to a stop because Broadway has to stop to let everybody come in and out. And it's very bad right at that intersection. So you might want to take a look at that while you're doing all your planning.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks for alerting us to that.
[80br4JUepho_SPEAKER_21]: Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's see Martha's got her hand up again.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Yeah, sorry.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Hold on a minute we got to meet somebody.
[Adam Barnosky]: All right.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Okay, cool. Um, so we have a building web up the street on Broadway and Somerville recently over some of the shops on lagoon square and down. And it doesn't obviously look anything like the neighborhood. And this one doesn't look anything like the neighborhood. So what kind of consideration did you take in trying to make it look like it sort of even slightly fits in around here? I mean, it's looks completely different than every other structure around it. You know, sort of making it stand out even more so. So can you explain to me, you know, any considerations taken on the existing sort of if you can call it in this neighborhood, architectural style of everything else.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Right. Yeah, so that's an interesting question. I mean, it's very difficult to provide a building that, you know, has this number of units that looks like a two and a half story residential building. So, you know, I think we have to be honest that it is a much bigger building. But that being said, there are a lot of features that are similar, such as the use of clapboard, the use of trim around windows. The proportioning of windows is similar to what you have on, say, this historic house. Instead of having very, very large expansives of plate glass, we break down those into smaller subunits. And we also project bays forward, even though they're done in a contemporary style. That's something that a lot of buildings have in the area. You know, we have this existing building, for instance, has this exaggerated front roof overhang. We also have a sewer roof overhang. So there's a lot of features that actually give a nice sense of scale and also detail to the building. And I know which you're referring to, that project in Lagoon, that you won't see any of that on that building. I don't mean that, you know, to make anybody laugh. It really, there are a lot of features on a building like this that, you know, are carefully thought out to try to not mimic, but, you know, just relate to the other buildings in the neighborhood. And I think you can see that, you know, in this picture as well.
[Martha Mcpartlin]: Yeah, thanks. Maybe understand the effort. And then also another question from this team, asking where the trash is going to be located.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So there, there's a trash room in the basement, fairly large, which will contain and close. either dumpsters or the bins. And those will be collected and brought out to the truck when it comes once a week or so. That's how it works. I can show you where that is in the garage if you'd like. Right here. So there's actually Trash comes down through, you know, through trash chutes in the building to kind of keep all the trash together. It's collected in bins that are rolled over to a dumpster enclosure that has its own garage door. And that opens up out here so that they can be wheeled out to, you know, any kind of, you know, pickup that they might do either with dumpsters.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: Are you screened? Are you not screened? Pointing at them?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I keep forgetting that I'm not sharing the screen. I really apologize. I'm sorry.
[Adam Barnosky]: Peter, you can go ahead and go ahead. Why don't you go ahead and share just so we can walk through that question.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yep. Thank you. I'm glad you stopped me because I was just going on and on. Yeah, so this is a view in the basement. And, you know, you have a parking garage on one side, and as I mentioned, because of the different heights, the other side, the other wing toward Alfred is residences. But nonetheless, we have a trash collection area where we have trash chutes that come down from above. And then those usually have these kind of wheeled bins that will then go into a dumpster enclosure over on the other part of the garage. And that has a garage door overhead door where, you know, a dump truck, not dump truck, a trash truck can come down and collect those. Probably take about 15 minutes once or twice a week. So that's how it's done. This will be a vented room, you know, so it doesn't create any smell in the area. Is there another question?
[Francis Avola]: Great. So that's going to be coming out of the garage garage closest to Alfred Street. It's going to be the next garage up where the trash is going to be.
[Adam Hurtubise]: It's service from Winchester.
[Francis Avola]: OK, thank you.
[Adam Barnosky]: There were some questions about about what the timeline of the project is. It's We will likely apply to the city under the PDD at some point during the early fall, and a site plan will occur either in tandem or after that period of time. I know this is a new process for the city, so there hasn't been enough of these that have gone through to know exactly what the timeline looks like, but it will later part of this year approval. So, as we mentioned, this will be, we will be notifying the voters of this, as well as there will be notices posted at the city's website and on the planning and city council agendas.
[Adam Hurtubise]: see if there's any other comments here. There was one comment about utilities. So we'll be providing a utility study as part of this site claim review process. Initially, I think we didn't run into any initial problems, but it will be reviewed in more detail.
[Adam Barnosky]: Oh, there's a question about how long will construction take? I don't know that that's been vetted yet, but we will address that at some point during the community approval process.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Also, the question about electric cars. Since we drew this, I actually have about 10 or 12 spaces for electric cars at this point. But since we drew this, you all probably have read that California is going to eliminate gasoline vehicles by 2035. And Massachusetts will follow in suit. And so, you know, I would expect that we'll probably be adding more chargers, or at least charger-ready stations throughout.
[Adam Barnosky]: Peter, there's a question about storm drains being installed in the driveway. I don't think we'll put them in the driveway.
[Adam Hurtubise]: They'll be in the spaces around the buildings where we have landscape. So it's quite difficult to put them on a slope.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_03]: there would need to be trench drains at the low points of those driveways, of course.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. If that's the question of collecting water on the driveways, there will be trench drains for that.
[Adam Barnosky]: Any other questions or comments from the public? Okay, seeing and hearing, oh, looks like one while they're here. Debbie, go ahead and unmute.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, so I had put the comment in the chat, but, you know, being where I also live in Somerville, Broadway, so just kind of like where Winchester meets Broadway. So I agree with what, you know, I'm hearing a lot of people say that just like the flow. So I know there's other processes with like the traffic flow in the area, but to really promote not needing a car right now, we, you know, with a family of four, we need to access services. So is there any plan for the belt that are A public gym space that, you know, locals could use or maybe a co working space. Again, that's a public could use. I know there's a, I think I heard something about commercial space I'm sorry if I missed some of that discussion, but if there's, you know, things to promote. not need to get into your car would be helpful as this project. This is a big scale project. So there's like a lot of opportunity here. So thank you for listening and just kind of keeping that open mind. So maybe providing some services that would be helpful to ease up the need to be in the car. Thank you.
[Adam Barnosky]: Thank you, Debbie. Yeah, and we, I'm not sure if it was your comment or somebody else's that they make some some similar suggestions earlier so I think we can definitely take that to to the applicant when they're when they're looking at, you know, potential uses for for the corner space.
[Adam Hurtubise]: and it would be easy to convert that building to either of those uses that you mentioned if a tenant could be found to run it.
[Adam Barnosky]: And I will give a plug to Jesse and Max who do comment that they own a gym at 96 Winchester. So if anybody's looking for an amenity in the meantime at least, please visit their establishment. All right, there was one question about what will happen to the house at 104 Winchester Peter, you mentioned this a little bit, but do you want to talk in a little more detail about that portion of the site?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, so I think maybe because I talked about it early on, can you let me share the screen?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Still, it's still you. So in the very corner of the site where the existing building is, we're proposing to retain the main mass of that building, add a new front porch, and then remove what's existing in the rear and build a new kind of commercial wing on that building. That would have an elevator and it would be handicapped accessible grade and have the fire safety stairs and so forth. The idea is that this is set up as a number of different uses that could fill a space depending on how they want to use it. So in addition to that, we also create a very large courtyard with the existing tree in place there. So that is, you can see that in here in this kind of aerial view. So potentially, you know, those uses that were mentioned go in here if somebody wanted to run that sort of business. And there's any number of different things that could go in here. And at the same time, you know, we maintain scale and kind of historic diversity with this nice restored front door.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Adam Barnosky]: All right, any other hand? Let's see, I'm looking at the chat here. Any environmental studies in the project with noise study due to close to track? I don't believe that a noise study is required here. I'm not sure if you mean, is a noise study required for the noise that the building would emanate or for the noise that might be coming into the building? In either event, I don't believe that a noise study is required for a residential use, but Victor or Alicia could certainly differ if that's not the case. There is a shadow study that will be conducted or that has been conducted relative to the impact on neighboring buildings. Yeah, we'll submit that with the rest of our material. Is the building pursuing any level of LEED certification? Peter, do we have an answer on that at this point?
[Adam Hurtubise]: We don't, but having done quite a few
[Adam Barnosky]: HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator): And there's a question about whether the drawings are online for you to study the so this presentation will be online the. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Moderator): The project will probably be amended, at least in part, I would assume from some of the conversations that we've had today and some of the comments, I know that once once there's a formal submission. of this project to the city, then those plans will be available online as part of the packets of the board, but won't be until that time. All right, any other comments? Victor, Alicia, any comments from the city side?
[Victor Schrader]: No, thank you everyone for coming out tonight and sharing your thoughts and asking great questions. Please stay tuned as this continues on and we will, like I said, do our best to make sure folks are aware of upcoming meetings and you're welcome to reach out to us directly if you have any follow-up questions. And I know Adam included his contact information, so please reach out to him as well.
[Adam Barnosky]: Yeah, please feel free to contact me. My email was on the flyer, but for those who may not have it, it's ARB at R-I-W.com. ARB at R-I-W.com. Thank you all. We really appreciate everyone. Thanks, Victor, Alicia. We appreciate all your help on this and the information provided. So we will see you all again soon. Thank you. Thank you very much.