[Collins]: There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee, August 14, 2024. This meeting will take place at 7 p.m. in the city council chamber, second floor, and via Zoom. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Present. Present.
[Collins]: Present.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Present.
[Collins]: present, and I see that Councilor Callahan just joined.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure.
[Collins]: Good to go. Great, thank you. Thanks everybody for your patience. The action discussion items for this committee meeting is again 24-033 zoning ordinance updates with the Innes Associates team. At our last committee meeting, which was either two or three weeks ago, I forget, we had a really great mapping workshop that Innes Associates prepared. We looked at many different zoning maps displaying different zoning characteristics of Medford together. We split them out along tables in the city council chambers. We could all take a look. Many people made notes, asked questions. This is a forum for kind of more informal dialogue and lodging notes and asking questions of NS associates. So I understand that tonight we'll kind of have a short debrief. of some of the key takeaways from that forum. Of course, there were so many, so I'm hoping that we can just quickly touch on the highlights that will most directly inform the more short-term work ahead of this committee now, which is dealing with discussing and reviewing proposed updates to Mystic Avenue Corridor and the Salem Street Corridor. I believe we're also going to hear an update on the ADUs law that was recently updated at the state level, and perhaps here's some updates on the condo conversion ordinance as well on these topics are all linked because of their relevance to both district and global housing strategies throughout the city. I recognize we are starting a little bit behind schedule which is entirely my fault I apologize. Still since this meeting has a seven o'clock start I'm going to ask that we all make best efforts to wrap this up by 830 because City Hall staff has had a long day, and non City Hall staff has had a long day too. Thank you so much. I'll pass it off to Director Hunt and Planner Evans if you'd like to say anything and then we can just let NS Associates take it away.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Alicia Hunt from the Planning Department. I'm here with Danielle Evans. I don't think we really have any opening remarks. Staff from Innes Associates are on the call on the Zoom, and I think they're expecting to present.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much. Paola and Jimmy, thank you for being here.
[Rocha]: Of course.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Good afternoon. Yes, thank you for inviting us. It's almost every week. I'm here. I'm Paula Ramos-Martinez. I'm from Enos Associates, senior urban planner. And I'm here with Jimmy Rocha. He's our GIS specialist. And he's the one that has prepared for the last workshop all the amazing maps. So I will share the presentation over here. Do you see my screen? Yes. Sorry for this. So in the agenda what I have planned for today is I will, because there is a lot of things, so what we're going to do is a very fast report from the last planning committee meeting. We had the workshop so I'm going to go through the report but quite fast. We send it today to the councillors so if there is anything that they want to suggest or add to the conversation please it's more than welcome to do so. Then we're going to go through the zoning recommendations for the corridors. We are examining Mystic Avenue and Salem Street and then a bit of the next steps that we have and we will talk about the future land use for the corridors, squares and neighbourhood centres, how we are planning in doing so. I have the timeline next, so you will see a bit of that just in a few seconds. And then we are still working on some of the studies we have, the condo conversion, housing definitions, and that will be like co-live and co-housing, the way that people are living together and obviously that matters to zoning. And then we will go into incentive zoning and green and cool score. All these studies are going to be for the next meeting because otherwise it's really impossible to go through everything at this moment. So we will show some precedents and go through it quite deeply. But at the moment, we are going to do the report and the zoning recommendations. For the timeline, what I would like to do is to have certain days for an for the more study areas focus and then having between the more wide strategies. So, for example, last time we did the workshop, it was July 24th. Today, we're doing the Corridors Mystic Avenue and Salem Street. For the next one, we want to do the condo conversion, housing definitions and incentive zoning. September 25th, we want to, what we are going to do today for the corridors, we want to do it for the squares. October 9, we will give the ADUs brief and affordable housing. October 23, the neighbourhood centres. And then again, some citywide strategies. and in November 27th, the corridors that are left or bigger areas that we will also study that are in the comp plan. So it's a bit of having one meeting for more focused areas and one meeting for the bigger citywide so we don't lose the bigger picture and we can go in and out, swimming in and swimming out. Um. So for the report from the last meeting in 24th of July, we had this type of very big maps. We had for Medford, we had for Salem Street and Mystic Avenue, and we had all the councillors and also city staff to go through them and give their opinions, their concerns, what was worrying them. And so we had the most that were commented were mainly on the residential clusters. and then on the zoning, asking for a mix of use to app zone to make ADUs by right, multi-tenant and how the transit as well will be affecting. So mainly focusing on the densification but keeping the character, also a lot of concerns of the permeability of the surface, climate resiliency strategies, and so on and so forth. I'm going to, if I can show one second the report So in here, you see that we have all of the plans that we showed and with all of the comments. So all the different typologies and all the comments in one document. What we do is to send it to the Councilors. We send it today and we want you to review it. If you see something that should be there that you are not seeing, please let us know. We would love to hear back from you and add any other concern that you might not know about. And so this is for the report. I would like to start with the corridors because it is quite a lot of things to talk about. And so if there are not any questions about the report or if there are not any comments, I would love to continue. So let me know. Okay. So So the corridors, we have been studying Mystic Avenue and Salem Street. We will start with the Mystic Avenue. We are going to talk a bit about the boundaries, then the connections with the immediate areas. and the opportunities that we might have, the land use, and with the land use we're going to see some sections to help us see a bit the height and how that is being addressed or how that relates to the street. So what do you see in here is Mystic Avenue, we have the yellowish background is the boundary that we have confirmed at the moment, and the black areas that you see the ones in Main Street. that is all black were proposed in the workshop. We thought it is a very great idea to add these ones, these two blocks. And so we suggest to also have it in. And then we have these two areas that we suggest that are included, but that we need more information We need also to contact the residents, we need to have a bit more of reach out to see if this is possible or not. To us it's interesting because we have Willis Avenue that is the parallel to Main Street, connects also Main Street with Mystic Avenue, and it is interesting to to be able to have at the end of the street that corner already telling you that there is some commercial and that we can have this more inner street that is already having the commercial atmosphere that will take you to Mystic Avenue. So we thought these two blocks will be interesting to add and as well as here a bit more in the south because of how it is surrounded. So you have all around these big lots and big buildings. And so these residential are a bit in the middle. And so how we do to make a better transition, we are studying also to make them be part of the Mystic Avenue boundary. What I'm presenting here is just as an idea some connections that can give us a lot of opportunities in these areas. So we have two main connections and that is the one on the north at the other side of Mystic Avenue we have the downtown and so we can have this kind of continuation of the downtown into Main Street. And so when you see these kind of stars is only to referring that there we could have a landmark, we could have a use that has a lot of active ground floor, so that we see that connection and that we give continuation to the downtown. And then further on the south, we have the connection that will be like a green bigger connection with the park. On the other side of Mystic, there's also a connection with Wellington, there is a bike path. So we see a lot of potential to bring this into Mystic Avenue. We have already a green area that can be more urbanized, at the moment it's very green, more like infrastructure green, but that it can be used and so these two areas could be interesting to having a lot of active ground floor. This doesn't mean that it has to be now, this is something that we are studying towards the future and where we see good possibilities and opportunities. And after this, if you want to, I think that I will talk about all Domestic Avenue, and then we can talk about it City Councilor and City staff. But if you want to, there is something that you really need to talk to, to speak out, that's also fine by me. So if you need to interrupt, feel free to interrupt. And then we are going into the land use. This needs to be a bit more detailed, but at the moment we are dividing these into four areas. It's really three, we have the blue areas, the center area, the east of Mystic Avenue and the west of Mystic Avenue are very different. The urban fabric, it's very fragmented on the west. And so we see also the depth of these lots are very different from the east of Mystic. So we have this subtle different of colours because it will reflect in the zoning. So this part of the blue area, how we see it, is that extension of the downtown. It still has all the historical divisions, all the historical street divisions. And so we think it can be very interesting, also very smaller lots that we can have here, a high density, but very kind of small to meet a scale. here we don't want any gas station or auto-oriented, this should be very much, very walkable, very accessible and just as a continuation of downtown. So we do have some, the police building and we have the fire trucks, those are, the fire station, those are civic buildings, so they are not going to have to answer to the zoning. But in any case, it's also interesting to have them in this area. The inner streets should have a totally different ambience than the Mystic Avenue and those we will study further. At the moment we have studied more the Mystic Avenue portion. So we will see how these transitions are made and if this could be more, not totally pedestrian, but more of a shared space. and more intimate kind of feeling. Once we go into the violet, so we see very different environments from the east to the west. So the mixed use, the second, that will be a bit of the continuation of the bluish, we will have it on the west of Mystic Avenue. So it's more fragmented, it's a smaller scale of steel, And the uses are very similar. We have commercial, mixed-use building, and multi-family or multi-unit building. And we will see the stories, we will see it better, the heights in the next slides with the sections. But mostly we're thinking six stories for the blue, six stories for the Mystic Avenue. And then on the other side of Mystic Avenue, because we do have all the infrastructure, we can really go higher. We also have very deep lots. the scale here changes. We are not talking anymore about a smaller scale, but we're going to emit a bigger commercial scale. We are thinking on having a plinth with four stories and then a higher area, not a tower, because it doesn't go into a tower, but a higher element that goes into eight stories, so in total around 12. we can see if that is something feasible. We're just laying the base so we can discuss on top. What we have in all these, the blue and all the violets, we have a very active brown floor. So we are asking from 75 to 100% of the ground floor in Mystic Avenue that is a very active ground floor. And so when we go into the lower area, the pink one, We are thinking on having less active ground floor, so it can be from 25 to 50. This is something that we need to study still. We are thinking about bigger scale. We think about around eight stories high. And then the uses to be, here we can have some auto-oriented, we can have the gas station, we can have life science, and we can have some light industry. So I'm going to start with the sections so that we can see them a bit better. So this is what we have at the moment. We have a lot of commercial that is or one to two stories high, very kind of pod, a lot of auto-oriented areas, very difficult to walk. If you see the walkway, this is the orange strip. We have even the electric poles in it. There is almost no space. And so what we need to do the lines that you see in red dash, those are the boundaries, the lot boundaries. And so, what we need to do, if I start saying that I'm not going to have any setback, any front setback, and I start to put all the stories on top, it's going to feel very cramped. The first thing that I need is to have a space to walk. Otherwise, we will never have an active area in this place, in the street. So, what we do is to give a curb setback. And that means that from the line of the curb, we establish a minimum of setback, in this case is 18 feet. And we go So we established, let's say, a new building line. And that's what you see in this black arrows, what that means. We do it in both sides so that we can really have a better space for walking. At least we have 10 foot for walking. And then the other eight are for green strip where we can have also the pole, electric poles, lighting, where we can have some seating, so a bit of a multifunctional strip area. It also helps if we have a continuous green with the stormwater collection. What we see here is buildings on the front and then we can have some parking, obviously we need parking, but that will be always on the back. And it can be closed, it can be open, that is not so important, but what we really want is that all the active ground floor is in the front. So about the heights in here, we are in the blue area, by the way. Here's only about the bluish area. So we are here. Here we have six stories high. We have some setbacks, some stepbacks, and we could have it from the fourth floor or from the fifth. It can even be a bit playful, so it's not always the same. We have a bit of a skyline, a bit of movement, so that we don't have a canyon kind of feeling. And so we have some step backs that can go from the fourth floor in the west of the Mystic Avenue and only one step back from the east so that we have a difference from one side to the other and we break a bit the symmetry. And the uses that we will have in this area is mixed use, is commercial, is multi-unit, multi-dwelling. And so if it's multi-dwelling and it's only residential use, then the amenity is to be in the ground floor to make it a bit more active. If we go to the next one, this is the center part. We have here is the east side and this is the west side. So the lower part will go on the west. We need to also explore a bit the more fragmented areas that are really in the middle where they have adjacent lots which are residential two and a half or three and so that has to be really that it has to transition well, of course. And then on the east We have a bit of a plinth so that we break and we don't have so high buildings flush into the street. We can even have a bigger curb setback. I'm having the same curb setback in all the street, all the 18. And we can have a bigger in this area because they are taller. And what we want is a plinth of at least four and then to have a roof deck and these roof decks should be or public or if it's for residential where they can to be semi-public. So it's the amenities and they can hang out in here. It's a big step back, so at least is 25-30 step back. And then to have as well in the back, this is more of infrastructural green, so it can help us with the stormwater, but it can also help if we have a bigger kind of more lush green, more intensive. It can also help to clean the view from the highway that is passing next to it. So this is the higher one, this is the bigger and the denser areas, commercial mixed-use, residential, multifamily as well. And then when we go into the last part, these are the lower where we still have some auto-oriented uses. We will try to have the auto-oriented uses on the back of the lots, so more where the where the 93 is running. So we can have more inside the lot, the auto-oriented and more the buildings that are or big commercial or office or life science that are on the front. In here, the street profile changes. This belongs to mass DOT. And so the profile is a bit different. So we don't need the curb setback because it's already wide enough. And what we give is from the boundary lot, we give some setbacks. And it can be a range from 10 to 20. because this is not active, this is not commercial, that I need to be next to it so that it will be interesting to have some more green in front and the building not so far away, so no parking at all, but not so far away that we are losing the contact and we lose the facades, but not so close that interrupts a bit the walkability. So, until here, I have all the Mystic Avenue, and after will come Salem, but I think it's better if we can maybe, I can hear your suggestions, or what do you think about it?
[Collins]: Thank you very much, Paola, I really appreciate that thorough overview of what you've been preparing. I know that you've incorporated some of the comments that were most recently raised at our mapping workshop just a few weeks ago. I have a couple comments myself, but I'll go to President Bears first.
[Bears]: Thank you, Chair Collins. I think this is great. I really like the north end of the corridor. I think that's restoring the traditional pre-highway kind of arrangement of a walkable neighborhood that used to be a mostly residential commercial extension of Medford Square on the other side of the river, when it's kind of, you know, in the auto age was taken up by repair shops and various things that, you know, aren't necessarily what we want to prioritize. So I'm really interested to see that. My only really question, I guess I have two questions. One with the curb setbacks is the idea that the private owners would be accepting of the curb setbacks because they would be able to build higher. Is that essentially the idea there? Because I think it is, Sounded like you're talking about maybe 10 feet of going back 10 feet into the private lots and that sounds you know, I mean, I can just think. maybe a private owner would say, I don't want to do that. And I do, I guess I just wonder what like the application of that looks like. If we have some lots that want to move to redevelop and they do the curb setback and then you have another lot with a non-conforming structure that's right up on the lot line, like how is that going to work? That's my first question. And then I have a second comment.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Sure. So answering your first question, yes, basically, the space that we have right now, if we want to make this really commercial area, there is not a space at all. And so there are two options, because we cannot invent a space, right? So or we take lanes out, or we have to make a setback. and yes, to have the new setback into the lots. So, this is the boundary lot and we are taking around 10 feet of their property. In that case, instead of building one or two, you can build six. So I think that the revenue that they get, it's quite good. We have in zoning, we have all the time setbacks from setback that they also cannot build. It's just to make it more walkable, to be able to make it more active, to bring a lot more people in, to make it more economically feasible. We need to go in so we can really go higher. We cannot make it with a... There is some shadow in here, 45 degrees. This is what it's supposed to represent, the shadow that these buildings are going to project. And if we go into the line, we can barely go really high.
[Bears]: And I totally get the use case of it. I think it's great. I guess I'm saying in practice, have we seen where this has been implemented in other places that when development happens, the property owners seem to say this makes a lot of sense and we want to go back from the curb that much. And then, you know, do we see where, you know, different lots get developed at different times that there's kind of a, disjointedness at least for some amount of time until the buildings reflect the updated zoning where you have some of the corridor doesn't have that curb setback. I'm just wondering in your studies what you've seen with that.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So at the moment, we also don't have any continuity in Mystic Avenue. So it's really each one of them build whatever they like. And we have a lot of parking placed in the front. That's mainly what you will find. So we don't have the buildings right in the line. We have very little, very few that will have this. This is taking time. This is a vision that will take many years to be implemented. So this is really little by little and trying to all the new developments that occur are going to be following the new curve line. This happens in, I've seen it in many areas, many cities. I don't know specific to Massachusetts. I can do that study and bring it to you later on in the whenever we present the draft, we can give more thought to that. But mainly the options that we have to, we need What happens is that we don't have a continuous facade line. And so every building is in a different position. Every building is totally or very setback, a lot of parking in the front. And so we don't have nothing that defines the space. And if we want to make, to start making that definition in here happening, we need to mark some kind of lines, some kind of, they're called sometimes red lines, where the buildings are going to take place. And so, as I said, or we take lanes, or we have to, we need a curve setback.
[Bears]: Got it. Yeah, I appreciate that. I think I don't think you need to go deep diving into it. I was just kind of wondering what you'd seen in practice and it sounds like. You kind of set these standards, and over time, the development pattern happens along those lines. And that makes sense to me. I do think that southeast of Hancock Street, it's worth looking at, potentially. I mean, the street's just too wide. Mystic Ave, it shouldn't be as wide as it is. 95% of the time it's empty and it's just dangerous to cross. So that was kind of one thing I was thinking is And I don't know where MassDOT would land on this either I think that's a really tough piece of the puzzle since they control the street southeast of Hancock, but You know, you could go in a little bit. I think there my other comment is that I do think the commercial zone, the red zone on the northeast side, the east side of Mystic Ave. I don't know if it makes sense to treat that. This is the red kind of south of Mystic Valley Parkway. I think in a lot of senses the Hicks Avenue element of this is kind of baked in and that's going to end up being commercial and have auto-dedicated uses, etc. I think the east side could be treated more like we're treating the east side north of the Harvard and Route 16 Mystic Valley Parkway intersection. I think, obviously, there was the life science proposal that was withdrawn by combined properties, and then the 40B that was withdrawn by combined properties. And they've been having a lot of ideas and withdrawing a lot of ideas. But I wonder if we could at least, I wonder if there's a way to say you could do either or and that mix and match wouldn't necessarily make that part of it not cohesive. I just think limiting all of those lots to the commercial only versus at least giving the opportunity for something like having the mixed use extend all the way down on the east side between Mystic Ave and the highway. That's just a thought that I have, but I'm, you know, I'd be interested to hear what other people think about that and what the planning department thinks about that as well.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, so in this area, what we have just to answer that one. We have a lot of highway nodes entrance and from the parkway coming in the north of the pink red area. And we have also the connection to the 93 at the end. This is a lot of traffic. And so some of these auto-oriented users would like to move. And so maybe in this kind of spacing, they will have the opportunity to move further south of Mystic Avenue. That is the first idea that we had, because the connection to the highway and to other main streets are really there. This part of the street, it is super bright, but this is more, as you said, this is mass DOT. So, and I see that there is a lot of influence of coming from the highway and going out. So I don't know how much we can reduce the traffic here. So there are very different street profiles from this one, which is not very wide. And so here to take spots from these areas, it is a bit difficult because it's already tight. This is already wider. And then at this last area, it really, really widens. This is like 100 feet. So I agree that we could maybe look at something different. We will love to hear your feedback from that, of course. And I'm just saying that here it is very white, the street profile. It has a different character. The lots are very, very different. very big. So, they are not so fragmented that is connected to the neighborhood. It is actually completely disconnected. There is some land and some topography and some green around it so that it doesn't even let the connection happening. And so, that was the reason why we thought if there is some people moving some auto-oriented moving from the other areas we can have here. It made the most sense to keep that kind of use in the southern part. We will try to push it more into the interior areas, but we can have some mixed use in these typologies, right, in the more connected to the street, that we could have some mixing. So we will study that.
[Bears]: Yeah, that's helpful. And I think, I guess mostly I'm thinking of the area bounded by the highway, and then northwest of Fulbright Street, northeast of Mystic, kind of, if I could, I mean, if maybe if you go to the map, it's that area. kind of right, yeah, exactly. And maybe there's a way, given the purple that we have on the west side, to kind of try to make that a more cohesive link. I definitely see most of what you're saying on the west side of the street, on the Hicks Avenue side, I completely agree. That's kind of is what it is at this point.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: I mean, we can have a later on phase, but at the moment I would say, It's whenever we have so many traffic going on in the area, it gets more tough to make it walkable and more vibrant. Yeah.
[Bears]: All right. Thank you. That's it.
[Collins]: Thank you President Bears and just to follow up on that point, I definitely would be interested to see. I think this is, as I mentioned, I'm really excited by this map I think this is a really important step forward in our, you know, kind of months of talks gearing up to this so thank you so much for this I think this is an excellent draft. As we do consider to continue to iterate on this, you know, since I know, kind of a part of this. project that looms large for all of these sections is the transition between mixed-use 1, mixed-use 2, mixed-use 3, etc. I would be curious to see if we can play around with a bit of a more transitional you know, perhaps mixed use three or two in that section that President Bears was just bringing up. And part of the reason for saying that is just to not want it to feel like a acute difference from one edge of that, you know, highway off-ramp to the other. I really appreciate the focus on walkability on Mystic Ave. And I think that transit is another big piece of that. I know from experience, you know, I think all of us do it is difficult to be a pedestrian. It is difficult to be a pedestrian on Mystic Ave, it's especially difficult to cross, but there are a lot of people who do utilize it because they need to take the bus up and down and they live in the dense housing area. That's just south of there. So kind of thinking about that and thinking about the pedestrians that will be on the street, kind of if there's a way to implement some of that flexibility and mixed use into the commercial zone. I think it would look better, and I think I could see some developers taking us up on that. One last question for me while we're on the topic of the setbacks, just to make sure I'm very clear on what we're talking about in mixed use 1, 2, and 3 with the setbacks. Is it that those are a condition or an incentive for increased height, or are the setbacks that you've prescribed a matter of course, and then the bonus heights come from meeting other criteria? Like, are these setbacks just baked in no matter how high the building is, or does it come in at certain levels of flooring?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, that's a good question. I think that At this point, the curb setback, it is what it is. I don't want it to be just a bonus. this is going to be just a baseline. You cannot have bonus because of this curb setback. We do could have more bonus and that's something that I would love to talk about in the next meeting because If we want to go higher, to be honest, I don't see why you couldn't in the, for example, in this area, or maybe if we transition with some more mixed use as well in the in the southern of the north part of the red pink one. So, if we go higher, or if they want to go higher, there are lots that are 400 feet deep, especially in these parts. So, you could even have a higher one facing more the highway, and then having lower in here. I think that that could come with the bonus. And then over there, we could have some, and that is where the amenities, the public space, terrace, and other things that we will outline for the next meeting could come into place. I would say that this is the maximum height that they can go. as of right, let's say. And then if they want to go higher, then we could have to, we would have to look into those bonus and there should be a bigger setback so they can have a plaza in front. and other things that they could do. But I think that the incentive zone would be great, for example, in this area, something like this corridor. Also in Salem, we will see it. But this curb setback, to me, is the minimum that it should be there. And then if we go higher, then we could have bigger setbacks.
[Collins]: Thank you. I think that makes sense, too. I just wanted to be clear on that. what the mechanism was for that, but I think that makes a lot of sense. And it is, you know, from one perspective, it is exciting to think about, you know, if this were to be implemented, how the experience of walking or biking or even driving down Mystic Ave might be different in 20 years with more actual space to enjoy. Great. I see a hand up. It is our custom to take public participation at the end of committee meetings, but I know that we're going to be shifting gears pretty soon to the Salem Street Corridor. Do you have a comment? I'm happy to. Is there any further comments from councilors, from city staff, before we move on to the next item in Ines's presentation? President Bears.
[Bears]: Just one question, and it might be for PDS and for NS Associates, but given this, when do we expect that we could see the maps and the written ordinance language for adoption for, I guess, for both of these? I guess I could ask that at the end.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, we will start preparing the journal. because we do have some other things. I am not sure. I cannot give you that answer at the moment, but I will give you that answer maybe in the next meeting. The thing is that it's not only about the users and the table of users and the store and the heights. We also should do development standards, design guidelines, so that when it comes to the draft, it's really all tied in. And if anyone wants to start developing, that will follow all these rules. So there is still some work to do. Yeah, I don't know if it's if Alicia Hunt has anything to add to it, if they need it as soon as possible.