[Hurtubise]: actually.
[Collins]: Oh, we're in trouble then.
[Hurtubise]: The button that turns it on.
[Hurtubise]: Yep. Yours is on.
[Collins]: Okay.
[Hurtubise]: This thing over here.
[Collins]: Okay.
[Hurtubise]: Hey, Sarah. Oh, do I have to touch this? Can you help us with the microphone for a second?
[Collins]: I'm sorry. I haven't been chair before. It's on? Oh, it is on. Great. Okay. Can you turn your microphone on as a test?
[Callahan]: Oh, now it is. Yes.
[Collins]: Thank you. That I recall. Can folks is this picking up my voice at all? Not really. Okay, I think I'm on. Great. Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee, December 3rd, 2024. This meeting will take place at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chamber, second floor, Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, and via Zoom. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: President Bears?
[Collins]: Present.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan? Present. Councilor Leming?
[Collins]: Councilor Leming let us know that he could not attend tonight.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Scarpelli? And Vice President Collins?
[Collins]: Present, that is... We got four for present one absent. The meeting is called to order. Um, the action discussion item for tonight is again. Paper 24-033 zoning ordinance updates with the Innes Associates. Team. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being here. Planner Evans and Director Hunt as well. I'm going to briefly summarize the agenda for tonight and then turn it over to our guests as we just have about an hour for this meeting with a regular meeting starting at 7 p.m. So we've had a busy past couple months. We have referred the Mystic Avenue Corridor District zoning proposal to the CDB. Same with Greenscore. So we are kind of in the middle of our discussions, kind of beginning middle of the beginning, beginning of the middle of our discussions about the zoning proposal for the Salem Street Corridor. We touched on that a little bit last time when Vice Chair Leming was presiding over the meeting. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to kind of recenter ourselves and where we are in the timeline of the zoning review project overall, where we are in the year. and place the Salem Street zoning proposal in the context of that, its next steps after the committee takes its time with it. And then we're going to have an introduction to the Salem Street Corridor zoning proposal by NS Associates. This is just the first time that the council and the committee is going to have a chance to kind of get a really solid comprehensive overview and start to get into the weeds on this zoning proposal. We've already started advertising for our next planning and permitting committee meeting where we'll be going over the Salem Street zoning proposal. That's going to be next week on Wednesday at our regular time. I understand that in collaboration with Director Hunt and the mayor's office, we put out some promotional materials about this meeting today on social media, as well as a robocall just to make sure that we're really getting the word out. So the purpose of tonight is to introduce this proposal to councilors. I know we've had it in our packets since last week so that we can start to make those comments and ask those questions so that we can be kind of having more informed context for residents in the week between now and next week when we talk about it again. And again, invite residents to hear about the proposal and ask questions before the committee takes any further action on it. So with that, I'll turn it over unless Danielle or Alicia, if you have any comments that you want to make up top, I'd happily turn it over to Paola to begin her presentation. Oh. Sorry, one second.
[Hurtubise]: There you go. Okay. Thank you. Sorry.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: No. Um, yes. So thank you very much. Um, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Um, Emily is also joined. She's virtual. Um, so I'm physically in the City Hall. It's me from Innes Associates, Paula Ramos and my colleague, Jimmy Rocha. Um, and virtually Emily Innis that she will present also one part of the presentation today. I'm going to share my screen. So in the agenda for today, we're going to just talk about the timeline. Then we are going to introduce the plan that we have for the next year, 2025. We're going to do an introduction about the Salem Street District Corridor. And then Emily is going to present the draft itself. So the general changes to the Medford Zoning Ordinance and then the new district draft. Um, so this comes from July 24th. We had a workshop here, um, with the city, uh, staff and the Councilors. where we presented some analysis of the area. Then we presented just an outline of the corridors, Mystic Avenue and Salem Street together in August 14th. We have been working on Mystic Avenue the last month, and today we're going to present the Salem Street corridor draft. Um, later on the next, uh, in December 11th, we will present with your comments from the City Council staff recommendations and any comment from the public. We will do those, integrate those comments in the draft and bring it again for a final review. So starting with the plan for 2025, we just wanted to introduce an outline so also the public could see what things, topics, districts and geographical areas we're going to be talking about and analyzing during the next year from January to May. So we're going to start in January with North Medford. We're going to study and analyze the single-family districts one and two. And we are going to explore many topics, but mainly we're going to study the dimensionless standards, development standards, and housing topics about, different topics about housing, like the ADU, et cetera, topics that are important in these next months. In February, we will talk about South Medford. The districts will be apartment one, two, general residential. And the topics are going to be very similar. And we will also introduce this idea of the neighborhood commercial, these neighborhood notes. How can we approach those and study those? In March, we will talk about the Medford Square, mainly commercial one, and other districts that are related in these areas, in these locations, we will talk about standards, dimensional and developments. And then in April, West Medford. And finally, in May, Wellington and Glenwood area, we will review office, district, industrial and the mixed use zone. So that this is the big, big outline that we have prepared for the next year. And we will in the next meetings, we will be more specific with the topics and also the dates that the public meetings will be. So just a little reminder, Medfair has done for, I think it was in 2022, started a comprehensive plan and it was released in January 2023. And we are building on that. So all these zoning updates are not coming from anywhere. This comes from the comprehensive plan. And when we talk about the corridors and why Mystic or Salem Street, this comes from this study that was done years before. So here we see the Salem Street, for example, and we have different strategies that comes with it, like, for example, the Vibrant Places 1.1.2, where it talks about mixed use in these village centers. as a right in smaller nodes outside traditional commercial squares, such as in Salem Street. So just wanted to introduce this with the idea that this comes from a bigger plan that was done before. So we are just doing that update in the zoning from the comprehensive plan. Where are we and what is the existing conditions? That's what I'm going to present now. So we are in Salem Street. This is where we are in Medford. So what are the districts that are already there? And we have a little bit, quite a mix in here. Mainly the lots that are abutting Salem Streets are apartment one. The last part of it, the last piece, it's in commercial one, and then on the north of Salem Street, we have a general residential, and on the south, the single family two. What does it mean? In this table, what we show, and it's a lot of numbers, I'm not hoping that you will look at all of them, but this is exactly what you can do right now in those districts. where are the minimum area, the minimum lot area, which By the way, in apartment one, a lot of non-conforming. We will have a lot of non-conforming because of the square footage, the minimum that is allowed. And then it tell us the heights and the stories, the setbacks, et cetera. So in here, there are all these different districts that apply in Salem Street. This is exactly the conditions that what can be done now. This is what we proposed in a previous meeting, where we analyzed the area and we wanted to do this different districts, depending on the connection and how it related with the bigger services in the districts. So we took this Hike Park or Morrison Park as important nodes. also the school, to create two, and this is the reddish areas, two bigger nodes, commercial nodes with higher density, and that is in Parker Street, Salem Street, that is one of the nodes, and the other one is Felsway West at Salem Street. So the distinction that we do from that analysis, bringing also the districts that we have worked with in Mystic Avenue, we bring the mixed use one, mixed use two commercial, and we add one new one, which is the multi-unit residential. And this works as a transition between the corridor and the existing residential neighborhoods. Um, mixes one, it's very similar as we did for mystic Avenue. The different between mystic Avenue and Salem Street is it's a different character in this quarter, mystic Avenue is very citywide. So it should serve the city demands. Salem Street does not have that. It should not have that capacity. This is more a neighborhood corridor, so it will serve the districts and the neighborhoods that are around Salem. So the density here is going to be less, and the heights are going to be less. For example, Mixuse 3 that we used in Mystic Avenue, we are not going to see it here. So we have mixed use one, this is active ground floor, three stories, and with incentive zoning, we bring that back, we can have four stories maximum. we are talking about a small, medium scale program. In this notes that I was talking about that connects with the school and the parks, here we have mixed use too. And this is active ground floor as well, 75%, four stories, and with incentive zoning, it can go up to six stories with a step back from the third floor. In commercial here, this is the bright red, the darker red. Here we have a bigger scale commercial. It's exactly what is existing now. We will have different development standards than what is there. The big target, for example, or the MBTA bus collection storage. Um, but we want to have it a bit more density. So here we can have from 3 to incentive zoning six maximum. This is really a more commercial program. Um, gas station is permitted in this area, and then we have this transition, and this is the new one that we had. This is the multi unit residential, which is maximum three stories. Um, and these are multiple dwelling from 3 to 6 units. So what is right now there? What we did is, if in these blocks we have a mix of commercial and a mix of residential, we keep it as a mixed use. Only the blocks that are entire residential, we maintain it as it is, because we think that that character is part of the identity of the neighborhood. So we want to maintain it. And at this moment, we don't see the necessity to do a complete commercial. ground floor in the in the corridor. So what you see is that we have some commercial, some multifamily already existing. And what we are doing here is just we do a bit of densify a bit these commercial program and we introduce residential in this area. So we expect for a very open, active ground floor and then residential on top. So what we have prepared is a bit of what is existing there. Historical buildings we wanted to be preserved three stories high. And for example, gas stations to not have them in the corridor and only have them in the commercial area, so really near Felsway West. That makes a lot more sense. Sorry. Um, so we have in in a very few meters or feet. Sorry. We already encountered three gas stations, so that's something that we would like to avoid in this quarter, especially because we wanted to be more vibrant to be pedestrian focused to be more active. Um, So in, as you can see, really just a few feet away, we have three gas stations. Then the residential that is already there, two and a half stories high, and also three stories high, that is exactly what we permit in here. So these are pretty much staying, and we wanted to keep them. Um And then finishing with the most commercial part, which is already As existing. This is exactly what is in here. Now what is permitted in these areas? Um, this already is the commercial one district. Um, and It is permitted buildings until six stories high. So you could have something like this. As you can see in the I don't know if you can see my cursor moving. I don't think so. Yes. Okay, perfect. But, and with the dimensional standards with these step backs, this cannot happen with the new zoning in the Salem Street corridor. But because of what you have at this moment, it could happen, especially in the east part of it. It also has the hotel that can go up to 12 stories at the moment as existing. Yes, so that's something that we want to avoid because we don't see that that can really happen in this. So that's one thing that we need to look and that we have looked into is what is existing right now there, what is the character, and another one is what your zoning allows. And so we want to make something that makes sense, taking both into account. And I think that that is the introduction. So now I'm going to let if Madam Chair, if I can ask Emily to present the second part.