AI-generated transcript of City Council Planning and Permitting Committee 12-11-24

[Collins]: All right. Okay. Am I on? Okay, cool. All right. Everybody ready? All right. Thank you for bearing with me. There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee, December 11th, 2024. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Hurtubise]: President Bears Councilor Callahan, Councilor Leming, Councilor Scarpelli. And Vice President Collins, Chair Collins.

[Collins]: Thank you. Present five present. None absent. The meeting is called to order. The action discussion item for this meeting is once again 24 dash 033 zoning ordinance updates with the Ennis associates team. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, City staff for being here. Thank you to members of the public for joining us. This is, I believe, the 16th, the agenda says, the 16th Zoning Updates Project Meeting with Innes Associates. This week we are again talking about the Salem Street Corridor Zoning Proposal discussion. We touched on this topic last week, last Tuesday as well. Really glad to be talking about this with you all again. I'm just going to briefly reintroduce this specific topic and then I'll hand it over to and we'll have a presentation by Ennis Associates and commentary by city staff, and then we'll proceed with our discussion. But just to quickly reintroduce what we're talking about today, this is our second time having a full meeting devoted to the Salem Street Corridor District. This is just one part of the City Council's systemic review and update of citywide zoning over the course of this term. We've been working with Ennis Associates, thank you for being here, which also assisted the city on the years-long comprehensive plan process. So this corridor proposal, like other aspects of the zoning project, have been crafted by Ennis in consultation with, oh, thank you for letting me know. So these zoning proposals crafted by the zoning consultant in consultation with this committee and city staff, all of these are guided by citywide goals and community feedback as articulated in the comprehensive plan, the housing production plan, the climate action and adaptation plan. and the community input and feedback that we're very fortunate to have throughout this process. And just because I take every opportunity to say this, after these proposals leave this committee, they go back to the city council, they then are procedurally must be referred to the community development board for their review and recommendations, and then come back to the city council once again, before those votes to ordain are taken. It's a complicated process, so I like to repeat it as often as possible, because I know it took me a while to internalize it. So like I said, the initial draft of the Salem Street corridor zoning proposal was presented to this committee on December 3rd for some initial feedback, questions and comments. The project proposes new zoning for the corridor along Salem Street, which includes the roughly two to four parcels extending north and south of Salem Street, beginning at the Route 60 roundabout and extending up to Haines Square. So this proposal does not include the greater Salem Street neighborhood outside of those boundaries, though of course it does touch them and is adjacent to them. for getting further into the weeds than that. I will pass it off to Ennis Associates for a presentation, which I understand we saw a really similar presentation to this last week, but I think you're going to highlight some of the tweaks and changes that have been incorporated since last week based on feedback that we got from the community as well as feedback from councilors and city staff. Before I turn it over, any initial comments or questions from councilors? Okay, great.

[Hunt]: Madam chair, um, Alicia Hunt, director of planning, development and sustainability. I just wanted to share for the public for the viewing public that the presentation that Paula is going to give and the draft zoning that is being talked about tonight is now on the city's website. If somebody was to go to medfordma.org slash zoning and scroll down to phase two and drop that down and scroll down to tonight's date, If you want to follow along at home more easily, then what's on the screen through the Zoom, you can go to see those yourself and then you can refer back to them and review them. I just want people to know before we started that they were available on site as of five minutes ago. Thank you, Director Hunt.

[Ramos-Martinez]: Madam Chair, if I may. So thank you and good afternoon. I'm here with the team. We are from Innes Associates. My name is Paula Ramos-Martinez. I'm the senior planner and designer from Innes Associates. I have to my right, Emily Innes. She's the director of Innes Associates and Jimmy Rocha, who is the data analyst in Innes Associates. So I'm going to share now the presentation that I have for you today. Can I share? I will send the request.

[Collins]: Thank you.

[Ramos-Martinez]: So I want to first start with the agenda. So we're going to talk about the process timeline. Then we're going to talk about the just simplified plan for 2025 that we already introduced on last meeting. I will do a small introduction why we are talking about Salem Street right now as a corridor. Where does that come from? We will talk about the current zoning that you have and then the proposed zoning that we are bringing today. Then Emily will go will continue to explain more the draft in detail. So, we started from July, we presented a workshop to the city Councilors and the city staff. with a lot of analysis, non-conforming maps, and getting all the suggestions and visions that they had. In August, we brought pre-designed and drafts of the zoning maps for Mystic Avenue and for Salem Street. Those are the two corridors that we are studying at the moment. In December 3, the last meeting that we had, we presented the corridor, the Salem Street. So this will be a continuation from that and with all the comments that were presented on that meeting and how we have adjusted some of those. we're going to be looking at. Um this. I will go very quickly. This is the plan 2025 that we have. So how we are going to geographically continue to study and do the analysis and the, um, update of the zoning. We will start January with North Medford, so we will study in the district's single family one and two. And then we will work on the we will talk about the neighborhood notes. Um then on February will, uh, work on South Medford. This is a part. The districts will be apartment one apartment to and general residential. Topics the same as before. We will also talk about the neighborhood notes. Um then in in March, we will talk about the Medford Square. Um, mainly commercial one. We will add more topics that we do have at the moment, but this is just an outline, so more things will come. And then in April, it will be West Medford, Commercial One's district, and in May, Wellington Glenwood area. We will talk about Office One, Two, Industrial, and Mass districts, and we will study the dimensional standards and development. So this is just an outline, we will continue to be more in depth of dates and the topics that we will discuss in each of these months. So our introduction is why we are talking about Salem Street. This comes from the Medford comprehensive plan that was released in January 2023. This was a plan that was made within two years of constant participation from the communities. and they did this complex result of all those studies that were made at that time. So we are just, our work, our job right now is to take those, the suggestion strategies from the comprehensive plan, from climate adaptation, action adaptation plan, and all the, from city staff and city councilors recommendations, and we are doing an upgrade of the zoning. So at the moment, we're studying the corridors. You can see it in this big image. All these purple lines are considered corridors. This means that they have specific characteristics. So they connect places, like for example, Salem Street connects Medford Square with Felsway, area and they have commercial and active ground floor. So these are the characteristics that set these areas and these streets to be corridors. So from this comprehensive plan, for example, we have one of these strategies. We zone to allow mixed use in village centers as of right in smaller nodes outside the traditional commercial squares such as Salem Street. So this is where we are coming from. We did Mystic Avenue, and that is a transformational rezoning that we are doing. And it's also citywide. So Mystic Avenue and Salem Street are very different in scale, and also who's serving. Salem Street, it's mainly serving the neighborhoods around it, the residential neighborhoods that are north and south of Salem Street. And so the density and the changes that we see from Mystic to Salem are considerably different. So the current zoning in Medford, what we are looking at is in this area that is marked in this black circle. If we do the zoom on that area, what we see is that we have two districts. One is the apartment that is in the southern part. So it's all this area. and then the northern part of Salem Street near Felsway, that is commercial one. And what we want to do is explain in here in this chart, in this table, what you can see is all the dimensional requirements for these districts. So Medford, what it does is apply dimensional standards per district, but also by use. So if the use is different, the dimensional standards are different. But what I wanted to mention is just to keep in mind that your current zoning, which is different from what you have right now there, from what it is constructed, what it exists there. In your zoning, the minimum lot size to construct is 5,000 for single family, 5,000 square foot lots. For a single family, 6,000 for two family. Then we have attached that I will explain later what that means. Multi-family is 10,000. And then any other principal structure is 10,000. Just so that we keep in mind. Apartment one does not allow commercial on your ground floor. So that is also interesting to retail or commercial in the ground floor. to keep in mind. And then the maximum that you could build is four stories high in apartment one. And that is depending on the use, it's usually three. But for example, for assisted living, there is four stories high. And then in commercial one, what you have is the minimum lot is 10,000 for multifamily and for assisted living. Then for hotel and other principal instructors and can be commercial, there is no minimum size. There are not minimum area, but there are minimum frontage. And for example, for the hotel minimum width and depth. Now, the heights in commercial one is six and in hotel is 15 stories high. So this is something that can happen right now by right. in those areas. So more in-depth, here you can see it with the diagrams. We are talking about this area, the apartment one, and what you can construct. So single family, 5,000 square feet, maximum height two and a half stories, single family attached, minimum lot area is 3,500, it's twice because it's in one end and the other, and the middle a single family dwelling is 2,500. This is a bit complicated, so if we want, I can explain that more. And the maximum height is three stories. And the multiple dwelling is a minimum of 10,000. Now, just be aware, this area, it's very historical. So the parcels that you have in there, the lots that we have there, are not very big. So a lot of this, more than 5,000 and especially 10,000, they will be non-conforming. So you wouldn't really be able to construct according this minimum areas. Now, if we go to the commercial, so this is the northern part, what you can construct is this multiple dwelling, is six stories high, and the minimum lot area is 10,000. Now, other principal structures, as I said, this doesn't have a minimum area, it has only minimum frontage, and then the maximum is four stories. This can be, for example, a commercial building. and then the hotel that has a minimum frontage of 50 and then 15 stories high. That can happen in any of the northern area of Salem Street that is commercial one. So what are we proposing is not looking at the code alone, the zoning code, but looking also at what it exists there. What is the real character of Salem Street? What is its identity? And so we divided in this four sub-districts. So we have mixed-use one, mixed-use two, commercial, and multi-unit residential. What we wanted is mainly on Salem Street, we're going to find mixed-use, well, let me rephrase this. So mixed-use two, which is the red lots, What are indicating is the areas that have better connection to the active areas in the neighborhood. So they will serve those active areas, like, for example, Piki Park, or these are better connections. We have a school in Park Street. So these kind of intersections where we see that can be a lot more active, these nodes are going to be a bit more densified than the rest. And that happened as well towards Felsway West, where we also have bigger lots and bigger opportunities. And this is, for example, one of the changes that we made is that the lots of the target and the MBTA storage area lot are being changed from commercial to mixed use too, so that residential can also happen in this area. We have just one little, for at the moment, one small commercial. This is a gas station, which we think that can happen there. So in order to maintain that use, we are considering commercial. What is the difference between mixed-use one, mixed-use two? These are lots, mixed-use one are lots that have a mix already with residential and commercial. And so if the lots have already that mix, we kept them as mixed-use. When one block was only residential, then we kept it as residential. So we didn't introduce more mixed use in the area, we just kept it because we thought that it will reaffirm the identity that it has now, which is a lot of mix between commercial in the ground floor and residential. Um I will explain now the uh standards but only before that um you see a lot of the between the Salem street lots and the neighborhoods we have what we call the transitional part or transitional lots and these are multi-unit residential and the idea is so that the heights and the youth would transitionally, gradiently will convert into those single family districts. So just to have a little bit clear of what are the minimum lot areas that we are proposing for these districts and the heights, I just want to mention that we have a difference between what the maximum height is as a base height, so what you can do. and when we include incentive zoning. And incentive zoning is that we give an exchange, we negotiate to increase the density, so increase the height, if they give back something to community, and we will talk about that later. So when you see this incentive zoning height, it's only if the developer is willing to give back something to the community. So the multi-unit residential minimum lot area is 3,000 square feet and maximum height three stories. Mixed use, the minimum lot area is 3,000 square feet and maximum height three stories plus one with incentive zoning. So it can be four and it's by right, but they have to do something for the community. And this extra step, extra story has to have a step back so it doesn't feel too much too high on the street level. Mixed use. This is the denser part. These are these nodes. The minimum lot area is 3,000 as well. Maximum height is four stories plus two with incentive zoning. These two also have a step back. And then commercial, the minimum lot area is 10,000 square feet. Maximum height is three stories plus three with incentive zoning. And from the fourth floor, two are a step back. So I just want to remember that these lots are not very big. They do not have a lot of depth. So just to keep in mind that the height that we are giving is the one that we really think is the best to densify, but also to not mess with the character of the area. So if we review what you have right now and with your current zoning, what you're going to see in these images is what wouldn't be allowed today by right in your zoning. So whenever we have in the first part of Salem Street commercial, it wouldn't be allowed. So this one story high with commercial is not allowed. It's not currently allowed. Yeah, it's not currently with your current zoning allowed. We want to change that. Then the multifamily, this is allowed. That's okay. And then on the lower picture where the residential is allowed, the commercial building next to it, it's not currently allowed. Same in the left corner. The commercial area is not allowed in this beautiful historical building. The ground floor is commercial, so it wouldn't be allowed in the current zoning. Gas stations are not allowed. That's something that we also encourage because you have four gas stations in Salem Street. Then again, every time that we see a commercial ground floor is not allowed, gas station, gas station, the residential, it is allowed. And this is the one that we also want to keep. So we are not changing that. commercial not allowed, residential yes it's allowed and we will keep as well in zoning, residential again is allowed and we will keep it. These are the two on the right are this block residential character that I was talking about that we decided to keep in the proposed zoning. And then on the left, on the inferior corner, on the lower corner, there is a house with a store front that wouldn't be allowed. If we go to the commercial, because lots of things are permitted in commercial one, everything is allowed. So here is some of the pictures that we wanted to show. What we are proposing is to have the ground floor commercial and to add a residential on top of it. Now the, these are all allowed. This is the target box building that we will talk about it later. This is the, in the lower part of the right, this is the Sunoco gas station. This is the one that we will keep because it's in Fells Way. We think it has good connection. It doesn't enter really to Salem Street. So we think it's a very good location for a gas station and it will serve the neighborhood as well. So that's why we kept that commercial in it. and then this is the what you have allowed in this area is an apartment of six stories, but that it has no step back. It doesn't look into the street. It doesn't activate the street. So we want to we have some standards. They mentioned development standards to make it a bit more coherent with what we have at the moment, so that's why we do these step backs, but also that that ground floor gets a lot of activity and it makes this street more vibrant and safe. Um, one of the things that we are adding that we didn't, uh, showed last time is this new definition of business incubator. This is something that city staff also thinks that can be very beneficial for the city. Um, and so we are bringing that definition so that we can also include it in our use table and so that this zoning will have this use permitted. So I'm just going to read it fast. An organization that assists early innovators achieve a minimum viable product or service and create an achievable plan to take that product or service to market. In addition to mentorship and investment opportunities, a business incubator gives access to logistical and technical resources, as well as shared office space, an incubator program can last for several months to a few years. So that's one of the additions that we're doing. Then on development and standards, because we heard some concerns about how this bigger development or bigger, higher density nodes that we are creating, how could that transit into the single family neighborhoods. We are bringing this development standards that is called neighborhood compatibility. And that says when an MX 1, 2 and commercial lot abuts a residential parcel, it shall be subject to context standards. And this is that we will take the maximum height that is on the setback line. on the side or rear line of the lot. So if the residential has a maximum of three stories, that is your maximum that you're going to start in your side or rear lot line. And then from there, you can gradually grow and go higher at a 45 degrees angle. And this is if I have I can go one story higher if I go, for example, 10 foot to the side, and then I can increase 10 foot on height. So that's how increasingly could give height to our new development. But at the same time, that there is a transition so you don't have a six story building next to your single family house. And this is for side and rear setbacks. As well that in these dimensional extenders, we do not have the side setbacks and rear setbacks are zero sometimes. So whenever it's zero, if you are about residential lot, your setback side or rear is going to be 10. So we also increase the side setbacks. Um, then just to, um, give up. We need to talk about parking and we will and there will be deeper study that we need to do. These lots, as I said many times are not very big. So the requirements of parking that exist at the moment, uh, these Lots are not able to, um They do not have that space, we will need to do more deep studies, but at the moment, it doesn't seem that there is enough space with your current zoning, it doesn't matter that is the new one or the older one. We just wanted to show first the development standards that we have on the draft is that the buildings to be on the sidewalk, so on the front lot line, and the parking to be located on the back of the lots. That can also be a cover parking as we see in the second one and the ground floor frontage can have a depth of 30 feet for example and then you can have your parking from it. In fact, the residential building, multifamily building that is already in Salem Street does something like this. And then for the bigger, bigger lots, we would encourage to have buildings on the front, parking on the interior. So as you can see in the last image. We will also introduce, because of this issue of parking in Salem Street, we want to introduce a new incentive zoning that is when they make available public parking, they can have a density bonus. So we need to continue to study this further. But this is the idea that we bring so that a lot of the stress that will be put in this small lots are not are taken by the bigger, bigger lots that can provide public parking. So the changes that are done to the previous draft, so the ones that you saw and the ones that you will see in the draft are the zoning map. So we did that change from commercial, these two lots on the northern part of Salem Street, from commercial to mixed use too. Table of Use Regulation. We have co-living by right in multi-unit residential district and in mixed use one district. Adult use is not permitted in commercial use in Salem Street. Parking in K-2 and J-9 have been detailed in this table of use, and we include incubator business as a use if it's something that you think we should include today. Table of dimension requirements, active ground floor, we change it to active frontage. There was a bit of misunderstanding, so we think active frontage is better. uh word for it and then we did some changes on the step back it's not all of them from the third floor but only in multi-residential is from the sorry from mixes one is on um above the third floor and then mixes two and commercial is above the fourth floor when we did this step back we brought the new definition of business incubator dimensional requirements and waivers. We introduced the we just amend this ground floor active frontage so that it's it corresponds with the dimensional requirements. And then the table of development incentive bonuses. We add the public parking to incentive to community amenities privately maintained. And now I will give the word to Emily Innes.

[Innes]: So while Paola is switching us over, I will just say that that was a lot. I am not going to go through the text word for word, but I am going to show you and the people here in this room and the people who are watching at home where to find the changes that we've just discussed so that as people review it, they'll have an idea of what to see. So if you can switch over to the Word document, Paola, that'd be great. I do want to reinforce, because I think some people who might be tuning in for the first time may wonder, they may have heard that Mystic Avenue is being addressed as a corridor, that Salem Street is also being addressed as a corridor and kind of wondering what the differences are. So I want to stress this idea that Paola mentioned earlier, that Mystic Avenue is viewed as transformational. This comes directly out of the comprehensive plan. it comes out of discussions that were done even before the comprehensive plan process began, and also in conversations with the city. I think when we look at Salem Street, it is a corridor, it is connecting two different places, but it also has the potential to be the heart of an existing neighborhood. And as Paola noted, we did a lot of work to understand what's on the ground now, how zoning does and does not encourage what's on the ground now. The fact that there are so many commercial businesses in the apartment district where that district doesn't allow commercial makes those all non-conforming uses. That's problematic. The dimensional standard studies that we as a team did show the number of non-conformities that also makes it problematic. So a lot of our goals with Salem Street is kind of right sizing the zoning and some places and enhancing it and others so I just do want to stress that that's been our goal and looking at it. When we look at the zoning itself. You'll see that we have done some of the things that you've already seen for the mystic Avenue quarter. We've added some new things and then we've changed some things because of Salem street is very definitely not mystic Avenue and I do want to stress that. So as we go through it, the boilerplate you have a section in your zoning where you identify all what all what all the districts are, and that is up there now so we're adding this new Salem Street quarter district. We are also going to make modifications to the table of use regulations and I know we have talked before about the fact that when we finish all of this work we are going to be coming back and putting together all of the pieces that are separate now. So you'll see this again. This also starts the color coding that you'll see in the draft. So we have this yellow highlight that indicates that something is new in the Salem Street Corridor District that is not found in Mystic Avenue and that's this idea of the multi-unit residential. That's being added to the table of use regulation so you see that yellow coming through, you will note as we move through that a lot that there are no commercial uses allowed in the multi unit residential. You also see this bright turquoise highlighting coming through and that's where we have. The districts of MX one the MX to the commercial. These are also districts that are found in mystic Avenue, they have some strong similarities, but in the Salem Street quarter if you see a turquoise it means we've changed it from mystic Avenue so this is something that is different from mystic Avenue. And in that case what we've done is we have removed some of the commercial and particularly the industrial uses that might be appropriate for mystic but absolutely are not appropriate for Salem Street and that's a recognition of both the use itself, but also the scale of that use that mystic Avenue is a very different area. compared to Salem Street so really with Salem Street what we're trying to do is allow those things that reinforce the neighborhood characteristic. So I'll just scroll through this. But you can see particularly as we get to motor vehicle related uses, and the industrial uses that those are now missing from this area. There's also some purple things about parking that's just a reminder to us to have another look at that when we swing back around to this area. So then we are adding in the dimensional standards and again you can see that although we have a mixed one a mixed two and a commercial in in mystic Avenue, the lot areas the other height maximums that palace already described are different they are scaled down to be appropriate to Salem Street. Again, we've added the mixed, mixed multi unit residential in here. And you can see we've changed those setbacks and requirements to be appropriate. We've added, we're adding a definition to active frontage for active frontage and we have added the business incubated definition in there. So that's the general changes to other parts of the zoning ordinance. When we get into the Salem Street Corridor District itself, you will see that the format is very similar to the format of the Mystic Avenue Corridor, but the purposes, the applicability, those components are different. So again, you see that the yellow text, this is a new component. We've changed the sidewalk size that is required for front setbacks. We're changing the frontage to be more appropriate to what's going on in Salem Street that may flow backwards to Mystic Avenue. We have some height waivers that we've added, but again, these are either not applying to certain things like chimneys ventilators towers this is consistent to what you have. or it requires a special permit. This allows for something that doesn't meet the minimum height requirement to be waived. So that is a change. I do want to spend some time on the incentives. Paola mentioned the idea that somebody could apply for a higher height in exchange for a public benefit. We have defined a number of incentives you will have seen some of these for mystic Avenue as well. We've worked reworked a little bit, how they apply but deeper affordability, which means rather than 80% of area median income being able to provide units at 65% of area median income or more affordable units are options for a developer and the city to consider. We have community amenities that are privately maintained. Paola mentioned that we're adding public parking to that list, but we also have outdoor spaces, indoor public spaces, and we are looking into low-income shared community solar, which is something that the City Council asked us. So the public parking and the community solar are still to be confirmed because we are doing research on how to do that, but we wanted to introduce the idea. Community and so any of those amenities would be provided by the developer and maintained by the developer or the later owner community amenities that are publicly maintained are paid for by the development entity but maintained by the city and that would be streetscape improvements. When we think of streetscape improvements, what we're thinking of are primarily trees and street trees to provide shade and air quality improvements or street furniture such as benches, trash receptacles, etc. Here we are not talking about reconfiguring the street itself. Concealed parking ground floor rents for local businesses or nonprofits. The green score zero emission or certifiable as lead platinum or equivalent or things that you've seen before. We have significant the ability to add design guidelines which is something that we're continuing to discuss with the city and the applicability of development standards to this, and the development standards are primarily similar to mystic Avenue. But again, you will see some changes the sidewalk width, in particular that are more appropriate for Salem Street. I just want to skim through the design guidelines I or the development standards I will say that all of the development standards would apply, either at the special permit level, or to as are bright requiring site plan review so there is a point at which the public can comment on both of these. And then finally the affordable affordability requirements there is no change from your existing. So with that, I'm going to stop we will stop our share we are certainly happy to answer any questions, but we appreciate the chance to again show this with the amendments to yourselves and the community.

[Collins]: Thank you so much for the presentation, Paola and Emily really appreciate it. I'll echo what you said this is a lot to take in zoning always is. I think that's one of our challenges here is this is a zoning is never not going to be technical complicated veering into wonky and confusing so I appreciate you doing your very best to break it down for Councilors members of the public, whether we're seeing it for the third time. like councillors are for the first time as some members of the public, maybe. Thank you very much. Lots to delve into here. I'll go first to any comments or questions from my fellow councillors. And Councilor Leming.

[Leming]: Go ahead. Yes. Can you going back to the timeline in the beginning and thinking about parking, is there Is transportation going to be included as a discussion topic in itself? And if so, what month is that planned for?

[Collins]: Want to speak to the citywide parking strategy we're thinking about?

[Ramos-Martinez]: Go for it. Yes, it's I said before, it was just the outline. We need to include all these topics like, for example, the TDM. So we will embarking as well. So we will bring that up when I have a bit also more information. Yeah, so at the end, what we want is to have these, when we have all of the districts together and to analyze better when we have all the data, we will do We will review these broader topics like for example parking, but when we have all of them. So around March, but you can. Yeah.

[Innes]: Yeah. Thank you. I think where we were going with that is that. Our next steps are north and south Medford which are primarily residential and the transportation demand management and some of the other parts are less applicable. We wanted to get into the squares first so I think when we hit Medford square which I believe is March on the schedule that's about the time that we would be talking about that. rather than the lower density residential areas, but we have not forgotten about it. We are finding as we are working with the as we talked about in the spring when we got to the geography and started applying some of the principles that we talked about at a high level and sort of April, May and June, we would start to see how those principles would flesh out I think we've learned a lot from the applicability to the quarters. I'd like to apply the parking ideas and the transportation ideas to the squares, and that Medford Square, which is in March, thank you, Paola, for bringing that up, would be a good time to do that.

[Ramos-Martinez]: Just an addition, the next meeting, planning committee meeting, we will bring a more in-depth so that all those topics that you're talking about will be in there.

[Collins]: Did you have a follow-up to that, Councilor Lohmann?

[Leming]: No, I was just going to confirm.

[Collins]: Thank you. Or President Beres, I'll go to you.

[Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I think just to the goal of the outline as presented today was to identify when certain areas of the city we'll see map changes. And then additionally, within those months, we'll also be looking at some of those other things. So I think TDM, basically I'm repeating what everyone else said, but there are topics that are going to be brought up over those five months that aren't included in that outline right now, because we felt like the priority was to try to let people know when the committee would be looking at map changes in different parts of the city.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you. Councilor Scarpelli, go ahead.

[Scarpelli]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate all the hard work and a lot of the questions that I really have is really based on just the information that I'm getting from residents and there are some that are very easy for me to uh explained to to eliminate some fear and and and and rumors that were going around and I appreciate that. I was wondering if if our friends from Ennis can just have you ever been given a request because a resident asked and I said I I would reach out uh for for city councilors and for uh people that have been educated when it talks about zoning and it's it's easy to follow but have have you ever been requested from a community that you've worked with to try to maybe simplify some of these definitions and maybe a bullet point type of report where where this meeting when they we talk about parking and understanding the offsets when it you know the biggest fear i'm here i give you a good example is the situation that we're dealing with and with tufts university and a 10-story building and how it affects residential homes and it's it's it's clearly defined in this process when we see the the the changes that we're looking at and how the residential area, we won't see those types of drastic changes where some residents are fearful for. So have you ever been requested, and this would be my request, that after a report is given like we've put together tonight, very thorough, but to without embarrassing or disrespecting anyone, have you ever been asked to put together a bullet point that really simplifies what was discussed today so just the average person can read and understand the basic points that We have gone through because I, I think this is where it's overwhelming and this is where people I know council beers and council vice president and our director have put together an extensive plan to make sure that we're reaching our communities. I know that I've been standing on my soapbox and really saying. You know, bringing our meetings to the neighborhoods where people can ask these simplified questions, because I think a lot of people that have reached out to me are a little intimidated by the language and this format, which I believe we can all agree to that. So, again, if there's any way that we can do. some sort of a format that can be simplified so people can understand what the major changes are and what the processes are, I think would be super helpful if you can help with that. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. I appreciate that. And before I turn it over to Ines to respond, it looks like there is a response percolating. Just before this meeting, began, we were talking about more ways that we can continue to expand the use of diagrams. And I know this isn't exactly what you're proposing, but kind of that ongoing theme of what else can we include apart from just the text to convey what we're talking about? Because even as one councillor who talks about this as much as anybody else behind the rail, it still takes a lot of effort to understand what we're talking about and break it down and paraphrase it in ways that people can understand. I certainly sympathize with that. Thank you for bringing it up.

[Scarpelli]: And I think the diagrams have been super helpful that because that's one thing that is really simplified that I hate to say it, but to show people pictures with what the changes will be made it very simple to explain to some people. But I appreciate that council vice president.

[Collins]: Yeah, thank you. I think that that's something that I want us to continue to explore, and that if that's something that council leadership can help support NS Associates on, because I know you're doing the lion's share of the work in putting together the complicated proposal, which is legally required, maybe that's something that we can work on to have a more layman-friendly version to accompany these documents when they do come before the council. That's something we'll certainly continue to talk about. I know Councilor Leming had a comment, unless there's a direct response from NS or city staff on that. No pressure, I just... Councilor Lohmann, go ahead.

[Leming]: Yes, I would like to point out this doesn't solve the issue of quite informing residents before things happen, but a good deal of effort is put into summarizing these meetings in the City Council newsletter in about as high level terms as possible, which I typically do include links to these plans in the planning and permitting descriptions of what happens. So it's not a perfect solution to all of the concerns that were brought up by my colleague, but that is one mechanism where we're trying to really simplify what is happening in this committee as it happens.

[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. And yeah, I think that's a Breaking it down, making it simpler is something that we'll continue to try to improve out over the course of this project. If you had something to add there.

[Innes]: Yes, thank you. I just wanted to add that we are, two things actually. One is that we are continuing to look at how we can be more visual about explaining some of these. The good news with that is that many of the diagrams that we can have created and continue to create as we move forward could actually be incorporated into your zoning. in the final stage so that these concepts are available to, you know, in visual form, not just now, but to anybody working with the zoning in the future. So, and the other thing is we would be happy to assist with trying to break it down into more of a summary. that. Zoning can sometimes be difficult to do that, because if you lose too much, you may actually give the impression of something that's that becomes legally incorrect. So it's kind of fine tuning it. But the more that we can help the community understand to be aware of, you know if we can support the council and doing that, we're happy to talk about. Further

[Collins]: great. Thank you so much. I think that that could be a thank you.

[Scarpelli]: Thank you for that.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you, Councilors Scarpelli. Are there any other questions or comments from Councilors on the Salem Street corridor proposal at this time? Myself. I was really happy to see, um. Some of the themes that were brought up last week and another conversations what's the term, the context standards for when we do have those transitions from a mixed use or commercial building to a residential right next to it. I think that's a really smart way of making sure that we don't see those really sharp height differences, even if it's only, in a lot of cases, gonna be the difference of a story or two. I think that makes a lot of sense to airspace protection from shade. And I know that there are, I was happy to see also some of the additions to the incentive zoning. I think the theme here is we want to make sure that we are strongly incentivizing developers to add these things to our communities that we know we want there, while at the same time making sure that we're getting a lot out of it when they are taking advantage of those opportunities for extra heights. And I know that there are more potential things that we're looking to add into incentive zoning that aren't a part of this draft that we're going to continue to consider and maybe add into incentive zoning, either for specific districts or citywide, but that need more discussion and meetings to think about. So thanks for your diligence on that as well. Seeing no further comments or questions from councilors, we can, any comments or questions from city staff at this time? Okay. Go ahead, Director Hunt.

[Hunt]: Madam Chair, I just wanted to just flag one little thing that we found between the two zonings so that we can ask them to change it and in the final version that comes out is that the marijuana ones have to be special permit from the ZBA. And that's actually a change for the Mystic Ab is coming back through because our ordinance says That the zoning board is the decider on is the special permit granting authority so we can't try to change it in the table without changing it in the enabling ordinance as well. So it's one of the recommendations that the Community Development Board is recommending on the MSTGAV, just to keep us in compliance. And I just spotted it on this table. So we'll just change it to be in compliance. If the board would like to change that to not have it be the ZBA, we should look at the ordinance and not just the zoning table.

[Collins]: Okay, got it. Thank you for flagging that. And we'll go to President Beres and then we'll go to Do you have a follow-up question on that point?

[Rodriguez]: Well, just for clarity, are we going to allow pot shops on Salem Street since it's now a corridor?

[Collins]: Go back to President Bears. Thanks.

[Bears]: Just wanted to go through, discuss the process from here on out, just to confirm with everyone. Sorry. I mean, well, right now, it's allowed in C2 and industrial, right? I think it's special permanency to industrial, I think is the current, plus there's basically, you can't be within a certain number of feet from certain institutions, educational, religious, so. Right, that shouldn't be carried through. So yeah, I would say no, it's not. It won't be in the Salem Street District.

[Rodriguez]: I'd love confirmation.

[Bears]: But yeah, it shouldn't be.

[Collins]: And if it is, it's a type of... My apologies, President Bears, I thought that was direct response. Yeah, in my understanding, it's only in the C sub-districts of which there's just that tiny parcel. That's the current gas station remaining.

[Bears]: That was C1, so it was just probably carried over because... Yeah.

[Collins]: Okay, great.

[Bears]: I think to the larger point, I just wanted to go through the process from this point forward. So assuming that the committee votes to refer out a proposal tonight, that would appear on the regular agenda for our next regular meeting. And I just want you guys to correct me if I'm wrong at any point. That would be referred to the Community Development Board, and the Community Development Board would hold a public hearing where further public comment could be taken. And then that would come back to the city council for a public hearing after a recommendations are made by the community development board, at which point it would require a further vote of the council to amend the zoning ordinance. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Right. So there's two more public hearings after tonight. Thank you.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you for reiterating. Great. All right. We'll go down to public participation. I'm going to alternate between the podium and participants on zoom. I'm going to set a timer. Every person who'd like to speak, we'll have three minutes. And then at the end Councilors or at the end of all public participation, Councilors and associates, city staff may speak again if they wish. Name and address, sorry. Name and address for the record, please.

[Rodriguez]: Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street, ground zero for this outrageous proposal. I know everyone was looking for a simplification. Simplification is 3,000 square foot lot would allow a minimum of six units of housing, which is an attack on my neighborhood. Currently, you need 5,000 square feet to build a single, and this would be The equivalent of 12 for where you could normally build a single and an area with severely restricted parking and a very narrow, very busy street. If you've asked anyone in any of these neighborhoods, and this is not limited to Salem Street, this is going fingering down all the side streets in that area. all this dense housing, not one single person living in that area, and there's someone here who doesn't live in that area, and we'll tell you it's great, has said we'd love more traffic. We'd love six units of housing on a three foot square lot, and oh, please don't make them build parking because we have so much extra parking. We don't have any parking. Salem Street is not a bustling commercial corridor. It's a mix of convenience stores, smoke shops, pizza places, and lots of already dense housing. It's an always busy cut through street made more narrow recently despite the high volume of trucks and out of service buses that pass through all day. The parking is so scarce that the traffic department didn't remove one single spot when adding in their dangerous bike lane that cars and trucks drive through all day as the lane on the other side is too small to accommodate large vehicles safely. Many side streets, including Park Street, Parris Street, Court Street, have areas where there is no parking allowed on the street. The streets are too narrow. You can't fit cars there. The lots are small, and these joining changes would destroy the area and add so many cars with nowhere to park them and so many people. These tall buildings with little to no parking will destroy the quality of life for the area between shadow and lack of parking and increases to already heavy traffic. A single bus comes down this road once or twice an hour at the busy times. Perhaps you're unfamiliar with Salem Street, but if you go out the parking lot, take a right, go to the second exit around the Rotary, you'll see us. We're there. We're paying taxes. We're a very dense and busy area. What you won't see there is a bustling commercial corridor. Our quality of life can't constantly be on the table in order to only increase density in the areas that are already too dense, the areas that you're dismissing. If you need density, perhaps it's time to look west. Thank you.

[Collins]: All right. Thank you for your comments. We'll switch next to Zoom and then back to the podium. All right. I'm going to unmute you, Martha. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Ondras]: OK. Thank you. Yes, I want to speak to a similar issue, which is that because of the way this process is designed, zoning gets addressed without addressing the streetscape and the road issues. And that is siloing things that really need to be solved together. Um, I would, I know that I don't want to hold up the endorsement of this zoning ordinance, which is primarily concerned with land use and building dimensions, but we do need as a city to look at these land use changes in conjunction with pedestrian and cycle and bus and transit safety and convenience. These roads, they're susceptible to speeding and bad driver behavior because of their design. And the design really needs to be adapted to provide, if you want to call this a vital area with ground floor commercial, we need to make sure people can walk here safely. And that includes the intersecting significant side streets like Park and Spring Street. It's good that the traffic, the parking, there are incentives to the land use developers to put parking behind the buildings or under, covered under the buildings. And the curb cuts would be around to the back and not interrupting the sidewalk. But we really need to look at the street not as a kind of negative space that isn't part of the plan, but as a vital part of this plan and understand what's going on with the sidewalks and the public spaces. Thank you. Great.

[Collins]: Thank you for your comments, Martha. All right, we'll go back To the podium now. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Iselle]: Jeanne Iselle 35 Paris Street. I'm an industry professional for several decades, but I'm here as a director. I have a few thoughts. They're a little disjointed, I apologize. But I want to understand what the actual and specific criteria you are using to separate what parcels benefit from this zoning bump, and specifically your IZ status and what ones don't. I want to point out that ground level commercial plus two is the basis for human scale development and activating spaces. So it's perplexing to me that there are any areas where you're looking to delete or disincentivize that specific model in any way, shape or form. Three, I want to let you know that there is nothing you are creating here that will lend itself to a BI district. And I tell you that as someone who has spent over 25 years as an industry professional identifying site selection and overseeing commercial construction buildup for hundreds of clients in every vertical there is. I want to point out that this is an environmental justice neighborhood according to the GIS mapping. And it's made up of exactly the demographic we look to not gentrify out. And your proposal on Salem Street will gentrify this neighborhood. Make no mistake about it. I'd like to point out to you that the criteria you use relative to Salem Street regarding interconnection you outlined for Mystic and Salem would also apply to Route 60 that goes to Arlington and Playstead that goes to Route 38, whose exact intersection sits on an MBTA train station. So I'd like to know when we can look forward to this MBTA zoning to be applied over there. And then my last thought for you tonight is when you really know your subject matter, you can easily simplify it to make it accessible and inclusive for all. And I would encourage you to do that because most people in the city do not have the luxury of understanding zoning. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you for your comments, and as one quick note, we will be visiting West Medford in our citywide review of the zoning ordinance that'll be coming in the spring of 2025. We're looking at West Medford so residents can look forward to that. We will switch back to Zoom now. Jayme, I'm going to ask you to unmute, name and address for the record, please, and you have three minutes.

[Thompson]: Good evening, everybody. Just had a couple of questions for clarity. On the area median income at 80 and 65%, could you define that in current dollar value, just for those that aren't aware of current AMIs? Oh, sorry, did I lose?

[Collins]: Yeah. Yeah Jamie. Thank you. If you have other questions, feel free to will bucket these and we'll address them all.

[Thompson]: Okay And then, uh, just two other questions. Um. On the depth into the side streets. There's obviously a discrepancy in some areas. There's two lots, three lots or four lots deep into the side streets that was that we're using. And then the calculation is used for defining those lots that were you, uh, expanded and re zoned. Was it a foot scale or, you know, just for clarification there.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you. We have a question about am I and then the calculation used for lot extension onto the side streets. Any other questions that you wanted to pose to, uh, last question.

[Thompson]: Obviously in hearing from residents are Jamie I've received feedback from residents in the area regarding the activation of Park Street and Salem Street at that intersection, obviously taking into consideration the Robert School, the commuter and pedestrian traffic there during school hours. Can you go into the thoughtfulness that you went through in determining the MX2 zoning for the lots around that area?

[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Jamie. So we have questions around approximate dollar value for AMI, for the incentive zoning, which is, you know, a citywide thought process or calculation behind the lot extension onto the side streets. And then to, again, revisit the thinking behind the Parks and Salem Street intersection designation at MX2. Thank you so much for those questions. I'm going to let, I see one more person for public participation. So I think we're going to round that out and then we'll respond to all questions in a batch. Thank you. All right. Name and address for the record, please. And you have three minutes.

[Tomaszczuk]: Marian Tomaszczuk, 29 Garfield Avenue. And I am also right in Salem Street. I'm disabled, so I don't drive. I'm a pedestrian, and I move there because I have easy access to everything. This will destroy my walkability, my neighborhood. It's very difficult now with all the traffic. But if you change the corridor, I will not be able to. to get around. It was hard enough when the buses stopped and now there's only one bus, I can only get to town. I can't get around Medford anymore. And I can't get to other cities. Narrowing of the street by putting in the bike paths, so now that the cars and trucks and buses all drive on the wrong side of the road and in the bus, the bike lane, means that when I walk down the street to go to Haines Square, or down towards the square, means that Harley motorcycles are coming at me on the sidewalk, and scooters, and regular buses, because there's no room for them on the street. Because that street is so dense, it's so backed up all the time, that motorcycles don't want to wait behind. And they drive on the sidelines. And I have never seen Harley Davidsons coming at me before. You put those lines in the street. And I was not prepared for that the first time one came at me. So I have to be quite aware, and I have a balance disorder. And I don't want to be aware of that. I don't need to be looking out for Harley Davidson's coming at me. I don't need to have to worry about being in the shade all the time because there's going to be high rises. There shouldn't be cars so dense. This is a neighborhood. This is not a bustling business area. And now you're going to get rid of all the little businesses, and you're going to try to build it up high and awful when this is a beautiful neighborhood that I know all the neighbors in my street. I know all the people around. When my husband passed away, everybody was there for me. When there's different things going on, everybody's there. When I was ill, everybody was there for me. This is a neighborhood. This is a community. This is not, you know, just Medford. This is Medford, the community, and you want to destroy it. This is a narrow, dense street. When the kids are getting out of school and everything and going to school and there's activities, that street is bombarded with cars. There's no place to park. Did you know the Roberts doesn't have enough parking for the teachers? That the teachers have to park all along Park Street and all along the neighborhood? Because they didn't make it big enough. When the parents come, they are all over the place. You cannot go down the street. That's why they have to close the streets nearby the schools. So you're saying that these buildings don't have to provide enough parking. All the apartments in different places nearby are not required by zoning to have enough apartments. Well, no. The apartments that you've approved. I'm sorry.

[Collins]: You have 20 seconds left. All right.

[Tomaszczuk]: Well, when they were approving before, the hole in the ground that has been there for years, when they were approving parking for that, they weren't even approving one car per unit. And so we know that going forward on these apartments, you're not going to require one apartment, one car per unit, and we can't handle it. So we cannot handle what you're proposing now. Go to the bigger street, High Street and Main Street. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you for your comments. I appreciate that. I just want to note that this proposal doesn't change any existing parking ratios, ratios per unit. That's true of all the zoning proposals that this council has reviewed so far. I also want to note that a lot of the ground floor commercial businesses along Salem Street are nonconformant with the current zoning. This proposal would allow them. just a point of clarification. We'll go next to Zoom. I saw Ellery's hand. First, I'll ask to unmute you. I need your name and address for the record, please. And you have three minutes.

[Klein]: Hi there. My name is Ellery Klein. I'm at 37 Fells Avenue, so I'm just up the hill from this area. I am generally in support of these changes. When people talk about being fearful, I am fearful that my children won't have anywhere to live in a city where rents are now averaging three to $3,500 a month, so I'm excited to see new building. I would echo what Martha said. I do think, and you can see from the many comments before and after her that people are concerned about the streetscape here and pedestrian safety, cycling safety, and that I would encourage you to really integrate the street design and all those things as we begin to build this street. I don't think that they can be separated, especially at a place like Felsway West and Salem. That intersection is extremely wide and you end up with all kinds of dangerous situations there. Um, so I think that if we redeveloped and didn't think about things like that, um, we'll be making mistakes. So I would definitely encourage, um, as much as we can to integrate, um, those things. Um, I would love to just say that I would love to, um, see some flexibility and creativity on parking minimums. Um, I think that all these comments demonstrate that people don't really mind new people moving in, they mind more cars. And as we can see, we already have too many cars driving through and parked around. So any way we could find to get developers to maybe be able to exchange things like a parking space for a free MBTA bus pass as part of the rental or exchange two parking spaces for a zip car shared space or bike share or something like that. I think we could be creative with getting people out of cars. So I'd love to see some creative thinking like that. These are ideas in Schoop's book, The High Cost of Free Parking. And if we generally try to market price our parking more in the city of Medford, instead of just market pricing housing for people, We also might want to push harder to market price parking and storage of cars. And that will free up some space as people decide it's not worth to have a car. And I would also point out that the better bus project does have the 96 bus, which will be a every 15 minute bus running all the way down Salem from Malden. And it's going to go through Davis Square and all the way to Union Square. So we will have at some point there is in the works. increased bus service on this corridor. So I think it would be good to push for more of that. And I would also actually agree that restricting the commercial ground floor. I don't know if it's necessarily a good idea for a walkable neighborhood with more people. It would be nice to have rents and I think letting the developers decide whether or not it's worth it to put that in there might be a good idea. But thank you for all this hard work. I know that not everyone's going to be happy, but I think that more spaces for people to live is going to be great for the city of Medford and the state of Massachusetts. So thank you.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much, Ellery. We'll go back to the podium. Name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.

[Navarre]: William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. My first point is just on the step backs. I was able to seek from Danielle some clarification on what that means. I guess that's measured from the facade, no matter how, even if the facade is 20 feet from the street, which is the maximum permitted setback. If the goal is to allow light. I'm not quite sure that's necessary. I would say just measure from the bit above setback. So if you put the ground floor at three feet, which is the bit above 13 feet, you can put your fourth floor. I don't think that that would be a problem. If the goal is light, I feel like that would be sufficient. rather than if they put in a further setback voluntarily to have a front yard, I don't see why you need a further setback. I think that the plan should consider increasing the intensity of the very large target lot and its neighbors. I think on such a large lot, you could have quite a bit more housing and more height without really causing a problem. Again, you could utilize additional step backs if you wanted to, in order to prevent whatever concerns the hype would cause there. The developers are going to have plenty of room to institute those step backs. I guess there's going to be parking coming back around, as Ellery said. And I look forward to that discussion and hope that we can consider whether or not mandating parking for cars makes sense at this juncture, given our city's priorities. I don't think it does. And I think that intensity along the very wide road near the rotary is appropriate. That's very near to here, just the other side of this rotary. It's very near to Bedford Square. And the road is incredibly wide. The status quo is three-story buildings there, basically. And when it gets redeveloped, I think we could go something more intense than three stories, especially because the road is so wide. So those are the suggestions I have. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you very much. We'll go back to Zoom. We're going to hear from folks who haven't spoken before, and then we can take an additional minute of comment from folks who have already spoken. Dave, please go ahead. Name and address for the record. You have three minutes.

[McKenna]: Thank you, David McKenna to Vine Street. So I'm going to butter on Salem Street. I want to start by echoing the point that William finished with, which is from Vine Street, it's a five-minute walk to City Hall, seven minutes if I want to go to the buses behind City Hall. So I really do feel like I live at an extension. I live just down the street by JRA Cycles. So five minutes to City Hall, I think that that neighborhood is an extension of Medford Square. and that it could be, you know, take advantage of that to help build up Medford Square. And so the current recommendations don't have much height or, you know, there's, I would recommend more like the MX2, you know, right around or just a taller residential. as part of Medford Square, just in that last corridor around Hadley Place, Fulton, Vine, Everett, Court Street. One of the things I really like about living in the area, just to echo the point of another speaker, is you can walk to everything. My wife and I share one car and we probably use the car twice a week. because we can walk to everything. You know, I take the bus to work. There's restaurants, you know, there's stores, modern hardware, Eddie's Pizza, Hubbard & Sons. All of those businesses are nonconforming under the current zoning. They're not allowed to exist there. And so I really do support legalizing the commercial, you know, the things that make the neighborhood walkable. you know, daycares, all that makes the neighborhood walkable. So I really applaud that. I wanted to suggest an idea because so much of the existing commercial is non-conforming. It doesn't have the right setbacks. It doesn't have the right dimensional requirements. But it's there. And so if JRA Cycles is a thriving business and they want to add a story on top of their building, that's not permitted because they don't have the right setback. They would have to go to the ZBA. And, you know, so I would suggest a rule that any existing commercial building or any existing building, you know, could be built up to the height that is allowed under the zoning rules. In other words, JRA could put a second commercial story on top to expand their business, or they could put apartments on top of whatever the current footprint is, even though it has zero setback in the back, zero setback on the sides. It's a great contribution to our neighborhood, and you wouldn't want to have to tear down the building and build a smaller building in its place. It doesn't really make sense to me.

[Collins]: Great, thank you, Dave.

[McKenna]: Do I just have another moment?

[Collins]: Oh, you're at time. I'll give you 30 more seconds.

[McKenna]: Okay, I love the inclusive zoning promotes improvements to the streetscape. So I do think that's gonna make our streets safer. So I applaud you for doing that with inclusive zoning. And my idea to reduce cars is to disallow city street parking permits for the new apartments. You know, if people don't want cars, Don't give them parking permits. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you very much, Dave. All right, we'll go next to Ren on Zoom. Please name and address for the record. You have three minutes.

[Veen]: Hello.

[Collins]: You're off mute. Name and address for the record, please.

[Veen]: You have three minutes. Ren Veen 37 Woodrow Avenue. I live right near Salem Street, about a half mile away. And I just wanted to express general support for this rezoning effort. I think it makes a ton of sense to, you know, update the zoning rules to allow existing uses. You know, it's really kind of bringing the code up to reality and encouraging more of what we like in this area. I think people that live in the area enjoy the businesses that are there and we'd like to see more development like that. And I just want to add support to Dave McKenna's idea of allowing the existing businesses maybe a special allowance to, you know, for folks that own their buildings to, you know, build up and get some return on their investment in Medford by contributing maybe housing or additional space for their local business to get some of the benefit of these additional allowances that the zoning is gonna do, even if their existing building doesn't meet the setbacks and things that the new code is going to define. I think that's a really good idea. I don't think I saw that anywhere in the literature, and I hope folks are taking a note of that. I also don't know what the details might be on the I think there was a mention at the beginning of the meeting about some of the community contributions that developers could offer, you know, for incentives. I saw the table there, I think in the Mystic Ave order. There was also expanded definitions in the Mystic Ave meetings. I heard talk earlier, I think Scarpelli was talking about maybe making the documents a little clearer for people that are just opening their neighborhood. I had to dig through three and four versions of the Mystic Ave corridor, which isn't really near where I live, so I wasn't paying as much attention to, to find some of the definitions for the additional uses that are being added. It would just be really nice to have those, you know, expanded and amended definitions just available on any of these documents, it could be as simple as a copy paste from meeting to meeting. But I think that would be beneficial to future neighborhoods, as you were bringing these around the city. So I think that's, that's basically all I wanted to say, I think this is good. I think it's, it's thoughtful being done deliberately. I think some of the folks with concerns about parking are not wrong that you build a bunch of housing without being thoughtful about that, you know, it could create a problem so I think that. uh, creating additional, uh, you know, uh, incentives for things that would reduce traffic would be really smart. And I don't know if the city has any ability to look at directing more of the truth through traffic to the exit North folks, getting off 93, trying to hit Bell's way. Um, Google will often send you down, uh, Salem, which might be good if you want to stop and get a cup of coffee that helps the business, but Bell's Way is a more appropriate artery to direct people to, but that circle is in such bad shape right now that people aren't taking it. I hope when that is improved, the traffic situation on Salem will also improve, but I wonder if the city could think about anything they could do to, you know, encourage through traffic to use that exit, because that would, I think, help the traffic on Salem Street, which, you know, nobody wants to see more of. Thank you very much.

[Collins]: Thank you so much for your comments, Ran. All right, I don't see any more hands raised on Zoom or in person. I do want to make sure we double back to a couple specific questions that were raised earlier in public participation. I have some numbers up relating to some quick numbers for area median income, but I suspect there's somebody on that side of the rail who can state it more quickly and eloquently than me. Alicia, Danielle, Emily, Paula, would you like to speak to that question? Or I can read off my spreadsheet. And this was just to put some kind of, you know, comprehensible dollar figures to that concept of we talked about 80% AMI, 65% AMI. If you like, yeah, I don't think we

[Innes]: Okay, yes we are working on screen sharing. So the document that I was able to find. Now I have had others is from the Massachusetts housing partnership, it is their income limits for 2024 area median income this particular document is referring to homeownership but it would also equally apply to renter. Don't take that away. So they usually give the hundred percent income level and the 80% income level. I did calculate the 65% income level for one of the groups, it's always by household size. So what you'll see up there is that we have household size of one, the hundred percent income limit for Middlesex County, which would include Medford is 114 250, the 80% income level is 91400 again for a household of one. So you can see that progressing all the way up to a household of eight if we weren't zoomed out. I did the calculation on a household of four just because it was sort of midway through. So 100% income level is 163,200 for Middlesex County 80% income level would therefore be 130,550, and then the 65% income level would be 106,000, 080. So again, it's done by the household size. Other ways to look at it, US Housing and Urban Development Department will also use the, this is usually based on the metro region. So this would be the Boston, Quincy, Cambridge metro region, you may sometimes see it based on that, but that's where these numbers are derived from. ultimately. And the only thing I will add is that for many communities that are in these larger metro regions, the 80% income level doesn't necessarily represent affordability in that particular community. So when you look at the incentives, the reason that we put in something like an incentive for 65% of AMI is to address the fact that 80% of income may not be affordable for everyone. So that's why we try and look at the issue of deeper affordability as well as more affordable units.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for that. I think it's helpful to put, you know, kind of understandable numbers that people can think in terms of rent checks or mortgage payments when we talk about these percentages. Thank you. And then the other two specific questions were around, I know you mentioned in the presentation on that question of where should be MX1, where should be MX2 and the intersection of Salem and Park Street specifically. I recall you saying, you know, paraphrasing, where will we have those more active intersections where there's, more ground floor businesses where it's a busier intersection where there's already more, those are in the proposal characterized as MX2 to reflect that. Can you talk a little bit about Park and Salem specifically? Oh, gosh, this mic system.

[Innes]: All right, I keep thinking green means go so I keep saying no you have to wait for red I'm like this is not working. Yes, so I think this this answer I hope might address some of the questions about why we did x versus y. So for the city Councilors for town for city staff, they may remember that we had this workshop in June, where we presented a whole host of maps. And those maps on the spatial analysis, primarily done by Jimmy looked at the non conforming dimensional standards so what's there now in terms of lots in terms of buildings, so parcel sizes setbacks building footprints coverage, etc. It also included demographic standards or numbers so we looked at the EJ areas, we did look and this is citywide but we've also zoomed down into district by district. We looked at hydrography, we looked at flooding, we looked at income levels, we looked at race and ethnicity. So we tried to get from a mapping standard a picture of the entire city. And then the goal is, as we address each of these areas, we've been talking a lot about Mystic and Salem today and the past couple of months. but there are other corridors, there are squares, there are neighborhoods, there are commercial nodes within neighborhoods. All of these are being addressed as we move forward with the process. So as we zoom into Salem Street, the idea was to understand which parcels were conforming now, which were non-conforming, the ways in which they were non-conforming, and address as much as possible what those were. So a lot of the, whether it's MX1, MX2, or it's the multi-unit residential, is based on those, started to be based on those non-conformities. Then we took it up another layer and that became about the connection. So Paula described at the beginning, this idea of where's the school, where are the parks, what are the primary streets that are connecting these destinations and how do they connect back to Salem Street. And so, the MX to kind of in the center there close to the school that was really about creating this mixed use node with greater density greater commercial around the streets that had those connections to other community amenities. As we move over initially the target area we had proposed as commercial, we heard public feedback that might that and we heard some more of it tonight that maybe that should be mixed to a greater densification we heard potentially even greater densification for that. Tonight, we would like to consider that further. I think the comments that we heard tonight about Mix 1 closer to Medford Square, we would like to take that up again when we look at Medford Square, which again is coming in March. It makes sense to say, okay, we did this for Salem. Do we need to take another look at that now that we're looking at the totality of Medford Square? And I do want to stress that this is one of the reasons that with this group, we had talked about a month or two ago about the idea that as we finish the geographic areas, as we finish the topical areas, we know we're coming back to you already and say, hey, we did this back in November and December. We need to look at it again because we learned other things about other parts of the city when applying zoning to it. that has implications. So I do want to stress that we're very much listening tonight to the concerns, but also the hopes and understanding that there are some that we can make changes to now and some we'd like to come back to. And I think that issue of mix two versus something else at the target site, the issue of mix one or something else down as we get to the rotary close to the square, I think those can, may remain as open issues as we move forward and then we circle back to them.

[Collins]: Thank you so much, really appreciate that. And I think the way it was phrased in the suggestion, the way you phrased it just now, that we're doing this in a geography by geography basis, knowing that all of these geographies are really close together and the changes we make in one neighborhood will affect, they all affect the context. So I think it can make a lot of sense when we do visit Medford Square in a couple of months. When we're looking at that proposal when we've come to, you know, close to consensus on that proposal to then look to the, you know, areas of the abutting geographies and say, now that we've made these decisions, what, how does that imply, how does that implicate the decisions that we've made in this neighboring area and, you know, kind of be continuing to think about these questions of where we know we need density, where does it make the most sense where should we do that, where should we prioritize for densification or any of the other goals that we have. I also want to note because you talked about it. If folks are interested in the those kind of like aerial maps. that Emily mentioned that kind of informed some of these decisions about like what to prioritize where on the city zoning page and MedfordMA.org slash zoning. Scroll down this time beyond phase two meeting documents under resources, click down from citywide maps, click on land use maps. There's a world of details you can get lost in, but I know for folks who are really interested in this stuff, that's your window into the maps that the council and the consultant and city staff looked at several times earlier in this process to inform some of what we're putting where. Director Hunt.

[Hunt]: Thank you. I thought there were a couple of various comments that I thought were worthy of just addressing and making sure people had the full picture. To be clear, zoning cannot make Salem Street wider. It cannot say anything about the public parking spots, the bike lanes, yes or no. Those are not part of zoning. Those are things that would go through traffic commission and our traffic department. So I just want to set expectations about what we can and can't do. The chair Collins did mention that the MBTA does have in every 15 minute or more often bus planned for Salem Street. So that is something that is in the works. It is not in the first phase of the MBTA redesign that is starting this weekend. It's at least it sounds like at least a year out, but it is coming. to clarify a few things that were said. There is a new building that was permitted. It was permitted at one parking spot per unit on the corner of Salem and Park. We don't know when it's going to be built. People ask us that a lot. It's actually back on the market for sale with all its permits. So we really don't know when, even though it has its building permits. At this time, all the other unit, all the other units being allowed on here would be some version of multifamily, which currently require 1.5 spots per unit, and that is something that we're going to take up when we look at parking and transportation in the spring. There was another conversation about existing buildings. So there are a number of existing buildings that would like to add another story or two or three. In some cases it's hypothetical from the neighbors and others we've kind of heard some from property owners. If the building itself under this new zoning becomes conforming because now it's allowed to be a commercial building sitting there and its setbacks etc are allowed, then it could take advantage of this new zoning by right, and it could build. If it is non-conforming because, say, it doesn't have the right setbacks or something like that, then it would be a non-conforming existing use, and it could ask for a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals, which is a lower threshold than a variance. And if what they wanted to do was generally allowed by zoning, say it doesn't have the right setback, but is otherwise now conforming, and what they want to do would be in conformance with this, it would be a very easy barrier to overcome at the ZBA. They'd have to go through that, but it's not a tough measure to meet. The one other thing is that we did in our setbacks require set back far enough so that the sidewalk would be 12 feet wide. So in some places, the sidewalk is that wide, but a new building in order to be conforming would actually have to set back far enough from the edge of the road to allow a 12-foot sidewalk. So that will make things more walkable. And it says it must be paved so that that becomes part of the sidewalk area. And I just did want to flag that for everybody who's concerned about the walkability of this area. I myself ride my bike on Salem Street. I get it. And I actually do this Washington Street, Salem Street intersection thing. It is a little dicey sometimes, so I get it. were there, I feel like there might have been some other things that we could address if you want us to. They would like to address some other items.

[Collins]: Okay, great. And I'll just flag the last, the final question that was specifically asked, which goes back to the previous question was, um, the areas where the zoning proposal, it sometimes extends to parcels north and south. It sometimes extends for, I think that dovetails is what you were saying about looking at the geographies, looking at the overlapping characteristics, but just in case there was anything you wanted to add on that, um, those decisions and specifically.

[Tomaszczuk]: If you'd like, yeah.

[Ramos-Martinez]: So yeah, that was because depend in here we have very regular parcels in law in size and shapes. So what we did was to study exactly what was going on in those parcels sometimes even the mixed use extends, for example, because that is already a multi multi-unit building that could be in this new zoning. So, and the others is just to make that transition, make that make sense in this area. So we went parcel by parcel, checking what was there, looking at the surroundings and what we were proposing and see how that was better transition towards the residential neighborhoods that are already there. So that is really mapping what is there and what it made sense. So it didn't have this very different uses in conjecture.

[Collins]: Great, thank you. I appreciate the very granular approach that you took to deciding where the corridor starts and ends.

[Innes]: I will add if I may that one of the two things I wanted to address one of them is when you start looking at parcels and ownership and you find this may or may not have been the case but I have certainly found that you will have a building that unaccountably straddles two parcels or The owner owns the lot for the building and the lot next to it for the parking. And so you really have to do the exact granular analysis that Paola mentioned to understand what the conditions are and why they're there. And then this idea, OK, if we're going to do this type of use here, this type of dimensional standards here, how do we feather that down? How do we bring that down to the neighborhood level so you don't have the stark contrasts that we are trying to avoid? I also with your permission want to just mention the incentives again I think we heard some concerns, obviously about the streetscape which we've discussed what zoning cannon cannot do, but also the, the idea of gentrification or displacement. There are a few things in the incentives that would help with that. We are continuing to study ourselves, partly for this project, partly for other projects, other anti-displacement measures. Two things in the current menu of incentives. One, of course, is the affordability for residential, which we've already talked about. But the other is this idea of providing lower rents for local businesses to help keep them in the area. We do want to encourage neighborhoods supporting businesses in this area, and that's one way of doing it. We think that as we get to the squares, both Medford Square and West Medford Square initially and some of the others, that this may be an opportunity to continue to explore incentives for anti-displacement, and those may work their way back to Salem Street. Again, this learning as we go, what works for which area.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Quick follow-up. I know President Bears has been waiting.

[Bears]: Thanks, Madam Chair. And I just wanted to build off a couple of things. I think too, there was the granular analysis that was done, but also, you know, we're not going, when you look at the apartment one in the commercial districts, the parcel boundaries actually aren't that out of bounds. It's just like the dimensional and the use requirements are kind of nuts. So it seems to me that by and large, that existing delineation was also used partly to outline some of the how far back things go. Of course, with some differences when you have that large apartment building on Paris Street, I think that, you know, was not in that zone. But in any case, I think the bigger question and the thought actually brings us all the way back to the beginning of the meeting. When we talk about walkability and accessibility and placemaking and streetscape. this is one piece of the implementation of the comprehensive plan. We're implementing land use and zoning policy. Emily and others have spoken to how incentive zoning and other elements here, and I'm also going to hopefully say in the future that site plan review processes and other things when things actually, you know, when this zoning actually turns into proposals and turns into construction of new buildings. That is where the rubber will meet the road to a large extent of actually improving the streetscape, getting a large new, say someone does want to put a few parcels together and build something big, not saying that that's what we want all over the place here, but they may need to give more back to the community to improve a stretch of the street. And so in addition to the traffic commission and all the other things that we want to do, a piece of this through the incentive zoning and through site plan review and through just the general transformation and goal that we want to see here over a long period of time, that is what will help us to make this a safer, more accessible, more walkable street. So when we see the implementation of the comprehensive plan recommendations, happening piecemeal because it has to happen piecemeal because we're just focused on the zoning piece right now it doesn't mean it's not that it's not factoring in these other questions around what it means to improve the street and actually this being an emanation or an iteration or an implementation of the comprehensive plan is an important thing to remind ourselves of because we can go back to the comprehensive plan and say, okay, one piece of creating these walkable vibrant neighborhoods is zoning. Another piece is something we may need to be talking about in our traffic commission or be talking about in another sense here in the community. So I just think that's important to note too. There's a great implementation table at the back of that comprehensive plan that is kind of its own. I mean, I can't even think of the word to describe it, but it's intense and this is a piece of that implementation. So I hope we can keep having the discussions and especially have the discussions when we have specific projects that want to be built coming after the establishing of the new zoning ordinance. I think there is that comprehensive holistic approach, and it just doesn't always get implemented all at the same time. And we're implementing different pieces of the comprehensive plan through different processes, and this is just one of them. Thanks.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you, President Pierce. Paula, something to add?

[Ramos-Martinez]: Yeah, thank you. Just that I wanted to make two clarifications and that's it. I will be quick.

[Collins]: I'm sorry, can you speak up a little bit with the fan? It's very hard to hear.

[Ramos-Martinez]: Yeah, so I wanted to make two quick clarifications. The first one is that what we try to do in this corridor is to make it as a destination for the residential neighborhoods that are surrounding this corridor. This is not a city destination, so what we want is people to walk to this area, not to take the car. So what we want is to really make it walkable and to support the activities and the necessities of the residential neighborhoods that are in the vicinity. that is one clarification. And the second one, there was point out that in three, a thousand square foot lot, you could build a six building unit. And that it's in the zoning is true in the practical, it's not true because with the requirements of parking and only in three stories high, you will never be able to fit the six units. So you could fit three And that's why we wanted to, because if we start with the dimensions that they have right now, which is from 5,000 and from 10,000 for multifamily, you will never be able to build because these are very small lots. And so they will have to be forced to unify lots in order to build big multi-unit buildings. So in order to make possible so that all the lots, not all of them, because some are very narrow and impossible to build, but the ones that are able to build a three-family unit building, that we could make that possible. So that's why the 3,000. We really studied all the nonconformities and we wanted that everybody had the possibility if within reason of building. Thank you.

[Collins]: Thank you. Director Hunt.

[Hunt]: Thank you. And I just wanted to sort of give one closing thought that people are still welcome to email us we recommend OCD at Medford ma.org, because several of our staff check that to make sure they're not lost. But if there are people who specifically feel that their parcel or a parcel they're aware of. should be in or out of one of these zones and it's adjacent to an existing like your parcel is in the white, it's not in the yellow and you would like it to be in the yellow, you can reach out to us and we will actually look at those on the case. We've looked at every one of these on a case by case basis. But if there was a reason. to include it that we weren't aware of. We're open to hearing those until the zoning gets passed, at which point it becomes extraordinarily difficult after the final vote of the second public hearing. So we do encourage people that we're open to individual changes on this. This is a parcel-by-parcel map.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you for that, Director Hunt. Appreciate that. and good to know what the window of opportunity is for continuing to tweak individual parcels on the map before it gets, you know, to be a real case to be open to do that again. On that, so should this be reported out of committee tonight, then as we've said a lot of times before, we'll go to the city council and then be referred to the CDB for the recommendations and review and then back to the city council. Since we are speaking about, you know, this window of opportunity still being open for revisiting individual parcels, I wonder if it's something that the CDB might be able to specifically weigh in on, this one parcel that kind of sticks out more than all the others in this corridor, the target lot. As a result of Councilor and community feedback last meeting, that was changed from commercial to mixed use to to allow for ground floor commercial to allow for residential. This is kind of like the most unique lot on the corridor I think and I'm just wondering if we can while that window is open if we can continue if there's any other sub districts that we could carry in from the MACD so that we can capture all of those goals on this one very unique lot the ground floor commercial the residential and We have the benefit here of a lot of space, which isn't present elsewhere on the corridor. I wonder if we can consider more height there beyond just what's allowed for all of the other mixed use two parcels on this corridor, which the dimensions there are totally different than what we're looking for here. If that's something that the CDB and the consultants could weigh in on before the council sees this next, I think I'd be interested to see if there's any other creative sub-districts we could look at there. One day we'll get multiple microphones for this situation. Thank you.

[Innes]: We're fine sharing, thank you. We're happy to look at that again and see if it makes sense to consider the Mix 3 or consider a variation on the Mix 2 so we can put our heads together about that and discuss with the CDB, weigh in with their thoughts, allow them to weigh in and public comment at that point because I think it's important to stress You all have done a good job of talking about the process, but noting that the process continues to be a public one. We are listening today, you all, and we will be listening over the next few meetings as well to see if there are other questions we can answer or changes that need to be made or changes that perhaps are not made now but are appropriate to continue as part of the conversation.

[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much. All right, well, this two hours is simply flown by. Are there any remaining questions or comments from councilors? Seeing none, the next step in this process would be for this to be referred out of committee to a regular meeting of the city council, where then procedurally it would be referred to the CDB for their review. Do I hear a motion? On the motion by Councilor Leming to report out of committee, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Roll call votes, no longer necessary. All in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Motion to adjourn by Councilor Callahan, seconded by Councilor Leming. All in favor? All opposed. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, city staff. Thank you, Ennis, for this proposal and for continuing to workshop it with us and to continue to take in our feedback and the feedback for the community. Thank you.

Collins total time: 18.71 minutes total words: 3236	Leming total time: 1.13 minutes total words: 147	Bears total time: 5.78 minutes total words: 945	Scarpelli total time: 3.31 minutes total words: 504