[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 24-033 zoning ordinance updates with the Innes 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 Innes 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 Innes 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 Innes 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.
[Alicia 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.
[Paula 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.
[Paula 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.
[Emily 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?
[Paula 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.