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[Callahan]: Make sure you go to ours.
[Collins]: Test one, two. Test one, two.
[Hunt]: I just want to check that my sound works before the meeting starts. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can hear you, Alicia. Okay, thanks. So really, feel free to log off whenever you need to. All right. We'll see how if I disappear suddenly. All right, let's get this going.
[Collins]: There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee, January 29th, 2025. This meeting will take place at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chamber, second floor, Medford City Hall, 85 George B. Hess Drive, and via Zoom. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan. Councilor Callahan is absent. Councilor Leming. Present. Councilor Scarpelli. Present. President Bears. Present. Vice President Collins.
[Collins]: Present. Four present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. The action discussion item for this meeting is, as usual, paper 24-033, zoning ordinance updates with the Innes Associates team. So this is going to be kind of a multi-topic meeting. First, we're going to go over some updates to the overall zoning project timeline, and Emily from Innes Associates is going to walk us through those, as we know, as we discussed quite a bit in our last Planning and permitting committee meeting, there's been calls from Councilors on this committee as well as requests from the public to enhance our messaging strategy around this entire zoning project in order to, you know, essentially to recalibrate at this point of year to take stock of how we're getting information out to the public about what's currently at what stage of the process, where current proposals are, when their next public meeting will be, in what body. We've been working on this zoning project since around this time last year, and in that time we've learned a lot about what people need in order to feel properly informed and updated on what we're talking about. community. Um so we're doing some things on the City Council side that associates is helping us out with and we're also trying to collaborate with the mayor's office as much as we can to enhance our online information and add in more public meetings so that people have more opportunities for. Um for learning, you know, in a way that works for more community members and for Q and A as well. So Emily will speak more to that. Um and after we run through those updates, zoning proposal. and then I think we will get a little just just a short briefing on the other part of the residential proposal that we will discuss a future meeting that goes along with the neighborhood residential proposal, but that we won't be going into in depth tonight, so we'll talk more about neighborhood residential. We get to that part of the process, but first I'll turn it over to Emily to talk about Schedule and communications updates unless there are any initial comments or questions from my fellow Councilors or members of city staff that I see on Zoom. And seeing none, I'll turn it over to Emily. Thank you.
[Innes]: Thank you very much for the record, Emily Ennis of Innes Associates, and I'm just going to share my screen so you all can see it. We, as you said, are going to just run you through some changes to the timeline, some additional opportunities for public engagement, so I'll walk you through that, and then I'll turn it over to Paola for her review of the residential zoning. So this is where we are on the schedule today, January 29th. We're looking at the neighborhood and urban residential later on here. We are continuing to look at neighborhood and residential throughout February and March. sorry, February to the end of March or end of February and then March we're going to take up the commercial areas that are remaining and then move our way March and April for commercial both the squares and some of the other corridors and then move into May looking at Wellington and also starting to wrap up sort of the overall components that we've been doing. We wanted to call out the known Community Development Board meetings. So February 5th, we're going to talk about Green Score next week. We are going to request, and I'll explain as we get to public meetings, after conversations after the last City Board meeting, that Salem Street be moved, continued to March 5th. um uh in conversations with uh the city planning staff um and sort of other people who have been involved on the city side we feel that this is a good move to allow for additional public comment and engagement um and then we are also going to start grouping some of the topics so that they go together to the community development board We understand for the comments that we heard last week that in some cases people were confused or hadn't understood that there was a citywide zoning process. And we feel that by grouping some of these topics for the city board, it will be easier for people to see how the pieces are working together of the overall project. So with that, we would also like to do and have discussed this idea of doing some additional public comment period. It's sometimes hard for people to make the official meetings, whether it's of this committee or city council as a whole, or the city board. Sometimes those evening schedules on the days they fall aren't always good. So we are looking at February 10th for a community meeting to present and discuss Salem Street. The format of this would be a presentation by ourselves to let people know what it is, what we're doing, why we're doing it, what the components are, how it ties into the comprehensive plan. and then a significant question and answer period at the end or the bulk of the meeting so that people have the opportunity to ask their questions, air their concerns, air their hopes for the area. We haven't set dates yet, but we would like to do a similar thing for the residential portions and a similar thing in March for the squares. And we'll talk to you in more detail about dates as we confirm those. We're also talking about video topics that we wanted to confirm with you. So, you know, I know these meetings are put there sort of obviously televised now they're put online. Same with the CD board but that's a lot for people to wade through when they don't have much time to spare. So what we'd like to do is break down some of these topics into about two minute videos. You know, we've we've talked certainly videos one through five we've talked about them publicly already at the official city meetings, but we'd like to break them down as I said into these smaller sort of chunks so people can engage with the topics on their own time. So these are videos that we would create and post to, you know, have the city post their website for the zoning effort. So we're suggesting five now to really start with what the zoning update is, all the areas that we're looking at, again, tying it back to the comprehensive plan, the reason that the city is doing this and why they hired us to assist, and then start to break down some of the, we've had the advantage of hearing some of the questions about Salem Street, and so breaking those topics down into smaller chunks that people can look at. Um, uh, the green score obviously is not something that people have had a chance to hear yet. They will, uh, February 5th. Um, they have here, but not at the CD board. And then as we were looking at the breakdown that we were proposed for Salem Street, it seemed to make sense to do a similar sort of breakdown for the neighborhoods as the next section of videos or collection of videos. And then the commercial districts uses and dimensions. Some of the other topics that we're covering with you aren't maybe complex enough, but we thought that the combination of transportation demand management and parking would be something that would be complex enough that we felt a video would be appropriate. It may even be as we get closer that they need to be broken into two separate videos so we could certainly have a look at that. Parking is by itself a complex topic and not everybody understands transportation demand management so we felt that those particularly deserved a video. And then finally, just to confirm, you know where we are, we talked about it above, but these are the specific things that we're looking at right now in January neighborhood residential SF one and SF to a little bit of a peek ahead today to urban residential which are apartments wanted to in general residential, and then looking at the C one district. in March and April, but using different geographies to look at the C1 district, and then our final districts in May, looking at Wellington, Glenwood, the office, industrial, and mixed use. Obviously for all of these, we're doing uses, dimensional standards, development standards. And then the topics, housing of course is a topic in January and February. Also ADUs because the new state legislation is coming online in February for ADUs. And then those neighborhood commercial nodes that already exist that we've talked about in the comprehensive planning process, little commercial districts, how do we deal with those in terms of allowing them, encouraging them, maybe adding a few controls on there. And then March and April, those other topics we've been talking about, community solar, which we've been researching all along, nonconforming uses and structures, and then transportation demand, site plan review, and parking. So just again to call out the opportunities for public comments, the dates that we have so far. So you'll see the new February 10th public meeting being inserted after the CDB Community Development Board last week, and then the proposed new date to finish up Salem Street with that conversation. the green score. As we add the other public meetings, we'll put them in this calendar and update them with you. But I think the key is for the public to understand that we are adding additional times to comment and also ones that are not part of a formal board meeting. And so there's a little bit more flexibility, perhaps, in how we can answer their questions and provide information. I'm going to stop here and see if there's any questions for the councillors before I turn it over to Paola.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for that overview, Emily, and I do want to thank you and your whole team for your nimbleness in kind of adding in these additional enhanced communication aspects. Mid-year, while we're still going through the work of zoning, I think that these are really important, and I hope that as many residents as possible will take advantage of these added public meetings. Before I recognize my fellow councilors, I'll just note, I did get confirmation just earlier today that that public Q&A on the Salem Street Neighborhood Corridor District will be at the Roberts on Monday, February 10th, starting at 6 30, and we will be working with the city to make sure that that information gets put out on as many communication channels as possible developed in person at the Roberts. 6 30 on February 10th. I'll recognize Councilor Scarpelli and then go to President Bears.
[Scarpelli]: Uh, thank you, Council Vice President. Um, I I don't, I find it a little disturbing and I appreciate the movement. I know that as I've been stating from the beginning of this process is that we're seeing what people have said years ago in bringing these meetings into the neighborhoods and we see the situation with the Salem Street corridor and what's happened there and I appreciate the extra meetings but I really think we need to take a more proactive approach moving on with other zoning areas. I mean, even just to share because unfortunately, sometimes people seem to think on the council that I'm trying to stir apart or be negative all the time, but I'm receiving emails and the residents have questions, questions that I think that like Salem Street could have been answered at meetings that I requested at the beginning and being glad to see that we're finally moving to the Roberts into the neighborhoods because people aren't, although these are public meetings, people aren't getting the information. We can see that by the mayor's letter that she sent out stating that she's now going to involve her communications team. And I think that should be hand in hand moving forward. I only say this for the fact that as we move forward to the neighborhood, the residential neighborhood zoning where people have already started calling saying, George, is it true that the Lawrence estates is now going to have 2 or 3 families and it's going to change the look of our community? And these are questions that are so simple to answer, but. the access to these meetings or even understanding these meetings or, um, understanding what, um, information that people in, uh, in the community can access. I know it's easy for us because we do this every day. But, um, again, um, you know, like I said, the biggest, uh, The most unified comments we had when we first started the recodification of the zoning was as we bring it to the next step is really having that RFP beefed up to make sure that we have a robust. uh, communication avenue into the areas that we are looking to rezone. So residents can be part of the process, not reactionary, like we're seeing across the neighborhood, um, across the community. So I just implore to my colleagues and, um, and, um, our director and Ennis that We start thinking a little proactive and start moving into the neighborhoods as we move these meetings. You know, we've, we've had meetings in the past where we've gone to the high school. We've gone to both the middle schools. We've gone to many different locations to make sure that we're bringing the message to the neighbors and. Again, the neighbors and what I'm hearing already that there's coalitions, neighborhood coalitions that are starting that already starting to talk about how they're going to go in and and battle the city because of lack of information going into our next next phases. So, um, I don't want to, I just want to inform you this. I don't. I know some consoles would think that this is a, you know, Council Scarpelli being negative again but again, as one Councilor like I mentioned the last few meetings. I'm getting those emails from the residents that feel like they're not being heard by by our. Council and by our city administration. So, again, I'm glad the mayor stepped up and started. And putting some processes with her communication team for sale, I implore you all. to contact the mayor, bring her communication team in as we move forward with these processes, because again, we all know this hasn't been looked at in many, many years. And from what we're hearing with what people feel in Salem Street, again, like I said, when you talk about residents from Lawrence Road and the Lawrence Estates, and they're frightened that the their quaint neighborhoods are not going to be changed to have the possibility of jamming in three family homes. I don't know where they're getting this information, but this is the, um, this is because of lack of notification and lack of, um, community participation. Now, again, I've said this 1000 times. I know Council vice president has done Yeoman's work in putting the uh council meetings in order organizing them all but unfortunately it's just not uh it's just not getting to the community and i'm afraid we're going to be stalled uh zone after zone as we keep moving forward until we really put a comprehensive plan in place so thank you
[Collins]: Thank you for your comments, Councilor Scarpelli, I agree with a lot of what you said I think absolutely when there's not information that's legible and comprehensible and easy to find those are the conditions when confusing or misinformation can flourish and you've pointed that out so I'm glad that we are At a point in the year, we're working better together to make sure that we are trying to make progress on some of those goals that we share. And I'm really heartened to see that INNIS has already been working to schedule the public Q&A for the next zoning topics after this one so that we can keep building the ship ever better with this topic and then use these improved communication methods for all of the proposals going forward. And I thank everybody who has been helping us think through what that has to look like, councillors and residents, both included. I'll recognize President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Vice President Collins. I just wanted to thank the Innist team and our planning development and sustainability office and you for your work continuing on this project and note also this is and I think we've noted at every time a continuation of the comprehensive plan process that established the citywide comprehensive plan in 2023 that had input from thousands of residents across dozens of events and meetings and other ways of getting information like surveys and interviews and a lot of other sessions that has gotten us to this point. I think something that we study in economics is the idea that you know, the quote unquote free market only works if everyone has perfect information, which means every single person in a market knows everything, every single piece of information that everyone else knows. And one of the first lessons that you learn in economics is that that's impossible and that that's why we have rules and regulations and laws and processes. And while I'm encouraged that we continue to iteratively try to improve those processes, there will never be perfect information where everyone knows exactly every piece of information and has heard everything they want to hear. And I just think it's important to acknowledge that as well. Really, again, you know, I think we've been actually incredibly responsive to hearing from residents. Some of these zoning proposals have not had people saying some of the things that are being said on Salem Street. And so we've adjusted the process to try to answer more questions and get more information out there. And I think that that is the work of government, especially a government like here in Medford where we are deeply under resourced, and we don't have the hundred person planning department in Somerville or the multi hundred person planning department in Cambridge or thousand person planning department of Boston. or even the revenue that we see in cities like Everett, or the government help that comes from the state and other communities around the Commonwealth. So we are working very diligently. I appreciate your leadership on that. And I was hoping maybe you could talk a little bit more about what you've been doing. I think the one piece of this kind of conversation that we haven't talked about is how you've been working with the city administration. And we have additional engagement from the communications team. And if you could talk a little bit more about what that's going to look like in terms of the information available to residents online.
[Collins]: Certainly, thank you for your comments and I'm happy to go over that in brief. And I know that at our last meeting, there was specifically a motion for myself as chair to be working with the city, with the mayor's office and her communications office to make sure that we're doing all we can in collaboration to make sure that more and better information is reaching people more effectively. So specifically, what's that looking like? We're working on a lot behind the scenes now, and I'm excited for some of this to go live, hopefully within a couple of weeks. One part of this that I think is really important is overhauling the zoning page on the city website. As a quick reminder, the city council doesn't really have direct control over any part of the city website. So this is a collaborative project. Currently, I think, and this is by no means a pejorative or a criticism, but I think it is just a fact that the zoning page on the city website is very hard to navigate if you're a layperson, if you're an average resident who heard, who has a zoning question, heard about a proposal. and you Google Medford MA zoning, it's quite hard to find what you're looking for. And that's not the fault of the planning department or the communications team. Zoning is inherently wonky and technical and detailed and confusing. And to President Bears' point about us being a fairly under-resourced city, it would take more than a two-person communications department to sort and present that and design that in a way. that makes it be what people need it to be. So we're now working collaboratively to completely overhaul that webpage, which I am quite excited about as a visual person myself, with the goal being that this becomes more of a site where when people have a question, maybe they've heard about Salem Street, maybe they've heard about the residential neighborhood proposal, they can navigate to that site, and it is impossible to miss up-to-date and current information, summaries, bullet points, FAQs, and diagrams, but let them know what's being worked on who is currently talking about it, what body, and what the next public meetings are on that topic, when they can attend to ask questions and learn more. I hope that we'll also have, as Emily mentioned, there's also going to be very short-form digestible videos coming from Innes Associates. Those will be linked. And kind of the broader picture that we have for the website is not just to be very, very easily findable, digestible information about the current zoning proposals, but also to do a better job of reinforcing for residents that these are not individual proposals that we're just taking up Salem Street and that's the end of the story or we're not just taking up Mystic Avenue corridor district and that's the end of the story but this is a coordinated really more than a year-long effort this is a a citywide zoning review. So as people are finding out, okay, March 5, next meeting about Salem Street, good to know I can save that date, I can put it in my calendar. They're also seeing a timeline that reminds them that after Salem Street comes the neighborhood residential proposal. And after that, we'll be talking about squares and corridors, and letting people know that this is a citywide process that they can plug into any time between now and June, or they can kind of mark a month on their calendar and make sure to tune back in if there's a particular area that they're interested in. So I am looking forward to those updates to the zoning page on the website. I think that's a major one. We have the series of explainer videos from Innes Associates. We're working to, kind of in concert with all of this, be putting out more frequent updates in the form of fresh releases, collaboration between the city council and the mayor's office. Essentially, we're trying to make sure that our announcements about these are touching all of our existing communications channels. We know that some people go on the website. We know that some people are signed up for the e-alerts. We know that some people do reverse 911. We know that some people have social media. So we're trying to make sure that we are consistently creating information that's short form. What do you need to know? When is this going to be talked about? Information for each of the zoning proposals that can be shared on all of these communication channels. so that anybody who's interested at the very least can know where they can go to learn more and they can go to that place and actually learn more instead of getting confused and overwhelmed and then clicking away, or they can know where to watch a video or where to attend a meeting. That's the short form. I feel like there's probably something that I forgot. but the overall structure being that vastly improved web page on the city website, more frequent press release and social media updates paired with more frequent use of reverse 911 to let people know about upcoming meetings. With that, are there, oh, thank you, Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you. I, myself, am very excited that we're going to have some meetings about zoning that are not in this room. Going out, you know, where the people are, places that people feel more comfortable. I think that's really great. I get that we are under-resourced, but I appreciate Councilor Scarpelli's push for us to really do more and to do our best effort to get all this information out to people. And that being said, I do want to make a comment that we have been, am I correct, 37 years without zoning changes? Over 30 years. I think it's closer to 40, yeah. Close to 40. Not deciding to not change anything is a decision, and the world changes and the demographics of our city changes and coven happens and you know things happen in the world the.com bust in the 2000s happened and, you know, things. change in the world and in our city. And the choice for the city council to not change the zoning is a choice, as much as a change is a choice. I personally have talked to many people who, you know, have been wanting a lot of the changes, zoning and legislative that we have, you know, on our governing agenda. have said to me, I've lived here for 30 years and I have wanted these things to happen for 30 years. I thought they would never happen. I'm so excited that finally some of these things are happening. So I think, you know, it's just important to remember that while change is hard, the whole world changes and zoning needs to be updated. A lot of the zoning things that we are doing is bringing things to the current non-conforming structures that exist. So in many places, we're not, you know, yes, we are changing many things, but there are places where we're simply trying to reflect what actually currently exists because what's built there is not conforming to this old zoning. And on that note, I did have just one small request that in some of our educational materials, I don't know whether it be the videos or just you know, infographics that we create or in the writing or whatever that might be, I think it's important for people to be able to see very simply what the old zoning said. what currently exists and is non-conforming, and what the new zoning says. And if people are especially concerned about heights and about density. So in very simple, as much as we can have incredibly simple ways of describing, here's the old zoning, here's the new zoning, and here's what is currently built, and why you can see that in these places, we're actually not changing anything. We're literally, we're changing the zoning, but we're only making it meet what exists. and in these other places where we are changing the zoning. I think those, you know, as much as we can simplify it for people, that would be really helpful. Thank you.
[Collins]: Thank you very much, Councilor Hilliam. And I agree. I think that it's really important that in all of these updated materials going forward, especially through the use of diagrams and visuals, we should be saying that stuff verbally and linking people to the full documents and making sure that there are really simple, really effective diagram showing, comparing the current zoning to what the current built environment actually is and showing what we love that's currently non-conforming that couldn't be built today with the current zoning, those heights and those densities, because of course that's a lot of what we talk about and a lot of what residents want us to be focusing on when we're talking about zoning. Thank you. Any additional questions before we go forward to the neighborhood residential topic? Seeing none. So we discussed the, we initiated the topic of the neighborhood residential two weeks ago. We saw a kind of a jumping off point draft proposal from Innes Associates. We discussed it, we made some suggested changes already, which we'll be reviewing tonight. Kind of a slight downshifting and all of the sub districts was recommended by this council and I believe that the proposal will be seeing tonight reflects this, just because it was mentioned as as a concern that's been going around I do want to know just off the top for in case people jump off the meeting early. In my understanding, it's currently not, triple-deckers are not proposed for Lawrence Estates, and that'll be shown in the, that'll be shown in the diagrams that we'll look at in just a little bit, but I just wanted to make sure that that was cleared up right at the beginning of the presentation. So without further exposition, Paola, I'll pass it off to you.
[Innes]: The pesky microphone. I just wanted to say one thing before I turn it over to Paula for the rest of the meeting is I appreciate Councilor Callahan's discussion or comment about making this more visual, more graphic, the diagrams. That's been an internal conversation that we've been having with our team as well to continue to add more to that. And I do also want to say how I felt that our regular Monday meeting with yourself, with President Bears with the city planning staff and with Mayor her communication teams who joined us this Monday, I think the the support there. from all parties involved with the process to add more public engagement. You know, we really appreciate because we were thinking that separately. It was nice to know that as we got on the call, everybody else was thinking that as well. So just thank you for that. And I will turn it over to Paula.
[Ramos]: No, good. I will share the presentation so we can continue. So starting as I always like to start this introduction is where are we coming from, where are we doing here? And it's what we're doing is the implementation to zoning that comes from what was identified and published in the comprehensive plan in Medford. So if anyone is interested, what are we doing? What are the principles that we are following? Those were all identified in the comprehensive plan that is available for everyone that was published in January 2023. as well as it is already in the comprehensive plan, but it was also released the climate action and adaptation plan in April 2022. So these two, anything that has to do with zoning, we are taking into account with the city councilor and city staff recommendations And we are bringing all those things into our proposals. So some of these are some of the strategies and goals that have been identified in the comprehensive plan and the climate action and adaptation plan. We always refer to this plan. This is the vision plan. What we're doing now is to try to make it more concrete to see those densities and to see those boundaries of those corridors, squares, nodes, institutional anchors. and then the residential. So where we are now is working on the residential. And what we have, so what we do is exactly what Councilor Callaghan asked. We have to make it more visual and some of the Diagrams that we need to produce to reflect this. We are also thinking of different strategies. First we look into the current zoning, then we looked into what is existing now, because a lot of times that doesn't match. So where are all those inconsistencies? And then with all these strategies from the comprehensive plan, all these goals and objectives, we will bring it into a new proposal. Um so in your current here we have the current zoning. The districts that are about, uh, what the residential districts would be the single family one single family to apartment one apartment to general residential. I will explain later on what this include what they permit and why not. Um And we do a lot of analysis. We check the transit system from bike stations to bus lanes to T stations, commuter rail, and other kinds of analysis with densities, dimensions that we will look into later on, building typologies, et cetera. So we have looked into the mixed-use districts or the non-exclusive residential districts where we have here a bit more detail these corridors which we are differentiation between the regional that will be the Mystic Avenue, that regional corridor, and the other corridors that are more neighborhood, as for example, Salem Street, we've been working on those too. We will be looking into the squares, the institutional district, that's the Tufts area, and then special districts that we will be looking into as well at the end of this Wellington Riverside. So what we are doing is a more citywide strategy and we will be looking at all of this and then the residential neighborhoods. So one thing that we wanted to look is what is existing there? What is there right now? What are the building typologies in Medford? So we have this map which show us the single family, two family, condo conversion, three family, four to eight units, and more than nine units. These help us to look at what the density is currently in these districts. So what are the considerations that we took into account while looking at these neighborhood residential and urban residential districts? We needed to place a framework. So what we looked was the proximity to highly frequent and efficient public transit, the proximity to higher job density areas. And you can see it in the map on the left. This is from the comprehensive plan. Lot sizes and the topography of the area. Existing residential types. That's the map that we just saw. And then sometimes we need to look at a more transition between this low, medium and high density that we have. We really don't have high, high density, but from low to medium density areas. to make it more transitional, to not be really a big difference between them. So these are all the things that we are looking into. And we made a proposal, this was for last time, where we had So this proposal was amended into, um, by the city council in last, um, planning and permitted committee meeting where we reduce it into three neighborhood residential and then one urban residential. So. We looked into this, we took it all the considerations back into the studio and we wanted to analyze what is the, so we created this map, what is the current zoning district and what happened when we underlay the existing residential types. And so do, yeah, you can see my cursor. So there are some areas where there is already occurring or happening some kind of higher or increasing density that is naturally occurring. It's not on their district or is not allowed in the district, but this higher density is happening. So we want to look into that, things that are happening because of proximity to more highly dense areas or job areas or mixed areas or transit areas. So we took that in consideration and we came up with a new proposal. So last time we focused a lot on the northern part of the city of Medford. So the North Medford Fulton Heights, the Lawrence States and West Medford. But we didn't go quite into the South Medford, the South area of Medford. So what we wanted was to come up with a different proposal and just this is another draft. So we wanted to hear your reactions. So we are proposing three neighborhood residential. This is neighborhood residential one. This allows single-unit dwelling plus the ADU and a historic conversion of two units. We have neighborhood residential two, single-unit dwelling plus ADU, two-unit dwelling and historic conversion, two to three units. Then we have neighborhood residential, three single unit dwelling, plus ADU, two unit dwelling, three unit dwelling townhouse, and historic conversion, two to four units. And then we're going to urban residential, two unit dwelling, historic conversion, two to five townhouse, and multiple unit dwelling from two to four units. Um, urban residential two, uh, that is the really orange bright color. Uh, usually they go with apartment two already in those districts. So it's multiple unit dwelling plus four units. Um, the urban residential, we will continue to look more the specifics at the moment we are focusing more on the neighborhood residential. Um, and what we did in this map was to all the neighborhoods that are in the new proposal and just lay out, underlay the residential existing types so that you could see why are we proposing some neighborhood three in certain areas. And usually it's because we already have those typologies. So if we go into a neighborhood two, meaning permitting only on to duplex in an area that is mainly duplex and some already three units. What we're doing is downsizing and down-densifying what is already there. We are putting a cap to what and already making non-conforming things that we already that are already existing. So we just wanted to to give this maps that we use for analysis to bring this new proposal and to see if we could consider some of the proposed that we did last time in the last meeting. I'm going to stop here so that we can process this information and I would love to hear your comments on this.
[Innes]: And if I may just briefly add, I think that, you know, we absolutely appreciated the direction that the city council gave us last time but if you remember we said at the end we want the flexibility to look at the boundaries and see what's on either side of it. That's really what this analysis has been about is making sure that we are not. intentionally, as Pella just said, unintentionally downgrading the existing density in some areas, but being respectful throughout the entire city of what's already there and how do we best capture that in new zoning. And I will say that, of course, I think we've already transmitted this, but I believe for those watching at home who want to spend more time looking at the maps, not to mention yourselves, Councilors, is this PDF is available after the meeting for people to really peruse as well.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you, Emily.
[Innes]: Thank you, Paola.
[Collins]: And yes, it's on the City Council's public portal already as an attachment for this meeting. So folks can download that and zoom all the way in like I've been doing the past couple of days. Thank you so much for the overview. And I appreciate that note. As with any other zoning proposal, this is about balance. I think that there are a lot of goals of reevaluating our zoning. Obviously, one of those goals is to say, where is incremental more density or more height or more this or more that appropriate? Another way of looking at it is to say, where are there a lot of non-conforming lots already that we should not make further out of compliance, that we should update the zoning so that it reflects what's already there? And I think that some of the neighborhood residential proposal kind of centers those two questions at the same time. I was saying, where does it make sense that we should, where in the city is the transit proximity and the existing density and the roadways and the topography make it so it makes a lot of sense to incrementally up-zone here? And what are those areas where we actually, as we're trying to unify and make consistent, One thing I heard is that I think that one of the, in a way, one of the amendments from two weeks ago might actually make a lot of what's existing on the ground in some single family two districts out of conforming with the proposed zoning. So we wanna make sure that we're making things more coherent as opposed to less as this advances. So I know I have some questions. I have some comments from reviewing these, but I want to first recognize other councilors. I'll go first to President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. I think this map is incredibly insightful. I think this actually gives us the picture. It shows citywide. It shows where corridors and squares are, which are the places that are kind of in the gray. and showing the existing condition under the boundaries that are done by parcel. It's just a great visual. So I just want to thank you for putting this together. It really, I think, helps show what we're talking about. I have a couple of thoughts on a couple of these boundaries and where we should look at one and two. And I know we've had some discussions in previous meetings about this. It's not, I don't think, worth getting into right now, saying, like, look at this little square, and I think that should be different. One thing I noted, and it might be more of a comment for when we talk about dimensional, but I think something that also will be important to think about is what some design and performance standards look like for the third stories of the neighborhood, two and three districts where I think we've definitely, I think the two and a half story idea, I think is a really not a great one. And that really negatively impacts what a lot of property owners want to do with their properties in the city. But I also think that we can be artful about what a third story looks like so that we get some of the design benefits that I think we all like about just the visual of a three story building. Really, that's my comment at this point. I'm sure it'll come up a little later, but I think this visual really brings home exactly what we're talking about. And there's really only a couple of places here where I think maybe the district is one increment of density higher than I would think it should be. And a lot of that is in kind of the transitional, some of this middle of the city transitional area. So thank you for putting this together.
[Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Any other questions or comments from councilors at this point? We will take public participation at the end of this section. I'll note for myself, I think that As one councillor, I think that this map that we're focusing on is probably the most important one of the presentation, kind of overlaying current land uses, current building types, and superimposing on top of that the proposed new sub-districts. And I really encourage everybody, councillors and the public, to focus on this one specifically as we continue to workshop this proposal. For me, it's very useful to be able to say okay what are the corresponding number of units between the proposed new sub districts and current building uses. letters and numbers for the proposed new sub districts. And we have color coded residential types for what's existentially on the ground. So for me, as I was looking at this map, I was saying, okay, anywhere that any section that is predominantly magenta means that the nine or more units that should probably be our urban residential number two sub district because it should be reflective of the density that's already there. And I feel strongly as we already said that we should be down zoning nowhere in the city because that's counter to I think all of our goals. And I think that this is very instructive for those, most areas of the city, well, maybe not most, a lot of areas of the cities are mixed, which makes sense. That's why our neighborhoods are cozy and feel human scaled is because they're not just the same type of building over and over. And I think a lot of what we're talking about in this discussion is those neighborhoods where there's a mix of, you know, on this map, turquoise and orange and purple. you have some single family, you have some two family, maybe you have some condo conversion, you have a couple three families here and there. And I think that is really the frontier where we're thinking, we're thinking of zoning, I think it's, it's accurate to think of it as a 30 year map, not a next year map. I think when we look at economic trends and building trends, we're building out the map that we want to see on the ground and in 30 or 40 years. And I think that's the ground where we have to be making those decisions about for example, is that an NR3 or is it a UR1 or is it an NR2? I think for myself, there's a lot of areas in the city where you do see that mix of turquoise and purple, which is to say two family and three family. I would probably like those to be an NR3 or potentially even a UR1. in some of those zones that are especially proximate or bordering on the transit hubs. Because it's reflective of the density that we already enjoy and because we know that we need to add density and we should be putting it in the places where there's the greatest demand for it and the most supports for it. President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you, Councilor Collins. And one other thing I think it might be worth noting on some of the specifically, let's take a look at the Wellington district just south of the UR1. There's a, you know, I think it might be worth labeling some of the larger condos as nine plus units, rather than condo conversion because I think there's just a few developments in here that are definitely more akin to a larger apartment building that like the condo conversion to three family and I think just a distinction there might be helpful to. But that's just my one other thought, taking a look at the map. I just noticed that I was like, well, yes, the Modera is Rivers Edge or nine plus, but the condos on the other side of the tracks are also multi story multi units on each floor.
[Innes]: Good. Thank you. I just want to note that the underlying data for this does come from the city's assessors database. So, you know, we do appreciate when people call out and say, Hey, this, this designation might not be quite right. So, but just to let you know where the base data came from.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you for speaking to that. I see any further questions or comments from councillors at this time. I know this is a detailed map to parse, and that's how we're going to revisit it in future committee meetings. Not seeing any at this time. I do think that, you know, as we've discussed before, I think that the historic conversion And the ADU's discussion is also an important piece of context for all of these sub-districts that we're talking about. So if you feel it's appropriate, maybe we can proceed on to those parts of the presentation next.
[Ramos]: Yes, thank you very much, Madam Chair. So the historic conversion, we have the same as we did last time. So it's the conversion of an existing structure that was designed for one use, one unit use or two unit or, sorry. I will start again, I got confused. The conversion of an existing structure, we added now the minimum of 70 years old, that it was originally designed for one unit use. and that is going to be converted into a two-unit, multi-unit dwelling with no change of the exterior of the structure. Each unit has an independent entrance directly from the outside of the building or through a common vestibule. And why are we doing what we are bringing this? is the goal of this conversion is to preserve the cultural heritage of a community by ensuring that any changes made are keeping with the historical character of the area, to increase this density citywide in small increments, and to enable smaller and more diverse housing options. So this will be the definition that we will be using. And then with this, we will bring some standards for these typologies. We have some drafts as well for the current dimensional standards. The current ones in Medford are being done by use and not by district so that it makes it that every single detached family unit throughout all the city is it has exactly the same dimensions. So what we try to propose is in this, and I'm sorry for the typo, but we have NR1, NR2, NR3, and the last one should be urban residential one. So you are one. Sorry for that. But I'm going to focus right now only from NR1 to NR3. And what we wanted to do also was to show that transition between what is the NR1 district and how single family units or single dwelling units are being, what is the character in those districts and how that changes and transform into the NR3 where we have a bit of a different identity. And so that's why you will see that difference between the different dimensional standards. And so for minimum lot dimensions, we have in NR1, 5,000, NR2, 4,000, and NR3, 3,000. Maximum stories height in stories are going to be NR1 and NR2, 2.5. And then NR3, we have 3. Minimum front setbacks are 15 for NR1, NR2, and then 10 for NR3. Minimum side setbacks, 7.5. Sum 15 in NR 1, 2 and NR 3, 5, sum 10. Minimum rare setback are all the same, 15. Maximum building coverage all the same, 40%. Minimum open space diverse from NR 1, 40%, NR 2, 30%, NR 3, 20%. Yeah, so this is to represent the to have a little bit of difference between the different districts and that each one has a little bit just a different small. characteristic or identity that is a bit different. So the dimensions, what we look, again, we do an analysis of what is the lot size. We did the range between less than 3,000, 3,000 to 4,000, 4,000 to 5,000, 5,000 to seven, seven to 10, and plus 10,000 square feet. This gives us an idea of where we have, with the building types, we know what is already existing, we know what type of dimension is in those lots, so we can have an idea of what we can ask of a minimum. We also want to bring as much as possible conformity, so to make non-conforming at this moment into conforming. And that's why those sizes of five, four, and three, this is where it comes from, from this analysis as well. residential requirements. This is just to, um, understand the difference between the 80 you, uh, single unit dwelling historic conversion and other residential types in especially parking. And then if their size restrictions 80 you we will be talking about this, uh, this month later this month. Um, what it actually means. This comes from an estate law. So the parking that is required is zero if it's next to a certain public transit or one as a minimum. And the maximum size restrictions are 900 square feet or 50% of the total area of the principal structure. single unit dwelling parking is two per dwelling unit historic conversion this will be in something that we will be studying and adding 1.5 per dwelling unit and other residential types 1.5 per dwelling unit so this is what we have right now this parking will be studied later on but at the moment these are the differences between these residential types And then, again, sorry for the typo in NR4, it doesn't exist anymore, it's UR1. But looking at the NR1, NR2, and NR3, this will be the dimensions, the maximum volume that you could have in this minimum sizes.
[Innes]: And if I may just to add on to that, you know, we had that conversation in house about the dimensional standards, how they could help address existing non conforming structures or lots by relaxing. of the existing zoning requirements to match what's actually in the area. If you remember last June, we had that workshop in this room where we looked at a lot of these standards. This map that Pella has up now is a further refinement to that, again, to double check, okay, in the new sub-districts, are we meeting those? Are we creating the ability for current buildings, current lots that are considered non-conforming to now be conforming? But there's something else too, you know, I think when people look at dimensional standards and they start thinking, oh, a 3,000 square foot lot, you know, a building of that size could have fit on a 3,000 square foot lot. I think it's important to understand that all of these dimensional standards work together. So if somebody has, maybe it's a lot that's currently vacant, it would become conforming under this. because it's a 3,000-square-foot lot or a 3,500-square-foot lot or it's a 4,500-square-foot lot and we've changed it to 4,000, they do still have to meet the other requirements, right? So they have to meet those setback requirements. They have to meet the building coverage requirements. They have to meet the open space requirements. And they also have to meet the parking requirements. And so for people who don't work with zoning a lot, if you think about sort of what we call the ground plane, the ground level of the lot, you've got a building footprint, you've got setbacks, you've got an open space requirement, and you've got a parking requirement, and those all have to work together. before a building can fit on the lot. And so I think that's just important that some of these lot dimensions are minimums. So people could choose to make something further set back or a larger lot size or whatever. And some of them are maximums, like the maximum building coverage. And so they can't go beyond that. So as people look at these, it's important to think about how they work to gather to control what can actually happen on the site.
[Collins]: Thank you so much. I appreciate that clarification. And as you say, yeah, I think for for any folks, including people in this room who zoning is not their day in and day out bread and butter, I think it's a helpful reminder that lot size is a really important piece of the puzzle, but it's not the only criteria in deciding what use of building, what height of building, how many units can go on that parcel, because other conditions also must be satisfied. While we're talking about the I know that this is a slide that you have already flagged for update. But if we can make sure that to just request for me for the diagram when it's updated to include the urban residential sub districts, if we can make sure that we're seeing models of the buildings that are 2 to 4 stories and above four stories, that'd be great. And if it is possible to also add diagrams for the neighborhood residential sub districts displaying the buildings that are currently showed, and also one building with an ADU. I think that will help to flesh out the range of possibilities under the proposed sub-districts.
[Innes]: Yes.
[Collins]: Thank you. President Bears, go ahead.
[Bears]: Thank you. I think similarly, and I already kind of brought it up, but I think some design standards to look at you know, what a three-story structure might look like where it's more like dormered out with a more sloped roof line or something like that would be helpful. And I think considering for the NR2, maybe something, I don't want to be so particular, like a 2.75, but you know, once we start getting into those, the half stories, about like the usable square footage area of the third story and it, you just, you know, I know having spoken to residents, you know, that sometimes the dormer just isn't, you know, they can't get it, you know, it's not worth doing at 2.5, you know, and I think there might be a way to have this conversation about design standards that complement the stories that could allow for a more useful partial third story, or even maybe a full third story in the NR2 district. And I guess just one other question, do you see any utility to potentially having like different processes, like a two and a half by right three with special permit, something like that? Or is that just kind of, to me, I think having a clear design review rather than like spot projecting by having special permits might be a better way to go about that, more consistent and easier for people to understand what we're proposing. But I'm just interested in your thoughts on that.
[Innes]: So, it's, it's a very interesting question. President Bears So first of all, as, as we drive through visit different parts of Medford. We're looking at one today and I like that's a two and a half tall right it's a two and a half story building but each of us it's much older house and each of the stories are slightly taller than. So there are these variations in what a two and a half story is. I think that idea of design guidelines is really interesting. At a previous firm, I worked on a project for Arlington, which was residential design guidelines that were advisory in nature. And it was primarily for single family homes. And, you know, those are generally by right, so they're not going through a special permit or a site plan review process, but it was something that Arlington wanted to be able to use and say hey, if you're doing an addition. This is how you can add an addition to an existing single family house this is sort of how you want to step it back from the facade if you're doing a dormer. This is how you would add a dormer so that it looks proportional to the house. And I think that's the sort of thing that we can certainly talk about, especially at that public meeting for the residential component of this, where we can say, here are different house styles, here are different things that you can do with them. And then as we move into those four plus units, nine plus units, that sort of thing, the third story in some areas, there's a little bit more guidance about how that can be done. We can certainly look at that and continuing diagramming that out. I think as we start to narrow down the different uses in here, thinking about what the permitting process is for each of those will be really important. We've done a little bit of internal conversations but we wanted to make sure that we were set on the boundaries before we kind of got into the permitting processes portion of that.
[Bears]: Yeah, no, and that makes sense to me. I think I'm really thinking about this NR2 when I'm thinking about, you know, if we want to activate the third story more, can we, you know, and like, I think going down the road of a design review board and mandatory design guidelines and everything is not what I'm suggesting, but I think You know, advisory is interesting. I don't really have as much of an issue with that because I don't think it actually, it doesn't add process. But I think maybe a mandatory something for, like for NR2, for the third story, like if you want more than two and a half, this is how you have to build it, might be something that is like a good nexus point of what we're talking about. And my only other question, remind me in the, what feels like years ago we called phase one changes that we passed I think last June. Did we pass the site plan review where we have a tiered site plan review? Or are we waiting on that? There was like going to be a kind of an administrative review.
[Innes]: I think we're still coordinating with Jonathan on that. So for the record, Jonathan is Silverstein's lawyer that we're working with at the legal aspects of this. I believe, yeah, that's it. We have it in April. Yeah. We were sort of taking the steps to get all the pieces together and then coming back with that administrative review because we discussed it. But the thresholds are important for that three tiers, and we wanted to complete this. So we have looked at it, but I don't think we've fully passed to this point.
[Bears]: It just feels like it might be adjacent to this in some way.
[Innes]: Yes, exactly.
[Callahan]: Thank you. So I know that in the first proposal, then it was amended by President Bears, and I just wanted to kind of note that in the amended, sorry, in the proposal two, there are, interestingly, there is a part of the northern part of West Medford that even in the before amended proposal one, was Neighborhood Residential 1, which was nothing but single-unit dwelling plus ADU and historic conversion, amended to be a larger portion that was only gonna be that. And now in Proposal 2, it's actually Neighborhood Residential 2, and so it allows two units. So I think that portion, and when I look at the reality, there are no two-unit dwellings there. So I think that, I just want us to be careful that places, and I think this was the intention, President Bears, of the proposal that you made, which I was supportive of, please correct me if I'm wrong, but that in single-family areas that were single-family that are in fact single-family, there are no two units currently built there, That I think I certainly felt that adding a to use and historic conversion was the right amount of change for those areas and I believe there are two areas, one is the northern part of North Medford and the other one is a triangle in Lawrence estates, but that both of those cases. And I would be totally like every resident there is like, yeah, let's have two fellows here but my guess is that that's probably not going to be the reaction that we get. So, that would be my. inclination. And I don't know if other councillors would be supportive of that, but I think that was kind of what President Bears's amendment was going towards. So I wonder if we could, you know, come to some sort of agreement on whether we think that that's a good idea to roll it back, especially the northern west Medford part, roll it back to neighborhood residential planning.
[Collins]: Could you specify, Councilor Galleon, what's the part in West Medford that you're noting as neighborhood residential 2 that you thought was neighborhood residential 1?
[Callahan]: Yep. So if you look at the difference between the proposed neighborhood residential districts version 1 and the amended proposal 1, and I believe that is President Bearsar's amendment, in both of those, the very northern part of West Medford, that thing that goes way up by the lakes, right? In both of those, it is neighborhood residential one, both in the original and also in the amended. And if you now look at proposal two, that I believe is neighborhood residential two.
[Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, just to Councilor Callahan's point, I think for me, looking at the proposed districts over the residential types, that was kind of one of my also, I have a couple of questions about, again, some of those, that area, the west side of Forest Street, where there's an NR3 kind of square chunked off there, some of the boundaries of that large NR2 kind of in the middle. And I do think that there were some discussions that led to this proposal around the lot size and parking availability that I don't maybe necessarily agree with, but planning department folks and in the discussion saying, when you look at the Fulton Heights with the elevations and the topography and the windy roads and the small lot size and the significant on-street parking already there, that doesn't make sense. But maybe there's some spots up on the north end of Grove Street and out down that neighborhood where you have lots of off-street parking, large lot sizes, and proximity to transit that doesn't exist in some I'm essentially making an argument that I don't fully agree with, but I've been characterizing some other arguments that were made that it might be more, the capacity is there, even if it's not necessarily an existing condition. I would tend to think that I think that that district should probably be two districts and be one part NR1 and one part NR2. But I don't want to I will let the people who fully believe in that argument make that argument more robustly than I just did.
[Callahan]: I mean, I could make a motion, but I don't know if a motion is really necessary. I feel like if there's some consensus on this committee, then we can trust our Innocence Associates planners to do a slight revision.
[Collins]: I think it also makes sense at this point to kind of, as a segue off of that, to get specific on our next steps for this proposal overall. I know I think that there's a couple notions for places where we'd want to see the sub-district assignments changed a little bit, that northern leg of West Medford being one of them. I had another one that hasn't been mentioned so far. I think that in terms of How and where we go forward from here, I think we could certainly make additional amendments motions during this meeting asking for specific changes. If Councilors wanted to state ideas and preferences on the record and then follow up before our next meeting through the chair to his associates, I think that that's that that would be another path. we are going to be considering these sub-districts in the context of the map more fully fleshed out with the kind of broader conversation about urban residential one at our next meeting on this topic. And I think that that will also be just a helpful piece of the conversation as the map gets more fully fleshed out and filled in. I think it would be helpful for us to consider everything in the context of everything else. So Emily, I'll go to you before I continue. Sorry, wrong mic.
[Innes]: Thank you. Um, I think, uh, with respect to the Councilors, I don't think making a I think if you make a motion that makes the map feel more solid than it actually is right. This is an iterative process back and forth. I do think that hearing from all of you of their particular areas that you want to want us to look at more depth that I do want to also remind you, you know the criteria that Yes, it's what's existing, but also proximity to public transit, proximity to the higher job density areas, lot sizes, which President Bears mentioned, and what's existing, and also those transitions. So we are more than happy to look at the edge lines, the boundary lines, more than happy to look at the areas that you pulled out. I don't want people listening to think that we're locked in at this point because we still have another month ahead of us talking about residential. So maybe we keep it a little bit more fluid for now. That allows us to go back and forth with you more on that.
[Collins]: Thank you. Yeah, I think that that makes sense. And certainly this is a draft and will remain a draft for several meetings more. Councilor Callahan.
[Callahan]: Thank you. Can I make a suggestion then that if a councilor wants to propose something that maybe we say, are there any objections to, then we don't have to vote or anything and people don't have to every single person chime in. It's a little bit simpler. And I will make the first one. I will say, are there any objections to the very northernmost part of West Bedford as it goes up Grove Street? Somewhere in there, there being a boundary between Neighborhood Residential 1 and Neighborhood Residential 2, currently it's all Neighborhood Residential 2, let the furthest north part be Residential 1. And I think we can kind of look at the original proposal before the amendment. that that may be a good place to look at for the differential between one and two. Any objections to them making a change like that?
[Collins]: Yeah, I think that we should use these sessions to, yeah, I think that the prevailing notion here is we're going to continue amending. this map based on the concerns and preferences and questions voiced in this room. And I suspect that this map will also will also continue to see an evolving version of this map based on the feedback that city staff has. Um, so it seems to me like there's consensus for going back to the original jumping off point and making sure that we're finessing the gradient between NR one and NR two and that location map specifically. Thank you for raising that. While we're talking about sub district boundaries, um, just so that you have it. One question that I did have looking at this, the South of Boston Ave, there's like a little dog leg of NR2 off of NR3, kind of straddling North Street. That might be the rightest subdistrict for that area, but it looks pretty similar in character to me to the NR3 that it borders. And I'm also curious about what Somerville zoning borders that area. Yeah, I wonder if it might just keep it consistent to upgrade that to NR3 if it's gonna be bounded on all sides by effectively NR3 zoning as well. Great, conscious of the time, there is another committee meeting to start. So are there any other, great, President Bears?
[Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, I think I was the vice president.
[Scarpelli]: I'm sorry. My hands been up. I apologize. Just so you know. Thank you.
[Bears]: I defer to Councilors her belly.
[Collins]: Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Councilor Scarpelli.
[Scarpelli]: No, I apologize. I know it's difficult being on zoom. I just want, I don't want to get too far away from what, what I represented for minutes said. I think that I just wanted to share a text message that I appreciate, uh, her clearing that up that right away, the residents saying, hold it. We're so confused because what we're looking at right now on, um, on the shared, uh, videos that really can't even see what these areas and neighborhoods look like. So just rest assured, I believe that we're not going to take anything of a vote or anything that's going to be moving anything in any direction. I think what we're asking for is to revisit and look at some options. So if we could just clarify that, Council Vice President, that'd be important for the viewing public. Thank you.
[Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Scarpelli. Again, I apologize. I missed your hand. And that's exactly right. We're not taking any votes tonight. We're not going to report this out of committee tonight. We're looking at a draft for the second time, not the last time. I think I expect we'll have two more meetings on the residential topic in this committee before it goes further along in the public process to the CBP and public Q&A session. So thank you for clarifying that. This will most definitely see some more adjustments and revisions before it moves to the next step in the process.
[Scarpelli]: Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councilor Bears. I didn't mean to disrespect and cut you off. I just wanted to make sure I didn't get too far so we could clarify. So thank you.
[Collins]: Yes, thank you for the clarification. President Bears back to you.
[Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate the clarification. Um, could we look at the proposed zoning districts and existing residential types map just to be put that up on the screen? Thank you. And yes, it is. The whole city. It's hard to see. I'm zooming in a little bit myself here. I think for me, the NR3 district, almost right in the center of the map, on the west side of Forest Street, it's a square. Well, yeah, I can't annotate, but essentially, there's this large NR2, there's an NR1, and then there's the NR3 between the highway and Forest Street that has a lot of the multifamily. The one on the other side of that, essentially, this bounding box here, I just think that given the existing condition, I would be able to proceed that as an NR2. And then I just had two questions about This square here, is that just a line that shouldn't be there? Or is that because of its proximity to the square district?
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Bears]: And is that intended to be an NR3? And then here, this NR2, kind of on the backside, is that because that's like a subdivision that's all single family? Okay. Got it. Thank you. Sure, I was just talking about the NR3 district on the west side of Forest Street. The small square district that is, I think, intended to be an NR3 on the northern end of, just north of the Medford Square area. And then there's an NR2 district off of Spring Street. And that's because there's a subdivision there, a single family subdivision from, that's more recent than other construction in that area. It's where the old train tracks were. which I want to bring back, but sadly we can't. Yeah.
[Collins]: Thank you. So we have that noted as well. I think that's well worth looking into as well. Great. So I think this has been a really productive discussion around some of the boundaries and assignments for the sub-districts on this map, which is very much a draft. And like we just said, we're gonna see a lot more opportunities for amendments and adjustments to this based on councilors' continuing feedback, concerns that we hear from the public that we digest and deliberate on, as well as input from city staff throughout this process. It is my understanding, and Emily and Paola, please correct me if you see this differently, that kind of our main step at this point is to be considering these sub-district boundaries. And at our next meeting on this residential topic, we'll be talking more about the urban residential one and two sub-districts. And after we start to feel more solid on an evolved version of this map, then we'll be talking about the permitting process, that by right, not by right. per use for each sub-district, talking about dimensionals and standards and maybe even some design guidelines towards the tail end of this process. Is there anything major that I'm missing from that workflow?
[Ramos]: Yes, so I will happily reconsider all the comments that are coming through tonight. I just want to remember that we are doing zoning and it's not for an aesthetic image of what is today, but that we are also looking into the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. So especially in around the squares where we do have mobility hubs where so we do have transit where we will have higher densities. The districts that are around it will serve also like a transition towards single unit dwelling districts. So just that to also keep in mind. And then there are job density. That is also something that we have in mind. It's in this presentation. We have the map that is coming from the comprehensive plan. So that we also like to have it in consideration as well. So just those two for the rest. We, in any case, we will continue to look into this parcel by parcel.
[Collins]: Thank you, Paola. Yeah, I think this is certainly a phase of the process where there are a lot of information sources informing the evolving draft.
[Innes]: And I will just add two things. One is certainly the the long term aspect that Paula mentioned of zoning I think the the concerns about zoning and the frustration about zoning is that it never happens as quickly as people think it's going to happen and so that's something else to to think about and remember. But in terms of the process, what we'd like to do is we're going to look at our calendars. We will coordinate with city planning staff. But at some point before this committee's last meeting on residential, we do want to have that public meeting where these maps, which it's great to be able to see them on screen. It's nice to be able to zoom into them when they're online as well. But there's something nice about having somebody explain it to you in person. So we'll be looking for that date and that place when we can have the conversation and have these maps up at a size that people can point to and put stickers on and ask us questions about as well. So we'll have that date for you soon.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you very much, Emily. I know that mapping workshop that we did over the summer, kind of before we got into the The heavy lifting of the geography proposals was really helpful, and I think it'd be great to have another version of that as we're mid-process. So thank you for working on that. Great. So we can expect to see an updated version of this proposal in two weeks, along with more discussion on the urban residential subdistricts one and two, and we will take things from there. And in the intervening time, hopefully we will see some more new communication strategies rolled out. And we, of course, have the public meeting on the Salem Street Neighborhood Corridor District proposal to look forward to as well. And green score will be discussed in CBB on February 5th, but Salem Street will not. That will be continued until March 5th to allow more time for public comment and Q&A. Are there any further questions or comments from Councilors before I go to public participation? Seeing none, I'll go first to Zoom, because there are some folks who have had their hands up for a very long time, and then I will go to the podium. Gaston, name and address for the record, please. You have three minutes.
[Fiore]: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Gaston Fiore 61, Stigney Road. First of all, I would like to thank and agree with Councilor Callaghan's change of the portion of Northwest Medford from NR2 to NR1. Second of all, I think same treatment could be applied to the area of Lawrence Estate, south of Lawrence Road between to the west of Governor's and maybe up to Rural Avenue on the west or even Winthrop. That area, as can be seen on slide 22, it's currently mostly single family. The topography is kind of weird. So if you see like Summit Road doesn't even connect to anything. There's plenty of roads that sort of, it's not like a grid or anything like that. It's a very peculiar neighborhood. I love it. So I would encourage the planners and the city councilors as well to re-look at the NR2 portion down of Lawrence. Maybe not all the way down to High Street, I don't know, but definitely a little bit farther south from Lawrence Road than what it is before. And lastly, so just a clarification. To the east of Governor's Hub, right to the east, that's still Lawrence Estates, is that correct? So let's say, so I'm on slide 21, it says Lawrence Estates, so let's say to the east of Governor's and west of Forest Street, that's still Lawrence Estates, correct?
[Collins]: More or less than if I believe if you scroll up in the PowerPoint from the slide that was last screen shared, there is a earlier version of the map.
[Fiore]: Oh, it is okay. Okay, so I'm on a test to make sure we understand that some site 21 title proposal to neighborhood residential and that so West of Governors Ave. It goes all the way to 93. But let's say, you know, I'm just talking about the area on Lawrence Estates, for example. So it was said at the beginning of the meeting that there's no such thing as proposing a triple-decker in Lawrence Estates. And that, according to the current proposal, the proposal is incorrect. Because that area of Lawrence Estates is NR3, and NR3 leads three-unit dwelling townhouse. And then when I go to the previous slide, residential requirement, that's slide 28, NR3, I'm seeing a triple-decker right there. So when it was said that people might be a little bit concerned about triple-deckers in Lawrence, they said that's misinformation. According to the current proposal, so the second proposal, and the residential requirements slide 28, that is not misinformation at all. That is correct information. There could be in the future triple-deckers in Lawrence Estates. So I just wanted to put it out there. And if people are concerned about that, I encourage them to voice their concerns. Thank you so much, Mr. Stone.
[Collins]: We'll make sure to note that as this goes forward in the process. Thank you so much for your comments.
[Fiore]: Thank you for the opportunity.
[Collins]: Yes, President Bears.
[Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, just to that comment, that is the square box that I was suggesting should be Not marked as an R3. I mean, I think we don't have defined neighborhood boundaries. One could argue that the Lawrence Estate starts at that intersection and goes to the intersection at Winthrop Street. We could have an argument about that for a year, and I'm sure everyone in the neighborhood would have a different opinion on it. But yeah, it seems to me that that bounding district between Governors Ave, Lawrence Road, and Forest Street, and what looks to be Hall and, oh, Street that I'm blanking on, that that should at least be more part of the NR2. And as Gaston noted, I think looking at the boundary line of that NR2 district and seeing if it should be moved further south. The NR1, NR2 boundary that's currently on Lawrence Road I think is certainly worth considering. Thank you.
[Collins]: Great. Thank you, President Bearsia. Certainly, that's an area that we want to pay special attention to as we continue to finesse these boundaries. I'll go next to the podium and then back to Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. Sorry, I forgot that the microphone was all the way over there.
[Navarre]: Sorry. Adjusted something. Maybe I'll be loud or quiet or something. Let me know. Hello, William Navarre, 108 Bedford Street. I think I made myself loud. Oh, OK.
[Collins]: Yeah, that's what I'm doing. Try it again, William.
[Navarre]: Hello? Oh, that's better. William Navarre, 108 Medford Street, apartment 1B. So a couple of things I wanted to talk about. The first and probably the most important that I've been sort of thinking about for a long time is when we have this max building coverage, I really think that should be replaced with a slightly larger number that is max building plus parking. Just because I, it's very hard to say like, If the goal of this is to protect the environment, it's very hard to say, well, it'd be fine as long as you made the buildings smaller and put in more parking. If the goal is to protect the environment, protect the permeable surfaces, we're upset about permeable. That doesn't make any sense. Doing this kind of thing could encourage less parking. We could have an incentive to encourage the ribbon parking. Currently, the zoning says we prefer ribbon parking, but there's no actual incentive. It gets underground parking, which I know some people like so I think that would be better and that way there's more flexibility, you know, instead of saying. 50% building coverage, you say 75. I don't know what numbers actually work. Whatever numbers work, you say that's your coverage. You cover that with parking or you cover it with building. That's up to you. You have flexibility. So that'd be my first suggestion. I would also say that I was weighing in on this sort of Grove Street discussion. I would say that you can imagine like a South Bedford style duplex in Grove Street. That sounds kind of ridiculous. But not all duplexes have to look like a South Bedford style duplex. Maybe there could be some kind of a, I sort of joked, maybe a manor zoning where it has to look like a stately single family home, but there could be duplex or even more inside. but you're not going to build triple-decker style, which would admittedly look ridiculous there. Maybe you could even imagine a super historical conversion, where we basically say that you could do a historical conversion, but you're allowed to make some, maybe you're allowed to make modifications to the back or something, to basically have that, just a little extra flexibility where the lots are quite big and the neighborhood can handle it. but where a South Bedford style duplex would look silly. Yeah, those are the comments. Thank you.
[Collins]: Thank you very much for your comments, William. Back to Zoom. I recognize you, Michael. Name and address for the record, please. And you have three minutes.
[Mike Cabral]: Great, thank you. Mike Cabral, 11 Jackson Road. I'm also a land use zoning attorney, and full disclosure, I do appear before Medford boards from time to time. Thank you for all this information. It's very helpful. Thank you to Councilor Callahan for again bringing up the West Medford NR1 district. I received quite a few questions on that. My understanding was that that would go to NR1 also, you know, discussing the boundaries of that West Medford area as well. There are certainly some that are still in the NR2, say north of Sagamore Ave and south of Grove Street that are all single family right now there are no two families on the street at all i would ask the council to consider that or at least um some justification as to why some of those would be two and potentially three heading down towards high street uh right now that would certainly Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : be a significant change to that neighborhood also my hope would be, and I know not for this hearing, but you know, as someone who appears before. Harmon Zuckerman, PB – He, Him, His.: : Numerous zoning boards these changes are are great and certainly you know welcomed, but I think where. sort of what really matters here is getting into the dimensional controls in the pre-existing non-conformity nature that will be in the zoning ordinance as well. We see, and I'm sure you know, quite frequently we've got a lot size in a GR district right now, minimums are 6,000. And we can put a two family as of right, but we have a lot size of say 4000 square feet. I'm hoping part of the goal here will be to relieve owners developers. from having to go before the zoning board looking for variances to go before zoning or community development and look for special permits for parking. You know, think this. Wholesale zoning change will be great, but I would encourage and I'm hopeful that we reverse engineer this in a way so that we can prevent these additional administrative processes and make it easier for people to make these changes, to implement these changes, to not have to worry about going back to get a variance, okay, my house now complies, but there are parking buffers that the zoning bylaw requires that there's no way we could certainly meet on a lot this size when we just put in a two or three family as well. So I'm hopeful that after all this is said and done, we work the dimensional requirements, we look at those, the law coverage, and then back into whether all of this actually makes sense because we might just be back in the same spot that we're in right now or after all this time and effort that all you folks are putting in, which is, again, is appreciated. And just a few more notes here, one on the historical conversion with the last speaker as well, that may need a tweak there as to allow some minor modifications to the exterior for example to add a porch or an entry for that second entry there under our current zoning right now if you put a covered porch or even just a small entryway and again if that's covered and posted down that does require a variance from the zoning board if you cannot meet your setbacks there. So I would just pose that for consideration. Also on the dimensional front, I did not see frontage on there. Is frontage being done away with? And my question would be, so how would that work with potentially creating new lots or putting multiple lots, excuse me, multiple houses on a large lot. And finally, as some of the Councilors have already mentioned, if there's one central location for us to find documents prior to these hearings would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks to the community development department for sending me this proposal in advance this morning, but it was not under where most of the zoning amendments and documents have been in the past, so it was a little difficult to find. So that would be, again, appreciated. And thank you again all for your time and efforts on these matters.
[Collins]: Thank you so much for your comments, Michael appreciate this awful commentary, and we'll be sure to. I'm sure a lot of that will come up in our future discussions of dimensionals and making sure that this zoning is what we want it to be which is implementable and creating a more streamlined process for people to build the type of properties that we know that we in the community want to see here in Medford. meeting materials are almost always posted on the City Council public portal ahead of the meeting times. And we are working to populate that updated zoning website so that that'll be a more useful information source as well. Go next to Wren on Zoom. I'm gonna ask you to unmute, please. Oh, and their hand just went down. So please raise your hand again if you do have, okay. Name and address for the record, please. And you're gonna have three minutes.
[Ren Bean]: Hi there, Ren Bean, 37 Woodrow Avenue. I agree with what the previous fellow just said about a central place to find all these changes, rather than materials associated with a particular meeting, especially since they're iterative. Having a central place for like, here's the most up-to-date thing we've talked about, rather than needing to trawl through and figure out, has it been updated? Or is the one from three weeks ago still the most recent one? It'd just make life a lot easier for people trying to follow these changes. Um, I thought the map, I believe the one that the council emphasize, hey, everyone should be looking at this one. This is the one that really tells the story was super duper helpful. It's a really great graphic of what's there now and what it might become based on current usage and future zoning. would, if it's possible, or if it's easy to produce for, I'm guessing it'd be INA's associates, to provide an accompanying table of like the maximum possible change based on all the proposals. I think that would really help the neighborhoods around the city sort of digest and think about what the scope of change being proposed is, because I, you know, based on what I'm hearing in a lot of these conversations, people are kind of assuming a scope of change much greater than I think what a lot of is being proposed, especially when you drill down into like, you know, what's allowable based on the nitty gritty. I mean, yes, the headline is, we might allow another story, or you might get incentive bonus for doing certain things up to X number of stories. And that sounds really scary. But when you drill down on the lot level and say, well, actually, it's already non-conforming. 50% of this is already non-conforming at where we're zoning it to. So the maximum change is only the other 50%. And actually, when you look at the lot sizes, they can't even do this. And so I think a table with data saying lot by lot, this is the maximum change under the proposal that people could see. And that would also be helpful in comparing neighborhoods, because one concern I have hearing this discussion about West Medford is, you know, the lot sizes are bigger there, you know, even allowing two units wouldn't be uh as much of a change as going from two to three units in a lot of the areas in east medford that are being proposed and i think um there you know there there runs the risk of of uh stoking some uh neighborhood versus neighborhood animosity about some folks feeling more affected than others by these city-wide changes and having that data to say no the scale of change is about the same from neighborhood to neighborhood have it be guided by data rather than kind of the sense and the vibe walking around the neighborhood, you know, because I think these are material changes for people's lives and homeowners and residents. And yeah, I think this is generally really great and thoughtful and, you know, beyond the visual, I think data would also really inform the conversation. So thank you all very much for the efforts.
[Collins]: Great, thank you so much for that commentary run I really hear you on those specific diagrams that you mentioned and we're working to see how we can operationalize that for all of our proposals going forward as I agree, I think that's really helpful visual tool for people. go back to Enos Associates.
[Innes]: Thank you very much. I just want to answer two questions before we move forward just so we don't lose them. One is we are looking at frontage. We're just focusing on some of the other the dimensional standards. I think people are a little bit more familiar with, but we've not lost sight of that. And the other is we're pretty sure Ren has a bug in our office because we were having a very similar conversation about showing sort of neighborhood by neighborhood data on density and impacts this afternoon, actually. So thank you, Ren, for those thoughts. It's good to hear that in many ways they're very similar to ones that we've been talking about as well.
[Collins]: Great, thank you so much for those clarifications, Emily. I see no further public participation. So just again to recap, at our next committee meeting, which I don't know the date for that off the top of our head, but it'll be in two weeks, we are going to talk more about the residential proposal, the more, February 12th. Great day to talk about neighborhood residential. Before that, we will have the public Q&A on the Salem Street Neighborhood Court District, February 5th, 6.30 p.m. at the Roberts. And we are continuing to work on shipping more of these updated, what'd you say? Oh, February 10th, not February 5th. February 5th is when the CDB will not be talking about be talking about other exciting concepts. Every attempt is the public you and I. Well, since I'm starting to misspeak, I think this would be a great time for a motion to adjourn. On the motion on the motion to adjourn by President Bears seconded by Councilor Callahan. All those in favor. All this post. I'm sorry. There should be a voice vote because Great. Yes. Great. Thank you, George. That's Councilor Callahan. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, NS Associates, for your thoughtful stewardship, as always.
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