[Emily Hedeman]: continued public hearing for the Salem Street Corridor zoning amendments. So this is a continued public hearing. We last discussed when the public hearing was opened at the January 22nd, 2025 Community Development Board meeting, which was continued to February 5th. At the February 5th meeting, we continued without discussion to this evening's meeting, March 5th, primarily in order to allow for more public outreach and to hold a question and answer meeting at the Roberts Elementary School, which was held on February 10th, 2025. So I'm going to hand it off to the staff, ask if they have any introductory comments, we're then going to pass it on to Innes associates. And then we will move into board questions and comments, and then we will open the public comment period. I did just receive a question for where the raise hand function is. If you want to get ahead of the line, feel free to raise your hand. I need to reorient myself with where it is.
[Peter Calves]: It's under React.
[Emily Hedeman]: React. So if you click on the React button, which is a heart, not the arrow next to React, but the React button itself, you can raise your hand. And I already see some hands going up. If you have questions in terms of technology, please feel free to message Danielle or Alicia, and I'll do my best to redirect you all to them. But for now, we are going to hear some introductory comments from Danielle or Alicia.
[Evans]: Madam Chair, I don't have anything. I don't know if Dr. Hunt has anything that you'd like to say.
[Hunt]: I think we should move on to the consultant. It's going to be a long night.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. And I read, I read some pretty good recaps of the meeting from some members of the public and I'm really excited to hear from Innocent Associates in terms of what comments have been incorporated. So we have Emily and Paola.
[Innes]: Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Emily Ennis from Innes Associates, and I will be making tonight's presentation. With your permission, I will share my screen. Thank you and what we plan to do is give an update for you of what we heard of the timeline partially and then what we heard at the meeting and the changes that we made in response to what we heard of the meeting because we have made some changes. So, we'll talk a little bit about those components, and then we can also go if we need to, to the draft zoning itself, but we have summarized the changes on the slide. So, this is a timeline to date, ending up with today, March 5th. We had started working with a workshop with the Planning and Permitting Committee last July. did sort of Mystic Avenue and Salem Street in parallel and then move to finishing up Mystic Avenue, moving forward with Salem Street. I think the key things here is the fact that we have held the community listening session on February 10th. You can also see that here. Here we are today again for March 5th, and we are continuing. This is the rest of the timeline just to keep you all updated. We have been working on the neighborhood and urban residential components. Those will be coming your way, but before they do, we will have a listening session for the residential, and that's going to be either March, as far as we know now, either March 20th or 27th. We'll also be doing a squares and Boston Avenue community listening session because we're starting to talk about the commercial areas and that right now again is either going to be April 10th or April 29th. So just to quickly give you an update of what's coming. But the key thing today is reporting back to you about the listening session and those changes. So the listening session was one room. But broken into basically two activities at the front of the cafetorium, we held a presentation, and people could ask questions and have myself, Council President Bears, and Director Hunt answer questions. At the back of the room, Danielle and my colleague, Pablo Ramos-Martinez, had these maps, two of these maps here and two other boards that I'll show you. And they were able to work one-on-one with people who had questions maybe about specific properties. So the map showed the current zoning up here at the top and then our then proposed zoning. As I said, there have been some changes. And you can see some of the stickies that people put on with their questions or their thoughts about the area. We also had the use tables up. So these were the proposed uses at the time of the meeting. We have made some adjustments based on what we heard. And we asked people to mark off if they thought the uses were appropriate or not appropriate by district or for the neighborhood as a whole. And you can see a lot of stickies here. We captured those as no's. There were quite a few uses that people did not feel were appropriate for the area, so we took that into consideration as well. And I believe we have just transmitted, it takes a while to write all of these up in a memo format, but I believe we've just transmitted that to Director Hunt today so that we have the full write up in there, but this is a useful summary. So this was the proposal we presented to you at our last meeting together. You can see the mixed-use 1 in blue, the mixed-use 2 in red, the commercial, we have just one property that's marked commercial, and we have the multi-unit residential. And we're making changes to this based on what we heard at the meeting, and this is the rough outline of the changes. We're shifting a few things around, primarily, and the most important, and I do have a clean version of this map, which I'll show you, but I want to call out so you can see exactly what the changes are. I think the most important is this area around Park Street which we had originally discussed as being mix two is now at mix one and that has implications for the number of stories and the amount, the number of stories as a base but also the number of stories in terms of incentive zoning so mixed use to was a four story base maximum base with an additional two stories available from the incentive zoning, just as a reminder for those who might not have been at the first meeting or at the listening session. The incentive zoning allows additional height, but only in return for public benefits from the developer. By changing this to a mix one, we drop down to a three story base zone with an incentive zoning of four stories. So we've essentially knocked one story off the base and two stories off the incentive. The other things that we did were just sort of rationalize some of the other parcels we went in throughout this process. We've tried to listen to people and understand, you know, the ground conditions as well as the mapping analyses that we've done. So we've moved some of these, like the parcels here that were targeted as multi unit residential, those have actually been moved out of the district at the moment. This is in part in response to the work we've been doing on the neighborhoods and throughout the city and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. and then we just had a closer look at some things that were going on on these parcels here, moved this one from MX2 into MR, which is the multifamily residential, and moved this multifamily residential into MX2. So the new map looks like this, and you can see it's pretty consistently mixed-use one up along the corridor itself with a few parcels behind, also being allowed to be mixed-use one Mixed-use 2 is concentrated up at the top, sort of planned northeast, as we call it, with the one commercial remaining, and then the MR district remaining here. So that's what the impact of the map changes looks like. Can you go back to the previous slide real quick? Sure, absolutely. And you want to see here as well. So this is the original. These are calling out the individual changes. Okay, and these are so we changed a few these dark blues are a few changing from the multifamily residential to mix 1 in some cases, for example, it's already there's 1 parcel just as an example that already has apartments on it. So, it didn't make sense to leave in the 1. So, again, we took a parcel by parcel view of that. So then again, you can see the changes that CMR. So sort of cleaned. that up so that stays the MR there and then again the mix too.
[Ramos]: Emily, Madam Chair if I may, these changes of the so what we are going to do in this change will appear later is that the multi-residential that was for three to six units now goes down to one to three and that is why instead of having that transition we add some more We add this new from MR to mixed use one, those blue parcels that you saw before, which currently are apartment one. They currently are multi-family in any case. So I just wanted to make that sure. We haven't placed any single family currently parcel that is in single family district. two makes one. These are all apartment one that are currently in apartment one. I just wanted to clarify that.
[Innes]: Thank you. So the, the, that's, that's the big map change I think the the next thing that happens is the recommendations from city staff so again for people who may be joining this for the first time and haven't known the process, the city council sent a draft to the CD board for their review. At the January 22 meeting we presented recommendations from city staff that would change or offer amendments to the original draft I just want to quickly go over those. Since then we have another set of recommendations based primarily on what we heard and the implications of what we heard. at the public meeting, so I'm going to present those as well. But just as a reminder, the first one is we wanted to clarify the intent of the development incentive bonuses. There was some concern that a developer could stack all the bonuses on top of each other and achieve a height higher than what is allowed by the zoning. We wanted to clarify that you can only go up to that maximum height. So in the MX-1, You get three stories, you can only go up one more story. In the MX2, you get four stories, you can only go up two more stories. So just to clarify that you can only go up to that maximum height. I should also say here that the incentive bonus is only allowed for those parcels that directly front onto Salem Street. So if you are a parcel, say, in the MX-1 or in the MX-2 that does not front on Salem Street, the incentive bonus is not achievable. It's not allowable. We added definitions for clinic, hospital, neighborhood, medical office, and medical office. The first two we pointed to state law. The second one we changed it based on controls that governed the number of square feet, gross floor area, and no more than five employees. We've made an additional change since then, which I'll show you. And then medical office obviously is not restricted by those requirements. In the January 2022, we had added neighborhood medical office as a yes and medical office as a special permit from yourselves. And then we had in January 22, we had also added some height step back requirements to help protect the residential district. So we're requiring that the height be stepped back further from the residential district and allowing a step back waiver because at the time we were talking about a front step back and rear or side step backs. We had made, there was a typo in, I think, the earlier draft that had some of the adult use marijuana as a CDB special permit. We've changed that to no on January 22nd recommendations. And so that's the end of the January 22nd recommendations. So you've seen these before. Now I want to show you what we've changed since the public meeting. So the first change is we are no longer allowing medical office that is the unrestricted by, by the number of square feet or the number of employees that's not being allowed anywhere in the Salem street. district. We are not allowing neighborhood medical in mix one. So that area around Park Street, for example, that is that was mixed to that neighborhood medical could have been in, it's now mix one neighborhood medical is not allowed there. And we are allowing it as special permit by the CD board and mix two and commercial so that that upper end in the RAD, and that is because we heard loud and clear from the community members who were present at the meeting. There was a strong voice against having medical, certainly having medical around the school area and the Park Street area, but also some concern about having it at all. We wanted to balance it with people who did express There were a few that expressed an interest in having some medical in the area and also where the MX2 district is, where it's got access from parts of the city that don't have to go through Salem Street, allowing that, but allowing that with the restrictions on it and also the restriction of a special permit. It's important that people be able to access their dentists or physicians, but we wanted to make sure that it was not creating an impact on the neighborhood in terms of traffic and people coming in and out which is I think part of the concern. On the table of use regulations, so the multi-unit residential subjects district, so we have modified this to match in for anybody who has, who's on this call, who's been following the residential discussion, we have a residential district called NR3, which is, as Paola said, it's restricted to three dwelling units, although there's a historic conversion in there. done is we've lined up the multi-unit residential subdistrict here to eventually be replaced by NR3. I think the city councilors are well aware that at the end of this process, we're going to have to come back and sort of right size a couple of things. And that's because we're doing it geographically. So what we're trying to do is set up the MR to eventually become the NR3, which is when we look at the maps, it's fairly close to what's on the ground now. So, all of these changes are to make sure that the table of use regulations for the multi-unit residential subdistrict are consistent with the NR3 subdistrict. And at the end of the process, we'll just combine the two. So, those are the tweaks. The key is to make sure that it is the primarily residential district that it is now. So, we've tried to be very careful about that. The next thing is for MX1, MX2, and commercial. We have some additional use modifications. We heard from quite a few people in the public meeting that they did not want a hotel in the area, which is currently allowed. We removed the brewery or taproom for MX1. We think that's much more appropriate where MX2 is now as a use. We have created the option for taking the option for a parking area or garage that's accessory to a principal use, but it's not necessarily on the same lot. And that is by special permit from yourselves and MX1 and MX2. parking area or garage accessory to a principal use on the same lot as a non-conforming principal use, also special permit for MX-1 and MX-2. We've removed distillery or winery from both, mostly because of the square footage requirements. The parcels in that area are quite small. This is a use that does not seem practicable in either of those. We've clarified home occupation as by special permit in MX-1 and MX-2. That's the end of the uses. In terms of the dimensional requirements for the multi-unit residential sub-district, same thing. We're lining those up with the NR3. Minimum height, two stories. Maximum height is because they don't have the buildings on Salem Street. Mixed one does not have the incentive zoning that, sorry, multi-unit residential doesn't have the incentive zoning that mix one and mix two do. and then the rest of that is the same. Same thing for setbacks, front 10, rear 15, side 5 feet to some to 10 feet, stormwater and landscaping, all of these are consistent with the NR3 to be. For MX1, MX2 and commercial, we did hear from people that wanted to make sure that the buildings weren't impinging on the adjacent residential districts. So we have deleted the step back requirement for MX1. So that's step back from the street. The idea was the step back above the third floor. So you would start going up straight and then above the third floor, you'd step it back to go up further. But now MX1 is only four floors. Doesn't make sense to have a step back for a single floor and also we want to preserve the ability to step back if necessary from the other side. We created a setback of 10 feet in MX1, MX2 and commercial for the rear lot line. We heard that was very important for people. Um, we also reduce the neighborhood residential 3, the sub district for the multi unit residential. We've reduced it down to 1 to 3 units within the area rather than 3 to 6. And the side and the rear setbacks, we just clarified the language. There was a concern at the public meeting about the fence that we had in there. We talked about it. The way the language was structured, it made it look like a fence only required a five foot setback as opposed to being halfway through the 10 foot setback. We thought it was just too confusing. So we're requiring that landscape buffer of at least 10 feet wide if a proposed development is adjacent to existing lot with a residential use of fewer than 5 units. Again, that's to create a nicer buffer between anything that could someday be built along Salem Street and the adjacent neighborhoods. And then finally, are there proposed changes to amend the map that I showed earlier? So that is it for the changes. I think the listening to people's concerns at the public listening session was very helpful to us. I think that we've been able to address most of what we heard, but I'm delighted to take any questions from the board and obviously listen to the public comment.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thank you, Emily. So now we are going to have the board ask questions, comments. Emily and Paolo will respond, hopefully, or be able to respond in some way. And then we'll open the public hearing just to keep everyone updated on our plans for this evening. So fellow board members, what do we think? I'm impressed with the changes that were made. I think that they reflect what we heard on the 22nd. I think you made some of the changes in a very strategic way. We heard a lot of comments about uses that were not appropriate in school areas. I like how those were addressed. Yeah, and I appreciate the kind of block by block, parcel by parcel approach and the changes made there. So interested hearing from the board and members of the public eventually.
[Ari Fishman]: Um, I echo Emily's reaction. I do like many of the changes 1 set of feedback that I remember hearing and. Agreeing with large parts of it is do we have an update to the incentive zoning? Um, there was discussion of. Kind of reweighing some of those values so that we didn't end up with, you know, a bunch of fountains and so that we really emphasized the key priorities like affordable housing. Can you share any updates on that list of tables and values? Thank you.
[Innes]: With your permission, Madam Chair, I'm just pulling it up so I have it in front of me. And the answer is yes. So we clarified the incentives for the affordability remained unchanged. So we have the option of deeper affordability or more affordable units. Or again, the max would be two additional stories. MX2, so there won't be a whole lot of change there. For the community amenities, we had clarified that I think there was some confusion that a fountain was kind of an easy thing to do. We clarified that also meant the maintenance and repair for the life of the associated building. So, in other words, it's not just build a fountain, you have to, you have to provide the water for it, you have to keep it in good repair, there's nothing worse than a fountain that has just been let go. So that we've clarified that we are certainly open to some additional options, and we've made it clear, clearer that the seeding I think people had from from some of the comments that I saw. people assume that seating meant like a single bench, and we clarified that there was a square footage requirement. We did have, I think, one person talk about making that an even larger requirement. We're happy to look at that more if we get more feedback on that, but we were really focused on the uses and the map changes as being the biggest things we wanted to make sure we got done.
[Emily Hedeman]: And Ari, as part of our recommendation, we may be able to recommend kind of further analysis of that menu coming out of this meeting.
[Ari Fishman]: Great. I think I will probably ask for that near the end.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: But thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Peter, Adam, Annie.
[Peter Calves]: I would also like to kind of echo what Emily and Ari said. I think this is really does reflect what we saw on 22nd and the concerns there. Particularly, I appreciate it. I remember hearing a lot about the area on Park Street and how people were concerned that that was kind of going too dense, and particularly around the uses that were allowable in the mix too. And I think this did a great job of addressing that by keeping some of the density in the mix one, but also then adjusting the uses to adjust what would be allowable there. So thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm looking through my notes from last meeting. Jane, a member of the public, brought up a bunch of different uses, breweries, methadone clinics, wine liquor store, rehabilitation clinics. I feel like those have been addressed. I like what you guys are doing with the parking garages, that might help with some of the parking concerns that people like Ralph brought up. Sounds like there's a more reasonable approach to step backs, especially if it's just going to be one extra floor. There's no need for a step back. John was somebody that brought that up last time. All right, there's a couple. couple comments that stood out to me from last time. If we don't have any further comments or questions from the board, I would love to open it up to the public. I'm now going to open the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand function. And as mentioned earlier, if you're in Zoom, there is a react button. Click right on it, and you should be able to raise your hand. If you're having technical difficulties, please message Danielle or Alicia in the chat. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants, please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members, as that's not part of the public record. However, if you do have audio or technical difficulties, you can message staff for assistance. So, no comments about the topic via chat, but you know, questions about Zoom or other technical issues, feel free to send those through chat to Alicia and Danielle. As with before, we're going to give each participant two minutes to speak. Each participant will have one opportunity to speak. I do also want to say that any emails that are sent in to the Community Development Board are shared with the board in advance. We review all of those, and if you feel that you're not able to convey your full comment in the two minutes provided, please, please, please email us. We review every note and really appreciate the the effort and the consistency that we've seen from the community to make sure that we get this right. What's coming out of this meeting from the Community Development Board is recommendations for the City Council. So the Community Development Board can kind of be, as we should, an advocate for the public. for any additional process or steps or anything that needs to happen related to this process, so please keep that in mind. You know, we're going to do our best to advocate and create conditions that drive action, but if you have specific actions that you would like to see, please make sure to call those out. It's very easy to say what you don't want. Sometimes it's hard to vocalize what you do want, but that's the most valuable input for us right now, what you do want. Alicia is going to manage the public comment queue. Alicia, I know we've received some comments. Did you want to offer a high-level summary of those?
[Hunt]: Can we just give that at the end of the thing?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I see we have some people eager to speak, and I'm eager to hear from you. So I believe David Zapner is up first. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. And Alicia or Danielle will be managing a timer.
[David Zabner]: Hello, everybody. I'm David Zabner. I live at 107 Bowdoin Street here in Medford. I guess I'll say that I'm very excited for these changes. I think it's really important that we rezone the city. I think this is a really good step towards the progress we need to see in the city. Housing values are too high. My friends and family could not possibly move to live in Medford, and that's, I think, a real problem. And the things I want are more housing, less parking, more flexibility in land use across the board. I think we should all be so lucky to live in a place where rent is affordable. And we can walk and get you know some groceries on the corner and a coffee on the other corner. And I think that this zoning represents a very real step towards that. So mostly I'm just speaking highly in support of this. The last thing I'll speak in support of that this seems to be doing. is keeping the zoning as simple as possible. I think the simpler it can be and the fewer things that need to go to the CBD or to the zoning board, the more quickly people can build things, the more quickly we can have changes, and the less expensive it is to build. I have friends and family who develop buildings. And it's amazing the years and decades that you can spend waiting for something to be approved. And that adds a lot of expense to all of our housing that I think is really unnecessary. So I'm really excited for this. And I'll yield my last 12 seconds back.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Javid. I appreciate it. Time is money. So point well heard. The next commenter that we have is Evan Glasson. Please state your name and address for the record. You will see a request to unmute.
[Evan Glasson]: Thanks. Hi, everyone. I'm Evan Glasson. I am a homeowner at 16 Butler Street in Medford. I just wanted to speak up and say that I am really very much in support of this rezoning effort, specifically in the Salem Street corridor, but also the broader citywide rezoning plan. I really appreciate the thorough work of this board and the consultants who have been a part of this and listening to the public feedback on the matter. I personally am really, really excited to make Medford a place that more people can benefit from, that more people can live in, that is more walkable, more fun to be in because of that walkability and all of the cool places that that can come as a part of this plan. So I'm just really, really excited for what's ahead for Medford and the work that we are doing to help address the housing crisis that we're facing. So thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Evan. The next speaker that we have is Carlene Campbell Hegarty. Please state your name and address for the record and you will get a request to unmute shortly.
[Carlene Campbell-Hegarty]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great. My name is Carly Campbell Hegarty, 49 Elmont Street. And I'm here tonight to say, first of all, thank you, Emily. I know that was a very long meeting that we had in February, and you did take a lot of our ideas and listen to what we had to say, so I appreciate that. I am not, though, I'm for good zoning. that can enhance and revitalize an area. I don't think we're quite there yet. And part of that reason was it took so long for the people who are going to be affected the most to be heard in February, but I'm very impressed by what happened afterwards. I have two suggestions, one question. My question regarding is, Before we finalize everything, looking into traffic studies, parking studies, and shadow studies. And also, since we're going to be building up density, more people, more cars, more everything else, will the infrastructure, the water, the sewer be able to take all that on? That's one statement. My other statement would be communication to the general community needs to be improved, especially butters and the people directly affected by all of this. People have emailed the address now. I'm hoping they'll use it. And then my last statement that I would like to talk about is, Emily, you said you made a lot of changes with the buy right items. And I'm sorry, you were talking very quickly. It was really hard to see. I'm just curious about the methadone dispensary. It was MX1, MX2, that's the medical center under that guise. We at the meeting said we didn't want any new medical buildings. Now, was that taking off the table or not?
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have any other questions, Carleen? Just because your time is up, but I think that is a very valid question for us to respond to.
[Carlene Campbell-Hegarty]: I have just two very quick questions. I will talk really fast. In the remaining ones that you didn't touch on, like the research and testing lab, the dormitory, the shelters, the exempt architecture, is that still in the list? Because it only looks like things should change, not everything that was previously in that people asked to be removed. So that's sort of my nutshell question, and I really need answers on those.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great, so we're gonna conclude your time for public comment, but I am going to pass it over to Emily Innes to respond.
[Innes]: Thank you. Thank you, Carly. With your permission, Madam Chair, I'm happy to respond. I'm just going to briefly share the table of uses. And it looks like there may be one that we thought we had caught, but we didn't, so I'm glad you brought it up. So this is the table of uses. This is the actual draft zoning itself. MR1, MX1, MX2, commercial. This PC is the parking requirements. We have not changed those from the existing city parking requirements. And the LC is the loading requirements. It's primarily commercial or multiple development. So I think what has not been changed, I'm glad you called that out, and I'm just going to highlight it for Appella's and my purposes. And for the CD boards recommendation is dormitory fraternity or sorority house I thought we'd take I think we both thought we'd taken it out of mix one. It's still in there but we should have that lodging or boarding house is special permit senior housing facility special permit, I don't believe those have changed probably you can correct me if I'm wrong. I don't believe those have changed from existing zoning. And the other ones you had asked about, I apologize for making people dizzy. I'm searching for the highlighted ones, which are the ones that we had changed. We did remove brewery from the MX1. We removed hotel from the entire district. And then here's what we did was we removed medical office from the entire district. We did remove neighborhood medical office from MX1. We heard there were some strong voices in the room for no medical at all. We had heard separately from a few people that liked the ability to be able to walk to their dentist, etc. So, the neighborhood medical office, I had mentioned earlier in the discussion that the neighborhood medical office is limited by the number of employees, by the square footage. There's also changed the definition, which I apologize, I forgot to mention, which limits it by the hours as well, that's in your new zoning. We had talked about it, but it had gotten crossed out accidentally, so that is back in there. So at any rate, with those limitations and with the requirement of a special permit for the CD board, so essentially the strongest controls we can put on it, we did leave that in the Mix 2 and in the commercial. The commercial is that single parcel on the other side of the Felsway. The Mix 2 is the red. Otherwise, it's sort of planned northeast, the area where Salem Street and the Felsway intersect. And then let me just double check the other ones that we talked about. Again, apologize for the here are the changes to the parking areas, which again, MR is now consistent with neighborhood 3, which is currently on its way to the CD board. Here are the other changes to the parking area that we talked about. And I think you asked about the research labs. I thought we'd taken that out. Let me just. I think that's further down. It's a long list of uses because this is actually your entire list. Okay, so here we go. Life science facility is not allowed in any part of the district. Food production facility not allowed in any part of the district. Distillery or winery and light manufacturing, again, not allowed in any part of the district. So I think that takes care of everything, except the dorms, and I would recommend to the city board, our apologies for missing that. I thought we'd caught it, but I would recommend that to be changed in your recommendations to city council, if that is acceptable to you all.
[Evans]: I just want to state, Emily has just fallen off. She lost her internet connection. She just texted me. She is moving to a different location at her home where she can pick up the Wi-Fi. She asked that Peter could sub in and share until she gets back online. We do still have a quorum.
[Peter Calves]: I just want to state that for everyone. Sure, okay. I think the next person up, the name is just Navar. And you should be getting a notification to unmute. And then if you could please state your name and address for the record. Thank you. You're muted. You're not muted on Zoom.
[William Navarre]: Oh, here we go. Is that any better? Yes, thank you. William DeVar, 108 Bedford Street, apartment 1B. My message is basically that at this point, it seems that the zoning for apartments and so on has really been reduced significantly. I find that quite disappointing. It sounds like most of Salem Street, you can't have more than three units now. And not more than four stories is I think my understanding based on the preliminary, you know, presentation at the beginning of this meeting. And I think that's disappointing. I've been attending this process through the entire thing. I thought that we were at a good level of increasing the density and the proximity, the number of people we can have in our neighborhoods, the amount of housing we can have to really make sure people can find an apartment and contribute to that 222,000 unit shortage that the state government has found that we have. And it looks like we're moving in the direction with some of these changes of not achieving that goal. I'll continue to stay engaged with the process and see what happens, but I do find that disappointing. So if there's any way that some of that density that the consultants proposed originally could be restored, I'd really be excited to see that. Both here and as we go forward throughout that citywide zoning process, I really hope we make sure that we're not compromising too much on that being one of our goals. Thanks a lot.
[Peter Calves]: Thank you, William. And it looks like Emily is back. So I'll hand the chair back over to her.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. And apologies for that. I lost Wi-Fi in my apartment. And if I don't have Wi-Fi, I have no cell phone service. But thankfully, it came back on. And I apologize to members of the public whose comments I missed. But I trust that other members of the board will be able to cover comments when we come back for discussion. All right, with that, the next person that I see is Erika DeRoche. Erika, please state your name. Oh, wait. Am I going out of order?
[Peter Calves]: I mean, you're one off, I think. I don't know if that's just because you dropped.
[Emily Hedeman]: Harrison. OK.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, Harrison.
[Emily Hedeman]: She's all out of order right now. So Peter, maybe do you want to flag people? Sure. OK, so Harrison, thank you for your patience. Please state your name and address for the record, and you're going to get a request to unmute. I can't hear you, Harrison. We haven't started the timer, though, so we'll make sure we can hear you before we get going. I can hear you now, I think. Yes.
[Harrison Green]: Harrison green to run away road in Medford. Um, I'm excited for this process in general. I do definitely regret not getting involved earlier. While not a resident of the Salem street. Corridor I am looking for meant for to develop more housing units to address the housing shortage. So. echoing the previous speaker that the reduction is disappointing for me as well, and I'm looking to get more involved in future zoning and to accelerate the zoning as it moves into especially the neighborhood that affects me the most in West Medford to add the density here that we need so much. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Harrison. um erica is erica next peter yes yeah okay erica i think you're back on maryann zachary is that um okay you got it you got erica right i'll just start the next ones okay thank you uh erica duroch you are next public speaker please state your name and address for the record okay i'm unmuted erica duroch 260 willis ave thank you madam chair and community development board
[Erika DeRoche]: Thank you all for hearing my comments and I do have one question at the end. I wanted to say that I am strongly in favor of the zoning taking place across the city. I was also strongly in favor of this, you know, I thought very like sensible approach to increasing density on the Salem Street corridor as originally proposed. I'm really excited about what's happening in the city and all of the work, very like detailed form work that you're doing to, you know, document The conditions in the various neighborhoods to listen carefully to residents I think it's really important and, and I applaud you all for your very comprehensive work. But I will say that based on this evening's presentations. I am a little disappointed to see that some of that density is being walked back. Not that I'm not disappointed at all in the response that Innes Associates has given to community feedback. I really appreciate how sensitively you've responded. And at the same time, I would like to see the city have a place to go from where it is currently. Like when I see the MR1 is now maximum of three units, that does not increase the density. That does not allow any sort of densification for the future, for the next 30 years. And when I see that now there's a section, that section near Park Street, understood you're responding to community concerns, But that section changed from MU2 to MU1. Well, now that's a maximum of three stories. That, in effect, does not increase the density because two stories are allowed, so are currently permitted, if I'm correct, if I've remembered that correctly, two and two and a half stories is Basically three stories, so that also does not increase the density and does not allow any development. or does not promote development in that section of Medford in the way that I would like it to see it moving.
[Emily Hedeman]: Real quick, Erika, I'm sorry, we didn't set a timer, but I just want to give you a thought. I'm just wrapping up.
[Erika DeRoche]: I'm sorry, I just wanted to say, I do have like one question, which is a comment that I heard at the listening session and that I wasn't clear on I think that the community could use some clarification on why zoning changes do not include traffic, shadow, or other studies. Because as an architect, I have to submit projects for review, and there are so many components and parameters for each project that in order there would just be an infinite number of massings and traffic patterns that could be studied for an entire neighborhood. So I think that it would be really helpful for planning and in this associates to work to clarify that for the community, why those studies have not been conducted or have not been made available because it's just not a feasible thing and has to be done on a development by development basis. So that's my comment and thank you again for listening.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Erica. Erica made some comments about density. But I agree, like, it's it's definitely a bummer that, you know, the the unit count has decreased in that specific part of the zoning. But I want to get some clarity in terms of, like, what density may be allowed, like, where are we increasing density? Emily, would you be able to to address that question.
[Innes]: Yes, I would be happy to Madam Chair. And thank you. Thank you for that question. I'd also like to address at least some of the studies question. Yeah, that's helpful as well. But let's start with the density. So I do want to clarify, and I'll just pull up the map again, if you all don't mind, just so we can see what we're looking at. So this was the proposal as of January 22nd, and you can see the red here for the Mix-2 and the red over here for the Mix-2. This is the Park Street intersection with Salem Street at that first one. A couple of things going on here. One, obviously, here it changes to Mix-1. We leave the Mix-2 up in the northeast corner alone. That stays Mix-2. So we're not changing anything here. Here, yes, it's three stories with a four-story as an incentive bonus option. A couple of things to consider here. One is at least some of these buildings along here are single-story. So where it might not be attractive to redevelop from a single-story to a two-story, a single-story to a three-story or a three-and-a-half with the incentive. I'll tell you in a minute why I'm not saying four necessarily. that might be more attractive for somebody to redevelop over time. The reason I'm not saying for is we've actually started to do some test diagrams. We're kind of not happy with where they are, which is why you're not seeing them. I mean, I'm happy with the quality of it. I'm not happy that it's showing what or it's coming to the result that I think we want to be able to show and part of that is your parking regulations are acting as a significant deterrent to development here so that on some of these parcels you'll see if It lets me zoom in. Will it let me do zoom in? Yes, it will. You'll see that the parcels along Salem Street, because of the way the street curves, are irregular in shape, many of them. You've got some of these with these narrow openings and the longer depths. You've got some that are quite shallow. They are very difficult to park under your current regulations. So while we can get On the sites that we've tested, we can get to three, but only a few of them can we get to four. So I just want to keep that in mind that although I know it's a disappointment for some people to drop from six stories to four stories, In fact, it's not easy to achieve. It's not easy to achieve four stories here. We have not tried to do a six story. But I think you would end up with a good portion of the lots being parking rather than building. So I think if you're thinking of development along the street, you're going to want more building along the street and less parking. We certainly don't want empty parking lots along the street. So I think that's part of the balance as well. it's listening to the community, and then it's doing those tests. And that test brings me to another point, and I think the previous speaker had, you know, made an excellent point when thinking about doing, whether it's shadow studies or traffic studies or infrastructure studies, is that zoning provides options to property owners, right? When you change zoning, you're giving them a new option, and it's up to them as to whether or not they exercise it. We have done build-out studies in the past before that show what would happen if every single parcel changed to the maximum available development. And it's not realistic. And to come forward and say that every parcel would change to that maximum and then build your studies on top of it, and then have a policy of investing based on those studies, knowing that the likelihood is that most of those parcels won't change as expected, I think that that's an unrealistic exercise to put the city through. Instead, what is required, and it's an appropriate place to be required, is pretty much exactly what the previous speaker described, which is at a point at which a project that meets certain thresholds comes before the CD board, that's when those studies are created. And at that point, you have a real project with a real number of units or a real number of square footage for commercial. And it is possible to calculate studies that give a true picture of what the impact will be rather than a build out scenario that might not be accurate. accurate ever, or if it is accurate, it's so far into the future, the study that's done has no real purpose. The other thing I do want to say is I know there's some frustration from some of the people who have spoken about, you know, not getting as much density as hoped. But there's one thing that I think is critically important, and we've talked a lot about residential uses, but not so much about the business uses. And for anybody who saw the presentation at the public meeting, the vast majority of businesses along Salem Street are in fact non-conforming. And one of the big changes this would make is to allow most of those to become conforming, that allows the business owners to invest. So we did hear from quite a few people that they enjoyed having their neighborhood commercial, being able to walk to it, being able to patronize local businesses. those local businesses are from a zoning perspective, they're non-conforming, you know, they had been pre-existing before the zoning came in, and what we're trying to do is to help them out, help them continue by allowing them, in many cases, as a right. Not all of them, but in many cases. So I think that's an important thing that we haven't talked about in terms of the zoning. And with that, Madam Chair, I'll yield the rest of this time.
[Ramos]: Great. Thank you, Emily.
[Peter Calves]: Next would be on my screen is Michael Chong.
[Emily Hedeman]: Michael, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. Hi.
[Michael Chon]: My name is Michael Chan, address is 168 Willis Avenue. I would like to echo actually my, I just found out my neighbor down the street, Erica's request to do a traffic report on this area. I'm hearing a lot of the kind of, but before I get into it, highly support everything that's been done here. It sounds very thoughtful. I love the idea that there's the, The goal here is to make it a much more welcoming and walkable and community unifying area. And I'm hearing a lot of ideas and dreams of this area being somewhere where businesses and neighborhoods are kind of connected together through walkability. I am curious, though, given that there was a Medford resident who was killed on the western end of Salem Street, how much of this road will actually be incorporating traffic calming measures. Especially as a bicycle commuter, I do go through Salem Street every so often. I only go every so often because it is a very busy tight road with a lot of large vehicles, in part because there are no other byways of connecting that rotary to the area around Target. And so, yeah, I think there is a lot of components in what would create a, I think there would be an effort to make this a street that is not becoming a highway. For cars, because of, you know, reducing the density of. Homes, you know, making the parking requirements such that. The oops. Yeah, my time is up, but yes, yeah, so, um. You know, I understand that it's a very complex problem, but I would like to really highlight the need for making sure that this effort to develop this area is not undermined by the fact that there is traffic cutting right through the center of this corridor.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Michael. I appreciate your comments. And just to clarify, the zoning that we're looking at is really only regulating private land. So things like roads would not fall under the jurisdiction of this zoning change. Emily and Paula, I don't know if you have anything to add to that.
[Innes]: Sorry, go ahead.
[Emily Hedeman]: I just want to confirm that my understanding is correct and kind of reiterate it for the public.
[Innes]: Yes, that is correct traffic called that because this is a strictly zoning study. This is traffic calming measures are not part of that. Yeah, just to clarify for for people who aren't familiar, the city's right of way, which would include the sidewalks in the street does not fall under zoning zoning. As you said earlier, Madam chair covers the private market. And in some limited cases, the non-municipal land. OK, great.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK, Peter, who do we have next?
[Peter Calves]: Next on my screen is Zachary Chertok. And Emily, just let me know if at any point you've realigned to the order.
[Emily Hedeman]: I am not aligned at all.
[Peter Calves]: OK, gotcha.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, Zoom's going to be getting a user feature request pretty soon.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, Zach, you're going to be getting a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Zachary Chertok]: Zachary Chertok, 5 Almond Street, and I totally sympathize with the Zoom thing. I have to deal with it every day. Speaking as somebody who truly lives in this corridor and whose building is actually right in the middle of it geographically, first, they do appreciate the lower density changes made to the Park Street intersection and some of the scale back and height restrictions. It's a good show of active listening. Second, I'll reiterate, as I always have, that zoning conformity is generally a good thing and taking steps towards it is a good thing. So the overall concept, fine. But flipping the script, I do remain in demand of the proper existing condition studies. We're not talking about build-out studies. We're talking about the existing conditions of the neighborhood. And as codified by the ASCE and American Planning Association, as somebody trained as an engineer, they specifically call for a list of existing condition studies that go into everything in planning efforts, including land use. This community has repeatedly asked for those and has been denied them, so we're not talking about hypotheticals. We're talking about the conditions now to inform what is and what could be. And consequently, without those, this process is still incongruous because we don't have a bellwether to truly measure what the possibilities are. It's like opening Pandora's box. I'd also like to restate my concerns about the density buildup on the border with Malden, which I've raised multiple times. Creating a zoning imbalance is a recipe for future disasters in Congress with the neighboring city. And while I echo many of the other community members on issues of affordable housing, Medford is not an island and can't address that issue by itself. Speculative measures in the market right now are the leading variable in housing stock that continues to push the target for housing unit needs in the greater Boston area, even as more housing gets built. Every year that number goes up. Consequently, as noted by Council President Bears at my own questioning during the last planning and permitting session, it's going to take a multi-factor regional approach to solving that issue. Zoning by itself will not do it, so we have to make sure we're in congress with the neighborhood. As noted in the last planning board session before the City Council, I also question the lack of addressing the density valley between individual quarters that are being rezoned and to date that issue still hasn't sufficiently been addressed. The densest area in Medford here without transit access continues to be squeezed to be more dense planning on a section by section basis without presenting in the context of the wider urban fabric. At that planning and permitting meeting, that was the first time I had seen a unified map, and it clearly showed that density was being added in the most dense sections while not being sufficiently increased around transit nodes.
[Emily Hedeman]: My apologies, we didn't start a timer.
[Zachary Chertok]: No, that's all right. This is literally the last, this is the last bullet.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sure.
[Zachary Chertok]: That it's just not being done around the transit nodes in direct access. So in terms of transit-oriented housing, despite promises of the City Council and the intent of this, that's not being accomplished here.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's it. Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Zachary. You've shown up to a lot of these. I appreciate your continued advocacy for yourself and your neighbors in the community.
[Peter Calves]: Next on the list is Penny Taylor.
[Emily Hedeman]: Penny, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Penelope Taylor]: Great, thank you. Penny Taylor 29 Martin Street. I'm thrilled the zoning process is happening and I've already written in favor of ensuring robust housing opportunities throughout to be sure that we use every tool in the box. I am deeply concerned and actually still shaking with disbelief by and ask you to reject the new proposed changes to change any multi unit residential from 3 to 6 units to only 1 to 3 units. This does not match our needs, values, nor jive with all the other work the city is doing to encourage affordable housing development and utilize incentives. We need more housing full stop. Hampering that by not allowing creative and maximal uses at this critical opportunity is unacceptable. I also want to express some deep concern in rejecting medical facilities when close to 30% of adults in the United States have some kind of disability. Barriers to accessing housing and medical services should be taken down, not built in. And I'm so disappointed to see a solid yes to banks and no to medical offices. I don't think that's a neighborhood that any of us really want to live in. I also just put in a pitch that we all need to seriously take the call to move away from fossil fuels in the very near future. So I love if we can plan a city for people instead of cars. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Penny.
[Peter Calves]: The next person on the list is Cheryl R. Cheryl R, you're going to get a request to unmute.
[Emily Hedeman]: Please state your name and address for the record.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street, so I live on the corridor. These changes that we're seeing tonight showed that there was a complete lack of planning and studies involved in writing this zoning in the first place. If residents had it alerted and educated themselves, then this would have passed easily with the initial zoning voted to you. The neighbors would have only found out when the first projects went up. We have still done none of the studies called for in the comprehensive plan that Ennis helped write. These zoning changes are reactive rather than informed. Zoning should not based on opinion and what people tell you that they like, especially from those who will not be impacted as the majority of those speaking in favor are not from this area. We have no real definition for high frequency transit that allows 0.8 parking spaces and the parking minimums are set to be reduced in May and was actually mentioned by Emily as a factor that is limiting this density. So the neighborhood will be severely impacted if parking levels are lowered. along with this zoning and coupled with the neighborhood zoning that places us in the densest neighborhood zone in the city of three units on 3K lots will have a significant and immense impact on our area. The 70% reduction in lot size to 3K that somehow isn't being mentioned, the doubling of the lot coverage to 80% will create the same planned mass and just two stories lower with the changes proposed suggested tonight. in the area zone blue. The step back is eliminated despite the fact that the new max height will be 54 feet up from 35 feet which is an increase of 63 percent. Methadone clinics can still come to the neighborhood medical which only limits number of employees and the size of the center. So Residents have been pointing out that the marijuana uses are in the zoning since December. So we really don't want to keep hearing the excuse that they're poor zoning and lack of type proofreading is a typo. If by version three, you haven't changed it, then you meant to be there. The incentives haven't changed. The lots are really small. All the waivers are in there. The zoning should go back to the beginning and be studied, have community input, and then be written and adjusted. This type of rewrite this late in the process is alarming. I'm right at the end. Thank you. So this type of rewrite this late in the process is really alarming. And for Emily's comment, the research and testing lab is on page seven of the zoning that was presented for this evening. These are not typos. These are a lack of scrutiny and attention to detail. Thank you. Thank you, Cheryl.
[Emily Hedeman]: And just two quick notes. I don't believe we're proposing to change anything related to parking around this Salem Street quarter rezoning. Is that correct?
[Innes]: Emily. Thank you, Madam Chair. At this point, I do want to recognize that at this point, there are no parking requirements proposed to be changed. It is true that we have been asked by city council to look at parking, that will be later this spring, but because we have not looked at it yet, we don't actually know what the results of that would be, so. And that would be a completely separate process. That's that that's part of this process, but it is not something that we're talking about now. I without having looked at it. I don't know which direction we would go in at this point. So, but at this point, they are unchanged.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so further on, you know, as a separate topic, if people want to get involved, you know, I would encourage them to reach out to. You know their their city representation, the planning department. And we've heard your comments in terms of, you know, this stuff can be communicated better so I think there's a lot of lessons learned there as well. And then there's been some talk about specific uses. I understood that specific uses, like methadone clinics, could not be specifically discriminated, might not be the right word, but those could not specifically be called out as disallowed uses. Is that correct?
[Innes]: That is correct.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're doing as much as we can to basically legally reduce the chance that a methadone clinic would locate.
[Innes]: you are allowed to put restrictions on the conditions on the use, essentially. So in this case, it's hours of operations, number of employees, square footage, but you cannot disallow, if you are allowing medical uses in the area, you can't disallow that one, any one particular use, and that is under the American, my understanding from our legal counsel is that is under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, that's some helpful context. All right, Peter, do you have my next in line?
[Peter Calves]: Next up is Miranda Briseño.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, Miranda. You're going to get a request to unmute shortly. Please state your name and address for the record. Hi, can you hear me?
[Miranda Briseño]: Miranda Briseño to Taylor Street. Also, thank you for saying my last name correctly. I've been a renter here for six and a half years. I love living in Medford and I love calling it home. The reality, however, is that as a renter who's currently trying to find an apartment that meets my changing needs, I'm finding it extremely difficult to find a suitable place that will allow me to stay in this place that I love. To that end, I'm disappointed to see the multi-use residential drop down from three to six units to one to three. If we want Medford to be affordable and people to stay in Medford, we need to allow more housing to be built and implement other measures to ensure that rental and home prices stay affordable. This also includes whether through zoning or another mechanism, removing parking requirements and minimums and supporting transit, pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure. Additionally, limiting only specific businesses uses limits the city's ability to generate more tax revenue, particularly with relation to dispensaries and hotels. I recognize that the siting of a dispensary is limited by the location of schools and other things, but dispensaries have unequivocally generated immense revenue for the Commonwealth and for the communities that have worked with cannabis companies to allow for their existence. While they may not be appropriate on Salem Street, I implore this board and residents in the future to consider this as an important benefit of allowing more businesses to be allowed. If we are truly committed to climate resiliency on all fronts, one of those is creating truly mixed-use areas where people can go to the grocery store, eat a meal with their friends, go to the doctor, or receive substance abuse disorder treatment. When we force these uses to be so far away from each other, we are forcing our neighbors to rely on cars, or if they have no access to a car to simply go without access to necessary destination, which will be detrimental. I hope to see more opportunities for housing to be built with less parking allowed, more medical offices and more businesses to come to Medford and future zoning proposals for areas across Medford. Lastly, thank you to the board and to Inez Associates. I know this work is not easy and I thank you all for the work that you do.
[Emily Hedeman]: And likewise, we thank you, Miranda, for showing up, providing comment and feedback. And as a fellow renter, yeah, I empathize with you.
[Evans]: The next name is Roberta Cameron.
[Emily Hedeman]: Roberta, you are going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Roberta Cameron]: Hello, this is Roberta Cameron. My address is 12 North Street. And I wanted to thank you all for the process that you have gone through to develop this draft zoning and the community discussion that's happened up to now. I am strongly in favor of zoning that is going to bring the city into the 21st century and enable more housing development and more opportunity for investment in properties by making more of the uses that we're accustomed to living around be allowable by Under the current zoning and I echo a lot of what some of the people have said on this call earlier and that I'd like to see more. more opportunities for housing development. And I support the zoning as it is, but I would love to see some of the proposed density, which is really appropriately a step above what is there now be included in the zoning that's proposed. Thank you very much. Bye bye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Roberta.
[Evans]: The next person is Chris Briota. Great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, Chris, please state your name and address for the record.
[Chris Braiotta]: Chair, my name is Chris Priota. I live at 20 Mystic River Road in Medford. I originally came here to say that I'm in favor of upzoning. Like a lot of the other callers, I'm disappointed in how watered down this plan has become. I understand it was due to public comment, which is unfortunate. So I guess I'm here to speak in favor of what had been and what can be resurrected in this project. We need housing and we need public transit in this city and across the region and that means density. In addition to that Medford's been getting by on an austerity budget for way too long, earnest up zoning that brings that density and everything that comes with it will help bring in new property tax, make it easier for commercial property to amplify those funds. And I'll add that if our parking minimums are getting in the way of these goals, then I'd urge this board to do what it needs to do to get those reconsidered at some point in the future. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chris. And yeah, we're seeing some interesting approaches to parking minimums in area communities. So those may provide interesting case studies for us, recognizing that Medford is not Somerville, Medford is not Cambridge, but we can learn from what's happening with our neighbors. Who's next? Next is Ken Garrow. Just state your name and address for the record.
[Ken Gareau]: evening. Ken Yarrow, 52 Lambert Street, apartment three. Also a resident of the corridor, I can see Salem Street from my living room window. Got a wonderful view of the Target. By and large, I do truly support the majority of these changes. I've been paying attention for several weeks now, mostly sending emails and kind of having external chats. Went to the Roberts event, considering the amount of aggression that was at that event. I think, Emily, you've done a fantastic job listening and digesting a lot of the commentary that was given there. I, while I was at that event, I actually kept quiet. I am pro clinics happening in the area. I'm not that old. I can foresee a future where I would much rather be able to walk down the street to any of these places. I would be happy that it's being kept in MX2. That's basically exactly where I live at the moment. understand people's concerns about the methadone clinic, and I understand the city's concern about legal problems. I think one way to combat that would maybe slightly tweak the hours of the definition from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. I think that, given what I understand of how clinics operate, would help assuage some of the population. In general, I just also want to say really quickly, was hoping that maybe we could reduce the size of the sidewalks. I love walkability. I walked to the square earlier today. 12 feet seems a little massive in my opinion. If we could shrink it down to something more like 8 feet for right away, I think that would be nice for permeability. I would love the incentives to be a percentage of the lot minimum instead of a flat value. Currently it's at 300 square feet. Also, I have to say that I live in, again, one of the triple-deckers. It is a 3,200 square foot lot with three units. I have never had better community while living in this situation and I've lived in West Medford. I've lived just south of the square and here for five years so it's I understand why some people are weirded out by it but personally I love it and I look forward to living here for several more years.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Ken. And thanks for sharing your lived experience in terms of the lot size and the units. I think that's helpful context. We all see triple deckers all throughout the area. And I think it's helpful to realize that that may align with some of the changes that are being proposed now.
[Evans]: Next is Caitlin.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, Caitlin. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, I'm Caitlin Robinson at 31 Everett Street. And first of all, I want to say thank you to this board and to Enos Associates for all the thoughtfulness and work that's been going into this. I am a resident of this neighborhood, and it's precisely for that reason that I am in support of rezoning and densification. The current built environment here, with gas stations, automotive service, drive-thrus, service parking lots, doesn't really send the message that this is a neighborhood, but rather a place to drive through. And I'm in support of zoning that will make this feel more like a neighborhood with more neighbors, more businesses, increased walkability. I'm also a parent, and my child is too young right now, but when they are ready to leave the house, I don't want them to be forced out of their community. We need more housing. I do have concern about the parking minimums, both because of the negative impacts on the ability to increase density and because of the impacts that it has on price. So I hope that we can look at eliminating those parking minimums. I am in support of the city regulating public parking. But if my family needs access to a bus and we want to live somewhere where there's a bus and we don't need empty parking spaces, the city shouldn't be forcing us to have those. People who have cars have many more options for where to live. And so I would like to see us have the options of having housing where people can make for themselves. I, too, am disappointed about the rollback in density in tonight's proposal. I would rather see at least a minimum of four feet being allowed, sorry, four stories throughout the Salem Street corridor. So I hope we can look at having more density. Thank you. Thank you, Caitlin.
[Evans]: Next speaker is Um, Dave McKenna.
[Emily Hedeman]: And just to quickly reiterate, we're not revisiting parking minimums, uh, this evening. Um, but I, Caitlin, I do appreciate your comments, um, and we'll, you know, keep them in mind when that topic comes up. And I encourage you to, to come back, um, and provide more comment. Uh, when we do talk about parking minimums, uh, Dave McKenna, that's who's next. Yeah. Please state your name and address for the record.
[David McKenna]: David McKenna to Vine Street, also in the neighborhood. I'm also, like several other commenters, very disappointed. I was a big supporter of the proposal in January. I thought it was a very moderate increase in density in the neighborhood. And so I understand there was a lot of comments. I was at the February meeting. I think the comments at the February meeting were not representative of the community. And I'll send an email to explain why that was. Um, you know, one thing that we've heard tonight is the, uh, the residential really needs to be increased back up to three to six units. Um, that does not add any height that, you know, some people are concerned about heights. You know, that's just, if the lot allows, then that allows flexibility to the developer to add more, more apartments because we desperately need more house. So. I support the medical uses. I understand the compromise that was reached, and so I support that compromise to allow the medical where the target is basically. On traffic, there's been a lot of concerns voiced about traffic, but the 101 bus is doubling in service on commuting times and quadrupling in service on the weekends. That's coming. The MBTA has planned that. It's also being rerouted so that it hits the orange line, green line, and red line. So there's going to be a dramatic increase in transit access in this neighborhood in the next five years. And so our zoning should take that into account. Furthermore, any development of any significant size is going to have to do traffic studies and pay traffic impact fees, pay sewer impact fees, and soon they'll have to pay affordable housing impact fees. So those fees can help other measures that will reduce traffic, improve the streetscape, you know, one idea would be, uh, some of this new tax revenue that's coming in. We could really expand the school buses right now. Most, most families in Medford are not served by the school buses. You know, all the families in our neighborhood are too close to the schools allegedly to get the school bus. Um, and so, uh, I think these concerns can be addressed. Uh, and the last thing I'll say is, uh, on the Heights, there's already buildings in the neighborhood that are taller than these Heights that are being proposed. So, I understand people get scared about proposed heights, but there's already apartments on the corner of Salem and Felsway that are taller than any of these proposals. The Franklin School on Central Ave. Yes, the Franklin School on Central Ave., the Swan School on Park Street are already taller than a lot of these proposals. And so people get nervous about the heights, but
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry, Dave. You've gone 45 seconds over. If you have additional comments, I'd encourage you to send them to the board. But just in fairness for the rest of the public, we're going to move on. But I do appreciate you coming, you sharing your input. Keep coming back. Who's next, Danielle? Tara Shankar. Hi, Tara. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Tara Shankar]: Thank you. Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[Tara Shankar]: Okay. I'm Tara Shanker. I live at 397 High Street, right in the heart of West Medford and I can't wait for the zoning regulations to come here. I am strongly in support of densification and strongly in support of what was the original intent on Salem Street. I also wanted to agree with many of the other callers that I am disappointed that the MR1 was walked back from three to six units to one to three, assuming greater bus service by the 101. And I also would love if the parking regulations would be reviewed from 1.5 to two spaces per unit for studios and one bedrooms that would be in a three to six type of building having one and a half to two spaces is ridiculous. And people should be able to, it could be incentivized through electric bike or car rental access within the building or nearby, but there could be several different kinds of incentives that could be proposed. to make that happen. I'm also really in favor and delighted to see that it remains the co-housing and congregate housing options are still in the measure, happy to see that. We have a lot of medical buildings over here in West Medford right next to me, so and that's across from the elementary school, the Brooks So I guess that's already permitted for us. And the methadone clinics, I suppose, could be here if they chose to locate, but they haven't. I'm delighted that the commercial uses that have been non-conforming are being made conforming. I'm a big supporter of the Greb Cafe and the Bubble Tea Place. Love it. I would love to see that the service stations and gas stations are not permitted. I wasn't certain if that was the case. Thank you to the board and to Innes Associates.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you to you for providing your comments and your feedback. Next is Patricia Ciappelli. Yeah, Patricia, please state your name and address for the record.
[Trish Schiapelli]: My name is Patricia Ciapelli, 53 Garfield Avenue. So it seems like we've missed a lot of the process. One community meeting does not a community outreach make. I appreciate the fact that you've walked back so much of the units because this is already according to the GIS map and environmental justice neighborhood. The map already has us in a very hot, dense zone. It's mostly yellow and red. If you look at that GIS map, we have 980 residents that are against and have signed a petition not to move forward with the Salem zoning the way that it was. There still is a lot of work that needs to be done, but I appreciate what you've done. However, until there's, I agree that some of the other density needs to be taking place, but let's try it in other areas of Medford. This is already a death trap for walking. I have lived here since 2013 and there have been three deaths. Salem Street is one of the hottest corridors for walking. So if people think they're going to go out there and walk and not take their life in their hands, guess again. Because I have been with one of those people that died on a Saturday night because I heard the accident and I came off my porch to go help the lady. It was horrible. And we just had another one the other night. So you need to do some research. You need to understand what the traffic is that goes up and down this. And you need to follow the comprehensive plan that you've set for the city already in place. Otherwise, you're going to have 980 very upset homeowners, taxpayers and voters. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Patricia. I appreciate the input.
[Evans]: Next is Rebecca.
[Emily Hedeman]: Rebecca, please state your name and address for the record.
[Rebecca Davidson]: Hi, Rebecca Davidson, 26 Farragut Ave. I'm a resident of this neighborhood, the Salem Street neighborhood, and have been raising my family here for the last few years. I also grew up in Medford, and I love this neighborhood. And what I love most about it is my ability to walk to so many great businesses, hair salons, restaurants, and others. Walkability is good for health, safety, and the environment. And as previous speakers have said, we need to shift our habits like yesterday. to tackle the climate crisis. Zoning changes like this are so important in this neighborhood, especially since this is an environmental justice community. For example, having walkable, close access to healthy food is really important, and a small grocery store or other healthy food outlet would be a great addition, which wouldn't be allowable without these changes. When we moved here, I did some research to learn about the history of this incredible neighborhood. In many ways, it was built with public transit in mind, as well as a tram station that used to exist on Washington Street. At that time, there was a diversity of businesses that allowed people to not have to travel far to meet many of their needs. We've moved towards a more car-dominated environment, and since then, and while I feel this proposal helps us move closer to the framework that created this great neighborhood than the previous version, it doesn't go anywhere near where we need to be to address our serious housing shortage. It's too expensive to buy a home or rent a home, and the only way to address that is to build more homes. It's really disappointing that our parking minimums get in the way of our housing goals. I realize and share the traffic and safety concerns that have been raised. These are not mutually exclusive with zoning changes. We can have a thriving neighborhood and safe streets, and I'm advocating for that and hope my neighbors join me. in advocating for better crosswalks and safer streets. That's important now, but it's separate from this zoning proposal. Hopefully, that's something good that comes from this process, is more community advocacy in this area. There's a group, Walk Medford, that specifically is working on this that we can all support. After being at the Roberts School session, I feel that a lot of the concerns that were raised have been addressed, but feel this proposal has shifted too far away from our goals of allowing more housing to be built to meet the needs of people in our community. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Rebecca.
[Evans]: I lost my participant list. The next person is Yuko Okabe.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yuko, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Yuko Okabe]: Hello, my name is Yuko Okabe. I am a resident of 55 Winchester Street, apartment two. Just want to say that I am in support of updating the zoning and I'm speaking from affordability for Medford as a whole as far as also economic growth as well. New zoning allows new housing and it's an important step to solve the housing crisis and increase the supply of affordable housing. I live with my partner in South Medford, our rent has been steadily going up for the past five years and we're looking forward to having those zoning conversations in South Medford as well. Like others, I'm disappointed to hear the parking minimums and public comments have limited the amount of units in the neighborhood. I regret that I wasn't part of earlier discussions and the last public hearing to advocate for more density. I believe that solving the housing crisis and building more affordable housing on a large scale starts from influencing our own neighborhood structure and building a community that supports our most basic rights of housing and security and supports our most vulnerable populations. I support how the zoning supports the current local businesses and allows them to thrive and also supports new businesses to come in. And that will then increase economic development in the city, I echo that I am also disappointed that banks have been prioritized over medical offices. I believe in the 15 minute city where medical offices, parks, schools, my home, groceries, et cetera, are within that 15 minute commute. And I see this as a public transit user and avid walker. I love the 101 bus. It's great. It gets me to all the places I like. And to conclude, just want to thank the city and associates and the community members on this call for advocating on behalf of their communities. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Yuko. I appreciate you coming out. I think you may have aligned, Danielle, if you want to take it back. Yeah. Marshall, please state your name and address for the record.
[Marshall Brown]: Oh, hi. My name is Marshall Brown. I'm out of 589 Riverside. I haven't really lived in Medford long, probably been renting a little bit over a year. One thing that I did notice, I don't own a car, I can't drive. So it's, you know, like Medford's a good place to live for that. And I find that just places that have a lot of businesses and density and things to do are much more friendly for people who walk everywhere. And so places like Salem Street that have like a lot of vibrant local businesses, there's honestly too many to name. Most of the businesses by like Medford kind of alongside that corridor. And I find it really awful that it's kind of flooded with traffic, really dangerous to walk. And I think it's strange not to consider the zoning in tandem with parking requirements because that's super important to the urban landscape. And also the restriction on medical offices. I understand the concern with that, but I find that a lot of community members keep bringing up like methadone clinics. And it seems like that is a much bigger concern for people than having equitable access to health care. I found that it is hard to find a medical practitioner already, especially if you are mobility restricted. And so it'd be really nice to offer medical options for people who live in the area who would like easy access to that care. So I personally really don't like the emphasis on blocking that. But yeah, thank you so much. I do appreciate a lot of the zoning changes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Marshall appreciate you coming out and just to quickly check in on the medical office thing and Emily and pal if you can help me confirm it. I believe there are some medical uses that are permitted via community development board special permit. Is that correct?
[Innes]: Yes, Madam Chair, so the neighborhood medical office is permitted for a special permit in the commercial and the MX2 district, it was removed from MX1.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so similar to other special permit applications that we would consider, we would look at the benefits, we'd look at the downsides, and then we'd make a decision based on our kind of mandate as a development board.
[Innes]: Absolutely, the special permit criteria that you have for those. That's correct. Okay, great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. The next speaker that I have is JMN. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm not getting a response from JMN, so I'm going to move on to the next speaker and come back. Michael Dewberry. We're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Michael Dewberry]: Hello, everybody. Michael Dewberry, 50 Park Street. Let's see. Yeah, a lot of great comments already. I'll try to focus on new things. Yeah, overall positive about the overall citywide zoning revamp, positive about the initial stab at the corridor. And I do appreciate the changes, like you're taking on community feedback. I think you did a good job of adjusting. I have not, this is my first public meeting I've attended in person, I have been following the discussion online. I live about a block, a long block and a half from Salem Street, so I'm a user of the corridor. I am sensitive to the fact that I'm not impacted in the same way that people who live directly on Salem Street are. But overall, yeah, my sort of interest is, you know, I walk to the dentist, I walk to get a sandwich, walk to get coffee at the bike store, which is kind of weird. So, and I'm also an all-mode user. We do exist. I do take the bus and bike and drive as well. Love to do more of the biking and busing and less of the driving. Very silent changes to the 101. So, yeah, so comments on From that perspective, I do feel like there's been an overcorrection in the density, especially around the Park and Salem Street intersection. I think by removing things from MX-1 and dropping from MX-2 and MX-1, it's been a pretty rapid drop in possibilities for that intersection, which does have a couple of empty lots. It's probably going to develop pretty quickly. So we'll see more restaurants, entertainment options, food, groceries. On medical – oh, gosh, I'm going to run out of time. My issue with medical, I am pro-medical. My issue is that like we see in Medford Square, there's too much medical with no street engagement. So I'd like to see maybe some ideas around, can we push out of the second floor, push it to the back of the building and not off the streets to have more concrete and enforceable rules about street engagement to keep the area vibrant. And I will save the rest of my comments for next time. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Michael. And you can also email your comments into the board, because we'll see those. But I like your comment about kind of active streets, and we want those to be active throughout various periods of the day, not just banking hours. The next commenter that I have is Alyssa Nugent. Alyssa, you're going to get a request to unmute, and please state your name and address for the record.
[Alyssa Nugent]: Hi, Alyssa Nugent, 98 Sheridan Avenue. I would like to thank the board and Innis for this presentation and for really taking into account the comments that have been made so far. It seems as though there's now been a look at feasibility for some of these lots. because we do have such small lots running along Salem. And as I believe Emily Ennis indicated, some of those lots, it would not even be possible to get to four feet or four stories, just because of the size. I do think that the feasibility of a 12 foot sidewalk needs to be looked at. I'm concerned about a sidewalk being that wide contributing to something like a concrete jungle and increasing heat. I mean, I know that grass running along the side of sidewalks isn't necessarily that great ecologically either. But in terms of making the neighborhood more walkable and feel friendlier, 12 feet wide sidewalks just seem to be too much for the area. I do worry that it would limit what is actually able to be built because it's going to eat up so much footage. of the private property and so developers won't want to build on these lots at all because you know, they have to make the building so much smaller in order to provide the city with six plus feet of sidewalk that isn't currently available on the public land. So that's my main comment. Thank you again. And I guess I do have a question. I mean, is it possible to waive the, are individual developers going to be able to go in front of CBD or somebody else to ask for a waiver on that requirement? Or is that like a hard requirement as it's currently written? That's all.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks. Perfect timing, Alyssa. Daniela or Alicia or Emily, do you have a response to Alyssa's question about if developers are able to waive on a case-by-case basis?
[Innes]: Yes, Madam Chair, there is currently not a waiver. I'm just double checking. I don't see a waiver at the moment for the 12 foot sidewalk. We do have waivers for a couple of other things. I do want to note, I think the previous speaker did allude to this, right? It's not the property owner, the developer is not creating the full 12 foot sidewalk. It's an additional bit of width. to the city sidewalk and there's a couple of reasons around that that distance. It does make it easier to plant trees along the street right trees need a certain amount of room to survive. and also to be able to have people going back and forth along the sidewalk without having to have too many people step aside, right? When we think of sidewalks, we want to be able to have friends talking together. We want to be able to have people who might be mobility impaired, and so they're using a wheelchair or a walker or something like that, and still have the sidewalk be comfortable for all users. still allow for things like benches, which are incredibly important for people who have mobility limitations and maybe need to rest on their way to the store. And that could be people of all ages and all capabilities. It doesn't have to be somebody who is permanently impaired. It could be somebody who's got a broken leg from ski season and wants a place to sit. So 12-foot sidewalk gives that ability to accommodate a number of users, accommodate the trees, accommodate the other street furniture, and that's why we're recommending it. If a waiver, so we do have some height waivers and we have a step back waiver. You know, if something like a sidewalk waiver is of interest, we could discuss it and try and figure out how that would work while still keeping a consistent environment.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's helpful context. Yeah, I mean, we obviously, you know, anybody can become disabled at any point in their life. So that's something we definitely want to be aware of, but we also want to make sure that we're prioritizing people and density and housing and vibrant streets and a dynamic street section over some of those other topics. So yeah, it's an interesting balance for sure. Yeah. A noodle on that. The next speaker that I see is Gary M. Gary, you're gonna get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Gary Marinelli]: Good evening, Gary Marinelli. I live at 77 Parish Street, and I am a resident of this neighborhood. First, I wanna say I'm very happy that the city is looking at and proposing new zoning. I think this is long overdue, so I wanna thank everyone that is helping with the zoning. I also am happy that you're taking public feedback into account. However, like many others have stated, I was very pleased with the initial proposal and I'm a bit disappointed, honestly, in the lack of increase in density in the latest proposal and that the unit counts are decreasing. I prefer the density be increased back to three to six units or maybe somewhere in between. I think the one to three units is not moving forward as a city. We really need to plan for the future and build a better Medford. We should not stay stuck in the past. I see us moving backwards with the latest iteration. And as everyone has said, Medford has a lack of housing, and we really need to increase development. I'm all for supporting a neighborhood with more housing, more commercial, more restaurants, more entertainment options, and more things to do within a walking distance. You know, I want an active community. And again, without allowing us the potential to grow to more stories, we're not moving forward. It's kind of a significant overcorrection in the wrong direction. And we need to enable this additional housing to increase availability, increase revenue for the city. and draw more businesses to the area. More businesses are not going to move into the area if we don't allow density. And again, we need to transition to a more modern community and continue to grow. So I would just ask that that be revisited. But again, I really want to thank everyone for the work that they're doing here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Gary, for coming out. Appreciate your comments. The next speaker that I have is Ren Bean. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Ren Bean]: Hi there, Ren Bean, 37 Woodrow Avenue. I've been following this Salem Street development here for a minute, and I just want to lend my support to a lot of the commenters here today that have some concerns about the backstabbing from some of the density. You know, I, I do have concerns about about overall this being done deliberately and thoughtfully, which I think is generally the case. I think innocent city council and now the CDB has been really thoughtful and careful about not just charging head, but. being responsive to public feedback, and I hope that's the case for a lot of what you've heard tonight as well. But I think that limiting the number of units, especially with considering the small lot sizes and some of the other setbacks and so forth, it's really kind of saying that only a certain type of housing will be allowable, you know, kind of larger multi-bedroom units, which are great for certain types of renters and buyers, maybe families that need several bedrooms. But I just think Medford does have a really bad lack of smaller housing, single-bedroom studios for people that need more affordable housing, single individuals. Another thing I'd like to point out to a lot of the detractors of these proposals is that single individuals, six units on a lot, I mean, those folks are contributing a lot to the tax base. And I heard a lot of folks expressing that they're concerned about over-enrollment in the Roberts. I mean, having six single folks without kids contributing to the tax base and not enrolling kids in that neighborhood sounds like it's exactly what they would want. Um, but, uh, you know, let's let the, let's let the private market decide what's, what's feasible in terms of, uh, you know, development and not limit it to three when six would sell well. And there are residents that want and need that. And, uh, some of the other folks here said they would love to rent a place and not have to drive a car. Uh, and I agree with the other person who said, you know, studio doesn't need two parking spots. Uh, we can fit them in there. So anyway, uh, just hope that's considered. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Ren. Appreciate the comments. The next speaker that I have, JMN, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please say your name. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I appreciate it. Jean Nuzzo, 35 Parris Street. I'm a direct abutter. I live in the heart of the Glenwood neighborhood. Yes, we are a neighborhood and we have been for decades, proudly so. I appreciate the work that's been undertaken to incorporate our modifications based on feedback presented. and the updates to the presentation, including selected language for consideration. In reviewing the most recent documents for Salem Street Tonight and the upcoming neighborhood zoning maps, I want to point out that there are discrepancies that persist across those documents, including parcels near mine. And therefore, I would highly recommend a widely available unified map that's thoughtfully colorized to assure accessibility and ease of interpretation for folks. There's a lot of yellows and oranges. In the absence of this map and observation of the above discrepancies, I find the need to again iterate that parcels alongside streets should not be included in the corridor zoning as they don't qualify elsewhere and shouldn't do so here either. I must say as an industry professional, the fact that we are on the precipice of voting this through to further densify and exacerbate the inequities and density in this area relative to the remainder of the city without even the most baseline of industry standard documents, such as existing condition analysis on infrastructure impact, constructability within proposed minimums, and not even the most rudimentary of an urban master plan is mind boggling. Truly, I think we must take a step back to move forward properly and ensure that we're following industry best practices that are guide rails to success and ensures that implementation doesn't gentrify out long-term residents that are currently affordably housed. You simply can't make accurate assessments or shape a clear image of the impact of these zoning changes without a comprehensive analysis. And the incremental studies, development by development, doesn't work relative to sweeping rezoning such as we're doing now, full stop. It's unbelievable to contemplate all this being moved along without these typical work products and in such short order. Neighboring cities take years to do this. And speaking of neighboring cities, Cambridge, who just passed landmark zoning for four-story multifamily buy right, their lot size is 5,000 square feet. But here in Medford, we're looking at three. And that is their deeply educated baseline, 5,000 square feet. So it's amazing to me. I appreciate the time. And I hope that you will think about this because we have the neighborhood zoning coming next that will also deeply densify and has been iterated by other folks. Medford isn't going to solve the housing crisis.
[Emily Hedeman]: The goalposts keep moving.
[Jean Nuzzo]: Can you wrap up in the next 10 seconds, please? Sure. The goalposts keep moving. It's a very complicated process. And please consider the quality of life for our neighborhood as well, because we are already more dense than other areas of the city. Thank you so much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. The next commenter that I see is Jennifer Sullivan. Jennifer, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record.
[Jen Sullivan]: Sure. Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. Thank you.
[Jen Sullivan]: I'm Jen Sullivan, 35 Washington Street. I grew up in Medford. I'm a recent homeowner. I purchased off of Salem Street. While I'm disappointed on the watering down of this proposal, I do appreciate the effort and collaboration to at least get us to here today. Updating zoning helps our existing businesses grow and new ones join us also as a non-driver. And as a single resident, shout out Ren for pointing us out that we exist. As a non-driver, I share the prior mentioned safety concerns, but also agree that they're not exclusive to zoning. I'm a two-year member of a gym on Salem Street, and that and the walkability definitely guided my recent condo purchase. I'm investing in my hometown. And I really hope that everyone on this call who clearly care about our neighborhood, I hope we can move forward and work together and advocate for what we do want to see in our neighborhood instead of focusing on what we don't want. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Jennifer. And congratulations on your home purchase. Thank you. Alicia or Danielle, have we received any comments about technical difficulties through the chat? Any emails through the email address?
[Hunt]: Madam Chair, Amanda is actually managing the emails for us tonight and the extra viewing room. Oh, yes. And she was gonna raise her hand if any members of the viewing room wanted to speak. Okay. So I think she's actually, she looks like she's offering them right now. Amanda, are you able to unmute yourself, or do I need to give that?
[Emily Hedeman]: I think we would need to unmute her.
[Hunt]: I'm going to. There. I just gave you co-host permissions. You can do it, Amanda.
[Centrella]: OK. Thank you so much. So no comments live from the room, but I'll just quickly take a look at some notes from emails that were received over the past couple of days. So, we had, and I know it's sort of reductive to label things as supportive or against, but just for sake of kind of organizing things a little bit. We had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Eight emails, comments that we received over email that were generally supportive of the proposal. You know, does that we echo a lot of the sentiments we heard tonight about walkability, densification, more housing, more business. let's see, climate resiliency of the proposal and the way that densification can play into that. We also had one, two, five comments that leaned toward opposition and raised some concerns, nothing that wasn't already kind of spoken to tonight, but including things such as concerns around specific uses like medical offices, marijuana dispensary, Concerned around height along the corridor and the incentive zoning, the potential for creating congestion, traffic, concerns around hotel, dormitory, bed and breakfast uses, and concern around sufficient parking. So I think that wraps sort of the email comments that we'd received within the past, I'd say maybe two weeks, but we got a slew that came in today and yesterday that were included in that.
[Emily Hedeman]: And those emails are also put in the board meeting folders.
[Centrella]: That is correct. They've been put into the meeting packets as well as the publicly viewable folders.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Awesome. Thank you for that, Amanda. Nice to see you again. So with that, I don't see any new comments. As a reminder, we have a two-minute limit for each commenter to provide one comment. I encourage everybody who would like to provide more input to email the email address, and I'll just reiterate that quickly. Where is it? I just had it. OCD at Medford dash ma dot gov. OK, and then I just saw a new hand, Lori. You're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record. Lori, if you're speaking, I cannot hear you. I'm going to send another request to unmute. I saw you come off mute briefly and then go back on. I'm unfortunately not hearing anything. Let's see. I'd encourage you to reach out to Danielle or Alicia if you're having technical issues. And if you are having technical issues, you know, coordinate with Alicia and Danielle, and they may be able to share your comment on behalf of you. Let's give another minute. Danielle or Alicia, are you seeing a note come through from Lori? I want to make sure we hear their comment.
[Hunt]: No, I messaged her. OK. And I'll just say it out loud that often if there's an arrow next to the mute button, and you can select a different microphone input, and that's often the problem. Other people just have to log out and back in. OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, Lori, I encourage you to reach out to Danielle or Alicia. But as of right now, we're not seeing any new public commenters. So I'm going to go ahead and close the public comment period for this meeting and open it up to the board to discuss further revisions or recommendations. to the draft zoning. And I know Ari, you have to leave shortly, so I want to pass it off to you so you can get your thoughts in first.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the members of the public and to the consultants from Innes Associates. I really appreciate all the feedback. We've been reading all the emails. And I think it is clear that the feedback today is that we are not done, that this is an iteration that probably needs some more work. I had initially also been interested in moving maybe to the 1 to 4 units if we're not comfortable with going to 3 to 6 even in the same dimensions. I would have no objections to 3 to 6 in the same dimensions, I think that's worth considering. I had mentioned earlier looking at kind of weighing the city's priorities among the incentive zoning. And my priorities, and I think the priorities among the community feedback consistently is around affordable housing and kind of affordable businesses. And I'd like those to be really prioritized and the incentives to prioritize that. This was only one or two comments, but I do share the frustration about the excess of banks. And I don't know, What argument, I mean, are we allowed to say we have a lot of banks approval needed? With most of the things that we're discussing, I like see the community harm or kind of community risk that make that obvious thing. Sorry, I understand good tenants, but a bit overrepresented in our neighborhood. had also been struck by the 12 foot sidewalks. I think we got a thorough answer from Innes Associates on that. And I'm curious about hearing more about existing condition analysis. I was kind of, I understand the argument about shadow and traffic studies needing to be done piece by piece, but I'd be curious in hearing from Innes Associates, their perspective on that. I think that's, that's my notes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Emily and Paola, are you able to respond to board member Fishman?
[Innes]: Yes, certainly happy to on, and I think board member Fishman some of the comments about that you made about density will allow me to address some of the other comments that were made about just to do so. Thank you for that opportunity. I spoke at the beginning that we are looking at the residential only areas throughout the city, we have been for the past two months. And I think that might clarify some of our thinking about why we took the MR and made it closer to the NR3 rather than to the other possibility could have been, for example, the UR1. And for that, with your permission, I'm just going to quickly share my screen.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think visuals have been very helpful throughout this, so please feel free to pull stuff up.
[Innes]: Thank you. So this is the map that we just discussed with the Planning and Permitting Committee last week. Yes, last week, the 26th. We did change the colors because although yellow is a traditional land use color for residential, when you're talking about different gradations of residential, your eyes tend to start to cross, especially at this scale. And I'm going to zoom into Salem Street here. This is Salem Street. And you're going to see two colors right up against that. So the white area is the area that we've been talking about because now we're talking about the residential only in this map where before our conversations have been about the mixed use to residential. So the two colors here, this orange color is neighborhood residential three, and the red color is urban residential one. And so if I zoom back out, you can see where they are throughout the city, but I want to come over here and sorry, urban residential two is the red color, neighborhood residential three is the orange. So We had a couple of options as we were thinking about the MR. Our original proposal was to change the MR to one of the new residential zoning districts, but we can't do that because MR is already in front of you and the neighborhood and urban residential districts haven't yet made it to your way, so we're a little bit caught in the process. So the idea was to make the dimensions the same and then at the end when we do the full wrap up of looking at the final holistic, where do we need to make tweaks and we could combine them. We chose the neighborhood residential three which allows single unit dwellings, two unit dwellings, three unit dwellings. townhouses and historic conversions of 2 to 4 units because so much of the abutting area was residential 3. I think we could also talk about the UR1 as a possibility if that is of interest to the board and then obviously also of interest to the City Council. So Urban Residential 1 would allow the 2-unit dwelling, historic conversion of 2-5 units, townhouse 3-unit dwelling, and a multiplex of 4-6 units. And so that was kind of the transition we originally had with the MR. then and the proposal that you just saw tonight, the idea was just to let the neighborhood residential come up and sort of attached to where it already exists. But I think, you know, hearing at least some of the voices on the call and I think Madam Chair mentioned balance earlier, a lot of zoning is that balance of needs and wants and desires. You know, I think that The urban residential 1 could also be a possibility, but as I said, we chose to go with the neighborhood residential 3 as the new base for the MR, just simply because that that was what was a budding. So, I wanted to call that out in terms of, you know, I heard the numbers, like, 2 to 4.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, that would be that's kind of like outside. The buckets that we've identified here.
[Innes]: So two to four is the historic conversion. In the neighborhood residential, we're not for today's conversation on Salem Street, but the future conversation on the residential, we have a historic conversion definition that would allow a historic, because we would like to preserve existing historic homes, they contribute a great deal. So the idea is to give it a little bit of an incentive. So if you're, top number of units per dwelling is three, then you allow the historic conversion for four, so you're giving an incentive to preserve it. If your top is four units, you're allowing five, so that's why urban residential one allows a historic conversion of two to five units, whereas neighborhood residential three allows a historic conversion of two to four units. So it's kind of balancing the conversion of the building with the characteristics of the neighborhood.
[Emily Hedeman]: But new construction could not be four units.
[Innes]: New construction in the neighborhood residential could not be four units. That is correct. It's limited to three. Okay. But I did want to give the board sort of a peek into the thinking back and forth on that. We did go back and forth ourselves on Neighborhood Residential 3 versus Urban Residential 1 for those existing residential parcels that butt up against Salem Street itself that were not part of the MX1, that were part of the original MR4. I do also want to just give a preview again. We heard some comments and concerns from people that we weren't overall in the city, we weren't adding enough density. So I wanted to call out the two squares, Medford Square and West Medford Square. We have the additional quarters in South Medford, we have the additional quarters on Boston and then looking over at Wellington. So we haven't touched everywhere in the city yet. And so For the people on the call who've been really engaged and thinking about what else could go where I would encourage them to stay part of the process we are having the public meeting on the, you know, all of the planning and permitting meetings, of course, have been public, but we're having a public listening session in March on the residential and again on the corridors and squares would love to hear from all of the voices that we've heard today on those as well. So, and then I think the other thing was the idea of additional incentives. Obviously, we are trying to tailor the incentives neighborhood by neighborhood for what makes sense. So we are totally open. Of course, to hearing from from yourselves from the community, if there's a preference that a certain incentive not apply in a particular district, then we'd love to have that as part of the discussion and understand what that is. And, of course, it's guided by yourselves as to what makes sense where.
[Emily Hedeman]: How do you feel Ari?
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. And with that, I think I do have to duck out. Thank you everyone for the great discussion. And I look forward to seeing how the board votes and I'm sure to the continued discussion over time.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Thanks. Sorry. Have a nice evening.
[Ari Fishman]: You too.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right. Peter, Annie, Adam. What's kicking around in your brains?
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, maybe I'll chime in. I think what's kicking around in my brain is I feel a little bit conflicted. And maybe I'll just talk out loud and maybe that resonates with some of the residents and maybe it doesn't. I think I've had the privilege to live in many different cities across the country. And I think where I feel conflicted, and I found it quite admirable, I think, the approach that Cambridge ended up taking recently with single-family zoning. And I find it admirable not in the sense of that Medford should be Cambridge, but in the sense that I think what I struggle with, I'm a homeowner in Medford, I struggle with just how complicated and intractable these kinds of discussions are and how difficult it is to really understand what exactly is being decided that will then have a long-term repercussion for the fabric of the city. And so what I found admirable was the clarity of that type of approach to zoning, which was really, I found, in the spirit of true progressivism around kind of looking at the history of zoning and the approaches to zoning and sort of saying, actually, we're kind of going to go back to square one and rethink this approach that we've taken for the last 30, 40, 50 years. Um and so I also the conflict that I have is I also recognize the jurisdiction of this board or the purview of this board. I recognize the incredible work that the city has done on the master planning um and so I don't think it's my role as a member of the board to um kind of go against um really the input that has been contributed so much um to sort of set up this philosophy to zoning and the approach to zoning, and then all the work into what I do think is like a thoughtful consideration to try to meet a lot of the different parties to make this work for the community overall. And so that's where I feel quite conflicted. I strongly resonate with the folks talking about just how difficult it is to find affordable places to live in Medford. And then maybe my other lived experience is that every time that well-intentioned planning has put forward how cities should be designed and looks, 10 or 15 years later, we all look at it and we're like, man, what were we thinking? Setback laws, the chunking of buildings. And so I am quite sympathetic that, I'm trying to try to reconcile that with, is there a way for, as Medford thinks about moving forward, to avoid some of the pitfalls that have happened in the past with zoning?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, it's kind of like parent.
[Adam Behrens]: Maybe that's an unsatisfactory answer, but that's what's in my head right now.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, I hear what you're saying. And you know, the thing, you know, I feel like the it's with zoning, and then it's also with parenting, like, you know, you always kind of fault your parents for all the mistakes they've made, but we're just going to make new fun and different mistakes. So with the awareness of, you know, what we've been subject to, In a zoning context, of course, parenting is a separate meeting, you know, how do we do the best we can given all the facts we know today, and I think. You know, to your point about our jurisdiction as as a board, the greatest power that we have is these recommendations that we can pass on to the city council. So, as much as we can. in recognition of the work that has been done, but also the feedback that we're hearing. I guess what I'm looking for from the board is, are there specific recommendations? I have a list in front of me of things that I've been jotting down. Are there recommendations? Say we were to move this forward this evening, and I'm not saying we will, but if we were, what recommendations could we provide to the city council to provide the public, which is so enthusiastically and admirably shown up to these public hearings and participated in meetings and written emails, what recommendations can we include to not make the same mistakes as our parents? I mean, city planners. Like a couple of ones that I've written down, and I'm curious for Emily, Danielle, Alicia, other members of the board to provide input, even if these could be recommendations. I think one person made this comment, and I have the name in my notes, but the simple idea of kind of coordinating with Malden for a line zoning across borders. We obviously can't tell them what to do. They can't tell us what to do. The joy of town government in Massachusetts. You know, I think it would just be helpful to make sure that those communication avenues are established and maintained. And Alicia and Danielle, this might be something that you already do, but just to really call it out. I think I recognize the importance of a wide sidewalk in terms of accessibility, usability, but is a 12-foot sidewalk right for Salem Street? It's already a pretty tight street section. I don't think we've seen street sections just to help contextualize the sidewalk. So that may be a helpful study to do, even if it's just the visuals.
[Peter Calves]: Well, I would assume, sorry, and correct me if I'm wrong, that part of the whole thing would be these would not be necessarily wide sidewalks extending into the street. These would be extending in the building direction. As part of what we've been talking about is that this plan does not have jurisdiction over the street.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, but every square foot we take up of building is less buildable area.
[Peter Calves]: Is less building. That's fair.
[Emily Hedeman]: Right? And if we're trying to promote density, housing, diverse uses, that's kind of the balance and trade-off that I was speaking more. I know we're not going to.
[Peter Calves]: OK, that's fair. That's nice.
[Emily Hedeman]: But I appreciate the clarification. This existing conditions analysis, I think, I'd be interested in kind of the work involved in that. I'm not saying that if it's hard work, if it's tough work, we're not going to do it. But I think there is a lot of validity to that. You can't have a good idea of where you're going unless you know where you've been. And I think the existing conditions analysis may be able to capture that. And then I do think that there needs to be some focus on the incentive zoning menu. Board member already mentioned affordability. I'm also going to add climate and low impact living as other focuses that could be revisited as part of that incentive menu. And then I think a deeper dive into the UR1 versus NR kind of implications. I hate that it's like one or the other, and I'm almost wondering, like, does it have to be? Annie, I see your hand up, so curious to get some other feedback from the board.
[Ayni Strang]: I really feel that part of the charm of any city, and I've lived in a lot of places around the world, is how people gather on a street corner, how they walk down the street, how green space, benches, having a cafe with tables outside. Boston jokingly, we talk about the cow paths, and that's how Boston was built. All villages connected by cow paths. And I think having a 12-foot sidewalk is critical to a charm of a city. People live in a community to be in that community, not just to be in their home or condo apartment. They want to be in and out of shops. They want to be able to stroll down the street. They want to be able to move a stroller. Somebody who has
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, so I hear that you're in support of the 12-foot sidewalk.
[Ayni Strang]: It's the tree thing, too. It's the tree thing. We need to have trees. Human beings need to reflect on trees. And if you have a skinny sidewalk, the tree dies. Because what happens is that cars run into it, bicycles jab it, snow plows jab it. If you have a wide enough sidewalk, it gives a tremendous aura to the community.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I hear what you're saying. So I guess my recommendation was more that maybe we should just look into it, not completely disregard the 12 foot. But if you're not comfortable looking into it, then maybe that's something we should have.
[Ayni Strang]: And I think to the point of having a slightly larger footprint, if the property will allow it, like what we're doing in West Medford Square, and they're putting up quite a few nine apartments in a building. It fits right in to the look of the street, but it also gives me hope that we will have the train station right there would be better used if we had more density.
[Emily Hedeman]: So how would you verbalize that into a recommendation around the Salem?
[Ayni Strang]: On Salem Street, if the property would allow, I think having between four and six apartments in a building is not a 15-story building. It's not becoming something that the community would not appreciate. But at the same time, a lot of people would like to live in the community. There's nowhere for them to go. So I just would like us to think about it.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, and then maybe to sort of maybe continue the thread that Annie was on. So if the limitation there on the density is really around parking, is there any mechanism that we can recommend? Parking lots? Or that should the parking requirements of the city change?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, 100%.
[Adam Behrens]: But I don't know how to formulate it.
[Ayni Strang]: No, no, I agree with you, Adam. Part of living in a city is always, when I learned to drive in Manhattan, nobody cared when I took my test if I could drive forward. on a stopwatch, I had to be able to parallel park, because that was key in Manhattan to be able to park. The whole idea of big cities, small cities is we can just make recommendations and suggestions. But if you're in a a certain size apartment, as a gentleman who had spoke from the community before, if it's a studio apartment or one bedroom, you know, the parking is slightly different. But if we're going to make a better use of having two different train stations in a small city like Medford, one on each side, we have to consider the concept of parking lots.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to refocus us as a board in our discussion, I just want to reiterate that, unfortunately, and I truly agree, unfortunately, we are not discussing parking minimums as part of this Salem Street corridor rezoning. We did discuss parking minimums as part of the transit-oriented design around Wellington. We got those down to a point.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, the MBTA community zoning, that was part of our discussion. Yes, we got those down to a point.
[Emily Hedeman]: which was a very fun discussion. So that is something that may come before us again, but that's not what we're talking about today.
[Ayni Strang]: But it reflects on- It is, but I'm just recognizing that- It's about the buildings themselves, and that's what we're talking about, and then we got off on that. But just simply, we have to consider that maybe in order to make the community more robust and have more space, maybe we need to consider having more than four in a building.
[Emily Hedeman]: In terms of units? Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. So that can be one of our recommendations, right? I think that would be right.
[Peter Calves]: Yes. Would that be under consider upping the limit the units on the mixed-use one from three to four, if I'm following correctly?
[Emily Hedeman]: I think it would be aligning the MR more closely with the urban residential one.
[Peter Calves]: Is that what this is? The other one. No, correct me if I'm wrong, Emily. MR on this corridor is currently based on the neighborhood residential three. And what we were talking about potentially changing it to is the urban residential one.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. MR equals NR. Yes. Right now.
[Peter Calves]: And potentially, one of the recommendations, if we wanted to change it, would be to change it to base more closely on the urban residential one, which was the other option that Emily was presenting earlier.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. That's the two to six. Yeah. Which is, I think, what we previously had. Yes, exactly.
[Peter Calves]: Or something closer to it, yeah. I think it's somewhere between what we had the first time and what we have now, so.
[Ayni Strang]: Depending on the property, right?
[Emily Hedeman]: So makes you sound MR. So this is where I think an existing conditions analysis would be super dope to have, because the question that I want to ask, and maybe you have the answer to it, is how many single family houses are currently within this MR district? Emily?
[Innes]: Yes, so thank you, Madam Chair. So just as a reminder, and I actually have the maps up and I can show you. I think there's two rounds of existing conditions that we did back in July, actually the end of June of last year. We had a workshop with city council, the public was invited to it and we had, and I'm going to share that very, very quickly. We had a significant number, you should see a map called recreation up. So we mapped recreation, we mapped hydrography. So this is for the whole city? This is for the whole city, yes. And just to call it out, we mapped also the surrounding communities. We got the zoning from the surrounding communities and mapped those as well. I'm sorry, your audio is really low right now. Oh, I'm sorry. So we've mapped the surrounding communities. We actually reached out to the other communities and got their zoning so we could look at it. This is obviously Medford only. We mapped demographics, so median income, median age. It's race, it's the environmental justice populations. We mapped the residential housing stock. This is in terms of years.
[Emily Hedeman]: And this fits the kind of the recommendation of an existing conditions analysis.
[Innes]: This is, yeah, this is everything.
[Emily Hedeman]: I love this. Great.
[Innes]: Building value, it should all be on the city's website. We mapped the dimensions, so setbacks, frontage, lot size, building height, building coverage, impervious coverage. Again, we also, and this is a separate map that we've been working on recently. I think it answers the question that you just brought up. Which is this one was done for the residential districts, but we have it for the others. So the colors on this map are the existing housing types in each of these districts. So what's on the ground now. And the borders are our proposed residential district so this map Salem Street we do have another one that shows the whole city. And so you can start to see by the different colors that the, the variety of housing types that you already have. Um, in this area, the legend, which isn't on on this version, this is a background map, but the legend tells you which 1 these are. This map is also available on the city's website. We just showed it to the planning and permitting council last week while this is up.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can you clue us in on the legend? Like, yeah, feel orange purple.
[Innes]: Yeah, so of course, I grabbed the one that doesn't have the legend. That always works. The purple is single family. So that's easy enough to tell you. And Paola, if you do have it in front of you, feel free to jump in and correct me. So purple is single family. Purple is single family. The teal is far between. Yeah, light purple. I mean, the light purple is single family. The light purple, OK. Yeah, the lavender, maybe. OK. And then the other.
[Ramos]: Do you want me to?
[Ramos]: Yeah, so the purple is single family. The greenish is duplex. The purple, the dark one is three units. And then the orange, it was like multi family, I think. Or
[Evans]: I think it is.
[Ramos]: It could be, no, because it's not about the property. It might be, I don't know if it's some kind of conversion. I think it's conversion, yes. It could be kind of conversion actually, yes. And then the very purple, deeper red that it's almost nowhere there.
[Emily Hedeman]: What do you mean by multiple family? Like four to six, six or more?
[Ramos]: It doesn't have the cap. It's three stories or six stories. It's just more than, let's say, the six units. There is the blue that is also something between four and six, just to give that idea. We have it as well that we can see on Salem. try to look at it and it's not shared yet, but we do have them.
[Emily Hedeman]: We should have them in the complete- I'm not sure if that was to the existing conditions.
[Ramos]: We have it. Yeah, in the existing conditions, it should be there as well.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[Evans]: Through the chair that doesn't have that. existing land use map that they are but I don't believe I'm looking to see if I can find it should be in the package from last week's meeting.
[Innes]: So And I'm just looking to see if we, we have it right where I can get my hands on it. But I think the point is, we have that analysis. We are happy to share it directly with the board, but we've been doing a lot of existing conditions analysis. We go back a lot of our discussion last week for the residential was neighbors coming in and saying, I want to be able to see what's on the ground, because I think it's this and show them that. Oh, I didn't realize there were so many two and three in my neighborhoods or. So that has been part of the discussion. You may also have noticed under the maps, we actually have a topographical analysis. We had some comments about sort of the northeastern corner and the smaller lots, but also the steeper hills that make it difficult to add additional housing there because of the actual, the physical access to that. So we are taking into account topography, as well as the other conditions. And I do want to stress that that has been part of this process all the way along.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. I really appreciate you sharing that with us. And it's great to be able to share it in this form as well. Awesome. Okay. Yeah, and I guess the reason why I asked about existing single family is And I'm in favor of as much housing as possible everywhere. But I do recognize that my opinion is not fact, which hopefully everybody here can agree that their own opinion is not fact. But if there is a demand for single family housing within this zone, Is that something we need to preserve and what I'm seeing based on the existing provision of single family housing is no, there's already so many, and housing is already so rare in Medford.
[Innes]: So, yeah. Sorry Madam Chair to interrupt, but I did find the map that has Salem Street on it with the residential types, so.
[Ramos]: I also had it but you can go.
[Innes]: I got there first. I added something to the chat, too. Great. Thank you. We're all searching frantically, the joys of being on the computer. Sorry. Let me zoom.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate the rapid response to questions and comments.
[Innes]: Here you go. So here's full Salem Street. So you can see the purple. And then this one also has a legend. So you were not far off, Pala, just for memory. So well done. So the orange is, in fact, the condo conversion, so it's a two to three family. The purple is a three family. The blue is four to eight units. The really deep purple is the nine plus units. We have congregate housing. And then the pink is multiple houses on one parcel. And I should stress this all came from your assessor's data. So we're obviously relying on the accuracy of their collection. But now knowing what those are, let's zoom back into Salem. And you can still see this is a lower density because it was on a PowerPoint presentation. But you can see the mix of colors in there. And so that's why we were going back and forth between do we do NR3? three, or do we do UR1 in this area? I think you could make a solid case for both. But UR1, NR3 would be more consistent with what's on the ground now. UR1 would, I think, be more consistent with the desire to, over time, add additional density. And you could go either way in that discussion.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: One of the things I've been struggling with as chair is expressing my own opinion. Because I recognize that there's people who've lived here longer than me. There's people who will live here longer than me. I'm a renter. The only plots of land I can afford to buy are basically 45 degree angles. But on this one, you are one. I mean, it doesn't make sense to keep things as they are. As things are, they're unaffordable. They're inaccessible.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely support moving the MR in the case of our purview and what we can do. A recommendation. Recommending to city council to move the MR back more towards the UR1. Yeah, I agree. Aligned towards the UR1. And I would also, I mean, I also agree with the comments that say things about the streets, but I know that's a separate issue that will be taken up by a different facet of city government at a later time.
[Carlene Campbell-Hegarty]: Yeah.
[Peter Calves]: And I do think that is a key issue to making this all work. And I do think that's something, I mean, I have great faith in Todd and Tim and Ellen that they'll get over in that direction. I mean, it's part of the zoning. The whole process is you have to allow for the city you want to see. So just doing my requisite writing up of things that I'm hearing. What I've got so far in terms of recommendations is recommendation to align the multifamily residential more closely with the urban residential one rather than the neighborhood residential three as is currently present. And I've got kind of a leftover of Ari's comment but also something I think you brought up, Emily, of to consider giving greater weight in the incentive zoning toward affordability
[Emily Hedeman]: uh green space green infrastructure and like low impact low environmental impact yeah all right climate resiliency yeah sustainability renewables all that good stuff so we don't crisp up uh
[Innes]: I don't want to disrupt the board's discussion, but I thought if it's helpful, I can put the incentive table up on the so you all can see it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that'd be great. And Danielle, when we pass or if we pass. I'm assuming we will at some point in our lives when we pass this on to the city council with our recommendations. Are they looking for. like hyper specific tweaks to these incentive bonuses or kind of just these overall like general recommendation or is it both?
[Hunt]: Well, Madam Chair, somebody is going to have to translate it into something very specific for them to vote on. If you're specific, that's great. One that I was just ruminating on is that if you all tonight say this is like, we would like it to align with this, or this is how we'd like it to be. We will then look to Emily and Paula to help us a recommendation that is a net from what the city council originally sent to you to what you're asking for. Showing like a bridge, yeah, okay. But that they like change their original document based on what your recommendations, if they take your recommendations. But I just always have to caveat that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's why we're two separate bodies.
[Hunt]: Yeah, they can do changes as well from the floor at that time as well, if that makes sense as well.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so with that, would we have to come back to another meeting to review the content from Emily and Paula?
[Hunt]: I think what I'm suggesting is that if you said, we want that area to align with you are three, then Emily will say the table should say that she will take that and translate that into the Community Development Board said they want these numbers in the table.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. And would we, is that something we would have to come back as a board and say, yes, we agree with these recommendations. We're passing them on to like, is that we wait till the 19th for that?
[Hunt]: I don't think it's necessary as long as what they're doing is literally exactly what we're saying. Description and making it.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I think we're aligned on and Annie or Adam, please speak up if you have input about kind of the. URI, I'm sorry, UR1, NR, MR. I'm losing letters at this point in the evening. But I think where we could be more specific is in these incentive bonuses. Because if we just say, we want you to focus on affordable housing and sustainability, they're going to be like, that's cool, but what does that mean? So that flips back to us in terms of like, do we want to,
[Ayni Strang]: So we're saying right now it's between one and three floors. And if we want to add two for two additional floors, you add 5%.
[Emily Hedeman]: Emily, can you walk us through it? Because I'm going to.
[Innes]: Yes, exactly. So sorry, I was just making sure I was unmuted because I was. I'll let you know if you aren't. Thank you. You said your lips are moving, but we can't hear you. So yes, so exactly. So if this is the percent of, because this is applying townwide, so we set it up as lots of units and proposed project because it could potentially be a subdivision. So for one additional floor based on the number of units or lots, but in this case more likely units, you would have to meet these percentages. So here is your requirement. Here is your basic requirement for 80% AMI. That's That's part of your affordable housing zoning. And what we're saying is for deeper affordability, we want affordable units at 65% of AMI. And so that's your minimum percentage. Here's your additional at 65%. So you would have to do 8% for a 10 to 24 unit building, you would have to do 8% at 88 AMI. We're asking you to do it with to at 65% AMI. For two additional floors, you'd have to do five at 80% and five at 65. In both cases, these add up to the 10%, which is your current affordable requirement. It's 10% at 80%. If you were going to do more affordable units as opposed to deeper affordability, this is the percentage of affordable units at 80% AMI And this is your total percentage of affordable units, additional affordable units to get to that next floor. So again, we're breaking it up. We're saying you've got your original 10%, 13% or 15%. Let's break it up to require that deeper level of affordability.
[Emily Hedeman]: And thinking specifically around Salem Street. Yeah. So you said that these incentives are citywide, so.
[Innes]: The intent is that they're supposed to be citywide right now. They started with the Wellington District with the MBTA Communities Act. They were morphed a little bit more for MSTIC. I think we thought a lot once we had done MSTIC about how they should be. So this is one of those cleanup items I've mentioned from time to time. Yeah, as we go through eventually we would like to be have the incentives be as standardized as possible, but with the caveat that there may be if it's something like affordable, you probably want that to be the same city wide. Yeah. But for some of the others, especially those that have something to do with infrastructure, I think those might might that could be varied by district. So that would be the community amenities that come through here, I think, for the vibrant neighborhoods and the environmental resilience. I think for the environmental resilience, that should probably end up being citywide. So we have the development project meets the ideal green score. If you remember from a few more than a few weeks back, you have the green score, but then there's that there's a minimum and there's an ideal and if the project meets the ideal, the reason that's in there is that gets them an additional story and by having that greater environmental resilience, if the building certified as net zero emissions, Or certifiable, certifiable as lead platinum or equivalent standard just because the paperwork is so tough on those. It's very expensive to get fully certified. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: And just to confirm, like, you can't stack these to build like a 600 story building.
[Innes]: Absolutely not. That's one of the reasons for clarifying the language. So for Salem Street, where you can only get two additional stories, you're only going to get two of these, right? So you might get an environmental resilience and an affordability. You might get two affordabilities, maybe if they've got low income tax credits, and that helps with the financing stack. We do have the parking concealed below grade or within a building structure that might be more appropriate to MX2. We do have a provision that would help for smaller or local businesses or non-profits rather for reduced rent. So that's also in there to contribute to the street and this terminology of vibrant neighborhoods came straight out of the comprehensive plan. Environmental resilience obviously has been a key of both the comprehensive plan and the climate action adaptation plans. So I think it's the streetscape improvements through to the community amenities that are probably most likely to vary by neighborhood. And I think those are also the ones that have had the most yeah discussion from here is the sort of the how much um this this 300 square feet is a 30 foot frontage by a 10 foot setback that's why it's 300 square feet um pulled out but uh you know those are certainly the ones that have the most conversation around them yeah so if we did want to make recommendations on these there's kind of two directions we can go in one is like de-emphasize
[Emily Hedeman]: like things that we care less about, like fountain keeps being tossed around. So, you know, just as an example, like we could make the fountain water element as like a quarter additional half story, or we can, overemphasizes things that we do care about, like the affordable housing. But keeping in mind that there's only so high we can go, specifically within this three-quarter.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. So that's the thing with the affordability. There's only so much we can do in this neighborhood if we want to keep things within the dimensional incentives, within the dimensional limits.
[Emily Hedeman]: So if we pass this, or if we provide a recommendation, let's say this is fine as is. And it goes to city council and they say, yeah, great, we're going to pass it. Is there any opportunity to reopen this incentive, these incentive bonuses for future
[Ayni Strang]: Well, that's the whole idea is we're looking 30 years in the future, just as an example. And it might not happen today. It might not happen 10 years from now. But if it's zoned appropriately, it could happen down the road.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I guess my question is, because in Salem Street, we're talking about a certain scale. Right. Hold on, Annie. apply, like, theoretically have standards across the whole city. And maybe we want to say, like, you know, two additional stories for, you know, 30% AMI, or however we decide to say it. There will be opportunities down the road. Hold on, Annie. I'm asking Emily. There will be opportunities down the road to say, yes, we can change these things. Okay.
[Innes]: Yes, at the end of this process, when we bring all of the districts back together and we look and see, so let's just say for the sake of the argument, because it's the easiest one, say you said, look, Salem Street doesn't need a fountain or a water element, that doesn't make sense for Salem Street. So you would modify, you would take it out using this example. you would recommend to the city council that they take it out, and then that would happen for Salem Street. And then when we come back, we would say, hey, does a fountain still apply for the other places that have already passed that we put it in? Yes. So then you have a new incentive zoning section that says, here are all the incentives, asterisk, the fountain does not apply in Salem Street. I just want to make sure that opportunity to come back.
[Emily Hedeman]: Because we're talking about Salem Street. We're hearing from Salem Street neighbors and concerned residents. I don't want to make decisions on Salem Street based on the whole city. That scope doesn't feel right. I'm glad that there's an opportunity to revisit. Paula, I see your hand and it's been up for a little bit, so I just want to pass it for a second.
[Ramos]: Yes. One thing that we also heard from the neighbors and maybe we can bring that is that In order to not have every building to have a fountain that we can limit by, so if there is one every half a mile, you cannot have another one. So you cannot have that incentive if there is already one. And so we don't have 10 of fountains in the same street. So that's something that we could add if people are interested.
[Emily Hedeman]: I like that. And honestly, I don't think a fountain should give anybody any... You can use the water to water the trees.
[Ramos]: So for some senior people, the water is very important when they walk. So I think that having fountains, it is important. Maybe we can reduce. Instead of having a half story, they can have less. But I do recommend to maintain it, especially if you want to have a walkable neighborhood. OK.
[Ayni Strang]: Same as all the other features that you have laid out, Paula, in the drawings. the plans with having the wide sidewalks and all the other features. For recommendation, to your point, Emily, that when we look at the housing, is it even on Salem Street, depending on the building, is it possible to add two more apartments? four to six apartments. That's all I was trying to get at.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I think that'll be accomplished by the recommendation of aligning the the multifamily residential zone more closely with the urban residential one. Yeah, zoning. I think that's one. That's one that really works as a recommendation to City Council because both of those are specific things. So we can say We want this to go from being modeled on this specific thing to being modeled on this specific thing. So it's something that I think for Emily and Paula to go back to and edit something for city council, that's going to be, I think, the easiest one.
[Ayni Strang]: That makes total sense, since we were heading that way anyway.
[Emily Hedeman]: So making sure that we're wrapping up this incentive zoning thing. I agree with the focus on affordability and climate, but within the context of Salem Street, we might not have specific modifications within the menu right now, is what I'm hearing. Unless it's decreased fountain to a quarter of a story. That's the one we keep picking on, I feel bad. But Emily, would you mind throwing up the menu again just so we can give it another look through?
[Innes]: Yes, of course. I didn't want to interfere with the talking as well. So I appreciate that. So hang on. I navigated away from it. Let me just jump back. I have a lot of screens open for you right now. Yeah. There we go. So let me just start at the top. I will say that the affordability incentives were very closely tied to other parts of the zoning, which is why I recommend maybe not. It's not that you can't change them. I wouldn't necessarily change them without a lot more discussion and work. But here are the community and amenities.
[Emily Hedeman]: Indoor pedestrian, outdoor. Number item one, indoor pedestrian seating or outdoor pedestrian plaza. That speaks to me of like privately owned public spaces, which never go well. So maybe that's.
[Peter Calves]: And maybe reduce that. Well. Oh, yeah. Reduce that in Fountain to a quarter. I think that's the next step down from.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, because I don't equate indoor seating with a pocket park, garden, playground, skate park bank. Neighborhood open spaces should be more than pedestrian and fountains. As somebody who works in renewables, love, love, love a good community solar. But I see those incentives are to be confirmed so I'll accept those.
[Innes]: We're still doing the research on those, sure we get it right so the same thing for the public parking we have to. Yeah, part of the parking conversation in the spring, so it's not. We don't want to do it it's just we haven't gotten to that point.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate that. Okay streetscape improvements. Should we be more specific about streetscape improvements? Like, is it is it is it? Yeah, I don't know.
[Innes]: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. We've been having a conversation with director hunt about that because certain things are already required and especially in the special permit process. So, we do need to confirm that level of detail, but I think that's where it gets into the, the. the how the street trees are added right there, there are certain levels that you can put them in. And in terms of using structural soil, how big is the tree pit, etc, etc. And also whether or not we have those the, you know, request benches along the street for people to rest on or other street furniture.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm okay with some ambiguity there. and then vibrant neighborhoods.
[Innes]: Let me just pull it to the top of the page.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that'd be great. I think the rest of these are fine within the scale of Salem Street. Now that I think about it, that commercial space all the way to the east, No, never mind. Never mind. OK. Are there any other of these incentive menu items that members of the board want to revisit? Any that we should jack up or slice down?
[Peter Calves]: I think I'm good with these as they stand for now, I think, in the context of Salem Street.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Peter Calves]: That's given given these recommendations we've just thought through. And just to confirm with that, we're reducing indoor seating slash outdoor plaza and fountain to a quarter story each from a half. That's what we're doing? Yes. Okay, gotcha. So I've got so far for recommendations to council, I've got that and the multifamily residential adjustment.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Adam Behrens]: I know it's late, but I think in the spirit of trying to get it right. The one on the parking incentive, it's a half story if the building buries the parking or conceals the parking.
[Innes]: Below grade, yes. Below grade.
[Adam Behrens]: I think I might make the recommendation to do a full story. If the thing that we're trying to encourage is a vibrant, active street front that, yeah, has density and ground floor, I don't know.
[Emily Hedeman]: What is it currently? I thought it was a full story.
[Innes]: It's a half story.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's a half story? OK. Yeah, I mean, thinking of the cost of putting parking underground, it's a big cash prize, especially in areas like Medford with all the exciting stuff we have going on underground already. I would agree. I would agree, Adam. Peter, I know you're a transportation guru. And Annie, I don't know if you have any other insight here, too.
[Peter Calves]: Well, we were talking about concealing the parking.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I mean, it just seems to me like a pretty big expense that I don't know if I have story.
[Peter Calves]: No, no, no, I agree. That's what I was trying to understand from the discussion. It's like, it is a big, parking as it is, is a big expense. And concealed parking even more so. But I do think if what we're saying is, this is a big expense, let's reward it appropriately, then I do think I support going after people.
[Emily Hedeman]: But the expense that would support our goals for.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, OK.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. Well, yeah. The concealed parking is something that supports our goals for a more vibrant community. And it is something that if you're doing it, it's expensive to do. So let's reward that. it's commensurate with its expense.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. One of the other things I'm looking through my notes from this evening and previous meetings, there's a lot of discussion around medical office. I don't know if that's something we want to jump into. I think the provisions that have been made overall support the preferences of the community while maintaining flexibility.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, there is some. I mean, there are still medical uses allowed and some defined cases, clinic is still allowed as defined in state law.
[Emily Hedeman]: And in some areas per our board's special permit.
[Peter Calves]: Right, neighborhood. Emily, was I mistaken? I thought I saw that there's or that's just a definition that was added and it wasn't
[Innes]: It was, sorry, the computer screen was not letting me hit my audio. Yes, the definition was added because it may be appropriate in other parts of the city, but clinic is not allowed. Medical office is not allowed. Neighborhood office is- That's what I was thinking. That's what I was thinking.
[Peter Calves]: The neighborhood medical office, I think that- Yeah. That's the one that I think was, I think that seems That seems to make sense, given the neighborhood context, at least at this present time. And I think I'm fine with that for medical uses for now.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah. We had members of the public speak about being able to walk to a dentist or find an accessible provider within the area. So I think those sort of uses would work. OK.
[Peter Calves]: OK. Just to summarize for the members of the board and staff and city staff, what we have right now is recommendations to city council recommend aligning the multifamily residential zones more closely with the urban residential one rather than the current neighborhood residential three. We have reduce the zoning incentive, incentive for indoor seating, outdoor plaza, and fountain to a quarter story from the current half, and increase the incentive for concealed parking up to a full story from a half. And that is the recommendations as I have them summarized from our discussion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Ramos]: Paula? Yes, I just wanted to say that in the beginning, there was the conversation about the section and the sidewalks. Yes. We did a study in sections. We did it for Mystic and for Salem. We used the recommendations from the NACTO. This is the National Association of City Transportation Officials. And we tried to really make it The minimum, because we know that it's very tight, so the minimum to have a walkable street. And so I'm just going to share, it's going to be a very small image, but just to have a little bit of that idea in section, what does it mean? That's great. So do you see my screen? So these are the different types of sidewalks. And I know that it's in meters. Sorry for that. But if you look into the one that says four, this is more or less what we are planning for Salem Street. So it's nothing crazy. We would have some green to really have the buffer to make it more walkable and safe, to be able to plant trees that are decent, and then to be able to walk people side by side, not one after the other. This will take like three feet in some areas and some other areas in Salem won't take any. So we just want to make it continue as much as possible and then whenever we don't have green we can have some benches or we can have some furniture like lighting or any other. So we really think that this is more or less that four, having a minimum of eight for a sidewalk and that is the minimum recommendation from NACTO to have as continuous walking.
[Emily Hedeman]: This is super helpful.
[Ramos]: Yeah, okay, perfect. So this is why we really strongly recommend to leave the 12. It is taking a little bit of the lots, we really understand, but we are making an effort to make this really and in those conversations, they really agreed that this is what that street needed, just to share that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, these are great street sections. I love a good diagram. Do you mind leaving it up for a second?
[Ramos]: Oh yeah, sure, sorry.
[Emily Hedeman]: While we're talking about it. Cool, thank you. Yeah, and one of the concerns that we heard again and again from members of the public is around safety. And if Salem Street, as it is now continues to be a highly trafficked road, we wanna make sure that the pedestrians and residents and users have enough space to occupy the sidewalk and not have to be pushed out into the road. So yeah, seeing this like this, I like the 12 feet and hearing that in some areas it would take three feet of space but most of the time it'd be fine, brings me more comfort with it. So thank you.
[Ramos]: Yeah, just the clarification that in most areas, but in some will be fine and some they have to give that more or less repeat. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Understood.
[Ramos]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, board. What are we thinking? Are there more recommendations we want to put down, is there more thinking we need to do? Is there more we need to hear?
[Peter Calves]: I mean, I kind of like the direction of the discussions we have and I personally would be good going forward with our recommendations and passing it down the line to city council for their further thoughts.
[Emily Hedeman]: When we pass it to city council, they can make changes on the floor. Okay, yes. So I would encourage members of the public to continue to advocate for the topics that they're passionate about, whether it's more housing or safety or uses. I feel confident that the board with the support of the city and its associates has done our due diligence around public comments around our scope of the board. So yeah, I'd also be comfortable passing a recommendation. Annie, Adam, how are you all feeling? I'm sorry, Adam, I didn't catch that.
[Adam Behrens]: I'd be comfortable too.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK.
[Ayni Strang]: Yeah, me too. OK.
[Peter Calves]: OK, so with that, I'm going to move to What's the formal term to what we're doing? Are we approving with recommendations?
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm looking for a motion to recommend approval of the draft zoning as revised with recommendations from the Community Development Board.
[Peter Calves]: All right, so moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm looking for a second.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: You can't second yourself, Peter.
[Peter Calves]: I didn't. That was Adam.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for the clarification. Adam, feel free to second anybody. So with that, we're going to do a roll call vote. Peter Calves? Aye. Annie Strang? Aye. Adam Behrens?
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. So with that, we recommend approval of the draft zoning as revised for the recommendations from the Community Development Board. Again, I encourage members of the public to continue dialogue around this, reach out to your city councilors. And yeah, thank you all so much for your just commitment to making Medford just such a great place to live. really appreciate everybody's time this evening. Alicia or Danielle, is there anything else we need to do around this to make sure we're kind of putting a bow on it?
[Hunt]: messaged Emily to make sure that she felt confident. We may need to review the video to capture all of the recommendations and write it all up. I expect, I think this is usually Danielle's process, but we're gonna ask Emily's team to package it all up so that what we're sending are the changes from the original that was referred out by the city council. And then I think that we usually run all the, like a decision by you. We will definitely send you the document so that you can read through it and make sure that you, we heard you like, cause we're going to take the words said verbally and put them on paper.
[Emily Hedeman]: And it sounds like Peter also took some notes. So Peter, if you can share those with Alicia and Danielle. That would be cool.
[Peter Calves]: Sure, yeah. I took my regular, well, for what a lot of developments would be, my condition notes.
[Hunt]: Awesome. Thank you only tough thing is it just so you're aware we are trying to move it. We're only trying to move it quickly because the city council continued till next Tuesday, which is the 11th. Okay, if we don't get it to them for their ability to vote next Tuesday, it goes out another two weeks. And they, you know, we just don't want to drag it out forever. Okay. But Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I also want to extend a thank you to Emily and Pella for your very thorough process. I think you've made this much stronger. Appreciate your responsiveness to the board, to the city, to the public. I look forward to seeing how this all works out.
[Innes]: Thank you very much. And we appreciate your time. effort and energy and also the people who spoke today. I think all the voices are making it a much stronger process. So we appreciate people taking time out to to share their thoughts, their concerns and you know where they think we've gone right and where they think you know the zoning needs more work. So really appreciate them.
[Emily Hedeman]: And the last thing I'll say to members of the public is that a couple of us on the board have our terms coming to an end or expiring the middle of this summer. So I'd encourage anybody that's super passionate about this work, super passionate about Medford to apply for community development board positions. I've been doing it, I think for three, four years. It's super rewarding. Yeah, I don't know if Peter can speak to it too.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, we're coming up on two years. I'm one of the people whose terms are up in June.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to make your money back. But we all owe the city of Medford a great debt for being a great place to live. And hopefully, we can all do what we can do to make it better. So fill out those applications. We'd love to have some of you on the board. Cool, all right, so our next agenda item is minutes. We have minutes from the 15th and the 5th. I'm gonna look for, well, first of all, are there any comments from members of the board on those meeting minutes?
[Ayni Strang]: I don't have any. Okay. They look great.
[Emily Hedeman]: City staff has been doing a great job with those. Thank you so much. So what I'm going to look for is a motion to accept and approve the two sets of meeting minutes for January 15th and February 5th.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll make a motion to approve both sets of meeting minutes for the 15th and February 5th.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Annie. Looking for a second.
[Adam Behrens]: I'll second that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Adam. I recognize it. All right, so we're gonna do a roll call vote. Peter Calves. Aye. Annie Strang. Aye. Adam Behrens. Aye. Myself, Emily Hedeman, aye. So the next agenda item we have is zoning updates. Seeing as we're rapidly approaching 11 o'clock, I'm just going to ask city staff if they have any quick high-level updates.
[Evans]: Madam Chair, the residential zoning was voted out of committee last week. Was that right, Alicia? And so we'll be going to city council to be referred. So that will be the next coming before you.
[Hunt]: You got a little bit of a taste tonight. That and the change in the MBTA zoning. Right. That's next.
[Evans]: That's next meeting, actually. Okay. Yeah, well, we have public comments.
[Hunt]: It's a very, it's a very minor change to the MBTA zoning that is being proposed by one of the property owners and we are in supportive of it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Awesome. So with that, I am looking for a motion to adjourn. Unless, is there any other business? No, seeing none. Okay. I'm looking for a motion to adjourn.
[Adam Behrens]: I'll move to adjourn.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm looking for a second.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. We'll do a roll call vote. Peter Kalbst. Aye. Annie Strang. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, Emily Henneman, am also an aye for the adjournment. Thank you to city staff for your tireless effort and support in these issues. We could not do this without you. And thank you to members of the public for coming out. Peter, anything else? No, no. No, drop the mic. All right, have a nice evening, everyone. Thank you.
[Ayni Strang]: Have a good week. Bye.