AI-generated transcript of Planning and Permitting Committee Meeting via Zoom

[Kit Collins]: Hi, everybody. We're going to get started in just a couple minutes. We are just waiting for a couple more committee members to join the Zoom. Thank you. All right, we have reached a quorum of this committee. I know Councilor Leming is not able to attend tonight due to his military service. Hopefully Councilor Scarpelli will be able to join us. But in the meantime, we can get started. One second, please. All right, there will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permitting Committee, May 14th, 2025. This meeting will take place at 6 p.m. by Zoom only. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready, please call the roll.

[Unidentified]: President Bears? Present.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan?

[Micah Kesselman]: Present.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Lenoki is absent. Councilor Scarpelli, I believe, is absent as well, but I don't, I'm just going to call his name. I don't see him. Vice President Calls.

[Kit Collins]: Present. All right. Three present, two absent. The meeting is called to order. The action discussion item for this meeting is, once again, paper 24-033, Zoning Ordinance Updates with the NS Associates team. This is the 25th Zoning Updates project meeting that we've had with NS Associates in this committee. The topic for this committee meeting, we are beginning a new part of our zoning map tonight. This will be a preliminary discussion on what we're calling the, quote unquote, other corridors part of the map. Before I hand it over to Paola for the substantive presentation that she has prepared, just want to quickly set the table with what do we mean when we're talking about some of the other corridors in the city. In no way is this intended to rank the importance or centrality of any of the corridors in the city. We certainly have a lot of them. Earlier in this process, we rezoned two very prominent large corridors in the city where there was a lot of active development pressure. That's why we moved those earlier in the queue. That being, of course, Mystic Avenue Corridor District and Salem Street Corridor District, now both ordained. At this point in the process, at the same time as working through several other proposals we are applying a lot of the same zoning principles to a batch of other smaller main drags and thoroughfares in the city to make sure that they also get a tailored approach that's right for well corridors a mix of potentially higher density residential and mixed use that is appropriate for these places where there might be increased transit access a lot of existing density existing mixed use existing ground floor commercial activation. Tonight we're going to be talking about High Street in between West Medford and Arlington, Harvard Avenue, parts of Boston Avenue, Main Street and South Medford, and the Broadway Corridor District. And I do want to make really clear up top, this is not the meeting where we're going to be reviewing a draft of Tufts Institutional Zoning. I think the plan is to begin reviewing that draft on May 28, but the zoning consultant is going to spend more time reviewing that zone and resuming and reviewing the feedback from the May 1st community forum before that draft is presented. At this meeting, we'll also begin talking about the neighborhood nodes strategy, wherein we can put kind of a really tailored amount, small amount of commercial activation or allow a small and tailored amount of commercial activation into the fabric of the residential parts of the city. With that, I know Paola is going to go into a lot more detail about all of these topics, so I'll leave it there unless any city staff or committee members have anything they'd like to say before we dive in. And seeing none, Paola, go ahead. Thank you for being here.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you, everyone. Madam Chair, if I may, I will start to share the presentation.

[Unidentified]: So, as

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Vice President Collins said, we are starting with a new topic. This means that we are just bringing some ideas and that we expect from city staff, from city councillors and from the public to give us comments and so that we can build on a draft for the next time. So just a brief introduction of why are we here, what are we doing, a bit of the process timeline. We are doing several parts of the zoning at the same time in different parts of the process. So we try to give the updates of when new dates for meetings, et cetera, how are going. Then we will go into the analysis and previous versions that we have been working on, on those different topics. And then we will go into the other corridors and this neighborhood commercial. bringing that idea. So what are we doing here? This is a long, it's been a long process and continues. We've been for more than a year doing this. And basically what we're doing is taking the everything that was done, all the principles about zoning that was done in the comprehensive plan. that was published in January 2023 and also from the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan that was published on April 2022. We took all those principles and strategies and goals that are related with zoning and we are going through the zoning and trying to pull those together and update the zoning with these principles in mind. From that comprehensive plan, there was this vision map that you see here. So they divided the areas in the corridors, squares, civic and institutional areas, and then the residential from low to high density. And we have taken a similar approach. So we are taking this corridors individually, the squares individually, all the residential districts, and the institutional districts, and then making different proposals. Of course, a lot of time there is a back and forth, so we are updating things as long as we go with the other topics. Some of these are specific and some of the principles are also to be applied citywide. So how this process works is that first we bring a topic as we are going to do today with the other corridors to the city council to this plan and permitting committee meetings. We hear from the public, then we go to the city council again, planning and permitting committee meeting, and we present those changes and the draft for the zoning. And if they agree with it, they will refer it to the CDB, which is the Community Development Board. So that topic that was referred from the city council goes to the city board. It is presented. Again, we hear from the public and comments and the city board takes recommendations from the city staff or from the public. And they also referred back with their recommendations to the city council. And then finally is voted on at the city council again at that last moment also public comments. are being taken. So in every part of this process, we hear from the public and we adapt and recommend according to what is being said. So your participation in this process is very, very crucial and important. So for the planning and permitting committee meetings, you will have them all these dates in the web. So in the events calendar, you can see when the public, when the planning and permitting committee meetings are. And so in each one of these meetings, we are presenting topics, discussing about all this process. So today, May 14th, we are talking about other corridors. In May 28th, so the next meeting, It's going to be about other corridors again, so we will bring a draft and we will discuss as well Medford Tubs. In June 11, it will be parking in TDM and this is a citywide recommendations and we will see Wellington after that. Um, so community development boards, so everything that gets referred from the city council goes into the city board. Um, and right now we are at, um, sorry, there is a little bit mistake here because in May 21st we will be, uh, continue with residential districts. So sorry for that, there is a typo there. So the next one will be May 21st and we will continue with the discussion of the residential districts that we've been doing in the last, it's going to be the fourth meeting about this topic. The scores and ADUs were referred from the city council, but it will become next to the city board. And then we have the public meetings. The next two that we are doing is in May 29th. We are doing exactly this topic, other corridors. And then in June 9th, we will present a very of the current situation. We want to hear from all of you. What do you think or what would you like to see as in the parking regulations and transport? management. So here's a little bit more by topic and all the different steps. This meeting, this slide should be on the on the agenda or it will be in the web so you can look at it more carefully. But it's the same, just in a different way. Because we are starting with the other corridors, we see here we are in the first step. And then the next one, next meeting, we will have the other corridors again, et cetera. So the next steps will be added as long as we know for sure what are we going to do in the next meetings. So more on the topic. So we have some, sorry. So this is the last proposal for the residential district. As I said before, we are doing some back and forth. We are doing the residential districts, also looking into the corridors and some things will fit the others. So some things can, especially in the edges, can change and shift a little bit. So this is the latest that we present on the city board the latest update map for the residential districts and these are all the non-residential only districts. So we are talking about corridors. We have the Mystic Avenue that was a very generic corridor. And then we have the others, more neighborhood corridors that are, we did Salem Street. We talked about the squares already. So Medford Square and West Medford. And we are now doing all those other corridors like Main Street, Harbor Street. We will also look into Broadway and Boston Avenue. This was the very first proposal for the commercial framework. And now we have a more updated version. This is the one we brought together all the residential districts with the approved districts for Salem Street and Mystic, the latest updates on the squares. And right now, this was only the framework. And these are the ones that we will look into today, these corridors. and which ones those are. So we are looking at Boston Avenue, Main Street, Broadway, Harvard Street. And then in Medford West area, we are looking into High Street and Boston Avenue. So we always start with what is there and what is in your current zoning, so what is allowed right now. So what we have, and this is where we are going to focus today, these are the areas. And what we have are these districts right here, we are going to zoom in a little bit. And so what we have is some areas with commercial 1, commercial 1 is allows residential building up to 6 stories by right commercial building up to 4 stories by right and other permitted structures to 15 stories by right. So wherever you see this pinkish areas, we have some in Boston Avenue, we have between Harvard Street and Main Street, we have already that existing. And along Broadway, we have some of those pink areas that are commercial one districts. Then we have apartment one, and that is a little bit more Salmon kind of color. Residential building up to three stories and commercial building is not allowed. And what we see is that, for example, in Main Street, we do have existing commercial buildings, commercial uses that in this area, it's not allowed with this current. with this current district. Then we have industrial that are permitted building, industrial buildings up to two stories. Office two, that's this very magenta kind of color, very flashy pink. And those permit six stories by right. Then we have the orange, that's general residential is single unit, two unit, and right now the ADU will also be allowed, and some more yellow single family that we see mainly in West Medford High Street area, that is single unit dwelling and ADUs. This is your current zoning. This is what is existing in the zoning right now. And there are some issues with what is there as, for example, the uses that a lot of these commercial uses that are existing are not allowed within your current zoning. So this is a little bit more of in-depth. Your zoning is a little bit different from others in the sense that it's not the district that regulates the standards, the dimension standards, but within the district that are different uses and the uses regulate different dimensional standards. So here's a little bit more in-depth of all the dimension standards that are currently in your zoning. And if you want, we can talk about that later. We're just going to go with the proposal. But if anyone has any doubt, we can go back to the tables and answer any questions. So this is a proposal. Again, this is where we are. I'm going to zoom in the area that we're looking for. And what we have is we propose these different uses. And so we have mixed use 1B, mixed use 2A, mixed use 2B, and then we go to urban residential 2. So this is mainly the districts that we are using in this area. These are districts that we've been using on the squares mainly. So if you've seen and are familiar with the squares, these are the same dimension of standards and the same industries that we are using there. So mixed use 1B, and that is the lighter blue color that we see on Boston Avenue in some areas, on Main Street, and then on High Street, which usually is where we already have the commercial use. So there are existing buildings that are having that use. So we have mixed use 1B, which is four stories by right and allows another one. So up to five with incentive zoning. Then we have mixed use 2A, and this is five stories by right plus two with incentive zoning, so seven with incentive zoning. Here we see it's this more bright blue. We see it also in Boston Avenue. We don't have any of this in the corridors in West Medford. We do have this more in the core of the square, but we don't have it in the corridors. of High Street and Boston Avenue, West Medford area. We do have them at the south of Boston Avenue, almost with Broadway, mainly because existing that are already buildings of five stories high. And in Broadway, we also have, and also in Broadway, there is a study that has been done by Medford and Somerville. So we took from the views of that study asking for, that they could go up to six stories by right. Somerville right now allows four stories by right. They are in this mid-rise four zoning, but the discussion and the community was asking for that up to six stories, so we have five plus two that could be with incentive zoning. We can obviously discuss about that. And then we have several areas, usually it's in crossings. We have Harvard with Mystic, which already as your current zoning allows six by right. So what we're doing is having five by right plus two with incentive zoning. And then we have in front of the park in some areas where we have crossings. And, um. Where we think that there is enough depth to go up to 7 and being able to decrease then towards the. That we are able to have a transition towards the. The residential neighborhoods, we allow for that. Height of the mix used to a. If the area is not that deep, then we go to the mixed-use 1B, so four stories by right plus one incentive zoning. And then we have mixed-use 2B that is pretty much located in one area, what you have right now as office two. And we allow seven stories by right plus two with incentive zoning. These areas are quite big lots. Also, the rail tracks are going along that area. So we want to provide, if there is a future T station, in this area that could give us flexibility to be able to up zone, to be able to build some residential buildings in that area. And there is enough space to transition towards the residential districts. And then the rest is mainly urban residential too, and this allows townhouse, three-unit dwelling, multiplex from four to six, multiple-unit dwelling plus six, so there is not a cap on the units, the residential units. And then ADU for one, two and three unit dwelling. The one and two are not permitted as new, but will be protected by the zoning and by general law. And so those could have an ADU. And this could go up to 3 stories maximum, and we are adding 1 as incentive zoning. So, all these urban residential 2 areas could go up to 4 with incentive zoning. By right would be 3. So we go now to neighborhood commercial hubs. It's not very long, so that's why I'm going to do it. It's just to present what they are and the strategy that we could follow. It's only two slides, so I'm going to just go directly into this so that we can comment all of it. So neighborhood hubs, For example, in Milwaukee, Oregon, they have these neighborhood hubs, and they call it as gathering places where residents have easy access to goods and services close to their homes. These zones are designated for small business, so we will have that arranged with minimum and also maximum surface that serve and are located near or within residential areas. This is mainly for those residential districts, not for the corridors. It could be, but not really for the areas that already have the surface, but more for the neighborhood areas that do not have easy access. that they would have to take their car and go to a specific area to do their groceries, et cetera. So to serve those neighborhood areas, we will designated this neighborhood commercial hubs so they could have easy access to small businesses. What businesses this could be? It could be convenience stores, coffee shops, dry cleaners, drug stores, barber shops, beauty salons, So anything that we need, not sometimes on the daily basis, but that are those services that are very essential for our daily lives. And that makes it a lot easier if they are within a walking distance. So this type of development can increase convenience for residents, reduce the need for parking areas and help create vibrant and walkable neighborhoods. And then neighborhood commercial zoning plays an essential role in meeting the everyday needs of residents while preserving the character of the community. We're not talking about bringing big buildings, super high buildings into residential areas, but bringing small businesses in house-like typologies or within a house that preserves the character of the neighborhood, but giving the possibility of having these type of uses. And how can we define them in zoning? We can do it through two different ways. We can make them as a base district. So all the districts that we are talking about are your base districts. So that means that whatever your parcel is located, you have a district that will tell you what uses you can do and what dimensional standards you have to adhere to. That is your base district. And then sometimes we also have overlay districts. And these districts will be sitting on top of your base district. And what you have is a choice of doing one or the other. And so these neighborhood commercial hubs, it could be that we select an area, very site-specific, and we say, here you have neighborhood commercial hubs, and these are your base district, and these are your uses, and this is what you can do. That would be one way. Another one is overlay district, and that means give the choice of. You are incentivizing them, but you're not making them mandatory, you make the choice. This overlay district can be done by two ways. We can do it citywide and just say, if you meet these characteristics, you can have this overlay district. So it will apply in a sense everywhere, but with a certain characteristics. And then what we can do is have already site-specific. So we choose where we want to see those commercial hubs, and we make them as a choice. So for example, we already locate areas like near parks, where that are already active and that would be very beneficial for people and residents to have these other uses. So we can already choose them and say, here you have the, these are going to be mainly in residential, right? But you can choose to build your NR3, for example, you can have a single family, you can have a two units, you can have a three units. in your base district. And in your overlay, you can have a business in your three units or a business in the ground floor and two units above. And these can be your dry cleaning or a cafe or co-working space. So very specific uses and very reduced sizes of those uses. So we want a very small scale, neighborhood scale. So that's where we are. We are also going to bring the idea of accessory commercial units. So if you have your, for example, three unit that it can have and like an ADU, an accessory building that has a very small cafe or has a small bakery or et cetera. So these things, we need to set the rules for those and the sizes and where they should be located, et cetera. So all the regulations that can go with them, but that's also something that we are exploring to bring. And right now, that's what we have. I'm going to stop sharing and hearing from all of you.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for the presentation, Paola. This is a great overview. It's a substantive overview. We kind of have two related separate topics that we're both seeing for the first time tonight, and we will come back to both of these. So if folks are just Digesting the presentation on or that know that more comments and questions will come up in the future. Don't worry. That's exactly the point of tonight just to introduce these topics and then revisit them in future meetings. So we were talking about this very initial draft of the other corridors throughout. the city. And then we're also talking about the neighborhood commercial hubs. And just to underline something that Paola said, we're talking about the neighborhood commercial hubs specifically occurring in the parts of the city where that are not already well served by commercial and residential being well woven together. So these would probably occur in different parts of the map, the corridors and the neighborhood commercial hubs. I have a few questions, but I will get to them after my fellow committee members. Councilor Callahan, please go ahead.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. I'm so excited about the neighborhood community hubs. It's been my favorite part of zoning so far of everything that we've done. And just my sort of initial thoughts about the types of businesses that would be there. And I think this is, I'm not married to this. I think it's totally up for discussion. But I would, I think with the concept that, These are going to be within a half mile of every home. Right. And so there's a there's a limited sphere of no parking right so the concept is really this is for people to walk to to make us a more walkable city. I think I would lean toward. choosing businesses that can survive on that amount of traffic. And by that, I kind of mean another way to think about it is that these businesses should be the kind of businesses that any one family might go to multiple times per week. So I think to me that means co-working. I want to make sure we get co-working in there. I didn't see it. I want to make sure that co-working is absolutely in there. Co-working, coffee shops, bookstores, kids activities. You know, I think there are places that, you know, laundromat, sure, but I think there are places where you might go multiple times per week. I think a store that people go to only once every three months or so, like perhaps, you know, a hair salon, and I could be wrong about this, so, you know, maybe people who know more about that particular business model, I think if their primary, if we have them everywhere in the city and their primary people are only within a half mile, they may not have enough business to survive, which is why I'm trying to think, like, what are the, what are the businesses, like a bakery, you know, like, I mean, we stopped by there, we walked by it every day on our way to school. And sadly, it means that I eat a lot of pastries because we can't help. We got to just walk in, you know, we got to get something. So I hope we can think carefully about the kinds of businesses that we think will survive and will do well if in fact they are within a half mile of folks and don't have parking. If it's truly like the design is that it's for the people who can walk there and we want to have small ones but scattered throughout the city so that everybody has their local ice cream shop, everybody has their local you know, co-working space, their local coffee shop, where they see their neighbors, and it really gives us this feeling of this neighborhood feel, where people get to know the folks that live within a half mile, mile of them.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you so much, Councilor Hellihan. I think it's a It's great to get exactly that type of first reaction out on the record at this point in the proposal. Going next to President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Hi there. Thanks for the presentation. I think it looks really great. Just two questions. One on the Broadway corridor. I know we have the five plus two. I'm wondering if we want to, I mean, I can see it both ways. So just going to put out there may be a discussion of like, if we want to align it with the Somerville, if Somerville intends, and that's maybe a communication we should have with them to go to the six that's in the recommendations from the kind of joint research about because all of those lots are split between both cities. I just want to make sure we align with them. Uh, and their intent, I, I kind of see it both ways. Like, I like the idea of the 5 plus 2, because then if they want to go to 6, then there's incentive. So, it's not that it's not aligned in that sense. It's just that there's more community benefit from the alignment. So. I can stick there, but also. If the folks are just going to go to the buy, right? I think that's an important discussion for us to have. And I just wonder about the alignment on the dimensionals to, you know, I don't know what they're intending over there. Um, if they're going to keep this same dimensionals, generally, is there for district? Um. So, just some thoughts on that. I think that's just an added level of. Complexity because of the coordination with the planning department. Um, and then on the neighborhood nodes hubs, whatever we want to end up calling them. I would lean towards node over hub because I don't know that they will be hubs in practice. I just think there's kind of different implications. Hub implies a level of traffic and gathering that maybe isn't going to end up being there, kind of to Councilor Callaghan's point, like it really is a foot traffic oriented a place for people to come and get some basic commercial services close to them but not necessarily a place where we intend to have big gatherings so it's just like totally word semantic and I know I'm just kind of going into that but that has been a part of I think our conversation and this whole process is how do we pick words that residents and property owners and people reading our zoning understand what they mean. So just a thought on that. But I am really interested in the different options around the base district versus the citywide overlay versus the site-specific overlay. And I'm wondering, you know, I'm really wondering how what you talked about, Paola, with the characteristics element, like how that constrains or allows, you know, in both ways, what can go where? Because I really think there are a lot of places that, you know, either pre zoning or pre the 60s zoning, like have these kinds of things. And then the zoning made them nonconforming. And those are the places where I think focusing the nodes discussion really works because we actually have, you know, I think we should identify if there are neighborhoods where that's really not something that happened and make sure that we don't leave them out. But I also think for the neighborhoods where it does exist, like that's where we should focus the nodes and. And I just wonder, of those three options, which of those allows us to do the most and like I'm not, I think the base district thing I don't want to have a million little base districts everywhere like I think that's an option that just makes things complicated. But then I worry on the overlay does the city wide thing, maybe. Expand this into places where it doesn't really make sense. Um, just because of how the characteristics conversation works. So. It pushes me into kind of the site specific overlay. Idea, um, but that also creates, you know. I basically, I'm saying, I think the overlay makes more sense than the base districts. But I wonder how does the city wide versus the site specific. Make sure that these are in the targeted places we want and then if we go site specific, what's our process going to be for identifying especially places that neighborhoods. Where we don't have this existing type of infrastructure. And, you know, community infrastructure, I mean. How are we going to go about that? So that's just kind of if we really think that the citywide with the constraints basically means that these are mostly going to be in the same types of places that we have those existing uses and things now, that's great. And if we can see how that works, that makes sense to me. But then if it's not, then I think we have to look at the site specific just to make sure, you know, there's not a weird lot or a few weird lots in certain parts of the city that would end up having this kind of thing allowed on them and then actually it doesn't make sense for whatever reason. The street can't handle it, or it's actually really close to something else. Like there's just some weird externalities. I'm sure in practice, even if we did it, like people are in the market and property owners aren't going to build things that don't make sense in some sense. I mean, I don't think that's a guarantee, but I don't think they're going to put like a, you know, convenience store in the middle of the Brooks estate or something. Right. That doesn't make any sense. Um, But I just worry that there's kind of an externality there depending on which direction we go. So I'd love to interrogate and talk about that, the model a little bit more and what approach makes the most sense. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears. Important questions to be bringing up at this part in the process. I'll recognize Director Hunt. Please go ahead.

[Alicia Hunt]: Hi, good evening. And just as an aside, I do want to mention and introduce that Christian, and I'm not going to slaughter your last name right now, is a new graduate student in our office who is very interested in zoning. And so I've actually already introduced him to Claire at Burbys, and he's going to be helping us with zoning. So I just want to say that as an aside. As I'm looking at the map, so one thing I'm trying to keep in my head, I didn't actually take notes the way I did last night. Um, we're present bears mentions the Broadway corridor, I think it would make sense for Danielle and I to reach out to our counterparts over in Somerville, and just ask them like what's their plan and what's on their radar. They're happy to have, you know, candid conversations about with us about what's what's happening to help us understand what makes the most sense. It does make sense to align our zoning as closely as possible to theirs, particularly for the parcels that are split into the boat into the two cities. So we can absolutely talk to them about what their plans are I will tell you that was what was in the. the document that came out of the Broadway Corridor Study, they're very much in alignment with that document, right? That document was very heavily influenced by outreach and communications and working with the public, and then how did that fit with, sit well with the staff. The question that I think is the open question is like, is that like a one year plan or like a seven year plan? That I don't know. We can ask them and I'm not sure that it matters because it would be nice for us to put in the zoning in place. If we knew that they were planning to go there in seven years, just do it now. Why do it? Why wait? don't come back and notice that they've changed their zoning and change zoning. So, I mean, there was so much outreach and study in that Broadway corridor that my recommendation would be to align with the Broadway corridor study. So that one piece. Overall, I've been kind of eyeballing some of this. There are a few places where I'm kind of like, why commercial there and not, why mixed use there and not residential? Like just residential and mostly that's coming out for so just as an FYI, there are actually multiple parks in our town in our city that have the name Brooks. So when you say Brooks Park, there are three different locations you may be referring to. So on this corridor on Main Street, the Brooks Park that is there kind of across from the Royal House, those are the two white splotches are the Royal House Park and the Brooks Park. I'm certain that's a Brooks Park. I'm curious why so much commercial mixed-use around. I don't have a strong feeling of it. It's one area that jumped out to me that is mostly resident, that is, I thought, completely residential, but we're basically taking the main street corridor and running it all the way up and down. I'm just noticing it. I did wanna sort of flip to the commercial nodes. My feeling on the commercial nodes is that those have grown organically in a number of locations in the city. Those locations should get this treatment. I'm leaning towards an overlay because I don't wanna force it on people. I don't wanna require mixed use in these residential areas. I wanna say that if a commercial use makes sense, let's go for it. And I think that we should look at what businesses are in these little areas and definitely allow those. And if we wanna go a little broader to encourage other things like the coworking, great. I'm very familiar up in North Medford where we have a corner store that also sells ice cream. It sells Kino, which may be part of what keeps it alive up there. And we have Jim's Market, which is basically I'm going to call it an old fashioned subs and French fries. They sell French fries and e-boys. We used to have a hair salon up there. I'm not sure why it closed, unless it was completely because the owner sold the property and the new owner made it all residential. There is also some sort of stained glass company up there. Not saying we should be encouraging something like that, but there is a very interesting little industrial building in the middle of Fulton Heights. And then looking down at Classic Cafe that's over right close to the park on Central Ave. And then I actually, through this process, became aware that there is a bunch of little businesses down and off the top of my head, I'm gonna say it's down in the South Medford area. And so we should be sort of saying, one of the things we don't have, I don't have it at my fingertips, is what are the current uses in all of these areas? I think that would be really useful for us to be looking at. And so that we're sort of looking at those as well. But there is a little corner with like three or four businesses down in South Medford in the middle of the residential area. I do think we should be recognizing those and making those allowable and maybe encouraging growth. I'd rather see four or five businesses in a corner in the middle of a residential district than one business here and three blocks later another business and three blocks later another business. I think they should be grouped together. which I think is what I've seen naturally occurring for the most part. So that's what I kind of wanted to flag on all of this.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Director Hunt. Very useful. I'll go to Paola.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. Madam Chair, if I may. So thank you for the comments. These are great comments. About the Broadway corridor, absolutely. It would be great if we can talk to Somerville and see what they are thinking. Right now, they have less than what is in the vision. And so they would also have to update their zoning with the vision. To us, it made sense to go in the Broadway to go up to that six stories high instead of pushing it to more on the back so that the highest buildings would be there. So we need to have that conversation with Somerville so that we can really be in the same line with the Broadway corridor. about the neighborhood hubs and the name, we can totally look for it. I think hub is more about that is a collection of, right, like it is a higher density of commercial in that specific area. So being just a group of, and that's how we've found them in zoning. But we can also look for nodes and we can change it to node. I think it's more like, it seems like a smaller scale. So that makes total sense for us. We are also thinking that not using it as the base, but to use them as overlaid makes a lot of sense. and we can look instead of doing citywide our recommendation will be study where do we want them where they are naturally occurring but also where do we think it would be interesting I think near parks and open space makes a lot of sense to have that group because then you have you profit from one activity and the other as well to have them group in smaller areas instead of having one here, two blocks away another. And so to have that activity more, even though we are not looking at a lot, we are looking at small areas. So it's not congested or anything, but to have a group, smaller groups together. So we are thinking also leaning towards overlay and being site specific. So we can study the criteria. We will look obviously the already naturally occurring where they are and how we can use those areas. And then if we need others where those could be. So we are leaning towards that strategy. And about the main street, we do have that bigger mixed-use in the beginning. Looking at the site, there are a lot of like in one block you have one business, in another block you have two, in another block you have another one, so it seemed when you have a mixed use district you can have only residential, it doesn't mean that you have to do a mixed building And just that, you can have a residential. We ask for an active ground floor, but you can have that mix. So we can look at it. And if we think that it's too much of that mixed use, we can reduce it and targeted areas where there is already existing businesses and living more the urban residential too. So we can totally look into that. And I think that's all my comments.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Paola. I have some questions and comments as well. I think I'm also going to go in semi-chronological order in terms of the order that the presentation presented them in. I also just wanted to note because I think Paola, you mentioned this in your presentation and for people paying very close attention, they would have noticed this, but just for anybody who might have missed it, I just want to make it clear. We're looking at this map with the various sub-district allocations, MX1B, MX2A, MX2B, et cetera, et cetera. The specific buy right and incentive height allowances are not necessarily, MX1 doesn't necessarily, on this map, doesn't necessarily mean what MX1 meant on another map that was already ordained earlier in this process. I just wanted to flag that. We are working on a new nomenclature just so that it's more obvious that the bi-right heights and dimensionals vary district by district, but I just wanted to flag that for people when you're looking at this map, make sure that you're also looking at the legend so that you're clear on what each color means for this map. And Paola, I noticed there were just like two tiny areas on the other corridors map that we just looked at that were not any of the four main sub-districts, but they were a green color. That's UR1, is that right? Okay, great. And we have that from other maps, I just wanted to confirm that while we were looking at it. in general. So I'll just go quickly through just my general impressions for this initial draft. I really like where this is starting. I think that this is the right starting point. And I think with every other zoning proposal, we've kind of started at this level. And then we've gotten a little more fine grained and a little more granular with every meeting. I think that's what we'll do here. We were kind of just having this discussion about Main Street in terms of why are some blocks mixed and why are some blocks residential. On High Street, I noticed that there was kind of that zigzag as you go across the street between Urban Residential 2 and Mixed Use 1. My assumption is that we're kind of giving that the same treatment as we did on Salem Street, where we're putting mixed use where there's already ground floor commercial and just doing residential on the blocks where there's just residential. Is that kind of roughly the strategy that you used on this first draft?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, as much as possible, yes. But we also want to have, there are some areas that would have only been residential, that if we think that could profit some businesses around, like for example, in front of the parks, that would be a good area to have some mixed use. We've placed that mixed use. some crossing, main crossings. So it's not exactly a Salem Street. Sometimes we extended it. And the reason is because it could profit from more activity or because as well mixed use allows residential buildings. So if they don't want to have a business, that's fine. You can do residential as well. It's just to have more possibilities.

[Kit Collins]: Great. All right. Thank you. That's really helpful. And I think that's another one of those helpful disclaimers that we probably don't say often enough is a mixed use building. It's not necessarily always going to have. It can just be a residential building. We don't say that often. Just kind of swinging through the map, I thought the proposal for the Boston Ave corridor looked like a really good start. I know there's in our conversations about the zoning proposal for West Medford Square, we kind of naturally started talking about the area outside of West Medford Square. There was a lot of interest in kind of exactly this area, kind of on the northwest side of the river. People saying, well, there's a lot of ground floor commercial there already. There's restaurants. What about those? That's not a purely residential area. So I was happy to see that. designated for MX2A in this draft. I think it makes sense. That's a really, you know, I know that's a place that people really, that people really know and love for going out to eat and getting takeout. I think that makes sense, especially given the treatment that's been proposed for Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, COB): Harvard right next to it happy to see a higher intensity use proposed for the cummings property and the whole foods Plaza what's currently go to over there, I think that makes a lot of sense. Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, COB): um. We've had a lot of discussions about a higher intensity residential for Harvard Avenue. So I think that really makes a lot of sense. Throughout this zoning process, we're talking about proposing zoning that reflects what's already on the ground and incrementally allows a little bit more residential density everywhere that it makes sense. And I think that allowing urban residential, too, around a lot of Harvard Avenue Main Street, which is my neighborhood. It does that because there's a lot of high intensity residential there. We want to want the zoning to reflect that and allow it to go just a little bit further or allow the option of going a little bit further over time. getting further towards part of South Medford. Again, I think this proposal for Main Street, I think it's pretty bold, but I think it's the right place to start in. I spend a lot of time going up and down Main Street, and it's true, there is a lot of small scale commercial scattered up and down. I think it makes sense to reflect that as we have been trying to do all across the city, where we have ground floor commercial, we should take that out of nonconformity, make it doable by right. And I don't need to restate everything that's been said about the Broadway Corridor District. I live right by there, and I think me and all my neighbors are excited for the very long, vacant buildings that are victims of being subject to two different zoning laws being able to develop and operate under just one set of rules. So swinging quickly into the neighborhood commercial nodes or hubs. I don't have a strong feeling at this time about what word that we use. I think probably people, different people bring different connotations to either of our options here but I'm glad we're being thoughtful about it. I'm hearing that most people who have a preference at this time are preferring site specific overlay, as opposed to a citywide overlay. or base districts. That's my preference as well. I would be concerned that applying base districts would make our zoning map quite complicated. Of course, zoning necessitates a certain level of complexity, but I think having these really small zones in many, many places throughout the neighborhoods would maybe be more complicated than it is helpful. But I also worry that with a citywide overlay, we might see what could be a node just get very diffuse. And I think to me, the primary function of the neighborhood commercial nodes is to get useful services into the neighborhoods where people want them and use them in the way that we see people already using them in places where they exist. But it would be great if in addition, those could be clustered. So we do have these little corners like we're beginning to have in places like the Albion Triangle. where we have a little coffee shop and there's like some really small businesses and in South Medford Square, where you do see that cluster kind of jumping up organically in defiance of current nonconformity. So that would be my preference as well. And I think that the approach that's been outlined makes a lot of sense. I think that we just need to look at where these nodes are organically occurring in the community. Um, where are they like, what are the dimensions? What are the uses we could take that as guidance? I don't think we need to be constrained by that, but I think we should absolutely, our starting point should be what's there right now. Um, and I will be very curious to hear as we go forward, what those regulations will. include in terms of how we frame the criteria, like what are the criteria for the site-specific overlays? How do you get in that category? What wouldn't fit in that category? And how we will regulate this neighborhood commercial type of use. I know in the past when we've done neighborhood uses, we've thought about floor area, we've thought about number of employees, and I think that'll be a useful thing for us to talk about in more detail as we get further into this, like exactly how we'll be saying. This is a commercial use that's really more appropriate for a corridor or a square. This is the type of small scale use that's appropriate for a residential district. And here's the specific standards that we'll use to define that. Go to Councilor Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Yeah, I just have a question. I would love it if somebody could give like a slightly different definition of the different types of districts, like overlay, the two kinds of overlays. And like, I will admit, I haven't really understood how they differ in terms of our decision making and where they will allow the businesses and who can, you know, so if I can have like maybe someone take a stab at that explanation, that would be really helpful.

[Kit Collins]: I'm actually, if I may be so bold, I'm going to jump in first and then let Paola or Alicia correct me because this is also something that I struggled with. So maybe me as a person who had to put it into different words to understand it, we can convey something. My understanding is that Base districts, for example, we're looking at the zoning map just before, we're looking at what the, we're essentially looking at base district zoning for these different areas around the city. If we were to go with a base district model, we'd be saying, okay, this little area right over here, that's a district, and that's what you can do here and what size is. With the overlay, it's my understanding, and this is where I'm looking for Paola to correct me if need be. We don't put new areas and colors on the map. The existing zoning applies, whether it's corridor square, in this case, it'd be neighborhood. NR123, you are one or two. But there's a separate layer that rests on top of it and says, if you meet this criteria, then here are the zoning uses that you have access to that you can do in this zone. So it's kind of like a layer that rests on top of the existing zoning.

[Anna Callahan]: And if I can ask, is that still laying on top with very specific, like these plots of land, only these plots of land, or is it a little more lucid than that?

[Kit Collins]: I believe it has a geographic barrier. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Those are the two options. It's, it can either lay over a specific area or it could be everywhere. You have a citywide overlay district. So it overlays everywhere. And that's like an example of like, Some cities have created a citywide affordable housing overlay where it's like, regardless of district, if you want to build affordable housing, you get this, you know, 100% affordable housing, for example, you get this, but Paula can probably say more.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Alicia and Danielle, if you want, you can also jump in, but mainly that description is good. You have what you're looking right now, all the districts that we've said are those base districts, right? So you look at your plot and there is a base district, mixes one and tells you what you can do. Now, if we do an overlay exactly, we can do it citywide and say certain characteristics are able to trigger another district that you can choose from. So you can choose either to do your base district or the overlay. And that is not a specific geography, that is that if you meet these requirements, then you could choose that. And that is the citywide, right? We give, it has to be 250, within 200, sorry, within a quarter mile of the park. It needs to be within, I don't know right now, but there are certain decisions that will trigger that overlay district.

[Anna Callahan]: The one question I've been most curious about is, could one of those triggering things be, it is more than a quarter mile from the nearest neighborhood, other neighborhood commercial?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. So we have those, um, those characteristics in the ones that we decide. Um, now we can do that as well and do that analysis ourselves, bring it in and say, these are the locations. And so be specific. And that is when we say site specific. And so we decide this geographies and usually they have like a dash, like a line, um, a hatch on top of the base. They are usually the market on your zoning in your plans, in the map zoning. We already say these are the ones that can choose between their base district. Let's say here we will have neighborhood residential mostly. You can choose from that or this commercial. And so you can do these extra things with the commercial. And then it depends a little bit on how we set them. Sometimes if you choose one, you have to stay with that one and you can go back to the other one. So you have to continue that new use. But let's say that you have that choice in the beginning. So we can also bring the sets of rules on how does that apply. And when you choose one, what happens with the base district? So we can give that more information next time.

[Anna Callahan]: Thank you. That's super helpful. And kind of exciting, I think, if you know, include like artisan, like, I like that kind of what was a glassblower stained glass or something that exists, like if we include the sort of artisanal stuff there, then what's exciting to me is like, if it's more than a quarter mile from any of the nearest one, then you who could be a glassblower could, you know, convert your your first floor into an artisan's space, and then maybe next door it'll be a coffee shop, like allowing residents to use their own creativity to be able to use their spaces for these kinds of things, I think would be a lovely organic way to make this happen. Or somebody who loves baking. They'd be like, I'm gonna use my garage, it's gonna become a bakery. Wouldn't that be cool? It'd be super cool.

[Kit Collins]: Awesome. Thank you, Councilor Callahan. And yeah, I think that this kind of this topic of what does it just make obvious sense to allow by right and where do we want to go a little bit broader to allow a little bit more choice in what commercial could mean in this district. I know we'll talk about that more as we continue to just explore the accessory commercial units topic. But I think that we really should be thinking hard about those concentric circles. I think obviously most important, as we've discussed, is to make sure that it's easier to develop the commercial uses that people really want and some neighborhoods really need but haven't seen so far. But I do think that we should give a little bit of thought to these somewhat less obvious commercial uses that we don't that we don't see as apparent a need for, but there are really an apparent need for. And actually, since it's been brought up, I'll just say, I don't actually do a lot of advocating for my personal professional sector and city council meetings, but I think talking about maker spaces and studio spaces, allowing that by right within the fabric of our neighborhoods, I know from personal experience, but actually more importantly from constituent experiences would be very, very useful to not have that be disallowed in our zoning and so much of our zoning, especially since there is so little, studio space available in Bedford and many of our other surrounding metro communities. So I'll just put in a plug for that. And that's something that we'll certainly talk about more as we get deeper into this, that list of what uses to definitely allow by right and what of the kind of some of the more fringe uses that we might also like to allow by right in these districts as well. Any additional questions, comments from committee members or city staff on this initial draft of the corridors zoning or the neighborhood hubs or the accessionary commercial units? Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thanks. I just wanted to sort of mention that something that I noticed as I was looking at this, and so I had a knee-jerk reaction of like, wow, there's a lot of commercial, because mixed use, But what I'm realizing is that one of the things that we've talked about is wanting stronger commercial base in Medford. And if there are more places where you're allowed to choose to open a business or to redevelop a block to make it have ground floor commercial apartments upstairs, for example. then we are likely to get more, expand our commercial base. Because I am concerned that we have areas that have been traditionally very industrial, that as we're switching them to allow more residential, we're gonna lose some of our businesses in our commercial industrial base. But this is a way of sort of saying, we don't want big stinky old fashioned factories, we want a lot of smaller things going on here. and that I think that I just wanted to observe that that's what we're seeing here and that I like it. I'm also observing that there are a lot of places where it's not one parcel deep. When I zoom way in, that I'm seeing a lot of this as like two and three parcels deep, which allows them to assemble parcels to do bigger projects. Because if you're going to have height, like we were looking at a parcel, a larger parcel along Main Street, that would really like to do some ground floor commercial, some apartments, but they have to have parking. So there has to be space for a driveway to come in and enter the parking area. And so it means there's less space for commercial. I'm actually seeing this on Salem Street as well. because you have to have parking somewhere and there has to be a way to enter that parking. So you lose what I would think of as a commercial storefront to a driveway. So you kind of need to assemble some stuff to make it work because we're not ready to say you can be far up on Salem Street or in the middle of Main Street and have zero parking. Medford's not ready for that. The culture isn't ready for that. and street parking isn't enough. So I am sort of observing this, and I do think one of the questions that we would get as residents dig into here is, well, what happens if somebody actually wants to develop the parcel that's up whatever side street and not the front parcel? And so now are we saying that we're allowing commercial ground floor commercial on these side streets off of the main street? And Is that okay? Which it very well might be, but I think that that's the kind of thing people are going to say and go, that's my house. And you've just said that's in a mixed use zone. Right. So we, we need to be prepared for that. I mostly, I just wanted to flush out these observations so that people are thinking about these things.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, director Hunt. I think that's a really helpful. Go to Paola.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you. That's a great observation, Alicia. And I think that as we, for example, did in Salem, we give the incentives, et cetera, where more for the lots abutting the Salem street. And I think that we can do something like that in here where we have the lots that are abutting the main street are the ones that can really go higher. And then the others, in order to get the incentive, you get the 75% of the active business in the front. So that will trigger more the incentives towards getting that front parcel instead of going to the side. So we can Thank you for bringing that up. We can study a little bit more how to incentivize more than the lots that front Main Street and not the side lots.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you. Going back to Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, and a word that you said triggered something else that I remembered that I wanted to just sort of mention, and that I think this is the one of the appropriate meetings to flip, bring it out. So, on Monday, I had the opportunity to go to the Metro mayors climate event you may have seen it in the press. where Mayor Wu and Senator Markey spoke, and actually Mayor Brianna also spoke at that. It was very exciting, but I had some opportunity to chit chat. with some of the staff from some of the Metro Mayors communities. And one of the things Cambridge mentioned to me was some concerns that have been coming up in Cambridge about their rezoning around solar and how by allowing so much more height by right throughout the community, a lot of people who have already put solar on their buildings are very concerned that new buildings are gonna come up and shade their solar and ruin their investments, and how that's a big thing that they're looking at. It's a big concern they're hearing, and I did sort of play that around. Actually, Brenda Pike, our climate planner, was there with me, and so we talked about it a little bit, because there's also, you know, your neighbor's tree or your tree could grow and shade your solar, and now you don't have solar anymore, or you could be a one-story house with solar and somebody builds a two and a half right next to it. But I do think that it is something that is an active conversation there. And so, thinking about what are the heights, how are the heights impacting the other parcels. is a good thing for us to also be thinking about and looking at, because if the whole area goes taller, that's fine, but what if you already have your building and you have solar on it, and now somebody builds a five-story building next to you, and it's on the south side and it's shading your house now? What are your rights under that? I don't have great answers, but I did want to share that it's an active conversation one community over.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Director Hunt. Paola, go ahead.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, just very quickly. And that is the reason why we brought for the squares the development standard of the minimum daylight, so that we make sure that whoever will build certain story, and especially when we trigger that incentives, that they need to study that they are not affecting the existing And especially certain hours of the day that we have to to study a little bit more. So, thinking on that, and thank you for that.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: I raised that to Kimmeridge and one thought they had was Are are you allowed to do so part of it was the does it have to be that the property next to you is in a different zone. Like if you are both in so main street runs north and south right so if you're in the same mixed use zone and you're still a short building and somebody in the same zone builds a taller building can we have. standards that say you have to respect that shorter building, but then they could build up tall later, right? Is it only if you're between two different zones versus if you're all in the same zone?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, we will have to study that. For now, it was more abutting residential districts. So yeah, absolutely. We need to do some analysis, some sections, and see how that would affect, but absolutely.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Paola. I appreciate this being brought up. I know elsewhere in the zoning map, we've talked a lot about shadow. We've been looking at shadow studies in the various ways that that can impact existing development. I'm glad to hear solar brought up because we absolutely goals of increasing positive development and enabling solar and especially not impeding on solar that's already been resolved are you know, all goals that we hold at the same time. We want to make sure that we're not, I don't think those have to be in conflict. And to that end, it's good that we're talking about it now. And I did notice other places on the map, just even in this initial draft, where I assumed that there was a lot of thoughtfulness about shadow kind of informing what we saw at this meeting already, specifically where the tallest bi-rite heights were allocated along Boston Ave. I noticed those were abutting the tracks. which I assumed was intentional, so that that shadow would fall on the tracks and not on residences. So I'm sure that's something that we'll look into in greater detail as we go forward with this topic. I'm happy to hear it being brought up. All right. Is there any additional questions or comments that committee members or city staff want to put on the table right now? Otherwise, we can go to public comment, and then I'll just kind of recap some of what we heard tonight and our next steps for this topic. And maybe this can be a rare and delightful under two and a half hour zoning meeting. Any other comments from committee members or city staff right now? All right, seeing none, we will go to public participation. Everybody who would like to speak can raise their hand on Zoom. I'm just going to get my timer up. Everybody will have three minutes to speak. Great. So I'll go first to Judith. Judith, name and address for the record, please. You will have three minutes. Thanks for being here. Right, I'm clicking the Ask to Unmute button.

[Judith Weinstock]: Oh, hi. Sorry. Judith Weinstock, 144 Breguet. Good evening. Thank you for hosting tonight. I'm going to go right out there and say, boy, am I confused. So I'm looking forward to having the documents on the website. And I thought that I looked and I didn't see them there. Are they there now, this proposal?

[Kit Collins]: Um, I don't think they're on the city council's public portal yet. We just received them today. They will be up there by tomorrow.

[Judith Weinstock]: Okay. And will they're up there? They are. I looked earlier today and I hadn't seen them. But I will. Can we zoom in on those? Is there a feature to zoom in to see more city street names?

[Kit Collins]: Um, I don't believe on the maps. that are available tonight. I think what you see is what you see. But in the future, there'll be more detail added.

[Judith Weinstock]: OK, because I think I'm going to have to study them. And Paolo, I'll wait to hear what you have to say, too, about that. I'm going to have to study them in a lot more detail because I'm real confused. Sad, but true.

[Kit Collins]: Are there any further questions or comments you wanted to put out there at this point? One more time. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Judith. Paula, did you have a direct response?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, totally understand. And we are also working on the interactive map. So we will tomorrow bring this districts in the interactive map. So you can also look at there and that is a lot easier than than in here. Because we have what we have, we cannot zoom in and see other street names pop up. But we the presentation will be there and we will do the interactive map.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Pella. Thank you for mentioning the interactive map, which is on the city's zoning Web page already. So the presentation that we just saw tonight is not incorporated into that yet, but it will be very soon. I think that will be, uh. Probably the best thing for questions like these. Go ahead. President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Apologistic clarify if you on the interactive map, you can see street names, right? So that's

[Kit Collins]: All right, going next to Andrew. Name and address for the record, please. And you will have three minutes.

[Andrew MacRobert]: Hi there, Andrew McRobert, 63 Kenmere Road. I really like the subject to the neighborhood commercial because I see neighborhood commercial as the opportunity, a big opportunity for residents to invest in their own neighborhood and to provide the services that their immediate neighbors in streets and neighborhood need in the places that they need them. I see them as a great way to remove traffic. So I'd love for the uses that are allowed to, yeah, this has been brought up before, but yeah, I just want to hammer home that I really appreciate that the uses are being guided towards things that, yeah, you know, a family might go to multiple times a week, as I think Councilor Callaghan mentioned. to that. Things that would take cars off of the road, basically. I'm walking there instead of driving further out. Because there are some pretty homogenous residential zones in Medford that I would love to see more commercial in to reduce VMT. To But, of course, the other side to that is the commercial needs to be stuff that isn't attracting people from outside the neighborhood to drive their cars in, adding congestion. Sorry, I have a bunch of loose notes. It's not a clear train of thought here. Anyway, something I wanted to mention was that among the uses, I would love to see home daycares included. I think that. Oh, yeah. Also, in terms of parking and cars, I don't know if this is the purview of zoning, but maybe rather than parking minimums for these. These commercial or neighborhood commercial areas, we could have parking maximums or at the very minimum, no parking minimums. So that to really reinforce that these are walkable neighborhood, commercial neighborhood serving businesses. Um, and and yeah, just to reiterate, I, I, well, I would love for where this is the zoning to be as permissive as possible in terms of where these neighborhood commercial businesses can can grow organically. So that they can really meet serve the needs of the neighborhood rather than. Because we don't necessarily know where that's going to be in 20 or 30 years. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you very much for your comments. Andrew, go next to Micah. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Micah Kesselman]: Thanks. I'm going to just sort of like info dump really quick because I probably have to go really soon. But I'm Micah Kesselman. I'm at 499 Main Street. So this was really great to see as a presentation. Thank you. I live most of my life on one of the main streets under direct scrutiny here tonight. So one small thing that I noticed is that you have the intersection of And that's like mixed use zoning, which is cool, but that that. is, like, an area where, like, people who live around here have been constantly saying, like, is ripe for development. Like, it's a really perfect spot to, like, put some really cool commercial things there. But then in between that and Harvard and Maine, there's, like, this just straight residential block, which is just sort of weird. It just seems like you could make the mixed user continuous all the way to Harvard and Maine there to make that more, like, Like a South Medford square type sort of vibe to it. The other thing, though, on that topic in general, like Councilor Collins mentioned, Main Street is this sort of intermittent commercial use corner as it is, so that's why for those of you who aren't familiar with the street are probably are seeing this sort of like weird looking like body distribution of commercial, but it actually makes a lot of sense for Main Street in the way that Main Street is right now. And frankly, I think like you could honestly just make the whole thing like mixed use commercial and it wouldn't be like it doesn't have to be commercial, right? Like you said, so it wouldn't hurt any. I think it would do nothing but help things. The other thing I wanted to mention was that I love the idea of the accessory commercial units, sort of getting to the previous residents point about neighborhood commerce. I think that if you implement a very permissive allowance for accessory commercial units, you will effectively get the neighborhood commercial into the field as it is. So that could be a really great way to go about it. You know, this is a way that cities organically have, you know, for hundreds of years prior to the modern time, developed that way. And they were sustainable when they developed that way and were given the leeway to like these localized commercial endeavors. And then finally, the last thing I want to say in the remaining few seconds is that the Um, when it comes to solar, uh, 1. Approach that might be worth considering, um, and I'm giving it too much thought is. That you could require where there would be a shadow impact on an installed solar installation on a neighboring lot. The developer would be required to negotiate a commercial or negotiate a license to actually. That would do a couple of things. 1, it would address this issue. But the other thing is that I would actually incentivize people to put up solar much more often right now with the expectation in the future developers will want to negotiate some sort of commercial arrangement to enable. Higher development in their areas, and that's it for me only 1 minute over.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Micah, appreciate your comments and a relatively small crowd tonight so we can give people who needed an extra minute or so. Thank you for your comments. All right, going next to Cheryl, name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.

[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, Cheryl Rodriguez, 281 Park Street. So I just noticed a few things that really stuck out were when they were saying that some don't want the nodes to be an overlay because they don't want them to be in areas, quote, where they don't belong sounds kind of like a NIMBY attempt to keep some areas character that is prevalent in the zoning proposals that we have seen this far in any area outside of an environmental justice neighborhood. Some areas are being deliberately less dense and to have them be also excluded from neighborhood nodes seems to be really an issue that you should be having with your own goals. But, and Salem Street was very concerned about the shadows, the loss of solar panel efficiency, and just plain sunlight. And this was brought up by many, many residents, many, many times, and we were dismissed. There was no study. So I hope that now that you're considering this for other corridors, perhaps it'll be time to go back and study on Salem Street, because there is a good deal of sun loss that will be happening here on Salem Street. As many of you have said, even tonight, there is a lot of development pressure on Salem Street, and that will definitely impact our neighbors. And just last one thing is, it's been repeatedly asked of Innis to have their materials available ahead of time, so that people can look at these documents, so that we can have questions answered in real time when we're seeing these presentations, we still didn't see any zoning for ADUs, despite it being voted out of this committee. So there's a real lag in materials being given to the public so that people can have informed conversations. And I'm very concerned that it's not only continuing, but it seems to be worsening as time goes on. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: All right. Thank you for your comments, Cheryl. Um, all of the documents from our ADU, uh, discussions are available on medfordma.org slash zoning, um, including all the proposals that have been referred out of city council to the community development board. Um, I think we're all totally sympathetic to the fact that sometimes folks don't have the time that they need to, um, fully review, um, the meeting materials before the very first meetings on the topic, especially when we're all seeing this for the first time. Folks are always welcome to reach out to planning development sustainability staff or city councilors to state comments or lodge their questions. In the meantime, And the neighborhood context regulations for Salem Street and other corridors are intended to get at mitigating various factors, including the impact of shadow and height where it abuts neighborhood uses. Any other public participation on the topics we discussed tonight? All right, seeing none, if you think of anything, raise your hand. Thank you, Paola, for the introduction to these two topics tonight. So I understand that we will be talking about these again on May 28th, and we'll also probably be seeing a preliminary draft of Tufts institutional zoning for the first time on that date as well. So I anticipate for our next steps with the other corridors proposal, I think we're going to take a, as associates in consultation with city staff, we'll be taking a magnifying glass to all of these corridors, really dialing down on the details and looking at a lot of the questions and comments that were raised tonight, making sure that all of our initial sub-district assignments are where they should be, where they ought to be, taking into account those questions and comments. be looking deeper at criteria for the neighborhood nodes where we want to encourage those and taking guidance from where they're occurring organically and thinking deeply about how to define neighborhood commercials that we make sure that we're encouraging the type of uses that we want to see, thinking about the uses that should be by right and how we're making sure that they're at the scale that makes sense for neighborhoods. scanning my notes to see if there's anything else. We're going to be talking to Somerville to make sure that the Broadway Corridor District zoning in particular agrees with the zoning on the other side of the line. Any other next steps that we want to flag on these topics? All right. Seeing none, thank you so much for the presentation, Paola. Thank you to my colleagues, city staff, and members of the public for weighing in on this. And we hope that you will join us at the next planning and permitting committee meeting on this topic as well.

[Zac Bears]: Motion to adjourn.

[Kit Collins]: Second. Motion to adjourn by President Bears, seconded by Councilor Callahan. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready, please call the roll.

[Unidentified]: Present bears.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Council Callahan.

[Anna Callahan]: Yes.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Council Leming and Councilor Scarpelli are both absent. Vice President Palacios.

[Kit Collins]: Yes. Three in favor. Two absent. Motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you, everybody.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks.

Kit Collins total time: 25.86 minutes total words: 4009	Anna Callahan total time: 4.48 minutes total words: 776	Zac Bears total time: 6.36 minutes total words: 1085