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[Unidentified]: Mike check one, two, check one, two, two.
[Kit Collins]: Oh, Councilor Callahan, thank you, is going to be absent tonight, and everybody else is on Zoom?
[Unidentified]: You got us. Great. All right, then we'll begin.
[Kit Collins]: There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council Planning and Permanent Committee, May 28th, 2025. This meeting will take place at 6 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, second floor, Medford City Hall, 85 George P. House Drive, Medford MA, and via Zoom. Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, Councilor Callahan is absent. President Bears? Present. Councilor Leming? Councilor Scarpelli?
[Unidentified]: Present.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Present. Four present, one absent. The meeting is called to order. And I see that Councilor Lazzaro is also present as a non-voting member of this committee. Thank you all for being here tonight. The agenda item for this night's planning and permitting committee meeting is paper number 24-033, zoning ordinance updates for the Innes Associates team, as usual. This is the 26th zoning updates project meeting that we've held in this committee with Innes Associates. And this is the second of this committee meeting that we'll be spending on the other corridors proposal topic, as well as the commercial nodes proposed topic. Two weeks ago on May 14th, we had an initial planning and permitting committee on this topic. We reviewed some preliminary maps for the other corridors. which we will go over in detail shortly, but just to refresh people's memories, that is High Street between West Medford and the border of Arlington, Boston Avenue, with the exception of the large part that is cordoned off for the Tufts Institutional Zone, Main Street and South Medford, Harvard Avenue and South Medford, and aligning the Broadway Corridor with the Medford and Somerville Broadway Corridor zoning study. So tonight we are going to look at both of those topics again and review an updated proposal based on some feedback, questions, and comments that were raised two weeks ago. Are there any questions or comments from my fellow councilors or from city staff before I turn it over to Paola from NS Associates? Seeing none, I will turn it over to Paola.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. This is Paula Ramos Martinez, the Chief Resilience Officer from Innes Associates. I'm here with Emily Innis, President at Innes Associates. I will be guiding the presentation. And just in a few seconds, I'm going to share it. Perfect. So as always, we will do the very fast introduction of what are we doing here in this rezoning process. We will do a little bit of the timeline. Mainly what we are interested is in showing more that next meetings that are coming and just the bigger process timeline. We will look at the analysis of previous versions of the other quarters, but mainly focusing on the updates, which are not too many from the last meeting. We just have some sections that we would like to share with you. And then we are looking a little bit deeper into neighborhood commercial and presenting ACU accessory commercial units and see if that's something that you're all interested in it. So what are we doing here? Very quickly. We are coming after the met for comprehensive plan. We're looking at the zoning areas and applying those and bringing those into the revision of your current zoning. We're also looking into your climate action and adaptation plan. Um, this was done. What I'm showing here. This map is the vision that came out of the met for comprehensive plan, and we're using the same geographical sections to do the rezoning and going a little bit back and forth. Um, as you can see the there are the divisions of quarters squares, um, institutional anchors and then the residential from load into higher density. It's very important for us to show people when they have the possibilities to give their comments and opinions on this process. So, usually the process for any approval of any topic would go first to city council to the planning and permitting committee meetings, as we are doing today. Last time we presented the new topic of other corridors. Today, for example, is the second time that we come up after the planning committee meeting. And then at some point, not today, but next time, we'll be referred to the city board whenever everybody, all the parties feel comfortable with the proposal. And then on the city board you will also have the possibilities to comment on the proposal, the city bar board will vote on the topic, and then referred back to the city council. When is presented to the city council with the recommendations, if any, from the city board. people will also have the possibilities to comment and then it will be voted and that will be the final. So we have all these four different steps and sometimes even more because there are several presentations on each of these moments. So for example, right now, May 28th is the second time that we present the other quarters and the neighborhood notes. Um. We are still talking about the residential districts in the city board. And in June 4th, we're still discussing, but for now we have residential districts and the presentation of his squares and 80 years. public questions, q amp a's, we have tomorrow, may 29 other quarters will be presented. And then, June 9, we will be talking about parking and TDM process. So here you can see the next meetings. By chronological order, we would have the public meeting other quarters, the 29th so tomorrow at Tufts University Common Center. We have city board. The June 4. public meeting on the 9th. That is to be determined still, but it's about the parking and TDMs. And then we will look into the institutional district, Tufts University parking and TDM at the next planning and permitting committee meeting. So today we are not presenting institutional district of university. That was something that we had before, but we just couldn't have the time. We need a little bit more time to bring that into a draft. So it will come in the next planning and permitting committee meeting. Okay, sorry. So rectification, the ADU won't be presented on the city board on the June 4th. So it will be residential districts and the squares. So a little bit of what we've been doing. This is the residential district's latest proposals. This is all the residential neighborhoods without commercial corridors and squares. This was the bigger proposal for the framework that we presented in March 12th for all the commercial mixed-use areas. And this is the proposal together. We're going to look into the other quarters. And those are Boston Avenue, Main Street, Broadway, Harvard Street, and then only in Medford West area, High Street and Boston Avenue. These are smaller scale type of quarters. We also want to introduce. Well, we have already introduced that, but we want to make sure that people know that there is available and interactive map. It's been updated regularly, so we the latest proposals. It's very easy to use. You can look at the map layers. There is the legend. So there are the map layers, legend. There are some filter. So if people wants to really look in depth into what is going on, they can have some filters and then to have a lot of the information. If you click on each parcel, you would have that information of the existing lot dimensions, the zoning requirements that are currently in your zoning, and the proposed changes. So this would be the it's on the presentation. So if it's not shared already, whenever it's shared, you will have the QR code and also the link to to the interactive map. So this I'm going to go a little fast we did last time. But if anyone has any question I can come back to it. This is your existing current zoning. We are focusing on the quarters as we talked about. And these are mainly the districts that are in your corridors commercial one apartment one industrial office to general residential and single family one. in the West Medford area. So commercial one will allow residential building up to six stories by right. And those are anywhere where you see that pinkish area. You will have that I can zoom it in, maybe better. Yeah, sorry. So where you have those pink areas what do you have by right by now is residential building up to six stories commercial buildings up to four stories, and then other permitted structures, up to 15 stories. These all by right. apartment one. We have residential building up to three stories and then commercial buildings are not allowed. So for example, in Main Street, where we do have a lot of commercial area or commercial buildings, they wouldn't be allowed in your current. They are not allowed in your current zoning. Then it's industrial up to two stories by right office to up to six stories by right and then general residential and single family. General residential is single unit dwelling and two unit dwelling. Right now, because of the new law for the ADUs, there will be the protected use ADU. Um, so our proposal, um, would be to have this, uh, districts implemented. So a lot of mixed use so that we allow for that commercial, uh, ground floor use. Uh, so mixed use 1B, mixed use 2A, mixed use 2B, which it's really only, um, in the northern part of the towards Somerville on the Boston Avenue. Institutional district, this is the Tufts University district that we are working on as well. And then urban residential too, that's all the red areas. housing. Um this the urban residential to allows for townhouse three unit dwelling multiplex. This is in dwellings. Um sorry, buildings that allow for up to six units. Multiple unit dwelling. These are more than six units. Um. We allow So mix use. Let's go to the mix use districts mix use. One B. This is the light blue. We have in the northern part of Main Street in the narrower areas of Boston Avenue and in West Medford High Street. high street area. And this is four stories by right, and it can be with incentives zoning. And this to remind people, incentives zoning is when the developer negotiate, air quotes, negotiate with the city and the community, some benefits. And we have some, a table of benefits that could be done for the community. So if they do any of those, they can apply for one story in the Mixius 1B. Mixius 2A, it would be five stories by right, plus two with incentive zoning. This will be up to seven, but by right is five. And Mixius 2B, it will be seven stories by right, plus two with incentive zoning. Very limited in the north part of the Boston Avenue towards Somerville. I'm sorry, this will be easier. So this is basically the how it was last time. What we did by now was to bring a little bit of that section study or section analysis that we like to do just to check that those heights that we are proposing are feasible and are respectful with the street and that is comfortable and intense enough. And that is exist coexisting with what is there already. So for example, this is in Main Street. We there is a very new apartment building. And so we just kept it at this point is three stories. It could go higher, but it's quite OK as it is. But in front, we have a commercial building that at this moment is not allowed because it's not permitted by the current zoning. So in this way, we would permit this to have a ground floor commercial and then residential on top. It can go up to four stories high. Um, then a little bit, um, towards, uh, the... Sorry, what is the... This is Main Street with... This is the South Medford Fire Station. Yeah, the fire station is in here. Yeah, this is Tufts Park, exactly. And then we have Main Street. There are some parking area and then some buildings, commercial buildings. So what we can do is really go quite high in here, because there is the park, and it's not actually bothering any neighbors, so we can really intensify this area. We always propose, and so these are not projects or proposals, these are things that could happen with this new zoning. It's not mandatory to follow any of this. So we are just proposing what could potentially happen here. And so we always advise to have commercial on the ground floor towards the activist street and parking on the back, in this case, towards the alley that is behind. This is Main Street and Harvard Street, so that crossing where we have some commercial buildings. There is not a lot of depth in this area, so going up higher than four, it's a little bit complex. They would need to do something with the parking or start combining a little bit with some other parcel to be able to go quite higher. But at the moment, these ground floor are not permitted, so we want them to be permitted. I think in this specific area it is, and by right is six stories, so we are not really increasing a lot. But again, we propose always, if it's surface or built parking, that it's always up to the back of the lots. And this is in Harvard Street and Yale Street. This is a very big block that is for parking and multifamily. I think these are like townhouses. And we're just proposing that it could have two ends to have to be built up to both the streets, residential only, and then to have two layers of parking if needed, but that it could be more densified if there is a structure parking in between. It could be one layer if that is enough, or it could be up to two. We just want to bring different ways of dealing with parking. Sometimes being completely underground is very, very expensive to do in all New England area, but Medford as well. So sometimes the suggestion is going just half under and then half up. So that is not that expensive and that it can be, if it's one layer, it can be an access public space. But yeah, so we're just trying to bring different options. Boston Avenue, this is the very narrow area. So here, again, dealing with parking, it's a little bit complex. It would be advised to be more of a shared kind of parking with the buildings in this block. Sorry, one second. Okay. And then here we have, and because it is as narrow, we have four stories and then one incentive zoning, which is quite okay in shadow study. Okay, yeah, I had a problem then, sorry. Yeah, the internet just kicked you off. Yes. I can do the hotspot. Maybe it works better.
[Kit Collins]: Sorry, we're just pausing for technical difficulties. Take your time, Paola.
[Alicia Hunt]: She's in the waiting room of the Zoom.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: OK. I think I'm back. I'm going to share again. I'm going to send a request. So, um, yeah, so we were talking. Thank you. Sorry for that. sometimes with a full screen mode, I get lost of what is going on. So here we have always existing and then under the proposed, here was in Boston Avenue because this area is quite narrow to feed parking and the building itself is a little bit complex or a little bit complicated. So here we have that mixed use 1B so that we have four by right and then the extra, one extra with incentive zoning. Then in the next block, because that depth is a lot wider, then we go up to mix use 2a, and so we can go up to 5 by right and then plus 2, so up to 7. Again, always try to activate the street and place the commercial up to the street and the parking behind. So basically, the map was, we didn't hear any big remarks, any kind of big questions about what we presented last time. So we just continue with that analysis of the main, of these other corridors. I will start right now with neighborhood commercial notes. So maybe it's better if we can comment on this one and then continue.
[Kit Collins]: Yeah, I think that makes sense. Thank you so much, Paola. And for folks who weren't here two weeks ago, the proposed map that we're looking at is the same. Augmenting our discussion this time are these new cross sections to help us understand just purely the height dimensionals on what is proposed under this draft proposal. I will go first to President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Just two comments on this. One, on that Canal and Arlington area, I just think that the area that's bounded by Canal Street, Arlington, Boston M and the river, so not just the triangle area that's NR3, but also that other area, Um, I think it's worth looking at that being at our start. Yeah. And our 3 as well. Um, right there. Yeah, just because again, the access issues, the river question and the recent. Uh, less than recent now, but the fire. Back there, it's just a really tough area. Um, it shouldn't have been built out like that. So I think even the Boston parcels. We should look at, um. the district on that. So that's just one comment. And the other one is just on PDDs. I know we'll probably come back to that, but there are two PDDs in this district area. So what's currently a UR2 at Waukling Court. So this area right nestled up next to the train tracks around that makes use 2B. It's that the UR2 to the northeast of that. That's a PDD a little bit to your right. a little further over by the Whole Foods, the other side of the river. Yeah, so that district there, that's with the big circle in the middle, that should be the PDD. I can't remember which number PDD, but that should be one of the approved PDDs. And then also 100 Winchester Street, which is way down towards the bottom of the map, right near Broadway. We just need to make sure to include that PDD as well. So those are my two comments. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, President Bears, for flagging those. Let's make sure to, when we get this draft, when we see the next version of this draft, thank you for the flag, we'll make sure that the PDDs are noted as what they are. Go ahead, Director Hahn.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanted to sort of make something clear about how the PDDs work and the zoning. So the planned development districts are overlays, so they have to have underlaying zoning, and they need to be exercised within two years of being approved in order for them to be used, or they need to be extended. I believe Walkling Court and 100 Winchester, if they haven't actually pulled building permits are very close to. So they're intending to exercise those, but we still should have underlying zoning for the long term on that. Those are one and three. PDD2 is on Mystic Ave, so it's not under discussion today. But an example is that that one looks like it's going to expire without anybody pulling a building permit. And so then the zoning will revert back to the underlying zoning. which is now an updated new zoning that we did. So I just wanted to sort of be clear, we should mark them on these maps, but we're not approving or adopting them as part of this process. And we do need, I would say, I would argue coherent underlying zoning under it using the new terms, we shouldn't orphan a piece of like GR zone because it happens to have a PDD on it right now. Great, thank you for that clarification. I think that's helpful.
[Zac Bears]: I totally forgot those were overlays of that base districts. Thank you for mentioning that.
[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you. So that just to put that another way, the PDDs are planned development districts, which are, I would say, specialized zoning. Feel free to rephrase that. City staff or planners, if that's inaccurate, that are negotiated with the development proponents. But through this process, when we are crafting underlying zoning for these districts, it's not that we want to fail to zone. It's not that we want to omit the zone that has a PDD on it. We should conceive about this as what we want to zone this as if a PDD did not exist, which it does. Do you have a direct response, Director Hunt?
[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanted to follow up on President Bears's other comment to make sure we were clear. The area he was talking about is pretty small. And so I'm wondering this one, Paula, how hard is it? Can you zoom in on that or not? Sorry. Because so what is currently there is suggested, I believe is, I don't even remember what the green is. is you are, one, on the right side of the road as we're leaving the river and going towards West Medford. And then there's a very small mixed-use zone across the street there at the river, because that first floor is all mixed-use at the moment. It's all commercial. And so I just thought we should be clear what change Councilor Bears was asking for, or if this was reflecting it, because I think that green is actually the lowest scale we have anywhere on this map. That could go to NR3, but that's facing Boston Ave and then across the street. I assume you're not suggesting that that commercial district shouldn't be?
[Zac Bears]: No, no, no. Yeah, so you see, I mean, my suggestion, for simplicity's sake and given the possibilities of what could happen, would be that those UR1s, you know, we have the, see that Canal Street kind of comes down and then merges with Arlington Street. And everything we have between the tracks and canal and the river on the right side of that is NR3. And then we have some of these weird parcels at the very end of Canal Street, Um, that those, those definitely I don't think should be in the corridor and called. And you are 1, I think those should align. And honestly, I also think that, um, you know, it might be worth taking kind of what. For lack of a better term, this left triangle here. The entire thing, including the Boston fronting parcels. And leave that in our 3 as well, um, because it's just a strange area and. You know. Maybe the Boston Ave parcels from an access perspective are different, but just knowing some of the details of what happened around there, it's just a difficult area. So maybe for simplicity's sake, everything within that triangle being an R3 would make sense, but certainly those two kind of back parcels that are more abutting on Canal than are abutting on Boston Ave, And then I think this stuff on Arlington that's technically in the residential district but is labeled you are one kind of at the, for lack of a better term like the north angle of that triangle that you have back, you have lots of budding in their backside on Canal Street. a little more careful about that whole area. I'm not talking about anything on the other side of Boston Ave. That makes sense because of what's built there now.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. Thank you. I just want to make sure we were only talking about that side as well. Yeah, just that. The good news is that that block of Arlington Street is getting some significant improvements this coming year and is going to get sidewalks.
[Zac Bears]: That's great.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's a CDBG funded project.
[Zac Bears]: The biggest concern I have is with anything that is nearly abutting or directly abutting that strange part of Canal Street that's basically a very tiny dead end street.
[Kit Collins]: Okay. Great. Thank you for that flag President Bears. Go next to Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: Thank you. So I'm looking more at the areas along South Medford, like Harvard, Maine, Tufts Park. With the current zoning, am I right? It says, like, general residential and single family. Most of it is currently zoned that way, but with the exception of the small numbers of commercial one sort of along that Harvard main area, even though I'm pretty sure there are some like restaurants and other retail shops, particularly across from Tufts Park. So is there currently a like a one-story limit on pretty much all of the general residential areas there right now. So are they, would they be able to build, like it just doesn't show anything currently about the height limits for along the residential area and the key, along general residential and the key there. So every other place it says like six stories by right, two stories. So I'm just wondering what the stories by right are and the
[Alicia Hunt]: That's part of the confusion of our current zoning is that if you have houses in the general residential there two and a half stories is by right where the half story is allows this like angle. The third story has to be half the size, the square footage of the floor below it. And the general residential does not currently allow any of the commercials and stuff. So where you have an area that allows, so if there was a commercial, it would, in theory, be taller. It's by use, the height, and not by zone in our current zoning. But general residential only allows single and two-family homes. So in effect, the height limit is 2.5 stories.
[Matt Leming]: Okay, so probably my biggest, okay, so, and what you were saying earlier about the fact that the, I'm looking again at Harvard and Maine, it's just a very small sliver of it seems to be the commercial one, so four stories by right, but were you saying earlier that they're really not able to take advantage of it because it's such a small area?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So right now the commercial one as well. It depends on the use. So residential can be up to six stories by right, and the commercial is four stories by right. Some of these lots are quite narrow, so it's not easy to fit the requirements for the parking that we have at the moment. So they usually go more than one parcel deep so you could have several parcels put together and then go higher. But at this moment, the parcels that are there, if we see at the sections we have one in that area. It's this one. You don't have right now for those commercial, you don't have the parking in the lots. They are outside. And so to make something new, and I imagine that's why they are not six stories tall right now, is because you don't have where to put them. So that needs to be reviewed, or we need to look into the parking. But at this point, you would need to have at least two of those lots. combined and then you can do something bigger, you can do something.
[Matt Leming]: So you think it's more likely a developer will try to take advantage of the proposed zoning in that area since it is expanded than what they have currently?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, we go a little bit further than what is there now. We go up to two or three, depending on the areas. And also it's more regulating the, it doesn't matter the use, it's more about the heights are even. So you can have a mixed use building, you can have only residential, you can have, it's not that you have that six-story residential, four-story commercial, you can have those six.
[Matt Leming]: And for the little lot in front of Tufts Park. So that's kind of one of my pet peeves of the city. I think that's pretty much one of the biggest pieces of lost potential that we have. It's such a nice area, but it just seems to be very underutilized. Assuming the parking rules stay static, and given that there is a small parking lot right in front of that little lot there, how high would they be able to build under the proposed zoning, given the parking requirements that are there now and the amount of parking they currently have in front of the building? That was kind of a math problem, but... You have very few.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: right now in there to be able to, it really depends from project to project. It's very difficult without seeing the building or the square footage, how much you can do, but you don't have a lot in that piece of land. So surface parking take a lot of space and then the urban environment that has been the vibrancy of the area, it's not very good. So that's why we try to push all the parkings always towards the back and put the commercial in front. You can get very high with only that parking that I can tell.
[Matt Leming]: What I'm getting is, I just really want that parcel to change. I just really want somebody to actually make something cool there and be super incentivized to do that. But I guess a lot of that will come up when we review the parking next month. OK. OK. It's just an interesting little area because it's just because of the mix of commercial uses and residential uses. Yeah, no, that's all the questions I have on it for now. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Councilor Leming. We'll go back to President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Thanks. Just to Councilor Leming's point, I think that area, there's a lot of strange mix of commercial and industrial in that area where Codding Ave is and on that block. Director Hunt can correct me if I'm wrong, but looking at the just looking at the interactive map, I believe that's a city owned parking lot. And I think it was, it used to be different. It was changed when the orientation of the streets were changed there to create the right angle intersection. And I think, you know, that would be a really interesting opportunity for a public private partnership. to adjust and change kind of that whole block potentially, given that so much of it is just underutilized, you know, empty lots or single story commercial. And I think in general just talking about especially the Main Street area, the zoning, it's one of the places where the existing zoning is really not reflective of the built environment in so many ways. There's so much functionally mixed use, you know, structures and uses all up and down Main Street and Medford Street, where you have these, you know, two or three-story buildings and some even very tall three-story buildings that have large, you know, floor heights. that are completely made non-conforming by the zoning that was passed after they were built. So I think it's a good opportunity with this zoning to change and get the zoning back to what is actually there and hopefully some more as well. So I see that area as a particular area of potential improvement.
[Alicia Hunt]: So Madam Chair, if I might, as we're looking at that, you're correct, President Bears, that parking lot is a new public lot that was created because people were parking literally in the middle of the intersection. Like literally people were just making their own parking spots in the middle. I think the city striped it at one point, but we created a parking lot to sort of meet the need and make it a much safer situation. One of the things that I know when I look on our, so it is public record on the assessor's database. So the interactive map we made for zoning, we actually chose not to put ownership in there in order to kind of help with some privacy issues, but anybody can go to our assessor's webpage on the city's website and click on the assessor's database, and there's a map version called Access GIS. And you could actually see that in this section, so there's Main Street and the road behind it is Cotting Avenue. And there are several parcels where the same person owns the parcel on Main Street and the parcel on Cotting Ave. And so there's a lot of back to back here. So there really is some opportunity for somebody to do a larger building. They could very easily be adding parking on the Cotting Ave side of this. And in fact, right behind them on Cotting Ave is an electrical transformer. So they're not even looking right at a neighbor, the first couple parcels. So there is some space there for them to do something where they might have parking. One of the things that I have been noting, and I will also mention, is that right now in our parking, if you are near high frequency transit, and I'm not going to say off the cuff whether or not this has that much bus service, it might in the future, it might now, you only need 0.8 spots per unit. And if a person brings forth a proposal and sort of makes an argument for why they should be allowed to have less, it's a special permit by the Community Development Board. So if one was to say, we don't need additional parking for our commercial units on the ground floor because you have public parking right in front of us, therefore we only need parking for the residential units, Right now, I personally would look at that as a good argument. So there is some space here, and this is actually an area where the zoning, I think, there's a lot of potential for change, especially how the ownership is currently structured of these parcels. And I'll say, I have no idea who the people are who own them, just that I'm noting it's the same entity, the front parcels and the back parcels.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Director Hunt. I think that's helpful. And I think one of the themes that I'm hearing coming up in the last couple of comments especially is as it relates to the goal of this proposal and certainly not this proposal alone in this comprehensive zoning review process, part of the goal here is to incentivize and allow what we would like to see developed in the city, which maybe is not possible or not incentivized to develop under our current zoning and current conditions. But also to reduce nonconformity is where the current built environment conflicts with our existing zoning. And I think that's I think that's an important part of the conversation. I think an important part of the conversation is what Councilor Leming and President Bears recently brought up, which is kind of around how the current or proposed zoning interacts with these various conditional requirements, dimensional requirements, which, to the example of, you know, how many stories can a single family have in a GR district under current zoning? Like, well, two and a half, but what actually gets constructed depends on the dimensions of that lot and quite a lot of other factors as it would for any other lot. which get run through a calculation, and that's how the zoning is enforced by the building commissioner. The same will be true under any new zoning and all zoning. But I think that's an important thing to flag and to continue to flag as we talk about the zoning proposals is comparing them to what we currently have, and also acknowledging that it's not just the maximum allowed uses, the maximum allowed heights, but looking at those lot sizes. and other very present conditions and thinking, okay, what's likely to happen here and what's likely to happen, but only if a lot is combined, for example. So I just wanted to underline that while we were on the topic. We'll look for other comments from councilors on this proposal at this stage. Seeing none, I'll jump in. Like we said, the draft map is not very different from what we looked at two weeks ago. I thought that two weeks ago, this was off to a really great start. I still feel good about this map as setting forth that you know, that essentially that vision for this is what we are comfortable being allowed in these places. I like that this would reduce nonconformities in a lot of spaces, particularly in South Medford. I think that this offers a vision for allowing the type of uses that I think we know residents and business owners in Medford would like to see in a lot of these places. I kind of can't help but look especially closely at South Medford because this corridor proposal includes the area that's directly around where I live and where I spend a lot of my time. I think it's really appropriate to focus on these corridors in South Medford and the other corridors in this proposal as ones to both give a signal that we're looking for higher intensity residential uses here and give a signal that we're looking for mixed uses here because I think we know that people already want that. And I think there's some places where we're starting to see those growing organically. It'd be nice to make it easier for small businesses to grow up alongside some of our busiest residential districts and just make it easier for us to continue to see that flourish. Well, I see no other hands on this proposal, so maybe we can proceed along to an overview. Or sorry, we can revisit the commercial nodes topic. Unless there's any other comments from city staff, city councilors. All right, you can proceed with the presentation then, Paola. Thank you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Perfect. Thank you, everyone, for your comments. So we presented this last time. We just went a little bit further in our analysis, and especially where we could or what are we considering to localize these commercial notes. So we talked about how could we define this in the zoning? We talked about overlay district and to be site specific. I just want to remember what are these commercial nodes. They are also called commercial and neighborhood hubs. And these are gathering places where residents have easy access to goods and services close to their homes. These are mainly for small businesses that will serve and will be located near or within residential areas. This business could include, among others, convenience stores, coffee shops, dry cleaners, drug stores, barber shops, and beauty salons. We have now a proposal of what those uses could be a little bit more in depth. This type of development could increase the convenience for residents to reduce the need for parking areas and help create vibrant and walkable neighborhoods. neighborhood commercial zoning plays an essential role in meeting the everyday needs of residents while preserving the character of the community. So what uses will be considering for this neighborhood commercial notes and especially it's important to have in mind that these are going to be always small business so that we will have always a cap on the maximum surface. So we're talking about co working space, neighborhood cafe, neighborhood grocery shops, neighborhood convenience shop, dry cleaners and laundromats, personal services like hairdressers, neighborhood retail shop. This is more to be determined exactly what retail uses we're talking about a little bit more specific and youth centers. So we are usually looking at 2,000 square foot or 2,500 square foot, a little bit maybe more per grocery store. But usually the idea is to have very small footprint, very small buildings that could provide a very mixed of services. So we found this is a map where we locate all the existing. we're looking at. Um commercial uses in the residential areas. It's not exactly the. Commercial neighborhood notes right now. But um, where do we have these uses? Um and where are located in order to help us to build. Um also ourselves the where these overlaid site specific What are the principles that we will follow to determine what are these new places or what those could be. So we did a strategy, we have a required minimum restrictions. So we use GIS to build a map from this having from lower to higher priority areas. that will help us choose where this specifically could be. So the required minimum restrictions would be that it's only in residential districts and that it has to be a distance from any corridors and squares. And this is because we want to provide service for the neighborhood, for the residential areas. And if they are close to any corridor or square, they can find the services in these corridors or squares. So those are the minimum requirements that we have in all the areas. And then we have some additional requirements that will help us build that high priority less priority. So we chose to have to have them be in close to an open space recreation, it can be a park sports riverfront. We are still defining this distances. So, in the map we did quarter of a mile so if it's less than quarter of a mile or if it's higher than that close to municipal building that is a library community center or school. close to a medical facility, and then prioritize higher interconnected streets. And these are the streets that are connected to other streets so that we don't end up having these kind of nodes in dead-end streets. So higher interconnected streets, it's also a priority. And so you can see here all the different maps that we built, all these different requirements. And here on the right, we have those where is more suitable to have these nodes. Now, it doesn't mean that all of them are going to be in the same area. We will look into neighborhood by neighborhood where that is. So we can look up to Lawrence Street, Lawrence States would be one area. maybe we have two or three different nodes. North Medford, we might have two nodes. We have to also look into the existing and see where those existing already naturally occurring areas. And if they fit these studies, I know already that some do. And then we will look at Glenwood and et cetera, other areas where we could have those. Um so this is where we are right now. Um With the commercial notes. And we are bringing also by request of the city staff and something that we, uh. Also think it's interesting for this area, so we can discuss if this can be located somewhere else. We are bringing the idea of accessory commercial units. So we all know about accessory dwelling units. So this is very similar, but instead of the use of a dwelling, that would be the use for commercial. And so what we tried is to provide a space for individuals to build their businesses within their homes or on their property on which they live. the city of Pittsburgh. This provides transition from home based business to off site business. So the uses that could be in here, but we could study. This is from a proposal that we did for the city of We had sale of food grown or prepared and package on the premises, coffee hot chocolate baked goods ice cream prepared dinners, take out foods for neighborhood based consumption, art or music, music lessons, personal services hair salon barbershop tailoring, Shoe repair is similar. Picture framing and small repairs are similar. Automobile repairs are prohibited. It's not for these commercial units. Retail of art supplies, books, records, musical instruments are similar. Retail of non-food products made on the premises, such as clothing, jewelry, wigs, accessories, household goods are similar. So you can see that a lot of these uses goes very well with the uses that we propose for the commercial nodes. So these again as well can be attached or detached. They can include an addition or attached to garage provided that these building meet always the building codes for habitable space. These are different from a home occupation or live work. These are more intense or they tend to be more intense. This is the idea, at least in the city of Pittsville for the study that we did was about a commercial incubator process where you start with a home occupation life work so that you have a home based business. Then your next step will be that accessory commercial unit so whatever your. doing and preparing on your home, you can sell it on this accessory commercial unit, or it can be a bigger kitchen or a bigger, more specific for what you need. And then the step three will be on that commercial building in a quarter, or then in this case was downtown Pittsfield. And this can be, for example, Mystic Avenue. So it depends. It was a process to build up towards that end. And it's not mandatory. You can obviously stay in any of the steps. But it was to give more flexibility and to be easier. And so as any other requirement or any other zoning, we also had the dimensional standards. In this case, the lot size was 5,000, lot width 50. The size would be 40% of the footprint of the principal building or 1,000 square feet, whatever was more restricted. Parking in this case was maximum two parking that could be provided on site or in a neighborhood parking lot. within 500 feet of the lot. This, for example, we had also designed different neighborhood parkings and different sizes so that it could be integrated in the residential neighborhood. And then we have other additional requirements depending if they were attached or detached. The idea is to bring this more up to the front of the street so that it has easy access And these weren't on every part of the residential districts. These are always site specific. These were for certain streets that could have this. And so, yeah, for example, the additional requirements, if it was a detached ACU, we had a height, I think it was 15 foot. The distance from principal building were 10 foot minimum. The front setback was three from the front lot line. But if there was any kind of outdoor display or to encourage outdoor seating, it could go up to 20 feet. and then side setback was following the district requirement and the rear setback was the line of the rear facade of the principal building so that it didn't went to on that private garden that usually is on the back of the building. So these are the different requirements and we thought it could be interesting for our neighborhood notes to bring this ACU concept. And it's up to here. Thank you very much.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much for that presentation, Paola and Councilors and some members of the public who are here two weeks ago. Remember that we got an overview of the concept of the neighborhood commercial nodes previously, and we talked about kind of what they're for and where they should go to really be the most effective. And we touched on the topic of accessory commercial units. But I appreciate this greater in-depth analysis of both It's exciting to see the suitability analysis for the commercial nodes and to get a little bit deeper on some of the thought process behind the ACUs, not to be confused with ADUs, and how those might be structured dimensionally. Last time we talked quite a bit about, and you talked about this in your presentation, different ways of structuring or enabling the neighborhood commercial nodes within our zoning code. We talked about a base district. We talked about an overlay strategy as to kind of different roads we could go down. It seemed to me by the end of our meeting two weeks ago that most councilors were leaning towards a site-specific overlay, and I think your presentation speaks to this, is we do want to make sure the whole point of the neighborhood commercial nodes is a topic. is to make sure that the residential, the squarely residential areas of the city, not the ones that are in the corridors proposals, not the ones that are in the larger standalone corridors, not the ones that are in the squares, that these residences that are really bounded and bordered by other residences still have access to amenities and small businesses that would be useful to them and serve a true neighborhood purpose. So I'm not trying to incentivize necessarily, you know, super splashy, unique businesses that people would, you know, drive to or be specific, highly unique destinations, but things would be really useful in the fabric of a neighborhood and dimensioned accordingly. And I think we saw for the first time tonight, some of the a little bit of a deeper view at the required minimum restrictions and additional requirements on the neighborhood commercial nodes. So I just wanted to return to that very quickly. I think that that helps to make concrete what we're talking about, about where we want to focus these and how we could bring that about through these site-specific overlay in specific places. So as you mentioned, these are only for residential districts because mixed-use districts already got the mixed uses. Could you speak just a little bit for folks who may be watching this presentation who don't spend all of their time thinking about the city blocks? When we say we're thinking about different minimum distances from corridors and squares, 800 feet to 1,200 feet, we're talking about probably like a minimum of three to five blocks away from a major commercial area? Or how do you conceptualize that?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, that's about right three to four.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, great. Thank you. And then we're talking about those additional requirements. Sorry. My brain just glitched. I was trying to put this into words. Additional requirements of proximity to certain community uses, open space, parks, community centers, and I noted you said hospital or medical facility as well. If my understanding is correct, this is just to make sure that we're putting, again, small businesses close to where people will already be and they might need something where they're at that space. How does the higher priority mechanism work or how would that work in the context of the zoning? Is that more of a guideline or sort of a way of stating a preference?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, so maybe I needed to be a little bit more clear on that. So right now we are still studying where those areas will be. We will give precise locations. Right now this is, we built this map and these requirements or principles in order to check with all of you that you think that these are good principles or if there are any others that you think we should also consider. and added to this. So how it works is that we have the two the residential districts and the distances from the quarters. Those are giving us the base map and the other four are building on each other. So we have two or three of those. Then we have like that higher priority. say we have higher street connections and closer to a park and there is some close by also a civic institution or a medical office, then we will see that that high priority would go into that darker reddish color. Um, so that is mainly to help us to pinpoint later and be and bring in the next draft a more precise location. Um, and we will look into all the different neighborhoods. Um, where we could have those. So this is very helpful to look into which areas have those, um Requirements.
[Kit Collins]: I see. Thank you. That was my misunderstanding. That was some sort of dimensional requirement as opposed to just a factor. And as we're putting the suitability analysis together, thank you for explaining that. Any questions or comments from my fellow Councilors on the accessory commercial units or other parts of the proposed commercial neighborhood notes? Seeing none. So in terms of our, working backwards, in terms of our next steps for these two proposals that we spent our time on tonight, I know the, oh, I'll hold on that. President Bears has raised his hand. Go ahead, President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: Sorry about that, I had a mouse issue. My computer mouse, I should say. I just had one, I guess it's kind of going to what Kit was saying. So on these commercial nodes and then the ACUs and how they interrelate is the next step for us to discuss this at a future meeting and look at kind of a more specific proposal for the site-specific overlay.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so we just want to make sure that you're part of the process. And then in the next draft, we will bring all these different ingredients and specific areas in a proposal more specific and precise. But we wanted to show and start talking about what the ACU are, what is the intention, what are the uses, and what are these principles that we are looking in order to locate these notes.
[Zac Bears]: Great. I appreciate that. And I just want to put out there maybe it might be worth taking a little bit of extra time on this one. Not so much extra time as in more thought, I think we've gotten a lot of good work up to this point, and maybe putting a pin in this specific thing for a month or maybe after June 30, just given how much else we're working on, I think might be something we should consider. So I just wanted to put that out there.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. I think there's also probably value in the neighborhood residential proposal still being going through the process and not officially ordained. And this, of course, proposal for the accessory, sorry, for the neighborhood commercial nodes we're developing in the context of that. So I think that this is one that we can pace accordingly with that being finalized. Go to Councilor Leming.
[Matt Leming]: I just like to say to express, I think it's a really cool idea. I'd like to move forward on it, however feasibly we can do so. I mean, the idea of having a locally owned bakery in the middle of Lawrence Estates, which is kind of, far from, which is relatively far from other commercial areas, I think would be pretty cool. Would the ACU proposal sort of be its own package that in itself would go through the CDB and council as like its own thing, or would it be sort of attached to something else?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, it could go either way. We could have it with a package with the commercial nodes. It could be that it could also be expanded to other areas that we would be interested and go as a separate. It could go either way.
[Matt Leming]: Yeah, I personally would like to see it attached to something else just to simplify things. I feel like there's already a lot of packages that the CDB is sort of dealing with right now. So that's just my take, though.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, Councilwoman. Certainly, I think that the accessory commercial units and the neighborhood commercial nodes kind of thematically go together. I also think the CDB has been pretty good about taking everything we've been sending their way and going through it at the pace that they need to. So I feel comfortable leaving that. If it shakes out that we report both out on the same timeline, I think that's great. And I think that topically makes sense. They go together. But I think that... Happy to leave the pace of the CDB up to the CDB. Seeing no further comments from my fellow councillors right now, so... President Bears segwayed me into just touching on our next steps for all of these topics. So for accessory commercial units and for the neighborhood commercial nodes, I think we have a really excellent start here. I'm also very excited to see this continue to move forward. I think this is also a thing, a topic that a lot of folks in the community Um, we'll be excited about. I think this is just you know, we're talking about what's the right type of amenity that would be most useful to you and your residential neighborhood, and I think that's the type of thing that people just Talk about in various language just in the course of their, you know. Daily daily lives and daily weeks like I wish we had a X right here, and I think this is proposing one solution to that kind of thought. So that's very exciting. Um So this will continue to be iterated on. I know you guys have some study and analysis into this that is still in the works. We have several other proposals that we are working on that are in the queue. And I think I agree with President Bears that this, if it takes a little more time for this one to become a fully finalized and reportable package, I think that's fine. And again, I think it makes sense to see how the residential proposal shakes out and then finalize this accordingly because they matter to each other. And in terms of the other corridors proposals, I want to make sure that members of the public know that there is another opportunity, in addition to public participation tonight, there is another opportunity to learn more about this proposal in another forum tomorrow. We'll be having a public Q&A about the other corridors proposal at the Tufts University Cummings Center. And Alicia knows the room number. I don't.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanted to emphasize that the meeting tomorrow night is about, oh my gosh, the other corridors, as you said. So it's about the stuff that we've been talking about this evening. So all of those maps that were presented, if people aren't ready to comment on, they should come comment on tomorrow night. And my app that was going to tell me the room number, which it's on the second floor of the Cummings Center. And we'll have some signs and some people around. Sorry, I just, I don't want to misspeak the room number and then have It's room 270. So it's the second floor of the Cummings Center. There will be an online, so if people want to Zoom in, that's fine. We will again have tables in the hallway where people can talk individually to Paola and Danielle about specific parcels, and then Emily and Kit, or Kit or Zach, I'm not sure which of you, sorry, which of the Councilors will be there, and myself will be in the front of the room to answer Q&A and general questions. So that's tomorrow night in room 270 at the Tufts Cunning Center.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Alicia. We'll make sure to get that room number posted on the city website as well. So that's the public Q and A on the other corridors, which we discussed at the beginning of this meeting. These Q and A's, we want to make sure that these are opportunities to really get targeted feedback on a specific proposal. So the conversation and the presentation will be focused on the other corridors proposal we won't be talking about. the residential proposal. We won't be talking about the squares. We're not going to be talking about neighborhood commercial nodes, nor the ACUs. But this is a really important opportunity for us to hear from the public, as is tonight, but there's not a lot of people here, on the other corridor's proposal. So really encourage folks to attend in person if they can, and on Zoom if they can't, and All indications show that the hybrid portion should be a lot better than the one for the last Q&A. So thanks to Kevin Harrington and Director Hunt and Tufts University for making that happen.
[Alicia Hunt]: going to Madam Chair, I just wanted to mention that because there's been a lot of publicity about the Community Development Board meeting next Wednesday night. So we've been talking with the chair because we've also been notified that it's the same time as Medford High School graduation and there's a lot of there. Um so we'll definitely be having the consultants present the Medford Square and West Medford Square that was reported out of City Council. And those documents, the language and the maps are now linked from the city. from the Community Development Board. Their website has a link to filings and it's there under West Medford and Medford Square. You can see those documents. We're discussing whether Whether or not we have the ability to take comment on the residential is going to depend on our attendance of our board members. We've had a member resign, and so we are very short on members right now, and we cannot risk not having quorum for future meetings. We would request that all public comment that's coming in in writing come in by Monday the 2nd so that the board can review it in advance of the meeting. And we do expect it to go rather late. There is no opportunity to make that June 4th meeting a hybrid meeting, so it will be online only. So one of the that is under discussion is if we were to hold a special meeting of the CD board a little bit later, like in the next week or two, would we be able to then do a hybrid meeting by using, honestly, this room is the only good room that we can reliably work up, do a solid hybrid meeting. So we need to figure out whether that's possible. So I just wanted to sort of put the expectations out there.
[Kit Collins]: great thank you and so those expectations are if you want to submit written comment on the medford square west medford square or will you be taking a residential residential thought is really what we're concerned about it is my expectation that the medford squares that it's
[Alicia Hunt]: As it has been with this committee, to see the zoning one week, have it presented to them, and then let the board members sort of ruminate on it. And so there is no expectation that they would vote it out of committee the first time they hear it for the squares. That makes sense. So we're not actually expecting them to vote on what they see on Wednesday night for the squares.
[Kit Collins]: Great. That would just be the first time that they're getting a presentation on it. OK. Yes. That makes total sense. Thank you. And the residential proposal will also be taken up by the CDB on June 4th. And you're saying if folks want to submit written comment, make sure to get that in by Monday the 2nd. And the meeting will be Zoom only as usual in this case. And that is expected to go quite late. So plan and caffeinate accordingly. Thank you very much for stating that and for helping us publicize that. I'll go to President Bears.
[Zac Bears]: I was going to make some motions if there's anything else you'd like to work on.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, thank you. So just real quickly, we talked about the public Q&A for other corridors proposal only tomorrow night. Director Hunt shared some updates about the CDB meeting next Wednesday. And so the next steps for the other corridors proposal is the Q&A tomorrow, and then that will come back to committee. And the neighborhood commercial nodes and accessory commercial units proposal will also come back to the planning and permitting committee for further discussion. Great, thank you so much. Welcome to make a motion, President Bears, before or after I ask for any public participation on either of these proposals. All right, we'll go to public participation first. I will start at the podium and then go to Zoom.
[William Navarre]: William Navarre, 108 Medford Street.
[Kit Collins]: Hang on one second. I'm going to set up my timer. All right. Sorry about that. All right, go ahead, William. Thank you.
[William Navarre]: All right. First of all, I want to reiterate a point I made way back in 2022 at the Comprehensive Plan Public Combat Period. I think the trap of up-zoning corridors needs to be explicitly called out because in an American context, up-zoning along a transportation corridor often comes in the form of only up-zoning lots that face the major road or maybe one block from that if we are lucky. I think there is an equity element of concentrating apartment dwellers to the relatively noisy and polluted streets. It looks like, for whatever reason, most of my own street, Bedford Street, apparently fell off as compared to the last map I saw. There's a bit there still. But I'm still seeing Harvard Street corridor opportunity to add density. And I appreciate the opportunity to add density. But to me, it makes no sense why we'd want to concentrate more people living on Harvard Street specifically. I think it's only barely wider than the neighboring streets, but it has more travel lane and less parking lane, as far as I can tell. So it's noisier, more car exhaust than neighboring streets for that reason. So concretely, I think that know, to benefit health and give people more options. We should see the residential corridors be broader. It'd be nice to see Bedford Street fully come back. It'd be good to see the entire triangle between Bedford Street, Main Street have the extra intensity. And it would be nice to see some more breadth around Harvard Street rather than just abutting that noisy, smoky street. Next, I keep hearing a lot about parking and how that makes building difficult and might even foreclose on achieving our housing or commercial development goals. I really want us to keep in mind that it's in part a political choice if we are going to require parking to be centered in all of these discussions about what gets built. And our community through the city council has the ability to decide to leave that as a business decision and not require that private off street car parking be centered in our planning and development process as if it's the most important thing. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you, William. Going next to Cheryl on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please. And you'll have three minutes.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, Cheryl Rodriguez, 21 Park Street. My question is really just about the Q&A. Is there going to be parking to go to this location? Because this is not a location that I can walk or get a bus to. And I know a lot of people are going to have trouble parking there. And some people want to go in person because Zoom is not adequate for them. And then my second thing was just that People have cars in Medford. We have about two cars per unit. So the conversations about removing parking minimums is just creating more burden on the neighbors and giving the developers more profit by being able to not have to build parking and be responsible for their properties. If you want to remove parking minimums, then you should remove parking privileges first for those new buildings, just so that we can be realistic and not create a situation that we can't walk back from once those buildings exist without parking. Once those residents have three to six cars, those cars are going to be there. I myself live next door to a two family home that has about eight cars and two cars worth of parking, so six cars on the street. That's the reality of the situation here in Medford, and I hope that we can factor in our reality and that people here have cars, even people who've bought condos that come with deeded parking space know that they have cars and they're protected. But those of us that are relying on the streets are not gonna be protected if we just remove all the parking to add the density and it will lower the quality of life for the residents. But I'd like to hear about the parking for tomorrow night too, thanks.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Cheryl. For tomorrow, I hope that I'll just go to Director Hunt, who's saying something. Sorry. Yeah, great. I was going to say, I hope that residents will take advantage of parking spaces on Boston Ave, College. It's possible that some parking spaces will be available at Dowling Ave for those who can't find street parking on Boston. Go ahead, Director Hunt.
[Alicia Hunt]: And there's the 96 bus from Medford Square, the 94 bus. I think the 80 goes right down there as well, although I'm less familiar with the buses that don't come from Medford Square.
[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you. I'm gonna go to President Bears and then back to public participation.
[Zac Bears]: Nevermind, I was gonna say what Alicia said.
[Kit Collins]: Okay, thank you. Going to Andrew on Zoom. Name and address for the record, please, and you'll have three minutes.
[Andrew MacRobert]: Hi there, Andrew McRobert, 6310 Muir. I want to speak on the ACUs and residential commercial. I support individual rights to build on one's own property, and I think every neighborhood should be allowed to evolve into its next stage of growth. I think the ACUs as proposed support this well by allowing residents to invest in their neighborhood with smaller bets, and so they can iteratively you know, build out their commercial as was outlined in the commercial incubator. I think I saw a maximum parking for residential commercial on one of those slides, which I love. I think that's important to make sure that our residential neighborhoods don't become surface parking lots. I would like to, again, advocate for On the list of permitted uses, neighborhood daycares or daycares, maybe call them neighborhood and maybe give a maximum enrollment of 10 kids or something like that. Something to make sure that this is still something that's serving the immediate neighborhood and is walkable rather than something that people are driving to. My final point is I want to talk a little bit about the suitability study that was shown in its current form. It listed, it showed my neighborhood over in North Glenwood as low suitability. But living here, I have to say it feels pretty high, highly suitable. As a resident of Kenya, I try to walk to Salem street and some of the immediate neighborhood commercial businesses that do exist as much as possible, but they're far enough out of the way that sometimes I do feel like I have to just get in my car and drive. And that's as a able-bodied 36 year old man. I think maybe it was deemed low suitability due to its closeness to Wellington, but in East Strip, but Anybody who knows East strip and rivers edge and and station landing knows that this is not a pedestrian friendly area and it's not somewhere that you just go and walk to to run an errand. You're going to run into a fence on a property line that is preventing you from taking the most direct path. So I would like to, I would love to see that area considered. higher sustainability or suitability. Thank you.
[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for your comments. Andrew, we will take that into consideration. And I saw some nods when you brought up neighborhood daycare as well. Oh, there you go, Paola.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Um we will look into this map, so we will look into this higher and lower, um. Priority areas. Um and maybe we need to. Make it shorter. The distance from the corridors and squares. Um. We are also building the zoning so that the commercial and that it more mixed use so that it's not what is existing, but because your current zoning does not allow a lot of the commercial that is existing. So in that case, these quarters will have will be permitted to have a lot more different business and more of them. So that's one thing as well to be considered. Um. About the parking and the proposal. This comes from another proposal that we did in the city of Fittsville, so we will review that and the parking minimums, etcetera. But that was the idea of what could be. It's not really the exact draft and the Dakers are not there because the Dakers is a protected use, so it's something that we cannot. We cannot deny they are protected so they can be in in any district.
[Kit Collins]: Oh, thank you for that clarification, Paola. So that's the daycare doesn't have to be a specific allowed use under the proposed neighborhood commercial nodes and ACUs because they don't need permission. They don't need special permission. Go ahead.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, so we can add them, but we are not able to restrict the size because it is a protected.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Okay.
[Kit Collins]: Thank you. Great. Is there any additional public participation on either of these proposals? Seeing none, thank you so much for the updated presentation and analysis of these topics, Emily and Paola, and thank you for the thoughtful discussion, my fellow councilors and city staff and members of the public. Is there a motion?
[Zac Bears]: I move to keep the paper and proposals in committee and adjourn.
[Kit Collins]: On the motion by President Bears to keep the paper in committee and adjourn, seconded by Councilor Leming. Mr. Clerk, when you're ready, please call the roll.
[Adam Hurtubise]: President Bears?
[Zac Bears]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Councilor Callahan is absent. Councilor Leming? Yes. Councilor Scarpelli?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Vice President Collins?
[Kit Collins]: Yes. Four in favor, one absent. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you very much, everybody.
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