AI-generated transcript of City Council Planning and Permitting Committee 06-11-25

[Adam Hurtubise]: Test one, two.

[Kit Collins]: There will be a meeting of the Medford City Council planning and permitting committee, June 11 2025. This meeting will take place at 6pm in the city council chamber second floor Medford City Hall at five towards he has to drive Medford ma and via zoom Mr. Clerk, please call the role.

[Adam Hurtubise]: President Bears. Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Present. Five present, none absent. The meeting is called to order. Thank you all very much for being here today. We have staff from the Planning, Development, and Sustainability Office in person and online. And we are joined online by Paola from Innes Associates. This is to be the 27th meeting on zoning updates with the Innes Associates team, though I could have sworn our last planning and permitting committee meeting was the 27th. I just believe what the paper tells me. I think we're all hoping that this can be one of our shorter and less onerous meetings tonight on deck for this evening to talk about is to revisit for I believe the third or fourth time the other corridors proposal. And just to, we'll have another thorough overview of that in just a minute. We've looked at that proposal multiple times before in committee, and this will be an additional time reviewing that proposal in committee before it goes to its next step along the public hearings timeline. We're also going to have a very high level introduction to the Tufts institutional zoning proposal. so high level that I believe there is not an official proposal yet, but we want to, in the wake of the public forum that we had with Tufts area neighbors in early May, we wanted to have an introductory, an introduction to that proposal in committee before the zoning consultant brings forward a formal proposal for community members and Councilors to respond specifically to. We are also going to have, I believe, a short debrief of the public Q&A on parking regulations and transportation demand management that was two nights ago, Monday, June 9 at the Medford Public Library. So I know Paola has prepared a presentation. Do any Councilors have questions or comments they would like to state before we move along to the presentation? Anything from city staff? All right, seeing none, I will hand it over to Paola from Innes Associates. Go ahead. Thank you.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for having me here today. I'm Paola Ramos-Martinez. I'm the Chief Resilience Officer from Innes Associates. today with me is also Jimmy Rocha. He's our MAP expert, the specialist analyst, the special analyst. I am a little bit sick today so I'm sorry if I'm not very sharp. I will try to be quick. We have So, 2 updates, 1 is for the Medford Tops, mainly a progress check. What are we doing? And what are we, what are the things that we're going to explore in the next months? And as well with parking. And then I left at the end, and Vice President Chair, if you want me to change the organization, let me know. So how I have it right now is Medford Hubs, parking, and then at the end, the other quarters to have a little bit of more time and have the time to review all of it.

[Kit Collins]: I think that's fine, Paola. Yeah, thank you for asking. Let's proceed with that order.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Perfect. I'm going to start to share. I do have a long presentation, but it's just so that we have all the information, but it's not supposed to be that long. I'm going to go quite fast. One second. I want to see you all. Okay, so we will do that introduction very briefly of the process and timeline, the opportunities for comments, and I will go immediately to the next meeting so that we know better what to expect in the next days. Then I will do that brief explanation of where we are in the institutional district Tufts University and then with parking management. Both are not proposals, it's just trying to build that framework of what have we heard from the community and bringing that so that we know the directions where are we going next. And then we will talk about the other quarters. We had also the public meeting for the other quarters. We had some comments, so I'm bringing those 2 small changes to see if those comments that came from the community, if you also want to adopt those. We also have the draft, so we can go through the draft and look at any comments or questions that you may have. So the PPCM, I do believe that we are in the 28th. I haven't counted them, but it does feel that we have been doing quite a lot of those. So tonight is going to be about the institutional district, the parking, and then the other corridors. We do have CDB, the Community Development Board. The next one will be next week, June 18th, and it's going to be about the residential districts and ADUs, and depending on how that will go, we also have June 25. It could be squares or to continue the residential district. Public Q&As for now, we don't have any other. We had our last one about parking and TDM on Monday. Last Monday, so the next ones are going to be, this is today. Then the city board will be residential districts and it use the 18th and then the next one will be the 25. Um, so what are we doing here? Uh, we are doing a rezoning, um, of the, um, of Medford. Uh, we are looking into the existing current zoning and from what we, uh, what has been the principles identified in the Medford comprehensive plan and the climate action adaptation plan. We're bringing those into the zoning to update to update. the zoning and bring it aligned with those principles. This is the vision map and this is where we started to make the vision, bring these areas of the squares, corridors, and then the residential districts, the institutional anchor, for example, Medford Tubs. This is where it came, the division of all the topics that we are talking now. We want to stress that we do have this interactive map. It's very useful. You do see all the different, it's the work in progress map that we are using for planning and permitting for the city board and so that we have a better comprehensive view of all the current proposed and existing situation. So if anyone is interested, this QR code will take you to the interactive map. If you prefer to look at it in your computer, you can use the link in here. So to do the update of the institutional district, so we had two meetings. One was with the, we're looking into this area, Medford-Tubbs, so the university. You're seeing it here in this dark blue, that will be the boundary for the Medford Hubs Institutional District. We had a meeting, public meeting, where neighbors and abutters came and to tell us Any comment, any concern, anything that they wanted to bring into consideration. And we also had a meeting with the representatives from Medford Tufts to hear about. We know that Medford Tufts is divided between Somerville and Medford, so they also have a different zoning, and so what is working in that zoning, what is not working, and so how can we put all of the concerns together. So as you see here, we have the T, Medford House is in this area where my hand is. We have the Rail Trail, Boston Avenue. corridor and then Medford Tufts, when you see the red line, that's the division between Medford and Somerville. And so the area that belongs to Medford and the boundary that we're starting to use as the boundary for the institutional district. What we have now, this is what we have is really in districts that are not really helpful because they're for residential, so it's not really anything that has to do with a campus or an institution. We do want to change it to make sure that it makes sense that we have a different type of zoning for it. since it is a different type of institution. So, as I said, Somerville has a different zoning for it. It has a special district. And so we are looking into their zoning, their intent, the purpose. And mainly where we are going to work is in those building standards. what is working and what is not. We have heard a lot of concerns about especially the building heights from the neighbors and the strategy that Medford Chuffs is using with some kind of height map. And I think I have it here. So Medford uses this type of height map where these bends give a certain amount of heights. It's really not working. So we want to know why it's not working. If it's the heights that makes no sense because of what we have there, it's already different. So we need to study a little bit of if we want to go with the bands, if we want to do some certain sub-districts. So that's where we are right now. We will also be exploring the front setbacks, what makes sense, what it doesn't. Not everything is connected to neighborhood. When it's abutting a residential district, everybody understand that needs to be treated a little bit different. But when it's inside the campus, there needs to be a little bit more flexibility. We are going to look into that. We also, and this came also from the community, but the topography from the Medford side is very different from the topography of Somerville side. So we are studying and making some analysis, looking into the topography to bring a real proposal that fits the area, the geography and the topographical situation. There are other things that we are going to explore from the neighborhood. This has less impact on how they do these bigger lots, but we will be working in doing some kind of sections so that everything is more evenly distributed. The uses, it works quite well for everyone, at least in Somerville, this definition works pretty well, so it's basically permitted as an educational service as a principal use. and then including all facilities customarily provided by educational service uses indirectly serving the needs of faculty, staff, students, and visitors as deemed necessary by Tufts University in accordance with the provision of section 9.2 use definitions and standards. So we will be, for now we will have a little bit more analysis, but in the beginning this works pretty well. In parking, we actually, and this is also some update that we wanted to give, we looked into, we didn't have the amendment of Somerville, not having parking requirements. So that also affects the university. So, from Somerville, they do not have parking requirements. So, affects That information is different from what we gave to the community. So that is something that we will be looking into in parallel with our parking analysis. So this will be brought later on. From the community, we had the concern that they wanted to know better what owners, what parcels Tufts owned in the area, and so we made a map showing those concerns and one is Tufts University properties and the other one is Walnut Hill. It's a non-profit organization that provides the residential uses for students. We wanted to bring this at least also in this update. So that is for now for the update for the Medford Tops. I'm going to go to the council chamber and see if there are any questions. Otherwise, I can continue with the parking updates.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you so much, Paola. And I want to thank you as well for the public q amp a that we had on Monday and thank you to our city staff as well we had a lot of residents participate and I think that was really great source material for this ongoing topic as well. Any initial comments or questions from my fellow Councilors. Before we go on, or director please go ahead.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanted to clarify, so I was looking at the corridors map in the presentation and we'll have a version online for residents, we just got it like minutes before the meeting started and it's mildly different than the one I had from the May 28 meeting. And I didn't know if we wanted to talk about that at all, or it's different from the one that's on the website, but not substantially. And so I just wanted to sort of flag that because I, I don't know, I was trying to follow, and I think Paola said it was essentially the same, but I'm going back and forth and making sure I'm seeing the colors correctly, and it's not completely the same.

[Kit Collins]: Do we follow would you be able to walk us through any changes that were made for today's version of the draft, we will have both versions available on the website, as of tomorrow but just I think it'd be helpful for Councilors if you could just give us initial flag for what has changed.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I would just ask for that to make it available. If you could send us a standalone file with just this map, because I could not find just this map in the stand up the new one in the slideshow so that we can post it.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah. So if I may, um, There are some so I said that there are some changes that are suggestions that came from the. The public participation that we had the. 1 week ago, so I will go through them is just. at the end of the presentation. If it's okay for everyone, I can continue with the parking and then we will have the other quarters and I will go through the changes that were proposed from the public that I just wanted to bring to the city council and the city staff to just have comments on those.

[Alicia Hunt]: Sure. That's great. Somehow I didn't process that that's what you meant to do, to do that at the end.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, okay. Sorry for that.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you for the clarification. Great. If there are no other questions or comments before we get started, let's proceed and then we can take questions or comments that come up in the course of the presentation.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Perfect. So I will give a highlight of the parking and TDM presentation that we had last time on Monday. As you said, Vice President Collins, it was great. We had a lot of participation. So we had a lot of different opinions and everyone is sharing their personal experience. So it's great to have a lot of more information. I'm just going to go very quickly to a little bit of that first part that we presented so that we have that framework of where are we going and what are we studying. What we wanted to make very clear is that right now what we're discussing in this first moment is the off-street parking requirements only, so that zoning for that private property. And what we did not discuss was the public parking, the parking standards, or curb management. And that is going to be interesting to add to the conversation, but just for this first moment, we didn't want to mix them. So what we did was talk about what parking management is, how necessary it is to make a lot more efficient the use of our parking space. It refers to policies and programs that we can use so that we make that a lot more efficient. We have a shift in expectations and how it was done more conventionally, what the goals were in that old paradigm, and then what is the new shift and the new paradigm having in mind to make it a lot more efficient, having in mind the air quality and health and climate resiliency, et cetera, so how that is shifting. Then we provided what parking minimums are, and that is mainly that parking ratio that is used to calculate the required number of spaces at a particular development. The conventional way is that they reflect the maximum supply that could be needed, or 80% usually, of what can be needed on a busiest day. So these standards are usually what they provoke is an oversupply. And so from this parking demand studies, they are mostly performed in car dependent locations. So if we wanted to make more walkable and vibrant and looking at health and resiliency, this wouldn't be the best way to call parking minimums. So With that in mind, we wanted to go to what are those parking minimums in Medford? What are the requirements? And then we looked around in the area. So if anyone is curious about this, we can go back. But we looked into Medford, into then Cambridge and Somerville, who doesn't have the parking requirements. They delete parking minimums. And then we have others that are, some are similar, some are little higher requirements. So we have Everett that are very similar. Arlington is also similar. Malden is higher requirements. And another Newbury report, Smart Growth District, has something interesting, which is that the residential uses is studied a little bit more in depth, so that's why we wanted to bring this as a way of also doing it. We gave a menu of different parking strategies that could be applied that come from other cities that we have seen in other areas. So the first one will be update those parking minimums to a more realistic demand to look into what is actually being demanded and update those parking minimums to really be minimums and not that almost maximums. Increase the capacity of parking facilities and this means try to make more standard that compact parking space instead of the standard to be that very big normal parking space which occupies 20% more of the space. Bring in maximum parking ratio so that we cannot go out over a certain number Our residential requirements and this is the idea of being a little bit more specific in residential typology. So a little bit of what new report is doing in 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom and have different ratios for those. Then we can have multiple reductions that can be done separately or can be summed together. So, for example, and this the interesting thing is that this will make it a lot more geographically more conditional. So, depending on the area and depending on the conditions that that development has, we can reduce those parkings and make it more ad hoc. And so proximity to public transport could have a reduction. Affordable housing, this is something that you already have. additional bicycle parking could have a reduction, a sharing car system service could have a reduction, mobility as a service, this is quite new and it's more for bigger developments, is having almost all of the above in an app that can be controlled for each renter, and then a dual use. A dual use is For example, there are certain uses that can go very well together because their peak demands are at different times of the day or the week. And so, for example, a mixed-use building that has residential and office could be quite well combined. And so that a part of that demand, instead of being some altogether, that there can be some reduction because the peak demands are different. And then we have alternative parking facilities. That means having externalized some of your parking demands into somewhere at a walking distance. So depending how far that facility is, a parking garage or another development that has extra parking that can take over some of the other demands. So in this case, we could have certain reductions depending how far that is. Then we have transport demand management. Because we already had a lot of information, we didn't go really in depth. But this mainly is that for certain developments that are having a certain impact, there would be this mandatory transportation demand management program that they would have to go through. so they can reduce or inform the population about a lot of the different possibilities, give public transit passes, give bicycle, like blue bikes memberships, and then if we go even further to bring, there would be a transport demand association where many businesses can get together and then can provide between all of them a shuttle so that they can connect different areas of the city that are not really right now connected. There is a lot of possibilities inside that transport demand management that goes according to which the impact is. And then the last one will be eliminating parking minimums as Somerville or Cambridge has done. So what we wanted to bring was how can we divide or how can we organize all of this. So for example, updating the parking minimums, capacity of parking facilities, maximum parking ratios, residential requirements, all of this can be really done in a short term and the changes can be easily seen from that first moment. There are others that will require a little bit of more time because they have contracts that need some, at least a 10 year lease, or for example, we have alternative parking facilities, the development or the owner should have a contract for at least 10 years with the other parking facility. It's something that can be done now, but that it will take some time until we see or that it needs some time in their contracts. That's why it's a little bit in that midterm changes. In the reductions, we have some that can be immediately applied and there are others that will take a little bit of time because of contracts. Then for the transportation demand management, because there needs to be built the program, it needs to be built an association. It takes a little bit of time, not the part where we make it, but the part where we implement it. That's why we see it as midterm and long-term changes. Then eliminating parking minimums is at the long-term change because it needs to be paired with other strategies, if we're going to do this citywide. So we will need to look into that public parking management and other things. So in what we got were many different comments, a lot just expressing their own concerns and their own experience. So we are going to take all of those concerns and try to do as flexible as possible a strategy, a parking management strategy that can be a little bit more conditional so that we have that menu of options that depend on what your requirements are, where you are, that you can choose what fits better. And so I think, yeah, so now we can go to the other quarters, but I want to hear if there are any comments or questions.

[Kit Collins]: I'll go to Councilor Leming first.

[Matt Leming]: So can you clarify the bit on TDM being a midterm change? So I understand a study does need to be done for it, but in the research that you've done on it so far, what do you find is the relationship between the part of it that's incorporated into zoning and the part of it that the study needs to account for?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that, so why we placed it in the midterm is more about building that association in order to really make a big change, a big difference where we have businesses coming together and building that up. So looking at other areas like Watertown or Everett, what it took time is to bring that association and to make a strong business association for the transport demand. And so that is easier to then implement those changes.

[Matt Leming]: Okay, so you're mainly referring to developers being integrated into the lower Mystic TMA?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. That is some of the discussions. I was also thinking this morning that it can be from the short to the long-term because it's true that inside the transport demand management, there are things that can be very immediate when it's about more the information that can give from a development. So the information of what are the transit hours to give transit passes, that can be very immediate, right? So it can be that it's between short and long. It's more about to bring that strong association that easily brings a shuttle service or that has that more complex, yeah. That's mainly why.

[Kit Collins]: Anything more on that point comes from me. Great, thank you for the clarifications pala. And I haven't had the advantage of attending the public q amp a on Monday I know that TDM can involve quite a smorgasbord of techniques from stuff that is. quite quick to implement to things that will require further study to roll out. So I think it's a good thing that there might be some shorter term, more actionable things on that menu. And that's one of the things that we'll want to take some time to plan more carefully and very much looking forward to taking a deeper dive into that in more meetings soon. Go next to President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Paula, for the presentation and everyone was at the Q&A who voiced their viewpoints on this. I just want to thank you for the framing and really understanding as we have throughout this zoning process, how much of our existing zoning comes from completely different views on urban planning and the way that cities should be run. The fact that our parking minimums essentially, except for the updates we made just three years ago, reflect a worst case scenario of everybody all the time using a car and the worst day of that ever possibly happening I think goes to show that even calling the minimums is not a good word to use even though it's the word we are stuck with. So I really appreciate that context. I think this is a thoughtful look at all of the options that we have as a community. Something that really struck me is that most cars are parked 23 out of the 24 hours of the day and devoting so much of our land use, our planning thought around car storage versus the spaces that people inhabit or go to on a regular basis and those things that actually build a vibrant community, I think, is something that we're going to be changing and I think that's a really good thing. So I appreciate this, I look forward to the proposals that will be developed based on our five-year now process with hundreds of public meetings and thousands of people to this point, as well as our comprehensive plan and our climate plan and our housing plan so it is the 28th meeting. That's my fault. 28th meeting on this project in this committee so I'm sorry for leaving that off but 28 from us and a few hundred more from everybody else and I think we're really getting down the road to building a community that's a lot more livable, safer, walkable, bikeable, and better for people who use cars as well. Which just includes me. I'm in my car all the time, so I'd like more options too. Thank you very much.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Absolutely.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you very much for those words President Bears. I'll echo your gratitude to Paula for the, I think, both very appropriate and forward looking thinking, and the framing that does come, I think directly out of the community informed plans that inform this entire zoning overhaul. Also note it was not my intention to call you out for the typo in the meeting notice more comment on my. a feeling of, I'll say familiarity with the many meetings we've had on these topics.

[Zac Bears]: We're doing hard work and it should be acknowledged exactly correctly. So I'll try to remember next time. All good.

[Kit Collins]: Any other comments from councillors on the overview of the parking and transportation demand management topic? Any initial comments from city staff before we move on? All right, seeing none. Thank you, Paula. I won't belabor the point. I think that my fellow councilors have, you know, I think that this sets the groundwork very well. I am excited to, you know, again, continue the process of referring to our comprehensive plan, climate action and adaptation plan, housing production plan, and looking to instructive examples and best practices from many of our neighboring communities. as we seek to not skip over these very important regulations as we work to evolve the zoning code into something that will work better for our evolving community. All right, seeing no further comments on this topic, I think we can proceed along to the presentation of the other corridors updated proposal.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, thank you very much. So we will continue. So the other corridors, it is I don't remember exactly the number, but I think you said it four times that we bring this. But so it's, I think it's the third, but I'm not sure. So we have been looking at Boston Avenue, Main Street, Broadway, Harvard Street, and then in Medford West, High Street and Boston Avenue as well. What I want to bring 1st is that what you're going to see in the background of the map is the residential districts that were referred from the city council to the city board. So, this is a proposal that the most, let's say, official proposal that has been referred from the city council to the city board. And I say this because we have been showing sometimes this proposal, sometimes the one that is work in progress at the city board. And so I think that that can create a lot of mistakes or confusion. So we don't want that. So I want to be very clear. This is the option that we are using beneath our corridors proposal. So in March 12, we started to look into the framework. So this is very much the framework that we showed. It has changed quite a lot, but we started with the squares and then the corridors. And so what we see here is a little bit of that, the older commercial or mixed use areas. placed together. So right now, this was the proposal at May 28th, and there were just a few comments on the, and as you can see here, the background is different, so sorry for that. This is just the official that we brought. So I wanted to make very clear in the beginning what we're using now. So but here I just wanted to show that there were just a few comments about some two parcels that were in Boston Avenue on the West Medford area that came from President Bears and those were the Bigger changes that we had that we present this into the public meeting that we had last week and we had other comments and those are the ones that I brought today just to have a discussion and see if we want to apply those. So this is the existing, I'm not going to stop a lot here. We have some commercial ones, so already existing six stories by right, only for residential, then for commercial four, other permitted structures are 15. So everywhere you see that pinkish area in Broadway, Harvard, Main Street, and then some in Boston Avenue. Then we have apartment 1, this is three stories by right, no cap in units, that's in residential building in apartment 1. The thing that happens in here is mainly that commercial buildings are not allowed, and we do have a lot of commercial buildings in these areas. That's something that we wanted to bring forward and to make conforming. Then we have some industrial at the Boston Avenue, two stories by right. We have office two, six stories by right, and then general residential. So mainly these are general residential, which is single in two unit, and then single family, which is single unit. For both right now with the new state law, they can have an ADU by right. So this is the existing situation. It is a disclaimer. I need to add the overlay districts that I haven't add to the maps. So that is missing. And that is, sorry, that's my mistake. And so this will be the proposal that we're bringing today. So this is the, zoom in. So we have some changes which was these two parcels that are at the end of Canal Street are now taken out so it belonged for the residential neighborhood. three as it is in the proposal. Those are the changes that we have here. The only changes that has been made is to add, and this was asked in the community from two different people that live in this area, is to add to the north of Boston Avenue to continue the mixed use. To have that possibility of being all residential or or commercial mixed use building. So they thought that there were not a lot of business in the area. They wanted to be more active and vibrant. There is right now and that's because of what existing a parking garage that is not very vibrant at the moment. And so there are at least is one business that was outside. So it's existing business that was not in this mixed use and that is why it was extended. So that is one of the changes that was brought. I don't know that there are any other changes that I have made. So if there are any others, let me know. But these are the intentional changes.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you, Paula. So Paula.

[Zac Bears]: Oh, sorry.

[Kit Collins]: No, go ahead, President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chair. And I just wanted to confirm that areas outside of the district that's reflecting the map that was presented to the CD board, not the proposed changes that have been discussed at the city board. Is that right?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Correct.

[Zac Bears]: All right. Great. Thank you. So everything that's kind of not highlighted or a little bit later outside of the proposals for the district.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you for that clarification, President Bears. So just to repeat that back to you to make sure that I have it correct, Paola, so the only specific change to this proposed map for other corridors is, and that is the additional MX1B on the south side of Boston Ave, or is it the additional mixed use on the north side of Boston Ave, where your cursor currently is?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: It's on the cursor where I have it right now.

[Kit Collins]: And the additional mixed use, just to make sure I'm looking at the right section, is that the additional, is that the added mixed use 1B or is it the mixed use 2B or mixed use 2A that's on the north side of the street?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: It's 1B.

[Kit Collins]: Okay, great. I do see that the mixed use 1B extends all the way down to the end of that block, and I'd have to make this bigger. It looks like, right, that is now from the boundary to, would that be Winthrop, not all of the, that would be essentially extending Mixed Use 1B until the boundary of the proposed Tufts Institutional Zone District. And just for those of us who don't have the previous proposal right in front of us, Paola, was that previously just residential only, where the Mixed Use 1B is currently?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, I should have it here. So it was only residential. So if I go back, I can tell you exactly which ones are. So we had, if I'm from Medford Hubs, the first block that was already there as the proposal. If I go one more that was already there in the proposal because there we do have a lot of existing business. It goes from the second block towards Somerville, toward the north. Those are all the added and it was residential before, it was not part of the Boston corridor.

[Kit Collins]: I see. Great, thank you. So this is kind of reclaiming that those additional blocks fronting Boston Ave so that they have the option of being mixed use instead of only being able to be residential developments there.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Correct.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you for the clarification. Just wanted to make sure that I was understanding that correctly. I'll go to Director Hunt next.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. Um, as we've been looking at this and we've been sort of test casing it with various things I think it would be helpful. And as we hear comments from the public. I think it would be helpful if we could talk, I actually have three things but I'm going to ask someone, I think it's better one at the time. If Paula, could you talk a little bit about the ground floor. the requirements for active ground floor and what that means and where in which of these zones, that is and what that would mean if like a parcel was redeveloped.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. So, I can, I want to go through the draft later on, so we can bring that as well. Right now. We have it defined in a way that. Active uses, so it's more about active uses the. So, the ground floor, the part that is fronting the main street. we are asking for a percentage usually is 75% of that main facade in the ground floor to be an active use. And so what we want by this is to not end up with a ground floor parking and that everything at the end is going to be more of a dead zone activity area. So because we want this to be walkable and want to be vibrant, we want that. the active uses, and that can be retail, it can be common areas from residential, it can be lobbies, entrances, and we want to add as well, so we have some changes there that we need to further study to to bring that all the active uses are actually fronting the street as much as possible. There are going to be times that that won't be possible, and then we would have some exceptions. But as much as possible, we would like those activities to be fronting the main street. That has to do with social safety, eyes on the street, and make it a more active environment. That is the idea. Now, we need to refine better what an active use is, especially if we have residential buildings. And so ground floor residential could be an active use. So we are going to refine that a little better so that we extend that definition of active uses. Is that answering a little bit what you ask?

[Alicia Hunt]: is mostly because, so one of the things that I sort of wanted to better understand, I was trying to look at what are our current uses in a lot of those locations. I think there are a lot of places where we have, some of them we have ground floor commercial and it's not allowed and we would like it to be allowed. We'd like to have this along there, but in some of these strips, we also already have a lot of two family houses and three family houses. And what if somebody just wanted to build a three-family house in a mixed-use one area. Would they be allowed to do that under the proposal currently?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So we do have, and maybe the best thing is to share the draft if that's okay. One second.

[Alicia Hunt]: As you're doing that part of what I was sort of looking at is what I was on the zoning viewer and looking at the use descriptions and thinking about the fact that walking by two and three family houses. is a pleasant experience walking past an apartment building may or may not be and certainly walking in front of apartment building that it's ground floor parking so the wall is all nothing. Right that we don't like we'd like it to be an active commercial use and we know in our squares. We really want active commercial uses, right? You don't want somebody's house in the middle of Medford Square. You want those to be businesses. And I just am sort of trying to figure out the balance between a corridor that right now is a mix of this block is houses and that block is commercial. Are we forcing that block to now all be commercial in the future?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: If it's in mix, we are not forcing to be commercial. In mix, you can choose between residential and commercial. Exactly as you said, walking along housing, it is pleasant. That's why we want to add as an active use, a residential use in a ground floor. It's not going to be as active as other, but at least it's pleasant to walk and it's not a parking again. We do have certain uses and those were some of the things that we wanted to discuss, is that we do have urban 1, urban 2. In this area, we do not have mix 1A, we do have mix 1B. Mix 1A would be, for example, the mix use 1 in Salem Street. And so what we have been discussing internally is what type of residential building types we are going to allow in the mixed use buildings. in the mixed use corridors, right? So we were thinking to allow multiplex in mix 1B, so from four to six, and to allow a three unit in the mix 1A. Now, if this is, again, we have it highlighted in yellow because we could go either way. So we could have that all the mixed use one can also allow a three unit and in mixed use two, they would allow a 2A for example, would allow multiplex and a 2B won't allow a multiplex. So what is that gradient and transition? We are pretty much open to have that discussion.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, because I'm looking at it and I'm looking at Main Street. And when I compare Main Street and when I compare these parts of, I think that's Boston Ave, we have a lot of, and then I flipped over, Main Street literally has single family houses on it. Not a ton, maybe three or four, maybe five or six. But there are two families. And thinking about what would be allowed in the future, Do we actually want the entire? I'm concerned that if we said the entire thing had to be a corridor of commercial, it would be vacant all the time because there isn't enough commercial demand for that. If it was allowed to be commercial, so there's somebody who wants to build a building and would like to put commercial there, that would be wonderful. But I am wondering about allowing two and three family houses as currently exist along there. And that's the character of that neighborhood right now.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So, if just a small, if I may comment, we know that by zoning 1 and 2 family are well protected. And so what we can do is to start with the 3 and try to in this mix 1 to allow the 3 unit. But we do want to densify places where they have the. high transit and where we have well efficient bus lines. And so going, it's basically putting a limit on that minimum, right? It doesn't have to be that. But knowing that one and two have a certain protection that, for example, a three unit does not have. So maybe what we can do is add to that mixed use one that allows commercial and allows residential. They can have both. That's why it's mixed use. That we can bring the three units into mixed use one so that we know that it's also a smaller scale type of corridor.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And how would that impact with the active ground floor? So you're suggesting that we might allow residential to be considered one of the active uses for the active ground floor requirement? Correct. Correct.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Yeah, I think this is a really productive line of questioning and thank you for bringing it up, Director Hunt. Sorry, you can't hear me. I think this is a really constructive line of conversation. Thank you for bringing it up. I think this applies to many of our corridors, but since we're talking about Boston Ave specifically, well, what goes for all corridors is that I think what makes them really functional and, you know, appropriate for the character that we have here in Medford is absolutely to preserve that mix of residential and commercial. And I like that the proposed zoning, you know, with mixed use zoning, it allows commercial by right, but doesn't mandate it. And I think that that will, I hope that that will result in a good mix of residential types alongside commercial types. Since Boston Ave is in my head, since we're looking at that, we were looking at that portion of the map recently, I'm curious to hear my other colleagues' thoughts on this. Certainly Boston Ave, at least kind of like the Northwest side of it, is very much characterized by a lot of three families currently, so I'd be inclined to maintain those. by right in addition to allowing higher density residential types. But I would want to hear other perspectives on that as well. And I'll go next to President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Yeah, I think the triple-decker three-unit makes a lot of sense in the mixed-use 1B as an allowed use. And I just wanted to chime in to kind of just rephrase what I think Paula and Kit, you have both said. The mixed-use districts allow residential only and allow mixed use. And so that's that's just important to note, right? You can build a three family, you know, or take a two family and turn it into a three family. And that may be something that we see quite a bit of, which I think makes sense. But I do appreciate the gradient here, right, that in the districts where there is more capacity allowed that that, you know, can't put a three family on the Elizabeth Grady building, right? Like, that doesn't make sense. That's why that the mixed use to be. So I think that's, that's a helpful note. And I appreciate that you had that highlighted as something we should talk about.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. And yes, absolutely. Right. What you said is exactly that. Thank you for clarifying.

[Alicia Hunt]: The other thing I thought would be helpful for us to think about, just take a minute to look at, is things like the open space and the lot coverage requirements. We're hearing a lot from people who are really concerned about trees and the protection of open space and how that plays into it. While we would love for all of our boulevards to be boulevards and wide and have street trees so you could have your houses closer together, they're not. We do rely some amount on private property for these things.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. Just to clarify, in the existing zoning, there is actually nothing about open space landscape for one and two units. There is a non-applicable for open space landscape. And there is no minimum for pervious surface. So that is something that we are adding that is not there right now. So every person right now could pave mainly all their house and that would be okay in the sense of zoning. So we are bringing that for the for all the residential, for all the urban, so for all neighborhood 1, 2, and 3, and urban 1 and 2. And then we are also applying that for the mixed use 1B, for all the mixed uses. And besides that, we're also bringing the green score. So, we are doing some studies. We started on the neighborhood residential and the lot coverage because of the things that and all the requirements are usually going to be lower than what we have. So, it can actually be lowered. And the previous surface could be always could be added, could be increased if that's something that we think it should be. For now, the green score we have tested with multifamily and with commercial, and so we are quite sure of what we are asking in there. The open space permeable, we could look into extending that. But I think it will be more flexible in these areas that we also need more density. So again, this is also about sustainability and resilience. And we need to be balancing and we need to balance how much of that green is going to make us more sorry, less dense and then that is also not good in other aspects because of the resources that we need, because the services need to be extended. So we need to balance that compact but green. So that is what we are trying to do with the pervious surface, with the landscape, etc. Zoning has a limit. Zoning is private. The best for fighting heat island effect is usually when you walk and make it more walkable is going to be trees on the street, bio soils and other things that has to be done in the public space. And so there are things that need to be one with the other. There's also the tree ordinance that I know it's going, and I think that is still going, that would protect. We do have, for example, in the green score, we give a lot of points if you maintain the trees. So what we try to give incentives in that sense, right? But we need to balance, we need to balance house production, we need to balance compact city, we need to balance green and heat island effect, because sustainability is about a very complex balance of many different variables. So that's what we're trying to do. What we can do is always bring more further analysis, do some more fit studies and double check that what we have makes sense. I'm sure that we can go a little bit lower with building coverage in UR1 and UR2, but I do want to keep at least in mixed use 1, 2 and all the mixed uses to give the chance of going a little bit more and always having the possibility to go to a green score or a green roof.

[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you. I do notice the lot area is small for MX1B and 2A, and those seem to be trying to incentivize larger buildings. So I was a little bit perplexed. You certainly having a four-story building on a 3,000-square-foot lot just seems a little... Yeah, so these... Sorry. So we don't have a minimum height, right, for these?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: This is also something that we wanted to comment. Absolutely, we can always look at this and do more fit studies. We wanted to be flexible for more infill, so that would be the case with this lower areas. Again, it doesn't mean that you can fit five-story or four-story building with all the requirements that it needs for green, etc. it wouldn't be really possible. What we can do is continue to study that and see if it's better to increase and somewhere else do the infill lots. Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you so much for that clarification. Paola, I'll go to President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I mean, I think we're really getting at the core of this whole conversation at this point, right? Zoning is a complex formula of what is in the base district, what are the dimensional requirements, what are the performance standards, and what are all of the other requirements, right? The building code, the city's stormwater regulations, state law that may be applicable, for example, for like ADUs, And, you know, we're talking about the tree ordinance as well, and the tree ordinance zoning amendment that would affect trees on private property and would increase the cost of removing existing trees, right? So what Paola said, I think is really important for everyone to remember about every district and every zoning proposal, right? Just because a district allows a certain number of units or a certain size of structure and says that the minimum lot area is something, most of the, basically almost always, the actual structure that can be built on that lot is going to be less tall with fewer units than what the district may allow at the maximum, because most of the lot are not, with the dimensional requirements, can't build those structures, right? So if we use things, it's a great, it ties right into the parking, right? The parking minimums were set as these maximums, which means we've completely limited all of these other possible types of construction and typologies in the neighborhoods we might want to have. If we use the lot area as maximums, or if we use the unit number as maximums, we limit all of the other things that we may want and may be possible. So people get concerned when they see the headline numbers. And zoning is the starting point of development and planning and what our neighborhoods look like. It's not the end point. So if we choose to be overly restrictive on these things that are the starting point, then the end point is going to be even smaller and we're not going to see the results that we want. And I think that's really the key principle to remember here. The vast majority of even new project, vast majority of properties aren't going to change. because the people who live there and own them don't want them to change. And the ones that do are not going to change to the maximum edge that they're going to change to because all of these other factors need to be factored in. So I think that's just really the core and essential principle of what we're doing here and what everyone in the public needs to understand. So I just wanted to say all of that to also add that from a environmental green space, open space, permeable surface, pervious surface standpoint, these proposals are significantly better than the existing zoning conditions, which allow people to pave over their entire lot with tar, you know, with asphalt. And that's a disaster for stormwater, for green space, for the look of our communities. I live 15 doors down from a corner lot that's completely paved over, and it's a completely different look than just a lot on the other side of the street that has some green space. So, yeah, from an environmental perspective, we are really focused on making the zoning more supportive of open space and green space and pervious surface because our zoning right now doesn't factor that. I mean, essentially our zoning right now says, let's build small houses where not a lot of people can live in them, where people can own as many cars as they may want, and we're going to store them, and we don't have any green space at all. And I think those are all three values that are not where we are as a community. I don't think it's actually where we've ever been as a community. But our zoning is anachronistic, it's out of date, and it doesn't serve our needs. So thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you very much, President Pierce.

[Alicia Hunt]: If there are no other comments from the councilors on that, the one other topic that I just sort of, I did want us to make sure we address.

[Kit Collins]: Or Director Hunt, I'm sorry, I think actually Danielle had what looked like a direct response before we go on to your next topic, if that's okay. Thank you. Great, I'll go to Planner Evans on Zoom.

[Danielle Evans]: Hi, thank you, Danielle Evans, senior planner. So, I had sort of a follow up question to director hunts about the. The minimum lot size and the zones at 3000 square feet, but then the. The least dense housing unit allowed was. I think we were changing it to allow a 3 family, but I'm wondering, has there been any test fits to to demonstrate that you can get a 3 family on a 3000 square foot lot? Because if we want to get the infill, I don't want there to be a situation where. Even if you had the most perfect rectangular 3000 square foot lot, when you fit the 3 units and factor in building coverage, green score, parking, wherever that lands that you can actually do. The 3 units, or if it's going to be hard to develop and only say a 2 unit would work on such a small lot. So I'm just. Or if there could be something built in for those situations, because I. A little concern that maybe to develop, but not having gone through the exercise of. Doing a test fit that I'm not sure, but have you looked at that at all?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So, what we, what we try is to so 1st question, yes, we had done some test fit studies, especially with the residential fitting 3 unit. It is possible in a 3000. it's not. It is the minimum of the minimum, right? And it might be that is a 3000 on high transit area. So your parking is 0.8 instead of the 1.5. But it could also be a 2 layers of commercial that is less than 5000. And then you don't have the requirement of parking, for example. It really depends on what we try is to be as flexible as possible and those lots that could be this small that are able to have that infill. That's why it's in the 3,000, but it is true that it's quite minimum. If we want to give a little bit of more air to breathe, we could go to the 4,000. That would work even better. You would have a little bit of more space.

[Danielle Evans]: Because I feel like you have to either toggle down your minimum units that you want to see on the site or raise the square footage because they interact there. It would just be a shame if somebody had like a 3000 or 3500 square foot law and then couldn't really do much on it. Maybe there's a really beautiful tree situated in a certain way. I guess there's always trips to the zoning board, but trying to kind of. head these off before in real life examples start coming before us. Thank you.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: But we could provide more studies and show that possibilities so that we are all sure about that and then decide from it.

[Kit Collins]: Great. Thank you for raising that, Planner Evans. I think that's important thing for us to run down and I hear the point that of course in citywide if there's any of these funky lots there, this is something that we're obviously quite strenuously trying to avoid in the current zoning hall is making things, making the things that we want conformant to make the zoning and development process easier in the way that we want it to be. Of course, I think there probably is going to be those funky lots where it's hard to develop what makes sense, and there is always the CPA for that. But I think that it makes sense to look a little bit closer at as we are finessing the dimensional requirements for the corridors district. If there's anything more on that specific part of the D, sorry, long day. If there are no other specific comments on that side of the dimensional requirements part of the conversation, we'll go back to Director Hunt.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. The other piece for the corridors that I've been asked about, and I just want to sort of check where we stand on that, is that we had done this Broadway corridor study with Somerville. And we had talked about incorporating the recommendations from that study into this area. And I noticed that the area down along Broadway where that study was done is quite varied. And I know that the results of that study was quite doing different things along different portions of it. And I just thought we should address that and ask, is this those recommendations or did we vary from them or have you not had a chance to look at those yet?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, I've looked into the study. The recommendation or the preferred option was the six stories high. The only thing is that Somerville has an MR mid-rise four, and so the recommendation was the first buildings to be four and then behind six. I'm not so sure that we want to bring that six to the back and the four to the front. What we had proposed was to bring that mix use to A. What I wanted is more discussing with Somerville, how they will see it, if they are planning to change it in the future, So that if we change it now to 4 maximum, and they are planning to change it to 6, that we would have to change it again. So what I would like to talk to Somerville is if they are planning to update theirs to follow that preferred vision.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I'm happy to help coordinate that I actually and so it's clear to everybody. Part of why this is a particular interest. I literally attended a plant a Somerville planning board meeting last week, because it was for a building that is partially in Medford and partially in Somerville, and they literally, we had opposing they had a minimum height and we had a maximum height that we're in conflict with each other. And all kinds of things that were in conflict with each other. So part of my presence was to help sort of facilitate that as they were asking for things and changes. We could be responding a little bit more in real time as possible on because this building has been going through the zoning project for five years. But that's not the only building that goes across the parcels. This wasn't a unique building. There are many buildings up and down that corridor that are both in Medford and Somerville. So one of the things we have discussed was as much as we can make our zoning align with each other and they have not yet updated their zoning to reflect the Broadway corridor study. in general, I have been told it is their intention to do that. But I'm happy to facilitate that. And as much as we can reflect what was agreed upon as part of that study, which had a lot of neighbors from that neighborhood attend, I think that would be very beneficial.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, if that can happen, we would love to have that conversation. Thank you, Director Hunt.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you, Paula and thank you for raising that director and I think that that's a really needed and. overdue part of the corridors proposal is, you know, kind of at long last making sure that zoning aligns on that particular boundary between Medford and Somerville I live right around there and have in some cases, joked with business owners about where exactly the line is on their floor and in other cases, the neighbors with these kind of what seems like permanently vacant buildings so definitely to everybody's benefit that these could be could become developable and I think it would be a real feather in our cap to set the pace for Somerville in adopting the recommendations of this zoning study. I would be interested to see what comes out of the conversation. I would be surprised if Somerville is not planning on manifesting the full recommendations of the study and adopting six maximum as well. So it'd be my inclination to just go ahead and make sure that our zoning reflects those recommendations and let them catch up hopefully quickly.

[Alicia Hunt]: And if I if I might, the green score edition is lovely because that building currently which went through the variance progress process in Medford in 2021 and is still going through the Somerville process. They're only proposing green roof on the Somerville portion of the building, because our 2021 zoning and building code required, you know, did not require any kind of green score or anything. We thought that was interesting, although we do require and did require then solar, so there was a direct conflict there as well. So it's just these sorts of things that are just, you can't even make this up sometimes, but yeah, like literally this one, our zoning board in 2021.

[Kit Collins]: That is a particularly bizarre example of One of the many fun things that you can have when you're governed by a 351 municipalities instead of regional government, among other things. I'll speculate about which building in particular that is. So great, thank you for running that down Director Hunt and Paola and yeah in the meantime I think that it makes sense for the version of this proposal that we refer out to reflect the recommendations of the Broadway corridor zoning study. What other comments and questions to Councilors or city staff have on this proposal tonight.

[Zac Bears]: I had, since we're talking about dimensionals I had one question. It's kind of related to another thing, but I think it applies here. You know, at least applies if if there's. 80 years involved, um. The current, uh. Accessory structure, dimensional requirements. Are we proposing any changes to those. At this time.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Um, no, so that we would need to go and amend. That I mentioned all the standards for accessory uses.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, everything is pointing towards the existing 94 dash 4.3, which I actually think. Um, is a is a fine, uh. Section as it is, I was just wondering and checking if we were, um, I've gotten a couple of questions. If the new. principle structure dimensionals would apply to accessory structures and I said well it looks like the way that the you know proposed ordinance amendments are written it just points to the existing dimensionals for accessory structures and I just wanted to double check on that.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, what we have done, and I can go through the draft to explain a little bit all the changes that we have done or things that we might want to discuss. So we added the local ADU in the accessory uses. We added the local ADU, local ADU by special permit and the local ADU historic structure. And so we are we are making those yes in the UR1 and 2. And we also want to make that question, now that we have mixed use one with a three unit, that we can add that one so that they can also have an ADU. So it would be applicable for the three unit dwelling. in the mix use one A and B to be permitted as an accessory structure.

[Zac Bears]: Thanks, and I would personally, I appreciate that answer and I would also think it might be useful to go through. Some of the dimensional requirements, and then the actually, maybe more of what I'm saying is the performance standards that are in. This document, I've noticed some updates to that, and I think it's really helpful for people to understand. Uh, how the performance standards, you know, impact what can be built on a lot. Um, I think we have a lot of really good performance standards in here, but, you know. They also go right back to that kind of core principle, which is that. you know, the district may say x is allowed on x lot of x size, but actually dimensional requirements and performance standards mean that what can actually be built is relatively significantly smaller and less dense.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Before you go on, Paola, I'm just going to go to Director Hunt really quickly.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh yes, of course. I'm glad President Bears raised that. I just wanted to flag that we've already had at least one situation where somebody has an exterior garage. So that's an accessory use and they wanted to turn it into an ADU. And in order in doing so, they wanted to add a second floor so that the second floor would be the bedrooms. And they were told that they were limited by the 15 feet in height of accessory structures. So what it was basically saying is that you couldn't have a two-story, a garage with an apartment on top of it if the garage is the accessory structure to your building. And so I just wanted to flag that because I don't think that is, my impression is our intention would be to allow somebody to put an apartment over their garage as their ADU, but I didn't want to speak for the council, but under the current zoning, it's not actually allowed.

[Kit Collins]: Thank you, director. And I'll go back to present.

[Alicia Hunt]: There is this part, if it's a protected use ADU, then the dimensions can't be more restrictive than the primary building. So this then becomes meaningless. But if it's a special permit or second ADU, then it's allowed. And frankly, it's very confusing to say that the accessory structure is limited. Oh, unless the accessory structure is an ADU, in which case it's not controlled by this. I think we should have it spelled out somewhere so that it's clear that the ADU is not controlled by the accessory use. Because maybe you don't want a two-story garage just for having a garage. Maybe you do want, it's OK if it's an apartment and that's an ADU. Yeah. I realize that's kind of confusing.

[Zac Bears]: I was just going to say the same thing as I was reading these earlier and looking at that question. Because the dimensional requirement for the principal structure is less restrictive than for the protected use ADU, that would not have been a correct decision to have made. But personally, I think it makes sense maybe for the local use historic structure, but also I think we could get into Yeah, that would be the case where I think it would make most sense to have the same protection for the protected use but that's just my two cents. I'm a little more, I think a little less gung-ho on the second local use ADU having exactly the same protections as the protected use ADU. That's just my opinion.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, so we will We will review that because in the protected use is the most permissive between the accessory use. So the accessory structure dimension, the principal unit and a single family. So the local, the first local ADU by right should have the same principles. And in that case too, the dimensions from the accessory structure should not prohibit a second floor because you would have it because of your principal building or because a single family permits that height. And so it's the most permissive. But I can check the language and review that.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I just think it would be helpful to have it clearly stated in the zoning, even if it's in the state law, because it's so easy for people to get confused when they're like, but this is what it says in the book. And you're like, well, actually there's this law that overrides it, right? I just, I want it to be clear everywhere. And I wonder if our accessory uses should be in our dimensional table rather than buried in section 4.3.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, we were internally also wondering if it should be, or in the ADU so that you can easily see what are the dimensional standards that affect. But we can talk about that when we talk about the structure of the zoning. Great, thank you.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you. As we work to update the zoning itself, I'm very glad that we were also planning to update how it is laid out so that we can all have better zoning, easier to find and analyze in the future. Anything more on this dimensional requirements topic for now? Is there more that you wanted? President Bears, you mentioned an overview of some of the dimensionals in this conversation would be helpful. Were there other specific areas that you wanted us to discuss in committee tonight?

[Zac Bears]: I think for me, just going through the performance standards changes would be helpful.

[Kit Collins]: Great, can we do that Paola?

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, absolutely. I just want to flag 2 things here is 1 would be that the historic conversion we allow that in the mixed use. And what we say is that this historic conversion in mixed use districts could be converted into a mixed use building. So that historic conversion could have a ground floor commercial and units above. That is something that we bring in here. The setbacks, we usually have a three for other types of, for example, we had three for Mystic Avenue. We are reducing since we heard from community input, especially for historic buildings. We reduced that to zero and then the maximum is 20. whenever they go to the maximum, they need to activate that area. So those I wanted to flag. The rear, it's zero because we do have the standards in the development standards. We do protect that when it's abutting a residential district, they have to leave at least a buffer of 10 feet. So that's why we are reducing them to zero. What else we have, let me go to the dimensional to the development. So, then we have the proposed the neighborhood quarters. In this case, we are separating each quarter and defining the different districts that are within the quarter. Uh, on the final check, um, this is. Very likely this will be all together. Um, so the mix uses would be defined. Uh, the district, and then if there is anything particular. In each quarter that will be defined separately, but usually. What we are seeing now is that it would be mostly. And combined is just that right now, because we are looking geographically one by one, we wanted to make it more clear what happens where. And so that's why we bring it in this way. So for the dimensional requirements and waivers, we have the front setback. So we want to create that 12 foot sidewalk. This is the same as it was in Salem Street. And then a maximum setback can be up to 20 feet. It would be allowed, but it has to create an active public plaza, or it has to be some kind of activating that frontage. It cannot be just, um a lawn without or just a terrace it needs to be activated with or furniture or active um or a plaza etc um the hi um do you want me to go to each of one or the things that we are changing is that a preferred

[Kit Collins]: I think that a quick overview of the performance standards would be helpful Paola, and if there's a particular topic that any Councilor wants us to take a deeper dive on they should feel free to speak up.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, okay.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, I was, I was talking about like the, I think, particularly the height step backs the light, the shadow the all of that.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Okay, so, yeah, so, as I said before, if the side and rear setbacks, we are proposing 0, because when we have an existing lot with a residential use that is lower than 5 units, then the applicant has to, the owner of the land has to provide that landscape buffer of at least 10 feet wide. and the property owner has to maintain that buffer in landscaping. So that is why we don't have that 10 on the mixed uses. We have the height step back requirements, so for any lot within these districts, the mixed districts that directly abut, and this will change whenever we change the residential districts. But whenever abut a residential district, there is a height setback required along that abutting line of the residential district. The height step back is calculated by that 45-degree angle beginning at the third floor and extending to the highest floor of the building in the MX 1B, 2A, or 2B district. That means that the fourth floor and above shall not break that plane of 45-degree angle. So in this way, we want to, that those, instead of having a residential district, which is usually two and a half, which means three stories, that 32 foot height usually, what we want is that whatever happens in front of it, has a transitional, a gradient of height. And so that's why we do that from the third story. So from the 32 foot, then we have that line of 45 degree. And so in front, we won't have a seven story building, but we will have a more transition with the step backs that make that transition a lot more pleasant. So another thing that we already talked about was that ground floor active frontage and what we want is, and that's why it's highlighted, we want to add to the definition the residential use as an active use. We will review if there is anything else that we need to change or if we have to reduce or what kind of waiver we should do unless it's very clear the criteria for which they can waive that. Then we have transition to adjacent residential buildings again, building adjacent to a residential zoning district should step down to the base height required by the district. So, mainly what we have here is that anything. that is on the main streets, those can go, so in this case will be Boston Avenue, for example. What we have when we do that incentive height, those incentive heights should be towards the Boston Avenue, towards the corridor, and then going to the residential that has to step down to the base height, so not doing the incentive. So we need to form that transition from the corridors towards the district. Then we have waivers that is just in certain cases, certain heights, et cetera, can be waived. Whenever the community development board, for example, considers that it doesn't align with the Metro comprehensive plan with the two goals of that. Again, step-back waiver. If a building is subject to a front step-back and rear or side step-back, the Community Development Board may waive the strict dimensional requirement of any of the step-backs, provided that priority is given to retaining the step-backs in a section. height step back requirements. And then we have energy efficiency. Then we bring the development standard and development set incentives. This is for the incentive zoning. So all the different requirements and bonuses that we can have. We're still working on some. We haven't forget about, for example, the public parking, how this can be incentivized. Then we have the shared community solar. So those are still to be developed. Then we have some design guidelines. The Community Development Board may adopt and amend by simple majority vote design standards, which shall be applicable to all rehabilitation, redevelopment, or new construction submitted under this neighborhood corridor districts. Such design guidelines may address the scale and proportion of buildings in alignment with all the different things that we can have and they can apply. So if we go to development standards, we talk about the connections. So where those connections should be towards the, that the sidewalk should provide those direct connections among building entrances, public sidewalk, if applicable, bicycle storage and parking. Sidewalk width, we're asking for 12 feet width for the sidewalks. materials, vehicular access. Whenever it's feasible, the curb cuts shall be minimized. This is for increasing walkability. We ask to share as much as possible driveway. Open space shall be contiguous and connected to the pedestrian network. So usually we ask that that open space should be more into the front yard. and on the side. Screening for surface parking, parking materials, plantings, lighting, basically light levels, shell meat, Shall meter exceed the minimum design guidelines defined by the Illumination Engineering Society of North America, and then provide illumination necessary for safety and convenience. Stormwater management, all the strategies that METFOR has in place. General building standards, we have the position relative to the principal street. We want that the primary building shall have its principal facade and entrance facing that principal street. We are bringing that daylight minimum that we have discussed. We are still trying to define what is the best definition that we can bring, what are those considerations that we may have. We are looking into other communities. This is something that we bring in from international standards, but we want to look either any national standards that can help us build it better. So we are still, we wanted to have it there because we have talked about it and we want to bring this, but we need to know how to bring it and that it makes sense and that is feasible for everyone. And I think, Yeah, I think if there's any questions specific, we can go there, but those are the main ones that we have updated or change or that continue to be here. And what is important to say as well is that anything that is coming into these development standards that for now are being applied to the, in this case would be the other corridors, at the end, we will bring back Um, and it will be applied as well for Salem Street, Mystic Avenue, um, the squares, et cetera. So we don't want to think that people think that this is only for the corridors, uh, for this ones, but that this will be reviewed and, uh, anything that is good and new for the community that we find because of our public meetings, we will bring them also back to the other corridors and squares that have been already approved.

[Kit Collins]: Great, thank you so much, Paula. And thank you for that clarification as well. We've been talking about so many of these different performance standards over the past really year and a half. Different ones of them have been particularly relevant to different zoning proposals. But just to underline what you just said, these are being presented as like attached to this proposal certainly not the case that only these corridors will be subject to these performance standards development incentives, etc. During our planned kind of cleanup and reconciliation phase will make sure that these. standards, design guidelines, incentives, et cetera, will be applied to all of the districts that we have been talking about during the overhaul to make sure that these incentives and benefits and just standardizations will be applied consistently where they make sense. And I also just wanna flag because I know Director Hunt raised earlier that she's been hearing some questions from the public just in general, Kind of what have the new conditions and standards that we're talking about when the zoning changes in this case we're talking about corridors. What does that mean for existing properties and just because you just said this as we were going over the design guidelines. These are all applicable to new rehabilitations, redevelopments, new construction under the new zoning after it is passed. It's not the case that once the new zoning passes, existing properties and parcels immediately have to change what they're doing or meet new conditions to which they were not previously subject unless they're doing a redevelopment, rehabilitation, or tear down a new construction. That makes them subject to the new zoning rules so I just wanted to flag that again at the end of the meeting. Any questions or comments from Councilors or city staff on any of the performance standards that we just went over President Bears.

[Zac Bears]: Just wanted to also note that pre existing non conforming structures and uses have additional protection, though. even if you are in a structure and you want to do work on it or make changes to it, there's a lot of changes that can be made even if the zoning says that there are other requirements. So that's just another factor that should go into people's minds as we discuss this as well. And it's the reason that we have a lot of businesses and districts that don't allow business right now, right? They were pre-existing uses before the zoning, the old zoning was passed. That's why there's so much non-conformity. Well, it's one reason that there's a lot of non-conforming structures and uses in places that the current zoning wouldn't allow new similar things to be built. And I also have a motion, but I can wait until after anyone else has comments or if there's public participation.

[Kit Collins]: Great.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, President Bears.

[Kit Collins]: Yes, thank you for that, that emphasis as well. And certainly our many, many nonconforming businesses in Medford are, you know, kind of stand as a testament to the protections that nonconforming structures are entitled to under our zoning. Any other comments or questions from my fellow councillors? or from city staff? Seeing none, I will open it up for public participation. We can take any motions from my fellow councilors after that. I don't see any members of the public in the chamber. So if you're on Zoom and you would like to speak, please just raise your hand and I will call on you. Everybody will have three minutes to make your comments. Seeing no hands go up, I'll give another moment in case anybody is thinking about it. All right, are there any motions from my fellow councilors or I know President Bears? Go ahead.

[Zac Bears]: Thank you, I have motion to report the other corridors draft out of committee and keep the paper in committee and adjourn.

[Kit Collins]: Great, one second, please. So that was a motion to report the other corridors proposal out of committee. Keep the paper in committee and adjourn. And while the clerk is typing that up I will just restate for the end time but just in case we have any members of the public joining us tonight that haven't been at one of these planning and permitting committee meetings before. For any amendment to our zoning code or piece of new zoning the processes that follows proposals get developed in this committee over a course of several meetings. on President Bears' motion. This proposal, like others, will then be reported out to the City Council at a regular meeting of the City Council. We will then take a vote to refer it to the Community Development Board. This is a procedural step that is required for any zoning update or amendment. The Community Development Board will hold public hearings on the zoning proposal. as it sees fit, and then if it chooses, it will make recommendations on the zoning proposal when it refers it back to the city council, and then we will take a vote on it in a regular meeting of the city council. Please keep an eye on the city's zoning website to stay updated about future public hearings on this zoning proposal and others. All right, with that being said, Mr. Clerk, please call the roll.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes. Councilor Callahan, Councilor Leming, Councilor Scarpelli is absent. Vice President Collins.

[Kit Collins]: Yes. Four in favor, one absent. The motion passes and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Paula. Thank you to our city staff for being with us here tonight. Thank you for two members of the public who joined us. Have a good night.

[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you so much.

Kit Collins total time: 18.19 minutes total words: 1464	Matt Leming total time: 0.51 minutes total words: 32	Zac Bears total time: 11.8 minutes total words: 722