[Emily Hedeman]: Good evening and welcome everyone to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. My name is Emily Hedeman. I'm the chair of the board and I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the Board will be made by roll call. I would also like to add that in a former board member's absence, Jackie McPherson, Ben Lavallee, who is an alternate board member, will be participating in her place. Please know that all project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the City's website, medfordma.org. By clicking on the current CD board filings, there will also be a link in the chat that Danielle or Alicia will put shortly. We're going to start with roll call attendance. Thanks for that, Alicia. Ari Goffman-Fishman? Present. Hey, Ari. Sabrina Alpino? Present. Hi, Sabrina. Adam Behrens?
[Adam Behrens]: Here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Annie Strang? Present. Ben LaVallee?
[Ben Lavallee]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Nice. Vice Chair Peter Calves? And myself, Chair Emily Hedeman is present. Danielle, can you please introduce any staff on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, myself, Daniel, I've been senior planner at the office planning, development, sustainability. We also have our director, Alicia hunt. We also have our economic development director, along with 1 of our. Student interns will be taking minutes tonight, Josh Needleman, and I believe that is everyone that we have with the city tonight. And we also have our outside legal counsel, Robin Stein, with us tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thank you for that, Danielle. So we have a couple of matters before the board. The first item that we have is 401 Boston Ave. This is site plan review for a Dover amendment. The public hearing was closed at the January 15th, 2025 meeting. And what we're continuing this evening is the board deliberation. Board member Adam Behrens was not present for the January 15th meeting, but he has signed the Mullen roll affidavit, and we do have that on file. And just as a reminder, I stated this earlier, but alternate member Ben LaValle is voting as a full member, as we don't have seven full members present, and he has been in attendance for each of the meetings of this case. So with that, we are opening it up for board deliberation. I would like to remind the board that there's a couple questions before us. Does this use qualify as protected educational use under the Dover Amendment? And what are reasonable regulations that should be imposed on the use? We did hear a lot of public feedback. with resistance to this project, but I just want to remind the board that based on our jurisdiction as the Community Development Board, those are the two questions in front of us today. I mean, is there any concern or doubt that 401 Boston have does not qualify under the Dover Amendment?
[Ari Fishman]: I don't have doubts. It is clear to me that it qualifies kind of separate from my feelings about the design of the project. It is clear that it is a Dover Amendment use and that has been confirmed by legal counsel to my satisfaction.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, not only the design, but also the community engagement process has left a lot to be desired. And while we do not have public comment at this period, the public is making their feelings very well known, and I do appreciate that. And while we may not be able to act fully per your hopes, we still need to do what's right by our board. So assuming that... Annie, you're unmuted. Did you have any thoughts on the Dover Amendment aspect of 401 Boston? No.
[Ayni Strang]: No, I think the Dover Amendment is clear.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam, any questions from your rewatch of the hearing?
[Adam Behrens]: No questions for the public. I attended all the previous meetings and then the affidavit, I watched the entire deliberation from the last meeting. I think my views are, maybe Annie said it well in the last meeting, there's a spirit of the law and then there's the actual law. And I think that where I feel uncomfortable is that this just doesn't really feel in the spirit of what the Dover amendment is trying to achieve. But that said, I think it's obvious that just does fall under that regulation.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we're definitely being put in a very uncomfortable position.
[Ayni Strang]: Exactly.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: So I kind of, I will say that if this were not a Dover amendment case, we would be going back to a whole lot of site plan review, um, without a doubt. Um, the kind of, we would, we would not be.
[Emily Hedeman]: I could not agree with you more Ari. And, you know, while I, I respect the, the reason for the Dover amendment, um, I think there needs to be a lot more. critical thought put into how it is applied.
[Ayni Strang]: Within this community.
[Emily Hedeman]: Within any community, I think.
[Ayni Strang]: But we're talking about this specific community, and I think that. Yeah.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, and maybe I think what Annie is also maybe to read between the lines, too. I think what also I'm uncomfortable by is that perhaps as an ongoing member of this community, there is additional properties that adjoin this community. And there's additional matters that we know that the university will likely bring before the board. And I think we would appreciate more of a partnership in NSA, just in how that plays out.
[Ari Fishman]: And I'll actually even go beyond that, which is to kind of speak directly to Tufts. There is the letter of the law, as you are interpreting it, and as I believe our lawyers are interpreting it, too. and also you are members of a community. And I love this community. And I love many things about Tufts. I was a part of that community for many years too. And being a good partner may not pay immediate dividends in dollars and cents, but it absolutely pays dividends in the short, medium and long-term. And we are a community and I urge you to take the community's concerns much more seriously than I have seen you do in this particular process.
[Ayni Strang]: That's why we're named the Community Development Board.
[Emily Hedeman]: Very well said, Ari. I just want to sit with that for a little bit. So even considering our displeasure with the process, with the project, even recognizing the need for more student housing, my general feeling is that the board will approve it. or is leaning towards approving the Dover Amendment use. So what I wanna talk about now is if we do approve that Dover Amendment use, what are some reasonable regulations that can be imposed? And the two aspects that Tufts has put before us where they want relief, from the strict adherence to the zoning ordinance is the location of the parking on campus and the building setbacks. I think probably the parking may be the easiest one to agree to. Tufts is a campus. It doesn't make sense for them to have parking associated with each building, with each function. So I'm generally in agreement with a different location for parking. Curious if any other board members have any thoughts on that or any reasons why on-site parking should be required.
[Ari Fishman]: I have no objections to the parking as is, something that I think has been percolating and that I don't know how we can incorporate. But some form of enforcement mechanism of the many promises that have been made to make sure that they are carried out to both the letter and the spirit of trying to repair some of the harm that It is clear this project will do. And I don't know if this is the moment to discuss that or not, but I kind of as we bringing that up, that is something I've been spending a lot of time thinking about.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we do have the draft conditions. That we reviewed at the last meeting. And we can review them again and we can add to them. We do have our legal counsel here. She can guide us, make sure that. you know, we're imposing reasonable conditions, but, you know, we can certainly reopen that discussion. That's what board deliberations are for. And we can combine it with Tufts' request for the front yard setback relief. I guess I can pull up the conditions now.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, and something that I want to incorporate to is some of these longer term commitments, the trees, the kind of parking enforcement, the shuttle. the payment of the community funds. Once this building is built, we're not going to tear it down. That's wildly outside our scope. But what are some enforcement mechanisms we can have that we can put in from the beginning to make sure that the small things that have been able to be won, at least those are insured.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'd love to just get some clarification from city staff in terms of that process. Just speaking in general, whether it's the Tufts project or not, when the community development board does put conditions on a project, how are those generally enforced? And Robin, if you have an answer.
[Robin Stein]: Oh, sure. I wasn't sure if you're directing that to me or to Alicia or Danielle. But generally speaking, when a board acting on site plan or special permit or variances is usually a zoning decision with conditions, they would be enforced through the building commissioners, the zoning enforcement officer. So if a condition was being violated, usually the first step is either a conversation or a letter. And then eventually, if it's not being complied with, it's something that we might pursue in court. It's a little bit different for subdivisions. So that's why I was just clarifying. But something like this that is a site plan, the enforcement goes through the building commissioner's office.
[Emily Hedeman]: So before they could get their like certificate of occupancy, they would have to fulfill these?
[Robin Stein]: So anything in the decision that has a specific timing to it has to be on that timing, whether it's before occupancy, before building permit, but then all the other conditions just survive forever. So if there's, um, well, if there's other, um, If there are other conditions that survive ongoing, like ongoing obligation to have the shuttle or whatever conditions survive past occupancy, those continue to be conditions of the approval. And if they were violated, then it would go through the building commissioner's office.
[Emily Hedeman]: Danielle, do you have anything to add?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, through the chair. As Attorney Stein mentioned, some of the conditions have certain benchmarks when they need to be complete. So we like to tie those to the building permit, certificate of occupancy, things like that. And so at those different checkpoints, before those are done, the, you know, the building commissioner makes through and will, you know, goes through and checks, will check with the relevant staff who is kind of overseeing that, whether it's the engineering department or our office or the director of traffic, transportation or fire, police, what have you. He checks and confirms that we're, that they're all set and that they have met that condition in order to receive whatever it is that they're seeking. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: So curious, Ari, if that kind of general process satisfies your question in terms of enforcement.
[Ari Fishman]: I guess I'm kind of trying to remember and my computer is being slow. Is there a timeline of how, like, is there a guarantee that the shuttle will run so long as the building is standing or the building is a dorm? Is there an end date there for something like the community fund? I know that it was intentionally not put in the city's control so that there was the possibility to individually compensate owners, but kind of what are, what is the public, Notification and transparency around what payments are going out on what timeline and how will both we and the many members of the very interest in public know that that's happening as promised.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I like what you're saying in terms of, I mean, I don't know if it applies for all of these, but how do we make them smart conditions?
[Robin Stein]: Yeah, so I think you just need to look at the conditions. I know you reviewed them at the last meeting, but you certainly can look at them again now and just make sure that they read the way that you want them to read. Yeah. I mean, the only caution I'll give is because the public hearing is closed, an opportunity to kind of discuss those with Tufts has passed. That's something that you did during the public hearing. Just you want to keep that in mind if you're really dramatically changing anything, but the condition should have the timings associated with them. Yeah. But everything survives forever as a condition, so long as the permits being used. Danielle?
[Danielle Evans]: I just wanted to mention that regarding the community fund, and I'm trying to open up my conditions document too. This is something that the university conceived of and offered. So the city does not want to be closely involved with that. So I pretty much we put this in the condition document to like memorialize, that summary of commitments that Tufts made, but this isn't really something that we will be monitoring per se, but I defer to director Hunt and our legal counsel because I, this was between Tufts and the neighborhood and I just wanted to memorialize it. I don't know if there's summary of what they're offering, if there's anything legally binding that they can do aside from this decision.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, so this is the condition that we're speaking to here. And I am sharing screen, so I might not be able to see people's hands being raised. So board members, if you'd like to discuss, just unmute yourself and we'll talk through it.
[Ari Fishman]: And this is me proposing an idea, and I see kind of lots of decision points coming out of it. So kind of fully acknowledging that as I say it, do we want to include a reporting mandate here of the Tufts will publish to the public an annual report of the amount spent? We can see privacy concerns about the names. On the other hand, I think there's a lot of value to transparency. And I would put it in here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and maybe there's some guidelines or some minimum data points for reporting. So maybe it says, I don't know, like, type of aid. Because I know some of the specific comments were around like solar panels and energy generation. So maybe there's broad categories. I don't want to be so prescriptive that, you know, we ruminate on this forever, but I like what you're saying in terms of reporting and maybe, yeah.
[Ben Lavallee]: What about just reporting on progress of all of the conditions? I mean, just confirming that the applicant follows through on everything, right? Like, so I don't know what the right wording would be, but something along the lines of, you know, Tufts reports on, yeah, funding disbursement in the case of this community fund, but it'd be good to get like a readout and a confirmation that everything that was agreed to or conditioned is actually implemented, right?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I mean, I'd love to have that for all of our projects, to be honest, but especially this one.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, I will say that I think there is value in it being not overly prescriptive, but providing a sufficient minimum detailed guardrail, thus that the leader of the agreement does not allow something like one sentence report in an annual report that says we did the thing.
[Ben Lavallee]: Well, I think it's also in the, I agree with Ari, and I think it's also in the applicant's interest, right? I mean, some of this is sort of best effort type wording, right? So, if in fact they're unable to meet one of the conditions, but they put forward best effort, it's actually in the applicant's interest to make the public aware of that, right?
[Emily Hedeman]: Maybe we could say something like, because I know those conditions you're talking about, Ben. We could say, what was it? I think it was a tree one was best available. Commercially reasonable efforts.
[Ben Lavallee]: um I think the public rightfully will you know go back and and check these conditions and if they're you know, if that doesn't happen, I think it's in tufts interest to At least be clear as to what commercially reasonable efforts were made And uh, and just explain it So, I don't I don't know. I don't know What the best enforcement mechanism is but something along the lines of like, I mean we're talking about 25 conditions some sort of report out on a regular basis once a year or however often we think is appropriate. Couldn't hurt.
[Emily Hedeman]: What about if not able to fill, they can propose an alternate? Is that too nebulous? What do we think? I know that this is MBTA property, National Grid property. If they can't plant trees there, then you know, those sites are kind of.
[Ben Lavallee]: And there's a few, there's a few such things, right? Like the blue bike station, right. Is it, you know, probably not entirely in Tufts control to get that installed, right? There's, they're going to have to collaborate with other entities in order to make some of these happen.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. So this one's a definite.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, I guess there's part of me that's also thinking about ones that will impact people, things like the dedicated ride share. We talked about enforcement and how they agreed to use TUPD to assist with enforcement. But kind of that, things like the shades, they committed that shades will be built in if they stop working, if the students tear them out. Students are creative when they don't like their living spaces. And while I would love to operate under good faith assumption, I think that much of this process has shown that the neighborhood needs to use its legal rights as much as Tufts has.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, and then I think like, kind of from both directions. I think it's pretty fair to say I think there's probably a lack of trust with Tufts. And I honestly feel like it's in Tufts' best interest to have some sort of mechanism to have this synthesized in a way that people don't have to fish around for it, that the decision making was made clear. Because I do think that the base assumption will be, well, Yeah, Tufts was cutting corners and, you know, they just, they promised up and they never intended to do it.
[Emily Hedeman]: What about, I'm thinking of ways that we can kind of combine all these, these, these commitment tracking questions that we're having. And one thought that just came to mind was maybe there's an annual or biannual listening session where they report on fund disbursement. I don't even know if this is possible, but they do an annual audit of blind and shade conditions with student turnover.
[Ben Lavallee]: Yeah, Emily, that's what I was thinking was actually like an additional condition that basically says we're going to do some sort of readout of the conditions on a regular basis or the status update or something. Sorry, that didn't mean to interrupt. No, you're good. I don't know the best way to do that, whether it's a public. you know, public meeting where they just do a status update or whether there's, you know, I don't know the best format. So go ahead, Ari.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah. I was kind of jumping off of that. I, I see the value to having a public hearing. And also I recognize that, that, that kind of many people have childcare challenges, et cetera, to getting to things. Um, and, They are not obligated to do anything with that feedback. So I'm kind of, I think part of what I'm imagining, and I don't think this is sufficient, but I think part of it is a written report with like percent and like include something like percent fulfillment of each of these and. Mitigation steps for where it's below an acceptable threshold and I know I'm getting into math and legal terms So pardon me for kind of thinking out loud And I do think having something written submitted to the town and if we can put in something of like if it is not acceptable and that we're just going to put a parenthesis there of that's a separate issue. What can the city do to fix that situation?
[Emily Hedeman]: And maybe it's that and a meeting. Yeah, I mean, I don't think we can have a public Hearing because I don't think there'll be anything really to. To hear because to your point, we can't. But once these conditions are conditioned. You know, we part of the reason why. I'm going to put works in quotation marks, but part of the reason why a community development board or planning board or zoning board works is because we have a consistent process. And we, you know, we, we hear every matter. Along the same guidelines, and we give the applicant. Something that they can move forward with on their project, so we can't. like six months from now, for better or for worse, we can't go back and be like, oh, actually, we wanted X, Y, Z. That's not right. I know, we could spend a lot of time talking about what is and isn't right in this topic, but based on the restrictions we have today. So what I was starting to do is try to highlight or I guess de-emphasize Um, conditions that are kind of black and dry black and dry black and white cut and dry. Thank you all it's been already been a long work day, but I'm, I'm happy to be here for this important topic. So, yeah, like, we have a 27, 24 7 contact for construction related questions, but. Is there a way we can mimic that for, like, community. questions or concerns. Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: I wanted to understand if by that you meant during the construction or forever, because I'll just, I don't know if members of the board are aware that the Rico is supposed to be the community contact that whenever there's been a resident concern, I've always been told to tell the resident to contact Rocco office, and it's not 24 by seven. But if you have a middle of the night concern, you maybe should be calling the police, not Roscoe. But I just did want to state that that exists. And if anybody doesn't know that, I'm sharing that.
[SPEAKER_14]: That's helpful.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I mean, maybe just to talk it out a little bit. I struggle to see what would sort of come up from a community concern perspective or, you know, there's certain, there's certain points where, um, the community input is valuable because like the ship hasn't sailed. Right.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah.
[Adam Behrens]: Um, and I think what's a little bit frustrating as well. Okay. You know, after this, it kind of feels like, okay, the ship sailed and, Yeah, with a lot of these, like, there's a value in the update itself, just for the transparency perspective. And then I think, you know, from a community board perspective, well, you know, I think that informs future discussions and all of that. But it's hard for me to see what we really Yeah, like, what would the outcome be for that? Yeah. And I think, you know, it's valuable to and so, yeah, just a response to like, yeah, it's probably not 24 seven, but it's probably some, you know, some type of cadence over the length of the project to be the voice, the concerns and for us to just transparently know, I mean, yeah.
[Robin Stein]: Yeah. So some Emily, yeah, can I can I just make a suggestion that may be helpful, you know, keeping in mind that this is a Dover use and that you can't openly burden necessarily the condition. So things that tops would agree to are great. We don't know at this point, but you know, I think in my opinion, it'd be reasonably defensible to the extent that there are particular conditions that are not going to be easily verifiable, right? A construction conditions, the building inspector is easily going to verify, you know, if a tree got planted, but some of the things that, you know, you might, you know, maybe not easily be able to tell if they've been complied with, I think it would be reasonable to have a condition if you guys want to consider this. That just says that, you know, once a year, TUS will provide a writing to the board just updating on the status of compliance with say condition 16, 18, 20, whatever they are. And then the board can receive that. And if the board wants to discuss it in a public meeting, they can put it on for discussion. And if the board satisfied that there's compliance, that's great. And if not, they can refer to the building commissioner to investigate any kind of, you know, enforcement of the condition.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Okay.
[Robin Stein]: But I don't think I would put the burden on of everything, because certain building construction conditions, they probably don't need to independently verify that's going to happen in the natural course. But if there's a couple that you're concerned with just knowing are accomplished, I think it would be fair to take an approach like that if that's something the board wants to consider.
[Emily Hedeman]: How does the rest of that? I think that that makes sense. I think that aligns with the spirit of the question or the original topic of discussion.
[Danielle Evans]: Danielle. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So the intention here is reporting on progress towards these conditions that have an end date to be complied with. The board has all the ones that we don't. Some of these won't even be, you know, come due until they've received their certificate of occupancy and their lodging licenses. So they're kind of years off.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and that's fine. They can come back. The Community Development Board should hopefully still be in action, even if the fate has changed.
[Danielle Evans]: For the perpetual conditions. I don't, I don't know how that would work because that's not something that we put on other projects to report annually that they.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think we could put a specific time period during the construction or maybe until like 12 months after certificate of occupancy. So at that point, I'm assuming that the building's been fully leased up. The students have moved in, Ubers have picked up, DoorDash has been dropped off.
[Danielle Evans]: I would say that the public is the best at being the eyes and ears of whether a developer is complying with perpetual conditions.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, but the developer has already put so much of a burden on the public anyways, just through- No, but I'm just saying that- The last thing I want to do is- Yes, but they don't need to report on- Why don't we talk through the ones that we would potentially want them to report on, and then we can see, does it make sense?
[Ari Fishman]: I, for example, do think it's not something the public should have to do, is to go around and canvas every household to find out, did you receive money? I think it is very reasonable to ask Tufts to, on a regular basis, disclose how much they have paid and to whom.
[Emily Hedeman]: So just to help us get organized, I'm going to propose that we highlight conditions that we think should have some sort of reporting aspect to it. Sound like a good approach? Great. So we are starting off with some kind of like engineering, construction, design related ones. These are fairly standard. But board, please speak up if you think any of these should be highlighted.
[Ben Lavallee]: No, those seem. pretty standard and have other entities that have to be involved already anyway, right? Building and stuff like that.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then I would say the same for the engineering division conditions. Um, these two, we have infiltration inflow mitigation, um, more water sewer. Here we have the blue bike and the shuttle. And just to be clear, I don't want to discuss these now. I just want to flag them so we can kind of see the whole collection. Does anybody disagree that these are ones that we could have reporting around?
[Ben Lavallee]: I think those are good.
[Ari Fishman]: Okay. I could also imagine for 14A as part of a report, like the number of calls that were made to TUPD or Medford about that area. And if everything's working great, they put in, you know, there were eight calls in a year. That's perfectly reasonable. It's something that they should be recording anyway. It's all very easy to find, but I think that is something that, if the answer is hundreds, the public will then do what the public does.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, and I trust that they will. Let's keep going and see if there's others we want to highlight. These are health department. Then we get into some of the light spillage mitigation. We've already talked about a couple of these. I highlighted these, but any disagreements here? And this 20, I think, would be similar to what you said for the drop-off count of complaints. We have trees.
[Ayni Strang]: The only thing I would like to add to adding new trees is the caretaking of those trees. If they don't water them, then the trees will not flourish and we'll just have to go. I'm not cool with the idea that if the trees die per contract, they come back a year later and replant them because we've lost a year of growth. So I would rather if they plant trees, they take care of them, water them.
[Emily Hedeman]: We can refine that.
[Ari Fishman]: That also includes pruning, fertilizing, disease control, et cetera.
[Emily Hedeman]: Correct. Yeah, I think we can keep that loose.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah.
[Ayni Strang]: Maintain the trees in healthy condition.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. So the other one is Condition 25, the Neighborhood Improvement Fund. We've already talked about that a good amount. I did not highlight the City of Medford Affordable Housing Trust Fund, just because it's a one-time donation. They either will or they won't, but they have to per these conditions. And then 26 and 27 are draft ones that we may or may not put forth. OK. So what metrics could we put in here? Do we want to specify the duration of reoccurring annual fees? I think this is fine because it implies, you know, they pay for it as long as the station's there.
[Ari Fishman]: Do we want to include something like if they choose to decommission, they need to communicate to the city and something like, I don't know if in 15 years we're all operating on flying hoverboards, we're not going to be, but like, if it makes sense to put in a flying hoverboard station, fine. That's kind of in the spirit, but I do think that
[Emily Hedeman]: I want to include stuff about hoverboards in here, but I get what you're saying.
[Ari Fishman]: Please do not. That was me being totally tired at the end of the day.
[Emily Hedeman]: I know, I know, I know. I do appreciate the tone that we have here. This is a very impactful thing. So status changes of the doc. station shall be coordinated with the director of traffic and transportation including decommissioning vendor changes including but not limited to any other thoughts here okay And we'll read through the rest of them once we get through. So Ben, I know that you have mentioned the shuttle service a couple of times. So I don't know if you had any initial thoughts there.
[Ben Lavallee]: I think they suggested that it would operate similarly to one that they run for Davis Square. I don't know what kind of report out we should or even could require. There's also nuance that came up in the last meeting where, you know, it's not a, it's not a year round service. Um, so I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if this one, I think, I think it's a, I think it's a nice condition. I think there's community benefit to the condition. Um, I just don't know what the right way to make sure it happens is.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, reporting could be around usage. Um, and that may let us know, like, is this, uh, something that makes sense to continue?
[Ben Lavallee]: Um, yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[Ben Lavallee]: I mean, maybe similar to, uh, yeah. Um, something like, you know, first whatever couple years or year or whatever frequency makes sense. I don't want to put an undue burden on the applicant either but you know they did say that this was something they were comfortable with.
[Ayni Strang]: I have a question about the the actual bus or vehicle. Is it an EV?
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry Annie I don't want to get into that.
[Ayni Strang]: I think No, I'm just curious. I don't know.
[Ben Lavallee]: Rocco said that it was going to be essentially the same service that they provide to Davis Square. I don't know enough about that service and what types of vehicles it is, but it's probably something we could find out.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so how does that look? Reporting on usage, the first 24 months to the CEDB on a biannual twice per year basis.
[Ben Lavallee]: That seems reasonable to me for that condition. I'm happy to hear other opinions too.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, looking at the next one. Let's see. How does that look? Applicant will provide a report on the number of calls. I might stick with this first 24 months on a biannual twice per year basis. Okay. Any other thoughts on those?
[Ari Fishman]: I am a little concerned about limiting it to only 24 months. Okay. Um, this is a building that's going to be a massive investment for a very long time. I'm, I think annual after a certain period would be perfectly reasonable. Um, but I am thinking on like the 10 plus year scale on this. Um, I, this will continue to impact the community and I do want to make sure that, um, the accountability and transparency continues. Um, that's.
[Emily Hedeman]: Are you saying that for just for condition 14 or also 13? 13 as well. Okay. What about this language? After 24 months, the community development board will reevaluate the frequency of this reporting. I don't Robin. Can we even say something like that? Or is that too nebulous? So, I guess I just.
[Robin Stein]: I guess I caution and again, I don't know what TUS will be agreeable or not. But that if you're going to put reporting burdens on them, you know, they may push back and say that is a burden on our protected use. And so I do caution as you're putting these on, to give some thought to one, is this information you can obtain otherwise. So for example, I mean, the police, you could ask the police department, you know, TUS doesn't necessarily need to get that information. But Also for 14, what is the use of the board having that information? The condition is what it is. You can't change it later.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I mean, that's the same for all of these. I'm just trying to address board concerns around.
[Robin Stein]: Yeah, no, I'm just pointing it out because obviously, you know, in my role, I want to make sure the board understands that, you know, they could get some pushback or, you know, an appeal of condition. So I'm encouraging you to put them on in a way that, you know, I think is doesn't create an undue burden. And so I just think that it makes sense to balance the utility of the condition with what you could do with that information.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah. Yeah, I am less worried about having like data twice a year for the first two years. I think some form of usage has value to the committee in terms of evaluating how, when we're looking at future conditions with Tufts and with other bodies, like how our things that we agree to actually being utilized and what impact does it have on the community? I think that is a genuine function. I think in terms of undue burden, having an annual report where all of this is consolidated, these are fairly easy conditions, I think. And if needed, I could rank which ones are kind of most important to me. And kind of the transparency around the Neighborhood Improvement Fund is up there. I think reporting on the utilization of community resources, there is a genuine community interest in that. And I'm open to hearing otherwise, but that's where I'm coming from.
[Emily Hedeman]: So with that in mind, let's move on to the light spillage mitigation and screening conditions. I honestly don't see any reporting that could be associated with condition 20. But I do get that this condition is rather nebulous. Looking at 21, I mean, this could start to approach.
[Ari Fishman]: That one I could see being onerous. Operable kind of does imply they need to work. I don't know who's going to check that, but I urge the community to assist in making sure that this gets utilized.
[Emily Hedeman]: It's very rare for a student to fill out a conditions of unit report and submit it back to their landowner in reasonable time. Let's see, and then we had some feedback about the trees added. Yeah, I think adding and maintained may hit what we're trying to say for maintain for the life of the building.
[Ayni Strang]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: So, in terms of this community fund, I think if we put in this timing requirement around reporting, there could be the assumption that the board will ask specific questions. So it's in Tufts' best interest to come armed with information. Armed is probably the wrong word. To come prepared with information, and then it can be on the board to dive deeper. in terms of information associated with this.
[Robin Stein]: Emily, and again, I don't want to overstep, but the last sentence of this says that the city is going to have no involvement with the establishment or administration of the fund.
[Emily Hedeman]: But we can still hear what's happening with the fund. And we're not going to influence it. We're not going to determine how funds are expended. We just want to hear how this fund is going.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm sorry, Madam Chair, I just make sure that Robin so the concern here from the city is our legal involvement with money that might be going directly to individuals. and we needed to protect the city, which is why we include the statement that the city will have no involvement. So I just wanna make sure that anything the board adds on reporting doesn't open the city up for some liability around that just because of the nature of such a thing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, to me reporting is different than administration.
[Ari Fishman]: I agree and I'm also open to wording it in thus a way that the reporting is public or like, Yeah. Delivered to the city and X so that even if the city, even if we don't aren't able to do anything with it, the public will have clear access to that information. That feels important.
[Emily Hedeman]: Well, if if the report is submitted to the Community Development Board due to open meeting law, that information is then therefore publicly available. You do have to do a little bit of searching, but you know, it will be available. Danielle.
[Danielle Evans]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that the most important thing is the transparency aspect. I don't think that it needs to be reported to us because we're not requiring the fund. We're not involved with the fund. We don't want to get mixed up with violations of the anti-aid amendment, which is... Who could they report to? What if they just posted on, have a webpage associated with this that they regularly update? that would be available to everyone. So they're not reporting, they're not submitting reports to the city because we're not involved with this. I don't want the reports. We just, we want to stay out of it. Okay. But if we're curious, we'll just go on their webpage and see what, what, um, where the funds have gone. And maybe it could have a little ticker and they could have a pie chart of however they want. If they're just writing checks for 10K to every butter who's shaded, then that's what it says on the webpage. But I don't think we need to be receiving reports. And then if the public wants it, they have to file Freedom of Information Act requests. It comes the whole thing. I just think we can get,
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, it is it is territory. And I and I hear that. What about the applicant will maintain a publicly accessible resource that details fund usage, disbursement? I can delete, et cetera.
[Ari Fishman]: Maybe updated at least once a year.
[Ben Lavallee]: Updated at least once a year until all funds are dispersed, then they don't have to do anything after that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. OK. So do we see any reason for the contact line for community-related questions? That feels duplicative of Tufts' existing efforts.
[Ben Lavallee]: Agreed.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. And then we have embedded reporting conditions within everything. So I think we can get rid of this one. But let's look back through as a collection of what we've added. Okay, so we didn't touch those. I think this one's fine. The blue bikes, status changes shall be coordinated. And that should not impose undue burden. And now we get into reporting. Applicant reported reporting. I see it, I see it both ways. You know, what are we going to actually do with this information. I agree with your sentiment Ari on, you know, it'll help us with the effectiveness of these sort of conditions in the long term. Yeah, does anybody see any issues with these? Two reports a year?
[SPEAKER_14]: Well, I guess it's two here, two here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and then effectively an Excel chart. is undue burden on the applicant, then we've got other problems. Any thoughts from the board? OK. So I'm going to stop sharing. Thank you all for putting up with my typing on screen. I appreciate it. So just to plug us back into the two questions or the questions that are at hand. One is Dover amendment use. And I know the board is aligned or appears to be aligned. And then we just talked through the reasonable regulations. It doesn't sound like anybody really had any issue with the parking being not located on site. And then the other relief that the applicant is asking for is the front yard setbacks. Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: There were two others, Madam Chair. I just want to make sure that those don't get lost. I realized that those weren't in the document, but it was around having a primary building in the rear yard and then having multiple buildings on a single lot.
[Emily Hedeman]: So those have not been in any of the documents.
[Alicia Hunt]: They were in their application. So I actually, honestly, I asked, I think Robin had a suggestion for us that we should just approve the application as submitted and that that, because these are not waivers the way not one normally does a waiver. So if you just approve the application as submitted, then it encompasses the project as it was presented to you without having to worry about any of the individual things. The one about having a primary building in the backyard was essentially, it was discussed once at the very beginning. And it was pointed out that it didn't make any sense for this project or any Tufts project because they're on a campus. And so it just came through very quickly as, oh, right, of course not. Of course, this is multiple, and this is the backyard of another building. And our zoning was changed around the multiple buildings on a lot. So in some zones, it's allowed by special permit by the CD board.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm so sorry. I'm going to have to declare a quick recess. Let's reconvene back in five minutes. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thanks for your patience. We're going to get started in a couple of minutes. We're going to wait for board members to come back on screen.
[SPEAKER_14]: Sabrina, can you just throw your screen on when you get back?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Awesome. We got Annie, Ben, Adam. All right. Cool. Great. OK. So I wanted to get a little bit more detail about those two other items that were just mentioned, more than one building on a single lot, and then related to the back building. Danielle, can you give us a little bit more background on those? I just want to make sure that we as a board are going in fully understanding.
[Danielle Evans]: So I would compare this to the same issues with you have a campus and there are multiple buildings on a campus and there are kind of some quirky things in our ordinance that have always been there, things that were changed and there were unintended consequences and then amendments to kind of fix those unintended consequences that didn't quite quite fix them. And we're hoping maybe in the next round of phase would fix them. But basically, it's in most of the zoning districts, not more than two structures is allowed on a lot. That was in response to some historic preservation concerns. with tear downs and building multiple buildings. So at one point there was an amendment that was passed at some point, not allowing that. And then we tried to fix it so that you could build more than two structures on a lot by right in most zoning districts. Alicia, I may need you to call up that language because I don't have the most amended. Because this is in the apartment one zone, which I'm pretty sure.
[Emily Hedeman]: Why don't we just pause with that description and see if board members have any questions? It makes sense to me. This was a regulation that was passed. has a good idea, and then the actual implementation of it is a challenge, which is why it is before us today, those two specific ones. Okay. The board has no questions on those two. Then,
[Ari Fishman]: I am thinking through this out loud. I will share that I did not understand that these were also things that we needed to approve. My understanding was that the only options we had were Dover amendment, the parking and the setback. This seems to be in line with some of the concerns. It seems to not be a boilerplate issue. Like, I think it sounds like having a large building is, in fact, the intent. Or like, not having a large building is, in fact, the intent of that ordinance. Am I misunderstanding? Alicia, I would love to hear more detail.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's actually completely misunderstanding. Completely. have Robin explain it. The one about multiple buildings is that it used to say in our zoning that in any district, two principal structures shall not be permitted on the same lot other than in the Muzz district. And we said, that's crazy, because that makes all kinds of things illegal. And of course, you would want multiple buildings on a single lot in many cases. And when we went to change the language, the language that we included accidentally left the word not in. saying, so the new language said are not permitted when the change was supposed to be are permitted. But I'd really like to, so that wasn't in fact at all, it had nothing to do with preventing Tufts or anybody from doing these things. The I think that the project has been presented to the board in a lot of detail, and that I hope you understand the project. This is not a 40B project. A 40B project, one has to approve every single waiver. This is not a project where one approves the waivers. This is a project where one approves the project as it is. If the board were to put any conditions on it, the only conditions that would be allowable are ones that are where they're going outside of our zoning. To say that they can't put multiple buildings on a lot is actually completely would be silly because they're a campus. That's how it works. The other one was around not having a building in the backyard of another building, which honestly, I didn't even realize was in our zoning until they called it out in their application. It's never come up before. So that was sort of where we were kind of going with this. My concern was that if you approve it with two specific exceptions to zoning, you're approving not necessarily what they presented and you're unintentionally putting conditions on it. So the recommendation from the legal counsel, who I think can speak for herself, but she was limited availability after eight o'clock, was to make a motion to approve the application as revised through the January 15th, subject to the conditions discussed, and then make specific findings why it's Dover and why the site plan prevents reasonable application of the zoning ordinance to this project. Is that clear?
[Ari Fishman]: That is much clearer.
[Emily Hedeman]: So yes, there are four items of relief. But the two that would actually have an impact are parking and setback. One of the other items of relief is due to literally a typo. And then the other is this weird back building thing, which may also have been included in error. So I'm less concerned with those two. We've talked about parking. We have not touched on setback. So if it's all right with the board, I'd like to just kind of socialize setback. And we did see presentation from the applicant reviewing the difference between what is required for setback and what they're proposing for setback. I don't know if board members have any thoughts on those. I think the impact is minor. I mean, what the public really wants is a shorter building and a better community engagement process, and these setbacks are not it. So does anybody have any reluctance to the relief for the front yard setbacks? No. OK. So what I'd be looking for. is a motion to approve the application as submitted with conditions. If a member of the board is not comfortable making that motion, I'm happy to make it myself. All right, so I will make a motion to approve the application as submitted with conditions. I'm looking for a second.
[Adam Behrens]: I will second that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. We are going to do a roll call vote. I am going to vote first. I, Chair Emily Henneman, am an aye. Sabrina Alpino. Sorry, Sabrina, you cut out. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Annie Strang. Aye. Ben LaValle.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And Ari Goffman Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: There are enough eyes that it already passed, so I'll abstain.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. So with great reluctance, the motion passes. And I hope to never see a project like this in front of us ever again with this sort of horrible, Community engagement. Horrible community engagement. Totally agree. Be a better neighbor. And with that, we're going to move on to our next matter. I do want to thank members of the public for showing up consistently. So the next item that we have is the bridal path definitive subdivision. This is a continued hearing. Do we have a member of the applicant team here? I know Attorney Desmond has been representing the applicant.
[Danielle Evans]: Madam Chair, I do see that she is here.
[Emily Hedeman]: I see her as well. Just asked her to unmute.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Am I in? Can you hear me?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we can Attorney Desmond.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I'm using one of those new angled connectors that allows us all to speak and I just wanted to make sure it worked. But thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. So, Attorney Desmond, do you have any updated plans or documents to present?
[Kathleen Desmond]: We do. We received two memos from the engineering department, January 17, 2025 and January 27. And we did update our plans to comply with those requests. And if I can share my screen, I will bring up that plan. So can everybody see that?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Okay, so so basically there were four buckets of items that the city engineer required us to look at the first being areas to be clear of vertical obstructions. So that could accommodate fire apparatus along the cul-de-sac. And you'll note that these are the three areas they're marked on the plans that need to be clear of obstructions. We have removed two trees from that area in accordance with the request to keep vertical obstructions out of that area. We agreed to provide language in the HOA to ensure that going forward no vertical obstructions are located within the area. And we did confirm with the city engineer that the utilities being brought in on Bridal Path will be underground, so there shouldn't be any issue with regard to construction in that area. And we've also noted that we'll make sure that all of the utility companies are aware that vertical obstructions cannot be located in those areas due to fire access. The second bucket essentially of requests dealt with curbing and sidewalks. The engineer had requested that we modify the plan and extend the sidewalk and granite curbing southward along Franklin Avenue. And that has been done on the plan. The third area of concern was driveways. There was a need to confirm that the driveway apron materials will be cement concrete. And as you see on the plan, Each of those driveways is detailed as containing bit concrete and there is also on the legend, a legend so that can be easily seen on the plan. In addition to that, we had to adjust the width of the driveway apron for lot 7. Inadvertently, it was greater than the allowed width of 20 feet. And the last set of concerns dealt with signage. The city engineer wanted us to incorporate the legend and the markers which were in the traffic report, and that has been done, as you'll see over here, and then relocate and adjust signage for Winthrop Street property so as not to interfere with the ADA access to the sidewalk. So we did adjust the location of the sign. And I believe that addressed all of the engineer's concerns that in the two memos that he had provided to us. In addition to that, we also did provide staff with a proposed certificate of approval and also a covenant, a draft covenant to review.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for that. I see Danielle has her hand raised.
[Danielle Evans]: Danielle? Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So the draft certificate of approval that Attorney Desmond had prepared was provided in your packets. However, we are proposing a few changes to that, that the applicant has agreed to. One of those is with the second condition about blasting. So they wanted to be able to blast, even though they didn't think they needed to blast, but given the history with the adjacent subdivision, we want to have a no blasting condition, but with, leaving the option for the developer to come back to the CD board if there is some extenuating circumstance where they absolutely must blast rather than perform chipping. They would have to make an argument, but we wanted to keep that open, but that the default would not be to just, you know, start blasting things, because that's probably easier, but could be more damaging to neighboring foundations and also PTSD and all that stuff. It's not fun to be next to. And there was another condition. Oh, so for the covenant, that won't be signed until after the appeal period tolls. when you would endorse the plan. So tonight you would only be voting to approve the application for the definitive site plan, not endorsing or signing anything until the appeal period tolls. So we were, I was advised by legal who I was talking to, I had hoped that Robin would still be on, but that took a little bit longer to help with. making sure everything was included in this, but she was comfortable that subdivision control law requires a surety or some kind of legal instrument or bond that would ensure that the road and the utilities are completed. And that could be determined after. And that it's pretty much the applicant's choice how they want to provide that. So with the no blasting condition, except if they come back and get permissions, those are the only changes to the application. certificate of approval that I had. And Kathy, do you recall anything else that we had discussed? Things are starting to get a little jumbled. There was a lot of last minute information I was trying to synthesize today. So if I missed anything, please let me know.
[Kathleen Desmond]: We did discuss a construction management plan acceptable satisfactory to the building commissioner and in that regard, Danielle, if we leave it satisfactory to the building commissioner, rather than all of the details, I think. You know, the plan and the covenant provides that the roadway gets built first and utilities get installed prior to release of the lots. And I think that's what his concern was within sequencing. But if we leave it to his satisfaction or satisfactory, then if it is still a concern in terms of sequencing of what lots get built, then he can he can indicate it's not satisfactory.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. Thank you so much for reminding me. So that is condition number Where is that? But the construction management plan.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I don't know that I don't know that we had that in the draft. The draft certificate of approval. But you know that we have no objection to that being added and changing the language to the blasting on the blasting. I don't believe it was included in the original. And I also noticed, and I had sent you an email during the meeting, that number 27 of the conditions actually addresses the issue with performance guarantee. And so I think that covers it. It basically mirrors the statute.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: So yeah, through the chair, apologies, chair, that we're hashing this out. Yeah, so the modification to condition two about the blasting, and then another condition requiring the submission of a construction management plan prior to issuance of a, what should be building permit or,
[Kathleen Desmond]: I'm sorry, Danielle, I don't believe that's for construction of the roadway and the construction in total. I believe the commissioner's concern dealt with the easement and access to the easement that would be within all of the construction. So no permits will issue until a satisfactory construction management plan has been filed with the building commissioner.
[Danielle Evans]: And my apologies, Madam Chair. So the document is called the draft certificate of approval.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Got it. Okay. He's like familiar now. Okay, so I'm going to open it up to the board for questions and comments. And then we will open the public comment period.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I believe that the public comment period was closed.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think we did.
[Danielle Evans]: I don't recall if we closed it or if we just closed it. I don't think he closed the public hearing. I think it was just the period for that day.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I think I had asked the question at that point because we were at the point where it was only whether or not the engineer had provided and you had comments that were standing and we asked at that point whether the public comment period for the project had closed and I believe that the board indicated that in fact it had, because we were at deliberation and we couldn't address the comments because it was an internal memo from engineering to staff and to the board.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, no, we have not. We did receive a couple public comments the first time you all came in front of us. Don't believe we've received many additional more. the meeting on the 15th. Do we have draft meeting minutes that you could check? I'm going through.
[Danielle Evans]: That was January 15th. I don't have them for January 15th. There might be an AI summary. I think there was an AI summary. And we could see if there is anybody here that wanted to speak on this matter. And if not.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, I just want to respect the process for the applicant as well. Oh, sorry, Kathy, I accidentally muted you. I didn't need to do that. There you go. Danielle, are you able to reference the AI notes?
[Danielle Evans]: I'm looking for the email.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK, thank you. In the meantime, do any members of the board have any questions or comments for the applicant related to the updates? I do think that the no blasting is a very thoughtful change, especially considering the impacts to that neighborhood for adjacent projects. I like the other updates I've seen, so thank you.
[Danielle Evans]: Unfortunately, it's not specific enough. It just says that we continued the public hearing, but that might've been a semantics thing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: So the board voted to continue the hearing to February 5th to allow time for the applicant city staff to address the engineer's comments.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'm leaning towards reopening the public comment, just because if there were changes made by the engineer, we would want some opportunity to comment on those. I do think that the applicant has been very reasonable with public comment, and I don't think that there has been a lot of I think the changes that we could have implemented through conditions have been addressed in some way. But I do want to make sure that we are procedurally not leaving anything open. And I know it's a risk, so I appreciate you all taking this risk with me. Okay, so seeing no questions or comments from the board, I'm going to now open the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand function or message Danielle in the chat if you're having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCD at Medford-MA.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. I will remind you as well. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members, as it's not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, you can message staff for assistance. Again, that's Danielle and Alicia. Each participant will have two minutes to speak, and you will have an opportunity to speak once. If you do have additional comments beyond the time or in addition to your first and only comment, then you can email those to ocdmedford-ma.gov. So if anybody has public comments related to the Bridal Path Definitive Subdivision, please raise your hand. Alicia, are you seeing any hands, any comments? Have you received any new emails that have come through?
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair, so it's out loud and people can hear. I don't, I also don't see any hands raised. I haven't received any chat messages and there are no new emails in our mailbox.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So seeing no public comments, I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting as well as for this matter. And I'm going to reopen it to the board for deliberation. I know we didn't have any questions or comments, but are there any conditions we want to go over? Kind of playing clerk and chair in this meeting, but I can bring up the conditions. Where did I just have them? If we want to pop through those. Just to confirm, Danielle and Alicia, these feature the conditions that we were just speaking about. I saw the blasting. Where is it? Which one is it? I think it's about the same one. Yeah, so you'll see here. Um, item two, no blasting. If they do, they have to return to the community development board. Um, construction management plan.
[Danielle Evans]: You might want to, you can refresh. Maybe we'd have to redo the number in, but I, for the construction management, Helen, I put the applicant shall submit a construction management plan for approval from the building commissioner prior to commencement of any construction activities. Um, That could be wordsmith a little bit if put it in better legalese.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. I'm not able to edit on the web, so I've been downloading them. So I think I just didn't have the latest download. Let me try that again. I'll share a new window. Thanks to everyone's patience with that. OK, so we got the construction management plan. So we're going to ignore the numbers for now. Right away, lighting, sidewalk. All right. I can't see if any members of the board have their hands raised or are unmuted. But please unmute yourself and speak if you have any questions or comments for these conditions for bridal path.
[Ayni Strang]: I don't have any, Emily.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Annie. Some of these are extremely technical and are from city staff. OK. So questions for the poll, or I'm sorry, questions for the board. Do we feel like we're ready to vote? Is there any information that we're looking for to help educate us, inform our decision?
[Ayni Strang]: I think a proposal should be made to vote.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So I'd be looking for a motion to approve the application for a definitive subdivision subject to conditions.
[Ayni Strang]: I make that motion. Thank you, Manny.
[Emily Hedeman]: Looking for a second. I can second. Sabrina can have it. Thank you, Sabrina. We are going to do a roll call vote. Ari Gottman-Fishman. Aye. Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Annie Strang.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman, is an aye. Thank you, Attorney Desmond.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Thank you to the applicant. Thank you very much, and I appreciate the board's efforts in this matter and consideration, as well as staff. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: I appreciate your patience around the public comment confusion. But we took the conservative approach, which is hopefully the right one. Thank you very much. Of course. Have a nice evening. OK, so the next item on our agenda is we're not discussing it tonight, but we did want to mention the Salem Street Corridor. There is a Q&A meeting, question and answer meeting, next Monday the 10th at the Roberts Elementary School regarding the Salem Street Corridor proposed zoning amendment. So we're not going to be discussing this amendment. We're not accepting public comment this evening. We may at future meetings, but we just want to be really clear that We're not going to be discussing it. I think there'll be some some really good info presented in that session next Monday and look forward to hearing more, but we're not going to be doing public comment tonight. We're not going to be discussing Salem Street. What I do need is a motion from a member of the board to continue the public hearing for the Salem Street Quarter Zoning Amendment to the March 5th CDB meeting. So moved. Thanks, Ari. Looking for a second.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Annie. We're going to do a roll call vote. Ari Goffman-Fishman. Aye. Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Danielle Evans]: Annie Strang. I'm sorry, Madam Chair, Adam is not eligible to vote on this.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, yeah, because you didn't watch it yet, right?
[Adam Behrens]: I did not watch that part of the tape.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I only watched the two hours instead of the five.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's this weekend's viewing, right? No, I appreciate the reminder. Do we need to restart the roll call vote or can we keep going?
[Ayni Strang]: We were up to me.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're up to you. Okay. Yeah. Aye. Annie Strang? Aye. Thank you, Annie. Ben LaValle?
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman, is an aye. And again, that item is continued to March 5th. But in the meantime, there will be a meeting on February 10th at the Roberts Elementary School. The next item that we will be discussing is the green score. I'd like to check with staff, see if they have any introductory comments. I see we have Paola and Emily here again from Innocent Associates. Hello, ladies. But staff, do you have any introductory comments before we pass it off to Emily and team? All right, seeing none. And just to clarify, we're going to be accepting public comments related to the green score. If you do have public comments about Salem Street, I would encourage you to email those to the board. Also bring your questions to the session next Monday, and we will you know, have more opportunity on the March 5th meeting. So we'll try to keep comments focused on the green score. But Emily and Paola, if you have anything to share, we'd love to walk through the green score with you.
[Emily Innes]: Excellent. Good evening, everyone. I'm Emily Ennis from Innes Associates, and I'm with Paola Ramos-Martinez, also from Innes Associates. I'm going to turn this presentation over to Paola.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you, Madam Chair, if I may. So I know that it's late, so I want to make sure that we have a little bit of time. How much time do you think that I can take to present this topic?
[Emily Hedeman]: What is your max and min?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So it depends on what you tell me. I can shorten it or take a bit more time. What I'm going to try is to make it as simple as possible. Some things are kind of technical, but if you have questions and want to go more deep into something very specific, I can obviously talk about that later.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ideally, how much time would you have?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: At least for the presentation, 15-20 minutes. Is that okay?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think that's fine.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Okay, then I'm going to start with the presentation. I will share my screen.
[Emily Hedeman]: Actually, quick poll for the board. Does anybody need a life break? No? Okay, good. Let's go.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So I want to take a little bit of time on the introduction and the timeline that we have done with this topic specific. Then to explain your current zoning and the existing conditions that we have in Medford, and that is from some analysis that we have done. And then to talk a little bit about pervious or permeable surface, what it is and how it is important. And then the green score. And that's what we are here about the green score. But I need to build it up a little bit so that we can understand it. I'm going to try to do my best. So in this timeline, we have worked in July 24th, we presented in the City Council workshop where we had a lot of analysis and citywide in Medford. And some of them were about impermeable surface, permeable surface. I'm just going to take just a second to define that permeable surface. is a surface that permits water to infiltrate to lower parts of, to lower layers of the soil. And it's important for rainwater management and flooding control and heat management as well. So just to give that definition so that we are, okay, they're telling me that I'm breaking up again. I'm so sorry. Okay. Let me turn off my video.
[Emily Hedeman]: And you may want to just share the window.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, I'm going to do that. Thank you. I hope it's better now. I usually don't have any problem with this, so I don't know why.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and I remember we had problems last time.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, sorry for that. What I wanted to say is that permeable surface is those surface that let water infiltrate to lower layers of the soil. And that is going to be important for flood management and heat control. So in this workshop, we make some analysis about the impermeable surface that are in Medford. And we had some issues about finding in your zoning something that will control that issue. And currently, you don't have that. So that's when Green Score came into place. So we presented some analysis in other areas of the United States, but also Massachusetts, so other cities that use Green Score as Cambridge, Somerville, Washington, DC, and others. And from that, we presented in September 11. And then we did We personalized obviously the green score for Medford and we presented the draft to the City Council on October 9th and it was approved and referred to the City Board and that is why we are here today. Why are we here? And this is something that we are going to repeat a lot. We come here to our work right now. It's not only about this topic. We're looking at citywide Medford strategies. We are implementing all the visions and strategies that were identified in the comprehensive plan that was published in 2023 and that took into consideration also other plans that have been done in METFOR as the house production plan and the climate action and adaptation plan. So here I display some of these strategies that were in the comprehensive plan and that we are identifying and bringing in your zoning. So we are updating it to reflect what was identified in the comprehensive plan. Just to name very quickly, so that what we are talking about is this performance and standards for heat mitigation, stormwater infiltration and soil health, improve the tree canopy ratio, reduce heat island temperatures, reduce stormwater runoff citywide, expand ecological function, et cetera. So Green Score, what it's going to do is help us strengthen other strategies and will also address these issues directly. What are the requirements that you have right now in your current zoning about heat mitigation, stormwater infiltration, and soil health? You don't really have them. You do have open space and you have two types, landscape and usable. These are some requirements that you have, but in your open space landscape, you also include walks and terraces, meaning without specifying that these need to be permeable. and so in reality you do not have any requirement for a minimum of permeable or pervious surface. In this analysis that we did, I just wanted to show the FEMA and this is the flood hazard layers that are applied in Medford. And you don't have the high flood risk, but you do have the lower one in the areas of Mystic Avenue and Wellington, all this orange that When we look at the impermeable surface analysis, we see that also these are the higher areas with impervious surface from 80 to 100%. So if we take into account also climate change and the new projections, this wouldn't help. And that is why we will need to have something to address these issues so it doesn't get worse. So what are the options that we would have? Option one, minimum pervious surface, as we were talking about, surface that allow water infiltrate, and then a minimum open space landscape. That is one option. And option two would be the green score. We are recommending to use both, but depending on which case. So, if we look, I'm just going to go over, if we look into these two cases, when we have a requirement where the lot coverage, so the built area with impermeable surface, is very low, is very minimum, like 30, 40 and 50 percent, we do have a lot of a place on the ground floor. to really have a minimum permeable surface so it's very easy to reach that and so only with that minimum permeable and with a minimum landscape so we do also increase the green that would be more than enough. Now there are limitations when we are in case B where we do have a lot coverage that is quite high and we need to balance between having more housing stock or having more environmental standards. And so in case A we can use as we said, but in case B that's where we find Green Score to be very helpful. And how that does happen, I'm going to just pass that, is that the green score, what it does is going to provide a menu of different landscape elements. And we don't have to do them all. They can choose any of this. And depending on the development, that they have and the requirements that they need. And so we provide that flexibility or is intended to provide that flexibility, having all these different categories from where you can choose from. So it's not about having a ground in ground level permeable surface. So letting half of the property to be permeable, but that you can really have all this things like bioretention or green roofs or ground covers in trees, so you get credits for all of these different elements. The very important thing here is that every of these landscape elements, depending on their performance, they have a different value, a different what we call the multiplier. And so if we have, for example, 01 is for plants that are ground covers like grasses, it doesn't do a lot for the ecosystem and ecologically it doesn't have a high standard. But large trees, they help a lot more creating shade, absorbing a lot more water, carbon, etc. So when we have a more complex ecosystem, that's where we get a higher value. Another thing that is very interesting is that we can layer a lot of them. So in the same area, we can have the soil that is more than 24 inches, then ground covers, and then any shrub or trees. And you get elements and credits for all of these things, for the soil, for the ground cover, and for every shrub and trees. In how you calculate it, I'm just going to continue and just say that we did a worksheet to make it as easy as possible. So what you have to do is just place your lot size and then all the elements, only the ones that you have, place the area or the number of trees or shrubs and you will get calculated a green score. The green score is different depending on each district and it also goes from 0 to 100 and usually is around 20-25 the minimum requirement. So what we have is in case one that we talked about with only pervious surface, we would need the surface and it doesn't really do a lot for the environment because it's, I mean, sorry, it does. It's a permeable surface, so it helps, but it's not as helpful as having also trees and other layering that landscape. The applicability, it would be only for new principal buildings and there are two things that we need to take into account. If it is located in a FEMA area, as we see before, this orange area, then it has to go through Green Score. if it goes through, is a project that has to go through site plan review, it has to go through green score. If it's not in any of these two, then it doesn't have to go through green score and what we recommend is just to have in this minimal permeable surface and the minimum open space landscape. So just I wanted to show a little bit of examples of what a 25 green score would look like with different of these elements and when we start layering them up. And so if we only use permeable paving, how much do I need? If I already have soil and ground cover, we reduce that surface. If we have trees and the soil and the ground cover and the permeable, we reduce also that surface. And if we can also do it with only having a green roof, if the other areas are needed. And then here is just to show the difference between just adding the permeable paving and giving more points as the ecological value of the landscape improves. So from 8 to 25 and you see the difference. So this is the green score. I want to show as well the draft. Let's go very quickly. We have the purpose, the overview, the applicability that we explained. all the zone districts, so it's different to each of these districts because we are reviewing the districts as well. Every time that we add a new one, we will amend the green score. Just wanted to point out this part. We talked to someone from Cambridge, which was part of the green score in Cambridge, and told us that sometimes it's more difficult with affordable housing, so that's why we did this to reduce the minimum required. We will have a recommendation on this to clarify this a little bit more, but I just wanted to mention so that when I mention it later you will understand where I come from. We explained the calculations, We have some general standards for the trees, the soil maintenance and all these kind of things. And then the standards for landscape element is standards for each one of these landscape elements. Then we have some modifications for the site plan review. Some amendments so that they also will need to add to the site plan review the green score requirement with all the paperwork. and then other modifications. I'm going to pause it here so that you can ask any questions for now. I think it's a good moment.
[Emily Hedeman]: 16 minutes. That was very helpful. My initial question was, are there any communities doing this? And you mentioned Cambridge. has been the reception to this in Cambridge, like how is it working for them, and realizing that Medford is not Cambridge.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, absolutely. So, it has been a good reception overall. They find it a bit more difficult for residential, for single family, etc. And that's why we also decided not to really include them and only go to projects that are in the site plan review. One, because we don't think that it's actually very needed because the lot area usually is very Not a lot is built, so only we want those requirements to make it as easier. And for the rest, the affordable issue that was flagged from Cambridge, but that was it. The reception has been quite good.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Does the board have any other questions? I like this idea. I think it's helpful, giving the flexibility. I know that we've looked at menus in other topics. I like the ranking, the weighting of these menu items. Adam?
[Adam Behrens]: I had one thing just out of my own personal curiosity with kind of green upzoning places. I know in Cambridge, they experimented with curb cuts in areas that were prone to flooding so that water runoff could then go into kind of planted areas. I thought that was a cool idea when I kind of heard about it and I read about it. And I don't know if there's any like public comments on what can be included and not included in the green zoning, but it'd be cool if something like that could be included or if there was learnings from Cambridge that would be, you know, sort of like easy things that could also help people get their score up that the city would also kind of participate with.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So I haven't seen that in the Cambridge green score. Do you mean like the water to go through the surface? Because I think that maybe that is more in public space more than in the private areas.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I believe it was in the Cambridgeport area. And I think it was maybe like a pilot that the city had done around curb cuts with the city-owned piece of that land where they plant the trees. And so instead of just planting the tree with the sidewalk cut out, they made sort of like a little bit larger grass area within a curb cut. And those areas were prone to flooding. So it's not necessarily a recommendation. It's not necessarily an ask. But I just thought that was a cool way that I know some other areas are trying to address the issue.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, it's definitely an innovative approach. But just to clarify, the green score is for private development, right? Right. Yeah. OK. Alicia, I see your hand.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair I just sort of wanted to clarify, I think if I am trying to understand what you're saying you mean like there's a green area, and there's a cut out of the curb so the water from the street flows into that green area. Correct. That's part of some standard green infrastructure. Like if you were to do a bioswale or something, that's one way that you would water it. And they also sometimes use that for tree plantings. So in theory, you wouldn't actually suggest something to that level of detail in the green score. You would say, you should have a bioswale that is properly designed by an engineer. And it may be so like say a big parking lot that like Herb Chambers might include something like what you're describing as part of their bioswale or their tree pit as a green way of doing it. Just so you're aware, that's sort of like a smaller scale than this.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Thank you.
[Ari Fishman]: I like it though. Ari? Yeah, I didn't see in the draft, is there any commentary on a ban on designated invasive plants in new plantings and or a strong preference for natives? Because both of those do have substantial impacts on flood water management. And we certainly don't need to repeat, for example, the calorie pairs.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So yeah, in the standards, in the general standards, we don't let invasive species to be planted. And we also address the, we give bonus if the plants are native or adaptive species, non-invasive.
[Emily Hedeman]: That works. Thank you. Good question. Any other questions from the board? If not, I'm going to open the public comment period. I'm starting to see some hands, which is great. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand function or message Danielle in the chat if you're having technical difficulties. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members, as that's not part of the public record. However, if you are having audio or other technical difficulties, message staff for assistance. That's Alicia and Danielle. Each participant has two minutes to speak. And as a reminder, these comments should be focused on the green score. So with that, I'm going to open up public comment and I see Zachary's hand raised. Zachary, please state your name and address for the record.
[Zachary Chertok]: I'm Zachary Chertok at 5 Allmont Street. Thank you, Emily, and the presentation was good. I generally like green score approaches. The first question I have is, are there green score thresholds that are going to be in place for approval for building designs? And I apologize if that was spoken to and I missed it. So I'll start with that one.
[Emily Hedeman]: So just keep asking your questions and we're going to address them at the end.
[Zachary Chertok]: The second question, and if this does bleed into the zoning, no problem, call it out, table it. How is the green score going to overlay into elements like the IZ setback schedules from before? I don't want to discuss the schedules. I just want a little insight into how they're going to cross over and consider those and factor in together. And will we be presented on that overlay at some point? And I'm done. Those are the two questions.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great, thank you, those are great questions. Any other members of the public with comments or questions? Alicia or Danielle, are there any emails that have come through? Any hands with any technical difficulties? No.
[Alicia Hunt]: There are no emails and I have not gotten any messages about anybody having trouble. And I'll say that I would refer the questions to our consultants rather than to me first.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, for sure. Emily and Paola, would you like to address Mr. Chertoff's questions?
[Emily Innes]: Yes, I'd be happy to address them from the sort of the higher level zoning perspective. So the green score is applicable to development projects. So somebody comes in with a new development project, it meets the criteria for the green score, it's site plan review, then the entire project is subject to that. And from the diagrams that Paola showed, You can see some of those strategies are applicable to the site at the ground plane, and others of those strategies are applicable to the building itself, such as, for example, the green or the blue roofs, which would be either the highest level of the roof, or if it's something that has a sort of terrace structure, it could be on multiple levels. In terms of the inclusionary zoning, I think it's what you are, sorry, incentive zoning rather, I believe that's what you were referring to for the overlay. So, the incentive zoning is being applied as we move through looking at the zoning for the entire city. We are looking at whether or not it is appropriate for different areas. It has been applied. already to mystic Avenue. We are looking at it for Salem Street, although I know we are not talking about that particular one but just to let people know that we're looking at it on a district by district, and the incentive zoning allows for an extra story or two depending on the district. of height if the development project can meet certain public benefits. One of those public benefits is that buildings are certifiable as LEED Platinum or other such green building scores. So there are many programs out there. There is Passive House. I think LEED is usually the most well-known. Passive House is gaining traction in Massachusetts. There's also Sites. which refers to, wait for it, the site plans, the landscape. So the idea is that one of the potential public benefits, and again, this is a menu structure, could be a more energy efficient, more sustainable building itself, as well as a green score. So we see the two of those potentially working in tandem. It's not an either or, the green score would be applicable for anything under site plan review. whether or not the incentive zoning is taken advantage of.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to clarify that, could they combine multiple forms of incentive zoning?
[Emily Innes]: Excellent question. So the incentive zoning, it would depend on the district, the height limit. So, although there is a menu of choices for the incentive zoning, for example, if you are in a district that allows for 2 additional stories, you could only stack enough incentives up to get you to those 2 stories. Um, the idea was to have a choice of options, um, because we know that over time, um, the finances change, the specific areas, uh, of, uh, what people are trying to accomplish change. And so we wanted to give maximum, um, flexibility to the city and to the developer to come to an agreement on something. So that's why there's a menu, but there is a limitation based on the district. You cannot just keep stacking them and going.
[SPEAKER_14]: Okay.
[Ari Fishman]: All right, we are still in. There was also a question about a particular threshold from the speaker. Can you speak to that?
[Emily Innes]: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I didn't write. I was grabbing a pen and paper as he spoke, so I didn't write that one down. Can you remind me, please?
[Emily Hedeman]: Zachary, I'm going to unmute you if you can remind us what that specific.
[Zachary Chertok]: Yeah. And do you need me to state my name and address again for the record?
[Emily Hedeman]: No, but I do appreciate your willingness to.
[Zachary Chertok]: Just as to whether or not, and this may be more for Alicia and Danielle, but if the city is going to establish a minimum scoring attainment through either model, whether it's through the score itself or through the land use model, if there will be minimum publishable standards that design has to achieve for approval.
[Emily Innes]: It's 25. Yes, sorry, through you, Madam Chair, 25 points. Paula, you can correct me if I got that wrong. But if affordable housing is part of the project, it would be 20 points. So that is what we're considering and still talking with city staff about now. I'll defer to you, Paula, for anything else.
[Emily Hedeman]: If you want to flash the slide back up, that may be helpful just to remind us.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, that's a good suggestion.
[Emily Hedeman]: I don't know if it was the slide or if it was the draft.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: It will be under draft. So, it depends on the district. That's something I said. It's going to be from 20 to 25 commercial and it's less of the green score. And so, we will address per district how much we think should be the minimum. We do have here something that I didn't explain. We have a minimum and an ideal. this ideal of 30 is for that incentive zoning that we were talking about. You have a minimum that everyone that has to apply to the green score has to achieve and that can be 20 or 25. If it's affordable housing, then it can be reduced. Here we have a 20, we would like to have a recommendation and that changes just a tiny bit. But yeah, 20-25 and then the ideal would be 30. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: So we're still in public comment period. I do not see any hands raised. Thank you to Zachary for your very thoughtful question. So seeing no additional public comments, I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting. And I know there was some discussion because when we initially did the public hearing, Salem Street and the green score were noticed together. I think there is a scenario where we can, if the board was ready, we could vote specifically on the green score and not on Salem Street.
[Ayni Strang]: That makes sense.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we can also require revisions. So just to clarify, that is another option. Danielle, I see your hand.
[Danielle Evans]: I just want to add that the Green Score Zoning Amendment and the Salem Street Court Amendment also have different paper numbers. At City Council, do we have the Green Score paper number handy? Because that is a way to differentiate between the two. I had that.
[Unidentified]: I'll be there.
[Emily Hedeman]: This is 122, not 115. I don't know if I can find a paper number here. I just have the public hearing notice.
[Danielle Evans]: I'm looking for it. Usually when we do the public hearing notice, it hasn't had a paper number created yet. I always wish that it was there so I could put it in the notice. I'm going to go through the council agendas and see what it was, unless Alicia, I see your hand is raised. Do you know it or did you find it yet?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm looking for it, but I actually just wanted to raise one make sure one other thing was clear before you kind of moved into any sort of. recommendations and stuff. So I just want to be make sure it's very clear because we really have it in our head in this board that we're approving things. This is recommendations from the board of the city council.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yes, you're right.
[Alicia Hunt]: This will be in the form of some like list of recommendations. And just so you're everybody's clear one, the city council can choose to take them or not take them. and they have the opportunity to add additional, to change, like the last Mystic Ab, one of the Councilors made a motion from the floor for a minor change. That is also something that could happen after you've passed it on. If it was dramatic, then it would have to be re-noticed and re-heard.
[SPEAKER_14]: That's really helpful clarification. Thank you, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I guess actually I'll say that if this board did anything that was super dramatic, and like, oh, we're going to also do affordable housing as part of this, right? That would be. Don't tempt me. That would have to actually be re-noticed. That would actually have to start the process over because it was too dramatic. It wasn't a modification. Sure. Sure.
[Emily Innes]: Yes, thank you. With that, I have possibly a question for you, madam chair, or a question for director hunt, which is, we do have some recommendations for additional definitions that clarify the difference between green roof and blue roof. I don't know if you need to ask to present them tonight so you can see them and include them in your recommendations or director hunt. If a city councilor could bring them forward to the meeting I know we had talked about this I'm not sure, given the week that we've all had. If you've had a chance to review them collectively and the staff on your side so, but I just wanted to bring it up while we had the opportunity we could certainly also ask if a city councilors willing to make that motion on the floor. But I did want to let the CD board know that there are three additional definitions, just again, to clarify the difference between a green roof, a blue roof, the combination of the two, and also the solar reflective index, also known as SRI, which basically means having a lighter color. on a flat roof to reflect the sun off that flat roof. It does not apply to pitch roof such as for single family or none of this because it doesn't require site plan review would apply to the lower levels of residential such as single unit, two unit, three unit. So this is really just a notification that that could, oh, I see your hand up, Alicia, but it's a notification that that could happen in city council as well.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair, I think that it makes sense for Emily to share that information with the board because the intention of it is to clarify the information that's actually already in front of you, but to clarify it in a way that is documented so that future people reading the zoning have the same understanding.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and this information was shared with the board in our packet, but I think if you do have, if you can walk through it for the board, I think that would be helpful, as well as any members of the public that are still tuning in.
[Emily Innes]: Ella, do you want to bring up the definitions? Yes. You probably have them handier than I do.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So I'm going by point by point. We wanted to clarify the, as I said, these projects with affordable housing that may reduce the minimum required green score to 20. And the new paragraph would read as projects that provide more affordable units than the minimum required, or provide affordable units with the affordability are subject to reduce the required green score by five points. So, depending on the district, they could reduce five points if they provide more affordability and more than what is required. That, I think, was not clear in the first sentence.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I like that. And then for some districts, the minimum required score is 20. Exactly. So that makes sense.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Okay. And then the second, as Emily mentioned, we wanted to give a little bit more flexibility with the roofs. So, in the beginning, we had only green roofs, intensive and extensive. And then we added the blue roofs. And now we want to add as well the high SRI, as Emily said, the Solar Reflective Index. So we wanted to amend the table to include the high SRI and instead of green roofs, the category will be named roofs. And to have at least a minimum of 0.2, sorry, the value of the C4 element. is 0.2. Then with this as well we will clarify the definitions and so in the section 7 standards for landscape elements we would define what a green roof is, what a blue roof is and also to add certain standards to the blue roofs. We want to make sure that the people understand that blue roofs are high maintenance and so that you need to really take care of it. So it is an additional, so they have to study if it's economically feasible. We want to make sure that they really work. And then we have the combination of green and blue and what we really want to say also then defining is that they have to follow all the green and riffs conditions and standards and that to calculate them you can sum both with the same area. You can sum the blue and the green since it is a high cost maintenance and also it is very good for the environment because it will storage water as well as improve the insulation of the building and many other ecosystem ecological performance. And then we define the high solar radiation index and when that would be reflective index. Yes, it's solar reflective index, so that, yeah, the definition and some of the standards that need to be followed, so we at least have an SRI of 82 for roofs that are more than the slope to 12. So if it's too 12 horse deeper, then it shall not be subject to this SRI requirement. And it's not eligible for credit.
[Emily Hedeman]: And 212 is rise over run? Sorry? 212 is rise over run? Yeah. Great. Remember something from school.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: OK. So this would be the recommendations that we were discussing. I will be happy to go through any more in depth if you want. OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: Any questions from the board on these recommendations? They all make sense to me. They seem logical. Is there any other information related to this that needs to be presented?
[Emily Innes]: We have completed our presentation. Thank you to all the board members for your patience.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, are there any further revisions we want to make to the recommendations? that will be shared with the city council.
[Ari Fishman]: Nothing comes to mind for me. I think it looks pretty good.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think this is a really exciting way to look at increasing pervious services and open space in Medford that doesn't limit new development. So as a board, how are we feeling? Are we ready to make a recommendation on the green score? I'm seeing thumbs. Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: Danielle? I think I located the paper number. It's 24-499, but I wanted to check and see what the Salem Street corridor paper number was just to confirm they were different and now I'm still hunting it down. Alicia, do you remember when it was reported out and to be referred?
[Alicia Hunt]: They have to be different because they were reported out. Yeah, I can't find the date. Wasn't it, sorry, it was December 11th. Oh no, that's the council permitting meeting, sorry. So if it was in the permitting meeting on the 11th, it must have been the meeting of the 17th. So let me go in there. Yeah, here it is. I am now, so it was the 17th. And I can, sorry, it's hard to read their agendas these days.
[Danielle Evans]: I guess 24, there was a hearing that night for Mystic Avenue and that was 24-490. Oh, is it November 13th?
[Emily Hedeman]: Um, agenda item 24-033 zoning ordinance updates with Innes Associates team. They went over the proposed green score zoning ordinance and then a short intro to Salem Street.
[Alicia Hunt]: 24-515 offered by Vice President Collins, proposed amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance, Salem Street Corridor District for referral to the Community Development Board. So 24-515, that's the Salem Street number.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay. And 24-499 is Green's score. So that separates them because they work two different papers. Yes. They're just combined for discussion purposes and ready at the same time.
[Emily Hedeman]: So what I'm hearing from the board is that we're ready to vote on the green score, which is paper number 24-499. So what I'd be looking for is a motion to recommend approval of the draft zoning. No, I'm sorry. Strike that. I am looking for a motion to recommend approval of the green score as revised. So that includes the recommendations from Emily and Paola, the draft that we've seen today. And if you're not ready to vote tonight, then, you know, that's, that's okay. Thank you, Ari. I'd be looking for a second.
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Annie. We're going to do a roll call vote. And again, this is just for the green score recommendation, um, item two four dash four nine nine. So roll call vote. Ari Goffman-Fishman? Yes. Thank you. Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Adam Behrens?
[Adam Behrens]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Annie Strang? Aye. Ben LaValle?
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hudiman, is an aye. So we pass the recommendation on to City Council for the green score. Very exciting work. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, Paula. Appreciate the work you've done along with the city staff to do this important work to help make Medford a more sustainable and climate ready city.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you very much to the members of the board for passing this back to city council. We look forward to seeing you for the next round of zoning edits and potential changes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Likewise. So we're coming towards the end of our agenda. We have three sets of minutes that need to be approved. There we go. So we have meeting minutes from November 20th, 2024, December 18th, 2024, and then January 22nd, 2025. That was the Salem Street public hearing part one. Does anybody have any feedback, revisions for those minutes?
[Adam Behrens]: Just a point from earlier, if I missed the January one, do I abstain from that approval?
[Emily Hedeman]: So historically, that's what I have done, but I don't think you have to abstain.
[Ari Fishman]: My understanding is that the vote is on the acceptance of the minutes that you are voting that they have been presented to you and we are putting them into the record. Thanks. City staff, correct me if I'm wrong.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, that's the direction that we got. So I was like, what's the point then? We really want the details, you watch the video. But yes, that is correct. You're voting to accept the minutes. And you can, one of the jobs of the clerk is also to kind of like give it the okay, and then the others can rely on it on that as well. So once we elect a clerk, someone can take that on that role.
[Ari Fishman]: Can I make a motion to accept all three together barring any additional comments? Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do I have a second?
[Ayni Strang]: I'll second that motion. Thank you, Annie.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, we're going to do a roll call vote. Ari Goffman-Fishman? Aye. Sabrina Alpino? Aye. Adam Behrens? Aye. Annie Strang. Aye. Ben Lavallee.
[Ben Lavallee]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman, is also an aye for the acceptance of the three sets of minutes for the aforementioned dates. The next item on the agenda is zoning updates. City staff, do you have any brief zoning updates? Five minutes or less.
[Alicia Hunt]: There's nothing sort of beyond Paula gave you the timeline. And I just want to repeat that there's going to be this meeting on Monday. I'm going to try and send that to you all. And you are welcome to push that out to other people. So that would be really helpful.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you know if that meeting, will notes be taken? I unfortunately have a conflict that evening, but I'm very interested.
[Alicia Hunt]: The plan is to have somebody record sort of all the Q&A. Sure. And so I guess the other piece, there'll be a few different things we'll present. There'll be boards that people can put things on. If they don't want to talk, there'll be an opportunity for people to ask questions in a group. But also Councilor Kit Collins is working on reworking the zoning web page in a more graphically understanding, able to digest way. And she's putting together some digestible bits that we can put out as well that we'll share as well as soon as they're ready.
[Danielle Evans]: And I just want to add that it's in person at the Roberts Elementary School and it starts at 6.30. Yep.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. So if there's no other business in front of the board, we are looking for a motion to adjourn.
[Ayni Strang]: I make a motion to adjourn the meeting for this evening. Second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. So we're going to do a roll call vote. And I do see a member of the public with their hand raised. We do not have any active public comment periods happening right now. So I'd encourage you to email Medford or reach out to Alicia or Danielle with any comments or feedback. So we're going to do a roll call vote for adjournment. Ari Goffman-Fishman.
[Ari Fishman]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Annie String.
[Ayni Strang]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ben LaValle.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman, is an aye for adjournment. Thank you so much, members of the board. Thank you, city staff. Thank you, public, for joining us. Our next meeting is, I believe, the 19th.