total time: 25.73 minutes
total words: 2028
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Amanda. Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the community development board. I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some procedural matters. First, I want to read that this hearing of the Metro Community Development Board has been 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 our 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. Please also know that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website at meffertma.org. And you can click on seating board filings. Amanda will provide a link in the chat. I'm going to do a roll call vote for attendance. Vice chair, Emily Hedeman. Present. Peter Cowles.
[Denis Dettling Kalthofer]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Present. Pam Mariansky.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sharad Bajracharya.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Amanda, can you please introduce any city staff on the call?
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure thing. So my name is Amanda Centrella. I'm a staff planner in the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. Other city staff that are present tonight include the director of our office, Alicia Hunt, as well as senior planner, Danielle Evans.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Amanda. So the first item on our agenda tonight is a special permit for the drive-thru use at 3850 Misty Valley Parkway. which is Bank of America. It's been, it's been continued from August 16th, uh, 23. Just to give an overview, the applicant is applying for a special permit for a drive-thru ATM at 3850 Mystic Valley Parkway, which is in the Wiggins Plaza. The special permit grant in authority is the city council, and it has been referred to the seating board for the board's recommendations on the matter. The applicant is advised to present to the board. An overall summary actually is that the existing site currently houses a surface parking lot and is bounded by commercial properties to the north, Linden Street to the east, Locust Street to the west, and a northern access drive to Meadow Glen to the south. The proposed project will construct an approximately 5,413 square foot bank with one drive-thru lane and one drive-thru bypass lane. Amanda, can you introduce all members in representation of Bank of America? Absolutely.
[Amanda Centrella]: So I believe William Lucas, the civil engineer for the project, is on the call. And I believe Andy Fitz, the project expediter, is on the call as well. Bill, I'm actually having a hard time finding Andy in the participants queue. If Andy's under a different name, just let me know. But you should have full permission to share your screen and unmute yourself and present.
[Bill Lucas]: Great. Good evening. And just to confirm, is everybody seeing on screen now the Bank of America? It's blue, red, white, and blue? Yes.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes.
[Bill Lucas]: Jackie, thanks for the introduction. Good evening, board members. Bill Lucas of Bowler. We are the civil engineer of record. Andy may be on the call, but I will be handling the majority of the conversation and presentation tonight. If there's anything in particular that Andy needs to be involved with, I'm sure he'll chime in when the time is right. Again, as Jackie had noted, Bank of America, we've been in front of this board before and what we've heard is a variety of comments about our previous development and concerns with location of the building itself. To back everybody up, what you see in a purple outline is the overall property itself, the Meadow Glen Mall. In the lower right-hand corner of the screen in red, we identify the actual project area which is part of the overall mall property. Zooming in, again, what you see from an aerial view is an existing paved parking lot with very little vegetation, an access point onto Locust Street on the lower left-hand side of the site, and then access to the main drive aisle on your right-hand side, which heads up towards the existing marshals. Today, this is what we've presented to the board is in orange, that rectangular shape near the bottom left-hand corner is the new proposed location for the Bank of America. It has in the middle along locus a full movement driveway in and out to the site itself, as well as you can gain access from the existing driveway that heads towards the Marshalls and you can make a left-hand turn. Again, full movement driveway in that location. The newest component of this is the exiting movement or exit-only movement from the drive-through component of the bank itself on to Logan Street. Here's a image from the architect that provides a good view from Locust Street itself minus all the landscaping that we're presenting. One-story building, front door very close to public sidewalk, bicycle rack, and pedestrian access around the building itself. ADA vehicular parking will be provided on the right-hand side of the building. As we rotate around a little bit, you'll get a feel for the drive-through on the left-hand side of the building and another angle of it. Pedestrian. exhibit here. Again, we're utilizing some of the existing sidewalk along Locust Street and the sidewalk that heads up towards Meadow Glen Mall, but we have now introduced some more sidewalk along the right-hand side of the building, which allows you to enter the building walk to any of the pedestrian accessible parking spaces and along to the parking in the rear. Then again, the newest feature is this pocket park at the corner where we'll get to that in a little bit, where we show some upgrades to landscaping as this was, again, a sea of asphalt out here. We really tried to enhance the image of this site along the corridor itself. We had heard comments about fire protection of the site. What we're showing here in this gray swath is the largest vehicle that Medford provided to us and showing that we have access to all sides of the building with no issue. And then as well, again, through the remainder of the site, truck turning with no issue should be able to provide upgraded safety to this area for any emergency situation. In general, that is the presentation itself. Again, I don't want to get into too much of the details. I think we've gone over a lot of that in the past, but I'll open it up for questions and leave you with this image where you can see some of those upgrades to the landscaping itself, where the trees are located along the back, along the front of the property, and then this enhanced pocket park with seating elements involved.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Mr. Lucas. I appreciate it. Before I get into questions and open up the questions, I want to see if the city wanted to address, I know that there was some comments from the department heads that you had referenced, and I didn't know if there were anyone from the fire department or from the DPW engineering for the city that would be on, or if the PDS staff is willing to give us a background on some of the concerns that were highlighted before. Danielle or Alicia?
[Danielle Evans]: Thank you. This is Danielle Evans, senior planner. I did go over this briefly with Todd and Owen, but with the holiday, I'm not able to get updated comments or a comment letter from either of them. because I think these came in like Thursday evening. So I'm not sure where they stand on this. Alicia or Amanda, do you have more information about that?
[Alicia Hunt]: I wasn't able to, did not talk to our city engineer about this.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So for me, anyways, there were some significant changes to the actual proposal, but at the same time, there were substantive concerns and comments from the fire chief, as well as DPW engineering and PDS staff that I think for my own standing on the board, I would need to further hash out before I could even provide a recommendation to move forward, or even a ruling at this point. I don't know how the city would want me to handle that. And I don't know how the other board members feel about that. I just, without, in the absence of knowing if things have been satisfied with the department heads, I wouldn't know how to move forward. Not even with conditions.
[Amanda Centrella]: You're the chair? Yes. And Danielle or Alicia, feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken. So I think when this proposal first came to the board, the staff from the departments that you listed, fire, engineering, and our office as well, had some big concerns about what was being proposed. As a result of that, The applicant, we met with them multiple times. And this is actually the outcome after several subsequent conversations with staff and with our office, I should say in particular, to kind of address those concerns. What I think we can't answer to is this proposal. I don't know if this proposal has had eyes on it by engineering and Um. uh, fire, um, at this point. But I will say that as far as fire, I think there is 360 degree access, um, around the, the building, which was sort of the main concern that is, um, that the chief had mentioned in the past. Um, and they showed the, um, the auto turn radius, um, in one of the previous slides, I believe, to kind of accounting for that. Does that feel like a reasonable summary, Danielle?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, and it can always be a condition that or the special permit is conditioned on meeting all of the fire chief's requirements, which I think it does. The one thing that the engineering department had brought up, and it looks like it was remedied on the plan, was the aprons to the drives, that the sidewalk, it had to go up, and then it had to be the sidewalk, and then go in. It looks like that was, I think that was corrected or. It appears to be so.
[Bill Lucas]: Yes, Daniel, I, we did correct that. And you can see the new. driveway entries all in concrete as requested previously. Our office had met with Owen between the two meetings to discuss the drainage aspect for this site as well, considering that now we need to look at the entire piece of property since we're relocating the building and we just wanted to ensure that our approach would be consistent with what he was thinking. and how we would then handle any future development that could potentially happen at the rear of the site. Generally speaking, again, we need to fine-tune the design and turn that into him for review, but we were going to stick with the design that we had in place as long as we could meet grade elevations through it because it handles the bank fairly well. And then we would indicate on our drawings any kind of future systems that would be separate from our system. We didn't want to design one entire system to handle a site that we didn't know what it was going to be in the future. So we will provide an underground system for the bank, and then we will provide a space and a rough layout for where the future underground system could be.
[Alicia Hunt]: So can I just, I was just confirming with our staff. So we got these from the applicant on the 31st and it went to engineering and traffic and transportation on the 31st, correct? So it went to them last week? Is that question directed to me? To you and Amanda? Somebody made sure that they saw these. I did not send anything.
[Danielle Evans]: There was the plan that didn't have the landscaping detail that I know for sure that they saw.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I was actually wondering, so there's a letter, a response letter that seems to be actually in the files. It's directed to DPW Engineering. That responds point by point by their requests.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I do have that, but I don't have. And that's I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, maybe the question is to the applicant. Because it's addressed to the Department of Public Works. Did it only come to our office or did you also send it to the Department of Public Works? Just because I see it's addressed to them.
[Bill Lucas]: I believe we submitted it to both locations.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[Bill Lucas]: I would have to confirm with administrative staff at my office that everybody received it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: If you don't mind, I'm going to open it up to the board if there's any clarifying questions from the board. So that's not just my voice on this. Do any board members have any clarifying questions? Concerns or comments?
[Emily Hedeman]: I have a question. So for this diagram, I'm understanding that we're going to be greening up some previously paved space. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. What's the programming for this space, or is it just like an open, empty field?
[Bill Lucas]: At this time, it's an open, empty field.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. How close is this to the little nugget of a dog park that's in that area?
[Bill Lucas]: It is immediately adjacent. That dog park is in the upper right-hand corner.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's very interesting. Do you own both parcels?
[Bill Lucas]: I believe it is.
[Emily Hedeman]: Does the applicant own both parcels?
[Bill Lucas]: I believe the landlord may own a piece of that and then maybe city owned with the road.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay.
[Bill Lucas]: Linden Street. It is not on this project site.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. I'd be really interested in how that beautiful green open space can potentially be programmed. Um, it feels like an opportunity for the site, um, whether it's an extension of a dog park or, you know, picnic benches for the employees of that plaza, um, just to give it like a little bit of purpose, I think would be a really interesting opportunity. I'm not sure if we can condition around those, those suggestions, but, um, that's something that I noticed and, um, I do want to say I really appreciate the pocket park in the front. I think that's a gorgeous addition. I also like how you've brought the bank to the edge of the street. I think those are two really great moves, so I commend you for those, and I would love to see, you know, some sort of programming for this, you know, the big green lot that's resulting. That's all I have. Thanks, Jackie.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, the chair. Yes. I just noticed that I believe the representative for the project landlord, Jane Benefield has their hand raised.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, yes, please go right ahead. Miss Benefield.
[SPEAKER_12]: I wanted to let you all know, because I don't think you you are currently aware that the anchor tenants at this shopping center have approval rights over the parking lot. And because the parking was, we already got the approvals from all of the anchors when the previous plan was completed. And now I'm having to go back and I'm getting pushed back because so many parking spaces were removed. So I don't know that we'll be able to get the approvals. And I'm in, I'm currently in the middle of trying to secure them. And, you know, I'm getting a lot of questions and, you know, that I, you know, I can't really, I can't really respond to. So they have approval over our entire parking lot and how many parking spaces we have. And so to remove 142 of them, which is 12.8%, is a lot. So I'm just letting you know that without those approvals, this project can't move forward.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you for adding that. That was 1 of the questions that I was actually going to raise to the PDF staff is because within the response to the PDFs, there was questions about parking and I saw there the response from the model. landlord stating that it must meet the parking requirements for various lease on site. Not only that, lease restrictions and parking changes will have to be the approval of all tenants. So I was kind of trying to figure out how that was addressed. And Danielle, if you can please go ahead. I see you have your hand up.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, so thank you. So when The permit expeditors were telling us that there were certain restrictions or buffer areas and that they were recorded in the Registry of Deeds. So I looked at the Wegmans lease, the Marshalls lease, and the only thing that I saw that was recorded was this 200 foot, I think it was 200 feet buffer. So it kind of clips that top corner. But I didn't and I saw that there was like veto power or there were certain uses that weren't allowed like restaurants and liquor stores and. different uses, but I didn't see anything about the parking. And also I would like to stress that tenants and even property owners can override zoning. This is their non-conforming property. It's over-parked. They have more than enough parking. This parking lot is often empty. I know that there's leasing of spaces. I've seen vans parked there. I'm really incredulous about how Wegmans thinks that we need the spaces.
[Emily Hedeman]: Question though, regardless of any of that, if the applicant is telling us that this plan isn't even approved, why are we even talking about it? Well, we just found this out as well. Okay. So then maybe we make a motion to postpone this to the next meeting.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I would tend to agree with that if we're saying- Yeah, I don't want to waste time on this if it's not a done deal.
[Danielle Evans]: Just relaying to the property owner or property manager that- Yeah. Wigman's thinking they don't have enough spaces.
[Emily Hedeman]: Regardless, Danielle, if they're telling us, if Ms. Benefield is telling us that she doesn't even know if this property is approved, I don't care. I want them to come to us with something that they're confident with. And if they're not, then we have a lot of stuff to talk about tonight. So I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to postpone this discussion to the next development meeting, which I believe is the 20th.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: I second that motion.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do I call the vote? Or does Jackie?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The clerk can call the vote, which is Peter, but I can
[Peter Calves]: Okay. Oh, yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But I would still, I believe you'd have to do the whole call attendance because you probably don't have that readily available.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, you're correct.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't have that in front of me. Okay. Sorry. It's here. Vice-chair Emily Hedeman? Aye. Peter Cowles?
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Mariansky. Chirag Bachariya.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm an aye. We will discuss the special commit drive through use of 3815 Mystic Valley Parkway. The proponent of Bank of America will be continuing to 9-2023. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item on the list is a plan development unit at 1 to 20 Waltham Court. Let me read the public hearing. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on September 6, 2023 at the 6.30 p.m. via Zoom video conferencing relative to a petition by the Medford Housing Authority to amend the zoning map, City of Medford map dated April 13, 1965 as referenced in Medford Zoning Ordinance Chapter 94 dash 2.2. The amendment proposes to change the zoning district designation of the property one to 20 Waukland Court as depicted on sheets one to six of the plans entitled ALTA slash NSPS land title survey prepared by Fuston O'Neill and dated February 6, 2022 from apartment one zoning district to a planned development district PDD, which would have new development standards per Metro zoning ordinance chapters 94, dash 9.2.3. The full materials for the amendment can be viewed in the office of planning and office, office of planning, development and sustainability on the, on the, on the, on their website under current CD board files. So Amanda, would you please introduce anyone that's here for Method Housing Authority?
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. So a couple of things first. So just as a reminder to the board and to any members of the public, the plan development district process is a three phase process. This is sort of the first phase and the first phase revolves around drafting of zoning. So a zoning amendment for the site in question. And with us tonight, and this is for the board's benefit, is Attorney Jonathan Silverstein of BBHS Law. He's here to provide the board with legal support. So if you have questions about the process or the language being proposed or anything like that, please feel free to ask Jonathan. And with that, I may turn the hand over the baton to the Medford Housing Authority team. I believe I gave most, if not all of you permissions, but if not, feel free to raise your hand.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you, Amanda. Natalie, do you have the ability to pull up the? Presentation. Great.
[Ciccariello]: Good evening. Everybody. Thank you so much for meeting with us this evening. My name is Gabriel. I'm the director of modernization and procurement with the Medford housing authority. And we're here tonight discussing our plan development district application for the redevelopment of walk in court. I'm here right now representing the Medford Housing Authority. We have Natalie Janssen and Margaret Donnelly-Moran representing us from the Cambridge Housing Authority. They are acting as our development consultant with this project. Our counsel for this project, we have Hannah Kilson with Nolan Sheehan Patton, and then our architect and designer, Dietzen Company, is with us this evening. Danny Garba, Leticia, and I'm sorry, is Lee on the call? Yeah, I'm here. I can't see everybody. Hey, Lee Morrissette is on with us. We also have Kevin Garvey. Okay, and Fuston O'Neill, who has assisted with this application for the civil work is with us. This evening, I'm going to be turning it over to Natalie Jansen in a few minutes. We're going to go through the overview of the Walkland Court development, the existing conditions, the why we are doing this, the proposed PDD process, our requested zoning amendment, and then we'll leave it open for questions and comments to the board and the general public. At this time, I'm going to turn it over to Natalie.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Good evening. My name's Natalie Jansen. I'm with the Cambridge Housing Authority. As.
[SPEAKER_17]: Just mention. Working and. I'm sorry for the read about.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm sorry, Natalie, I think your audio is going in and out.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sometimes if you turn off video of you, it helps with the bandwidth.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. That's also I'm speaking a little bit louder. So that should be better. Thank you so much. Let me know if there are any further issues. So, I just wanted to start off by saying that we understand that the focus for tonight's hearing is to review the proposed zoning amendment that would allow for the redevelopment of walk link court. in such a manner that would enable the MHA to finance and construct affordable housing on site for elders, disabled residents and families. And in such a way that is consistent with the Medford housing production plan, and the city of Medford comprehensive plans goals to increase the number of affordable housing in the city. But before we go into the proposed zoning amendment, I just wanted to give an overview of the current Wackling Court site, as well as the proposed redevelopment project. Wackling Court is owned and operated by the Medford Housing Authority. Currently on site, there are 144 state public housing units for seniors and residents with disabilities. All of these units are deeply affordable. That means that tenant rents is limited to 30% of the household's income. The property suffers of two main issues. One is that it is in very poor physical condition. It was built in 1963. And in the 60 years that it's been there, it has not been comprehensively modernized. Secondly, it lacks accessibility features needed to adequately serve a senior and disabled population. So you can see in the picture, there are nine buildings. There are two stories. Half of the 144 units are located on the second floor. There are no elevators, meaning that um, elders and residents with disabilities can only access their units by stairs, which can be very difficult. So given the obsolescence of the site, the Medford Housing Authority started a pre-development process for Wokling in January 2020. Uh, that kicked off with a feasibility study that essentially determined that The only way of addressing the poor physical conditions on site, the lack of accessibility, and other concerns such as energy inefficiency and noise transmission was to redevelop the site. And that providing accessible units with elevator access in a mid-rise for seniors and disabled residents that has on the ground floor adequate community space as well as on-site management and space for resident services was the best way of addressing the needs of the current population at Wakling Court and also allow households to age in place at Wakling. As part of this pre-development process, the MHE met with various city departments to gather input and feedback.
[Adam Hurtubise]: We met with the Office of Planning, Development, Sustainability, the Fire Department.
[Amanda Centrella]: Natalie, if I may, you're cutting out again.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: I'm just going to move a little closer to the router. And that should do it.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Sorry about that. Can you hear me? Excellent. So the MHA met with the city departments, it also secured a key piece of funding, which is $15 million of competitive funding that it received from the state. And then a procured Dietzen company architects to lead the architectural and engineering team for this project in 2022. The MHA also led a very active and well attended resident and neighborhood engagement process. There were seven resident meetings, both to gather input and also keep residents informed. And residents are very eager to see the redevelopment move forward, given the issues on site, the poor physical conditions, as well as lack of access. And in advance of this meeting, the MHA submitted 78 letters of support from residents that are supportive of this plant development district. In addition, there were five community meetings. So for these community meetings, the MHA provided notice to households living within 800 feet of the site. They also posted flyers on telephone poles around the property. And the meetings were held at the Wachling Court community room. There's one of the goals of the redevelopment is to increase the community space at Wachling Court. But even though the community meetings were very well attended, there was always space for everyone. Walkland Court is located in the hillside neighborhood of Medford. It has excellent connection to public transit, both the Tufts stop on the Green Line, the West Medford commuter rail, and buses along Boston Avenue. It also is in close proximity to recreational activities along the Mystic River, the grocery store that's just west to the site, as well as other commercial activities on Boston Ave. One of the key defining characteristics of the site is that it abuts very different conditions and uses on different parts of the site. So to the north and the east along North Street and Auburn Street is a contiguous residential neighborhood of two stories that are single family homes or duplexes. To the south of the site, there's MBTA commuter rail line, as well as an industrial district where there are concrete masonry mid-rise office buildings. And then to the west of the site, there's a commercial space where there's a grocery store and other residential activities. So the goal of redeveloping Waukland Court consists of a variety of goals. The number one goal is to provide replacement units for the current 144 units that are on site. and these units will be redeveloped into high quality accessible and deeply affordable units to existing residents. The next goal is to add additional affordable housing on site by building 94 net new deeply affordable housing units in Medford on the site. The redevelopment of this Site also allows an opportunity to improve resiliency and sustainability, which is also important given the fact that it's close to the Mystic River. And we see a real opportunity here to improve the site's connection to the surrounding neighborhood. And so the site is designed in such a way to transition smoothly between the residential northern and eastern side to the mid-rise, that's to the south, behind the property. We also just wanted to note that the redevelopment of Walkling Court is consistent with local priorities in Medford. So the fiscal year 2021-2025 Medford housing production plan includes the replacement of existing units at Walkling as well as the addition of new units on the site as a strategy to meet the city's affordable housing goals. In addition, the comprehensive plan for 2023, which was approved by city council has a goal of building 600 subsidized units by fiscal year 2025. And the 94 net new deeply affordable units that can be built on the site would help meet the city's goal by 15%. Here you can see a site plan of the proposed redevelopment. And so building A, that's to the left by the MBTA railroad is a six-story senior mid-rise with 198 units. The building is located by the MBTA railroad. So just wanted to make a note that we have an acoustical engineer on team and We have essentially cited the building in such a way, and also designed the facade, which includes the use of triple-pane windows and additional insulation to meet the noise attenuation requirements that we will have to meet by HUD requirements. Building B is a 24-unit family mid-rise of four stories that will be elevator accessible. and then building C, E, and D or two-story townhomes with a total of 16 units. And all of these units will be deeply affordable. So again, as I mentioned at the top of the meeting, we understand that the purpose of tonight's meeting is to discuss the draft zoning amendment that we submitted for Wackling Court, which is currently zoned as apartment one. And this draft zoning amendment would essentially allow for the replacement of the 144 obsolete units on site and the creation of more affordable housing. at Walkland Court. Throughout the pre-development process, we met with the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability, and as part of those meetings, they suggested that we look at the PDD as an option, as I felt that Walkland Court would be a good candidate to go through the PDD process. And so, after consulting with the overall development team, the Medford Housing Authority decided to proceed with the PDD application, which it had its official pre-application meeting on August 7, with staff, the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. It then submitted the PDD application on August 8, and has been working with attorney Jonathan Silverstein on comments that have been submitted on the PDD-3 zoning amendment. So now I'm going to pass it on to Attorney Hannah Kilson, who's going to go through the draft PDD zoning amendment.
[Kilson]: Thank you, Natalie. I'd like to thank the board for making the time for us to come here today. My name is Hannah Kilson. I'm a partner at the firm of Nolan Sheehan Patton, and we represent the Medford Housing Authority in its PDD amendment proposal. As Natalie noted, consistent with the requirements provided in the zoning ordinance, the PDD application was submitted. uh, to the board on August 8th, 2023. Um, and the proposed PDD amendment would create a planned residential development district. Uh, if there's no objection, Madam Chair, I'm going to go through a quick overview of the amendment, um, that we've been working on with the city and as Natalie noted, um, Attorney Jonathan Silverstein. Yes, please proceed right so my understanding is that the board does have it with it the draft amendment showing the final language that we have worked through the 1st piece of the PDD is is the zoning map amendment. We are proposing that a PDD 3 would be established as an overlay district on the parcel of land in Medford that's located at 1 and 3 to 20 Walkling Court and known as Walkling Court. We're seeking approval of this overlay to amend the zoning map to impose this overlay on an area that's currently located in an apartment one district and has been used for low income housing since 1963. You received, as part of the PDD application, a survey and a site plan, and I just want to be clear on locating this parcel again. The parcel of Butts North Street at its southeast and across North Street is a general resident district. The parcel of Butts, as Natalie noted, an industrial one district to the south with the MBTA commuter rail, abutting the southern property line, and on the other side of that commuter rail tracks is the Tufts University Center for Engineering, Education, and Outreach. The parcel abuts a commercial one district to its west, and that adjacent parcel is occupied by Whole Foods Market. To the north, northeast and southeast of the parcel is an apartment, one district and the adjacent parcels are a mix of single family to family dwellings. So, with this amendment, the zoning map would be amended to create 3. Danielle. Do you have something that you're displaying on your screen? Because I do not. No, not at this point. But Natalie can put up, if you want, the map that she previously showed, which kind of outlayed the survey. OK.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah.
[Kilson]: So, that's just to locate so the 1st request before you will be the amendment of the zoning map to create this PDD 3 overlay district. The next portions of the zoning zoning amendment really deal with general structural provisions. They set out the special permit process. under which the city council, acting as the special permit granting authority, would issue a special permit for the project in accordance with section 94-9.2.7 of the zoning ordinance. The amendment then sets out that a site plan review process to be conducted by the board and allows for this site plan review to occur prior to or contemporaneously with the special permit review. The PDD amendment also provides that the special permit requirements of the inclusionary housing provisions of the zoning ordinance will be satisfied by the issuance of the PDD-3 special permit. And the PDD-3 project will satisfy the affordability restrictions and regulation requirements of your inclusionary housing provisions in your zoning ordinance. Therefore, this will allow all the units that are to be built as part of the walk-in court project to be included in the city's subsidized housing inventory. permitted uses. Natalie, do you want to put that up just so people can visually see that? So the proposed PDD amendment provides that there will be certain uses that are permitted as of right. They are the detached single-family dwellings, the attached single-family dwellings, including 2, 3 or more dwelling structures. The detached two-family dwelling, multiple dwelling class A and class B would be permitted as of right, as well as senior housing, independent living facility. The amendment provides that certain uses would be permitted by special permit issued by the city council, and that would be dormitory fraternity or sorority housing, lodging or boarding housing, and the senior housing facility. There's one accessory use that we are also looking to have that the amendment is providing for, and that is that general office use that is accessory to a permitted residential use would be permitted as of right. And this portion of the amendment would allow for the management office to be located within the multifamily dwelling. There are no other uses that are being proposed for this PDD. The next component of the PDD amendment are the dimensional provisions. The proposed PDD amendment would allow for more than one principal structure on the site, similar to the existing condition on the property. And that would be the case provided that each structure is located a distance of at least 15 feet away from any other principal structure. The amendment also and the standards that were proposing in the amendment are really trying to be consistent with the purpose and intent of the PDD provisions of the zoning ordinance and give to Medford Housing the flexibility that it needs in order to redevelop Laughlin Court and to address the affordable housing shortage that exists in Medford at this time. Lock configurations for the PDD 3 lot at the minimum standards here are 35 foot frontage, 35 foot lot width, and a 75 foot depth. Landscaped and usable open space would be 10% of the gross floor area. These open space requirements allow for development density that we believe is consistent with the affordable housing objectives of the City of Medford as provided in its 2023 comprehensive plan and its objection of that plan to create 600 housing units by fiscal year 2025. If the proposed redevelopment of the Walkling Court were approved by special permit, under the proposed PDD amendment, the open space that will be created will actually be more usable and accessible than the existing open space. The setbacks that are proposed under this PDD amendment will be the same as on the site today. 15-foot front yard, a 10-foot side yard, and a 15-foot rear yard. There is, in the PDD amendment, Um, a provision that provides that given the topography of the site along North street, that no setback for parking space spaces and areas located in the front yard of any lot are required. Maximum lot coverage would be 35%. Maximum height and stories in the PDD-3 would depend on use with 75 feet and six stories for multiple dwellings and 35 feet and three stories for attached single-family dwellings. Oh, and lastly, parking the proposed parking requirements that are in the amendment would be 1 space for every 2 units. And this is the same parking ratio under the underlying zoning for affordable housing. And then the last element to call to your attention is the provision in the proposed PDD amendment concerning the screening of mechanical equipment. We've added that provision to be in place to minimize the visibility of such equipment from the street or from neighboring properties, subject to ensuring that the equipment will function and operate effectively with such screening. That, Madam Chair, is the summary of the proposed amendment to the PDD that we have in front of you. I welcome any questions at this time.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you so much, Attorney Kilson, for your detailed coverage of the amendment. And thank you, Ms. Jansen, for your presentation. My, the one question I have before I open it up to the board is I do have the final amendment myself, but I'm not sure if it was, I'm not sure how, what the actual differences was. And I guess this is my question to attorney Silverstein, that everything that was addressed within the questions that you originally had in previous drafts, if they were rectified and made whole. for us in the final part.
[Silverstein]: Good evening, I'm Jonathan Silverstein, counsel for the board on this matter. So yes, it's been a very cooperative process. My comments were fairly minimal and they have been addressed to my satisfaction. I'm happy to walk you through them if you like. And also just wanna, I know this is the third go round for PDDs, so the board's probably getting used to the process, but just a reminder that this is, That first public hearing that's required really as an introductory public hearing, the final version of the ordinance will come back to you after it's referred by the council for a public hearing, the statutorily required public hearing. So the board will certainly have an opportunity to review and make recommendations on the final version. But if you like, I can summarize just a couple of changes that were made from the original draft. And obviously, each time this with each new PDD, there's. there's more for the applicant to look to in terms of prior examples. This was really, as I said, it came to me and pretty much from my standpoint finished condition. One thing we added was a provision just allowing the council to permit changes from the original Preliminary plan if it deems that it's in the public interest just to have that flexibility in case there's some site condition or something that requires a change that would be deemed substantial and to not have to start this process all over again and have a new zoning amendment. The provision that was just mentioned with respect to screening of mechanicals. I suggested adding screening them from neighboring properties as well as public ways and that was readily accepted. Suggested some format changes which were non-substantive that were agreed to. And then I suggested a provision that would allow the council as a special permit granting authority to impose conditions regarding the affordability and just the administrative process of getting the units on the SHI. And that was pretty much it. in terms of any meaningful changes that I had suggested. So as I said, I really, I saw it in a pretty finished condition already.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Attorney Silverstein. I appreciate it. I want to remind the board and the public before we move forward, again, that as Attorney Silverstein has already noticed, we were given a high-level conceptual presentation by Medford Housing Authority and their team. Although we're focusing only on zoning, like the uses and the dimensions for this first meeting, although the vision informs the zoning, we're going to save all the rest for the site plan review at a later date. And because it's dimensional and zoning and all bound in law, for my purposes, I do not have any more questions that attorney Silverstein has not already answered. So at this time, I'm going to open it up to the board for any questions.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, and I think this is something Attorney Silverstein already said, but I just want to confirm, because it was my understanding from our previous couple PDDs, that this is, I think this is good, both a rehash for the board and for the public, that this is a, that the purpose of this hearing is to deal with the zoning of the site, not the specifics of the project.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Exactly.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, we are not discussing the project itself tonight. We're considering the zoning characteristics and the zoning regulations of the piece of land that it sits on. Just an important distinction, I think, to make.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Peter. Through the chair? Yes. I just wanted to check with Member Calvez. Were you going to recuse yourself from this item?
[Peter Calves]: Yes, I think I have to recuse myself from voting for this item as I work for Niche Engineering, who did the traffic study for this project, and it is their preference that we recuse ourselves from projects they work with in Fort Worth.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks, Peter.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Sorry to interrupt.
[Adam Hurtubise]: No problem.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, that was definitely important. Thank you, Amanda. Are there any further comments from the board or questions? Are there any questions or comments from the city staff? Okay, I'm going to open it up for hearing none from the board or from the city staff. I'm going to open it up for public comment. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message. Roberta is- I think Roberta and Dennis. They're part of the public in this regard. To start again, those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Amanda in the comments. You can also send an email to ocd at medford-ma.gov. Individuals may have up to three minutes to provide comments. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. Please do not use the chat feature to provide comments as it is not a part of the public record. Amanda, can you please manage the public comment queue and read any previously sent emails or letters?
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. So, sorry, I'm just collecting names here. I see several raised hands. I believe the first hand that I saw was Roberta Cameron. If you could just state your name and address for the record. I'm going to ask to unmute.
[Roberta Cameron]: Thank you for giving me the opportunity. As a member of the Community Preservation Committee, I have been aware of this project as we've been asked to provide funding of the city's Community Preservation Act funds for this project. And we strongly support this project and think it's incredibly important for upgrading the quality of the housing that's provided. to the seniors and disabled residents of Walkland Court and the Medford Housing Authority in general, and really excited about the addition of family housing, and in particular, family housing for people with disabilities. That is a much, much unmet need for the city. And as a neighbor, I live on, I forget if I stated my address for the record, 12 North Street. I have been following this process very closely all along and have attended several of the community meetings with others of my neighbors and have been really impressed with the opportunities for gathering input from Public housing residents and from neighbors to design a very sensitive development that really fits the space sensitively and. provides acoustical screening to mitigate the impact that residents currently have from being located near the train tracks, employing better technology and better quality building materials than were originally built for this site. So I also, as a member of Housing Medford, have talked with a lot of people who see, who very urgently need the kind of housing that is being provided here. And so I hope that the housing authority is able to stick with their schedule and to get this development, the zoning passed and the development to be under construction. as soon as possible to meet the needs of the community. Thank you very much.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Ms. Campbell.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, great. Thank you. And I have next in the queue, Dennis. I'm going to ask you to unmute, and if you have three minutes to provide comment, and if you could just state your name and address for the record.
[Denis Dettling Kalthofer]: Hi, my name is Dennis Setlin-Kaltofer. I live at 120 North Street. And although I'm not a resident of Wapling Court, I'm speaking in support of one of the residents who's talked with me directly, and perhaps some who have not come forward publicly, but have expressed concerns privately. I think part of, from what I understand, part of the rezoning has to do with putting in a six floor building, which would be right next to the commuter rail, And that would be for seniors and disabled. And I know that diesel fumes, noise and vibrations are an issue for a lot of people. I know someone not in that development who lives close to that commuter rail and has to close his windows every time a train comes by. Also, there's a plan to put a new road through the complex, which the disabled and elderly would have to cross to get from one building to another. Also, that the redevelopment would require the cutting down of some rare trees, as I understand. And I can personally think of some alternatives, which I'd like to just throw out. One would be, excuse me, to place people into vacant apartments, which I think there are probably lots of luxury apartments available that are not being occupied. I know there are some in Cambridge. And also, since a lot of the residents will need to be relocated to temporary facilities during the construction, are those facilities available on a permanent basis? And could they be used to house new residents instead? And also, the third question I have is, isn't there a way to put elevators, to add elevators to the existing structures? That's it.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Dennis. Chair, do we want to go through all of the public comment first, or should we have the applicant address the questions that were raised by the resident?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think the most efficient way is in case an actual member of the public has to jump the meeting before we get to the end, maybe we can address individually. And especially in case the same question comes up again, we have it.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm sorry. So to clarify, we're going to go through all the comment first.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I believe so. No, I think you should probably I think we should probably address them individually in case the person that the member of the public that asked the question has to jump before the end of the meeting.
[Amanda Centrella]: Understood. So yeah, I'll invite the applicant to respond to those questions.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. So I'll take a first step. So going backwards, so if it's possible to add elevators to the existing structures, that would likely be very difficult and cost prohibitive. There are nine different buildings that are two stories each. So that would require adding nine separate elevator buildings or elevator cores. And it's also not the properties in pretty poor condition. So I think that would be very challenging in terms of relocating households to other temporary housing and making that permanent housing that's available. So part of the Medford Housing Authority's plan as it relates to relocation is to provide comparable units and other MHA properties to do this. These are vacant units that they will then be using to temporarily house Waukland Court residents. So that would essentially not be, that would essentially be reducing the amount of affordable housing that that MHA will be offering. The real goal right now is to provide better replacement housing for the 144 units that are currently on site. And then just the comment related to the location of the six-story mid-rise by the MBT commuter rail. So currently the site was built in 1960. at a time when building construction and building materials, as well as standards were much lower than they are today. And so noise is an issue at the property. The goal is by building a new mid rise. There is an acoustical engineer who's part of the design team who has provided suggestions both in terms of the now we're getting into some design questions. So If the board feels like this is too much of a site plan review issue, let me know. But essentially, the building has been designed in such a way that it limits the amount of units that are directly parallel to the MBTA commuter rail. And also, the facade construction includes various items such as the use of triple pane windows, as well as additional insulation in order to do noise mitigation. One of the key deficiencies at Waukland Court today is that there's not adequate ventilation in the units. That is something that the redevelopment of the property and the construction of these mid-rise buildings will provide. So that should help with making sure that households have access to clean air in their unit.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Ms. Jensen. Actually, I'm going to come back to this and I just realized to make sure that we are staying on task and we're answering and that the proponent feels comfortable answering the questions that's related to zoning and the questions that you actually feel are relevant to the case, not that all of the public comments are not relevant. Amanda, how about we do take a tally of the questions as we go through and then decide which ones are relevant to tonight's public hearing and have the proponent answer the ones that they're able to at the end. to keep it more efficient.
[Amanda Centrella]: I think, yep, I can and I can keep track of what we're hearing. Thank you very much. Great. So with that, next in the queue, I have Diane McKinney. If you could, you have three minutes to provide comment if you could state your name and address for the record.
[McKinney]: Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. My name is Diane McKinney. I live at 10 Carlton Road in Tewksbury, but I have a direct abutment to the actual site. It's 29 North Street. This is my first meeting, so forgive me. But from all the plans that I had looked at, I have not seen anything regarding any environmental assessments or impact studies that are going to happen with this site. I do know the history back in the 1960s. It was a coal and oil. There was a dump directly adjacent to the 29 North Street. And I just wanted to find out what is going on in that respect before any of these um, you know, rezoning initiatives are actually approved, that if anybody has looked at the environmental impacts of what is going to happen with doing a six-story, you know, two six-story buildings and all of the rest, and also, there, I was wondering if an impact assessment has been done for environmental justice purposes. This is going to directly impact the neighborhood, and please, you know, I, I am totally for having affordable housing, especially for the elderly and disabled. I am not in any way, shape, or form trying to downplay any of that. But this is a very big impact on the neighborhood itself. And just wanted to know if that's been addressed. I haven't seen anything on any of the plans.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And for clarification, not that we're answering this question now, I just want the city to take note in response to environmental metric. This site is not an environmental justice site. I just wanted to make that clear.
[McKinney]: Yeah, I looked at the map. And it looked like Watling Court and certain sections of North Street going from Marshall to Route 16 are included in Block Group 1, Tract 3394. That's what the map looked like.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[McKinney]: Okay, so if I'm mistaken, but I looked at the map and it was considered an environmental justice impact population.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Mm-hmm.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, and just a reminder, I'm taking notes, so don't feel like your comments aren't being heard. We'll address them at the end. Next in the queue is Diane Sullivan. If you could state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to provide comment.
[Diane Sullivan]: Thank you, Diane Sullivan Jerome street West Bedford just outside of that quarter of a mile radius from walk on court I want to first thank you Madam Chair and the board. Thank you for the presentation I, while I live in the neighborhood I haven't been. Um, as involved and updated, I am thrilled that we are here tonight and. Support wholeheartedly the Medford housing authority. And taking this step that we all know is long overdue. Through you, Madam Chair, to the prior Diane's comments, one thing we do know the impact of for certain is the lack of affordable housing, particularly in this neighborhood. As a resident here, I can speak personally to the impact of gentrification in our neighborhood. To the impact of the lack of housing at Tufts University and how that impacts this historic neighborhood. So, I'm excited to see what will come of this. and Roberta, again, was thrilled to hear that the city is poised to invest its CPA funds in this. Also appreciate all those Cambridge Housing for stepping in and providing consulting for the legal support that this requires. This is a Herculean effort to build housing. Um, you know, to to add 94 units to a city that desperately needs it and, you know, it is to 1 of the prior speakers. Um, we heard a little bit about, you know, what what are some of the concerns the existing concerns of presidents and going forward. But we haven't yet heard from a resident. I just want to make that point. Proxy voices are important. It is critically important to provide space where people feel safe to express those concerns. Look back at some of the presentation materials in preparation for this meeting. From what I've heard even this evening, some of the concerns that were expressed are being addressed. I'm here to just say that I am 10 toes down. I'm thrilled to, again, hear from some of the abutting neighbors. My daughter happens to live on North Street, who are in full support of this. NIMBYism has no place particularly in West Medford. To see the addition of family units, and thank you, Roberta, also for that clarification on Units that are accessible. It is disruptive to families up to to individuals who will be, you know. located somewhere else, right, while this happens. And so I believe that, you know, everyone involved is working in good faith to make sure that we can lessen any disruption so that ultimately people return to an even better quality of life. And so my question to the folks who are doing the planning is, you know, what are you hearing from folks? And maybe there are some concerns that, you know, you can't address. But again, I have faith that everybody's operating in good faith. I would just acknowledging this is outside of the zoning discussion, but I think it would be good to hear what has been coming from those conversations. It's great to hear that folks are eager, but we also live in a world and individuals exist in spaces where a disruption like this can impact their quality of life. And so, you know, I would welcome the opportunity. Yes.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm so sorry to interrupt. We're a bit over three minutes. So I just wanted to make sure you had your questions poised in there.
[Diane Sullivan]: And I have. Thank you, Amanda, for for reining me in. These are important issues. And I think we could talk all night. So thank you. I appreciate everyone's time.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, next in our queue is William Navar. You'll have three minutes to provide comment and if you could state your name and address for the record.
[William Navarre]: Hello, William Navarre, 108 Medford Street. Basically, I support the zoning because I support the project. We obviously got a housing crisis, especially a shortage of deeply affordable housing, which is what's proposed. And that's what's going to happen if this zoning gets passed. When it comes to concerns that the project is too big or crams too much housing onto the lot, it's important to remember that addressing that by making it smaller, it's going to mean a smaller project, just smaller housing or less housing. It means doing less to address the housing shortage than what's proposed. And it'd be turning away more people who need a place to live. Thank you. That's my public comment.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you so much. Next in our queue is Susan
[Adam Hurtubise]: Oh, Danielle cut out, Susan Gerard.
[Alicia Hunt]: Let me unmute you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Oops, sorry. I was muted. Susan, I see you there. If you could state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to provide comment.
[Gerard]: I really don't need to. I'm a member of Housing Medford. I live on 26 Farragut Avenue, East Medford. I don't live in the area, so I could say my concerns are different, but I did tutor a woman who had cancer in that housing project many years ago. She was an immigrant and the stairs were difficult for her, I will say that. But more important, I've had a number of friends who really needed low-income senior housing in Medford and were told that there was, I don't remember how many years, two, three, four years waiting lists for people desperate for this housing and they eventually moved out of Medford because they could not survive here. So I'm just speaking in strong favor of the project. I realize there's some concerns. I have heard about the trees. I know someone talked about the historic trees or something that the trees were not that historic. They were just trees, but they are rebuilding. As I understand it, they are planting trees to replace some of those, at least. I think we're all concerned about the environment. This is not a particularly Green area, I think there's green spaces that are going to be provided, but I think most important is what people have said that we desperately need affordable housing in Medford. Nobody who isn't wealthy at this point can afford to move here. So that's my comment and I support the project. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Susan. Next in our queue is Kate. If you could provide your full name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to provide comment.
[Kate Ryan]: Hello, my name is Kate Ryan, and I currently live at 15. Should I start again?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Kate Ryan]: Hello, my name is Kate Ryan, and I currently live at 15 Canal Street in West Medford, which is a Medford public housing building. And I am disabled with a disability that is progressing. And if I am lucky, I still have a couple more years where I am not in a wheelchair full-time. I currently use one part-time. And I will tell you that this housing is desperately needed. I don't know if you, you probably do know people with COVID. 10% of people are going to get long COVID. And we aren't accommodating that. We aren't thinking ahead of the fact that a large, large number of people are going to need more accessible housing. A large number of people are going to be unable to work and may end up in this type of housing. I don't believe that my disability is a bad thing. I don't believe that just because I have multiple disabilities means that I don't have the right, the same as everyone has the right, to good, clean places to live which I can access. Currently, I have to go up half a flight of stairs to get to my apartment, which is very lovely, but it's very difficult. I really want to stay in Medford. My friends are here, my community is here, and I work hard to be a part of this community and to give back in what ways that I can. But I don't know what's going to happen in the future. And walking court, for me, is a bit of light in the future. It's a bit of hope. It's a bit of something that people really need. And if you think that it's not that big of a deal for people to live in inaccessible buildings, I would really, really like to give you just five or 10 minutes of the pain that I live with every day. And that is all.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you so much, Kate. Next in our queue is Dave Peters. And if you could state your full name for the record, as well as your address, and you'll have three minutes to provide a comment.
[Peters]: Can you hear me?
[SPEAKER_17]: Yes.
[Peters]: David Peters, 17 North Street. I'm the owner of this property. I have several comments, but I understand that from this purpose of this meeting is just particularly for zoning. And I wanted to just go through back in the 1960s when this plan was taken over by the states for the purpose of elderly housing. they went through with all the residents and came up with an agreement so it wouldn't disturb and impact the residents that they would keep these buildings at two stories and keep that, you know, in coercion with the surrounding neighborhood. To go from two-story buildings to six-story buildings is way out of character for this neighborhood. It puts several impacts on residents, sunlight, I mean, everything I can go into detail, but we all know that going from two stories to six stories is a huge, huge difference. And I wanna make sure that this board received the petition that we've had over 1,100 people sign in opposition to this proposed project. Before I go any further, I want to say I know there's a need for low-income housing. I get that. I am not opposed to the redevelopment in back, but to put six-story and four-story buildings there is out of character. of this residential neighborhood. And 95% at least of this whole community going outwards, this whole neighborhood has felt that same way. They could do several things. We've gone to several meetings and everything that we suggested went out the window. So they can say that they've had seven, residential meetings and it was productive. It was not productive because everything we brought up was dismissed. So I urge this board to reject this rezoning of this proposed project the way it is now. Like I said, I know there's a need and those buildings are somewhat old and deteriorating and the need for elevators or handicapped accessible, but there's other ways to going about this. And I will leave it there. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Dave. Next in our queue is Barry Ingber. If you could provide your name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes to provide comment.
[Barry Ingber]: I'm Barry Ingber, 9 Draper Street, and I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak. I intended to speak in favor of the project as planned, but other people have said what I was going to say for the most part better than I could have. I just want to say that there's a kind of a whole new level of nimbyism happening when you can't put affordable housing in a public housing development. It really kind of takes the cake. But that said, I do have one comment, which is I hope that the redevelopment plan will include solar installations on the roof in compliance with Medford Solar Roof Ordinance that was passed in 2019. This will reduce the carbon footprint of the housing, support the goal of energy resiliency, and potentially also provide an additional stream of funds for the MHA. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Barry. Next in our queue is Kyle. If you could provide your full name and address for the record, you'll have three minutes to provide comments.
[L5KoM4khxVw_SPEAKER_00]: Hi, Kyle Joyce, 29 North Street. Thank you for letting us speak tonight. First, I just wanted to address the NIMBYism accusations. I think that condescendingly calling someone a NIMBY or referring to legitimate concerns as NIMBYism is neither productive nor appropriate. People live next to this complex and they have legitimate concerns. And I would say that if you have such a problem with people having an issue with something that's going to directly impact where they live, then I suggest you take your proposal to the board and put public housing right next to your house. Having said that, I do agree with the first Diane that spoke about an environmental impact survey, and just to be clear, I've spoken to many of the neighbours here, people who are abutters mainly, and this isn't about trees, at least for me, it's about kicking up oil, potentially extremely hazardous materials such as lead or mercury that are in the lower layers of soil that could be there from up to 100 years ago. Many people heated with oil back then and when that soot left people's chimneys, it settled into the soil and there was mercury as a byproduct. So if you care about the environment, you should care about an environmental impact survey before any work is done. I'm absolutely in favor of that, whether the final plan results in a 64 or 2 story complex or complexes. And in regards to the cost, I just was thinking when someone was speaking earlier, who was on the staff. You know, I don't know the exact cost, but doing the math, it would seem like nine elevator units would cost much less than a $14 or $15 million budget being spent on a brand new 2023 housing project. Almost every or every single house abutting Walkling Court was built over 100 years ago. My house personally was 1910. So a 1960-era brick housing complex I think is perfectly suited for anyone to live in, and I would favor renovations to be made as opposed to the potential air, sound, and physical impact that this proposal promotes. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Kyle. Next in our queue is A.N. If you could provide your full name and address for the record, you'll have three minutes to provide a comment.
[Anita Nagem]: My name is Anita Nagum. I live at 9 Norton Avenue. It is definitely within the 400-foot radius of the border of Walkland Court. First, I would like to state that I've spoken with dozens of people in this neighborhood, and there is no one who objects to this being renovated or rebuilt. Many of us have friends who live there, and we know that the condition of this property definitely needs to be upgraded. However, there is a general feeling that the Medford Housing Authority has not been responsive to the concerns of the neighborhood, as others have stated. One example is the six-story building. We were led to believe at the beginning that there would only be four-story buildings. Then they came back and said, no, it's going to be six-story. And when we raised concerns, they looked interested and came back at the next meeting and said, no, that's the only way we can do it. There are issues with the through road as well, which could be addressed with a different method. That specific is not relevant to this meeting. But I also agree with Kyle and the first Diane about the environmental issue. I have some neighbors who have spent their entire lives right here. In the 1950s, probably going back further, there was a man named Stanley Dudek who swept the streets of Medford. There were no street sweepers at the time. He dumped whatever he collected into the Walkland Court property. That is why it is known as the dump. There was no environmental study done when this was built in the early 60s. And we have grave concerns about contamination of this site, which need to be addressed before any zoning is changed. This is a very serious issue for those of us who live here. And again, better communication with the neighbors could have addressed this issue earlier, but, well, suffice it to say that many of us do not feel that the meetings with the Medford Housing Authority were productive. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Anita. I'm just going to put out a call to anyone who hasn't raised their hand who wants to speak, or if there's anyone who's having trouble raising their hand, wants to use the chat function to let us know that you want to contribute. Just give everyone a moment. While we do that, there were some Oh, actually, I see a hand raised by two folks. Sneha Kaunt, could you state your name and address for the record? And you'll have three minutes to provide a comment.
[nxzvg6ywlhM_SPEAKER_10]: Hi. Thank you so much. My name is Sneha Kaun and my address is 108 Medford Street. I just like to sort of just add in my voice about the environmental impact concern, but sort of different in terms of what's been raised so far. So I feel that adding more housing would actually help. environmental and sustainability goals. If we have more people living in urban areas as opposed to sort of sprawling out and facing more scarce housing, that's actually in terms of sort of more sustainable goals, that's scientifically proven to be better for environmental goals. And I also think that this sort of concern for the The idea that digging up for building higher would raise new problems in terms of contaminants, but it seems that whatever level of construction is going to be done is also going to create the same problem. So do we just not build anything at all? So I'd just like to sum up my public comment as saying that I think building more housing, especially deeply affordable housing, as this project suggests, is a really good idea for our community's environmental goals. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Sneha. Next in the queue is Eileen Lerner. If you could state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to provide a comment.
[Ilene Lerner]: So my name is Eileen Lerner, and I live at 9 Adams Circle in Medford. Like everybody here, I think we all want to see more housing, especially for the elderly and disabled who are threatened with having to move when they're no longer able to function in their homes. However, I worked at the Attorney General's office for a number of years in environmental protection. And I worked on several cases, like the case of Wilburn, where the water was contaminated, you know, and I'm certainly familiar with environmental impact statements, and I was really shocked. I'm shocked that nobody's done an environmental impact statement. I don't know. I wouldn't want to live in a site which had been a gas station. You know, who knows the possibilities for disease that could come from pollution? And I don't think it's a minor concern. I want to see people housed safely. I don't want to see them housed in a place where we we don't really know. Are they going to be harmed by fumes? Are they going to be harmed by the water? I think absolutely zoning should not happen unless there's an environmental impact statement. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Eileen. I'm going to also, I think we forgot to mention that if you're on a phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand. So if we want to give everyone a moment, oh, I see a hand raised. So this is number 7813965138. If you could say your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to provide comment.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, and if you're on the phone, you'll have to do star six to unmute. There, you got it.
[SPEAKER_24]: Okay. This is Mariana Ducey at 2 Nod street. Um, a couple of things. I gave you people today, um, a six page letter with concerns here. I'll just give you the quickies, um, point of clarification. This, uh, zoning thing is set for, uh, stated one through 20 walk-in court. There's a private home on two walk-in court. It should, I don't believe it should be part of the walking court complex or the zoning for that because it's a private home. It's not part of the walking court complex. That's the first thing. Uh, the second thing is that we've done a, um, a petition in my neighborhood. I've got, I turned in to you people today, 1,131 signatures of people opposed to the current design. It's not that we're opposed to redeveloping the lot or even upgrading the lot or whatever you decide to do with the lot. But when I showed everyone the design and explained what buildings, how the buildings were going to be used, they signed it immediately. 99% of the people I approached, in this neighborhood. So, you know, everybody understands that we need more housing within reason. People feel as though, for one thing, that they don't like the fact that the seniors who occupy the whole lot are being pushed up into buildings against the railroad tracks, where today they have the whole lot. They get the worst part of the lot. uh... the second thing is that people feel there's too much being crammed into two small land area you occupy all the space there with buildings uh... the third thing is people don't like the six-story buildings in a residential neighborhood here i mean with this is not just one person speaking this is eleven hundred people speaking So you need to consider these things. Just remember, we are not opposed to putting housing here. We understand that there's a need. However, there's also the concerns of the adjacent neighborhood that have to be considered. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Marianne. And thank you for summarizing the petition, which we did receive and which was distributed to the board. I'll go over the other comments that we received before the meeting after we hear from everyone on the call. And next in our queue is M Paige Lieberman. If you could state your full name for the record and address, you'll have three minutes to comment.
[Matthew Page-Lieberman]: Yes, hi. I'm another person who lives in public housing. My name is Matthew Page Lieberman, I live in 15 Canal Street. I'm extremely excited about this. been knowing about it thanks to Roberta, who heads up a lot of the work that we do in Housing Medford. Speaking of this kind of late in the meeting, it is a little unfortunate because so many people came before me that said these beautiful things that I could just basically say I agree with their sentiment, specifically what Diane said, Diane Sullivan, about the matter of using proxies. This is very relevant. I mean, we've heard now that there were 1,100 signatures. Last night, it was only about 1,000 signatures. And we keep hearing from people that won't actually be directly affected by this, talking about how they know that there are people in the neighborhood who are upset and they're against this. It's almost like I'm getting ready to hear somebody say, my black friends, my black friends say this. And I'm like, where are your black friends? Where are they? And I think it kind of goes without saying that when it comes to petitions, there's a little bit of pressure that goes on. And so yeah, it goes without saying. But I know for a fact there are many, many people that sign a petition who they heard this threat narrative, and they didn't want to upset the person who's hassling them to put their signatures down on the paper. And I have no idea. None of us know any idea. But I do know for a fact that there are people who signed this petition who are against it. But they still felt like, well, this person is going to get mad at me if I don't sign her petition. And yet here we have, at this meeting today, where are all of the people? Where are all the people? You would think if there's 1,100 people signed this thing, why are there only three or four people that have gotten into this meeting to say, we're opposed to this. We're directly affected by it. How is it the campaigners couldn't get these masses of people to show up here today and say this? It's just, it's kind of curious. But I think that we should all kind of put that in perspective. Really, where are the really the people here tonight to really talk about how it's directly affecting them? Not when you have people like they live in a different city, different city talking about how I don't actually live here, but it's going to better property that I have for some short term rental. We have to really think about standing. Anyway, I'm really thankful for all the work that people have done, especially Ms. Jansen. Thank you for being from Cambridge and guiding us with this work. I think it's really good. Like I said, I live in public housing, and perhaps my unit will get replaced someday, and we'll have stuff modernized. Because this modernized stuff looks extremely great, extremely great. I'm really glad everybody's put this together. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Matthew. And so I'm not seeing any more hands at the moment. Oh. I believe I have a, I think there's a hand, I'm not sure if this was just from previously from Marianne, it's still up. Before we go there, I do want to take a moment to just mention the comments that were received prior to the meeting. There's always been, already been referenced to the petition with 1,131 signatures, which Marianna Ducey outlined, was submitted to us today and was provided to the board ahead of the meeting. We also received a comment from David Peters at, if I can get the address, 17 North Street, voicing some concerns that he discussed in the meeting tonight as well. And in addition to that, we received 78 resident support letters from the Medford Housing Authority, which outline their support for the project in general. And I do see this hand still raised for, I think it's Mariana Ducey. So if you could state your name and address for the record once more, and again, three minutes.
[SPEAKER_24]: Hi, it's Mariana again. I wish you could just explain to the previous caller that the reason that so few people may have called in tonight is because the notices only went out to people within 400 feet of the complex that this meeting was going to be held tonight. Even though you published a notice in the newspaper, not everybody gets a newspaper. So the fact that there aren't a lot of people on the call is not indicative that there isn't a lot of interest. And as far as the way the petition was collected, I did not pressure anyone to sign anything. I explained the thing that some people said they weren't interested in signing, and that's fine. So the tactics I used were very neutral. I mean, I didn't express my own opinion or anything. So I just want to clarify that.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Mary Ann. Okay, and with that, I believe that is all of our comment for this evening.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Amanda. At this time, I'm going to ask if the board has any other questions. I'm going to actually first before the board, I'll close the public comment period. and then ask the board if there's any other questions that you have.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, can I just suggest perhaps you wanna give the MHA the opportunity to respond to those comments before you close the public comment period, just in case that triggers more confusion that somebody needs clarity on.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, and I apologize. We originally said that we were gonna answer them case by case, but Amanda has helped me to collect them. And Amanda, have you collected the ones that were relevant to tonight's public hearing?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, yeah. Sorry, just pulling up my notes here. Great. So we have a couple. There were a couple of comments asking about, has there been or will there be an environmental assessment of the site or an impact study relating to contamination at the site?
[Ciccariello]: Yeah, I'm I'm going to leave if you're prepared, I'm going to let you speak to this. But, yes, we have completed what's called phase 1 environmental site assessments and a phase 2 environmental site assessments. And we're also going through HUD's environmental review process, but I'll let Lee speak to some of the particulars on that.
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you very much, Gabe. My name is Lee Morissette, principal architect at Dietzen Company Architecture and leader of the design team for the Medford Housing Authority. Yes, we have already performed the initial steps of testing on site for soils and other contaminants. both some building contaminants as part of the original construction, but more specifically, environmental contaminants within the soils. That first phase of investigation has been filed, as Gabe said, as a phase one with the state, which prompted a phase two, which is the next step, you know, what do we do with these things now that we've found certain contaminants on site, which we're actually engaged in right now with our environmental engineer. And I believe Kevin McGarry is still with us on the phone. Kevin McGarry from Fust & O'Neill heads up both the civil engineering and the environmental engineering aspects of our project. And I can hand it over to you in just a second, but the phase two process involves additional sampling, testing, and evaluation of the materials that are on site. as it relates to the construction that will happen and cleanup associated with construction to meet the state and national standards for best practices. I do want to provide one bit of clarification to a number of the questions that happened regarding historic contaminants that may have been on the site. The phase one or phase two in regards to environmental assessment were not a part of the PDD application process, and that's why they weren't included in the PDD. It was not required as a part of this filing. However, they have been filed through the public agencies and are available as public record. The phase one at this point, phase two is still ongoing. Kevin, is there anything you'd like to add to that?
[SPEAKER_36]: Thank you, Lee. Can everybody hear me okay? I'm keeping my camera off because I just have some bandwidth issues. So just for the record, so I'm Kevin McGarry. I'm a project manager with Fossil and I am a professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The only thing I'll add to this, when Lee was saying it was submitted to the state, so I'm a professional engineer, Lee is a registered architect. Fossil and Renewal also employs what's called licensed site professionals. And those are the people who are licensed to deal with environmental contaminants within the soil. And all that is done through what's called the Massachusetts Contingency Plan, which is administered through MassDEP. And it's an extremely prescriptive process. We will have to get approved through MassDEP any soil management that needs to happen on the site for anything that's impacted.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: I just wanted to add quickly that the phase 1 and the phase 2 ESAs are described in the PDD application that we submitted.
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you, Natalie. I appreciate that clarification. My mistake.
[SPEAKER_26]: And I just wanted to, this is Margaret Moran. I'm the deputy executive director for the Cambridge housing authority, serving as development consultant for metric housing story in the walking court project just to touch upon the environmental review process and the findings of that. And that process has been underway and that. There are certain times where that process would trigger a more detailed environmental impact statement, but the environmental assessment findings have not triggered anything that would require anything to that extent. But we're complying with all of the environmental regulatory requirements for all aspects of the project and will continue to do so.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ms. Moran, for clarification, when you said it would trigger something higher, can you be more specific for the public? Were you speaking about the MEPA office or anything dealing with the EEA in Massachusetts? I just wanted the public to understand how detailed of an environmental assessment you have. done and what that entails.
[SPEAKER_26]: I mean, you look at all aspects of the site from its location near sensitive water or wetlands to coastal barriers, which isn't applicable in our neighborhood or noise, which is applicable because of the train tracks and just the car volume on Parkway. All of those things are carefully assessed and evaluated. To determine if any kind of further action is required, and there'll be some categories where we may need to do a little bit further work, like the phase 2 work that's going on right now, as it relates to the soils, or even some work related to. documenting the site for historic reasons. But every category they could ever possibly imagine is part of the assessment that is required to be performed as part of the use of the funding, both state and federal.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I appreciate that question, that clarification, especially where I wanted the public going back to Ms. Diane McKinney's reference to environmental justice area that MEPA actually has dedication. They have dedicated resources for projects that are near environmental justice populations, which I have clarified. In my error earlier, not realizing that this area was an environmental justice area, it's Block Group 1, Census Tract 3394, as you stated. And it's one of the criterias that the state uses for being environmental justice is that it's hugely minority. I just wanted to put that on the record for the public information. Sorry, Amanda, if you can continue.
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure thing. Next question we have was, has the applicant, what has the applicant heard from tenants? There were some concerns raised in the petition and anecdotally via comments here that regarding, you know, tenants feeling comfortable sharing information or sharing their opinions on the development project.
[Ciccariello]: So, as we stated kind of in our application, we've met at least 8 times with our residents since 2021. Regarding the proposed redevelopment, I've attended every 1 of those meetings. I'd like to think that I have a very good rapport with our residents. that they trust me, that they can come up to me with questions. I get constant calls from them, emails from them. If they don't think they have a question during a meeting, they call me or email me the next day. Overwhelmingly, I have seen or the staff has seen overwhelming support for this project. Now, anyone can say, well, you're the housing authority, so they feel coerced into acting like they support it. Like the statement, people feel coerced into signing a petition. But we've had city staff at our resident meetings, and I think anybody that attends one of our resident meetings can see the great relationship that our staff has with our residents, the open dialogue. Our residents have never been forced to sign anything. They've never been coerced into feeling a certain way or showing support. I have witnessed overwhelming support for the redevelopment of Whatcom Court because these are residents that live on site. They know the building conditions. They know that how many reasonable accommodations we get from residents to move from a second floor unit to a first floor unit as they age on site. Yes, the existing residents of Whatcom Court overwhelmingly support the proposed redevelopment.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, I'll keep moving through unless people feel free to interrupt me. Will the project, is the project planning to have solar installed on any of the roofs?
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: If I may, I can jump in and answer this pretty quickly. The current state building code requires us to prewire multifamily residential buildings for solar, so it's going to be set up for solar regardless. We are currently planning to put solar panels on the second phase, which is in the future It's the second half, the townhouses and the family apartment building in the middle are anticipated to have solar. And we're currently doing a test fit for solar on the senior building right now. There's a lot of pressure for things to go on the roof, as you can imagine. But yes, it is required that we analyze that.
[SPEAKER_26]: And Lee, can you talk about it, about the use of all electric and what that does to the environment as well?
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: Oh, absolutely. That's a really good point, Margaret. Thank you. The senior housing building, which is the first phase of design and construction, that's the six-story building nearest the MBTA railroad tracks that is all senior housing. That entire apartment building, all of the heating, cooling, and ventilation will be electrically powered. So there's not any fossil fuels burned for the heating, cooling, or ventilation for that part of the building. It's through a high-performance variable refrigerant flow is the name of the system, but it's the mini-splits like the Mitsubishi kind of air conditioners you might have in your house, but at a very large scale. The benefit of it being all electric is that it's much less intensive on the environment. And if there are solar panels on the roof, it contributes directly to offsetting the energy needs for that particular use.
[Amanda Centrella]: Great. I'm going to keep moving. So another question was sort of why six stories for the senior facility versus the original four stories?
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: Natalie, do you want to take that one? Or shall I?
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: I can take that. So, you know, the goal of the Walkland Court redevelopment, especially relates to the senior disabled portion is to provide the replacement units for 144. existing households on site. And then we're also adding 54 new deeply affordable units. Part of the key issue of Wackling Court right now is the lack of elevator access. And so once you start to look at adding elevators, there's an economy of scale when you're building taller um, in order to afford that construction. Um, going up to six stories to allows us to have more open space because it creates for a more efficient building. Um, and then, you know, in terms of, you know, the six stories overall, there's, um, an economics piece in order to make the project financeable. Um, that includes, you know, being able to provide the 144 units and the 54 units on top of that, you know, essentially brings the project to a scale where we can gather the public resources, funding resources needed in order to make the project happen.
[SPEAKER_26]: I was just going to add that the units are at the current walking quarter, very undersized to today's standards are about 420 square feet. So, for elders who are aging in place, the ability to actually use a walker. We already talked about the fact that they're not handicapped accessible, so they're not wheelchair accessible. But for folks who use walkers or canes, you really cannot maneuver through the kitchens or the bathroom areas successfully with that limited space. The new design with the new standards for construction actually size up the units from 420 to 25 square feet to approximately 575 square feet. So that just the simple math of adding almost 200 square feet, 150 or 200 square feet per unit requires the building massing. And then as Natalie was pointing out, we've been very mindful about trying to maximize open space. The first floor of the high-rise building is actually structured parking or podium parking, so that only a portion of the first floor is actually habitable community space. No apartments are there, so it's only five floors of residential apartments. I think those all contribute when you're trying to balance a lot of different competing needs that A lot of things were solved by going up to the 6 story height and we've always been 6 stories. I don't know of an instance where you ever showed anything less than 6 stories back when we were planning doing the conceptual design for the project. We had kind of looked at a variety of things, but concluded that six stories kind of balanced all the competing needs and issues of the site to allow for the added additional elderly units, which are greatly needed in the community, but also the potential benefit of those family units, particularly the family units in the three-story elevator building that's lacking in affordable housing inventory in Medford.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. And I believe a lot of that answer from Margaret and Natalie speaks to one of the other questions, which was sort of more generally about why not a more limited in scope renovation, adding nine elevators versus something, well, versus what's being proposed. But if there's anything else you all want to add.
[SPEAKER_26]: I do want to speak to that because, you know, nine elevators require nine maintenance contracts, and elevator maintenance contracts are really expensive. And one of the things that state public housing doesn't have, it runs at a deficit every year, and it's very difficult for any housing authority in Massachusetts to have adequate funding to actually meet the operating needs of state public housing. And to add the nine elevator components would be cost prohibitive, not only from a first cost capital expense, but from an operating expense. And then in addition to that, as we've mentioned, the units are already very undersized. So you may be able to get through the door, but you're not going to be able to maneuver through the space and age gracefully. And so those factors combine. And then the fact that they're not energy efficient, they don't have any meaningful insulation. They are aging where structural issues and building envelope issues will require a soup to nuts type of renovation. It's been my experience that as you go through that process with a building that age that has not aged very well, that it actually is more costly to rehab it than it actually is to potentially replace it. And by replacing, you're able to fix all of the inherent things that are wrong with it, including some of the sustainability and energy related issues.
[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. And I think just two more on my list here. One is just a note that there was a question about the project address. And to clarify, it is 1 and 3 through 20 Walkling Court, so omitting the 2 Walkling Court. And the last comment, question that I have is, you know, in the words of the resident, why is it that the worst part of the lot is reserved for seniors?
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: So, in part, when we were looking at doing, I can speak to that. Oh, go ahead. Kim.
[Ciccariello]: No, you go Natalie. Sorry. You got.
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: Um, so I was going to say that, um, well, one thing that we're looking, um, when doing the site layout is being mindful of the different uses around the site, uh, specifically that you have the two-story homes that are along Auburn Street and North Street on the north and the east. Um, so that way, the addition of the deeply affordable townhomes creates, you know, a nice buffer there and then bringing the senior mid-rise back towards the south of the site. where you have already a 62-foot building that is on the parcel that's adjacent across from the train tracks. That's a way of essentially designing this additional density in a way that takes into account some of the concerns around making sure that this new development and the added number of deeply affordable units reflects the character of the neighborhood around it. And also, I mean, I think that it is on the south side of the site. The site, the mid-rise is being built in such a way that it will have the noise attenuation features needed to greatly improve noise quality on the site that is currently being experienced. It's going to go tall.
[Amanda Centrella]: Those are all of my notes. If there's anything else the applicant wanted to respond to that I didn't capture, I invite you.
[SPEAKER_26]: There was a comment made about the through road issue, and that was something that we talked at length about during the neighborhood meetings. Part of what is driving the orientation and layout of the road is the specific feedback we've gotten from the fire department and from emergency services in terms of their access to the site. I think we have to Again, kind of balance competing needs and wants and that one, you know, public safety, I think, is a real key catalyst to how the roadscape is being planned for the site. I just wanted to reference that because that was brought up in one of the comments.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: There's no other public comments at this time. Actually, I see one from an Anne.
[Amanda Centrella]: So, we've closed public comment period, and Anne has already provided comment.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay, awesome. All right, I will open it up. I will close the public comment. I will open it up for board members, and now I see Ari's hand.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. My question was actually one comment that I think hadn't been addressed that I'd love to hear the response to was there were a few comments about trees. So I wanted them to have the opportunity to address it.
[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_12]: Natalie, I'm going to give this a shot, and feel free to jump in if that's OK. Currently on site, there are a number of existing trees. I have here the tree report that was commissioned by the Medford Housing Authority, specifically in response to concern about trees, the tree health on the site, and the longevity of the trees that are there. A detailed report was done by an arborist. evaluating every tree on site, there are approximately 50 of them, their approximate age, their species, their condition, and recommendations for their continued health, including pruning or occasionally removing, moving forward and relative to the development of the site. The development of this site covers enough of the landscape that it's going to affect many trees. That's the bottom line. It's hard to redevelop a site and change the building locations without bumping into the trees, especially when we go from two-story buildings that are relatively small in scale to larger buildings of four or six stories. However, it is our plan as a part of this application to replace in quantity all of the trees that are taken off of the site, including, in the case of some of the smaller fruit trees that were planted over the last couple of years, removing those trees because they're rather small and can be relocated during construction, and if possible, returning them to the site to be replanted, or the city and Medford Housing Authority has said that they would appreciate being able to plant those trees elsewhere throughout the city properties to beautify and benefit other communities as well if they do not if it made sense to not bring them back to the site and instead replace them with other types of trees that are both native species, because some of them on this list are considered non-native species, some might say invasive, but also to design the streetscape and the landscapes for trees that benefit the neighborhood over the long term, that provide good shade, but also visual security underneath them, so things that are appropriate for the scale of the site, and that can benefit the community over the long term, and be easy to maintain by the Benford Housing Authority. So in short, yes, many trees will be affected. We are doing our best to save and protect those that we can. And we've worked through this actually in a presentation with the community already. And for those that can't be saved or need to be removed as a part of the redevelopment of the site, we're proposing a replacement of those trees. Now, the trees that are there, many of them are mature, and some of them are actually close to the end of their lives and making a bit of a mess, as trees do when they get to the end of their lives. And so the trees that will be replaced on site will obviously not be full mature trees, they'll be smaller trees, but we'll do our best to design and plant trees with their longevity in mind. So getting a tree that's big enough to survive, but not so big that it has a hard time acclimating to a new environment.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Mr. Morissette. And for Ari, as well as members of the public, this adverse report that Mr. Morissette is referring to was prepared by Urban Forestry Solutions Incorporated, and it was provided as exhibit F in the board materials and public materials for the project, if you want to go into further detail. Are there any other questions from the board?
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: I've got one question. Has the MHA been in contact with the MBTA regarding, I saw on one of the slides, the Green Line Extension Phase 2 coming up to Route 9? Would the construction of this six-story building impede in any way in expanding the current two tracks to four tracks for the MBTA to have service up to Route 9, hopefully in the future?
[Qf7XgUqJFIM_SPEAKER_03]: So that the potential expansion of the Green Line to Mystic River was something that I know that the MBTA has looked at and they've also looked at what the development, what kind of development demand it will create around that site. Specifically looking partially at Wakling Fort but also the Whole Foods site expecting to see a lot more development there of the kind of mixed use residential type. We are commencing conversations with the MBTA. There's a requirement around because the property abuts the railroad. There is an MBTA zone of influence that we have to respect as part of that. I believe it's 30 feet. And so, you know, whatever we do, the MBTA will be very well aware of but it should not impact their ability to expand the green line to Mystic River if they choose to do so.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: All right. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_17]: Thank you for your question.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: If there are no other questions, I just wanted to thank Martha Helsing for your extensive detailed presentation as well as all of your consultant team. And because tonight's discussion is limited to many questions about language, et cetera, I'm going to just trust that attorney's own team with his extensive background in land use litigation and so forth in getting this amendment out. has already helped you to get to that so natural, faster, or the best path permanently going forward. So to get you started, I'm going to ask the board for a motion to recommend the drafted PDD rezoning ordinance for one and in three to 20 walk-in court to the city council. I'll make the motion. Do I hear a second? Second. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman. Aye. Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Marianski. Aye. Chad Baracharia.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Aye. Thank you so much and we look forward to doing our due diligence later after the revisions for the site plan review.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you very much for meeting this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Have a great night.
[SPEAKER_14]: Have a nice evening. Everyone. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks to all the commenters too. Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So our next item on the agenda is site plan review for 421 and 423 High Street. And I will read the public comment. The Metro Community Development Board shall conduct a meeting on September 6, 2023 after 6.30 p.m. via Zoom. Remote video conferencing relative to an application for site plan review submitted by RJM Development LLC. 37 West Street, Medford Mass, 02155, regarding construction of a nine-unit residential structure with approximately 1,000 square feet of commercial space located in both commercial one and single family one zoning districts at 421 to 423 High Street, Medford Mass, 02155, otherwise known as parcel number L-04-7879.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Good evening, Madam Chair. I'm Kathleen Desmond. I'm here on behalf of the applicant, Richard Monigal, manager of RJM Development, LLC. And we are here to present to the board the proposed mixed-use project to be situated at 421-423 High Street, Medford. In addition to the applicant this evening, I'm also here with the design team. I'll introduce them now. Project architect, Milton Yu of Peter Quinn Architects of Somerville, Mass. Project Civil Engineer, Jack Sullivan of Sullivan Engineering Group, LLC. Landscape Architect, Natalie Adams of Verdant of Brookline, Mass. And last but not least, certainly our Project Traffic Engineer, Dan Mills of MDM Transportation Consultancy located in Marlborough. I will briefly give a little background to the scope of the project and then turn the presentation over to the design team. As indicated, the project is situated 421-423 High Street. It's an approximately 11,420 square foot parcel of land that formerly housed Sincada Funeral Home and also had a second floor apartment. The total gross floor area of that prior structure was 8,302 square feet. The parcel is situated in both the C1 and SF1 districts. The rear portion of the lot containing 6,892 square feet is located within the SF1 district and the front portion of the lot is situated within the C1 district containing approximately 4,680 square feet. Consistent with the location of the former funeral home, the proposed building will be situated wholly within the C-1 district that allows for both the commercial and multiple use as of right. The petitioner proposes to construct a mixed-use four-story structure with a gross floor area of approximately 13,724 square feet consisting, as indicated, of one commercial retail space with an approximate GFA of 1,091 square feet and nine residential units consisting of seven two-bedroom units and two one-bedroom units. Each unit will have access to an open area. As proposed, the parking area will be the rear of the building and for resident use only. The new zoning does not require adherence to minimum parking requirements with respect to non-residential uses where the gross leaseable floor space is less than 5,000 square feet. The proposed project site is situated in the heart of West Medford Business District and with immediate walking distance to the MBTA of West Medford Commuter Rail Station and bus routes 80, 90, and 95 that provide service to Medford Center Station, Sullivan Station, and Haymarket Square. The applicant did appear before the Zoning Board of Appeals with a request for zoning relief relating to front, side yard setbacks, lot width, usable open space, and lot coverage. The matter was presented to the ZBA on July 13th, 2023, and the request and relief was granted by the board. Filing of the written decision with the city clerk's office is pending, and it will be subject to a 20-day appeal period. With that, I'd like to turn the project over to Jack Sullivan, who can go through the specifics of the site plan with the board. Thank you.
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_36]: Thank you, Attorney Desmond. For the record, my name is Jack Sullivan. I'm owner of the Sullivan Engineering Group, and I believe Milton from our project team, we have a presentation to present, if Milton can put that up on the screen, if he's able to share his screen.
[SPEAKER_16]: So for the record, do you see the screen now? Yes. Okay. So for the record, Milton Yu, Peter Quinn Architects, 259 Elm Street, Somerville, Davis Square. And I guess we'll start off with the overall site design choices that we've made. This is the existing site where this is the boundary. It's a little bit unusual shape boundary for the property. You'll see this, the existing footprint has forced that the cars coming in and out to this back area come between these two buildings on 425 to 427 and our building on 421. But the proposal seeks to remove a portion here to alter and improve the circulation, which we can get into more detail later. So this is the proposed dimensional site plan where the building is set back from this rear corner to the zoning compliant 15 feet minimum, I believe. So we get to meet that here, and then the proposed parking comes in this way, which it does already, but can exit out this lane, which is an existing driveway and existing curb cut. Jack, did you want to speak more to the civil drive?
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_36]: Yeah, if you don't mind. If you just back up to the second sheet, Milton, and I'll take it from there. the existing conditions plan. Okay. Thank you so much. Attorney Desmond did a good job explaining the existing site condition. I just wanted to add a few items to what she had talked about under the existing conditions. So to the left side of the existing building, the funeral home, there's an existing 10 foot right away. So with that 10-foot deeded right away, there's access to that rear parking area. To the right side of the building, which is the easterly side of the building, there's an 18-foot wide easement area that exists. These two areas will play into the future traffic circulation pattern that we generated for this site. I also wanted to point out where the parking area is to the rear of this property, the back left corner, which is the northwesterly portion of the site, there's an existing drainage basin. I couldn't find any engineered plans of record showing for this to be put in, but at some point in time, someone developed a drainage basin. It consists of crushed stone. We dug a test pit out there six to seven feet deep. It was crushed stone throughout. So we were able to determine the seasonal high groundwater table. And as I get further along in the presentation, I'll address how we're dealing with the site drainage for this proposed development. But I did want to add that the majority of this site is impervious areas. It's either pavement or building roofs. There's very limited landscaping. I should note when we go into the proposed condition, we're reducing over 1,900 square feet of impervious surfaces and putting them back as green space. So that'll be an improvement in addition to the drainage improvements that I'll talk about. Could you go to the next page, Milton? Okay. So this is the general site plan. So as Attorney Desmond and Milton were saying, the proposed new four-story mixed-use building is in the same general vicinity of the funeral home. The rear parking lot, we're removing some of the impervious area, as I stated before. There'll be 10 total parking spaces. Nine of those spaces are conventional parking spaces. One is going to be a van accessible parking space with the associated eight foot aisle. And I should note that one of the comments that came back from the city is they'd like to see an EV space put in. So one of those conventional parking spaces will be designated an EV parking space in the future. Some of the other site amenities with the site plan, we're going to provide 12 bicycle racks that they'll be covered in the rear and we show that on the plan. On the rear parking lot, we're going to install concrete curbing. The standard parking stall spaces will be 9 by 19 feet, which is the minimum requirements of the city. And if you could go to the next page, Milton. Okay, so this is a civil design plan. This is a grading drainage and utility plan. Uh, so we get into, if you could use zoom in on that a bit on the plan section, the upper left. Yep, that's good. So, with this plan, you can see, we're going to have 1 way circulation off a high street. Milton something. Okay. There we go. That's okay. So on the, um, the proposed site plan, we're going to have one way circulation coming in off a high street. So as I previously said in the existing conditions plan, there's a 10 foot wide right away to the left side of the building. That's going to serve as our one way access point into this project. Um, we go into the rear parking area where I talked about the 10 parking spaces. And as you can see. In that parking area, I expanded the existing drainage system, where it was previously just a crushed stone basin. We wanted to provide not only drainage mitigation for this project, but also enhance the landscaping. So we're proposing a bioretention cell to be placed. This bioretention cell, so we basically expanded the basin, almost doubled the size of it. And we're going to plant it so it'll be loam and seeded. And our landscape architect can talk more on it, but we are proposing landscape plantings that would do well in a bioretention cell. Another name for a bioretention cell is a rain garden, if people are more familiar with that. So what will happen is this parking lot will be able to sheet flow out to a crushed stone riprap area. So we'll have pre-treatment, so if any sands that accumulated will be able to be collected in that pre-treatment forebay, and then the water will be able to then move out to the rain garden. We'll be able to provide water to the plants and it's basically like a bathtub with plantings. We'll be able to store water and we'll hold it. It will allow water to infiltrate back into the ground. And then in large storm events, like a 100 year storm event, we do provide, or if it goes over 100 years, we do have an emergency spillway. I'm tasked as an engineer to show pre-development versus post-development drainage patterns for a 210, 25, and 100-year storm event. I've done that. I provided a stormwater report to the city engineer. He did review it. There were some minor comments in his memo back to the design team, and I will be able to address those. With the overall design, He was okay with it. He just wanted some clarification on a few things. We think it's a good project with a conventional drainage system. You see big detention ponds or you see these underground chambers. We would have had to raise this site by about 18 to 24 inches to accommodate a conventional system. This is a low impact system and where we were trying to reduce impervious surfaces and provide additional landscaping. and still meet the stormwater policy, this seemed like the best method. But there was over 100 page report submitted as a stormwater report, and you can review the city engineer's comments on that. I just briefly want to speak on some of the utilities for this project. The existing funeral home was serviced by water and sewer services. We're proposing for the existing water service to be decommissioned. At the existing water main and high street, we're proposing a 2 inch domestic water line to serve as building in an independent 4 inch water line to serve as a fire protection for this building. The 4 inch water line could be subject to change. We did not complete any fire flow analysis that was noted by the city engineer, but we do intend. to run fire flow tests on the neighboring hydrants to see what the water pressure and we'll have a water engineer do the sizing on that water line. But I wanted to make the board aware that we do intend to provide fire protection to this with a sprinkler system. And we have talked to the fire chief about that. On the sewer service, we're looking to reutilize the existing sewer service. I provided calculations based on the number of bedrooms for the residential units in the anticipated flow from the commercial unit to the city engineer. He saw it as an insignificant increase, but he did ask us to video the sewer service, which is common practice to show that the sewer service is sound and intact. And then it can be reused. I already had that as a note on my plan, because as I said, that's a standard practice in engineering. So that's our intent. If for some reason we found the sewer service defective or structurally not intact, then we'd replace it in kind with a new PVC service. I think I covered most of the drainage. And I think at this time, I'll turn it over to our landscape architect. That will be page four of this presentation. And then when it comes to comments from the board, we can circle back to me if you have any comments. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_38]: Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the board. I'm Natalie Adams. I'm with Verdant. We're out of Brookline, Massachusetts. Milton, if you can zoom into the plan. I'm going to start at the front entry, and I'm going to go counterclockwise around the building. So a little sidewalk. So we're proposing unit paving, which plays off the brick. And you'll see that when you see the elevations. And there's a brick walk that goes up the right side of the building to an entry. And that paving is defined so that vehicle traffic know that there is a pedestrian pathway here. And you'll see where you're noting an 18 feet 7 inches. from the building there to that line in the asphalt, and 13 feet 5 inches for the one-way traffic. And as we move up the page and to the back of the building, we're buffering the back of the building with Lakota Way. All the plants on this list are native. At Vernon, we plant 95% of the plants on our list are native. specific site, 100% of the plants are native, so we're very proud of that. Milton, if you can just zoom out a little so we can capture the whole parking lot. So now in the parking lot, you'll note the existing trees around the site, and they're those gray circles that don't have any color on them, they're off property. And so we tried to fit in some very... Some trees that will grow very large to to help with the environment. So all of these trees are, what are they, sycamore. And then in the back we have Aeschylus parviflora, which is a type of bottle brush buckeye, and that's another native. And they get quite large. Those circles don't really capture how large they get. And you'll note the biodetention or rain garden area that was spoke of earlier. This is seeded. Rain gardens have to be you have to be careful how you plant them because shrubs can't go in the low part of the rain garden where there's going to be standing water. So you always want to plant rushes and sedges. So that's what we've got in there. If you look at the plant list and they're going in in small plugs and growing up and you also know where we're planting milkweed, two different types of milkweed and a couple different rushes and a sage. So it's going to it's going to be a beautiful planting. And then you'll note we have another sycamore right down there by the bike racks to give that some shade, and another bottle brush buckeye by the bike racks as well. Thanks, Melton. And if you go down the page, we're just exiting the parking lot while we're going out the indoor, so to speak, but it's a 10-foot asphalt pavement. And we're also proposing a new street tree, and that's the Gliditsia tricanthus. That's a honey locust. They're very popular in any city in Massachusetts. They're also a native. And we have some short-term visitor bike racks right there. There's four racks, so they park eight bikes. And then you also see the dimensions of the sidewalk. So we're giving a nice wide sidewalk for the pedestrians in the area. 15 feet total on one side to the property line and 14, 11 on the left side. And the tree well is a really good size, 10 feet long by 4 feet, 8 inches wide. So that tree's got plenty of space. And that's my presentation. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_16]: So I'll move on to the facade of the building. We have here a typical tripartite scheme with the heavier visually materials along the bottom at the commercial storefront, and then a middle section with fiber cement, six-inch exposure, and a fiber cement panel. And then at the top, we have a more muted cap, which is, you'll see in the 3D where it recesses back. So that's meant to de-emphasize the top floor. Just to go briefly through the floor plans, there's one unit on the first floor, as well as roughly 1,000 square feet of commercial space toward the front. as well as the main lobby, vestibule, and trash collection. Then as you move up, there's four floors. There's four units on the next floor and the second floor. They also have the outdoor space for each unit. The third floor also has four units. This is the lower level of the four units, and then on the fourth floor is the upper level of the same units. And you can see here in plan, it's top level is set back, and the front and the rear facade. Talking about the roof plan a little bit, per the ordinance, we also have a solar ready area. If we subtract out the mechanical screen, area, which, you know, we have rooftop units for one, one of them for each unit and then the commercial space. And then we subtract the roof hatch area, we can still provide more than half which is required for solar ready zone. We normally like to include elevation along the street just for comparison. If you're interested. This gives you the idea of the lighting design that has been done. These all pass the ordinances, lighting ordinance, including the night sky provisions. We also have more detailed foot candle analysis, but that's probably a little bit too technical for right now, but we have the slide if you need to look at it. Here's a 3D view. This also indicates the facade and also the treatment of how we broke up the mass with these recesses, these decks in top level sets back as well. And this arcade also serves as a nice human scale gesture to the public as urban design likes to use and also pushed up to the sidewalk. We carry the same theme through. We also have the same, a similar relief in the facade that the text here, and you can see the same theme with a tripod thing wrapping around the building. This is a view that was requested of us from the neighbors, I believe, not the very next building in the corner, but the one after that. giving a sense of what the view would be like from their house. And this model actually does have the mechanical screen, it's just it's not visible from this angle. I think for the next portion, I can hand it off to Traffic Engineer. Dan, are you ready for that?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, I am. You can pull up my 1st slide.
[SPEAKER_16]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: Good evening for the record. My name is Daniel mills. I'm a principal traffic engineer with transportation consultants. We conducted a traffic impact assessment for the proposed mix use development at 421 high street. The site is located on the north side of High Street. To the east is Brooks and Alston Street, and to the west is Canal and Warren Street. A little slightly further west is the West Medford MBTA commuter rail station. As part of our assessment, we reviewed the traffic volume on High Street, estimated the volume of site trips from the nine residential units and uh, commercial space. Um, we also reviewed the circulation around the, um, the building itself. Um, and we reviewed the, uh, site for the fixed bus route services, the MBTA, um, and other transit opportunities. Uh, next slide, please. So, with regards, you can zoom in a little bit on this Milton. So, with regards to the transit opportunities, this is a transit oriented development. It does qualify for the high frequency transit under the zoning relative to the parking requirements. As you can see in these, the dotted line circle around the site is a quarter mile radius. And it has access to the MBTA bus routes 80, 94, and 95, shown in the lines there on the roadways. The yellow lines are sidewalk connections throughout the city, leading to these transit opportunities. And again, that qualifies for the high frequency transit under zoning. Next slide, please. And 1 of the critical aspects is to identify the amount of traffic that would be generated from a proposed use. We relied on the Institute of transportation engineers. chip generation manual to identify or estimate the amount of traffic that will be generated by nine residential units in the thousand square feet of commercial space. As industry practice, we looked at the morning peak hour of a weekday, the critical time period when commuter traffic is on the road. And if a project was to have major impact, it would be during this time when the volume is highest on the road. Similarly, we looked at the weekday evening peak hour when volumes on the roadway are generally its highest during the day. With the residential units being a multi-family type of situation, the truck generation is estimated to be approximately three vehicles total entering and exiting. This is a very low generating use being a residential Um, complex, especially being close to transit oriented oriented services. With regards to the retail use, again, it's built into the site. For this particular analysis, we looked at a variety store, applied the industry standard trip rates to the 1,000 square feet, and we estimated about three vehicles during the morning peak hour and slightly higher in the evening peak hour. So, in total, we have about a total trip expected from the development during the weekday morning peak hour of six trips entering and exiting, and in the evening, about 11 trips entering and exiting. On a daily basis, we could see 110 vehicle total. I think that's overestimated based on the data that we have to work with, but that's the analysis we're presenting. In comparison to the funeral home, we believe that this is a much less intense use. The funeral home, depending on the services held at the site, would have had a lot more traffic in and out of the property. Milton, can you bring up a site plan? Maybe slide two or three? Sure. And I'll have you bring back to that. That one works, sure. Presently, there's a 10-foot right-of-way that provides access to the site, provided to the funeral home, right to the back parking lot, and to the adjacent property. Our proposal is to have the residents use that as a one-way entering to access the back parking lot. and then use a clockwise direction around the back of the building, which connection does not exist today, to the other easement and use it as an exiting movement. We just feel this is better site circulation, uses the easements that are available to the property, and the exit provides a bit better site distance from that point compared to the shared easement on the east side of the site. Um, so we're proposing, um, signage, um, and whatnot to direct the residents out of the rear parking lot around, um, in a clockwise direction about back onto high street. Again, we felt this is an improved over the current situation with a single access, um. situation. We did have a discussion with the fire chief. He found the access points acceptable for fire access. Sorry, Milton, I have you jump to that last slide. It might be 19. Um, 1 of the comments from the, uh, city traffic engineer was, even though this is a, uh, a low, uh, trip generation, a low volume, um, site, um, there are. could be some increased volume on the roadways and one of his requests was these in-street, if you go to actually the last page, the next page, was to request these in-street pedestrian signs. The request was to furnish two for to be placed at Canal and Warren Street crossings and so our proponent is committing to do that. That's my presentation. I'll turn it back to Attorney Desmond and we can
[Kathleen Desmond]: Probably answer some questions. Yes, a couple of things to point out as well. In our conversations with the fire chief, you'll note, and if you could go to the landscape slide, Milton, we called out the sidewalk. by pavers as opposed to the asphalt. And we kept that flush with the drive so that emergency access would have the full length of the easement area in the event that they needed to access the back of the building. What we're proposing to do here and we've changed the original plans. There were going to be further changes so I didn't submit the changes that we made to the set of plans tonight but we're proposing planters at the front of the building. Originally there was some landscaping here but you know, in conversations with the fire chief, it was thought that that would get in the way of his access to the rear of the building. So the compromise was to make the sidewalk flush and call it out with pavers and also to add some landscaping by way of planters in the front that he could if he needed to roll over. And I think also it's significant to note at this point that this is currently two-way traffic. It was two-way traffic for both the funeral home and also for the adjacent building, 425 High Street, 425-27. We're now going to limit that to one way for our residents, which should lessen the impact overall on that right of way. And it's anticipated that in the morning, traffic from the 425 will be coming out this way. But if traffic is exiting our building, it will take the I always do this left turn and head out the easement on the other side of the building. So we expect that much of the traffic will be in the same direction when it occurs. But as Dan mentioned, the amount of traffic coming in and out is negligible because all you're going to have in the back here at this point is residential parking. In speaking with community development as well, I know that Danielle Evans had asked whether or not we would be willing to put two electric meter spaces in front. Apparently, there's two spaces in front that were unmetered due to the prior use as a funeral home. And certainly, we have no issue with inserting electric meters in the front of those two spaces which exist. So I just wanted to point that out to the board. And we did make the changes with regard to the electric charging station. I'm not sure why, but this is the second meeting where it's been called out, but on the plans it showed is the electric charging ballers. So we've had that on the plan from the outset. But with respect to the changes that we could make from the traffic engineering report, on the plan this evening, we did. The handicapped space is now with the The VN accessibility on the right hand side, and it's a back end space as requested from the engineer. So, with that, I will turn it over with questions, but I just wanted to provide you with that additional information.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you so much, Attorney Desmond. There's one point of clarification. The right of way, if I'm not mistaken, on the presentation said it was 10 feet. However, if you're going to reduce it to one way, the requirements for the city is 12 feet for one way.
[Kathleen Desmond]: The actual driveway that's used is 12 feet. The right-of-way is 10, and there's actually almost two feet here. So that is accessible, and it's pre-existing. At this point, it's been used for two-way traffic, and we were not cited for it. With respect to the zoning relief that we saw, maybe because we have the other exit as well, but it is more than 10 feet, the actual paved area that's used. The land court right of way is 10 feet.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I have a few other questions in regards to day use and what your relief was, but I think probably this is where I'll just leave it for the comments from city staff, especially, specifically Danielle Evans, if she can speak more directly on. She'll probably be able to clarify for me.
[Danielle Evans]: Danielle. Thank you, Madam Chair. I did have a question. for the traffic consultant when I was rereading the study tonight and then listening to the presentation. So the trip counts for the ground floor retail, that's trips to the site, not trips through the access drives, correct? Because there's not going to be the commercial space in the back.
[SPEAKER_09]: Correct. Those are trips, you know, taking into account that they'll be on street, likely to be on street parking. Those trips are coming to the site. They will not, there's no signage, you know, indicating parking at the rear of the site. And because of the, you know, the location of it, it's not being really visible from the street. So the expectation is that anyone coming to the site, we count them as a trip for analysis purposes. We actually, you know, load them together in one single driveway during our analysis as a conservative measure. But in actuality, it will be street parking.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, so none of those turning movements for the trips generated for the retail use are moving back up. In your report, the turning movements, the in and out, is just for the residential?
[SPEAKER_09]: No, they're total. The figures are total. I don't mean to misrepresent it. We're being conservative and just loading all the sites that are generated by the uses in a single point. In actuality, they won't be generated in a single point. The commercial trips won't be on the site. They won't be turning into or out of the site from a driveway perspective.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, because I think that's what... we're trying to get comfortable with is the two-way access drive use of how many times that a car coming out might be coming in at the same time that a car's coming in. And how would you mitigate that if there could be like sensors or some kind of vehicle detection, like light or something like that? But it seems like the turning movements into the site and out are not as high as what's in the report, because that's accounting for retail trips, correct?
[SPEAKER_09]: Correct. So the table six that was presented on one of the slides, I think it was slide 17, 18. So if we just look at the residential column, it's basically one entering trip. In the morning, and then would be using that shared driveway. The exiting the 2 exiting trips would be using the 1 way on the East side of the building. So we're looking at. 1, 1 vehicle will be entering during the morning and that's that's typical of a residential use. If you're going to work, you're leaving the site. Um, you know, the majority of residential traffic will be leaving the property in a morning peak hour. In the evening peak hour, we would see more returning trips. In this case, we're estimating two entering trips from the residential portion of the project would be entering between one hour in the evening. There's really a very low volume, very low usage of that easement to enter the property. The exiting traffic that you see there in the residential category would be using the exit driveway to the east of the site. And then the retail, again, the volumes that you see in that column on the retail, those would be really street parking. They wouldn't be exiting from the site or entering the site.
[Kathleen Desmond]: And also, I think it's important to point out that with respect to the site as it existed prior to the proposed development, there was no 15 foot right of way within the rear of the building. The funeral home extended to the entire property line. The only access to that back parking lot from the site was that right-of-way. Historically, there was also a single-family residence in the back here. We're significantly reducing the amount of traffic that's going to use that right-of-way. We're reducing it from two-way, which is what it was for both the funeral home commercial use, the apartment on the second floor, which was there, the house, which was located in the back, to one-way for overnight residential use. Traffic entering in the morning will utilize this right-of-way. And there's the ability, which was not, to utilize this space to make that occur. So the amount of traffic that's going to traverse the existing right-of-way is substantially reduced from what was the prior use of two-way traffic.
[Danielle Evans]: So is there any data on existing counts of who's going in and out of that right-of-way? or 425, is it just the glass company then?
[Kathleen Desmond]: I'll let Dan speak. He did review the video that they had on file.
[SPEAKER_09]: Let's get the message here. We did collect some data for the existing driveway during the morning peak hour. I'm just going to try to grab that information really quick here.
[SPEAKER_16]: Should I stop sharing?
[SPEAKER_09]: You can keep that up. OK. So the majority are the vehicles from the glass company, the vans, the pickup trucks. It's on the order of magnitude of six vehicles. coming in and out during the morning and evening peak hour.
[Danielle Evans]: And that will likely reduce because they won't be parking in that back driveway anymore, correct?
[SPEAKER_09]: Correct.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so again, there were six vehicles exiting in the morning, and that's when those vehicles exit to go to a job site, our vehicles for the residential portion are not entering the site. because of the characteristic of the residential use there, they're exiting the site. They would be using the other driveway. In the evening, during evening peak hour, we observed three vehicles exiting the abutting property on that shared driveway. We're talking three exiting vehicles versus two entering vehicles over the course of an hour. Because of the low volumes of both those, there's low probability that they're actually going to be sharing the same space at the same time.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay, thank you, and sorry that these questions are coming at the meeting. It wasn't until last week that I realized that that use was still going to be going out. I didn't realize that there was still a parking situation back there.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm happy to provide the clarification.
[Danielle Evans]: Okay. And did you have any questions, Madam Chair?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: My biggest question was on vehicle conflict, and I think it's pretty much been hashed out, but I'm still not sure that the city is satisfied with the response as far as. as it's been presented.
[Kathleen Desmond]: If I could further clarify with respect to the easement, part of the difficulty is that this easement was, we're not the granting party in this easement. So in order to provide building 25 with access to this particular easement, we would have to obtain the petition, the grant from the abut it because otherwise we'd be overburdening the easement and overextending our easement because it's only specific to the property. Any easement is only specific to the property that it's granted to. So we would need to get their consent to that. And, you know, from a practical aspect, I don't know why anyone would want to do that given then you're going to have six commercial vehicles trucking through the back and then out through that easement next to your property. In addition to that, not only would the owner have to agree to the grant of that easement, but you would also have to have buy-in from the lender. So they would have to subrogate whatever mortgage they had. to the easement rights and in addition to that you would then have commercial traffic traversing through the residential, essentially a residential development. You know pedestrians going to park here residents and then they're going to have to walk across this and then they're going to have to be concerned about you know, commercial vehicles exiting, you know, taking the turn and exiting along that pathway. It just creates a lot more traffic that is unanticipated from the project. And, you know, there have been, we've had meetings with the neighbors about this project, and quite honestly, they were thrilled that we would be moving forward and that the glass company would not be utilizing the back in the morning to, you know, to get their trucks ready. It's been difficult for my client, and I know the owner previously, to try to address that specifically with the owner at this time, given the fact that the project's pending. But I know that, you know, to have the commercial vehicles now moving through a residential property, we would have to grant an easement. They would have to, you know, would be permitted to traverse the back of the parking lot. And then, in addition, we would have to get the permission of not only the owner of building 417, but also the lender in that instance. And, you know, we'd be policing speed through that back area of our property. It's been a headache, I know, both for the city and for the prior owners. And this project, 425, I provided city staff with the zoning decisions on that. This was a situation back in the 1980s where there had been a fire and that they went ahead and built the building higher and without permission. At that point, it was built and I'm sure that there was some sense that they had to deal with what was there. But this reduces the number of vehicles that are using that one way. I think you can also see and I'm not sure, of what significance this is, but if I can share my screen. Can you see this, folks, or no? Not yet. I'm not sharing, that's why. Hold on one second. Now I've lapsed out of it. Let me see if I can. On the other side of the property, There is also a passageway which I supplied. For some reason, I think I just lost my slide set. Okay, so there's a passageway over here as well, which went out to Warren Street. So, you know, this is the only one that's used. This is actually blocked off with a stockade fence, and there's no curb cut. But, you know, from the perspective of access, you know, we're reducing the access on the right of way, providing our residents with access on the other side. And there is, you know, possibly an alternative for access out on this side. We haven't had conversations with engineering or with traffic as of yet. We received the comments last week, but, you know, I suggest that To grant an easement, number one, would disrupt the project, but the availability of being able to get the owner of 417 to agree to something of that nature and also get his lender to agree with it is a very heavy lift.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, Ms. Desmond.
[Alicia Hunt]: Alicia? Thank you, Madam Chair. So I did just want to weigh in that we have been consulting in the background with some of the other city staff about this because of the concerns about the the two-way use by the abutter at 425 high street and so i just will clarify that we did speak to the building commissioner and he said that this as is was because it's a previously non-conforming use as a two-way, that he allowed it for zoning purposes, and we noted that the fire chief was okay with this. The big concerns has been, frankly, with just conflict of people using the site. Would that result in queuing on High Street? and then like a safety issue. And so there is a question that sort of has come out from the staff about technology that could be deployed at the site to mitigate conflict. Because we do actually understand that we wouldn't actually want the glass trucks going behind the other building and around, that would actually cause them to be going where you would reasonably expect the residents to be walking or spending time. So it's not irrational, this layout, but what could we do around technology? I don't know if you're a traffic consultant or anybody would have a specific recommendation. You know, there's a building in Medford Square that just added like a beeping sound so that when a vehicle is entering like the one It's one here, it's brand new, just finished construction. There's only one way in and out of that driveway and there is a beep that alerts people on the pedestrians that somebody is coming out of that driveway.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Is that 3036 Salem Street, Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: Amanda, I'm thinking about the one I just signed the occupancy permit for, the three stories above the old theater building. Yes, that's it. That's 3036, yeah, that one.
[Kathleen Desmond]: And that's a 10-foot right-of-way with two-way traffic.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't remember the width of it. Is that your case? Right. So actually, that that's in use, right? It's in fact, it is in use there. There are occupants in that building already. So I think that this isn't an insurmountable problem. But we would want to have a discussion about some sort of technology from the city staff perspective to to make it a safe situation. I think that, in my opinion, from what we've seen, there's not going to be so much use that we're going to have queuing on High Street that's going to get out of control, not according to your traffic study. That's part of our concern.
[Kathleen Desmond]: We're certainly open to that discussions for alternatives. It's just that the easement would be very difficult to pursue. And it's land court, so you'd be tied up in land court for two years trying to get a plan approved.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, we actually discussed this with the city engineer as well. Kathy, since this meeting has been ongoing, actually since this section of this meeting, I forwarded you an email that is research from our, one of our interns who did a full deed search on the history of the properties and easements. It was fascinating, laid it out clearly for me. So I was able to review this and it's, from a practical sense like there's the historical sense is what she just dug up but from a practical sense the idea of the easement and having those trucks coming around just doesn't feel right either and we obviously can't cut them off from not being able to to exit. I'd hate to see a good project with nine units of housing and commercial on the first floor not happen because of We couldn't figure out how a couple of trucks were going to get in and out of the back lot. We certainly have no objection to that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Are there any other questions from the city staff? How about clarifying questions from the board?
[Peter Calves]: No, except to appreciate adopting the bike racks, both in the front for commercial use and in the back for residential use. Working as a traffic engineer myself, I recently had a project where we had a hard time convincing the client we were working for to separate the bike parking. And it was nice to see that. And I do think that, as well, that the usage of the two-way right-of-way for the few trucks is not an insurmountable problem. And I don't think it's something that should be further looked into between the team and city staff. But I don't think it's something, hopefully, that should hold up this project any longer than it has to.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Danielle, did you have a question?
[Danielle Evans]: Um, yes, I was, I was wondering not to call Peter out, but it's. What kind of condition would you recommend? Because I don't have, I can't get a hold of Todd at, you know, 10 o'clock at night. So I did ping him a little bit about this, but like, you know, what if there was like a sensor or some kind of detection thing? Like, I'm like, what are these things called? You know, I'm just like throwing words out there.
[Peter Calves]: I, I, I am definitely, I really seen they're all over the place. I mean, there's, there's a whole, there's a whole category. I mean, they're mostly used for, uh, for usually, uh, parking garages, I've seen them, but I definitely, I, I know there are smaller, I mean, there are smaller scale ones as well. I mean, there's definitely something you can do with just like, it's just like a light and a light and a wire loop connected to each other. I don't know that I don't have the, I don't know the technical side of it off the top of my head, but I know it's something that exists.
[Kathleen Desmond]: And I can definitely reach out to the developer on 3036 Salem Street and find out what they're utilizing in that project. I have no problem doing that.
[Danielle Evans]: So through the chair, I would recommend a condition of the site plan approval, some kind of I don't even know what you call them. Some kind of sensor or vehicle detection warning system.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, it would be a, I think the best term would be a exiting vehicle detection.
[Danielle Evans]: OK, that makes sense. And then the two meters, the two smart meters, which would encourage turnover in front of the site for that retail use.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry to interrupt, I just want to clarify that I'm making an assumption from what you just said, and I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page. We're suggesting they install meters of the city's meters that the city had, that the Medford parking department is deploying around the city and that they would install two of the meters currently being deployed by the city at that location, correct?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, purchase and install two meters as specifications of Medford parking.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that we were very clear that it was parking department specifications. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I just want to, Amanda, are you capturing the conditions? And I'm just wondering how these conditions will align with the traffic comments that have already been submitted. Are we looking to add or just focusing on a few of them? And that's more of a question for the board. And Dr. Hunt, is that your way of actually mitigating for the vehicle conflict and you'll be okay with that? Okay. Yes. If there's no further questions from the board at this time, I'm going to open it up for public comment. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message landed in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at method-ma.gov. Individuals have up to three minutes to provide comment. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all the meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to alert myself and staff. Amanda, can you please manage the public comment queue and read any previously sent in emails or letters?
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. So we have not received any comments ahead of the meeting from the public. I'm just taking a look now to make sure nothing's come into our inbox during the meeting. Nope. And I see no hands raised.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm going to close the public comment period at this point. And just return back to the board. To discuss potential conditions for approval. If we're going to give approval to move forward. If you have any clarifying questions. And again, my only clarifying question moving forward is. At this point, I think the site plan, I would myself recommend the site plan for. For approval, considering everything has been adhered to as part of the department heads. Comment and anything that the city staff has added this evening. If there's no additional questions. And if you agree, then I would. elicit a motion that says such, but with Amanda reading out the additional conditions for us.
[Amanda Centrella]: Through the chair? Yes. I'm happy to read what I've got down and we can always wordsmith together. I know also our new clerk, Peter may have captured additional or different language. Yes. So what I have is applicant to furnish and install two electric parking meters per the parking department specifications at the existing on-street public parking spots in front of the site as condition one. And then number two, applicant to furnish and install an exiting vehicle detection and warning system on the right-of-way to signal when vehicles are exiting the drive.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, that's what I have as well.
[Peter Calves]: And just a question for Jackie with the last thing you said. Do we want to include a condition to ensure coordination with city departments on the other comments? Or are those being, do we feel that those are already being addressed?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I think they're already being addressed, but just to cover it, I wanted to just condition that I didn't want to let it go without making note to the comments and without the actual representative, the department heads here themselves, just to make sure that they're touching base and compliant.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair. Yes. I just sort of wanted to flag for you that like usual, Frequently, we'll have response of department comments to stuff because of the holiday weekend. It was really hard for the department heads to get letters. And I noted that in the engineering and traffic comments, some of the requests were addressed in the plan submitted here. And I think that's fairly clear to all of us. But there were some that, they couldn't be addressed by the plans, right? There's stuff like the restoration of the public way should be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
[Peter Calves]: That's something- For certain utility specifications.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So we need some language to incorporate the My difficulty here is that I feel that we need to incorporate the comments that are still relevant, whereas there are some that are not, and I'm not sure that it's appropriate to just leave it up to the judgment by saying the relevant comments should be incorporated, right? For example, there was one, one of the very early ones was around the easement configuration, entrance and exit. I do believe that settled I do believe that our conversations with the city engineer and traffic. Director this evening has indicated that they're no longer looking for that that easement change. So, I, I'm not sure what the best way to handle the fact other than. And I hate to suggest this at 10 o'clock at night, going through each of them. I mean, honestly, the appropriate thing to do is to go through each comment and say, number one is no longer relevant. Number two, confirm where people stand. Three, the applicant accepts it, and we're going to incorporate three. If somebody has a better suggestion that's quicker because this goes on for four pages, I would appreciate it.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I think we can agree to everything with the exception of comment one in the engineering, which deals with the proposed easement, and then comment 13 in the traffic comments, which- It's just a restatement of- Correct. And then the only other item, and I'll defer to Amanda with this, I think that the fire chiefs number 7. Was just his standard language that he places in on traffic flow, because we did have a meeting with him and he was satisfied. based on our changes to the plan which have been incorporated. We made that sidewalk flush with the drive area. We reduced the landscaping in that area. He was fine with that right-of-way and having access to the back as well through the 10-foot right-of-way. That's the only comment that I wouldn't want to get hung up on from the fire chief. Because that isn't what the understanding was. And I think that Amanda checked back with him, but I can't.
[Amanda Centrella]: I believe he issued a new letter. Did he not? He said he would, but I don't know that he got around to it. But I do have in writing that we can strike number 7 from that memo.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great. So I think we have a solution here is to incorporate the department heads comments with the exception of the ones that Kathy just stated. Yeah. As long as it's comfortable with that.
[Danielle Evans]: It was one and two.
[Peter Calves]: One, we had one and 13.
[Danielle Evans]: Not two.
[ZQDZZh_VfdI_SPEAKER_36]: I think I think two should be struck, but I let attorney Desmond respond to that. You're muted Kathleen.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, yes.
[Peter Calves]: Oh, yes, that one looks like it be included under that conversation.
[Danielle Evans]: So I have 1, 2, 13. 16.
[Peter Calves]: Oh, yes, that would be another 1 that I believe should be struck as. Uh, given our conversation tonight, it doesn't seem that. There is any intent for commercial use of the rear parking lot.
[Danielle Evans]: I don't know about 18, but I think that's board. For you all to.
[Unidentified]: Discuss.
[Kathleen Desmond]: We don't have an objection to it. So, uh, if the board, you know.
[Peter Calves]: I think I think particularly seeing and there's as and this is just my 2 sentences. that particularly seeing is how the parking lot is restricted to residential use now. I think if there's somewhere we can put language in there that make sure that people use it, use it if they're going to have cars and don't take up any present or future residential parking spaces on the street, that would be preferable. But like I said, that's my two cents. I'd be fine incorporating 18.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And this is a heavy TOD area, correct, as presented?
[Danielle Evans]: It qualifies. It qualifies.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, my, I know it's not a thing much with the advent of Uber and other personal, and other taxi services, but like, I know when, um, Tenants say that they're not going to have parking, then they'll get like a rental or a zip car or something like that. And then you still create an on-street. So I'm good with keeping 18 in.
[SPEAKER_09]: Madam chair, may I make a comment? Yes. So in the event that the parking spaces are assigned to a unit, this comment is moot, correct?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, so going back to that, will there be a sign parking?
[Kathleen Desmond]: So, you know, I guess the question, I think at this point, the petitioner is going to sell the units, at least that's the plan at this point. So I would assume there would be deeded parking, nine units for each of the nine units would have one space. It's still up in the air as to whether that 10 space would be a visitor space or some other. you know, one unit gets two spaces. That hasn't been designated as of yet. But each vehicle will have one space. Each unit will have one space designated. And I don't know if you want language in the condo docks to that effect, I guess, or rentals.
[Danielle Evans]: Well, that one space should probably be the EV charging station. So that could swap around.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I mean, we can sort that out with city staff and in terms of, you know, if in terms of that 10th space.
[SPEAKER_09]: Just back to that item 18, if, if the cases at the, uh, the spaces are assigned, then there's no need to have any additional language to restrict the tenants. There's no impact on on street parking.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's true because if we're not unbundling as item 18 is concerned about, if the plan is to sell the units and to then have the deeded parking, then you wouldn't have that effect at all.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: This is only relevant if there was an incentive to not have parking as
[Kathleen Desmond]: Right, the requirement on this was actually seven spaces, but we're provided 10 so that each unit has a space and there was one additional space. So under the high frequency, we could have went with seven spaces, but we've got 10 in the back with the intent that each unit would have its own space.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK, so to recap, we are striking Peter, can you help me? We're getting rid of one.
[Amanda Centrella]: If I may? Yes. So we're striking item number 7 on the fire memo and items 1, 2, 13, and 16 on the engineering memo. Yes. And 18. Yes.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, I think we should say we're striking 18, even though it has become moot, but just for administrative clarification, just say we're striking 18. Because we're not going to, the applicant is not going to follow through with the condition. But in this case, it's because they don't need to.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And which one, I'm sorry, what number on fire? Okay. If we can sort of wordsmith this to get a motion to recommend with the removal of comments. Do we even have to, do we have to explicitly name out the comments that were taken out, striking? If I may? Yes.
[Amanda Centrella]: I think that I feel like we've detailed it. I'm happy to read what, what I've written down. And obviously, if you all want to change it, we can.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: If you can give it a shot, Amanda.
[Amanda Centrella]: Absolutely. So I believe the motion would be to approve the site plan with the following conditions. The applicant to furnish and install two electric parking meters per the parking department specifications at the existing on-street public parking spots in front of the site. Applicant to furnish and install an exiting vehicle detection and warning system on the right of way to signal when vehicles are exiting the drive. And applicant to incorporate the department head's comments with the exception of item number seven on the fire department memo and items number one, two, 13, 16, 18 on the engineering memo.
[Peter Calves]: That sounds like what I have written down, at least in my bulleted list. I'd like to make a motion to accept with conditions as Amanda laid out.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Second. Okay, roll call vote. Vice Chair Emily Hederman? Aye. Peter Cowles?
[Denis Dettling Kalthofer]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Marioski. Aye. Sherrod Baracharia.
[Silverstein]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I am an aye. Your site plan has been approved. Thank you so much for your time. Would you like to say something, Rick?
[Silverstein]: No, I say thank you. I just stay quiet. I just stay quiet for this meeting. Thank you.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Thank you. We appreciate it. And we appreciate the late hour. I know everybody's tired. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good night. Good night. So the next item is approval of minutes. Um, a motion to approve the minutes from June 21st, 23. Is there a second? Emily wasn't here.
[Danielle Evans]: Second. Pam.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Pam second. Okay. I think Emily, you can still, if I'm not mistaken, you can vote to accept the minutes as is. So we've established that with city staff, correct? Okay. Even though you weren't here for the meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. That sounds good. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice-chair Emily Hedeman.
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Peter Cowles. Aye. Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Mariansky. Aye. Sharad Bharacharya.
[O1CMBj7JDes_SPEAKER_00]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm an aye as well. Hey, there's miscellaneous. I have another update before we go to miscellaneous another update. Very happy birthday to Alicia.
[Emily Hedeman]: Happy birthday, Alicia. Thanks for all you do. Thank you. If it's so late, I'd make a motion to sing Happy Birthday.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's OK. Because it's so late, I'll say, my dear friend, my senior year prom date, we were each other's prom date, called me. He always calls on my birthday, and he sang to me this morning.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, I love that. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Did the city have any other updates or miscellaneous that you wanted to give us?
[Amanda Centrella]: I'll just quickly mention that, well, first, y'all are amazing. Great job tonight. Second, the next meeting is on September 20th, and I think so far the only agenda item that's confirmed is this board will see the 243 Mystic Ave PDD application once again. So it's been referred, automatically referred back to the board from city council, and the board will review it one more time and make a decision on whether or not to recommend it or make any adjustments back to city council for their final public hearing and vote.
[Peter Calves]: Is that Verdon bio? Yes, yes. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. No problem. Just trying to remember. I think that's the one. Was that my first meeting? Yeah.
[Amanda Centrella]: There's a couple of the PDDs at this point. Anything else, Alicia or Danielle?
[Danielle Evans]: September 13th, we're going to have a public input meeting to present the draft MBTA zoning overlay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, that's one week from tonight. Tomorrow, we'll be working on the public outreach for that meeting. And along those lines, we are working to move the administration of this from Amanda to Danielle, something that's actually going to help with that. So we do have a new administrative assistant starting in our office on Monday. And so I'm hoping that some of the administrative things, posting of minutes, you know, sending in of legal ads, mailings will be done by. His name is Jonathan. I don't truly expect that he would be reaching out to the board for any reason, but he might for like purely administrative purposes, paperwork type things. So if you do start to see a Jonathan Cabral being CC'd on our emails, he is the new administrative assistant starting on Monday.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, and we're still hiring for an economic development planner and an economic development director. The postings are still up. Please share it and refer people our way. I might be doing economic development planner interviews next week, but without a full-time administrative assistant, getting some of this scheduled is really tough. And the city is moving forward with interviews for building commissioner. If you know anybody who would be a great applicant, you could still forward them, but I have been participating in interviews for the building commissioner position. So it is moving along.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And I have a quick one and I promise this is really quick and it helps us with the organization of the meetings. I wanted the board to, for us to start thinking about rules and regulations for how we on how the board actually operates. And something I spoke to Danielle about is, like, I don't know if there's a way that we can legally impose, like, deadlines for proponents to send things in. If they send it in on a Friday after certain hours and then the city doesn't have a chance to get to it or it gets to us later. It's just something legally that we're able to do to help us with, to help the city with their lift and then to help us to have a little bit more time
[Peter Calves]: With our list, um, yeah, so we don't run into a situation where we don't have where the city doesn't have time to get its responses.
[Danielle Evans]: So we're kind of Operating without the city's the city's thoughts when we get to our meeting Yeah, we were literally like scrambling for info And fact finding like right up and during the meeting it's just like yeah impossible, so
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And again, I don't know the legalities behind if we can even talk about it because it's not really an item on agenda, but it's an item for ourselves as administrative. So I think we can talk about it in email. Is that correct? No, because it's going to be part of the board's actions. So we can't talk about it. I don't know, just not for tonight, but just to put it in your head. What can we do to help ourselves?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, and I can look at other examples from other cities, see what best practices are, and then give you guys something to react to. I don't think I will have time to work on this until- Ask Clem. Next month.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's a great idea. Ask Clem. We have a great intern who is planning to work 30 hours a week for us this semester. We have several interns, but he's working 30 hours a week.
[Emily Hedeman]: I remember the city of Somerville having like a really robust process in terms of like, you know, you need to get your stuff in on this date and I'll be heard at this meeting. I can try to find it.
[Danielle Evans]: But yeah, that's true, like, zoning board, like, if we didn't, if it wasn't in our packet on Friday, before the meeting, we wouldn't look at it. I showed up at my seat and I had plans there. I'd be like, what is this? I didn't have time to look at this. And it'd all get grumpy and mad.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. Even the close of Business Friday, is that pushing it for you guys?
[Danielle Evans]: Because we get out at 12.30, so we get a lot of stuff that'll come in. We have a lot of late nights and we have a long Wednesday. So understandably, We try to get out somewhat on time on Fridays, because we've worked a lot of hours by the time we get to 1230.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. So we can put it on the agenda, a review of the rules and regulations of the board. Amanda, I don't want to ask you, you probably have at your fingertips where those are. Do you think you could shoot them? I don't know. I shouldn't assume that the new members were sent a copy of. We have established rules and regulations that are less than a year old. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be edited to meet the needs of the current members. But that's also a good place for us to start. You should know what they currently are. And please feel free to hold us to them. Every once in a while, we try and squeeze something through because an applicant's really anxious. But that shouldn't, yeah. Sorry, I'm very distracted by whatever it is that the city is apparently doing on the street out there. It's very loud.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, go ahead. No, I was about to ask for a motion to close, so you go ahead.
[Ari Fishman]: That's exactly what I was about to do.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. A motion to close the meeting for tonight?
[Ari Fishman]: Second.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm asking, I can't actually give the motion, so I need one motion and then a second.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make the motion to adjourn the meeting. Sorry, you want to hit me with a second? Okay. Next time.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Vice Chair Emily Hederman.
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ida Cowles.
[Emily Hedeman]: Aye.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman. Aye. Pam Mariansky. Aye. Sherrod Guaracharia. Aye. And myself, Jackie McPherson. See, I'm saying my own last name and my husband's in the back like it's McPherson, so I'm also an aye. Have a great night.
[Peter Calves]: Good night, everyone. Happy birthday, Alicia.
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