AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 07-14-22

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, well, I think that we have most everybody here. And Andre may join us a little bit later. And actually, before we get the meeting going, I should say that I understand. So Andre, I believe is not no longer the chair has, you know, his term formally ended at the end of last month and We may see him on another board. But I haven't spoken to anybody ahead of this meeting about facilitating the meeting. And unless, Jackie, unless you were expecting to facilitate the meeting, in which case, happy to cede the floor to you. I'm happy to manage until we get to kind of some of the election pieces later. So I kind of want to put that out to the members.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yeah, thank you. I mean, I was a little confused on that part without there being a chair. I didn't know if I was supposed to take over, but I know I also have not touched base with you prior to this meeting, so I prefer if you just go ahead and facilitate for this evening. Absolutely, absolutely.

[Amanda Centrella]: And yes, sorry for not being more communicative before this point. So with that, we're going to open the meeting at 6.05, and I'm just going to read the governor's order here. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this hearing of the Medford Community Development Board will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, and public participation in any public hearing during this meeting shall be by remote means only. And I will just call a quick roll. So Jackie Furtado, here. Christy Dowd. Here. David Bloomberg here. Plus on Jason.

[Unidentified]: Here.

[Amanda Centrella]: And our newest member, which I'm excited. Um, we'll get to introduce tonight. Emily Hedeman here. Yeah, so maybe we take a moment just to say hello to Emily. Hi, welcome to the board. We're very excited to have you. Just if you had any interest in making a brief introduction about yourself, feel free, but I also don't want to put you on the spot.

[Emily Hedeman]: Sure. You guys will learn soon enough that I'm not very shy. My name is Emily Hedeman. I live in the Wellington Riverside neighborhood. I'm a renter, I work in renewable energy. I have two dogs, and I moved to the city of Medford in August of 2021. So I'm a very, very new resident, and I'm excited to contribute to the city of Medford. because I feel like it's already given me so much as a resident. So thank you for the opportunity to be on the board, to serve with you, fellow board members, and let's get the meeting started.

[Amanda Centrella]: Awesome. Thank you, Emily. With that, so first item on the agenda has to do with the approval of minutes from January 5th, 2022. Does anyone have any comments about the minutes? Okay. I would entertain a motion for approval.

[David Blumberg]: Amanda, this is Dave.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, David.

[David Blumberg]: I'd like to offer a motion to approve the board's minutes of the meeting held January 5th, 2022.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. Do we have a second? Is Christy my second? Great. And we'll do a roll call vote. So Jackie Furtado? Yes. Christy Dowd? Yes. David Bloomberg?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Klaas Andreasen?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: And actually, Emily, I think because you weren't there, you may not get to vote on this one.

[Emily Hedeman]: Either that or I'm going to abstain.

[Amanda Centrella]: OK, great. So abstain. And with that, I believe we have our that's passed. Thanks, everybody. We can move along to the next item. So let me pull up my notes here. So this is a public hearing. for the proposed amendment to chapter 94 zoning to alter the zoning district designation of the area of land bounded by Boston Avenue to the southwest, North Street to the southeast and the MBTA railroad tracks to the northeast and the Summerville border to the northeast from industrial I to office 202. I believe the proponents are available tonight. to speak to their position. And staff is also available to walk the board through this zoning change in more detail. Would the board like to hear from petitioners first?

[David Blumberg]: Amanda, if I can interrupt. This is Dave.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes.

[David Blumberg]: I used to be employed by Cummings Properties. We'll hear from Cummings Properties tonight. Well, I don't continue to hold any financial interest in the organization. I think it would be best practice to recuse myself from the deliberations tonight because of the small size of the parcel and so much of it being comprised of land owned by Cummings. So I will mute myself and eliminate the video during the discussions.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sounds good. Thank you, David.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Amanda, this is Jackie vice chair. So, with David refusing himself, do we have enough to vote on it, I know the DNA is not feeling well tonight but if she's still on the board I thought she was in the same position as Andre with her. term expiring?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so we will have enough people to vote tonight as there's still four folks, which is a majority of the seven board members. And regarding Deanna, I'm glad that you brought that up. So I had misunderstood in thinking that the once the term limit was up June 30th, that board members could no longer serve on the board. And as I've been informed by Alicia, who has actually reached out to legal counsel about this in the past, if a position is not yet filled, the current board member can continue as an on hold status until that position is filled. And so they can continue to vote in that interim. And we've spoken with Deanna ahead of now and she's comfortable moving forward with that. Okay, thank you. Okay, so perhaps maybe I believe I see Mike Avini on the call as well as John Walsh who are proponents who had put this petition forward originally. Maybe I invite Mike first to speak about this if you would like.

[Michael Levaney]: Awesome. Thank you very much. Thank you, Amanda. Good evening. My name is Michael Avani I'm an architect with Cummings properties on behalf of Simmons properties for the benefit of the Cummings Foundation. Thank you very much for having us here tonight. For clarification, the request that Cummings properties and Simmons properties has before. the City Council and then subsequently the Planning Board. It is separate and distinct from the, although the same different property from Mr. Walsh's property. So I'm here tonight seeking the Community Development Board support regarding our petition that is before the City Council, seeking to change the zoning designation of the properties at 196 and 200 Boston Avenue from industrial to the newly created office to zoning district. As such, we, we asked the recording in progress can recordings in progress. We asked the board to consider our request and provide a positive recommendation to the city council on this matter. I understand that. the planning, the community on the board here is familiar with the zoning change. I don't know at this point if you have any questions specific to our petition regarding the zoning change and our request to be put into the 02 zoning district, but I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks, Mike. I might ask, before we go into questions, if John Walsh would like to provide any testimony as well.

[SPEAKER_07]: Yes, thank you, Amanda. Good evening, members of the Planning and Development Board, Metric residents, ladies and gentlemen. My name is John Walsh, and I am a petitioner for amending the zoning map to include four parcels located on Boston Avenue. all would be within the newly created Office 2 zoning district. As the petition reflects, the parcels are 222, 230, 236 Boston Avenue, and 67 North Street. I am the president and treasurer of Elizabeth Grady Properties and the managing member of 236 Boston Avenue LLC, 67 North Street LLC, and I have the authority to make all decisions. The parcels mentioned are currently located in the industrial zone and comprise approximately 1.4 acres. The sites are contiguous and in close proximity to the newly constructed Medford Tufts Greenline Station, which will allow for convenient access to additional public transportation to the site. With the progressive creation of a new zoning district by the council and the planning board, the site is now poised for life science, among other research and development companies. The conversion of these fossils from industrial to O2 would allow for more modern buildings, a substantial increase in tax revenue, gainful employment within the city, and create a mixed use area of opportunity which doesn't currently exist in that area. And last but not least, along with more green space. The property locations clearly seem to comport with what was intended by the city planning board and city council in creating the O2 district. And in conclusion, I would respectfully request approval of this petition as an amendment along with Cummings properties at all, the zoning map. And I would thank you for your consideration.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, John.

[SPEAKER_07]: You're welcome, Miranda.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right. And I think maybe what I'll do is we'll share the map that we have that shows these locations. So if you'll just give me one moment. All right, can folks see this?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, Vic, are you gonna?

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, sure. This is Victor Schrader. I'm the director of economic development. Walk us through these slides. We pulled these together just to show the board and the public what's being considered this evening. The properties highlighted in red are those owned by proponent John Walsh. So those are the four properties that he mentioned in his opening remarks. Amanda, if you flip to the next one. We just pull pull them at parcel maps that can move on. This is showing the if you go back up actually. This the red. Boxer John Walsh's property, the light lighter red. Next slide. Just the parcels, the four parcels that Mr. Walsh mentioned in the corner of Boston Avenue and North Street. Next slide. This slide represents the entire industrial district, so it includes properties owned by Mr. Walsh and incoming properties as they are today. That encompasses the entire area that would be changed from industrial to office, too. Next slide. Again, parcel map. And I think that's all. Amanda, I think it might be helpful for the public and the board to show the table.

[Alicia Hunt]: Before you go off this slide, I was actually, there's a bunch of stuff on the top that sort of looks like it might be parcel lines, but I think that what that was was easements, right? So we want to state definitively that there is one parcel that is fully owned by Cummings, and then there are the five owned by John Walsh, there's four, five. And they are all of the entirety of the owners of the parcels in this industrial district. So I just wanted to be explicit that there is not somebody else's property that's getting grouped in here or anything like that. I was just looking at the top there. There are a bunch of lines. I believe those are easements, right? Those are not. Mr. Avini, I think, can speak to that, or he's giving me the thumbs up.

[Michael Levaney]: Yeah, no, I'd be happy to, if you don't mind. So yes, what we're seeing on the screen, the lot N05-7 is what we call 200 Boston Ave, which is formally known as 200 Boston Ave, currently known as, formally known as 200 Boston Ave. The N05-6 is a little piece of the 196 Boston Ave lot. So that lot kind of straddles, that building in the lot straddle some of OEM metric. We just like the whole of the properties that are managed by the company to be included in this. So it would indeed be the two lots. And yes, the dash lines you see are the ones that go kind of from Boston out to the train tracks, if you will. That's an MWRA easement. I'm not sure what the curved one is, but So you're 100% accurate. I just want to clarify that we do have two pieces of property there.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just wanted to be very explicit to everybody that there is no discussion of properties owned by somebody other than the two entities here this evening. Thank you.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And saying that also, Alicia and Victor, can you actually explain to the board and for the public purposes, and I believe someone asked this in the chat, can you back up a little bit and give us the difference between industrial and office two, especially with someone asking if it is going to have any effect on green line extension? And I'm assuming that means because usually industrial has less public interaction where offices, commercial would have more. And so I'm guessing that's maybe a transportation sort of question, but if you can just back up and explain that for the record.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think, thank you very much. That's in fact what Victor was going to next. We have the table showing the industrial zoning and the office two zoning. Victor's prepared to speak to that.

[Victor Schrader]: Yeah, there are a couple of different distinctions between Office 2 and industrials. Some of the most significant are in the dimensional table, what is allowed to be built in each district. And you can see I included some of the other commercial districts just to give you context. But Office 2 is the top line, and this is what the zoning ordinance. So really we just pulled pulled it out and simplified it a little bit for this context. Currently in the industrial district, there's a high restriction of 30 feet, two stories. You can see some front, side, and rear setbacks. The lot area, and this is a minimum permitted, is 10,000 square feet and above. And then the frontage of an industrial lot and industrial district must be 35 feet in order to be built. In the office too, we've increased the height in the stories. Really the intention is to allow for more modern office buildings, mixed-use office buildings specifically, and to accommodate lab, which and life science uses which have different requirements than traditional office buildings. They need higher floor to ceiling heights. And so we feel we've accommodated those in the height here and the stories while also trying to maintain some sensitivity to the context of the neighborhood and the buildings that are already in the district. The existing Cummings building on the site 200 Boston Ave is, correct me if I'm wrong, but around 60 feet to the roof, not including rooftop mechanicals. So we're going a little beyond that here, but really just one floor. And I think it's important to mention that So. Throughout Medford any relief from these dimensional requirements is typically by variance the new zoning permits. Relief by special permit. So it's a slightly different process. But any large-scale projects that are above 10,000 the zoning requirements. As well as ask for relief by special permit 3rd if they're not meeting any of these zoning requirements that are that are here. These dimensional requirements. There's some differences in uses as well. Like I said, we we're trying to. Transition this or the zoning. The office to district commercial office with first floor retail or restaurants to fit into the neighborhood a little bit better. So the Office 2 District allows for office, it allows for lab. It also allows for retail and restaurants and consumer services. The industrial district was, as you would imagine, focused more on auto uses, storage, wholesale, manufacturing, those types of uses. So most of those have gone away or would go away if the Office 2 district was approved here. So those aren't allowed in the Office 2 district. I think that's all I had in terms of a comparison. If anyone has any questions on that, I'm happy to answer them. And then Jackie, there. In terms of the question in the chat about would there be any effect on the green line extension. And not to our knowledge, this none of these properties kind of impedes on the rail line there. There has been contemplation of We don't believe that there would be any impact to the possibility of that given this change.

[Alicia Hunt]: So before that we get to board questions, I think it would actually be helpful to just highlight, I feel like there's an elephant in the room question. And in fact, it's literally, oh, I shouldn't have referred to you guys as elephants, I apologize. that one of the questions is what the city's three comprehensive plan to understand why what zoning change, we would like to see where, and we, it would be premature to make zoning changes in advance of that. However, there are market forces at work here. And so this is one of those, so it happened that, I'm gonna tell you, it was chance that our comprehensive plan consultants are in fact here this evening to talk to us about the comprehensive plan and what is in it at the same night as that we're having this public hearing on a zoning change. So I had asked them if asked, they are prepared, they could say a few words about it. But we basically saw this from the offices. This is some stuff that we know people really would like to do. We've been talking to Mr. Walsh for quite a while about how he would like to develop his property. Cummings, as you're aware, had brought a project forward and then had trouble with the zoning board. As recently as the last Zoning Board meeting, the Zoning Board had actually, a project came in front of them and their big question is, why aren't you changing the zoning first and then rather than asking us for these variances? And basically the answer is that the market is moving so fast and there are opportunities right now. And we'd like to take advantage of these opportunities. And in fact, this zoning change is very much in line with what we are seeing from the comprehensive plan, what we are seeing from the public comments, from the research that's being done. and I don't wanna speak too much for our comprehensive plan consultants, but I did say to them, is this in line with what we're seeing coming out of your thing? And it didn't make sense to us to wait for a couple of months when these property owners would really like to actually move on their properties now and to make them wait unnecessarily for a zoning change that would be very reasonably come from us later. It also feels better to us that if a zoning change is to come from the property owners, then it's not the city doing it to them. It's them saying, this is how we'd like to see our development go. So Brie and Emily, we haven't introduced you yet, but would you guys be comfortable in saying if the board would like you to? I'm seeing some nods. Is that okay with the board? Would you like to hear from the comprehensive plan consultants about this matter?

[Unidentified]: Or do you have other questions first?

[Emily Hedeman]: No other questions. I was a little curious about the current uses of the site. I think maybe another attendee echoes that question, but just seeing what's there, it looks like there's a big building and a couple of small buildings. I'm more curious about the small buildings. Can you tell me what's going on there now?

[SPEAKER_07]: This is John Walsh.

[Unidentified]: Hi, John. Thank you.

[SPEAKER_07]: I'm the owner of Walsh. Yes, so the building at 222 Boston Avenue houses the Elizabeth Grady Company. In the front building at 230 Boston Avenue, that's warehouse and distribution storage. The building next to it is used for storage as well. And that's 236 Boston Avenue, I'm sorry. And then 67 North Street that sits on the corner of Boston Avenue and North Street was a upholstery company in which the gentleman actually passed away, and a monument company next to it, and the two families.

[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, John. I appreciate that background. You're welcome.

[Victor Schrader]: Emily, are you familiar with 200 Boston Ave? Would you like Mike to speak to that?

[Emily Hedeman]: That would be helpful. Thank you.

[Michael Levaney]: Sorry about that. Yeah, thank you, Emily and Victor. Yeah, so 200 Boston Ave currently is, it was formerly, from what I understand, a mattress factory. It's this beautiful kind of cast in place concrete old mill building from around the 1920s. And it's been repurposed now. It is filled with life science companies, predominantly life science companies. There was a gym downstairs. At one point in time, the Medford Public Library moved there while their main facility was being renovated. There are some accessory office spaces there as well. Our highest and best use for that building would continue the life science program.

[Alicia Hunt]: is. Thank you, Emily. You may not be aware. So Cummings had put together a proposal. The building in front is a parking lot, and they had put together a proposal to make that a second life science lab building. And that proposal had trouble with the zoning. basically it went through this board, it went through site plan review, and then it did not get the zoning variances that it requested. So they actually had tried to put Build Life Science there. And I will sort of add to that, part of the reason for moving is that This city would like to see new development we'd like to see increased taxes, we'd like to, without having to raise the taxes on our current residents. So, newly developed buildings additional buildings would bring in significant new growth revenue to the city, and the longer we push that down the longer we wait for that to happen. which is part of why we're bringing that forward now. Those of us who work in the city are very aware that there was a difficult budget discussions over the past few months with this question about where's the revenue coming from? Revenue comes from new growth.

[SPEAKER_07]: Sure. I add something. This is John Walsh. May I add some color to what you just stated?

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure, John.

[SPEAKER_07]: The currently, from a tax liability perspective on the four buildings that I own, the annual taxes are $100,126, with an assessed value of $5,598,700. For the change on that site for a future, a complete stabilized analysis, the assessed value on that property would bring in property taxes. Based on around a couple 100,000 square feet similar to Cummings, the tax liability of the tax proceeds to the city would change from $100,126 currently. $2,900,000 per

[Emily Hedeman]: to work out in your favor. Everything else was to move forward smoothly. What sort of timeline are you looking at in terms of either completing additional construction on the site with life science or redevelopment of the site with the smaller structures on it?

[SPEAKER_07]: Are you asking me, John Walsh, the question?

[Emily Hedeman]: I guess it's both. These are separate projects, but we're proposing the rezoning together, essentially.

[SPEAKER_07]: Right. If I may speak first, if you don't mind, is I've had a plethora of inquiries from life science companies over the past two years. that we initially broached this with the city. So I would say, as I mentioned, there's a number of companies that are anxious to move forward imminently, when I say imminently, this summer.

[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, but no LOI or anything in hand at this point?

[SPEAKER_07]: I have four LOIs in hand.

[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, perfect. Awesome. And then it sounds like the Cummings redevelopment would also accelerate pretty quickly based on the plans you guys have.

[Michael Levaney]: Yeah, I'm sorry about that. Yeah, we had been, as mentioned earlier, we had been in front of the Community Development Board twice last year and brought this project through. And at the time we had a tenant who was looking to expand We really had a lot of interest in it. Subsequently, when we didn't get to where we needed to be, we kind of back-burnered it a little bit. And just recently, as the last month, we have continued to think about how this could happen again. And we have, again, more clients in the building that would like to expand. So this is definitely something that is on our front burner. Schedule-wise, it certainly isn't isn't it this summer project uh construction takes a little time but we you know if we could if we have the interest in this um we could we could move as soon as first quarter of next year, really to kind of get shovels on the ground. That is if everything goes well and that'd be kind of the soonest construction date. But as Mr. Walsh had mentioned, people are chomping at the bit for this type of space. So we're pretty optimistic that this is something that could really work.

[Emily Hedeman]: Great, thank you. I don't have any more questions.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I guess, sorry, I keep thinking of things that would be helpful for the board. So when the Cummings project was being considered, they did a public meeting outside of the public hearing process. And there was a lot of interest and support in seeing a life science building there. There are people who would love to be able to walk to work. There were some concerns. They tended to be concerns that were involved not having a thorough understanding of what kind of life science would be allowed in Medford. And that we have rules and the ones that you would be scared of are not allowed to be in the city of Medford. There's plenty of interest from the ones that everybody would be comfortable with. We could go into more detail if that's helpful. But I also just want to be clear that this would change the zoning. So if either or both property owners proposed a project that was then allowed as of right, the size of those buildings would still require them to come through site plan review for this body to work with the look, the feel, the shapes, the details. on it. And if either of them still wanted any variances, they would still have to go to the zoning board for variances. But what we've basically heard from the zoning board is a height variance should be coming through as a zoning change first, which is why they're coming here first for the zoning change. And this board will make a recommendation and ultimately it is the city council that will actually vote on it. And to be clear for anybody who is listening, any decision by this board is not an actual change or denial of zoning, it is a recommendation to the city council who is still the decision maker on this request.

[Victor Schrader]: I'm going to turn it back over to you. Alicia just to clarify under the office to district. Any relief from dimensional relief. So if they want to go a little higher than what's allowed in the district or a little wider. Those are all by special permit. Variance under the office to

[Unidentified]: So are there other other questions from the board?

[Alicia Hunt]: There are also members of the public that we can open it up to. If there are no questions from the board, then we should open, this is a public hearing. We'll wanna open up to the public for any questions.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so if any members of the public would like to provide a comment, you can do so by raising your hand and I'll call on you and you can unmute. Also, I'll put the office email in the chat in case you'd like to provide anything in writing that way before the end of the hearing. Okay. Yes, Kayla.

[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_17]: I'm curious, I've heard a little bit about the Walkland Court redevelopment, which is the property to the north owned by the Medford Housing Authority. Is there any chat, talk about how large those, I mean, I don't know when that project would be happening, but I'm curious whether the heights would sort, for anyone that's concerned about the height differential in the O2 district versus industrial district, like what is the relationship across those properties kind of as a whole.

[Victor Schrader]: Kayla actually I looked at the latest walk on court plan yesterday, thinking this might come up and they do propose to higher density buildings along the southern edge of that, of their property. And what was shown in the plans that I found was five stories. Those are residential, so that in terms of total height, they'll be a little shorter, but five stories is what they're showing there.

[eytfxLwMk5s_SPEAKER_17]: Okay. Six stories, five stories.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, thank you. And Kayla, I'm sorry, could you provide your full name and address for the record?

[Unidentified]: I'm sure Kayla Bachman at 604 Fulton Street.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. EB, I saw you might have been interested in providing a comment.

[Elizabeth Bayle]: Yes, sorry, I was trying to rename myself there. It's Elizabeth Bale.

[Amanda Centrella]: I'm sorry, just your address for the record as well? 34 Emory Street. Thank you.

[Elizabeth Bayle]: Um, yeah, so I just had a couple of things as I put in the chat earlier. I wanted to know whether the existing structures were nonconforming or whether there was anything nonconforming about them. And I also just wanted to, um, say again for the record that I am concerned that nothing about changing the zoning or the projects that are considered will interfere with eventually extending the green line as was the preferred alternative to Route 16, Mystic Valley Parkway as the terminus. So those are my concerns. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I will just say that we've looked at, we don't see any way that the zoning change would impact a potential Green Line extension. And all of the property that has been thought of with relation to that is not in this zoning district. In fact, most if not all of it is actually in Somerville. Um, I can't speak to the building of any buildings because there are no buildings proposed. This does still require correct me if I'm wrong, Victor, a 15 ft setback. Um, that shouldn't be cause any difficulty if the green line extension were to go forward.

[Elizabeth Bayle]: Well, I guess I just want to say that when we were very heavily meeting about the extension with the preferred alternative to mystic Valley Parkway. There was a lot of concern about 200 Boston have because it actually extends into an area that the fire. department had some problem with the amount of clearance with the tracks and, um, and they had an adjustment they wanted to make with the building might have precluded, um, something to do with the extension. So I just want people to be aware of that and that it's a concern.

[Unidentified]: Thank you for for bringing that up. Thank you. Good to hear that people are still pushing for it.

[Alicia Hunt]: We do have. I was gonna say that, Amanda, that we have some, if there are no more public comments here, we have some letters from the public.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, and I'm happy to share, so we have two letters that, I put them both in the meeting materials folder. Let me pull up, and I can read them into the record if folks want. Maybe I'll do that, since there's only two. All right, and so this is from the Medford Chamber of Commerce President, Maury Carroll. And so in summary, it's a letter of support. And I can just read a segment here. The Medford Chamber of Commerce is expressing its support for additional life science development in the city of Medford. We understand that life science companies and developers have specific requirements relating to building design, such as increased ceiling height, large floor plates, additional storage, and preferred building amenities. that may not be in alignment with existing land use policy, the newly created Office 2 District was specifically created to encourage this type of development. I may just summarize here that it says the chamber is ready to work with the city, city officials, staff, and stakeholders to create an environment that fosters, supports, and encourages development of this type. We believe that doing so will ultimately support existing Medford businesses and attract additional economic development to the city. We have one additional letter that was submitted by Ken Kraus of 50 Mystic Street. This letter is to register my support for the proposed amendment to the city of Medford zoning map to change the zoning district designation from industrial to office two. The office to zoning category created in the city's recently complete zoning regulations update is appropriate for this area, given its current uses and proposed additions. Long past are the days when the site was home to industrial operations such as the Union Paste Company, American Wool and Company, and Container Corporation of America. Over the last three decades, the site has been transformed into largely office use and increasingly laboratory and life science space, with more of the latter planned soon. And I want to just summarize some of the points here. Looking forward, in addition to approving their petitions, I would suggest that the Community Development Board encourage both proponents to work closely together as their future projects unfold, especially in the area of transportation demand management and efforts to minimize the volume of automobile traffic to the site. Some possible collaborative measures could include publicly supporting and making a financial contribution to advancing plans for the Green Line station proposed to be constructed next to the site. Opposing reductions in bus service to the site, such as the MBTA's current plans to eliminate route 80 bus, supporting the ongoing efforts of the Mystic River Watershed Association and Department of Conservation and Recreation to enhance the bicycle and pedestrian network in the area with connections to West Medford commuter rail station, considering ways to minimize parking and share parking areas, electric vehicle charging stations, and shared covered bicycle parking areas, initiating the creation of a nonprofit transportation management association, such as the Charles River TMA, in conjunction with the City of Medford Chamber of Commerce and Tufts to provide and promote sustainable transportation options for commuters and residents to reduce traffic congestion and improve mobility and air quality. Thank you for your consideration. And I'm just checking our email and it looks that we have not received any additional comments.

[Alicia Hunt]: So do any members of the board, do you want to hear from the comprehensive plan consultants? Would you like to offer a motion? Do you have any questions?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: this is Jackie vice chair. I actually do have a question overall with the zoning change over there. Obviously the industrial seems to have phased out over there, but the U-Haul that sits there, how would these align with the U-Haul that's right around the corner? I'm just trying to figure it out. And I guess I do need to see it more comprehensively and would like to know what the members of the comprehensive team thinks.

[Alicia Hunt]: So to be clear, the U-Haul is in Somerville, and we have no impact over Somerville zoning. Okay. So there's actually another Cummings building between this property and the U-Haul. Okay.

[Emily Innes]: Alicia, I can speak to the comprehensive plan if it's appropriate at this point. Sure. Thank you, Emily. So for the record, my name is Emily Ennis, I'm principal of Innes Associates and one of the team members, the comprehensive plan. Part of my role on the team is the analysis of zoning so we'll talk with you more tonight. Later on, but prior to this meeting, Alicia and Amanda reached out to us let us know what you'd be discussing and asked the team, if we felt that this would be appropriate. Given what we've heard on the comprehensive plan to date and what we were proposing for the city's review, and so we took a look at the plan to change the zoning districts the area was in and considered the goals of the comprehensive plan especially in relationship to new uses to job creation and workforce development. And in our opinion, this is consistent with the themes and the goals that have been developed through this planning process. Happy to answer any further questions and obviously look forward to going into more depth later on.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Emily.

[Alicia Hunt]: is the board. I'm sorry. The first motion that we would actually need would be to close the public hearing. And then there could be deliberation if you Desire.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Jackie Furtado? Yes. Christy Dowd? Yes. Klaus Andreasen?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Any further questions from the board? Okay. Um. If interested in. So we would entertain a motion to, um, recommend to City Council that this zoning be. The zoning designation of industrial be changed to vote. If folks were looking for

[Jenny Graham]: that the zoning be changed from industrial to office two. What did I miss?

[Unidentified]: That's good.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Great. Do we have a second? This is Jackie. I am seconding the motion.

[Amanda Centrella]: Great. We'll do a roll call vote. So, Jackie Furtado? Yes. Christy Dowd?

[Jenny Graham]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Emily Hedeman?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. I wasn't sure whether I was unmuted or not.

[Amanda Centrella]: And class Andreessen.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right, and that motion is passed. Thank you, everyone for your time on that.

[Alicia Hunt]: Procedurally Amanda has a, um, city council with the recommendation. We are actually, we should put it from the chair or an acting chair. I know that's later on the meeting, but that's kind of, that's it. This is actually on the city council agenda for Tuesday night, this coming Tuesday for anybody who is interested in seeing that. And we anticipate sending them this document tomorrow morning or tonight.

[Michael Levaney]: Fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you to the members of the board and the members of the public and the members of the planning department. We appreciate all the effort you've put into this and we look forward to moving forward. Thank you so much.

[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you for your time this evening.

[Michael Levaney]: Thank you.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right, so our next item on the agenda is... our informational presentation and discussion of the comprehensive plan draft materials. So we actually, we have here tonight, you've already heard a little bit from Emily Innes and also Brie Hensholdt. They're part of a consultant team that we've been working with. And I'd love to see the floor to them. Maybe you can introduce yourselves and yeah, get us started.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Sounds great. We are happy to jump right in. We do have a presentation to share that kind of informational update about the comprehensive plan. I'm Brie Hensold with Agency, Landscape, and Planning here with Emily. We'll introduce you to the broader team and everyone who's helped shape this as well. Alicia, do you want to comment or you want me to just jump right in?

[Alicia Hunt]: I think the board has been getting regular updates from us, and they actually asked for this presentation. And honestly, I just missed, is it you or Emily who is giving the, there, I just made you both co-hosts.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Cool, sounds good. I will screen share.

[Alicia Hunt]: And, you know, could you just clarify for the board if you'd like them to jump in with questions or wait to the end or?

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. I think we would be happy to take questions as they arise. So we'll take them. And Amanda, if you see hands that we miss or comments or anything like that, feel free to interrupt.

[Amanda Centrella]: Will do.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Great. So hopefully you're all seeing my screen now. We're going to share with you the status of the Medford Comprehensive Plan, the Citywide Plan. We're really glad to be here tonight. Really glad that the great planning team has been bringing you along and is giving us this chance to share the draft recommendations and get any of your feedback before this goes out to the community for feedback again next week. And then as we head into the fall, we'll be looking ahead to an approval schedule. This is a plan that's really been shaped by the community as well as a really dedicated steering committee that includes community members from all neighborhoods, different roles, youth, community leaders, business owners, residents, parents, environmental advocates. So it's been a very committed steering committee that has been with us for five meetings and a lot of time at public meetings as well. We also have Jackie Furtado as part of the steering committee, who is also a connection to tonight. You've been introduced to me. I'm a planner, and I'm joined by Emily Innes, our planner and project manager. We also have some additional experts on the team, Arup for transportation and resilience consulting, economic development experts and CARP strategies. And then we had kind of visualization and technology support who really helped us with engagement. which we needed more than we knew, because a lot of our engagement was online, thanks to COVID. And so we were able to really have an interactive conversation with the community, thanks to having that support. And then at the heart, really, I think this has been done hand in hand with the planning team. And so really grateful to their leadership throughout this. The project has been shaped over the better part of a year and a half now, and we've had really significant engagement all along the way. So like I said, we've had five steering committee meetings, four community engagement milestones, including going to Circle the Square most recently and sharing the recommendations with kind of a steady stream of community who passed by. And I know I met some of you that day as well. So really appreciate that. And then after tonight, Heading into next week, we're getting ready to share a draft online and a survey to get some additional input on how everyone's ideas have shaped up into the final plan document. We'll then be heading into the fall for approvals and there'll be more conversations at that time too. We wanted to give a little glimpse into what the extent of the engagement has looked like. We were lucky to kick off heading into a summer. And so even though there were a lot of restrictions on in-person gathering, we were able to get out and about at public events and get a lot of one-on-one conversations. So we spent a lot of time last summer talking to people about their community, what they loved, and hearing firsthand. did a lot of outreach to spread the word through postcards, comment cards at City Hall, and then 15,000 residents were reached via mail, direct mail. We had this dedicated plan website, and we also have had two versions of an online map to capture feedback. And people are really engaged with that, which was fun. I'll show you some of the outcomes from that in a moment. We've had videos to update people along the way and continue to show the content on community media. We've done a lot of focus groups too, steering committee meetings, like I said, and these public meetings, but the focus groups really let us hear firsthand from experts in everything from history to development to natural systems. And so we got to learn and dig deep from those who are very engaged with all of those systems on a daily basis. This is a glimpse at that online map, the first one that we put out there. And what was really fun is that it created this conversation where we had over 1000 comments, where people would make a comment about what they loved or a problem that they wanted to see the plan address. And then other folks could comment back on it and either second it or offer an alternative. And so We really looked and scrutinized kind of all of these comments that came in throughout the course of the last year. And you'll see in the final plan that we think that they've really shaped the recommendations and we've tried to communicate directly how this feedback ties into those final recommendations. We did analyze everything and try to understand it and look for patterns too. And we learned some really interesting things I think Things that you may know, too, as those who care for Medford. People talked a lot when they were talking about special places, about the natural systems and the river and the opportunity there. When we heard about issues, we heard a lot about Medford Square. I think Medford Square is the most talked about place within Medford. We heard about transportation and we also heard about some flooding issues. And ideas kind of mirror those issues too, but we were interested to see that there was a lot of consensus about places and then also some opportunities for change and thinking about improvements to environmental systems. We really kind of, as we develop the plan, tried to work hand in hand with the community so that they were always helping to brainstorm and improve the ideas with us. This is just a glimpse into our final public meeting that was online, where we took a test with the community and showed how their ideas and their recommendations might change a series of places around the city so that they could see the reality of a zoning change or a recommendation for flood mitigation and where that might impact their daily lives. And I'll pass it over to Emily for a little bit.

[Emily Innes]: Great. Thank you, Brie. So taking a step backwards and understanding that the community input is helpful to us as we start to think about how we put this together under Section 81D of the Massachusetts General Laws. So you see on the left-hand side these images of the seven out of the nine elements that are in 81D. And so our challenge is to look at those elements that were established under the enabling legislation, understand how feedback from the community works into into those and is impacted by them and has an impact on them. And then figuring out how do you how do you pull all this into a plan. One of the things about the way the elements were developed that the history of comprehensive planning is originally in land use, and it has morphed from that. So when you look at the 81D elements, you see all of these components of land use. There are some missing, so things like climate resiliency, public health, energy. All of these are things that the communities want to start thinking about that aren't really covered by the enabling legislation. There's also a lot of cost cutting themes and that's where our plan themes come from. It's really from the interrelationship of the 81 D elements with those other topics so where initially land use was the focus. Now it's really the impact of land use on the community. and the other components of that. So as we move through, I'm going to take you through some of our thinking some of our research, and how they those things have an impact with the community input on the development of the plan. So next slide please. So the first thing is the overall goal of this planning process was to develop a 30 year vision, and then support that with a 10 year implementation plan, and we'll talk more about the implementation plan a little bit later but you can see in the bolded language here of this vision for the future, how some of those themes are translated into a simple statement that can act as a guiding force for the goals and the strategies that we have. So I mentioned earlier that there were nine elements and you saw seven of them in the sort of land use topics there. The other two are this vision, this goals and policies vision statement, and finally that implementation plan. So as we look at this, what we want to do is understand with you, talk about how this was developed and then understand how the implementation plan gets you from now to 2050 by those series of 10-year actions. Next slide. So to do that, let's take a step back and just talk a little bit about, in addition to the community work that we did in gathering input, Medford had already done a ton of planning at different levels and in different areas and different topics. So part of our role as consultants was to bring everything together and understand how all of these planning components can relate holistically to each other in a single document. So in some cases, what we're pulling is from previous studies and talking about how those have an impact on each other. As part of that deep dive into planning, we also wanted to look at the history of land use and development in Medford and understand how stepping back to look at past development plan patterns will affect today's choices. And actually, you were beat ahead of me, Brie. But that leads straight into not just the history, but the trends on the next slide. So what's happened in the past, projecting out to the future. So understanding about how do we bring in more spending to the city rather than having people leave Medford to buy goods, services, experiences. Thinking about who's working in Medford now, who would we like to work in Medford? You know, when you talk about transportation mobility circulation, and people get worried about traffic on the roads well if you can live within walking distance if you can buy most of your daily needs within walking distance, you don't have to hop into a car. If you can get most of it by public transportation, not hopping in a car reduces circulation. So we want to understand those trends and the impact. Medford is just a jewel in terms of the amount of open space and how accessible that is to people, but understanding how that open space isn't just there, but it supports local needs both now and in the future, and what might we need to do to make changes to add additional support. Same thing for housing who's being housed here now what are the projections for the future. And then finally climate change Medford again as a leader in thinking about climate change and how climate change impacts people's daily experiences. So taking the past development patterns taking the trends, and then in the next slide. as it pops up, looking at the future land use opportunities. So this is a diagrammatic way of thinking about the different areas within Medford and the strategies that this comprehensive plan has for addressing those areas. So we'll talk a little bit more about it as we move through, but just get the sense that there's this green quarter coming through with the rivers, you've got the green up further. There's also quarters of transportation and different types of land uses. There's our civic institutional anchors scattered throughout centers and squares being areas of economic activity, and also neighborhood centers being smaller areas. where economic activity and lower scale residential interact. So as you listen to some of the strategies we're going to show you, just keep this future land use map in mind and we'll return to it later. And so finally, just translating again, those areas in Massachusetts general law, those different components, we're now going to show you how those elements interact with each other to create these five building blocks. So I'm going to turn it over to Brie for that, and I'll be back to talk about implementation.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Emily. So I'm going to walk through what those five building blocks are that are going to be the themes that shape the plan. and within which all the recommendations and actions for achieving it have been developed. So each of these really came directly out of those community conversations and then were refined along the way. The first one is this idea that we heard from Medford that they really want to have open and engaged communication. And that has to do with the relationship to government, how plans like this get implemented over time, how priorities are set and funding is allocated and spent. And then also how the city relates to many partners. Emily mentioned the ample open space, which is really true and felt and appreciated. And some of that is city-owned open space and a lot of that is partners, state and other partners. And so thinking about those management roles that could sometimes make implementation run or stewardship and use run more seamlessly. So the three goals that have come out of this are to maintain and build trust, to implement according to clear community priorities, and then to allocate resources effectively. And I won't be showing you all of the actions within the plan, which I'm sorry that I can't do, but I think you'll also thank me. We'd be here for a really long time, but we'll be sharing that draft as a document for you to dig into. But just a few of the kind of more detailed ways that we can realize that goal or that set of goals. The plan recommends issuing an annual comprehensive plan update so that community members can transparently see progress happen. increasing and changing the way that community members are reached and communicated with. We saw a lot through this plan of the use of social media and digital outreach, that not being the only thing that people can rely on, but certainly a really effective way to do it. Another action is about developing a central database within the city that allows departments to share information about implementation and track things together and tie them back to the plan. And then tracking participation and planning processes and boards to make sure that representation of the community is representative. The second big theme or big building block is this idea of continuing to nurture the welcoming and supportive community that so many Medford residents told us they really experience. At the same time, we did hear that some feel that more than others. So this theme is also about trying to be more inclusive and think about all the different ways that people need to be welcomed to Medford. Some of those have to do with enlivening open space, people really embrace the events, the arts and culture, and thinking about ways to spread that to more communities. Affordable housing, of course, being huge. And Emily mentioned all the work that this plan builds on. And the very recent housing production plan is just one example of a plan that we're tying into and kind of pulling into to help implement. But affordable housing being a really important element to reinforce as well. And then honoring Medford's history and all of its facets. So some of the actions that you'll see in the plan that reinforce that are everything from thinking about collaboration with artists to beautify some of those neighborhood centers or centers and squares that Emily showed on that future land use map, to look at ways to expand the amenities that are within the riverfront and other community open spaces to things that we heard about and we also saw in the open space plan, to look at ways to allow more multifamily and small diverse housing options through some zoning changes, And then always keeping universal accessibility in mind and having a steady and clear data-driven way to address capital needs at city facilities. Vibrant places might have been the goal that was talked about the most, I think, across all conversations and no matter what area of the community we were talking about. People really are interested in this topic of economic development. They want to have, they realize that today, it can be really challenging to live and work in Medford and have that kind of close connection and choice, no matter what age you are. We heard that from teenagers, we heard that from more established professionals. And so this theme really looks at growing kind of mixed use life sciences and other uses like we just saw. that allow more people to live and work in Medford, and then to support businesses so that they can successfully locate, establish, and sustain both their own business and the workforce. It looks as well at balancing growth, so thinking carefully about growth as it's happening and the scale of density and where it goes, and tying that to smart transportation investments, And then vibrancy very much for Medford is about increasing enjoyment of natural resources. So some of the ideas here, we're encouraging some of those small scale neighborhood retail and services so that it's not just Medford Square, but wherever you are within the city, you can experience and benefit from some of that kind of walkable access to small commercial services, attracting companies, particularly to some kind of growing and changing areas that will pay, pay, create high quality jobs that allow residents to access them and strategically using some city on parcels to promote multifamily residential or some or some of that job creation. The flip side of all of that kind of vibrancy too is keeping an eye on access and inclusion at the same time and looking at anti-displacement strategies for both residential and commercial businesses and partnering with Tufts and lots of other workforce training groups to make sure that this access is equitably provided to everyone. And that brings us over to mobility and transportation to which is really linked to creating vibrant places that work and that work for everyone. So this was also something that we talked about a lot and we know Medford has done a lot of work with its complete streets plan and other projects that predated the comp plan. The key goals here were about connecting that multimodal network and really starting to achieve it. Like I sort of alluded to in the previous one, coordinating mobility with future development, making sure those two things work really well together. And then thinking about the kind of on the ground experience. It's one thing to have a bike lane, right? But it's another thing to have it feel safe and have it feel like a place where you can take your kids across the street. And so thinking about that kind of finer grain of the mobility experience. Some of the ideas that will support those goals are to implement those great plans you already have in place, like the Bicycle Infrastructure Master Plan, to do an audit of pedestrian crossings and school-adjacent routes for any improvements for safe crossings, to look at one discovery that we found, which we know is really complicated, is that there is an unusually high number of unaccepted streets across across Medford, and so look at that closely and figure out how they might become more part of city ownership. To tie this also to some of the climate resilience and sustainability goals with piloting installations of electric vehicle charging stations, and then really leveraging and building on the MBTA improvements and major bus hubs, and thinking about density and mix of uses increased, especially in those areas and those corridors. And then finally, climate resilience. I think this is something that really is sort of an umbrella and aligns with those other four themes very well, but also is one unto itself. So the climate resilience goals are about achieving that very recently created climate action and adaptation plan and syncing up a lot we benefited from that great work, preserving and enhancing natural resources and supporting community health and resilience. So some of the actions that will help realize that are to think about the public realm, streets and open spaces for stormwater management. We heard a lot about tree canopy in our public and our steering committee meetings. And so there's a lot of thinking about that within the plan too, and how you might focus and start some of your early investments in priority areas that have higher heat vulnerability. Adopting environmental performance standards for large development projects and then updating some of the flood resilience guidelines and cool surface design guidelines in future design standards. Okay, so a lot of ideas, but they need to get done. I'll pass it to Emily.

[Emily Innes]: Thank you, Brie. So, as Brie said, there's a lot to unpack here but all of these actions go into an implementation strategy and the way I always think about implementation strategy is you know your fifth grade English when you do the who, what, where, how, when, how many, how much. So, when we look at an implementation strategy it's critically important to once you've listed out the actions is to understand who is responsible for these. Is it a city department, is it the city plus stakeholders from for as partners, is it actually not a city action but it's important enough to the overall goals of the city that it's got some other leads so you'll see the stewardship and the partners flow into the implementation strategy. Figuring out exactly what are the first steps that are needed for those strategies, how we can track progress so we'll talk a little bit about benchmarks, and then are there additional funding sources so we're not just relying on city operating or capital funds to get something done so you'll see these components. And then a critical strategy for all of you at the CD board is understanding how zoning is impacted by this plan. So obviously you've gone through a recodification as a city recently that sort of cleaned everything up. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you've done major zoning changes and as you look at this plan, you're going to see for each one of the sections that Brie talked about. that there are zoning recommendations for it. So we're preparing a section, I think you may have a draft memo of it, to talk about how do you take all of these zoning recommendations and address them. And there's really two main strategies. One is topical in that there's groups of zoning changes that are related to specific topics. And the other is geographic. And not only do they have, and those are more related to the the future land use areas that we looked at earlier the gateway centers quarters and neighborhood centers. There's also a process strategy that goes along with each so in for the most case, when you're looking at the topical strategies the climate action plan, the new land uses, etc. These are things that will probably require some additional research into best practices, what have other communities done that have has worked for them, developing draft language and legal review, they aren't necessarily need it's not necessarily needed to have an additional planning process for them they're fairly clearly outlined in some of your original plans, brought forward here because of their importance to the overall city, but you don't necessarily need to do a lot of public outreach and you'll see there's an asterisk for design and development standards I'll get to that. In terms of the geographic strategies for looking at these, we think that you'll want to have additional community outreach said in fact you're probably going to want to have neighborhood plans that look at specific areas now Medford Square is an exception because you've already done a lot of planning around Medford Square. But to look at to some of the gateways to look at some of the neighborhood centers maybe take another look at West Medford and Wellington you're going to, you're going to want some neighborhood planning there. And so that requires more community engagement that's going to be a process that you can start now, but it's going to take a little bit longer than some of the topical ones. Now, I called out design and development standards separately because I think, for example, with the Climate Action Plan, with some of the other work that you've done, if it's a development standard that's related to a use, or if it's a development standard that's related to some of the recommendations in the Climate Action Plan, those probably just need the best practice research, the draft language, and the legal review. On the other hand, if you're talking about design guidelines or design standards for a specific area, say, West Medford Square, Medford Square, or Wellington, you're probably going to want to have, as part of that community engagement, a discussion of what makes sense in terms of consistency, people's expectations for an area, how the physical environment affects how people move through it a whole series of design conversations that would then go into the neighborhood plan so that's why that one's pulled out so there's these two different standards and happy to talk about that more as we go through. Next slide please. So I mentioned benchmarks earlier, and these are ways of tracking and measuring progress. So we've indicated some trends here. Is the trend increasing? Is the trend decreasing? If you've established a metric that you want a trend to be increasing, And as you measure the impact of some of these strategies that trend is decreasing so for example you say you want to increase total housing units, and in the next two to three years total housing units aren't increasing, then you know you need to look back at the strategies and see if they're effective. Same thing with the decrease in the percentage of population that is housing costs burden so the benchmarks establish the trend line. And then the idea is for city staff, city departments to establish the specific numbers so that they have a base data starting with this year, and certainly some of the information that we've pulled establishes some of those bases but not all of them, and then they can measure progress as the years progress for those 10 year actions. Next slide please. And I touched on this a little bit with the benchmarks. It's first, establishing the direction of the trend that's important. Second, establishing the data points that are important. And then looking at how do we test the impacts. So, I'll point down at the bottom, sharing the water quality measurements on the website. So the trend is we'd like the water quality measurements to improve, we collect the data, and then we publicly show progress that that's happened. And so we've looked at points throughout there where it's possible to say, for example, has the regional trail been extended through Medford Square? Are we getting more incubator and art spaces? And then use that as a check on an annual basis. as part of the review to see if the plan is doing what we've collectively anticipated it to do based on public comments. Next slide, please. So this is just an image of how the document works. And when you get into the section of looking at the goals, number one there, how it's numbered so you can understand the way it's moved through. And three, you see we've tracked the elements from chapter 81D and how those relate to what you're seeing for the goal. And then you're seeing the action titles and explanation of the action. the implementation plan that says who, what, where, how, that's going to be a separate section of the plan. So you've got a table that basically over the years, you can just check off and say, we've done this, we've done this. Oh, wait, we need to do some work on this. But the guidance in this section of understanding the goals, the strategies, and the actions should give you those first steps of how do we approach the actions that we're seeing. Next slide. So, Brie mentioned we are very close to releasing the draft plan we just have a few more checks to go with the city staff. We're going to I think city staff will post it on the website we've set up a little questionnaire so people can review the draft plan and respond to the questionnaire let us know what they think let us know you know they like these actions do they have some additional suggestions. And then at some point, what this will move into the approvals process so we'll have the plan online for enough time for people to have a chance to really engage with it. It will be presented to the mayor and the city council but you all have a huge responsibility because you're the city's planning board. And under chapter 41 section at one D you are responsible for approving this plan and adopting it as part of the city's as the city's official comprehensive plan so we will no doubt be back to you. As we get closer to that but I just wanted to give you a preview tonight before it goes out to the public. So you see you see parts of it first. And then finally, the plan still needs not just you on the board, but anybody who's watching this, any members of the Medford community. So please review the draft. If people are listening to this afterwards, implementation is going to require the support of everybody. So we hope this is a useful document for you many years into the future and we look forward to your comments both tonight and as the draft comes out. So thank you very much, Preet.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. I will stop sharing so we can all see one another and thank you for listening, but we would welcome questions and I can bring anything back up again too.

[Emily Innes]: Jackie I see a comment of yours in the chat about zoning strategies so yes, absolutely we're hoping this plan gives you guidance on the zoning strategies. As I said, we've we've shared a draft of how to think about how all the zoning works together. But certainly as you review this as you review the draft plan if you feel as a CD board that you need some more information on that we're happy to, you know, provide you additional guidance or information. There's a lot to unpack in this document. So as Brie said we could have been here a couple more hours.

[SPEAKER_07]: All right.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, this is Christy. I'd just like to say that was very nice presentation, and I just love the way that it was packaged and very comprehensive even for that. But it is a lot to unpack and feel like I just need to spend some time with it before I can ask probably more thoughtful questions. But very nicely done. Thank you.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. We're excited to have the document in hand for everyone, like we said, next week, and then would welcome input from you all and Alicia and Amanda as suggestions to make sure that we can hear your thoughts and incorporate and reflect them.

[David Blumberg]: This is David with a question. And this is something by statute that all cities, towns are supposed to be doing a process they're supposed to be following. Are there, to my knowledge, we haven't had one of these for a while, in a comprehensive way. Are there other neighboring communities that stand out as great examples where boy they went through this process they really rolled up the sleeves. And when the plan came out, they actually implemented a fair number of those, and we see a difference in the community as a result. Are there some shining stars that you might point to?

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: You want to start your list, Emily?

[Emily Innes]: You know, it's, it's interesting that you mentioned that you know Medford doesn't have a comprehensive plan. One of the things that we delved into was the history of documents that was great because city staff members kept pulling out documents that, hey, we found something from 1983 we found something from 1966 but Those were very limited in their scope, there were far more of the straight land use. What should we do about this, it was, they were great in terms of history and understanding why some of the decisions that were made were made I think you know obviously some of your neighbors and nearby communities, Somerville Arlington. Arlington's got some good plans. It's hard to say which are due to their comprehensive plans, and which are due to the follow on plans, the more strategic plans from the comprehensive plans I think the two of them work hand in hand. And it's one of the reasons we mentioned the neighborhood plans is that they've got the Boston's actually been doing this with their own as they had their imagine 2030. but they're in fact using a neighborhood by neighborhood strategy of doing far more in depth, and I see that as a real model for Medford, because the comprehensive plan is really that 50,000 foot view, you're trying to bring everything together and understand how the different pieces talk to each other, but for some of those planning efforts you really need to be much much closer you need to be at the 5000 foot view. And that's where those neighborhood and gateway and corridor plans come in. So I think the strategy that Boston is using to do that is really important.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: And I would just add, I think, coming into doing this plan, Medford was in a really good position because there were a lot of citywide plans that were recent. So not a comprehensive plan, but the climate plan, the housing plan. And so Now all of those things are synced and aligned here. And so they're all in alignment. And so that sets up, I think, that neighborhood planning well, too.

[Emily Innes]: And I really want to give the city kudos for the amount of planning that they've done. In some case it was very easy for us because we just sit there and answer scroll through and say, these are great we're just going to pull those over but now we can talk about the relationship of these to the other parts of the city so yes you didn't have a comprehensive plan but you had all of the building blocks in place.

[David Blumberg]: That's super helpful. It sounds like, as in the city, I imagine the mayor is the one who's driving the follow on plans on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis and really pushing that process forward mayor's office.

[Alicia Hunt]: So I mean, it depends. We work very closely with the mayor's office. And I would say specifically with the mayor. When she's thinking about economic development, business development, she's coming to Victor and to myself. Like there's not other staff in her office working on this. And so we have been working with her and we've been hearing what the consultants have been saying and what the pressures are because part of it, part of where you know where we need to focus most urgently has to do with what phone calls and emails are coming in and developers are contacting us all the time saying, we're thinking about this, and we're thinking about this location, and I'll tell you that I funnel all of those to Victor, and he sort of figures them out, and which ones are just sort of testing the waters, and which ones are like really, really serious, and where are we going with them? And so one of the things I think we've mentioned to this group is that we went out and got a grant, Victor wrote the grant, to do a plan or a study for the Wellington Center area, the Wellington Square, because that is one of the areas that we are hearing from a lot, either the property owners or the developers who want to do things there, and they want to do things that are not in alignment with our zoning, because nobody wants to build a two-story industrial building these days. And people look at this area so close to the T, and they even say, a one-story commercial, okay, two-story is allowed, doesn't make sense. Wouldn't it make so much more sense to do a story of commercial with five stories of residential above it and have all this housing near the T? I'm willing. Well, now it would. Too bad our zoning doesn't allow that, right? So these are the things that we've been hearing. We're starting that study. As the consultants have said, we have not started a study of Medford Square. There are 500 recent studies and documents on Medford Square. So I don't think I'm speaking out of turn to say that Victor is working on the properties there. And what is the best next steps? We've been talking about doing a request for information from developers to see who's interested in doing what, what would be a good use of the municipal properties there. I think those are the hot ones. Right, so we're starting to move with these and we're starting to move in the areas. I wanna say we're doing studies everywhere, but there's just so many projects that individual people should be managing at one time. So we are trying to also balance our workload. Victor, there's something you wanted to add.

[Victor Schrader]: Only that, again, Medford doesn't have a history of focusing on economic development and strategic economic development planning. Ideally, in 10 years, we have, we're refreshing the Wellington circle plan, you know, and, and building on, on previous studies that were done. We're having to prioritize now because which there isn't a history to build off of. And so that's why we're focused on areas where there's a lot of activity and a lot of interest and we're having to make decisions, bring projects to you all, you know, that are, that are really out of conformance, but we think are good projects and, and, um, So that that's the challenge we're facing I think the feedback we got through the plan, which was very much focused on filling a gap in economic development thought at that 10,000 foot level was really helpful because it. It kind of reframed, I think, the community's mindset around what the potential is in some areas. But then we do need to spend time and engagement on those more neighborhood district level plans in order to make informed decisions about zoning change and what projects are a good fit and what the community really wants to see, as well as understand what the market potential is for these areas. Because we're figuring that out. but really don't have a full grasp on that.

[Emily Innes]: And if you don't mind me jumping back in Vic, I think your point about the economic development components being missing is an excellent one. I think that was, as we entered into this, that was probably the biggest hole in the previous plans in that there was a lot of focus on certain specific areas, repetitively in some cases, but not on the city as a whole and not really tied to what does economic development, how is economic development tied to land use? And so, again, we're hoping that the comprehensive plan strategy points to the direction. I think you all have already picked up and started moving as you've talked about on some of those pieces but the comprehensive plan should be able to help you guide further, you know, as you've started to address those pieces. The next ones can come up in the conversation. But understanding that the market demand, the trends and what that market demand is likely to change. As you say is really important on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, or a commercial area by commercial area basis so we hope the plan gives you that to continue continues to give you that direction.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I just wanted to quickly say in hearing everyone speak and how everything's been aligned right now and have had the honor of being on a selection committee for picking agency landscape and planning as the comprehensive plan team, I want to hyphenate your own strength and knowledge, which perfectly aligns with my presentation. efforts and all the great efforts of the mayor and all the city staff and Alicia and her department, which also included hiring our amazing economic development director, which he's been diligently attempting to fill in the gaps that he illustrated as challenges. And I'm saying that more sitting as a resident of Medford for many, many, many years. So as everyone's talking about all the pieces going together, it's just so great to see how they're all aligning now. I just wanted to highlight it everyone's knowledge and strength and how everything's going together, including the plans that Medford has been putting out.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: We felt that very much, I think, that the stars are aligning. And, you know, the community felt that in those conversations, too, that the community is feeling that and is pretty coalesced around it. Not a lot of dissent or disagreement. Really, people felt that these ideas, these places where more development could happen, that that was a great opportunity, could be tied to some of the affordability challenges and, you know, understanding that connection. I have you in my head too, Jackie, and the good conversations we had about the connections between development and mobility improvements and infrastructure improvements, which need to be dovetailed. So hopefully the comprehensive plan is a chance to bring all those pieces that are sometimes disparate together.

[David Blumberg]: It all sounds good to me but it's, it seems like such a daunting task to convert so many aspirational goals, which are the senior absolutely wonderful and on target. And as you said there seems to be consensus that's built around them by way of your community engagement, which it just sounds awesome. But how do we, how do we actually implement these things but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself because that's the way my brain works but I know this, the city residents have been critical of the city generally for not implementing for studying, but not following through. the more we can convert these things into things that we can see and feel and experience, I think the better, well, the better our city will be, but the better for everyone involved as well.

[Victor Schrader]: David, I've had the benefit of working in communities with strong comprehensive plans and it sort of goes two ways. It allows the community to hold you know, city government accountable, it's written down. These are cooperatively developed goals and strategies. It also helps city staff say, look, we're working on this, and we need funding for X, or we need your support on Y. It's in the plan, and you can point to that. You know, I've heard it a million times, playing just sit on shelves and they're not worked, but it, and the accountability has to work both ways, but I've seen it happen and it can be really, really powerful. Otherwise, you know, you're just sort of shooting from your hip and there's no continuity over time.

[Emily Innes]: And to that point and I completely agree we've recommended a master plan implementation committee, you can take the comprehensive plan and move forward with it you know be responsible for checking to make sure that it's being implemented. We've recommended that it be integrated into the city's budget process, so that as department heads are filling out their budgets they are referring to the comprehensive plan. saying how their budgets are meeting those goals. And then at appropriate points in that layout that I showed you, we're also providing case studies of how other communities have accomplished some of these things so that there's a way to sort of check and see who else has been doing what. to implement it. So we have thought of that issue of accountability. It's very easy to put names to actions and say, off you go, go and do this. But we've tried to build in the checks and balances on making sure that it gets done. And to Victor's point, the ability for somebody to stand up at a CD board meeting or a city council and say, it says right here on page 32, that's a very powerful way of communicating with one's government.

[David Blumberg]: Sounds great. Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: And one of the things that we're looking at with the implementation chart particularly is that different actions have different city stewards. So one of the things that I think I will say our climate plan is so new that it's hard to say like this works really well because we've barely had it. You know, we released it a few months ago. But one of the things we really look to is with all the actions, we put a point person or department who's responsible for it. And frankly, when we put a department, we mean the department head. But we don't put people's names because it doesn't matter if it's John or Mary. It matters who's in that role. is responsible for it. But one of the things I really pushing for is that we spread the love that that responsible person is not the department, the planning department for every single item, but that where does it best fit in the municipal structure because if one person or one position is responsible for 40 things, it's not gonna happen the way these go under engineering, and this is part of health, and this is the mayor's office of communication, and this is the planning office. And there's a lot that says planning office next to it, but it's not everything. And we're trying to think strategically about this. And it also, it raises involvement. And so if I can pull away the layers a little about what we're doing, pull away the curtain, there is a full draft. I've asked to try to have myself read it, have me read it first. And a little bit of that is fact-checking, right? Like I'm not gonna say, well, I don't like this opinion, we should change it. But I will say there have been some places where I've said, This is what the climate plan said, and this is what you said it said, but it really said this, right? Because that's my particular area of expertise. But one of the things that I'm also doing is saying, who in each department or which departments are the knowledgeable people for all of these items. And so I have, Wren has been sitting with me and taking notes on all of that. So as we go through it, she's going to start sending chunks of it to different departments saying, You're welcome to read the whole plan, but we would really like you to look at these five actions, read them thoroughly and weigh in on them. And we think that you may be the steward for some of these. Do you agree? We found that with that process with the climate plan, it meant that when you send the transportation person the transportation actions and ask them to review it, they find the time. You send them a 200-page document, they do not have the time. So we're trying to be strategic about making sure the right people put their eyes on this document so we have their buy-in. I'm frustrated by how long that is taking right now, and it's all on me. So sometime next week, we're just going to say let's release this, regardless of whether or not I've gotten through the whole thing. And I'm happy to send it to you guys. I sent Emily and Brie some corrections. And I don't know when we, a couple of those were meaningful to me. I thought then we could get a draft out to people.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think we just looked at those this afternoon, right before this. So we've got, I think, those, at least the meaningful ones made, and then a few questions next week. And so that's why we're thinking next week. But we've got that ready to go. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Because I have opinions. I've been trying to, opinions are in one bucket. This is more like, I don't think this is right. I think we misunderstood something here.

[Emily Innes]: And that's incredibly valuable. And again, this is a lot to unpack. So having Alicia's eyes, having Ren's eyes, having Amanda's eyes on it saying, hey, we think you misunderstood this, or can you clarify that, or we need more information here is really, really useful to us.

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, sorry, Alicia. I was just going to say, because I'm someone who's like this, where I sometimes just need some time to myself to unpack things. So if anyone from the board has things that, as they kind of sit with this, they want forwarded over to our consultant team, please feel free to send them my way and I can forward them over. That's not to stop discussion now, but I just want to acknowledge.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, Amanda.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, and I do want to comment. Earlier we were having a public hearing where we're very limited about who can speak. We do have a couple of members of the public on still if you wanted to open it up if they have any questions or comments. There's no reason. This board's generally pretty informal.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, if any of the community members, if you would like to speak, you're welcome to raise your hand or use the comment box or just unmute yourselves.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I don't mean to rush the board, but nobody's taking the lead here and saying, OK, let's move to the next agenda item, or let's give everybody some more space to think. I'll recommend moving to the next agenda item.

[David Blumberg]: I'll second that recommendation slash motion.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right. Sounds good. Hearing no objections. Thank you so much, Brie and Emily for your time tonight.

[oefytL6ycdo_SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. And thank you to Lauren. Yes. Corte, your thoughts.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so the last item for tonight has to do with elections. So as you all are aware, our beloved previous chair, Andre, is no longer chair. So we'd love to, or we need to have someone eventually fill that role. I do wanna acknowledge that Deanna's not present tonight. And given the kind of last minute piece of this notice, she wasn't able to to provide input ahead of time. So I kind of just want to pose it to the board. Do you all want to continue with potential election discussion tonight? Do we want to start it and finish it later? Should we just finish it tonight? How are people feeling about that?

[Alicia Hunt]: And to be clear, Deanna is not staying long term. We are actively working to fill her position. And then so technically, Emily filled the vacant spots. And we thought we had somebody for Deanna. Andre spots, there may be some complication with that. So we're looking for some more recommendations that still may happen. We'll see. But we are, Deanna will probably stay on for at least another month, but I wouldn't elect her chair because technically her term is over and she will be rolling off. So everybody else is here tonight though, right?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes. I have a couple of questions. One, shouldn't there be a reelection of also the vice chair, which is my position. I've been in it for, I'm happy to remain in it, but also is there any interest in chair? That's one of the things that I wanted to know, have people sent their names? Because we voted Andre in last time because he had expressed interest and he had actually held it over from previously. And so we just elected him into that seat.

[David Blumberg]: As a reminder, we have multiple titles, lots of titles to go around because we do have a chair chair and clerk, clerk position as well.

[Victor Schrader]: It looks like places sending an email right now to Amanda, putting his name in the.

[David Blumberg]: Is it a request or an ultimatum he's got for us?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I would vote. I would vote right now. I'd be ready to vote, please.

[Unidentified]: I don't have much to say about that.

[Jenny Graham]: But you're asking a good question. Who's interested? I mean, how do you vote if you don't know if anybody's, you know, interested or you can like recommend nominations, but.

[Michael Levaney]: Well, can we just ask if anybody is interested?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yeah, I think that's really what I'm trying to ask now to see if there is any interest. So we can know where we're voting.

[David Blumberg]: Jackie, would you be up for it as our experienced vice chair or would you be not so enthusiastic about that?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: So one of my biggest things with the chair is the quality of time that you can put into it. And I know that I would not be able to complete the duties outside of my work duties. So when they elected, I thought about it. And as much as I love my city, I just, I don't know that I have the capacity at this time. Not to mention, there's no stipend for me, but I would do it for free anyways.

[Alicia Hunt]: Is it sort of helpful for us to review, because as you're mentioning the time commitments, it's not always obvious to people what the chair does, but we do consult pretty regularly with the chair on matters about whether or not something needs to come before the board. Sometimes there are things of discretion. Amanda frequently reviews the projects with the chair in advance. Amanda, do you want to talk a little bit about, because you are really the person who has been interacting with the chair the most over the past year.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about kind of what that has looked like with me so far. So in the past, I typically meet with the chair at least once before any scheduled meeting. And during that meeting, we go over what's expected. you know, field questions that either the chair has about the project, um, and also, like, questions I might have or the office might have about, like, is there other information that you anticipate that the board would really find helpful or useful? Um, and so we would have that one at least one meeting usually before, um, before each of the public meetings. Otherwise, occasionally we would maybe bring the chair into conversation if there's a project that, I don't know, for various reasons, maybe there's like some multiple questions about or like, for example, with rise, we consulted with Andre a little bit after that one of some of the two like initial meetings that were had by the board just to kind of get a sense of there was some like question about like, are we getting enough information before you like, what are the questions that you have slash board members expressed? Yeah, so I would say that's about the gist, occasional consultation on things, depending on the nature of what's coming before the board.

[Alicia Hunt]: I guess I could say that in a big picture way, we often get questions about how would the board feel about this? Like, should we bring it in front of the board? What would be the kinds of things they would want to hear from us? And depending on the nature of the project and the question, we can just answer that because we know, we've seen you guys ask, This is similar projects, similar questions, and this was a similar project. This is the kinds of stuff that were asked for. This is what they were looking at. And sometimes it'll be a project and we'll be like, we have no idea what they're going to want to know or what's going to be different. And so it is useful to bounce some stuff off of somebody. rather than me speaking for the board, the chair can sort of say like, well, these are the kinds of things, you know, they could never say we're going to decide this or decide that, but they can make it clear. Like there's just not enough information here. You know, if you bring it like this, you're going to get, uh, continued. And so you might as well just bring the information to first place.

[Unidentified]: Hmm.

[Amanda Centrella]: And then I guess another small piece that I'll throw into the mix to think about is that, you know, whoever has interest and is nominated as chair, you and I can work together to figure out what kind of a strategy or, you know, schedule or whatever works for us going forward. So for example, like Andre and I, I would prep kind of like a meeting preparation document that, you know, would have, different things of note and, you know, the governor's notice, for example, to read out and, and things like that. And we sometimes go over it ahead of time. And, but we, you know, I'm happy to work with whomever to kind of figure out and strike a good balance of what works.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think the other thing that's important is that the chair does set the tone of the meeting. So I sit in on a lot of different board meetings, and I kind of actually felt it a lot this evening, is that, you know, okay, is it time to move on? Is it time to call the question? Is it time to close this? Are people thinking or are they checked out, right? You know, some I see some chairs who talk a lot and railroad the board a little. Usually those are not decision making boards. And I see other chairs who sit back so long that that meetings just sort of like as you were kind of saw this evening without somebody stepping up saying, OK, what's next? What's next? You know, things just can drag. So there is a certain amount of tone setting and setting the direction of in the meeting, right? Like, all right, I'm ready to entertain a motion. Their opinions sort of come through in the running of the meetings on the various cases. So I just think it's helpful to think about how does that, so you tend to have a lot of influence on whether or not it is your intention.

[Jenny Graham]: My recommendation would be anybody who can run a very swift and efficient meeting.

[Alicia Hunt]: I have the feeling you're all capable of doing it if you know that that's what the rest of the board wants. So thank you for saying that, Christy.

[Jenny Graham]: I think the challenge is the time commitment, right? I could say that anybody on this board could take on the chair based on their experience and background. But to like Jackie's point, it's just really making sure that there's an understanding of the time commitment because each person I believe really wants to do a really good job and not, you know, fail one another or the city if they can't make that time commitment.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I was just going to say, one of the things that I've always done when I, like, for instance, I just helped MAPC with their rollout of the 2050, their 2050 Metro Carmen plan. And when the executive director approached me, I had to think about the quality and the time that I was dealing with that in my other work. So it's like one of those things where it's like, you just don't want to raise your hand just because you have that expertise and that knowledge. You want to make sure that everything fits the box and that you actually are seeing things. And now that I'm starting to think about it, their plan, as well as the Medford Comprehensive Plan, as well as our work, and then the exodin recodification, it all does work together. And maybe since I'm already working on all those other pieces, maybe I can, if no one else puts their hand up, maybe I can help our board move forward with the chair and sit in that seat.

[Alicia Hunt]: If it would make you feel more comfortable, I feel like we could also say, it is the intention that chairs are elected for a year, but I think that everybody would also be understanding if at any point the time commitment became overwhelming, we come back to the board and say, we need to reconsider, or you could say, I need to reconsider, I need somebody else to do this. I feel like it's, everybody's very friendly here.

[David Blumberg]: I'd be willing to do it if for no other reason than to get us out of here tonight and be able to close up our meeting.

[Unidentified]: I second that motion.

[Jenny Graham]: Should we take a vote.

[Alicia Hunt]: Candidates are one. Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. You're allowed to have just one, but I think I heard both Jackie and David say they're willing to do it. I heard that too.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes, but then I David came in strong after he came in really strong.

[David Blumberg]: This is my only involvement. So I mean, you're on like every board in the city, Jackie.

[Jenny Graham]: So I think David really wants to do it.

[David Blumberg]: I'm dying to do it. I've sent multiple emails already about it.

[Jenny Graham]: Oh,

[Jacqueline McPherson]: That's important information to know. A motion to elect David Bloomberg as the chair of the Metric Community Development Board. We have a second.

[Jenny Graham]: I second. I third.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right. Well, that's three votes already. David, what do you think?

[Emily Hedeman]: And Emily? Well, yeah. I mean, if this is the official roll call vote. Roll call vote. You got my vote, David.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you. All right.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I do want to get us out of here, but I'm assuming that we don't have to reelect myself as chair or we're going to do that as well. I mean, as vice chair.

[Amanda Centrella]: unless I would propose, Jackie, if you are comfortable maintaining the vice chair seat, then I propose we continue that. But if you are reconsidering that seat, then we can discuss.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I can definitely be a backup as a vice chair. No problem.

[David Blumberg]: Great. Motion to elect Jackie as vice chair.

[Jenny Graham]: I'll second. Second. This is Christy.

[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, roll call vote. David Bloomberg?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Christy Dowd? Yes. Klaus Andreessen?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Emily Hedeman?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes. Thank you.

[Amanda Centrella]: Great. And yeah, congratulations to you both. We do technically still have a third position, the clerk or secretary position, who would be involved in approving the minutes. We haven't historically had this filled, and our office has been acting in that role, and I'm happy to keep doing that, but if, If someone would like to fill that role or we want to have a discussion about it, now is certainly an appropriate time for that.

[David Blumberg]: Amanda, just for background, by way of our discussion over the regulations and so forth, and the clerk being called out in the statute as an actual officer of planning board, it's really just a third person who's in sequence in case there are recusals or absences. And certainly this person could work with you to figure out what level of involvement they might need the minutes. I'm thinking they probably just make sure they read the minutes for each meeting. Maybe that this person, the clerk, is the person who maybe offers the minutes to the board for approval, that sort of thing. And that's probably as much as needs to happen.

[Alicia Hunt]: So it sounds like you're looking for somebody to commit that they will read the minutes before each meeting when Amanda sends them and then say to the board, I've read the minutes and I submit them to you for your approval.

[David Blumberg]: I think that's as much as needs to happen. And then otherwise you're third in succession.

[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, Emily, I thought you were unmuted because as the new member, you were gonna volunteer to do that.

[Emily Hedeman]: I actually was gonna volunteer to do that. Minus the last point, which is third in succession, I'm comfortable with everything else. So if you guys are comfortable with that, I can throw my name up. And to Christie's point, get us out of here. But I'm also fine with supporting somebody else if there's somebody more interested in that role.

[David Blumberg]: Emily, just using the term succession, I might've given it more weight than it really means. I mean, for instance, Jackie has never, Jackie never, well, one meeting, I think Jackie said.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yeah, just one.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, but if both of you've recused yourself and you need somebody to preside over something, I'm comfortable. I was on the Somerville Redevelopment Authority. I staffed that board. So I'm very comfortable around boards.

[David Blumberg]: You'd be good to go.

[Jenny Graham]: Okay, my vote is in. make a motion for Emily to second.

[Amanda Centrella]: So quick roll call vote. Christy Dowd?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Jackie Furtado? Yes. David Bloomberg?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Klaus Andreasen?

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Emily Hedeman? Yes. Great. We have our new officers. Thank you all so much. I will only keep you a short second longer just to let you know that things coming up on the horizon. We do have two applications that were officially submitted for site plan review. I mentioned, I think, at least one of them in a previous meeting, 162 Mystic Ave Theory Wellness Cannabis Dispensary proposed, as well as a site on 595 Broadway, which would be multifamily, which actually has gone before the board in the past, but because of the time lapse from when they last submitted to us and the change in membership of both this board and the ZBA, we asked them to resubmit. So we can anticipate figuring out some scheduling for a mid-August meeting next. So keep your ears peeled, wait, eyes peeled for that email. We can start figuring out those dates.

[Alicia Hunt]: And if 595 doesn't sound familiar, it's because, Amanda, it was 2016, right? Was it? I thought it might've been 2020, actually. Thought it was so long ago that none of us were on the board. Maybe it was 2016.

[Victor Schrader]: Pre-Zoom meetings.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. Okay, well, thank you all so much for the time tonight. Emily, welcome to the welcome to the crew. And do we have a motion to adjourn?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: A motion to adjourn the meeting. Seconded.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right, quick roll call vote. So Jackie Furtado?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Emily Hedeman?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Christy Dowd? Yes. Klaas Andreassen? Oh, I think you might be muted.

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, there you go. And David Bloomberg.

[David Blumberg]: Yes.

[Amanda Centrella]: All right, we are officially adjourned. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thanks, have a great night.

[Unidentified]: Thank you.

[Alicia Hunt]: David, we're going to put your name on that decision this evening then.

[David Blumberg]: Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: It comes from the chair.

[David Blumberg]: Understood.

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: I'll check it in the notes. Goodnight.

[Alicia Hunt]: Goodnight. Night.

Jenny Graham total time: 1.64 minutes total words: 132