total time: 11.39 minutes
total words: 882
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some regulatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting in long progress may do so by accessing the link that was included. on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford's website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please know that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website at medfordma.org. And you can click on current CD board filings. Daniel will provide the link in the chat. I'm going to do a roll call attendance for the board. Vice-chair Emily Hedeman. Present. Peter Kautz. Ari Fishman. I saw Ari. Present. Awesome. Pam Marianski. Pam. Sally Akiki. Present. Sherrod Bacharia.
[Danielle Evans]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jacqueline Person. Let's see, Danielle, can you please introduce anyone from the staff?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, with us tonight is Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Clem Doucette, who is a graduate student intern in our office, and myself, Danielle Evans, Senior Planner.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. So the first item on our agenda this evening after getting into order is a special permit drive-thru use for 3850 Mystic Valley Parkway, Bank of America. It's continued from 10-4-23. The applicant is applying for a special permit for a bank drive-thru ATM at 3850 Mystic Valley Parkway, which is in the Meadowbrook Mall, aka Wegman Plaza, specifically the northerly service parking lot. The special permit grant authority is the city council, and it has been referred to the city board for the board's recommendation on the matter. The matter has been continued several times in order to redesign the site plan to satisfy planning staff and for sign on from other tenants on the shopping plaza. I'm going to invite the applicant to introduce yourselves now, and you can present any updates on the proposal.
[Bill Lucas]: Good evening. This is Bill Lucas with Boulder Engineering. I'm here with Craig of CBRE and Andy of Permit Expeditors. I believe everybody is well aware of both of those folks based on the fact that we've been here a few times. I'm going to try to share my screen now.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Danielle, have you provided screen sharing ability to all three of those members?
[Danielle Evans]: I should. I should have.
[Bill Lucas]: Great. I believe everybody can see the screen now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Bill Lucas]: Great. Thank you. So, moving forward, Bank of America, 3850 Mystic Valley Parkway. As was described, this is a northern portion of the Meadow Glen Mall parking lot, which on your screen is in the lower left-hand corner, delineated by that red box noted as the project site. And the overall Glen Meadow property itself is identified in this purple line outline. This is a little zoomed in view of that portion of the parking lot that we are proposing to develop for the Bank of America itself. As you can see, it is underutilized from a parking standpoint, making it a great opportunity to further develop and enhance the Meadow Glen Mall. The proposal that you see in front of you is slightly changed from our previous meeting in front of this board to primarily add parking to the rear of the site, which is the eastern portion that you see at the back of the screen. Previously, this proposal was just for the 5,500 square foot bank that you see in the lower left. section of the plan itself, including parking that primarily surrounded that bank and then allowed access to the drive aisle on the right hand side, which is an existing drive aisle to the Meadow Glen Mall. And we were also proposing a new curb cut, full movement access out to Locust Street here on the bottom center of the plan, and then a exit only drive also out to Locust Street on the left-hand side of the bank itself, thereby allowing drive-through traffic to traverse the site in a counterclockwise fashion and stack on the left-hand side or the northern side of the bank itself. One other enhancement that I forgot to bring up that we had discussed previously was a pocket park that we've included on the northeastern side of the intersection of the drive aisle and Locust Street. That has not been changed since our last meeting. This gives you a quick representation of the building itself as viewed from Locust Street. A 2nd, view of that building and on the left would be the drive file for the drive through window service. This exhibit again, we have provided previously just outlining. where pedestrian traffic could occur on the site itself. There's existing sidewalk along Locust Street and along the drive aisle up to Meadow Glen Mall, but then now we have the additional pedestrian circulation that can happen to the Bank of America, to the parking field, and through the pocket park itself based on Previous comments from the fire marshal, we have delineated a 2 different scenarios for. Fire truck traffic or circulation around the site in an emergency condition that shows you access from locus street around the building itself. And this provides, again, a different second route from Logan Street onto the drive aisle into Meadow Glen and then around the back of the building. Now, unfortunately, this was not updated for the full parking field at the rear of the site. But dimensionally, these drive aisles line up exactly with the additional parking that we were showing previously. Based on that, I will open it up to questions. And or if Craig would like to make any statements on behalf of Bank of America.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, thanks, Bill. Appreciate you presenting that. And my thanks to everyone here on the call for just working with us, especially the planning department, Danielle, Amanda, Alicia, appreciate the feedback. and getting us here to where we are today. We have received landlord approval. All tenants have approved the layout as you see it today. So we, again, appreciate your time this evening. And if you have any questions, obviously, like Bill said, please go ahead.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Jackie, you're on mute. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you so much for your presentation. I appreciate it. We appreciate it at this time. We're going to ask if the city staff has any comments that they want to add.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I'll just add that we appreciate Bank of America working with us to meet the requests of the city and the current standards of the city. And we appreciate the property owner working with us to meet the needs of the city as well, and going back to their other tenants to get their full approvals as needed for this. I don't know if Danielle wants to speak to any specifics, but I did just want to thank them for working with us on this. I realize it hasn't been easy.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, through the chair, I also want to thank the applicants for really significantly improving this proposal. It wasn't easy to work with some of the other tenants where it was their corporate headquarters, so it wasn't even, you know, people that's like on site and getting those approvals and coming up with a compromise to keep some of the rear parking field as the compromise to get sign off from the other tenants at this time. And I feel that at some point in the future, we'll be able to demonstrate that that area is not needed and that something, a higher and better use to go there.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I will open it up to the board and I want to remind the board that there are some conditions that have been set forth, recommended by the city for us to deliberate on as we go through. We can either adopt, amend, disagree, or totally change them as you wish to go through. I'm not sure if you've all had a chance to look at them. But I will open it up for deliberation now from the board. Any board members have questions on the conditions or clarifications? All right, hearing none, I'm going to open it up for public comment, just in case there's public comment. If there's anyone that wants to speak from the public. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature, which places you in the line to be recognized and unmuted by staff. Individuals may have up to two minutes to provide comments. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. You can also provide written comments via email. to ocd-ma.gov. A reminder to all meeting participants to refrain from using the chat function to post or message comments as it is not part of the public record. However, if a participant is having audio or other technical difficulties, this may be entered into the chat to let myself and staff. Danielle, can you please manage the public comment queue and acknowledge any previously sent emails or letters regarding this item?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, I don't see anyone from the public looking to speak to this. I have not received any emails on this at all. So we can probably close that portion of the hearing or meeting. It's not a public hearing. And also, should I share? Would it be helpful if I share the conditions? Yes, please. OK. Let's see. Bill, are you the one who's currently screen sharing? Let's see. OK.
[Bill Lucas]: I was, and I dropped it for you.
[Danielle Evans]: We hunt for this. Oh.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And while we do that, I'm going to close the public comment.
[Danielle Evans]: We're going to make this bigger. Can everybody see this okay?
[Bill Lucas]: Yeah, that looks good, Danielle.
[Danielle Evans]: So some conditions are the updated control plans, any plan modifications. You need to come back to speak with staff to see if it's a minor change or if it needs to come back to the board. And that when this is approved, that you will record this. Prioritizations for building permit. You need to update or submit an updated detailed landscaping plan to PDS and showing us the final species selection for us to sign off on. My understanding is there is not an updated landscaping plan yet, but you can submit that by building permit. And can you speak to where you'll provide the EV charging station? Or can you confirm that you're able to?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Danielle. So that was a discussion we've had with the Wegmans landlord. But that's part of their profile that will be added for the entire center. So being that we're tenants in that shopping center, that we weren't either required to do it by them, because we'll fit into that. They'll accommodate the tenants with their EV charging stations. Unless you're deeming that we need to provide it separately from the shopping center, but Jane, the representative from that group has sent an email saying that they're in the process of working on that plan. And they'll roll that out to all of their shopping centers that that's within their business profile.
[Danielle Evans]: Through the chair, I guess I'll defer to Alicia. Now that the city has adopted the specialized stretch code, are they required to at least lay the conduit down under their parking lot, or is it treated as the entire plaza? Because this is part of our performance standards that we provide EV chargers, but knowing that this is a multi-tenanted property, I'm not sure if there's Any guidance on where, how many EV chargers there would need to be? Because I don't know what the Meadow Glen Mall's plans would be.
[Alicia Hunt]: So it's part of building code. So it's not, whether or not we include it in the requirements, they would have to, so it's 20% of parking needs to be EV ready wiring for residential and business. But that's not charging stations, that's the wiring and that's part of building code. Requiring a charging station would be at the discretion of the Community Development Board and whether or not you feel that having them installed over by Wegmans rather than by the bank is more appropriate or is a requirement or is even allowed. That would be something that the commission could talk about, but it is not part of building code. Building code is that they have to do some pre-wiring for EV charging.
[Danielle Evans]: So, for their building permit on their leased area, they'll need to prewire.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's our understanding of the building code and that's something that the building department would need to review.
[Bill Lucas]: And Danielle or Alicia, does that also mean that 20% of the parking field associated in and around the area of the Bank of America should be pre-wired?
[Alicia Hunt]: Honestly, I feel like that is the kind of question that is out of our scope to answer that the building commissioner or the building inspectors would need to actually tell you how they're interpreting the new building code. It's a lot easier. If we were looking at a residential structure with a residential parking garage, I think it would be easy to say, yeah, the building department is going to require that 20% of those spots have power brought into them. Whether they're going to require that under an outdoor parking field, I actually have not dug deep enough into the building code to know if that's also required or not. OK, thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So what would be the proper way to condition it so that it doesn't provide undue burden onto the proponent if it's something that we can't determine at this juncture now?
[Alicia Hunt]: So it's unnecessary for the board to condition things that are in building code. Building code only talks about pre-wiring spaces. It does not talk about required charging stations. If the board would like to require that of the applicant. And what they're saying right now is that it sounds like, if I understand correctly what you said, you said Wegmans is going to put in charging by their store?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, not by Wegmans, but the landlord in whole. So that whole shopping center is going to be encompassed in their EV charging initiative. So they will take the entirety of the leasable parcel, which includes Bank of America, and they will install the required amount of EV charging stations because we haven't separated the parcel from there. We're still a tenant of that landlord. So the landlord has told me that as part of their sustainability and the electrical vehicle charging initiative, they will install that in the future. They're just in the middle of rolling that out and how and when that looks like and when they haven't determined yet. But that is part of the future development of that shopping center is what I was told. And to add to that, Alicia, we would be happy, the bank would, to get this approved so there's no more holdups. I've already spoken to senior leadership at the bank. And if it's required for us to put in future wiring, uh, for, you know, our, for our use at the bank, we're, we're happy to comply.
[Danielle Evans]: So through the chair, one of the performance standards that, um, nonresidential, um, projects need to comply with, if not for projects requiring special permits. So that's why I put, because when I was, you know, analyzing the project against the special permit criteria, as well as the performance standards, one of those is vehicle charging stations, and that they should, the applicant will incorporate vehicle charging infrastructure to the maximum extent feasible into its parking areas and make provision for future expansion of such infrastructure. So
[SPEAKER_01]: So, again, Daniel, we're happy to do that, but is that number based on. We require 26 parking spaces, so then 20% of those 26 parking spaces. Is what we would need to pre wire that I guess that maybe that's what Alicia saying the building department would need to determine that.
[Danielle Evans]: Well, there's 2 things going on there's building code requirements and then there's performance standards of our zoning ordinance and. The zoning ordinance doesn't, um. Give a. A hard number, it just says that you'll incorporate vehicle charging infrastructure to the maximum extent feasible. And I felt that 1 charging. Station would be sufficient. 1 station with 2. And I will say that if you provide charges. that really, even for employees to use that's convenient, then that does increase EV ownership. So if there is an employee at the bank who knew there was an EV charger on site, even if it doesn't have to be free, you can charge for the electricity, that it does increase EV ownership.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you now that we'll edit. We want to be good members of the community we're moving into. We have no problem with doing that. So I'll make that happen at this location, no problem.
[Danielle Evans]: So you're okay with condition number five as written?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, ma'am, I am. Okay, thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Is the board okay with number five as written after hearing what has been presented by the city? Does anybody have any questions? No questions. Thanks. Thanks chair. Well, I want to just echo what the city has said, and I want to thank the applicant for. just your diligence and remaining the course and getting us to a plan that's approved across the board by all and all the work that you've done and being a minimal to the suggestions and the changes and. It's just really appreciated, especially with the enhancing of the landscape and with the pocket park on the corner and just making sure that you're a good neighbor overall. So I actually, with the conditions as set forth, I'm going to go ahead and ask for, if there's no other questions from the board, I'm going to request the motion to recommend the city council approval of the special permit subject to the conditions outlined in the staff dated memo 10-17-2023, in which Danielle was shown on the screen. I have a motion, Sally. Second. I'll second. All right, I'm going to do a roll call. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman? Yes. Ari Fishman? Ari, your sound's not working. Is that a thumbs up?
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thalia Kiki? Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Thank you so much for being here this evening. And you're all set.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. We appreciate it. And the board, thank you very much. We appreciate it. We look forward to being excited to be a part of your community. And to Danielle and Alicia, thank you very much for all your help in guiding us to this point. Appreciate that. Thank you all very much.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Have a good evening.
[Bill Lucas]: Have a good evening. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: The next item on our agenda this evening is A&R for Bradley. Let's see, what is the address for Bradley? 26 Bradley Road. And that's ANR, which is Approval Not Required Plan for Review. At this time, I'm just going to invite the proponent to present their plans for 15 Hadley. Introduce yourself and to present your plans for 15, I'm sorry, 26 Bradley Road.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, my name is Paolo Wojcik. I represent the owner of the Bradley Road LLC. And what we propose is we want to combine the lots. There is one owner for both lots. Basically, it's simply we just try to remove the line, the border. We just want to combine those two lots to be one lot. Instead of two lots being one lot.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Powell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. Thank you. If you don't have anything further, I'm going to ask comments from the city staff.
[Danielle Evans]: I'm going to share my screen for anyone who wants to see this. As you can see, so this is Bradley Road that's just behind the square. And up, let's see, if you can see my cursor, this is parcel B. As you can see that there is a lot line here, and this is what they're proposing to, you know, delete this lot line so that it is all one parcel. And it's an approval not required, meaning that this is pretty much just a formality, because the city of Medford is bound by the subdivision control law, which does not vest the power to sign off on these with the planning director. It has to be the city planning board, so you all the community development board. Because it's combining lots, the frontage isn't changing, all of that. you know, things that you would usually look at for separating lots. So this is a pretty straightforward A&R.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And because it's straightforward, technically all we're doing is, as you said, it's a formality where we're certifying that it's an approval not required because in this case, the city can't do that. And it meets all the criteria. So, for me, I don't know if there's any questions from the board, but I can just ask for a motion. Since the city has affirmed that the criteria has been met, I'll ask for a motion to approve. Although there's no approval needed. So I guess we're just making sure that we're all in agreement just by doing a roll call. Is that what it is? A motion to affirm? A motion to certify that there's approval not needed. Okay, so actually, I guess I need a motion first. I'll make a motion to affirm that approval is not needed. Okay, a second. I second. Vice Chair Emily Hederman? Yes. Ari Fishman? Sally Akiki? Yes. Sherrod Batracharia?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. I'm a yes. Thank you, Mr. Powell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Have a great evening.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, so the board's aware this, so we have, do we have the, um, there's a, the tech, the details. We have the Mylar here in the office. Is that correct? So this literally did now I'm second guessing myself. There was something that we had said that I could sign on behalf of the board, or is this something that we actually need everybody to come in? and physically sign it before the applicant can pick it up from us. This used to not be an issue with in-person meetings.
[Danielle Evans]: I don't know if that was during COVID times, even though I feel like we're still in COVID times, that there was some permission, I think, given to you, but I don't.
[Alicia Hunt]: know if that is still I don't, I'll check and I'll get back to the board. But just so you're aware, we may need you all to come in and physically sign this. And if that's the case, then I'll ask Clem to just coordinate that with you all. So sorry, it'll be it could take us a couple of days until next week till we can get all the signatures together to give you because you'll need this the Mylar with the signatures on it to go to the registry of deeds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I understand. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, great, thank you. I'll figure that out this evening. Sorry, I didn't think of that beforehand.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Our next item is approval of minutes. I'm not sure that everyone, so we have 9-6-23 and then 9-20-23 was added. Did everyone get a chance to read the additions? So I don't know if I can do this collectively. Can we do it in one? Or just say, I'm asking for a motion to approve draft minutes from 9-6 and 9-20 meetings? As long as there's no discussion, right? Yeah, as long as there's no discussion on either. All right, so I will ask for a motion to approve the draft minutes from 9-6-23 and 9-20-23. My motion for approval is 9-6-2-10-18. And what's the next one? The 9-20? What's the date? Yes, 9-20. 9-20. And I'll second. Thank you. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman? Yes. Abby Fishman? Sally Akiki? Yes. Sherrod Batracharian? And myself, Jackie McPherson. Okay. Ms. Salinas, are there any other updates from the city or anyone?
[Alicia Hunt]: No other updates? I was putting this in the chat. I found the letter. So there's a letter from the board to the registry saying that You give me the authority to sign. The Medford Community Development Board voted to approve the following resolution, Alicia Hunt, acting director, oh, we should change that, for the City of Medford's Office of Community Development is hereby authorized on behalf of the Medford Community Development Board under the subdivision control law, blah, blah, blah, to certify or endorse its approval or other action of any plan or other instrument required or authorized by the subdivision control law to be recorded and or to execute any agreement or other document to secure the performance of any person or applicant under the subdivision control law. The preceding authorization shall be effective from the date of its approval by the Medford Community Development Board until notice of its revocation is provided by said board. So I can sign it and we would provide a letter, a copy of this letter to the applicant, but this should be on file with the Registry of Deeds. And if you guys would prefer to sign these all yourself, you all can vote to revoke it and you can all do the signatures. Yes, but we have it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, sounds good to me. Any other updates? Danielle, do you have any idea what's coming down the line for us?
[Danielle Evans]: Um, I expect that, um, 100 Winchester PD will be applying for their PD special permit soon as well. Um. Walking court is. Putting together their site plan review package, and we're going to try to get a jump on the review. So circulating it among department heads so that if, and when the PDD 3 is adopted by the city council that it'll be ready to go because we know that they're on a. Pretty ambitious timeline. And what else? What I affectionately call the pit on Salem Street, 290 Salem Street. There is a mixed use development that will be coming before you probably in the next month or so, if they are able to revise their drawings. But I think those are the major things for now.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you. And Madam Chair, I would just like to make sure that the Community Development Board knows that our office has three positions posted. We are looking for an economic development planner, an economic development director, and a staff planner focused on housing. primarily affordable housing. If you know anybody who might be interested in those positions, they are on the city's website. We'd appreciate any help recruiting. I'm hoping to start interviewing for the staff planner positions very soon.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I was hoping, I thought you were getting closer to filling the economic development director.
[Alicia Hunt]: We had an excellent candidate who withdrew.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Oh, sorry.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, we were, we asked her to meet with the mayor and she said she was going to pursue an opportunity that was more in line with her career goals, unfortunately, because we went to the mayor saying she's amazing. You should hire her. We should hire her.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah. Heartbreak. Yeah. We're fun to work with, so people shouldn't be scared. The third floor, everything is chill on the third floor, City Hall.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Duly noted. All right. So I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn. This is Ari's favorite. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion to adjourn. Okay, second motion. I'll second on the name. Okay, we've been doing it all night. Vice Chair Emily Hedeman? Yes. Ari Fishman? Okay. Sally Akiki? Yes. Sherrod Bacheria?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Yes. Thank you, everyone.
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