AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 10-12-22

[David Blumberg]: Okay, great. Welcome everyone to our meeting. To get things started, of course, I have some obligatory comments to share with you. Let me read this message to everyone at the meeting 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 107 of the acts of 2022. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included in the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that, given the remote nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the Board will be made by roll call. Thank you. And again, welcome. My name is Dave Blumberg. Nice to see all of you. Please know that project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website. That's medfordma.org. Most easily by clicking on boards and commissions, scanning down to community development board, clicking through and taking a look at current CD board files. We have a larger than usual number of items on our agenda for this evening. Many people who are waiting to be heard. So I'll do my best to help us move efficiently through the docket. We'll start with roll call attendance of members of the board. And so I've already introduced myself as the chair, vice chair, Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Present.

[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody.

[Unidentified]: Present.

[David Blumberg]: Clyce Andreessen. Present. Emily Hedeman.

[Unidentified]: Present.

[David Blumberg]: George Fisher. Present. And do we have Christy? Christy Dow.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes, present.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, there you are. How are you?

[Jenny Graham]: I'm good, sorry. I'm still driving home, so I'll put my video on when I'm safe in the house.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, good to have you with us. Okay. First item on the agenda tonight concerns 15 and so let's replace the request for a bond reduction. Matt Roman Mr. Roman of brown dog companies you're here with us tonight.

[SPEAKER_12]: Hi, thank you everybody.

[David Blumberg]: Nice to see you back. Absolutely. Recurring your recurring guest on the, on the videos. Just to sort of cut to the chase for a minute, I understand that you are requesting a return of the balance of this bond. It's an amount that's been reduced over time as your company has hit certain construction thresholds along the way. And tonight's the night you want to have to return the balance for the remainder of that bond, is that right? That's correct, yeah. Okay, great. And, do you want to just mention, and you don't need to go into any detail, but just 30 to 60 seconds of where you're at.

[SPEAKER_12]: Sure. So the project is two new homes that were built to passive house standards. So they are ultra energy efficient. There's no fossil fuel. They're all electric homes. Not a lot of them being built here yet. These were my brother and I's second and third homes that we've done, we're now completing our fourth and fifth in another town. These homes have been done for over a year and have been lived in and the people love them. They're great. They're super comfortable homes. And the work's been done. We just, it's more administratively getting everything signed off. It's just, we'll sort of just dragged our feet in that regard. But everything has been done and the engineer signed off and said everything, you know, place looks great. We're happy with it. I think that the city should be pretty happy with it.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, that sounds good. And Amanda, do we have anyone from the city or do you have a message to convey from the city for everyone's benefit?

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. Yeah. So I did discuss with the engineering division and can confirm that they performed a review of all the work done and feel that the conditions are met and that they are on board to recommend approval for the bond release.

[David Blumberg]: OK, excellent. Are there any comments from the board? And if not, we can entertain a motion to allow the release of the remainder of the bond.

[Unidentified]: I'll make that motion.

[David Blumberg]: Do we have a second? Final second. Excellent. And let me go through the roll call then. Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Klyce Andreassen. Aye. Kristi Dowd.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: George Fisher. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. Great. Thank you, Mr. Roman. We appreciate it. Congratulations.

[SPEAKER_12]: Thank you all. I appreciate it. Have a good evening.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Okay. Bye bye.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, second item on the agenda tonight concerns 121 Riverside and Medford housing authority building there. The method housing authority will be going through site plan review with us it's anticipated to occur sometime in November. and understand that part of the site plan review process under the new ordinance is the requirement for a traffic study. Medford Housing is before us tonight to request that we waive that full requirement. And I just want the board to know and to assure them that the ordinance does allow us to make those sorts of waivers or accommodations if we find the circumstances merit them. So I'm not sure who would like to speak on behalf of Medford Housing Authority.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: This is Ben Wilson. I'm with Bargmann Hendry Archetype, our architectural firm, working with the Housing Authority on the project. And on the call here, and I apologize, my video is not working for some reason. I got to this link sort of circumscribed through Microsoft, and I think it screwed something up. So you'll have to trust me. I'm a trustworthy face.

[David Blumberg]: We'll give you a password tonight. Use your imagination.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_15]: Okay. So Gabe Cicerello is from the Housing Authority. He's on with us and Brian Ma who is working with Cambridge Housing Authority and is working as the project manager and development consultant is also on, as well as Brian, and I'm sorry here, let's see. Brian, can you help me out here, Brian? I couldn't find you. You got a picture, okay. Yeah, we're the transportation consultant on that project. So our goal here this evening is to talk through the traffic memo that has been submitted with our site plan application and the request for a waiver on the traffic study. So I think that's really all I can say and add to this conversation and really should maybe either Gabe or Brian, you can just summarize it for them.

[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, Gabe, I don't know if you wanted to go into anything, but I could really kind of summarize what we did on the transportation side real quick, if that's okay with you.

[David Blumberg]: If I could just jump in and just with the understanding we have members of the public who might be watching or following along with the proceedings tonight. And so I would find it of interest, I think other members of the public might, maybe Mr. Secorello could address this. And again, just in one minute, how does Medford Housing Authority, like, is it a state agency, it's a city agency? Like just give me kind of the mission statement if you can in 60 seconds or less.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Sure. Can I jump in too for a second? Sorry. Sure. Being that this is the first time coming in front of us, I'm pretty sure. I'd love a little synopsis of the project itself.

[Ciccariello]: Yeah, I'd love to give that to you. Okay, so I'm Gabe Ciccarello. I'm the Director of Modernization and Procurement for the Medford Housing Authority. So the Medford Housing Authority is an autonomous body. We have both federal and state public housing properties, and we also administer Section 8 vouchers. We have about 850 public housing units and administer about 1,000 Section 8 vouchers. We're coming before you tonight regarding the Salt and Stall project. It is currently a 200-unit elderly disabled development. We are doing a full rehab to the building. And through the process of kind of reconfiguring the interior, we're going to be adding 22 units. The existing unit configuration is there's 181 bedrooms and 22 bedrooms through mixing around the unit configuration and taking up some interior common space, we're able to add 22 units to the development. And there's also an add alternate to increase some of the footprint for our administration office, our home base, our administration offices are within the salt and salt building at 121 Riverside Ave. And the addition or the expansion of the office is not to really accommodate more staff, but it's just to make, to give the staff that we have there a little more space and just make it a little more workable because we're in very tight quarters there.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you for the overview. Realizing that we'll go into much more detail on the overall project itself at the site plan review. Could someone on your team give us a summary of PB, David Ensign — He-Him, He-Him. He-Him. PB, David Ensign — He-Him.

[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_15]: Brian Zamocha, senior project manager at Niche. We were retained by the proponent to basically just take a look at the traffic coming in and out and how can that be reflected in the future development. So we, as traffic engineers, we take a lot of traffic data. We had one of our employees go out and take traffic counts at the driveway during what we define as the weekday morning and weekday evening peak hours, which is the peak times for the commuters on the roadway. So we always want to look at what the impacts the site will have on the commuters. So we took our counts and we came up with a trip generation for the existing development. And then through that, we were able to come up with rates, which is trip per unit, and it came out to be about 0.25 trip per unit. apply that data to the additional 22 trips, and we get almost nothing, six trips in the morning, seven trips in the evening. So we don't, this is, you know, based on our experience, this is almost negligible traffic added. So, you know, just a full traffic study, I don't think would be warranted because all it's gonna show is you have no impact at all. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole lot of technical mumbo jumbo in the memo that I don't really want to go into in the interest of time. But the essence is, yeah, it's not going to have any traffic impacts.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, before I turn this to the board for questions, Amanda, do we have comments or city staff who would like to weigh in on this topic for us?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so I have a comment from Director of Transportation, Todd Blake, with the city. He reviewed the memo and waiver request, and his statement was that the memo appears to provide information to support not providing a full traffic study. So this doesn't necessarily mean that there will be no impacts, but just that the full traffic study may not provide more info that would significantly inform determining the project impacts. So essentially saying that he would be comfortable with the memo as was already provided and does not see the need for a full traffic study.

[David Blumberg]: And Mr. Ciccariello, you're This is a this is a nonprofit organization so you're trying to keep your cost down is that the gist of where we're at.

[Ciccariello]: Yes, we, as everyone knows, we just had all of our bids come in. In the last couple weeks, we're significantly over budget. We're under time constraints so it's a public housing where it is crazy we have a. It's a premium to build affordable housing. Yeah, every dollar we can save and time we can save is a huge asset.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, let me turn that back unless the MHA team has more to offer. Let me open it up to the board and see if there are any questions from board members.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: David, this is vice chair Jackie for title. Um, I wanted to go on record. I'm going to recuse myself from this conversation. Um, with, it just daunted me as, as, uh, the gentleman just referred to state funding. I work for the executive office of policy and economic development, which DHTD is under me and public health and authorities and the state of Massachusetts are under us. So I would have to recuse myself from this conversation.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. Well, thanks for bringing that to our attention.

[Ciccariello]: If it does make a difference, the SALT installed building at 120 Riverside Ave, it's a HUD development. It's a federally funded development. It's not under DHCD's purview. I don't know if that makes a difference.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Just to be on the safe side. Thank you. Just to be on the safe side. I understand. But thank you for providing that information.

[David Blumberg]: Thanks, Jackie. Any other? Yes, Emily, I see your hand.

[Emily Hedeman]: Sure. Looking at the traffic study, it looks like it was completed the week of Labor Day. Do you think that had any impact on the traffic counts?

[TnJNLyjh-qU_SPEAKER_15]: the week of Labor Day, not on Labor Day. So traffic counts were collected Wednesday, September 7th. If anything, one could make the argument that full traffic is restored at that time. And I know that we have actually, we actually saw as engineers traffic significantly increase, unfortunately, especially along the Pike, which I don't probably don't have to explain to anybody at this point. But the point being is, yes, traffic was headed to Beijing.

[Emily Hedeman]: Great, thank you. Those are all the questions I have.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Emily. Other questions?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.

[David Blumberg]: If we're favorably inclined to this, we consider certainly a motion to approve the request for the acceptance of, what should it be? It's to approve the request to not require a full traffic study for this project, for its site plan review.

[Jenny Graham]: Hi, this is Christy Dowd. I'll make a motion. to accept whatever you just said.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion or I'll second whatever Chris just said too.

[David Blumberg]: We made it home, that's good.

[Jenny Graham]: Yes.

[David Blumberg]: All right, excellent. Roll call vote then. Let's start with, oh, we can't Jackie's recuse, so we'll pass over Jackie. Deanna.

[Jenny Graham]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Blyson Dresen. Aye. Aye. Christy Dowd.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: And George Fisher. Aye. I'm also an aye. To the MHA team, thank you very much. Appreciate your participation tonight. We look forward to seeing you at the site plan interview.

[Ciccariello]: Thank you so much for your time.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, next item on the agenda, I think we initially had listed the matters with the Tufts properties, but we're going to instead call an audible and go to the informal review that we're going to perform with 142 mystic Avenue, which is great American beer hall. And I believe we have Brian, sir, sir, sir. Excellent. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you.

[Zac Bears]: Nice to meet you too, David.

[David Blumberg]: Welcome. Welcome. Before we get started, just wanted to say we appreciate your willingness to be here and his background to the board and members of the public if they're listening. We understand that you were going to be before us for site plan review at our meeting the last week of October. And in an effort to just do whatever you can to sort of move the process along by the end of the month, you agreed to stop by and have one of these sort of informal sessions with us. And we have seen them work with some success, I think. And during the time I've been on the board, it usually works to our benefit and to the proponent's benefit to help move things along. So we appreciate your cooperation in that regard.

[Zac Bears]: Absolutely. If you have any questions, feel free to jump in at any point. I would like to just give a little background of what we're doing.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, why don't you get started. I just want to make sure the board knows we're not doing a full site plan interview. This is one of the informal ones, so we're going to give you feedback and we're going to ask questions. There's not an official public comment period, but we'll do our best to give you good feedback and see where things go from there. But we'll let you go to the floor, please.

[Zac Bears]: That's great. And so just a little bit of background about myself. I've been working on Mystic Avenue for the last 20 years started when I was in high school, part-time property manager, just painting and picking up cigarette butts. And so after college, I went full-time. And the properties I manage are 134 Mystic Ave, 142 Mystic Ave, 151, and 215. And so I also help out at Murray Supply, as actually my great-grandfather was Murray Matrendola's original partner at Murray Supply. I've been on Mystic Ave for 20 years, and I love really the direction that it's going in, and I feel like this project can really help. But right now, the site is made up of heavy automotive use. We have an auto body shop there, we have a mechanic, we have Eastern bus with the school buses, and then we have a tow yard really for the city of Somerville. Deep down, I always thought this was not the highest and best use for us. I've been searching for a project that made sense. And I started this in 2019 and picked up a lot of traction and COVID never happened. I like to think that we'd be open by now, but it didn't. And so we ended up re-upping the tenants that we have here now. And during that time, I've actually went out and found this great group. And so there's five other investors, as well as myself, that are a part of this team. And we've got Capital One backing us on a 7A loan, as well as the landlords that are committed to building the base build for this building. And so The concept is if you've been to a modern day brewery, a night shift, a Trillium, well, they all have tap rooms of some sort, a tap room where you can actually enjoy the beer that they're making. Some of them are made up of a bar, some of them are made up of picnic tables inside, some have made them outdoor, indoor. And so our idea really is to take that tap room and really just make it the star of the brewery. our concept, meaning that we're not going to be brewing any of our own beer. And we couldn't really do this about 10 years ago just because the craft beer movement hadn't happened yet in Massachusetts and New England. And so over the last 10 years, we've seen Trillium and Night Shift really started. But there's also great breweries out in Western Mass, like Oak Home, that are doing so well. And they've really become these really nice neighborhood spots where I like to think there's really something for everyone there. you know, during the daytime, you see a lot of families go there, you know, bring the kids. And then as you go into the night, you see, you know, younger couples or families go and then into the night, you see, you know, your, your, your late twenties, 30 year olds, you know, enjoying themselves, but and we're going to have a really nice indoor area. That's going to have, it consisted of these long tables. We're not going to actually have a prototypical bar because our motto is best brought together. And, If you've ever experienced Oktoberfest in Germany, it's really just long tables and people getting together and complete strangers just enjoying a beer and having fun. And that's the type of atmosphere that we want to create. We also want to have some really unique outdoor space on an outdoor patio. That's going to be about 4,600 square feet. So it's pretty big. We're going to have outdoor games such as bago and all that. The site is big enough to do all this. It's just over 2 acres and our base building is about 20,000 square feet. Outdoors, 4600, we're going to have a mezzanine level of. About 1500 square feet indoor about 2600 square feet of outdoor. We were hoping to attract a lot of private events. from local Medford businesses, Somerville, Cambridge, all that.

[David Blumberg]: Brian, I don't want to cut you short, but our meetings, we thrive on the visual. Do you have a little slideshow for us? You could walk us through? Absolutely. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: If you want to share my screen. Let's do it. Okay.

[Amanda Centrella]: You should have permissions, Brian. Let me know if you have any trouble.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Let me do it right here. Can you see this?

[Zac Bears]: Yes. Can you see my screen? Yeah. Okay. This is the site as is right now. Can you see this? Yes. Okay. This is night shift, but let me cut to the good stuff. Well, this is a floor plan right here. Here's the first floor. As you can see, we're going to have the beer stacks and the food towards the exterior, the perimeter, and then the interior is going to be made up of tables. Here is the outdoor patio on the left and the indoor mezzanine. But let me get to the visuals. So right here is our patio from the Mythic Ave view. And you can also see the outdoor mezzanine that we're gonna do. Any questions?

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, board members, if you wanna jump in, cause it is informal, we can approach it that way as well.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: I have a question. Sure. Your model, the exhibit three or exhibit C, the landscape plan, And also the elevations and axonometric drawing that you provided as well, all make the site look flat. So has there been any study on the existing topography?

[Zac Bears]: It is relatively flat right now, but there will be. Michael Giuliano, our civil engineer, is working on that. Are you asking about the current condition of the site? what we'll be building? Both. I think that we have an existing site plan as well. Yeah, it's relative. I mean, right now it's the parking lot, so it is pretty flat. But yeah, that will be provided full schematics when we do apply for our building permit.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: So the existing site is the parking lot? Yes. About half of the proposed site would also be a parking lot?

[Zac Bears]: Let me go back and show you. Yeah, so right here is the, we bumped out the site to accommodate the buses. So we're going to go back to the original boundary line, but this is where It is going to go right now it's it's really it's flat and it will be a flat parking lot for where the where the where the parking is going to go for this and the bottom right hand section, there will be like a loading.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: I think what's missing from the landscape plans for me is an indication of where stormwater especially will be draining. Yeah. So yes, the lighting is indicated as well. But what's really useful is like a photometric plan that shows, you know, how much lighting is actually being cast across the site. Okay, how that's kind of affecting lighting off the site.

[Zac Bears]: We can do a better job of providing you with some additional lighting. But I believe Michael Giuliano's plan is to put some of the stormwater right here where the building, the current building is, that's going to be demoed. and there's going to be a tank underneath there.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Okay.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: There's a little bit of an inconsistency between the building elevation or the building elevation, I believe, which shows another building there.

[Zac Bears]: Are you talking about the building that's currently there?

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: I'm not sure what is represented on this drawing because I'm not very familiar with the project. Okay.

[Emily Hedeman]: Are you looking at exhibit B?

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Correct. Yes.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And exhibit B is a smaller building. It looks to be about half the size of the building on the site.

[Zac Bears]: Okay. I'll take a look. We were going to do a standalone retail building that we're not going to do anymore. We're just going to make a parking, but I don't know if I, I'll make that clear for our meeting.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, if you guys don't mind if I jump in, I believe that that was what was on the exhibit be that folks are referencing. So it sounds like and Brian you can confirm that at this time that is not going to be pursued in this project.

[Zac Bears]: No, no, we're not going to do that we're going to be a parking.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_04]: Is this is the project and I conform to the. The open required open space for the site.

[Adam Hurtubise]: What is the required open space.

[Amanda Centrella]: I think it's a zoning requirement, and as it wasn't listed in the permit refusal that was issued by building. I, my assumption is that the project as proposed meets the requirement. Folks, feel free to correct me if that doesn't feel like a reasonable leap.

[Alicia Hunt]: Great. So perhaps it's helpful. Sorry, this is Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning. We've been meeting with Mr. Zarthar for a while about this project and his intention and design that he worked with his architects was to not require any variances. for this project. So the permit refusal letter, the building department agreed that the plans that he has submitted to them, the building, the project does not actually require any variances. So this project is being referred to the planning board for site plan review. And this board will be the permit granting authority for this. It's just because of the size of the project that it has site plan review and not because it's going to either zoning board or city council.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, Alicia, thanks for the clarification. I guess, Brian, you just have to make sure that what you present to us is sort of the final and official one. uh, is reflecting the actual conditions on the ground, all that kind of good stuff. Oh, absolutely. I had a question along those lines too, which is there's in the corner outside of your red box, there were still some buses when we looked at using the top right corner. I get the sense that that's open space. Is that the idea on the design?

[Zac Bears]: Uh, let me go back. Okay. So it's going to be a parking lot. Um, so right now it's going to go back. The red space is the approximate boundaries of the 142 Mystic Ave. And where that bump out is goes into 134 Mystic Ave.

[David Blumberg]: So that's not the same property.

[Zac Bears]: No, it's not the same property. We're going to go back to the original property lines for this. OK.

[Emily Hedeman]: Brian, are you planning on implementing any sustainability initiatives into your designs or any kind of low impact Principles into the work that you're doing like, like, solar panels and like, car charging stations that we mean are permeable papers, you know, making sure that any windows are well insulated. Of course, you know, a million different directions.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, we're also working with the state on on a couple of of the HVAC incentives out there to do the you know the ductless systems and so yeah that we're we're talking to everyone and We're talking a lot of different groups right now about doing a lot of that, especially the car charging stations right now that the state's pushing.

[Emily Hedeman]: So we are going to... Yeah, and I'd encourage you to look at low tech options as well. So whether it's... George probably knows a bit more about this than I do, but in terms of planting trees so that they shade in the proper direction, permeable pavers over a portion of your parking lot is a fairly easy thing to do can also help with long-term maintenance costs. Since I know you have a property management background. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: Keep the bills down. That's the key.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Yeah. Low CapEx, low OpEx, and everybody has high happiness. But just thinking about it that way. And then I know that this property abuts I forget what the road is on. I drive by it. I drive to get home. It's not 93. It's the one in between 93 and Mystic. But just be mindful of that traffic as well as the realities of Mystic today. Because I really do appreciate that your project and some other projects that we've viewed on the board will help further develop Mystic into the avenue that we know it can be. But just be mindful of its realities. Absolutely.

[Zac Bears]: And we own other parcels on Mystic Ave. And so I am always looking at it to increase the value of not only that, but our neighbors as well. And what I really like about this project is our peak hours are when Mystic Ave is really at its slowest. Right now, like, if you go there on Thursday, Friday nights, there's not a lot of people driving down the gap because there's not a lot of destinations. It's very heavy industrial 9 to 5. And I think this project really checks a lot of boxes in terms of helping the city. I mean, right now, there's just a tow yard for the city of Somerville. It doesn't really have. It doesn't really do much for now. We don't need that at all. Exactly.

[David Blumberg]: Brian, just to pick up on what we almost offered to Emily there, and that is the solar electric vehicle charging. We could talk about bikes. We looked at another project just last month where they have a blue bike station that they're going to put in front of the new cannabis operator. All of those things, by way of site plan review, we are definitely interested in. okay answers for them now that's fine if you're if you want to get your ducks in a row just know that those are things that we're definitely going to want to see on plans okay we're going to want to talk about when we get to the official meeting okay god i'll i don't have any of those answers right now but i will no problem that's why the info has been so helpful i think this is a really good introduction to the project brian thank you um i i'm i'm just going to second with

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I just want to echo what others on the board have said. I think, um. I would encourage you to make like a full presentation of both. The landscape and the building when you come before us, which should heavily include sustainability features for both the building and the site or. At least highlight what you open space was that when I look quickly at the sketch that you provided, it looks like a pretty large portion of the site would be paved. And I think for me, obviously we wanna meet the zoning requirement, but things like parking up against the property line, looking at things like that, like, you know, because when I see that, what I really want to see is like a planting strip so you can get trees, you know, against, you know, between you and your neighbors. Take a look at that entry road. It actually looks pretty wide to me. I'm wondering if, you know, if there's a way to do a loop and sort of get rid of some asphalt and just think about just put your thinking cap on and think about how you can reduce as much pavement as possible on the site, because I think that's just a win for both you and the interest of the town, sustainability, et cetera. So thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Brian if I can just to echo some of what class was bringing up there. Certainly would like to see more greenery in front maybe this is not a realistic image and maybe there's more, more to the plan. What we're seeing in the picture it's in front of us. Other thing to note, I'm scratching my head a little bit because I know in performance standards there is landscaping, I think landscape buffering, to pick up on again what Klaas is saying, hey we want to have some greenery between properties. I think that's a requirement now in the new ordinance, so that's something else that we'll look at and you should look at between now and our next meeting.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, to that point, Brian, you know, I what's the right way to say this? I'd really love to hear from both your architect and or landscape architect on some of these things, you know, because I think they they bring a depth of knowledge that, you know, you as the overseer of everything may not have.

[Zac Bears]: Is there is there like a buffer, like footwise from the you know, the your neighbor that you need to have? Is it grass, is it granary, is it trees?

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to jump in here, Brian. That's not our area of expertise is memorization of the code. I think this is something that you need to work with your team on and just make sure that you're meeting those thresholds. I think our comments will be this doesn't feel right versus this isn't lawful. Okay, thank you.

[Emily Hedeman]: Can I ask a question of the city? And this may just be because I'm a newer resident, but is the long-term vision of Mystic that it's going to be like a pedestrian-focused avenue? What's the long-term vision of Mystic?

[Alicia Hunt]: Thanks, Emily. I think that's a great question because I would say, yes, we believe that there will be more and more pedestrian oriented things going on on mystic have. We are seeing proposals for residential properties and even what we find now is that if if somebody was to build a life science building, they would want their employees to be able to walk down the road to a cafe cross the road beer hall. Yes. Yeah. Actually, all their employees will want to go to the beer hall in the evening. And we're finding more and more of the younger employees are interested in biking and walking to work, particularly biking if they're at any distance.

[Emily Hedeman]: So the reason I ask that question is because, Brian, it looks like your monumental entrance is on the side of the building. Yes. And I also see that you have a beautiful patio directly up against, well, parking lot and then patio. I feel like there might be an opportunity to connect your building with the straight frontage of mystic again. Not to contrast my further my previous comment of the reality is mystic today, but maybe investigate conditions where you know you can switch that monumental entrance from the side to the front. Whether it's, you know. You have two doors right here, maybe those become the future monumental entrances.

[Zac Bears]: I mean, the only issue I see with that is we don't want people being able to walk off with drinks. We just want that confined area. Sure. Yeah. It's more of a safety issue on our end, liability.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Is that just something you could address with fencing around the perimeter of the patio? Just a second, what other board members were saying. I really agree with a lot of those comments. I also just want to add, I think programmatically, it's really a really nice use of the space. And I think it will add a lot of value to Mystic Avenue and a lot of value towards making Medford a more fun place to live. So that's a good thing. And just to add to Emily's comment as well, On the landscape plan, I'm not seeing a sidewalk. And I do see on Google Maps that there are sidewalks on adjacent properties. So I think the way that the project kind of engages the street in a way and engages pedestrians as they come by is going to be really important. And so that kind of leads me to the front lot, which is directly adjacent to the patio, to the west of the patio. And I feel like that's kind of a missed opportunity to you're separating the whole pedestrian experience, what could be there from the patio with that. I don't feel like that's the best use of space there.

[Zac Bears]: We didn't want to put the patio right up against Mystic Ave just because there's cars and trucks daily passing. It's still heavy industrial, but we're hoping it changes over time. But I wouldn't want to be drinking a beer and having fumes in my face.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Would you be able to buffer it with a green space, a planted green space, maybe like a park?

[Zac Bears]: The parking is so valuable. Some of the complaints from the neighbors are, are we going to have enough parking here? And we have 126 spaces. We think we have plenty, but we think the parking is so valuable here. Then a park that would just be open to the public. I don't think that's feasible.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: What is the parking requirement?

[Zac Bears]: I don't think there's, I know we meet it, but I don't think the parking requirement is a lot with the Medford guidelines. I know there's restaurants on Main Street in Mystic Ad that don't have any parking, but.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, as an assembly use, I think, you know, in a retail use, it must, the parking requirement must be plenty. I just, you know, again, for next time, but I'd be interested in knowing where you are versus what the zoning requires. You know, I mean, again, this is a, you know, we're just thinking about open space and all that, you know, like this rendering, you know, we've had conversations like this a lot in this board in the past. You know, I think I would urge you to be, actually, can you go back to that image? I would urge you to think really carefully about the exhibits you show because, you know, when you're presenting an image of a building, you know, I think in your mind it looks good, but there are certain images that show things to us that, that are striking. And I can just make an example out of this one. The lack of texture on the building. Is it a stucco building? Is it a metal building? How are you doing that? It seems to lack some definition in that way. You have an entry there, which doesn't seem to have a canopy and really doesn't really mark the presence well. That crosswalk is great, but where's it going? It's going to a grass strip. These are all just little things that I like, just be careful when you're presenting and showing these things because sometimes you're going to make more trouble than, you know, and that's sort of why I thought it would be important for you to have your designers involved in the next conversation so they could talk through some of the bigger ideas here and why things sort of ended up the way they did. Okay.

[Emily Hedeman]: The lack of windows on the ground floor, which looking at your program, I understand, But it does make it look kind of like a hulking mass of a building. I think there could be an opportunity here, whether it's through public art or something to break up the mass visually, you know, kind of hint at what's what you know what awesomeness is inside. Yep.

[David Blumberg]: I was curious, Brian, were you thinking of more windows than this? I just kind of use that wants to draw you in by way of seeing the fun that's happening inside.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah. So the fun inside is really in the interior of the space while the, I'll go back to the floor plan. So if you look at the floor plan here, the interior is really what drives the space. And so, the exterior is going to be the food, the beer stalls. There's really not a huge opportunity for windows along the sides, but where the patio is, absolutely, we're going to have as much windows as we can there on both floors. But we will have windows on almost like the second level above the beer stacks. But if you're sitting inside, you're not going to be like, looking through a beer stack out the window, if you know what I mean. Everything is around the perimeter, so all the seating is in the interior. OK, got it.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'm thinking of, what is it, Remnant Brewing in Somerville in Beaumarket. And you can see into, I know that that's a production facility, so it is slightly different.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah.

[Emily Hedeman]: And if you're bringing up the night shift view, I know that one very well as well. Maybe it would be interesting to see into that, because this corner that we're looking at behind the couple, I think they're taking a selfie. That's food A, sometimes they use retail A. You could have some fenestration that gives an idea of what's in there.

[Zac Bears]: Oh, on the exterior, you mean?

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah.

[Zac Bears]: We're open to that, absolutely.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, we're all talking about windows on the outside.

[Zac Bears]: Oh, okay, I see, okay. Yeah, yeah, we can, windows on the outside.

[Emily Hedeman]: Windows, public art, just some way to break up the- I get it, yeah. The mass of the building, the volume of the building. Make it more human scale.

[Zac Bears]: Okay, yeah, I totally understand that.

[David Blumberg]: Brian, do you have an elevator in there to get to the mezzanine?

[Zac Bears]: We do. We do.

[David Blumberg]: Yes. Interesting. Emily already mentioned, but there's no production planned on-site, right? These are going to be kegs and bottles that are brought in from off-site?

[Zac Bears]: Absolutely, yeah. We're going to have two food options as well. Snappy Patties is going to have a burger, one of the food options. The other one's going to be pizza.

[Emily Hedeman]: It's like rotating pop-ups?

[Zac Bears]: No, no, it's going to be permanent. So snappy patties, yeah, will be permanent as well as the pizza. And then we're going to have for the outdoor, we're going to have some food trucks come in and service the outdoor. But so that will be obviously rotating.

[Emily Hedeman]: But yeah, where would those go?

[Zac Bears]: Right. We can see where these parking spaces are. So right here.

[Emily Hedeman]: That's a good use of that parking lot space.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you.

[Emily Hedeman]: maybe mentioning programming like that would be beneficial.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. Okay, Brian, I think we've given you a bunch of homework.

[Zac Bears]: Yeah, just overall thoughts. I mean, do you guys like this for the site?

[Unidentified]: Yes.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. I can personally say that I think this is the kind of thing that Medford is dying for, so I think it's exciting. The area is, it seems like the perfect use for this area. We're also looking at other projects in the vicinity. It'll be a one-stop shop for entertainment on Mystic Ave, but this will be great. Again, I encourage you to just keep going and thinking about the design and I think a lot of the ideas about windows are also pretty important, you know, can only help you because the more people drive by and see into your building and see all the people having fun, the more they're gonna make that right turn and go in, you know, so, yeah.

[Emily Hedeman]: I like it, this is very creative and I commend your commitment to the site.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you.

[Emily Hedeman]: And the corridor, so thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, Brian, it seems like a really good project you know what this board tries to do at least in my, in my words, is to try to help these projects, you know it's it's community development board we're not here to obstruct projects we're here to try to improve them frankly. And so the feedback that you're getting from all of us tonight is is intended to try to just try to help your project be better. It's going to only add value to you if you make it that much more attractive if you listen to some of the feedback from folks we have a great board with really interesting perspectives and folks really You know, have something to add. And we can describe this better than I can but sort of we were we represent the voice of kind of the community, as it as it interfaces with the built environment so we want to make sure that this thing's going to look nice and people are going to really like it and it's a good reflection on the city which is all really just saying good reflection on YouTube. Yeah. But the visuals are the most important thing for us. And we've got to see the green space. We've got to see the trees. We've got to see the buffers. We've got to see what your vision is on. If it's a big wall, where's the mural? Where's the detail? We really want to see that stuff. I know we only have a couple of weeks until our next meeting, but I do feel like there's, unless you have folks who are ready to jump on it, you definitely have some work to do to kind of get it to where Um, we could, we could approve it and we can help you further refine it.

[Zac Bears]: So, I just want to add 1 thing our. Our small business loan is going to be contingent on us. Like, getting through this meeting on the 26th, if we don't. Get through it, then this meeting, then if we don't get past, then we're not going to qualify as. the landlords are going to just exercise the options with the tow yard and the bus yard, and it's going to remain that way. So I know I have some work to do, but that is a contingency for our small business loan.

[Alicia Hunt]: Brian, it might make sense for you to set up a time to come in. I think you've been talking with Vic, but talk with Amanda and possibly myself and go through some of our performance standards. talk offline soon to go through some of this stuff too. We can step through some of the details and requirements.

[Emily Hedeman]: Can I also ask that, and City please correct me if I'm overstepping, but outline how many jobs are present on the site today, whether it's the tow yard, I'm still a little unclear on, you know, what other buildings are being demolished, and then how many jobs would be present on this site. Kitchen, you know, wheat staff, whoever. I think that would be really useful information to have as well.

[Zac Bears]: Oh, I can prepare that.

[Emily Hedeman]: I think you're going to come up on top too.

[Zac Bears]: What's that?

[Emily Hedeman]: I said, I think we're going to like the numbers that you show. Yeah.

[Zac Bears]: I guarantee it's double and it's going to be a lot better paying jobs than what's there now, but I I'll have now all that information for you.

[Emily Hedeman]: Wonderful. Thank you, Brian. Thank you for letting me jump in, David.

[David Blumberg]: Absolutely. Any other comments? Otherwise, I'd like to thank Brian for his time and and we look forward to seeing you again soon and helping you get this project off the ground here in Medford.

[Zac Bears]: Awesome. Thank you. Thanks, David.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Thank you. Thank you, board.

[David Blumberg]: Oh, OK. Back to me. All right. Our next item, well, Amanda, what do you think? Are the folks from the Tufts team ready for us?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so I guess perhaps I'll ask Adam Dash and others from the team from Tufts. Would you like to go ahead now or should we push another item in front of these?

[Dash]: This is Adam Dash from the, sorry. I'm having some issues with connectivity here. Hi, this is Adam Dash from representing Tufts. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. If you had another item, that would be great. So I can sort of fix this connectivity problem if I could.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, we can do that. All right, then that leads us to our minutes. And we have four sets of minutes. that we are looking to approve tonight if acceptable to the board members. Let me ask generally, I'd like to try to do this in a streamlined manner if I can do that as much as Attorney Dash might want me to take my time doing this. And that is to ask if any board members have specific comments about any of the four that they'd like to discuss before we start thinking about how we might go about an approval process. Would anyone like to raise anything for discussion on these four sets of minutes? Okay, excellent. So my thought was we have four of us who were at all four of the meetings. So my suggestion was going to be if Jackie or Deanna or Christie would like to make a motion to approve all four, and then someone else in that group could second it. And then when you go to the roll call and I kind of help you. We work through the roll call so we don't all have to say it four times. So if there's a motion out there to approve the minutes from board meetings from June 9th, June 22nd, August 18th, and September 8th.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: I will give them the motion. I make a motion to approve the board meetings from June 9th, 22, June 22nd, 22, August 18th, 22, and 9, 8, 22.

[David Blumberg]: Excellent. And do we have a second for that motion from our select group?

[Deanna Peabody]: I'll second that.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent. So let me do this as I go through the roll call. I'm going to, do we have unanimity? No, we don't have. Okay, let me, I'll go through the roll call and then we'll see how many are saying yes or no to. OK, so we're going to start with our vice chair, Jackie Furtado. We're going to ask you a yes or no on all four.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Yes.

[David Blumberg]: OK, we'll take that as a yes for all four. Deanna Peabody, yes or no on all four?

[Deanna Peabody]: Yes to all four.

[David Blumberg]: Kristi Dowd?

[Deanna Peabody]: Yes to all four.

[David Blumberg]: OK, excellent. Now let me ask for Kweiss, yes or no for June 9, June 22, and August 18. Yes. Excellent. And I have to ask Emily how she feels about the minutes for August 18, 2022.

[Emily Hedeman]: I wholeheartedly approve and say yes.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent. So I am four thumbs up for the four minutes. Amanda, how'd we do? All approved?

[Amanda Centrella]: I think, are there any minutes that require George's approval?

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: I was there on September 8th. So I say yes to that one.

[Amanda Centrella]: Great.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent.

[Amanda Centrella]: Then I think we're good.

[David Blumberg]: I thought you were an informal observer at that meeting. So my apologies. Oh, that's true. Right. Either way, it's good to have your A. All right. Amanda, I think we've completed that item and we're ready for Tufts.

[Amanda Centrella]: Great, yeah, so I welcome Adam, as well as, let me pull up my notes, I apologize, other team members, Rocco, Dorico, and Jerry, Frank, and anyone else from the Tufts team. I think first on our agenda was two to four Capon Street.

[David Blumberg]: That's right, yes. I believe I do need to read the notice.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, apologies.

[David Blumberg]: So let me get that formality out of the way and we're going to start with caping right. Okay. So we're conducting a meeting tonight. Relative to an application for site plan review submitted by Walnut Hill properties core to demolish a non conforming for family dwelling. and construct a new four-unit dormitory, allowed use with special permit per city council, at 2-4 Capen Street in Medford. Project is subject to a site plan review special permit as per our city zoning ordinance. And it requires approval from the Community Development Board for Dover amendment uses. Therefore, site plan review approval shall be required from the Community Development Board. Okay, so I wanted to say just as background before we turn it over to the proponent that this is a Dover Amendment use. We do now under our new zoning have a section 11.8 that addresses the Dover Amendment uses, which include educational uses. As we know, it's religious uses, childcare facilities, solar energy systems, and some other exceptions that are there. And as a result of that, just for everyone's background, public included, these uses are given a little bit of deferential treatment under zoning. So we are conducting site plan review. We're offering the final decision. So this decision is not going to ZBA or city council. And we're really limited to either an approval or an approval with conditions to the site plan. We're literally under the ordinance not allowed to decline or reject the application unless they have failed to provide the information which they did not do. So that is by way of background for everybody. So if attorney Dash, you want to start on things and realizing that we have two to four caping to talk about. And then immediately afterwards, we're going to talk about 50 Winthrop street. So just to be fair, you know, if you inevitably, you're going to touch on number two, when you talk about number one, a little bit, maybe we can abbreviate number two, if you wrap some things up here in this first discussion, but we'll work that out as we go. If you want to. If you want to, you work that as you like, is what I want to say.

[Dash]: Much appreciated, Mr. Chair. Adam Dash, 48 Grove Street in Somerville and Davis Square, representing Walnut Hill Properties Corporation, which is a wholly owned affiliate of Tufts and is the owner and applicant of 224 Capon Street. I will address just 224 Capon in this instance. I'll address Winthrop when you open that matter, although much of what I say is background, we can probably skip in the Winthrop part, because it's just going to be duplicative. They're very similar in many ways. With us is Rocco DiRico from Tufts University. I believe Chris Hogan may be here as well, but I don't know that he's presenting. We'll see if we up there is Chris. Jerry Frank from BFE Architects is here. I see him in his conference room and he's going to be showing some slides. So let me just give you some background because this is a little bit of an oddball. I know new situation with the new zoning. So, as I said, that we're seeking a site plan approval of a Dover amendment use and the owner is the owner and occupant in order to demolish an existing structure. and construct a new structure for Tufts University student housing and residence director housing in the GR zoning district. You want to put up slide two, Jerry? So the project is in the Coho district. Yes, I'm sorry, Alicia.

[Amanda Centrella]: We don't see any slides. Yeah, neither do I. Yeah, I apologize. I actually can't find Jerry on the participants list, and I'm wondering if they're under a different name.

[SPEAKER_22]: They're under BFE Architects. Yeah, BFE Architects.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure thing. Thank you. So I will make you co-host, and you should be set now.

[Adam Hurtubise]: No, I got to do it this way.

[David Blumberg]: Can everybody see this? You're in business.

[Dash]: Thank you. Can you put it on slide two? There we go. So that and the dotted red line is what we call the coho area, you know, the community housing area. And this was a commitment from Tufts University to the city for projects that they do in this area, such as these. And there are a series of items that are requirements for coho project, and you can see some of them are there on the screen, the toughs will continue to pay taxes on the properties that students will not be required. What's our will be required to park on campus, they will not be parking in these properties and that is part of the relief we're seeking. other properties will not be used for fraternities or sororities, that each building will have a graduate resident director, that new lighting security features and bike racks will be there. And then there are other items such as occupants will be limited to one student per bedroom and each unit will have a kitchen and a living room. And it'll be fire protection and fire alarm systems, accessible units and shared amenities and bike racks will be installed and such. There's more listed in the application. I won't go through the entire list. So this existing structure that's there is an extreme disrepair, and we'll go through this, is a pre-existing non-conforming structure and is not handicap accessible and is not energy efficient. The new structure will be in good repair, handicap accessible, and energy efficient. And again, we'll go into that. The Medford Historic Commission heard this matter on July 11, 2022 on this project, under the auspices of the demo delay ordinance, and they found this existing structure CAPEN to not be significant, such that there was no demo delay imposed. clearing it for demolition. Before I have Jerry Frank from BFE Architects walk through the project details, I do want to go over the new zoning requirements for this Dover amendment use just real quick. For section 11.8.3, it says that the Community Development Board's reviews are limited to two things. One, whether the use qualifies for Dover protection and clearly under the law student housing does. And two, what reasonable regulations can be imposed for bulk height, yard size, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking, and building coverage. So with that in mind, I will sort of wrap up and sort of flesh this out a little bit more, but I think, Jerry, if you can walk the board through the next bunch of slides, that would be great. Sure, happy to do.

[SPEAKER_06]: Before we leave this slide, first, I'm going to introduce my colleague and associate, Arthur Love, who is making sure that I keep some competence, technologically speaking, on here. Just to give you a little, in case the key is a little too small, the dark blue are the properties we're talking about. The lighter blues across the street are the Coho projects that have been completed. So we're, again, within the same neighborhood, basically, as has been approved by the Coho Area Plan. What we have here on this drawing here is in the red is the existing structure that's been on site, the two-family house, and the blue is the proposed new building on it. The existing structure goes into the setback limits that are kind of, and we took great care to make sure that our building does conform within the setbacks of what we're talking about. Adam touched upon something, this is a project and actually both projects where there are goals that the university had laid out to us, which are very much in concert with what the city of Medford has done when we have met with them, have talked about with this project. And one of them was the whole issue of housing, of creating housing that was It's such a premium to bring that in as close to being on campus as one could get. Accessibility, and I'll point, just as you can see here, the grading, it's a tough site, so we've really been working very hard to bring the grade levels down so that we have an accessible building that can come in. Currently, you cannot access the building that's on site. The third element, which was so critical, is sustainability. Tufts, as I'm sure you're all aware, has a mandate to become carbon neutral. And this is one of the first projects that's really working in that endeavor to do that. So we are working, going on the guidelines or following, very aware of exceeding the Stretch Energy Code. to the passive house standards. We may not be going for certification of it, but triple pane windows, very incredible amounts of insulation, both for the entire envelope walls and roof are really being implemented here. And the last one was really integrity. We began this project, well, it's a year and a half ago, to really study what the two buildings were like. And we found that the building here had real, there were enough code violations, you know, to fill a book in terms of structural members that could not support proper roof loads in this day and age, walls that, and the foundations that were totally porous. And you just, we just really needed to, do major repairs to the whole project, which is one of the reasons that this has gone new. Next slide. Just the view of the site plan that we've talked about in here. As Adam pointed out, there will be no parking on this site. There will be an area for loading, unloading. You can see that we do have bike racks. We are planning on doing some, very nice planting in and around the building. But again, we have also talked about the pavers, the permeable pavers. We are really striving and taking the whole sustainability aspect incredibly seriously, which is where we should be in this day and age. We are containing trash in the areas that will be secured to that, and obviously new lighting and all of the things that are conforming to what the coho area plan was to really dictate to us. There is a garage that sort of a drive up almost like carport area that's being demolished in favor of that drive up, drop off and entry area that takes you to the main entrance of the building. Next slide, please. Just as on the top left-hand corner is the existing structure that's on site at 24 Capon. and you can see there's no accessibility to it. So what we've done with our building, again, we're working hard with the notion of keeping something that is consistent with the neighborhood. I mean, especially across the street with the Coho buildings that were built a few years ago, and as well as, you know, just allowing a way to really access it and accommodate persons with special needs. The, this is the view on Winthrop street coming in through their garage. Well, as you can see that it's a very simple drive up and be able to enter into the building. Again, triple pane windows is what we're looking at. And, you know, actually quite thick walls of insulation.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Excellent. That's it. That's it.

[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I think the, One of the big things that we've had in terms, in addition to striving to respect the setbacks area is we've improved the height of the existing capon structure is taller than what we're proposing in our project here. Even with the revised structural members and added insulation that we're putting in there to conform to the high sustainability requirements.

[Adam Hurtubise]: And I think that's kind of what I have.

[SPEAKER_06]: Obviously, we can respond to questions or comments that you have. We do appreciate all the input that the city has given us thus far. It is very helpful. And again, we are feeling very much that the goals that have been established by TOPS are very much in concert with what the city is looking for.

[Dash]: Thank you. Thank you, Jerry. This is Adam Dasch again. I just want to go through the sort of nuts and bolts here while we're doing this. I'm just going to let you know we did have a community meeting on these projects back in June. Not required to, but we did. Regarding the second inquiry by the Community Development Board under the zoning ordinance, this project reduces the number of existing non-conformities and will now comply regarding front and side setback, where it currently does not. The lot area, lot width, and lot depth are existing nonconformities. Obviously, those are not changing because the lot is the lot. I can't change that. So it is what it is. The building height is nonconforming currently and will remain nonconforming. However, we are reducing it by one foot. So it will be 39 feet and a requirement of 35 feet. So we would say it's not much of a violation and it's actually lesser of a violation than is current. It'll stay the three stories. The parking nonconformity will be created in order for Tufts to meet the COHO requirements of removing existing parking, replacing with a drop off space and that the students there would not be allowed to park on site. So that's the sort of a place where the zoning and the COHO rules sort of butt heads a little bit. But seeking relief we feel under the circumstances is appropriate and the bike spaces are being added as is the COHO requirement. To offset this and that's going to be three bike racks of four bikes each so that's pretty pretty significant. The co host students will be parking on campus, as I said, not at this property. The proposed open space nonconformity is very small. It's 35.3% lot cover with a 30% requirement. So we would say this is basically 424.4 square feet, which is pretty small building footprint differential. And this is needed to carry out the Dover use by providing those required coho things such as the bedroom count that we need to do the dorm plus To meet the COHO requirements of the interior layout and amenities, the one student per bedroom, the kitchen and living room per unit, the residence director suite, the accessibility, all of that sort of takes up floor space with ramps and such. So to do that, we ended up with 424.4 square feet over, but that's again, we would state de minimis. So in conclusion, an applicant would seek the site plan review to remove a decrepit unsafe structure and replace it with an efficient, accessible and safe one, which meets the Tufts Coho commitments to the city and brings more sustainability. So we think this is a win all around and we hope that you would support it. Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, Harmon Zuckerman. Okay, fair enough. Any initial board questions? If not, we'll go, or when we're done with that, we'll go to open it up to the public and then we'll come back for further discussion, Q&A and deliberation as a board. Anyone want to speak here as an initial matter?

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: I'll speak. George. Yes, looking at plan C2, also visible just in this elevation, the proposed porous paved – sorry, quite a mouthful – proposed porous paved drop-off area, in my experience with porous pavements, sometimes they require maintenance and that causes them to fail. So, was there any consideration for using an open-cell paver instead? It might require less maintenance as well?

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, and I think we talked about it as sort of was should probably be a better word. I said, of course, about the permeable. There are many options and as we're getting going and finalizing the bidding and getting samples of that, that is something that we certainly would look at for maintenance. We live this all the time on projects is that you need to have something that holds up and still should do this job for shedding water, sort of back into the ground.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Great.

[David Blumberg]: That was my only comment, thank you. Okay, any other initial questions? I had a couple I was gonna throw to Attorney Dash. If you could just, and again, if we have members of the public watching, it might be informative to them as well. Can you give us a flavor of the adjacent properties? And I know across the street is the university itself. Is it Tufts controlled? Are the neighbors Tufts related.

[Dash]: Yeah, that's a good question. Okay, Jerry, could you go back to the slide we're going to go back. Yeah, there we go. If you look on that Mr. chair, the dark blue or the proposed buildings we're talking about the one on the bottom being Cape and the one on the top being Winthrop. All the ones in light blue are existing Tufts properties and the lighter blue. And then the other is other Tufts buildings are the light, light blue. So basically everything that isn't white is Tufts affiliated. So as you can see, pretty much Winthrop Street is pretty Tufts-y. I mean, there are some houses in between I think Rocco could probably talk about, you know, as the community relations director, you know, the relationship with the neighborhood there but as you can see this neighborhood is very much a Tufts neighborhood and even those other houses that aren't tough sound often are rented to tough students.

[Rocco DiRico]: Sure, sure. That makes sense. Yeah. Thank you, Adam. And thank you, David. Sorry to interrupt you there. But yeah, we were very intentional in picking these properties. Both properties are obviously owned by Walnut Hill, which is subsidiary Tufts University, but also both properties are surrounded by either other Tufts properties. In the case of 50 Winthrop, you see that white house that's next to it. That abutter is a landlord who rents exclusively to Tufts students. And he was very supportive of the first round of Coho and he's been supportive of this round of Coho as well. We've met with him several times and he's okay with the project.

[David Blumberg]: That's helpful. Thank you. Also, could you, Attorney Dash, maybe give us a sense like what, how many, what's going on in this building currently versus, I know you've mentioned the number of students who will reside in the building going forward. I think that's relevant to some of those larger community issues that you were mentioning in terms of where the students live and Tufts providing for its students.

[Dash]: Absolutely Mister chair and dash again I keep my the building I believe is vacant right now. So the we're proposing for a cape and for 4 units of the total of 21 student beds, one resident director bed for total of 22 beds in this property. So that's our plan right now I don't I don't think it's even have the ball. Rocco I guess you could probably verify that.

[Rocco DiRico]: That's correct. Thank you, Adam. Yeah, I believe the city has deemed the property in inhabitable. There's a gentleman who lived there for a number of years, you know, let the property go into disrepair and it was, I don't know if it was officially condemned by the city, but it certainly wasn't inhabitable. And when he left to go to assisted living, he put the market, the house on sale, and then we got it. So I don't think anyone's lived there for a few years. And it's, you know, after going through it, it was not savable.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you for the information. Amanda, do we have members of the public who'd like to speak on or ask questions or participate tonight?

[Amanda Centrella]: I haven't yet received any written comments, but I would welcome folks, and it looks like we have a hand raised in the public currently to, you can raise your hand to let us know that you want to speak, I'll add you to the queue, or you can, in the chat, indicate that you'd like to, assuming, Chair, that we are going into public comment portion of the evening.

[David Blumberg]: I was prepared to move forward to that. And I think you also have an email address that folks could use if they wanted to as well, right?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So if anyone wants to send a written comment while we're going through this tonight, you can email at ocd at medford-ma.gov. And I will put that in the chat. And if you do that, I just ask that you include your name and address for the record.

[David Blumberg]: And to mimic what you just said, if you're recognized here and have an opportunity to speak, which we hope you will do, please give us your name and address for the record before you start your comments. Okay, so we do have at least one hand that's up. Am I seeing this correctly, Amanda?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, yes. So Mike, and I apologize if I mispronounce your name, Mike Krasinski, if you'd like to speak.

[4FsPfOqpqG0_SPEAKER_00]: Yep, you got my name right, thank you. So my name is Mike Korzynski, I'm at 149 Birgadev in Medford. I guess, so my question here is how is Dover being conferred here if Tufts is not the property holder of record? So the property holder is Walnut Hill Properties, which if I look at the properties they own, even in the Coho District, they own the building that, you know, Davis Pastry House is in. So like what, what determines, how are you deciding to confer the deference of Dover to Walnut Hill? I mean, if the person at 52 Winthrop in the white box on slide two, if they were to form a 503C and said they were going to, I mean, Rocco had said earlier, they rent exclusively to tough students. So if they were to form a 503C and rent exclusively to tough students, would they be entitled to deference under Dover. So, I mean, I think this came up in the in the beer hall thing. Something about it just doesn't quite feel right with Tufts not being the deed holder and Walnut Hill themselves asking for the Dover deference.

[David Blumberg]: Mr. Krasinski, I appreciate your comment and your question and that's certainly fair and relevant to our discussion tonight. I'm going to ask my brother, Attorney Dash, would you like to touch on that issue for us? help the public understand the connection between Walnut Hill and the educational uses of Tufts.

[Rocco DiRico]: Mr. Chairman, if we've lost Adam, I'm happy to jump in. It looks like he's still black. But just to be clear, Walnut Hill purchased the property. Walnut Hill is a 501c3 nonprofit. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tufts University. This building will be owned and operated by Tufts University, just like in the first round of COHO. Once we begin using it as a dormitory, we switch over the ownership to Tufts University. So I promise you it will be owned, operated, and staffed by Tufts University itself once we begin using it.

[David Blumberg]: Mr. Kaczynski, did you have a follow-up? The floor is still yours.

[4FsPfOqpqG0_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, I guess I don't understand why they don't own it today, but I'm not sure. I mean, me and Rocco can both give our best guess, but I guess Adam would be the person who maybe could answer the question the best. I don't know.

[Rocco DiRico]: I mean, to be quite frank, it was just a matter of timing. We're going to switch over the deed. The deed transfer is in process. It just takes time to do it. Before before we would again owner before we would occupy or use the building, it would be transferred fully over to Tufts University. But again, I should echo that Walnut Hill is a 501C3. It is a nonprofit. It does serve educational needs.

[4FsPfOqpqG0_SPEAKER_00]: But not every 501C3 can Clint over.

[Rocco DiRico]: Colleges and universities can't. But Walnut Hill is a property management development company, right? That works exclusively for a college slash university. They provide university housing. They just provide university housing for faculty and staff.

[4FsPfOqpqG0_SPEAKER_00]: So since this will be student occupied it will be owned by Tufts University, but they also own a bunch of property on Boston have right like a Danish pastry house tamper like those buildings do. So, like what's the line, if Rocco if I might.

[Alicia Hunt]: The law doesn't actually say that it has to be the owned by a school, it has to be for the religious educational use or childcare center. So it's, it could be as long as it is dedicated for educational use. It is covered by Dover, regardless of the ownership. There needs to be some understanding by the, the, the city as to how that is an educational use and housing has been deemed by the court system as an educational use.

[David Blumberg]: If I can just add a couple of thoughts on there for Mr. Kuczynski or any other members of the public. I think what I'm hearing from Mr. Tirico is that this project is going to be tough and it won't be Walnut Hill. technicality for their application today, but it's Tufts. And I think we would agree, and I'm sure he would agree with us, that if it was in a different name, that might be a different question. If Mr. Tirico, I guess I shouldn't put words in your mouth, but I would presume that if suddenly we drove past and we saw Tufts or a Tufts entity leasing this out to Danish Pastry House, you probably would have, you know, it wouldn't be a Dover amendment. anymore, right?

[Rocco DiRico]: That's correct. Dover amendment is not, as Alicia pointed out, not about ownership, it's about use. And this will be used for educational purposes. It's going to be used to house our students. And the Dover amendment has time and time again said that housing students is part of an educational use. So this will go to support our mission and is thus protected by Dover.

[David Blumberg]: And either of you can tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm just, I'm just trying to sort of think through it in my mind and articulate to help others is part of this coho arrangement and the 20 points the Tufts has committed to in terms of its relationship with the city and what it will do with these properties are not do these properties as the case might be is all presume that this is Dover amendment use and

[Rocco DiRico]: specifically yes it's going to be educational use only this is this is core stuff we're talking about right this is not a for-profit venture of a subsidiary of tufts is that that that's absolutely that's absolutely correct and you know the the word coho itself stands for community housing meaning that we're housing our students in the community so all these properties are being used to house juniors and seniors

[David Blumberg]: Okay, and this, this discussion that we're having now just so we can save a little bit of time on our second project tonight. I think everything we're saying here and just confirm with me, everything we're saying about this property also applies at 50 with.

[Rocco DiRico]: That's correct. There's a deed transfer and process there and it'll be the same exact use and again, Dover is about use.

[Alicia Hunt]: COB, Elaine McLaughlin she-her, she-hers, she-hers. project, but we have the opportunity to, if there are concerns that residents have about the project, we may be able to actually address specific concerns through this hearing process and through this hearing tonight. So if there were actual specific concerns about the project itself, we'd be open to hearing those at this hearing.

[4FsPfOqpqG0_SPEAKER_00]: In this case, my concern was literally just that you're conferring Dover to Wallet Hill Properties, and that's a property management company, and it doesn't really make sense to me. It doesn't feel correct. I mean, if it transferred, that's fine, but as it is, it doesn't feel correct.

[David Blumberg]: Do we have other members of the public who would like to speak on this project?

[Amanda Centrella]: Confirming I haven't received any additional emails yet. If any others would like to provide comment, please raise your hand or actually you may be able to use the chat to let me know. I'm just gonna give everyone a second to respond. Okay, I'm not seeing any hands raised or comments made.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you very much and thank you for the comments that we did receive. Board members, do we have questions for the Tufts team on this project? Any hands?

[Adam Hurtubise]: No?

[David Blumberg]: Jump in. I guess I have a couple of questions to ask. And we're talking 2.4 here, not 50 yet, but is there more, I guess if I looked at what I think of as the corner, so it's not this view, but

[Rocco DiRico]: Yeah, Artika, yeah, thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, I just had a question about, and I know you've got some elevation that you're working with, and maybe, George, you can help me out, because you know this area better than I do, but in terms of the landscaping, is there more to be done, or is there more of an opportunity in terms of a tree or some feature that could make more prominent where you have that connection, where those sort of walls come together there at the sidewalk?

[Rocco DiRico]: Mr. Chairman, if I could just make one note. In terms of adding trees to that corner, we actually had a discussion with the traffic engineer and due to the sight lines, he asked us, I think actually in our original plans, we had a tree at that corner and he asked us to remove it because of the concern of the sight lines for vehicles traveling on Cape and vehicles coming down hard on Winthrop. But I think, you know, I'll defer to the architects, but I think we've added trees and other parts of the property.

[SPEAKER_06]: As well as some other ground cover, I think we're trying to be also careful of not having plants in there that critters could be hiding out in and doing things. So there is a balance. But yes, I think we have plants looking at other types of low ground cover or some smaller shrubs.

[Adam Hurtubise]: in there to soften? Yeah, the front of the lot facing Capon Street. So that's the side that is visible to us there.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Your plans show it drawn as a three to one slope. So it's not really feasible to use that as a seating lawn or a usable lawn space. So it definitely would be possible or even advisable just to plan some low shrubs or some low ground cover there.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, like the pachycephalos and those types of things that are very hardy and would take to that very well, junipers, another one that comes up. Yeah, absolutely.

[v8aFu2OAn8o_SPEAKER_18]: Or something native as well. Definitely highly encourage using native plants.

[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're looking at native and sort of drought resistant.

[Adam Hurtubise]: That's been sort of really the mission that's been given to us to be very cognizant of.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, so if not if not reflected today that's that's on your your wish list, so to speak.

[SPEAKER_06]: yeah yeah. I would say no word yes yeah I think I think that the goals, again, I feel are very compatible with what talks is looking for and I think what the city is looking for us, I you know we want to be very proud. and, you know, be good neighbors. I mean, continue what's been started already on Winthrop Street and, you know, really create something that's in harmony. Great.

[David Blumberg]: Other questions from board members, though? We did receive letters from various city departments, so I didn't know if there was anything in particular that Tufts had issue with in terms of requirements or recommendations from our various departments, or if you're comfortable with what's been presented there.

[Dash]: Madam Chair, Adam Dasch again. Sorry, I've been having a little connectivity issues. Yeah, as far as that goes, I mean, I would note that those items coming from the various departments aren't really zoning related the more building permit related and we do appreciate the department's bringing them up early in the process, because sometimes these don't come up until the end and then everyone's surprised. But as far as things like sidewalks and such, it's really not, I guess in our opinion, a site plan review matter. If one goes back to the zoning ordinance and the two areas of review by the board, they're really a little out of the scope. But as we go through the building permit process, we will certainly work with engineering and public works and everybody else as we always do to go forward and have these items work through. Rocco, is that right?

[Rocco DiRico]: Thank you, Adam yeah I don't think we have any objections to the to the recommendations as Adam said it once we go through permitting, as we do on all our projects we work with the city of Medford to address their concerns and incorporate them into the project as best we can.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, so I guess stated differently you don't see anything in there that that is problematic at this point, and your intent is to to work with the city departments and cooperate with those requirements and recommendations.

[Adam Hurtubise]: That's correct. Okay.

[David Blumberg]: All right. Fair enough. Okay. comments, otherwise we're being asked to accept or accept those conditions, the site plan review.

[Deanna Peabody]: David, this is Deanna. We do usually condition the board, the department head notes though, as part of site plan review, don't we?

[David Blumberg]: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think, I think we could, we could, someone could offer a motion to approve site plan with the condition that Tufts works with the city departments to resolve all of the requirements and recommendations that have been put forward in these various letters.

[Deanna Peabody]: Yeah, I'll make that motion.

[David Blumberg]: Is there a second to that motion? I'll second it. Excellent. Thank you, George.

[Alicia Hunt]: May I actually raise a housekeeping matter for this project? Thank you. When the other COHO projects were approved, that was done through the ZBA process because that's how we handled Dover before the changes to our zoning. And they attached the The document that has been referenced this evening the January 4 2018 apartments for juniors and seniors university commitments for zba review. I have a copy of what was attached and nothing you've said this evening seems to be in um. is different from the document that I have. And I think that it would be appropriate for us to say that we anticipate that this, these same commitments are being followed. Like so I was expecting that to be one of the conditions this evening, but I do want to confirm that the version that I have in hand is the version that is what was sent to the board this evening is also what Rocco and the Tufts group have. I don't want to accidentally attach a wrong version.

[David Blumberg]: Is that something that can be done very quickly right now?

[Rocco DiRico]: I was going to say, I could try to review it quickly if it was from the ZBA decision of round one of COHO. Yes, we will still agree to those 20 conditions and those 20 conditions will apply To these properties. We actually created that list ourself. After getting, you know, significant feedback from the neighbors that was based on you know those all 20 of those requests were generated from neighbor meetings and neighbor comments so as long as we can say that it's the exact same list that. we agreed to when we went to the ZBA in phase one of the process. Yes, we do. We will commit to those same 20 commitments.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I will tell you that this was provided to Amanda and myself by Dennis McDougal, the Secretary of the Zoning Board.

[Rocco DiRico]: So that I feel comfortable with that. If it's from Dennis, I feel comfortable that him being the ZBA secretary, that that lines up with what was passed in round one. I'm trying to remember the year. I think it was 2017, but whichever year it passed the ZBA.

[Amanda Centrella]: I can confirm that in previous ZBA decisions, it refers to this document. So named like apartments for juniors and seniors, ZBA commitments. And it gives the date of, I think like January, 2018. And it has the 2020 conditions on there. So I do feel pretty confident that it is the same version.

[Alicia Hunt]: So many of the things that Rocco's reference tonight about bike racks, and that the parking. There wouldn't be parking spots there would be accessible parking only and drop off. Things about fire protection and fire alarm systems, graduate resident directors throughout the at a certain ratio. The neighbor meeting prior to construction, I think you've actually already held the neighbor meeting.

[Rocco DiRico]: That's that's correct Alicia. Yep, that was held on June 9th.

[Alicia Hunt]: Right. I feel like the only thing that you didn't mention didn't come up in this set was residents not being allowed to have barbecue grills, only activities, organizations can request barbecue grills.

[Rocco DiRico]: And that's correct, Alicia, in that any of the COHO rules and regulations would extend to these two properties. So students are not allowed to have barbecues or have propane tanks or anything on these properties. And each unit will actually have its own graduate resident director. So we actually exceed the commitment of the first round.

[Alicia Hunt]: And the very first one on here is that Tufts University will continue to pay real estate taxes on these properties.

[Rocco DiRico]: That's correct. Yeah, I actually have it open on my desktop now, Alicia. So I think we're both looking at the same document. And as we committed back in 2018, we will continue to pay real estate taxes on these properties so that the city doesn't lose any revenue.

[Alicia Hunt]: Great, thank you. And honestly, I was repeating some of them so that the board members were, because this was provided to the board, frankly, minutes before this meeting started. I apologize that it didn't come to you earlier.

[Dash]: Okay. Mr. Chair, if I may, I just want to correct the record. I believe when I said the unit, the student bed count, I was actually speaking about Winthrop Street. So for the record, for Capon, I pulled the wrong plan in front of me. I apologize. They're very similar. That the Capon one will have four units with 28 student beds and one residence director for a total of 29 beds, just to correct that.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. That's actually what I thought I heard you say, but we'll give you credit for it.

[Dash]: One of the two things is possible.

[David Blumberg]: PB, Harmon Zuckerman. PB, David Ensign --- Okay. All right. Thank you for those clarifications. Deanna, you had offered a motion, I guess, if you want to perhaps clarify that motion to say that we would be approving the site plan with the condition that Tufts continues to work with the department, city departments to resolve all requirements or recommendations and to also condition this site plan approval on continuing to comply with the 20 points of what I'm calling the Tufts 20.

[Deanna Peabody]: Okay, I'll make that motion.

[David Blumberg]: Excellent. Do we have a second for that?

[Unidentified]: This is Christy. I'll second.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Christy. Okay, roll call. Let's start with Jackie Furtado.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Deanna Peabody.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Clyde Sundreddison. Aye. Christy Dowd.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: George Fisher. Aye. And I'm an aye as well. Thank you very much. Let me, we'll move on to the next somewhat related item with the same team. Let me read the notice that I have to read for all of these. This is related to 50 Winthrop Street. So the meeting and discussion will be relative to an application for site plan review submitted by Walnut Hill Properties Corp to demolish a non conforming for family dwelling and construct a new four unit dormitory allowed use with special permit per city council at 50 Winthrop Street in Medford project is subject to a site plan review special permit for our zoning ordinance. and requires approvals from the Community Development Board for bill for amendment uses pursuant to section 11.8. Therefore, site plan review approval shall be required from the Community Development Board. So let's turn things over to Attorney Dash.

[Dash]: Thank you Mister chair again Adam dash 48 Grove Street in Davis Square in Somerville representing want to help properties Corporation wholly owned affiliate of tough. And this is regarding 50 Winthrop Street seeking site plan review again with me a rocket to Rico from tough surgery Frank from BF the architects out here if you want to swap over the slide deck similar but not quite the same. And again this is a project to demolish an existing structure and construct a new structure for Tufts University student housing. and residence director housing in the gr zone and this one will be doing four units of 21 student beds and one resident director bed for total of 22. I won't go through all the just all the stuff here, but if you look at the coho map this in front of you. You can see the top there is the nearby 50 Winthrop street property in the dark blue. And again, this is another situation where the existing structures and extreme disrepair as a pre existing non conforming structure is not handicap accessible and is not energy efficient. and the new structure will be in good repair, handicapped, accessible, and energy efficient. Again, the Medford Historical Commission heard this matter back in July 11th, 2022, through the demolition delay ordinance and found the existing structure to be not significant, such that the demolition delay does not apply and the demolition could go forward. I guess I won't go through what the Dover Amendment zoning says. I guess, Jerry, you want to jump right to the slides? Sure. We're good with that.

[SPEAKER_06]: Come on. Yeah, we'll go to the next slide. Yeah, again, as we did with the other ones, you can see in red is the existing outline of 50 Winthrop Street, and in blue is our new building. What you'll notice right away, again, is we were able to get the entire building within the setbacks required of that, which was great. Exact same issues. Adam was absolutely correct, is that accessibility. The other building had all these different levels. It was really near impossible to make it accessible. We have achieved that here with the new structure. In there, you'll see that there's a, the space where there's a garage is actually the loading and offloading is up in the back and through there, taking it off. well, Winthrop Street, Emory, sorry, but it's off of Winthrop Street onto Emory. And I think you wanna go to the next slide. We can kind of just do, again, the same bits that we have in there, as you said, that we do better on the proposed setbacks as required. In the cases in here, we are doing better in the lot coverage and we're under the required height of 35 feet, we're at 34.5 feet. Same issues, all of the sustainability issues absolutely parallel what we just spoke about on Capon Street, really striving in towards the pass the pass criteria on there as best as we can, both in terms in harmony with what the city is looking for, as well as Tufts mandate for their future growth. You get the two views. Again, the notion of putting something that is very much in harmony with the neighborhood across the street in there.

[Dash]: Thank you, Chairman.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I've opened it for any questions.

[SPEAKER_06]: Again, residents involved. One thing that probably didn't get stated is that we talked about the resident director. That's a fully accessible unit in each case. And the criteria the ratios, you know, one to 40 we're better it's really one resident advisor per 25 that we have here, which is, you know, doing it better.

[Dash]: Excellent point Jerry Adam dash again again this, there was a community meeting back in June of 2022, where we discussed Winthrop street as well. This actually is even an easier one than the Cape and street project because we are in for Winthrop, as Jerry said correcting non existing non conformities on side setback lot coverage building footprint and open space and those are all being brought into compliance. Of course, as with the other one, the lot area, lot width and lot depth are existing non-conformities that we can't do anything about because the lot is the lot and it is what it is. And then the parking is the only other item here because we have no building height issue and we have no open space issue. So really it's just the parking. And again, this is a COHO requirement to remove the parking and replace it with a drop-off area, which requires that relief. This one actually is a much simpler project. And again, they're going to be bike spaces that are added three racks of four bikes each to offset the lack of parking here. And again, the students would be required to park on campus, not here. So in conclusion, the applicant seeks the special, sorry, site plan review to remove a decrepit unsafe structure and replace it with an efficient, accessible and safe one, which meets the Tufts-Coho requirements with the city.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you for the presentation. Any initial questions before we seek some public comments?

[Adam Hurtubise]: Amanda?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so I invite anyone from the public who, or I'm sorry, I should say before we go into public comment, I have not received any written comments on this yet. And for anyone who's interested in submitting a written comment, you can email OCD at Medford-MA.gov. And you would just need to include your name and address for the record. And if the board is so inclined and wants to move into public comment, folks can begin by raising their hands or using the chat function to let me know.

[David Blumberg]: Sure. Seeing any activity, if folks in the public could let us know if they'd like to participate, we'd be happy to hear from you.

[Amanda Centrella]: Just going to give it another couple seconds, but not seeing anyone as of yet.

[David Blumberg]: Any additional questions from board members for the Tufts team on this site? I guess I just wanted to ask a question then, and that is at the comparing these two at the first site, there was Not, I mean you have a driveway here and then you have a path and I know you have accessibility challenges and improvements that are being made at both locations. Can you just sort of walk me through the driveways here but the driveway is not in the other building is that something that, like, what what is the driveways role here, if there wasn't one on the other building.

[SPEAKER_06]: Adam I could take us, take the first bit of that we have no existing, we have an existing curb cut here, where there was, you know, driveway coming through there and rather than try to put something out on Winthrop Street and likewise a tape in the same thing there was a curb cup and a parking area and we, you know, basically And what we were able to do since, in this case, the existing curb cuts to the side, we do want to be able to have access and accessible access to the front of the building, which is why we did that. And on Capon Street, the parking was right there, so the access was just by there. So it was, in a way, sort of simple as that. We really were working with the existing curb cut areas to do that.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, and that's the that's the spot for the accessible parking, and then you need the, the walkway or the right to take you to the, to take you to the front door.

[SPEAKER_06]: Correct.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. All right. We're always pushing for more open space or more green space so.

[Rocco DiRico]: Yeah, Mr. Chairman, we wanted to try to get as much open space as possible on the site as well, but accessibility is also a top priority. We wanna make sure that any students are able to live at these properties and that they're able to enter through the front door. They don't have to go around the sidewalk and all that other stuff. So it's really to make sure that it's fully accessible for all of our students. Understandable, thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Okay.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Any other questions or questions I have a quick question, please, please go back to the rendering.

[SPEAKER_04]: Are you, are you really going to build these projects and leave the sidewalks and complete disrepair.

[Deanna Peabody]: Please I just want to note that in this one on the engineering comments from the city that they know to condition repairing the sidewalk and repositioning crosswalk as part of offsite.

[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, thank you.

[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I just, I just found it curious that you went through the trouble of doing this nice rendering and left. It's funny.

[SPEAKER_22]: Right. It's funny you mentioned that, because when we originally did the renderings, we did all new sidewalks, and it looked too kind of not real. So we kind of... We gave a character class.

[SPEAKER_06]: That's what it is. But I think the engineering that saw to it otherwise grew over a period. Because it needs to be safe.

[Adam Hurtubise]: It needs to be, you know, functional well. Thank you. Of course.

[David Blumberg]: Good question and good eye as always. Thank you. All right. Oh, not hearing more questions or comments from the board. If someone would like to offer a motion, if we're at that point, sounds like a good idea.

[Adam Hurtubise]: I'll do it. Motion to accept.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, George, that'd be a motion to approve the site plan.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, correct so I approve.

[David Blumberg]: And would we have the same conditions presumably here as we did with property number one tonight that being toughs commitment to follow the toughs 20 as I'm calling it, and to work with the city departments to the extent requirements recommendations have been made in the letters that were circulated to the board.

[Unidentified]: including the off-site improvements. I just want to add that.

[David Blumberg]: I think those, sure. Yeah.

[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, I would add those conditions, yes.

[David Blumberg]: Excellent. And do we have a second for George's, I believe it's his inaugural motion.

[Unidentified]: This is Christy, I'll second.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Christy. And we'll go to a roll call vote. Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Aye.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: And George Fisher. And I'm an eye as well. Okay, Attorney Dash and the whole team, appreciate your participation. Thank you for presenting on both of these and best of luck with the improvements you're making in the neighborhood.

[Dash]: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, members of the board. It's been a very efficient, great process under this new zoning, looking forward to many more.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much.

[Dash]: Have a good night.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, I think we have PB, John Gerstle, PB – He, Him, His): made it tell me my right, we only have one more item on our on our list for tonight, and that is to discuss future meetings in kind of a larger sense, and that is. PB, John Gerstle, PB – He, Him, His): An idea and a mannequin speak to it as well, but to actually sort of pick a day. 1st and 3rd Tuesday, 1st and 3rd Wednesday, 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month so that we have meetings that are on the calendar. If we don't have matters to deal with, we don't have to meet. A meeting could be canceled, but it would give us some ability to lock in our calendar. And maybe most importantly for folks who are applying to see us, They would then have like a deadline to get their submissions in by x date to get to why meeting. So, that was a proposal, Amanda has raised I, I think it's a good one Amanda would you do you want to give the board members, your perspective and.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. Yeah, and I'll, I'll try to keep it quick because I know you guys have accomplished so much tonight. I'm just so the way that I'm coming at this. As, as of now the board obviously meets kind of as needed. And as projects come to them. And I think that flexibility is intended to help and accommodate applicants. But I also, just in the span that I've been helping out with you guys, it does feel like, in some ways, we kind of lose time on the scheduling end. And it also, I think, puts some pressure on you guys to convene. And there's less predictability on your end. And I guess I'm just thinking that I wanted to pose this all to you to see how you would feel about potentially moving to a standing meeting. I think to make some of the regulatory timeframes that are attached to site plan review and other processes that this board has purview over, it would require potentially having two standing meetings a month. And during some periods of time in some months, you would only meet once or maybe not at all, depending on how busy things are at that point in the year. It feels like that's kind of the average meeting pace or sorry amount of meetings that happen, as is currently. And I think having the two meetings per month would. Also, previous members of the board have talked about wanting to make sure that there aren't these really, really long marathon meetings. And so having, you know, the option for two meetings a month, I think kind of assuages that concern a little bit too. But obviously this is entirely up to you all and what you're comfortable with and what you'd be interested in. And so just wanted to kind of float it by you and see initial impressions.

[Jenny Graham]: I like it. I'm more predictable. I can have my schedule, the better.

[Emily Hedeman]: I support it as well. Good idea, Amanda.

[David Blumberg]: Others have thoughts on whether that would work for them?

[Zac Bears]: I think it's a great idea.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you, George.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Also, it works. Works. It's funny I was just thinking about this, I literally was just thinking, because Wednesdays are hard for me and so I today I was telling someone I had to get home from meeting on Wednesday it was like, Oh, do you meet every third Wednesday or every, and I'm like, No, it's whenever we can he's like, Oh, so we were just discussing this whole thing so that this works.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, would. Thanks, everyone. And does it make sense? Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm good. Okay. Yeah, so, um, do folks want to talk about like potential days of the week tonight or should we leave that obviously we already have two meetings on the calendar. So the 26 being the next and the 10th of November being the following, where we could spend some more time, and obviously in between then you know over email. could narrow things down. I feel like it could benefit me to have a little bit of time to understand like when I should be setting kind of submission deadlines for and things like that and how it may align with ZBA because obviously, or oftentimes, you know, projects come to us before them. And so how do we, you know, link up with them? But yeah, just what are you all thinking for tonight?

[David Blumberg]: Amanda, do you need to do legwork or could if we said first and third of the month blank with is that is that enough coordination like with CBA schedules and stuff like that? Does it really matter if it's if it's Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of those two weeks or?

[Amanda Centrella]: There, I'd want to think about if there are other standing meetings during those weeks. But what I could do with you all here is if you're thinking first and third Wednesday, for example, or Thursday, you know, between now and next time or over email, I can do all of that vetting so that we solidify it next time around.

[David Blumberg]: Does that sound good to everybody? We probably should try to stay away from Wednesday given Jackie's schedule.

[Alicia Hunt]: I just want to ask if there are any particular boards and commissions, the committee would want to stay away from conflicting with it because I see it as zoning board being an issue. I assume city council is kind of an issue. I will let you know that this current city council's plan is that they have a regular council meeting every other Tuesday and they generally have a committee of the whole Every Tuesday or Wednesday that's not a regular city council meeting there, they're meeting, usually twice a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. As far as staff goes, there are some Committee of the Wholes and subcommittee meetings that we have to attend, but where the council believes we need to attend, they schedule those with us. So they would always say to me, we want you to be at this meeting. Are you like, does that conflict or which, you know, here are some dates, which ones work for you? Because they understand that we have requirements to be at other evening meetings as well.

[David Blumberg]: Does that lead us to think that Thursdays are the best days?

[Alicia Hunt]: Honestly, I feel like it is Thursdays are the best unless there's some other issue. As far as I'm aware and scanning the city's calendar, the Historic District Commission meets on Thursdays. The Medford Arts Council showed up once on a Thursday, but it's not that many.

[Adam Hurtubise]: And if we would, go ahead.

[Emily Hedeman]: I was gonna say, I have class that begins at 6.30 on Thursdays. So if we could meet starting at six and then I can coordinate with my professors or maybe talk to Alicia and Amanda offline about my board involvement to stay reasonable to myself as well as to what this board needs.

[Alicia Hunt]: Emily, is that? something that you foresee going on all year or is that a this semester class?

[Emily Hedeman]: At least until the middle of December.

[Alicia Hunt]: So October, November, December.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And then I can, I can potentially massage my schedule, um, next semester so that I don't have classes on Thursdays.

[David Blumberg]: Well, I think November is pretty much, we already have our dates. I would hope that we wouldn't have a meeting in the last week and a half in November. And if December is maybe a one-off, maybe those Thursdays up, because we, I mean, you're a valuable member. We want to work around your schedule. Maybe Thursday is something that can work.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: After December, I mean, and David, and I appreciate you trying to accommodate my schedule too but the worst case scenario for me is I would be a half hour late, but I would be able to. If I can't leave early enough, or I can do what Christie so dedicatedly did today and I'll just. I can call in I mean I, it's just a matter of getting from Boston to Medford by six, six o'clock, even if the meetings or 630 that would help but there's so many other ways I can, I can make it work. So I don't want you to exclude Wednesdays just for me.

[Alicia Hunt]: So, when I look at the city calendar. It just we tend to have a lot of we tend to schedule public meetings. But that doesn't mean we have to, it helps when we know enough in advance that like, if we're not going to have a CD board meeting, and then that opens it up for me and Amanda for other things.

[David Blumberg]: Does ZBA meet on Thursdays as well?

[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Last Thursday.

[David Blumberg]: Last Thursday? Once a month. Okay.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I'm just flipping through. So it's the Bicycle Commission that meets Wednesday nights. We don't attend those. I'm seeing other special meetings on my calendar. Looks like the Elections Commission is going to be meeting Wednesday nights. We don't attend those regularly for work. And then Conservation Commission. And I generally don't attend those unless it's a very sensitive situation or a very large project.

[David Blumberg]: So is it something where we could look at, maybe it's Wednesday for anything we need to do in December, but maybe it's Thursday beginning in January? Emily, does that help?

[Emily Hedeman]: If we flip back and forth, would that be too inconvenient? first Wednesday, third Thursday.

[Amanda Centrella]: I don't think there's anything that bars us from doing that. Okay. Yeah.

[Alicia Hunt]: As long as everybody pays attention to their calendar and not their memory.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. I don't want to overcomplicate things.

[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. My calendar is so complicated that I have to live by it. Same. Okay.

[David Blumberg]: I mean, I don't think we have to offer a formal motion or anything votes on this thing. I just want to make, you know, if we're going to go for it. Um, I also want to try to make it work as best we can. So Wednesday and Thursday alternating, if that makes a difference and that gets everybody to participate, then that's, I think a good answer.

[Emily Hedeman]: And we can meet later on Wednesdays.

[Alicia Hunt]: And I'll, I'll suggest this the third Wednesday. because that gives us just one more day for the next ZBA, which is the last Friday. And then the first ones on like first Thursday and third Wednesday, right? We were saying first and third. And that way, that one that's closer to ZBA, we have just one more day.

[David Blumberg]: And the Wednesday we need a little bit later. Is that what I was hearing?

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Would 630 work? 630 would definitely work. I think I would always get here. I don't want to jinx it.

[David Blumberg]: If you're taking the T, you never know.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: And I do take the T because if you drive, I wouldn't get here until about 7, 8.

[David Blumberg]: And then, I mean, we've got the associate member, hopefully will be filled at some point. Deanna, we love having you on board, but we need to have a successor for you. And so if we have standing meetings, I feel like it's not such a bad thing if a board member misses every now and again. If you have something that pops up, it seems to be the value of the standing meeting outweighs missing one person here, here, there, one or two. How did we do, Amanda? Was that good?

[Amanda Centrella]: I think that that's great. Yeah, thank you all I let's let's do it. I'll look at, I guess, starting in December, that first Thursday, being our potential potential one for them, and then we'll go from there into the next year. All right, one final note for the evening. So many of you have been following along with the comprehensive plan. There's a draft that's been out for public comment for a couple of weeks now, and the comment period on that draft and the implementation chapter attached to it will be closing on Friday. So if you or anyone you know has Some ideas or comments on what's out there, we welcome them, but yeah we can send them in Friday, either to me, you guys have my address but also. comp plan at medford-ma.gov, or you can visit the website that we have devoted to the comp plan, medfordcompplan.org. And there's the draft on there. There's an input form for if you want to submit input that way as well. So please feel free to spread the word within your own networks. And of course, reach out if you have any comments or questions on that.

[David Blumberg]: OK, I think we're ready to entertain the motion to adjourn.

[Emily Hedeman]: Motion to adjourn.

[David Blumberg]: And a second. Seconded. Oh, I said we'd be all roll call tonight. So sure, Jackie Furtado.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Janet Peabody.

[Jacqueline McPherson]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Clayson Dresen.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Christy Depp.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: George Fisher. Aye. Aye as well. Thanks everybody. I think we got a lot accomplished tonight. Appreciate everyone's involvement, participation, feedback, everything. It was good, good stuff tonight. Thank you very much.

Jenny Graham total time: 0.32 minutes total words: 42	Zac Bears total time: 12.06 minutes total words: 869