[Emily Hedeman]: All right, good evening, and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Community Development Board. My name is Emily Hedeman. I am the chair of this board, and I'm going to call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings. Anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. A recording of this meeting will be posted on Medford Community Media website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please know that project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website, medfordma.org, I'm clicking on current CD board filings. I believe Daniel has also dropped the link in the chat. Thank you for that, Daniel. We're going to kick things off with roll call attendance. Vice Chair, Peter Calves.
[Peter Calves]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Good to see you on the morning commute, Peter.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, nice to see you as well.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman. Present. Thanks, Ari. Great to have you here. Sabrina Alpino. Present. Hi, Sabrina. John Anderson.
[John Anderson]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: And a special welcome to John Anderson. This is his first board meeting. We're delighted to have him here. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge, connections to the community, and we're very lucky to have him on the board with us. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Present.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hey, Adam. Ben LaValle. Ben's not here this evening. And myself, Emily Hedeman, I am here. Danielle, can you wrap on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. Tonight is myself, Danielle Evans, Senior Planner in the Office of Planning, Development, and Sustainability. We have Director Alicia Hunt, the Director of PDS. And we also have a graduate student intern, Christian Zepeda-Lepowski, or Lipovsky, I'm so sorry, Christian. I realized that I'd never pronounced your last name before. I think that's everybody we have tonight. Awesome. Well, welcome, Christian. I'm glad to have you here.
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, so the first item agenda before us is the continuance of the public hearing for the neighborhood residential urban residential zoning amendments. We did put this out in an updated agenda, but we are as a board expecting to continue this to continue the public hearing to a date certain. The primary reason, well, there's many reasons for this, but one of them that we're very mindful of is that there are some procedural issues related to quorum. In order to preserve eligible voting members, we are not able to discuss it tonight and then maintain the eligible voting members. So what I'm looking for is a motion to continue the public hearing to a date certain. And the date certain, I believe we're looking at the 18th or the 25th.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, the 18th.
[Emily Hedeman]: The 18th, okay, great.
[Unidentified]: Moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: So moved, do we have a second? Thanks, Ari. We're going to do a roll call vote. I'm just going to call you all as I see you on the Zoom interface. So be ready. Adam Behrens?
[Adam Behrens]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Peter Kalb?
[Adam Behrens]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: John Anderson?
[John Anderson]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino? Yes. Ari Fishman? Yes. And I, myself, also an aye. So we'll be continuing the public hearing for neighborhood residential urban residential zoning to June 18th. That's one of our regularly scheduled meetings, it's been on the agenda. And we look forward to continuing that hearing. Um, we do have some additional zoning related items on our agenda today. Um, I'm gonna kind of call an audible and combine two of the topics. I think this may help us build comprehension and understanding as a board and then any members of the public who are listening in. Um, I hope this will help us look at these topics more holistically. Um, so We're gonna have a public hearing for Medford Square and West Medford Square. It's a new public hearing, so I have to read the public hearing notice into the record, which I'll do in a moment. But what I'm also hoping we can do is our consultant and his associates can also share some information on the draft zoning of the other corridors agenda item. I think that will help us understand the connections between the various squares and maybe put some perspective for those topics. So with that, I'm going to read the public hearing notice into the record. It's a little long, so if you want to grab a drink before the public water, please. Let's stay civil. If you want to grab a drink before we start this hearing, this could be a good time to do so. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on June 4th, 2025, after 6.30pm via Zoom remote video conferencing relative to the following proposed amendments to the City of Medford Zoning Ordinance and Zoning Map. Amend section 94-2.1, Division into Districts, and section 94-9.0, Special District Regulations, to add the Medford Square District, MSD, and West Medford Square District, WMSD. Amend Section 94-3.2, Table of Use Regulations, Table A, by incorporating the MSD and WMSD zoning districts into the existing table and to designate the uses permitted therein. Amend section 94-4.1, Table of Dimensional Requirements, Table B, by incorporating the MSD and WMSD zoning districts into the existing table and to state the dimensional requirements therein. Amend section 94-12, Definitions, to amend and add various definitions. And last one is amending the zoning map to change the zoning district designations. of various properties to the MSD and WMSD zoning districts as shown on maps entitled Medford Square Zoning and West Medford Square Zoning Proposal prepared by Innes Associates. The Zoom link to the Community Development Board is how you all found us this evening. Do we need to post that in the chat for any public record reasons? I don't think so. The Zoom link is also posted in the city website calendar. A subsequent public hearing on the same matter will be open and held pending receipt of the Community Development Board recommendation by the Medford City Council on June 10th, 2025 at 7 p.m. So next Tuesday. In the Medford City Council Chamber on the second floor of Medford City Hall, 85 George P. Hassett Drive, Medford Mass, and via Zoom. A link to the public hearing will be posted no later than June 6th, 2025, which is this Friday. Danielle or Alicia, do you have any introductory comments before we hear the presentation or the introduction by Emily and Paula of Innocent Associates?
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I believe that the presentation they have prepared covers all the introductory stuff that I would otherwise say.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Emily and Paola. Great to see you both. Looking forward to what you have to show us this evening.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you, Madam Chair. We appreciate it. Again, for the record, Emily Innis of Innes Associates, and I'm here with my colleague, Paola Ramos Martinez. She is just sharing her screen, but I'm going to walk you through a little bit more detail on the agenda and give a general overview of where we are, and then I'm going to turn it over to Paola to provide the updates on the different proposals and then focus on the squares and then the introduction to the corridors. So, Paola, if you can just go to the next slide.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, one second. I think that I need to stop sharing. One second. Sorry.
[Emily Innes]: No worries. Technology always stops you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, I just lost and I had you all. Very big, but no presentation. So here we are.
[Emily Innes]: So I'll take you through the process and timeline. This will be familiar to anybody who's been part of the process, talk a little bit about where the public can continue to comment and the next meetings, the immediate next meetings that are coming up. And then I'll turn it over to Paola for the citywide approach, a little bit about our interactive map, which is available to everybody. And then we'll go into the squares, which are the subject of tonight's public hearing, of course, and then the other corridors, which, as you said, we believe will provide additional context to this conversation. Next slide, Paola. So this zoning, citywide zoning effort comes out of two separate documents, which represent two planning processes. The first you see on the left there, the Medford Massachusetts Comprehensive Plan. And then the climate action and adaptation plan and the text you see below are the goals from the comprehensive plan. that feed into the different zoning updates that we've been looking at. However, these are not the only parts of the zoning process. In fact, the city's been working on it since I believe about the year 2000, as they started their recodification process, which looked at very specific changes to update the zoning. The citywide effort is really focusing on the implementation of these two plans in terms of zoning. Next slide, Paola. So the comprehensive plan had a future land use map, and this is where some of the terminology that we have been using of squares, quarters, neighborhoods, gateways are coming. The blobs, as we refer to them, are the areas that have been of particular focus in different ways of this process, but we are looking at the entire city. Next slide, please. So the general process, the high-level process for approval is that we've been starting with the Planning and Permitting Committee of the City Council, presenting the new topic. We've generally spent two to three meetings, sometimes more with those presentations. The Planning and Permitting Committee refers it to City Council, who then refers that topic to yourselves, the Community Development Board. You hold your own hearings, as we're doing tonight, and then vote, and your vote is to send a recommendation back to City Council. And then city council takes a final vote on the topic that we are discussing. Next slide please, Paula. This is, although we've been working on this since last spring, these are the most recent dates and these are the planning and permitting committee meetings that we've had since March. You can see the topics for each. And then as we go forward, you can see the top where we have been coming to you, the community development board, to discuss those same topics. Next one. And then finally, we have inserted because of questions that have come up and a request for more time to talk and think about these topics. The city has sponsored public meetings where we've been able to make the presentations on each of the topics and hear directly from people. both in person and more recently with the meetings hybrid as well. And then finally, we've been asked for a chart that was a little bit easier to read the most immediate meetings. So we have the public meeting coming up on Monday for parking and transportation demand management. We're back to the planning and permitting committee on Wednesday to talk about the other corridors and start a framework for the institutional district, parking and transportation demand management, and then back to yourselves because of your vote tonight for the residential districts and ADUs. Next slide. And I'm going to turn it over to Pella at this point to discuss the mapping, where we are, and then take you more in depth into tonight's topics. Thank you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Thank you very much. Madam Chair, if I may, I will continue with the presentation. As Emily was talking about the process, these are, for example, the residential that we are looking for in the next meeting on the 18th. This was the latest and more updated residential neighborhoods that we are working in citywide. And we are looking at this separately because of how it was a structured division, but also to help us build more. First, we try to isolate certain topics, work in depth as much as possible, and then we will bring them back and forth when we insert the other topics. So usually we look at them parallel, but to explain for people, we try to break it down. So it's a little bit more simple to to explain and to be able to have less information and more broken. So these are the corridors only. We see very faded the residential below, beneath the corridors. But these are the corridors and the squares we already have passed. and studied Mystic and Salem. We are looking today at Medford Square and West Medford, and we're just introducing the corridors that we will see later on Boston Avenue, Harvard Street, Main Street, and Broadway. And here we have them already start to see it, how we apply them all together, both, and how they start work together. And this will be a discussion for later. We just wanted to explain or to show one of them all together. As Emily also said, we have an interactive map. it has been explained where you can check and it's constantly being updated whenever we make changes to the map so that you can really go deeper, we have some layers that you can turn on and off with the current zoning, the proposed zoning, the already passed zonings like Salem and Mystic, a lot of different layers as, for example, the existing building types, some of the dimension studies that we have done are in here. Whenever you click into one parcel, you would have on the left the information for that parcel, the requirements for the existing zoning, and the requirements for the proposed zoning. So that is easy to see if it's now conforming or how different it is from the current to the new proposed one. There is a legend and there are some filters that you can use on the arrow here on the right, so that you can filter by neighborhood, by dimension, different variables. So it's very useful. People, the feedback that we have is that they like it and it is a bit complex because this is a very complex process. So to make it, we try to make it as simple as possible, but also that there are other features there so that if somebody wants to explore, they can do it.
[Emily Hedeman]: I just want to quickly add that Emily dropped the link to the map in the meeting chat.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: perfect. There's also the QR code and it's possible to do it with the phone, but sometimes we understand that it's not so easy and we want to see it in a computer. So there is the link. So we're going to start with Medford Square. Well, I think that everybody knows where it is, but we want to first start with the existing zoning. So what is there right now? What is the current zoning and what we can do in that area. So we have four different districts in this boundary that we have. There is the commercial one, apartment two, that's the orange, A lighter orange in here, it's general residential. And then we have single family in this area, the lighter yellow. So what can we do now with commercial one? We can have residential building up to six stories by right, commercial buildings up to four stories by right. And then any other permitted structures can go up to 15 stories by right. So all in the pinkish area. The more bright orange, the apartment two, we can have residential building, six stories by right. Commercial use is not allowed. And then hotels can be built up to 15 stories by right. General residential, so in these smaller areas, we have single unit dwelling, two unit dwelling, and the ADUs, the accessory dwelling units, the protected use. And then we have single family, single unit dwelling, and then AD use, again, by the protected use. So here we have, if somebody wants to explore, and I don't know if the presentation is already being shared. Otherwise, it will be shared and anyone can go a little bit more in depth of what the current and existing zoning allows. But I'm just going to continue. And if anyone has any question, we can go back to the table and look at it. But I just wanted to give it more of a bigger idea of what is permitted. So what are we trying to bring? So what is our proposal for the Medford Square area? We have mixed use one. and that is the light blue. It's basically on the side of High Street. There are a lot of historical buildings in this area, and they are very, very narrow. Also, there is no way to grow. There's the Mystic River on the back. What we allow is mixed use one, and this is four stories by right, plus one story of incentive zoning just or if somebody is new to the process, incentive zoning is from a menu that are different strategies for community benefit. And so the developer, if they want to add another story, they will have to choose from that menu and give something back to the community. So in that incentive zoning, they can do up to one given the total of five, but by right is four. Then we have the blue. So this darker blue in these areas, and we have mixes to A. This is five stories by right plus two with incentive zoning. So up to seven with incentive zoning. The purple and it's the darker purple or the more dark one is the mixed-use 2B and it's seven stories by right plus two with incentive zoning so it can go up to nine but it's all only with incentive signing by right seven. And then we have these more brighter violet or purple, which is mixed use three. This is eight stories by right, plus four, so up to 12. And that is in this area near along the 93 route. So a lot of existing buildings in here already quite tall. And so we just allow them to be As that, we also studied a little bit of what are the consequences with the 93 on the other side is very, very wide. So there are no problems with shadows. And we have the city hall, which also we had some studies, as you can see in this red lines, we did some sections. If anyone wants to see them, we can pull those from our previous presentations. And then we have some neighborhood residential three. So from single family one, to neighborhood residential. Three is this area between Governor's Terrell area road. This allow for single unit, two unit, three unit townhouses, historic conversions, and then you can add to all of this ADUs, one by right and another one by special permit. And then urban residential one in these areas as transitions, and these are going to It's from two up to six units residential. So that is for Medford Square, and now we go to West Medford. You're going to see that the districts are very similar, so are the same. We're not changing the districts in this case. It's just where we apply them. So this is the existing, the current, our current, zoning. And so we have again, these are the same commercial one is the same all the pinkish area along around the T the commuter rail station, which is in this area. And we have residential is residential building six stories commercial building for and other permitted structures up to 15 stories by right. so in all the pink areas. Then we have general residential. These are these, as we said before, these orange, very clear orange, and these are the single, two units, and then ADU. Single family one, it's all around is this yellow area. And then apartment one, we have them in corner of High Street and Boston Avenue. And then we have it along Canal Street. And these are up to three stories by right. It can be a multifamily. There is no cap to units. It's just by height. And the commercial use is not allowed. So again, we have the table if anyone wants to see them, to see the area as the minimum requirements, and then what we are proposing. So again, we don't have mixed-use 1 in here. We go to mixed-use 2, mixed-use, sorry, mixed-use 2A, mixed-use 2B, and then we have urban residential 2. So in this area, all that is around along High Street, around the commuter rail, Canal Street, all that is back to the rail trails, those are mixed use to B. So seven stories by right, plus two with incentive zoning. also along Harvard Avenue.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to clarify, everything that is outside that thick black line, that is subject to the larger neighborhood residential, urban residential conversation, where we're specifically talking about what's within this thick black line.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, that is correct. We also have, we will talk it later on the corridors because of community and public engagement. They ask us to include this Boston Avenue and high street towards Arlington downtown to have some kind of neighborhood quarters. So we will talk about them in the introduction of the quarters, but for the rest, yes, it's for the residential. And then, so mixed use 2B, and from mixed use 2B, so from the purple towards the residential, we have mixed use 2A, so that's when we see that kind of transition on Boston Avenue, on Prescott Street, and then we have all the all the rest is urban residential too. And again, this includes the townhouse, three units, from three units, that's the minimum. And then we allow multiplex from four to six, and then any multiple unit dwelling that goes higher than six units, and there is no maximum cap. So yes, just so that we understand, these are the districts and we are only in the squares, it's only what is inside that very thick black line. So we have some district comparison between, so we have the districts Medford Square, West Medford Square, and what is allowed in each of these districts. So mixed use 1B is allowed in Medford Square. We don't have it in West Medford Square. Mixed to A, we have it in both, five stories plus two of incentive zoning. This was the dark blue. Then we have the mixed to B. This is the purple that we just saw, seven stories plus two incentive zoning. We allow this in both Medford and West Medford. We have mixed use three, eight stories plus four with incentive zoning. It's only in Medford Square along the 93, not in West Medford Square. And then the residentials that we have is in Medford Square, we have NR2. And this is one, two units, historic conversion, and then up to two ADUs, one by right and one by special permit. NR3, I'm sorry, we allowed in West Medford Square. Yeah, so in here, we actually added the area of West Medford.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, that was my fault, Paula. We had had so many questions about what the adjacencies were to the squares that I wanted to just make sure that they were in the table. So what you and what the chair said earlier is correct. It's the black boundaries that determine what we're talking about, but we wanted to make sure that people understood what was next to those black boundaries. So I didn't mean to confuse the issue.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, the context is helpful. So I appreciate them being in the table. Thank you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: NR3 is 1 to 3 units, historic conversion, townhouse up to 3, and then up to 2 ADUs per lot, one by ride, one by special permit. UR1 is from 2 to 6 units, so 2 unit, this is your typical duplex, 3 unit, multiplex from 4 to 6, historic conversion, townhouse maximum up to 6. And then the IDUs are only for one in three units, and is one by ride and one by a special permit. And then the urban residential two is from three units. There is no maximum cap. So what we have is multiplex from four to six, multifamily more than six units, then historic conversion townhouses, and then up to two IDUs per lot for one to three unit dwellings. Again, one by right and one by special permit. So if we see where are inside, we have Medford Square. Inside, we have NR3, UR1, and UR2. We don't have NR2. And for West Medford, looking only to what is inside, we have UR2. We don't have any of this. So sorry for the confusion, but it's good to have it as a reference. What is the letter?
[Emily Hedeman]: In the last row, going all the way to the left, MX1B is no, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, yes. Perfect. That's what it should be. Okay.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. Just update that for future iterations, if you don't mind.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, it's confusing. We also wanted to talk that we are working on development standards to protect as much as possible residential districts that are abutting these areas. So even though they can go quite high, they need to. So let's say, for example, that we allow in some of these districts, seven stories by right. plus whatever is the incentive zoning. We have certain restrictions when they abide a residential district. And so this was only to study. We have the example was done in this area. So we are using these sections, which is cutting through. If we take a knife going through this area, the street, which is Salem Street and Garden Street in here. If we took a knife, this is what we will see in the existing. What the possibilities would be are shown in these two, the sections that are below. Even we allow a higher than four stories, we need to understand that from we have first is the abutting residential, the height. So we take from the lot line, we throw a 45 degree angle, and they can build up to that angle, it cannot go more than that. So we make sure that there is enough space. So that's for one. And then the second is the minimum daylight standard. So what we want is that there a lot more complex sun studies than what we have here with the section. We are looking how to do this, but we want to make sure that there is a protected way to ensure that there is a minimum daylight for the existing residential areas. We are looking into average of time in the months that are the And this is one way that is being done in other countries, which is the average hours of sun in the darkest months, in the sixth darkest half a year that is the darkest. And so ensure that at least there are two or three hours that are consecutive of sun. So we need to continue to study that. So again, this is to show just that it's not only about what zoning the district allows, but that there are other requirements. And these are going to be development standards that we will incorporate to make sure that the existing residential areas are protected.
[Emily Hedeman]: And that would be on top of these zoning changes.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so yeah, exactly.
[Emily Hedeman]: You would apply these standards not only to these West Medford and Medford Square, this would be applied citywide?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so it will be applied for all the corridors, all the districts that are in the corridors and the squares mainly.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. So I mean, this is kind of going back. But the Tufts issue is especially poignant in my mind with the issues that area residents had on the shadows that were cast. So if this is done correctly and well, this could potentially prevent issues like that in the future.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah. Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm into it. Thank you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Sure. And so this is an option that was, there is a lot one and lot two, we have here two lots, one very long, then smaller ones. So if we continue to keep those lot one and lot two, this would be the let's say that the consequences is that you don't have a lot of space in your lot one, so you do the minimum setbacks, and then you have to adhere to these two. But the other chance would be if I combine lot one and two, then I can do a bigger setback, and then I can go higher with also setbacks. So there are many different ways of doing this. But we always want to make sure that these two things are protected so that we always have this angle and then that we also have the minimum daylight. And so I'm going to pause here to see if the board has any question about these squares. Or if you want me to continue with the other corridors, let me know. What do you prefer?
[Emily Hedeman]: I have one question and then I'd love to open it up. Just. Just emphasizing that, like, maybe let's hold on our overall discussion until after we hear quarters, but if there's any clarifying questions that the board has. I'll recognize you and you can ask them. So I noticed that the MX3 is really only in that one spot next to 93. Is that the only place it'll ever be in Medford? I mean, you know, right now, I guess. We don't know what future Medfordians are going to do.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So for now, it is in this area and then Mystic Avenue, all that it was on along as well, highway. So for now, it's only where we have it in this area and Mystic.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, great. That was my only question. The other ones I interrupted you all. So I think I got those out. Looking at other members of the board, just raise your hand if you want to be recognized. Peter?
[Peter Calves]: Yes, I just have one question about the urban residential two in West Medford Square that seemed to have no upper limit on units and I'm curious what you think will control the units there like I mean obviously looking at the parcels they're pretty small parcels you can't because you can't reasonably fit that much more than six units on them anyway just looking at the size but I just I mean that was just something that I wanted to ask about. If there was any kind of unit cap here, just expect the, it's just expected that the parcel size will do that on its own.
[Emily Hedeman]: Emily, do you have any thoughts on that?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, so if I may, if we see the existing around Canal Street and in this area, when we go to apartment one, also there is no cap of units. That's something that we are introducing now, more gradients, so that we also have that missing middle housing, and to give a lot more variety in housing. Right now, your current zoning multifamily is more than three, and it can be three, it can be 100, if the same applies. So we want to do a bigger gradient with that. Now, your question, absolutely true. In the red areas, we don't have a maximum unit. What we want to make sure is that in this quarter of a mile, we don't have single family or two units. So that we start with three units. That's basically the thought process behind this. So there are a lot of other, we have parking requirements. The lot minimums are quite small, but it will fit only a three unit. With all the different requirements that we have, we have permeable surface, we have landscape, we have parking. So with all that, it's very difficult that in these lots, if they are not combined, that they will make more than three units.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, no problem. Thank you. I just wanted the clarification. I appreciate the thought that went into it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Any other members of the board with clarifying questions? Peter, you might have just sparked a question for me, but I'm using the interactive zoning viewer to potentially answer on my own. You can always ask.
[Emily Innes]: But I'm glad to hear you say that, because that is what we were hoping that people would do with the interactive viewer, is really explore it. The layers we put in there are very much tied to the questions we've heard throughout the process. So I think that would allow people to get more data on their own and inform their thinking on it. So glad to hear you're using it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think I answered my own question. It was, um, you made a comment about, you know, we want to make sure that there's no single family within a quarter mile. ish of the West Medford commuter rail station. I was trying to figure out like, you know, how many single families are there now. Because the other thing with this zoning is, you know, we need to make it super clear that this is not requiring anyone to do anything differently with their property now. If you live in a single family home, you are not required to, you know, add another unit by any means. It just means that you know, if you as the landowner were interested in developing, you could add more units.
[Emily Innes]: Exactly. And it's not a prohibition in any way, shape or form or a change to existing single family. It is a prohibition on new single family that is not replacing. I think we've had this conversation before. Yeah, but yeah, anybody who owns a single family now in any of these districts are protected on your under your current non conforming provisions and the ordinance.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: And just to also add to that, the protection is you can tear it down, rebuild a single family. You can even add, I think it's double of what you already have of girls floor area. And you could add also ADUs, for example, because it's also for the, so if you want to build an ADU, you're very welcome to do it. So the protections are quite high.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thanks for clarifying. John, I see your hand.
[John Anderson]: Do you have a question? Yes. Yes, to Paula. Those rights that the single family owner would have, those are by right? I mean, or would that require a trip to get a, what do you call it, a variance?
[Emily Innes]: I'm pulling up the, sorry to jump in on your answer, Paul. I just want to let everybody know I'm pulling up the section now, and I'll put it into the chat.
[John Anderson]: I mean, I know of people who have a home that's non-conforming for one reason or another. And just about anything they need to do, anything they want to do with it requires a hearing, notifying the neighbors. Is it a detriment to the community, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sorry.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: I'm going to defer that question to Emily. Do you know, Emily, if that meets the variance?
[Emily Innes]: So it says if the building commissioner determines that the proposed alteration extension or change exceeds all of this, exceeds the criteria that are set forth, then the Board of Appeals would need to do a special permit. which is a slightly lower bar than a variance. A variance can be quite tough, so it gives a special permit process. But if the, by extension, if the language is, if the criteria is met, then the building commissioner can make that determination. So I'm putting the section number on. I'm just about to put the link on so people can find it and read it themselves. But there's no need for the variance. It would either be a building commissioner determination or a special permit based on the criteria.
[Alicia Hunt]: And to clarify, the special permit would be issued by the Zoning Board of Appeals? Yeah. So people don't always know what the difference is, that a variance is a very tough legal test, and a special permit is a much easier thing to receive, but it does involve going to the Board of Appeals.
[John Anderson]: How many non-conforming structures are there in this West Medford Square area?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: That is a very good question. We did some analysis in the very beginning. The nonconformities in Medford are quite high. In this area, because it's very historic, I can imagine that there are a lot of nonconforming existing. So the single family requires already, single family one that I think applies here requires already a 7,000 square foot lot as minimum. So you're going to have a lot of non-conforming existing. We can absolutely prepare for next time a non-conforming map for the lot area and certain requirements that are already there.
[Emily Innes]: And we had done a lot of the nonconforming analysis back last June, actually, and discussed it with the Planning and Permitting Committee. I believe those maps are all online now, but we don't have the exact number in this particular area. But we could certainly research that and bring it back to you, and as Paola said, show a localized map of the work that we did last year.
[John Anderson]: Since you brought up the issue of historic structures, I would like to ask this. There'll be a lot of economic incentive. for a lot of people to give up their single family home to construct something much bigger with many more units. And of course, that's part of the point of what you're doing. I guess my question is, what protections are there to kind of maintain the historic character of the area and also the streetscape?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: We also have the historic conversion, even though it's more on the outside of this area. So we do have a historic conversion, which is Anything that instead of tearing the house and building a new one, just to be able to add new units into that historic building. So we do want to preserve the historic character and it's an easier way to build more units and preserve that historical character of the area, which we do have in West Medford.
[Emily Innes]: And I'll add that zoning is an imperfect tool for historic preservation, unfortunately. So we have tried to consider it in different ways as we looked at the different geographic areas, as Paola mentioned, for the residential, which includes the urban residential too, in the West Medford Square here. the idea of historic conversion to create an incentive for people to keep those existing buildings and make fairly minor modifications to allow uh, entry into, uh, additional units within it, um, in terms of, uh, some of the other things that we have talked about that aren't part of tonight's public hearing, but with accessory dwelling units, uh, we in, in consultation with the planning and permitting committee and city staff are proposing a special permit for historic, uh, accessory structures. So for example, if somebody has a carriage house or a barn, There's a relaxation to be able to do an accessory dwelling unit. Part of today's conversation in terms of the squares in Medford Square, Paola mentioned the area along the river that is basically a historic block is not really suitable for a lot of redevelopment in terms of the parcel depths, the adjacency to the river, the adjacency to the seawall in the river. So by making that mixed use one, we are effectively zoning it for what it already is and providing some protections there. If additional historic protection is of interest to the board and to the community and to the City Council, as we look at the incentive zoning, we may be able to place some additional incentives around historic development in that. In terms of the streetscape, again, for the public right-of-way, zoning doesn't address the public right-of-way. However, the green score that the City passed earlier this year, while it does address principally stormwater management and other components, has aspects of it that on the private side can reinforce the streetscape. In Mystic Avenue, we started with that, and then in other portions of this, we have requirements to widen the sidewalk on the private property side so that there is a wider sidewalk that would allow for a better, more active use of the area. That's also built into some of these. Of course, that only comes into play with a redevelopment of a parcel, not with a historic building. There are waiver provisions under certain circumstances, but we are considering how and where zoning can contribute to both historic preservation and the the public experience of being on the street and the streetscape.
[John Anderson]: I appreciate all of those comments and also that, of course, zoning is an imperfect tool. One of the things I noticed in the comprehensive plan was the idea that the Community Development Board could actually come up with design standards. Now, is that part of this effort? Because it would seem to me that that would close a lot of gaps, which your zoning-based approach just can't do?
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, that's a great question. So there's two ways that we can think about it relative to zoning. I break up the design standards and design guidelines are used in so many different ways that people get very confused about what you're talking about. I usually talk about development standards, which are mandatory. They're baked into the zoning. We do have those in all of the districts, and we will be continuing to refine them based on public comment and probably do another round of changes. at the end of the process, but the development standards speak to the criteria that you, the Community Development Board, would be using in both site plan review and in the special permit process. So they deal with access, stormwater management, lighting, trash management, the relationship of buildings to the lot and to adjacent buildings. When you start getting into components of building style, yeah, actually these development standards here that Paola talked about earlier and is illustrating now, those are development standards that would be in the zoning that would be mandatory to meet. with a possible waiver for certain types of them. When you start talking about architectural styles, materials, colors, going into that, we usually recommend design guidelines which the CD board can adopt and use in the site plan review and in the special permit process. Those are, when you say to people that they're advisory, people often think, oh, that must mean that they're weak. But in fact, they can be a powerful tool for discussions between members of the board. a development team, and members of the public, because it allows a community to define what they value, what they think is important, either citywide or neighborhood by neighborhood. And then the board has a tool that they can say to, you know, a developer, these are the things we want to see out of your proposal. So it can be a very powerful tool for those discussions. Typically by making the process and the discussion shorter, it's generally in a developer's best interest to work with the community with their design guidelines, but they don't have the same teeth as a development standard in the zoning. So that's usually how we think of breaking those two into two different sections.
[John Anderson]: Would it be possible to require design review for any new building that's built within a particular district?
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, another great question. We tend to be very careful about design reviews, so it doesn't typically apply to, say, single-family homes unless you have a local historic district. So one of the other things about historic preservation is we'll get comments from people in communities saying, oh, well, it's a National Register district. It must be protected, and it's not. It's the local historic district that provides the protections, and historical commissions can have their own design. Um, guidelines and review for that, although it tends which we do. Yes, exactly. So, you know, that that sits kind of adjacent to the zoning. Um, so, in terms of reviewing every single building, we would have to look at. A, some of the protections under the Zoning Act for single family and other uses, and then B, generally it's more effective when it's tied to a threshold such as site plan review and special permit. The smaller projects that might fall under building commissioner or an administrative site review typically don't trigger a design review process, but it's certainly something we can continue to discuss. I appreciate you bringing it up.
[John Anderson]: And I certainly wouldn't advocate for design review for single-family homes. That would just go against all custom, you know?
[Emily Innes]: Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's not commonly done.
[John Anderson]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Coming out strong in your debut meeting, John. Those are some great questions.
[John Anderson]: Oh, thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: I really appreciate it.
[John Anderson]: I tried to do a little homework.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, as we should. Any other questions from members of the board? Penny, I see your hand. We are not doing public comment at this point, but we will be doing that after we hear about the corridors. So keep that hand ready. We will hear from the public shortly. Um, maybe 1 last question, and I feel like I think I know the answer, but I want to ask it anyways. In the old zoning or in the present zoning. You know, buildings up to 15 stories are allowed in some areas. I feel that, like, that number has kind of been kind of floating around. It's almost like a scary way. So I'm wondering, how did we come up with the four, five, seven, eight plus incentives for the number of stories? Was it pulled out of a hat? Was it based on, I don't know? your lottery numbers. I'd love to hear some thoughts on that. Because I know it's not those two things.
[Emily Innes]: Definitely not pulled out of the hat or the lottery numbers. And I'll let Pallas speak to some of this as well. I think we heard loud and clear through various discussions that sort of 15 throughout the city was not an appropriate, 15 stories throughout the city was not an appropriate number. Some of it is, Some of it is based on building code for the change between structures, right? You can go up to, I think it's six stories, six built, and after that, you need to be moving into steel construction, but you can also have a certain number of stories on top of a podium. So, hearing or understanding from past work what might be feasible to do. I think actually the image that Pella has on screen is a good one. That middle image where you see the gray parking, that is a podium parking and the building is kind of wrapping around it. And we like to see that because underground parking is very expensive to do. But this way of building the podium parking and then putting on the main street, the ground floor commercial and the residential above keeps that active streetscape, that walkable streetscape that we've talked about. So part of it was understanding how this works. And then I think the other thing, and Polly may want to speak to this as well, but the idea that the base The base should be reasonable, right, the base number of floors should be reasonable, but that we wanted the higher heights to be tied to those public benefits, and so figuring out what level of height above base would make sense for the type of benefits we were asking for, right? You want to get something out of the development that's important for the public, so it's a balance. I think we've received a lot of input on that balance that I certainly appreciate from the public comment, but making the incentive zoning desirable so that the community will get those public benefits was part of that. Pally, I don't know if you want to add anything else.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so we do a lot of internal studies and analysis of the height and basically how would it feel walking on those streets. So we do a lot of sections. As you see here, all these red lines were sections that we've shown. And so that height goes depends on how high we can go without starting to cast shadow on both sides of the street and how the tunnel starts to feel very tight, if the lots are quite big and deep. And so we know that there can be a lot of setbacks and setbacks to make that height a lot more livable and breathable. And so we do a lot of internal fit studies see a little of parking, et cetera. And we try to see within certain requirements, the existing and how those could change how much we can really go. And so we always need to think about not only what we can do right now, but where the tendencies are going in our trends of living and et cetera. And so how that could be flexible enough so we can adapt to those new ways of living. uh, cars, et cetera, are going decreasing the number of cars that we, and each family owns, the families are smaller than what it used to be, uh, 50 years ago. So the types of buildings and. Yeah. So we try to give that flexibility, not only for the now, but also what it will be. Those numbers will come in with those analysis.
[Unidentified]: Sure.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: and community comments as well. Community staff, city council comments, et cetera.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, I'm very much looking forward to comments from my fellow board members and the public. Last question. I promise this is the last. OK. I don't know if everybody else thinks it's ugly, but we have our little parking blobs on those two bottom sections. I completely recognize that, you know, parking is necessary. But like, let's say we reduce the parking requirements. Would that gray blob be replaced with other uses?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, absolutely. So, okay. This is only, and again, every time that we do a section and show a section, it's not what it has to be there. It's just a potential development that could happen. We just want to make sure that we show that we want to activate the street, so the active uses are towards the street, and to show how that could be done. But absolutely, we want also flexibility on the parking so that that can change and become more residential or bigger commercial area, maybe with surface parking in the back is more than enough. And that is the flexibility that we're talking about, right? If those numbers change, if there is more public transit and there are more reductions, how this can be adapted.
[Emily Innes]: And I'll just add what you're saying, maybe for people who are listening in today who aren't used to seeing as sections, is that that gray blob is the interior of the lot, right? So what you're seeing that's facing the street is the commercial ground floor on the bottom and the residential above. But you make a critical point, which is if you're thinking of the ground plane of the lot, the base of the lot, There's different uses that are competing for that base, right? You've got either the building itself or the open space, the green space, or the parking. So those three. So if you reduce one, then you have opportunities for others. So if you think about a more suburban area, an area of single families, you've got the house, you've got the driveway, and you've got a lot more green usually. as a percentage of the lot. As you come into the more urbanization, that's when you have to start thinking more about how these relate to each other. And so, as Paola said, the flexibility, creating something that provides flexibility over time in how these uses are arranged on a lot is really important, but part of the development standards are to guide them, so guide future development. so that you have the active spaces that are facing the street, and then the remainder can be the parking, the open space, and there are opportunities to deal with that. We have some sections, for example, where you can see the green on top of the parking, right? So that parking deck isn't just a parking deck. It may be providing a green amenity space. for the residents on there. So there are other ways of using that. And we've tried to think about how you set the rules to make that options for future development. Very nice.
[Emily Hedeman]: Cool. All right. So with that, I think we're ready to go on to the introduction to the draft corridors. Yes.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Perfect. If I may then, I will start with the introduction of the other corridors. The corridors that have been identified were Boston Avenue, Main Street, Broadway, Harvard Street, and then, as we said, by community request, we did in West Medford the High Street and Boston Avenue part, which are smaller and neighborhood-scale type of corridors.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just a quick logistical note on this and reminder to the board. This topic has not been referred to us yet, so we're not opening a public hearing on it. This is just for context. We can still ask questions, of course, but just giving a little bit of context for us all. I'm sorry about that, Paola. Please continue.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: You can interrupt me whenever you want. That's totally fine. And ask all the questions you want. Sure. So here are the existing, again, I'm going to zoom in this area of the corridors. These are the corridors that we want to talk about. Again, the corridors that we saw before are the same. These are the existing ones. We have C1, that's the commercial, and we have them in all those pink areas. some in Boston Avenue, intersection between Harvard Street and Main Street, and then at the Broadway line between Somerville. And again, some of the cuts between Somerville and Medford, especially in Broadway, but also some a little bit more in here on the west side. These are, they are cutting through lots. So it's very difficult to put them together. That's why there has been a study in Broadway between Medford and Somerville. And so what you will see is a little bit of that, what it came out from that study. that Medford and Somerville did on that corridor. So commercial one, again, residential building, six stories by right, commercial, four stories by right, other permitted structures, 15 stories by right. Apartment one is this kind of salmon color that we can find in Main Street and in Boston Avenue area. And so we have residential building, no cup of maximum units. They are only let's say that they are capped by the height and it's three stories by right. We have a little bit of industrial area in Boston Avenue towards Broadway. We have office to Boston Avenue. This is the north area that goes towards Somerville and they are permitting six stories by right. then the rest of this orange is that is mainly everywhere is the general residential one in two units. And then we have the single family, which is mainly on the high street on West Medford area. And so what the proposal is, as we have said many times, we want to try to place the density where we have services, public transit, job opportunities. And so the corridors are mainly those areas. So we want to also bring mixed uses that are not allowed in all of these residential districts. that are not allowed in Apartment 1, for example. And so we want to bring Mixed Use 1B, Mixed Use 2A, Mixed Use 2B. There is only one area with Mixed Use 2B, and it's where we have right now the Office 2 area on Boston Avenue. And then we have mainly mixed use one on the northern part of Main Street. In this area, we have a lot of commercial, existing commercial, and it's not allowed in by the current zoning because it's in apartment one. We want to make them conforming and be able to do any changes or have more residential on top or whatever they consider it's good for their business as well. So we are doing all that apartment one, we are converting them into mixed use 1B, and it's four stories by right, plus one of incentive zoning. Then we have in the, wherever we have usually intersections, or there is something important of a public space. And so intersection we have on Harvard and Main Street, which is already allowing six stories by right on the current zoning. We have Metrotops Park. We have also increased the possibility for height. And then where we have intersections, we go, or that existing buildings are already higher, we bring that higher of mixed use to A, which is five stories by right, plus two with incentive zoning. Um, and then we have the urban residential to, um, in the, in the rest of the areas, um, which. We bring, um, urban residential to three stories plus one with incentives. So here we are. Um, this is an update that we had from the previous urban residential to. we are proposing to have three stories plus one, so it can go up to four with incentive zoning. In the area of the West Metro, what we wanted is to make conforming what is there. So wherever we have business, that block is converted into mixed use one. So again, we want the smallest scale in these areas. We don't want to go very high. So we go for the four stories by right, one incentive zoning, mixed use 1B on High Street on the southern side. So wherever we have the existing business. And then at the very end, because there is, if I'm not mistaken, some restaurants in here, At Boston Avenue, West Medford area, just in the south, we have the urban residential, sorry, the mixed-use one. We have a small area of urban residential one. Sorry, that is not on the legend. That is a mistake from my side. We have a very small area of urban residential one. This was up to six units, from two to six units on the very end. We have some changes in here that will come later to do more NR3 because certain street is not really able to get through, so it creates a little bit of dangerous area. So some parcels in here will be changed and then we have some also urban residential one in connection with Somerville at the very end of Main Street. So very small also in here, this little triangle, mainly because it cannot grow. It's not possible to do urban residential two, or there is some kind of problematic areas with circulation and streets. So these are the the existing districts and the existing proposal. We had community engagement last week, so we need to add those comments into this map. It stays pretty much the same. There will be some adjustments in Boston Avenue on this side. There are some existing business, so we want to include them. And it came from public comment. They will be mixed use 1B. So it will stay on the lower scale so that it's transitioning to the neighborhood in this area. Not very big changes in general. they were quite positive, that's what I can tell you from the community engagement that we had. So to look at the comparisons so that you can have them all in the table, and these are really focusing inside these areas, these corridors, we have mixes 1B, four stories plus one, mix 1 to A, five plus two, mix to B, seven plus two. mixes one mixes three we don't have it anywhere so we just as you can see no no no no we don't have it mixed to be it's only on boston avenue where we have office two right now on the very north part towards somerville that is the only place we have it otherwise we do not have any of this district mixes to a we have in so not in the west metford areas because we only go with the very lowest mixed use that we have. And then on Boston Avenue, Main Street, Harvard Street, and Broadway, we do have some in certain intersections, certain areas where we could go higher. That's where we have it. And then mixed use 1B, we have it everywhere except for Harvard Street, because the intersection, as we showed are mainly as it is already six stories by right right now. So we let them in mixes to a five by right plus two with incentive zoning. And then the rest is mainly residential. And then this will belong to Boston Avenue. So and then we have urban residential one urban residential to We do have Urban Residential 1, as I was explaining, in very smaller areas on Boston Avenue and Main Street. And then we have Urban Residential 2 in all of them as filling that residential areas. So it's allowed in every corridor. Again, just to remember, the UR2 is three stories by right plus one incentive zoning. That's the overall. Now questions, please ask.
[Emily Hedeman]: Now I kicked off questions last time, but I see John's hand.
[John Anderson]: It's a quick one. Just looking at the map. These sort of large gray areas like Greenleaf Avenue, Brooklyn Street, how are those areas zoned? You know, like if you go down Boston Avenue.
[Emily Innes]: Right, those are the residential districts, so they'll be the subject of the June 18th meeting.
[John Anderson]: Okay, so now the block line around Mystic Avenue. That's one of the corridors.
[Emily Innes]: Yeah, the two black lines, the ones that have the black lines around them are the ones that have already been approved. We wanted to call them out. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it's, it's, it's the, the blue, green, purple and red colors today. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.
[Emily Hedeman]: Any other board questions? And I do see hands from members of the public. So I want to remind you all that we're going to be taking public comment after board questions, and the public comment should be focused on Medford Square and West Medford Square. The reason we're hearing the corridors is to try to provide some additional context on the connection between the districts, Medford Square and West Medford Square. And also please refrain from messaging any members of the board through chat. It's not part of the public record. So we just wanna make sure that any comments are either sent via email or mentioned in the public hearing. All right, if there's no board questions about the other corridors, Um. I think what we usually do is, and I kind of want to pull the board first, is what we have been doing in the past is hearing public comment and then doing a larger discussion with our comments, our thoughts and feedback, as well as the public. Is that something that we'd like to do again? I don't think I need a motion on this, but like, okay, cool.
[Peter Calves]: I think it makes sense to. do that to be able to incorporate what we hear from the public in our final discussion.
[Emily Hedeman]: I agree. Okay. Awesome. Thanks, gang. So if people are eager to participate in the public comment period, please go ahead and raise your hand. I'm going to read the I'm going to read the standard blurb. I would ask that if people have something that's not a name, like iPhone or a bunch of numbers, if you wouldn't mind just changing it to a name, even if it's just your first name, that'll help us. that'll help us just kind of call your name when you're ready. And we do ask everybody to say their name and address as part of their comment to put it into the public record. So I see an admin, I see What else do I see? I see an iPhone. If you're not planning to comment, then like, you know, don't worry about it, but it'll just help us kind of keep track and make sure that everybody has an opportunity to speak. I know that, where are they? I think Rick or Rich had raised their hand. So I don't want to make sure that they're in the mix too. If you're having any trouble with technology, just ping us. Alicia, did you want to say something before I did my blurb?
[Alicia Hunt]: I have one comment for that, but I also have, I would like to maybe comment on some of the zoning, but for the public comment, just as a member of the staff in between the board and the public.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so let's do that. And then I'll read my blurb. But in the meantime, members of the public, if you do wanna participate, please go ahead and raise your hand.
[Alicia Hunt]: Alicia, great. So one of the things that as the presentation was going on and the board was asking questions, particularly about parking, I did want to sort of raise this conceptually. So as you are aware, we've put out the Medford Square RFP for these lots. And it's part of that we put out sort of conceptually what we thought we were looking for. and how much parking we thought was necessary as part of that. And we asked for proposals, and we have been test fitting the proposal against the zoning. And one of the things that has come up is this idea that on sort of the main, most main roads like Riverside have, we can do active frontage, which is what we want. We would love to have everywhere. But even with a parking garage, in order to support the residential and the uses that we are looking at, we need the side streets. So it's a full, if you look at it as almost a full block, to actually have first floor parking under that with just the front edge on the main street being active. And I'm phrasing it that way, not because I'm necessarily saying we should change the zoning to allow what we ask for in our RFP, but rather to acknowledge the amount of parking that we actually think is necessary and how that takes up space and how that takes up frontage. And this desire for frontage on our streets to be active, but also we may need to be flexible about that in terms of how does it actually work in the amount of parking that is necessary, because one would love to take the bus everywhere and the Chi and bicycle and walk, but it's not always possible. And we recognize that as well. And so this meeting isn't about parking, but it does include stuff around active frontage, where parking is not that. And I just kind of wanted to put that sort of out there into the mindset as we're looking at this zoning in a big picture way. Because if we're seeing it on these parcels, we may see it on other parcels as well. And how does that play through?
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, that's helpful context. Emily, did you have something to add to that?
[Emily Innes]: I did I will put a plug in while that exactly as director hunt said this isn't the parking isn't part of this meeting but it is part of our public listening session on monday at the library and we would love to see anybody who is interested in parking or have thoughts about parking or concerns about parking to join us there we'll have a very short presentation on what the existing conditions are and some examples from other communities, but it will be primarily a listening session on parking. So I just wanted to add that because it is it is important subject we've heard from a lot of people on today.
[Emily Hedeman]: And recognizing that a lot of members of the public have already put in a lot of time, whether it's these meetings or emails or contacting city staff. Are people also able to, like if they can't make it on Monday, are they able to send emails to ask questions? Okay, great. Good.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I will just say, Madam Chair, that we attempt to answer questions that come in via email. But sometimes either the length of the questions or the volume of questions means that we literally can't answer every single email that we get individually. So we try, but I can't always promise the staff can have some bandwidth to do it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, the robots haven't fully taken over. So we're, we're doing our best. All right, so I will now open the public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature. Last time I checked, that was either its own button or aligned with the react button. You can also send an email to OCD at Medford dash ma dot gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. A reminder to all meeting participants to please refrain from using the chat function to message any comments to city staff or board members as it is not part of the public record. However, if you are having technical difficulties, you can message Alicia or Danielle in the chat, and they'll do as much as they can to help you out. We do have a pretty full meeting tonight, so I'm going to say each participant will have three minutes to speak, because I don't see a ton of hands. And I want to make sure that we capture everybody's feedback. If you don't need the three minutes, you don't have to take it, but I want to give a little bit of additional space. So the first hand that I see, and Alicia, I'm fine managing the queue until my internet goes out like it has been doing. The first commenter that I see, it's just a number, but you are going to get a request to unmute. 17816, please state your name and address for the record. And then Alicia will be managing the timer.
[Jim Doherty]: Jim Doherty. 36 Ellington Street. Since you asked to do that, I attempted to go in. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do it because it asked for a password to go in there, but I will do it by the time we get to the next public hearing. I apologize for that. I'm not that technologically skilled.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's okay. And we'll give you that bonus 15 seconds, 20 seconds.
[Jim Doherty]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Jim Doherty]: I have one quick question just on the question that John had previously asked. If you look at the West, and I realize that it's not a topic tonight, but the map on the West Medford Square that you showed, the surrounding area there outside of that now appears to be all NR3, where on previously maps, it was all UR1. And on the map that he was just referencing, the color appears to still be UR1. Has that changed since the previous meeting? I don't want to get too far down that, but I think just because you put it up, I'm just curious if I'm looking at the wrong map.
[Emily Hedeman]: Emily, do you have a quick answer?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes. So that was from the previous proposal. So the new one is UR1 up to the quarter of a mile. So that is just when we were presenting this course to the city council, that was the map that was used. That's why it looks like that. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. We will update that with the latest for the next one.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, can I clarify that? Because there's a legal thing here. So the version that has the NR3 is in fact the version that has been referred to the City Board by the City Council to consider and make recommendations on. The version that shows the UR1 is in fact the changes that the board has requested to see, and the board is considering making that recommendation to the city council. So that was actually something I was gonna address with the consultants later, that I think we'd have some consistency on what our background is, and that it should be the, and we can discuss that offline, but that's the difference. It's what was proposed and what the board is considering.
[Emily Innes]: And I will just add, we have made no further change. So the city council sent something to the CD board. We had one iteration back to the CD board. We have not made any changes since that one iteration. We're holding it steady for public comment.
[Jim Doherty]: Thank you all. I appreciate the clarification. Second question, at the last meeting, we didn't have a quorum either. And I noticed at that point in time, John, if you will, was on the other side of the counter with the rest of us inquiring. I'm just curious, congratulations, John, for becoming a member. I'm wondering, are there other seats available? What the process is for that? And is there any type of way you can submit if there are space available? Because it seems like it was a pretty quick thing, which I have no problem with. I'm just curious. I think the public should be aware if there are openings like that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Before I answer that, do you have any other questions related to the districts?
[Jim Doherty]: I do.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Do you want to ask that one and then I'll cover it just so we're not eating into your time?
[Jim Doherty]: Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Second question is, it seems like there's a lot of discussion about other public engagement for things that have changed. And I'm curious, is there a different mechanism forum or anything like that, um, beyond, um, sending an emails that. Um, the public can elicit to be part of whatever the other community engagement is, or is all the community engagement based basically via emails or what we're, we're doing tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: We have emails. We have, um, Medford alerts. Um. Emily or color. Alicia I don't I don't know if there's other things that I'm missing.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair. The mayor's office has been trying to do outreach to the community to let them know. Sorry I didn't turn off the timer and. I will change that The mayor's office has been trying to do additional outreach to the community through Facebook, social media, through, I think they've been working on a press release to tell people about what's going on as well. And they've been using the city's robocall system, which some people get either phone calls, others get emails and some people get texts. It depends what you have signed up for through the city's robocall system.
[Jim Doherty]: Very good, thank you. Last question I have on the zoning itself is, I didn't quite follow it all, but I think it had to do with basically shadows where there was discussion earlier about West Medford Square and other areas about height, sunlight, different criterias like that. And then I think a statement was made that maybe it was a question someone asked that therefore will that impact the other squares or the other areas that that would affect that were already voted and I think the response was yeah it would probably apply to those other ones. So does that mean all of those other ones that were approved have to now be re-voted?
[Emily Innes]: I can answer that. Yes, excellent question. Not the individual districts themselves. We are realizing, actually we knew that this would happen and we have a process for it that Many of the development standards would be consistent throughout the city. And so we will be merging those into a separate section of the zoning bylaws. And then there will be a modification that points the districts that have been approved to this new section. This is part of the final clean up. that we will be doing as a final stage in the zoning process. When you're working geographically, district by district, as we've been doing, we have been aware that due to public comment, due to other changes, that there would be things that we would want to modify after all of the individual geographic districts had gone through the approval process. So that will be cleaned up at that point, and those requirements on the sunlight will apply to all of the mixed use and commercial only districts and potentially to UR2 as well. I think the others know because what we're trying to do is apply that requirement to the districts to protect the other residential districts. So that will clean up at the end.
[Jim Doherty]: Appreciate it. And I fully understand it's a moving target. You have to do those. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: You're very welcome. And then to address one of your middle questions, Mr. Jory, which I'm very thankful that you asked, because I love to talk about this when there's a lot of people on the call. And I mean no harm or insult to any members of the board, but there's nothing truly special about any of us. We may have one or two unique qualifications, but really we just care deeply about the city of Medford and our neighbors. We are homeowners, we are renters, we are parents, we are dog moms and dads, cat moms and dads, nothing against cats. Um, some of us know a lot about transportation. Some of us know about nonprofits or history. My background is more, yeah, Adam's got a dog and a cat. Look at that. My background is, is real estate, economic development, sustainability. I now work in renewables. So everybody's kind of all over the place. But I think what unites us is our passion for the city. And in terms of applying, I'm going to drop a couple links in the chat. But you really just have to apply. And I think the next step for that is Alicia and Danielle review the applications, it gets shared with the mayor, the mayor makes their appointment, and then you get sworn in. There's a couple questions that get asked. I did a little interview process, but a couple of us have terms expiring. Some of us may stay on and serve an additional term, but I'm assuming that there's going to be maybe a couple openings on the board. So I encourage anybody that's on this call to apply, especially if you've been a part of the zoning process, because you're at these meetings anyways, you might as well have a more direct impact. The stipend isn't much, but you do get a little bit of a stipend to kind of commemorate your time. But there's two links in the chat, so whether it's Mr. Doherty or anybody else on this call, please apply. We need more people involved, whether it's the Community Development Board or other boards and commissions in the city. And I will get off my soapbox. The next commenter that we have is Cheryl. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. And Alicia's going to start a timer for three minutes.
[Cheryl Rodriguez]: Hi, I'm Cheryl Rodriguez at 281 Park Street. I noticed that some of these extra conversations tonight about things that weren't before the board are a little confusing to members of the public, but I'm curious about how the NR zoning is now being passed. by the square zoning. And the square zoning has some of the areas like, for example, West Medford Square zoned more densely than they are in the NR maps. So I'm wondering how they're going to reconcile that if just the square zoning passes first, then the NR zoning will down zone the square areas, particularly the UR areas. Also, when I'm looking at the Medford Square map, I noticed that the very large lots on the north side of High Street and Square are only zoned as NR2. Um, which is pretty low considering they're right on high street and the sound street corridor was given no such exemptions despite having no rapid transit or a large square that would support the density. So that seems misplaced. I did mention it at the subcommittee meetings and it was ignored and bypassed. Um, NR3 and West in the rapid transit circle exactly matches the density of Glenwood, which again, we don't have any rapid transit. So it seems right inside that quarter mile circle that West is zoned pretty low. And if Glenwood is going to stand, and they should stand taller than us. I noticed tonight we're talking about design and development standards, and Salem Street was placed on one of the maps that you showed that now we're concerned about shadow study. When the Salem Street neighbors rallied and asked for shadow studies, we were told that that wasn't done. We were quite shut down. And it's very concerning that the Salem Street zoning is live right now. It doesn't have any of these design standards. It can happen just the way that it is with no regard for shadow. So I'm not sure why we didn't wait to allow the zoning to be used before the design standards when there's so much developer pressure on Sale Street that we were rushing to get the zoning through so the developers wouldn't miss the summer. And now those buildings can happen without consideration of our sunlight or design standards because those things don't exist. So I feel that it can be too little too late for many of us here on the South Street quarter. And I wish that more attention and study had been paid to us. I'm glad to see that now some of the other areas are getting more attention than we ever got. But I'm concerned that suddenly the city is also notifying about the neighborhood zoning, eight meetings into the neighborhood zoning. so that people didn't find out ahead of time. And now we're scrambling and that's why it's taking extra meetings because people have questions because they're just finding out about this. So I know that there's an urgent rush for the city council and I appreciate that this board is not responding to their pressure and is taking their time and trying to look through these proposals. But I hope that when we do the cleanup that we can remember the areas that we really rushed through and didn't give as much consideration and thought as the areas that we're doing now. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Cheryl. I think those are some really thoughtful and valid comments that you just made. So really appreciate you bringing that up. I'm wondering if Emily, Paola, or members of the city staff have some insight. I know Cheryl mentioned some process. steps that maybe need to be clarified. I hear what she's saying about, you know, we passed Salem Street and now we're looking at these kind of larger development standards. But then there is this gap in time, like how do we... I'd be happy to address that, Madam Chair.
[Emily Innes]: So the development standards were in fact included in the Salem Street zoning, they're a modification. We had originally included development standards in the Mystic Avenue. We modified those for us to be specific to Salem Street. In fact, we learned a lot about looking at Salem Street, and some of those will be moving forward and being equally applied to the squares and the corridors.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have some examples of that?
[Emily Innes]: Yes, absolutely. I don't have the text in front of me, although I can certainly pull it up, speak to it later. set up standards for how the mixed-use buildings would relate to the residential-only buildings in terms of setbacks and stepbacks. That 45-degree angle that Paola showed earlier was first instituted in the Salem Street Development Standards. In fact, in August of last year, there's a couple of slides in the presentation that we did. I don't remember if it's in front of uh, yourselves or in front of city, uh, the planning and permitting, I'd have to go back, but it does show shadow studies in there. So, you know, I think the, the length of time that's passed and the number of other presentations that we've shown, it can be sometimes hard to remember what was shown at which meeting, but we did, we did look at those. Um, we did not do as many site sections, but we did site sections. So, you know, Salem Street was something where we tried to respond to what we heard for public comments. and also bring those lessons learned, right, listen to the community and bring them forward to the others. So certainly there's been an iterative process, and that's how it should be when you're looking geographically. And that takes us back to the wrap-up, and I think the speaker, Cheryl, made a good point. When we go back and re-look at all the geographic districts, re-look at the lessons learned, if there are things that need to be modified, for individual districts, and we will certainly be looking that as well. So I appreciate her bringing that up so we could address it.
[Emily Hedeman]: And then I think there were some some questions on process in terms of like when we're notifying for things. You know, if there is confusion around notification, I, you know, we've been trying to be very, very mindful in terms of how we're how we're putting out agendas, you know, coordinating with the mayor's office. But by all means, if you have additional suggestions or feedback or specific examples, we'd love to respond to them. That's my goal as chair of this board, to be more transparent, include the public more, and try to be responsive to your concerns. The next commenter we have is Penny Schwartz. Penny, you're going to get a request to unmute. Please state your name and address for the record, and Alicia will start the timer for three minutes.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Hello. Actually, this is Matthew Reich. I'm using two computers. Hi. Thank you for taking my question, comment, and thanks for running this meeting. I address 29 Adams Street, which is the corner of Adams and Capon. My first question actually doesn't concern Medford Square. I would just like to confirm that the proposed zoning for 29 Adams is neighborhood residential three, which is Adams South of Capon and Adams North of Capon. As I see, if I'm reading the map correctly, it's Urban Residential 3. Obviously, if that's out of the topic, fine, just tell me and I'll ask some other time or otherwise, please confirm.
[Emily Hedeman]: Why do you keep asking other questions and we'll work to confirm that? That was what, 29 Adams Street, you said?
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Yeah, 29 Adams, corner of Adams and Capon.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so if you have other questions, I'd say keep asking and we'll double check that one for you.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: So for West Metro Square, if I understand what you said in the map correctly, it's the proposed zoning is mixed use three. And if I understand that correctly, that's by right 15 stories maximum. Is that correct?
[Emily Hedeman]: I believe the 15 stories is the current zoning. And then MX three is the proposed zoning. That's eight stories plus up to four with incentives. So it could be up to 12. But that delta of four incentive would be public, theoretically public benefits on the developer, the developer of the land, who's not necessarily a capital D developer could just be the property owner includes.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: I see. OK. Then a comment. The 45 degrees cornice to cornice seems to me rather steep, so a kind of comment and request would be helpful, I think. For people to understand what that looks like visually, if somebody could produce a map showing anywhere in Medford which actually has that comment, it might be more realistic to have 45 degrees from Foundation to Cornice. And I think a more appropriate angle would be roughly 26 degrees, which gives roughly 2 to 1 run to rise, which would be more appropriate for Medford, particularly Medford Square. And one more comment, which may be somewhat off topic to this meeting. The proposed density of the immediate neighborhood where I live, the other corner of Adams and Capon, I think is much too high, and I think that particularly the homeowners in the area would be disappointed in that. So that's what I have. I've asked a few questions. If you have answers, I'd appreciate them. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Thank you, Matthew. So I think we answered your question about the MX3, the 15 stories while we were chatting. I know you had the question about 29 Adams Street. I see in the map it's proposed neighborhood residential three. And then I might have missed another question. Yeah, I think just the general comment about the proposed zoning for the neighborhood?
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Two things, a general comment about a pro zoning for the neighborhood and also the 45. Oh yes, the 45 degree angle.
[Emily Hedeman]: Are there any real life examples of that? Yes. Thank you.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Thank you very much.
[Emily Innes]: Madam Chair, I'm not sure we, or I'm not sure I understood the 45 degree angle question.
[Emily Hedeman]: So what I heard, and I'll unmute you in a second Matthew is, He was curious, number one, are there any real life examples, like any photos, any case studies of this angle being put into place so they could maybe see it more in context? Recognizing you have the section, but a section doesn't always translate to a lived experience. And then I believe he also proposed that the 45 degree angle, rather than starting from the, I think it was the cornice of the house, start from the foundation, which would cut off more of the adjacent buildings.
[Emily Innes]: Thank you. I think I missed a statement. We'll obviously have to look into that for you. We can't answer that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Kathy, was that a fair summary?
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Yes, that's a fair summary, yes, thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, so it sounds like we need to do some follow-up there for you.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_34]: Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: So I can maybe answer a small thing. Usually for street, for sun and shadow studies, usually you do one-to-one to do that relation
[Emily Hedeman]: What does that mean, one-to-one?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: The 45 degree angle, so that it, yeah, exactly. So the proportion will be one-to-one. So there are many urban designers that use that one-to-one in order to get good light and air and quality. So that's using that 45 degree. We want to study a little bit more on how those, especially the step backs, how that can be done. And so we can do a little bit of more diagrams to show those step backs and setbacks, how those could work. So to study a little bit more this standard.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. Yeah, just quick Google searches showing me some examples, maybe in Cambridge, Chelsea, Lowell. So that 45-degree angle is out there. But yeah, let's make sure it's right for Bedford.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yep.
[Emily Hedeman]: Cool. The next commenter that I see is Susan Altman. Please state your name and address for the record. You're going to get a request to unmute and then Alicia will start a timer for three minutes. Hi, Susan.
[nMlCJNUIswQ_SPEAKER_18]: Hi there. Thank you very much. So I have a question that may not be appropriate for this group, but if so, maybe you can direct me. I am, I heard a lot about parking but nothing about driving. And there, there are some streets in Medford that are concerned with this such as particularly Harvard Street I believe the one that runs off Main Street. it's already back to back three quarters of the day. And I'm curious how parking considerations feed into the zoning decision making and how that process works and would just be interested in finding out more about how those considerations get effectuated before zoning allows additional building in a way that's just not sustainable.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think that's a valid question for us. I do want to ask if you have any other questions, just so we're not eating into your time. That's it. That's it. Okay. Yep. I mean, I think that's an appropriate question. Emily or Alicia, Danielle, if you have anything to add to that.
[Emily Innes]: I can speak to the zoning to date and then obviously welcome others to join in. So to date, we have made no recommendations to change the existing parking requirements. The meeting on Monday night, because we have heard so much about parking, both from people who don't want to change them and people who do, the meeting on Monday night is to kind of bring everybody in the same room and talk about parking and listen about parking. But so far, we have made no changes to that. based on what we hear from the public and with the discussions with the Planning and Permitting Committee, which will start on Wednesday about parking, that may change. But to date, there's been no change.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think maybe the meat of Susan's question was more around how is everything connected? If we're not changing parking, how do we consider the impact that these zoning changes are going to have on parking? And maybe not just parking, but also I heard traffic in there as well.
[Emily Innes]: You know, there's a couple of things I think that have fed into what we've discussed so far in these meetings and others. One of them is the difference between the public streets and the private streets. And plug for the interactive map, you can put that up as a layer and see where those are. Right now, all of the zoning that has either been passed to date or has been brought forward requires that parking be off street. In other words, if you're going to do a development, you have to park that development on site. Again, that's something that we're going to talk about on Monday. There can be strategies for parking reductions. There can be strategies for, and this is where the transportation demand management discussion comes in, there can be strategies for providing alternative links to transit that don't require the use of car or can supplement the use of the car. Excuse me. We are very aware that different conditions exist in different parts of Medford. I think Director Hunt spoke to it earlier.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I see your hand up, so I'm going to let her. So something that we have been talking about has come up in a number of meetings, so I feel like I have an almost rehearsed answer. With this idea that zoning does not control the roads and that infrastructure and increasing the ability to, like encouraging people to not drive, for example, we are working here in City Hall hand in hand with some of our other department heads. So we're working very actively with our Director of Traffic and Transportation, people do use bicycles more often when it's safer and when there are bike lanes. And so we are actively working and I'll actually plug this next Tuesday night is a traffic commission meeting to consider a contra flow lane on the Clippership Drive. It's a public meeting, Zoom at five. So we are looking at that. We are looking to design more density where we have transit. But I was in fact just talking to somebody today who works in the field about the fact that over in Cambridge, for example, they redesigned the Longfellow Bridge and they thought that it would get all backed up with traffic all the time because there'd be less room for cars and more rooms for pedestrians and bicycles. And he was saying to me that he has observed that actually it's not more backed up with cars, that because it's more comfortable for bicyclists and pedestrians, they're seeing dramatically more bicycle and pedestrian traffic going through. And every time I ride my bike in town, I'm thinking, do the people in the cars think that here is one less person in a car taking up road space? So we are actively trying to make it safer. We hope to open the Clippership Connector Path in July. So to encourage that, but it is not part of the zoning process. It is something else that the administration is working on. to make it safer and better for people to walk and drop and bicycle around the city. And we are working on a transit program we project, we actually are working with me PC to look at potentials for local small transit within the city to provide options for people that are not using cars. And we literally had our kickoff meeting for that earlier this week, so.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's great. That's all really great to hear. I think I saw a picture of a bike traffic jam. I think it was the Longfellow Bridge when I was scrolling Reddit. uh, within the past couple days. It was really cool to see. I mean, I don't think we'll ever hit, you know, uh, like, you know, Copenhagen levels of biking, but, you know, maybe we can get a little bit closer. But yeah, everything's connected. Um, okay, cool. Um, the next public commenter that we have is Steven Pompeo. Stephen, please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. Alicia is going to start a timer for three minutes.
[Steven Pompeo]: Thank you. Am I unmuted?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, we can hear you.
[Steven Pompeo]: I just have a couple of questions. One on Medford Square and one on West Medford Square. And I'm wondering, can we bring up the zoning map
[Emily Hedeman]: Yep, you can start asking your question, but Paolo will bring it up for you.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah, let's see. The question in Medford Square is regarding the, and I sent this question to the board, so you may have already looked at it, regarding the map in particular with the zone, I guess it's the 2A zone. OK. or the mixed-use one zone. So that light is blue, mixed-use one. So there's only a few properties there, right in the center across from Governor's Ave. And I know it was mentioned about historic, but most of the properties in that section aren't historic. And I just want to confirm, it's being changed from C1, which is six stories by right, and it's being rezoned to MU1, which is only four stories by right. So my question is, can we just scrap that mixed use one zone there? It's only a few properties in the heart of Medford Square. rather than those being the lowest properties in the square, can we just rezone those the way all the abutters to those which are mixed-use 2A so that it's equal and fair with its abutters and not zoned lower than what it's currently allowed?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's certainly something that the board could include it in its recommendations based on feedback that you just provided. So we'll take that into account when we provide our recommendations for this.
[Steven Pompeo]: All right, I appreciate that. And in West Medford Square, the question there is, so same thing, it's being rezoned C1, which is six stories by right. And I don't know if this was a mistake or not, several properties now in West Medford Square are going to become nonconforming because the new zone, which I guess I'm referring to the purple, the mixed-use 2B. Am I correct that that is being raised to a 5,000 square foot minimum lot?
[Emily Hedeman]: We have a quick answer for that. I can't see.
[Steven Pompeo]: I'm pretty sure that's the case. The issue is we have several properties that are in C1 being zoned mixed-use 2B, but now they're going to become non-conforming. Currently, they're allowed to build up to six stories, but because they'll be non-conforming, technically, they won't be able to do anything. So I'm wondering if the 2B zone, rather than putting a minimum lot size of 5,000, whether you could change that to 4,000 and that would open up a lot of the new nonconforming structures that have been created.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Are we able to confirm the lot size for mixed use 2B?
[Emily Innes]: The lot size for mixed-use 2B is 5,000 square feet. I'm just looking to see on the interactive map, another plug, if I can see the palette. Did you have the existing commercial one? I thought it was higher than that.
[Steven Pompeo]: I think it actually, existing says zero.
[Emily Innes]: So the existing, Yes, for other permitted principal structures. So it depends on what you're wanting to do. If you're wanting to do a multiple dwelling in C1, the minimum is a 10,000 square foot lot size. If you're wanting to do assisted living, it is also 10,000 square feet. And if you're wanting to do other permitted principal structures, there is no minimum lot size on that.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah, so could we consider changing that 5,000 to 4,000 so that there would be fewer newly created non-conforming structures.
[Emily Innes]: We can take a look at the non-conforming maps and see what the percentage is, and then come back to the city staff CD report with a recommendation.
[Steven Pompeo]: I think it will accomplish that goal of reducing the nonconforming parcels. That seems to be a big goal. And also now allowing a property to become more dense. So it would accomplish those two goals and also be more fair for any property owners that currently have just under 5,000 square feet, who are currently allowed to go up to six stories, but would be restricted under the new zoning. So that would be great if you could consider that.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, we can certainly look into that. Just as a clarification, if I may, the zoning in Medford is a little bit different from others in the sense that the standards, the dimensional standards go by use. They can be the same district but have different heights. And so that is the occasion, for example, for commercial buildings, they can only go up to four by right, and it's in here. And then you can do, you don't have a minimum, but you can only go up to four stories by right. It's only the residential that can go up to six, but then you need to be 10,000 square foot minimum. So there are a lot of different things. We want to make it more easier and having only one standard as a minimum and then you can go higher than that but we will look into the non-conformities absolutely. Thank you.
[Steven Pompeo]: Yeah look into that because even if four stories is the only allowed height it's currently allowed four stories now under the proposed zoning it would be nonconforming and therefore technically not allowed to have anything done to it. So if you want to keep it four stories, that's fine rather than six. But yeah, don't make these under 5,000 square foot lots in West Medford Square become nonconforming lots. I think that would just Well, we wouldn't achieve the goal of having fewer non-conforming properties, and it wouldn't help with the increase in the density goal. And I don't think it would be fair either to take a property that's currently allowed to go four stories and make it a non-conforming structure.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yeah, absolutely.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. I really appreciate your comment and the specificity of the feedback you provided. That's very helpful for us as we look to review and make our modifications. Thank you. Thank you, Stephen. The next comment or that we have actually Christian I saw that your hand was up. Did you want to add anything. Christian is a member of city staff, so I just wanted to recognize.
[SPEAKER_18]: I just would like to remind people to state their address because the last few participants did not. I'm just taking.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. If the previous commenters could message their address, well, no, they have to say it, right? Because then it's in the public record.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam Chair, I do have Mr. Pompeo's and Susan Altman's. Mr. Pompeo submitted a public letter, so I have that as well. I actually have a very weird administrative request. I need to rename Peter because he had to drop and come back in. but there are two people in the meeting who are iPhone. So, and I can't do it from the private chat he sent me. Peter, can you please raise your hand? And then I'll know which of these is you. Are you able to do that? Or if you turned on your camera, I could tell. I'm so sorry about this.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm unmuting one of the iPhones, just taking a guess.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, is that you, Peter?
[Emily Hedeman]: All right, I don't think that was, I think that was the wrong one. All right, is this you, Peter? Yep, that's me. Yes, I got him.
[Peter Calves]: Thank you, sorry, I had to turn on my phone and the app is updated and I don't know where any of the settings are anymore.
[Emily Hedeman]: the joys of technology, and then appreciation to members of the public and the board for your patience with- I'm very sorry about that. With the human element of this. It always makes it exciting. And yes, Christian, great reminder. And I'll try to catch that in the future. So the next commenter that we have is Sheila Ahrens. Sheila, please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to unmute you and Alicia will start a timer for three minutes.
[Sheila Ehrens]: Aaron's 19 Sagamore Park. Just a couple of questions. You had mentioned something about the river on Clippership Drive and I was wondering if you could elaborate a little more about why there can't be development along the river there because that's just you know the most exciting cities have access to the river. I was just in Chicago and it's amazing. Places like Newburyport, et cetera. So could you elaborate a little bit more why we wouldn't be able to do that or can we do that?
[Emily Hedeman]: Do you have other questions, Sheila? Just so we're not using up your time.
[Sheila Ehrens]: And the other question was about that John mentioned about design review. And you said that there would be. So I was wondering if you're going to develop some sort of criteria about what exactly is going to be required for the design of new developments so we can continue to have beautiful squares and a beautiful Medford. Oh, and I also wanted to comment one thing is thank you. You guys did an amazing job about getting the word out about this meeting. I've gotten like six different emails and notifications from many different ways. And thank you for making such a concerted effort to make that happen. I really, really appreciate it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for saying that, Sheila. We're hoping we're not going to the extreme where we're annoying people, but we would prefer to have people be aware. It's good to get the positive feedback.
[Sheila Ehrens]: Yeah, no, you did an amazing job. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, well, thanks to members of the city staff. They're kind of the boots on the ground with that work, and not just this office, the communications office, mayor's office. But as always, open to critical feedback or suggestions as well. So we had a couple of questions. We had, why can't we turn this into Medford's version of the Chicago Riverwalk? What was the other one?
[Sheila Ehrens]: About design review.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, design review. Yes, thank you, Sheila.
[Emily Innes]: Madam Chair, I can address those. I think it might've been my comment and it was possibly I did not speak as well as I could have done. So I'm gonna take you on a little tour. The comment that I made in terms of development was in reference to where the MX1 buildings are. This is the section, this is obviously the river. This is the section that we have proposed for MX1. If we walk a little bit down here, you can see it's two stories. As we go around the corner, you can see, to move a little bit further away, this is also an imperfect tool, but you can see two stories wrapping around the corner, and as you go down the side, you've got these historic areas. What you will have noticed from that is that these buildings butt up, not just against the river, but some of them in some cases are bang on top of the seawall. And so our concern is those, those, and then looking at the map, those parcels are also not particularly deep. And so if you're requiring parking on site, and you're, you're. putting it in place that those buildings could be significantly higher, there's not actually a lot of room to do that. The buildings, if they are structurally capable of doing that, potentially you could add a story or two on top of them if the building's already set like that, but you'd have to have structural engineering, that question is outside of zoning. So it's not that Medford can't develop along the river, It's not that we want to restrict development in Medford Square, it's that as a practical matter, The ability for that particular stretch to develop to the height of some of the other districts is somewhat limited and that was our thinking on that.
[Sheila Ehrens]: So, well, not quite as high as other parts of the square. And also, visually, it's a little bit hard for me to. see that with what you're you know showing it's my issue that it's hard for me to visualize it but when you're going down clipper ship drive you see the river to the right of you where the street is and i guess i was talking about that area as well you know because i know they've reconfigured medford square several times um and you know could that area where the street is possibly be buildings overlooking the river?
[Emily Innes]: Absolutely. The rest of your comments on the rest of Clippership Drive, I just wanted to make clear I wasn't speaking to that part. We have higher areas zoned in Medford. Polly, you could put the map up if it makes sense. Um, to see that, and I apologize, I just wanted to kind of give people an idea of maybe to look to walk down there or to look at the maps. It's so it's where I was talking about was the light blue area, which is MX 1 for as of right with a story of incentive for a maximum of 5. If you look at where Paola is pointing out, the purple, the 2B, that's seven stories by right with two as an incentive zoning. That's right along Clippership Drive. Absolutely, you can see those parcels are deeper. They're also not sitting directly on the seawall, the river wall, I suppose, the way the others were. We think in our conversations, there's more opportunity in that stretch, than there is in the stretch that's colored light blue. But obviously, what we're doing here is listening to comments as to whether or not people have spotted something that we haven't and taking that into account.
[Sheila Ehrens]: And also those buildings like Real Gusto has a, I think they do actually have a patio on the back of the building that overlooks the river. And it would be wonderful if there could be, you know, patios in the back of those buildings overlooking the river. So, you know, that's a thought.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's a great idea. I love outdoor dining. We don't get a lot of time for it in New England, but what we do have, we want to take advantage of. And then just, I don't know if this was in your head, Sheila, but you had mentioned the road, Clippership Drive, and zoning is only for the regulation of private land, not public land, so the road wouldn't be subject to these zoning updates. If something was to happen to the road, that would have to be an effort by the city to redo the transportation plan and lay out there. But that is, for better or for worse, not part of this topic. But who knows? If there is more development in that area, if there's more pedestrian activity, if we have more accessible transit and bikes, then maybe some of these roads can be rethought. Alicia.
[Sheila Ehrens]: So let me just ask you, so I'm kind of puzzled why it isn't the overall master plan that takes all of these into consideration. It seems like it should be the whole plan is with this as well, with how the square is configured, if you're going to do zoning. I mean, I don't know, this is not obviously my expertise, but I'm just sort of puzzled why it wouldn't be the overall design and master plan.
[Emily Hedeman]: um meaning the like the public roads too yeah exactly exactly it's a good question and i bet you're not the only one alicia might have a more eloquent answer but you know i don't know
[Alicia Hunt]: So I'll actually, I'll just shift one. So I have both answers a little bit. So there are plans. There have been many plans for Medford Square. We have actually shared many of those with Emily and her team so that she's seen these plans. And some of them talk about, can we redirect where these roads go? With the development of the lots on the right end of the city. So right now the area that's the darkest purple and then the light purple, you can see the city hall circle. those lots that are out for RFP, we are talking with our traffic director, our engineer, and DPW about should we redo how some of these roads flow, and actually that purple area between Clippership Drive and Riverside Ave, the part that is not owned by the city is all owned by one owner, And I'm in active conversations with him. One of those buildings is the one that you may have seen 65 Riverside. All the tenants have had their leases end because the building needs to go down. Right. He owns the whole thing. I've said to him that we really want to talk with your architect about can we make these buildings river facing? How do we make that happen? So that is actually an active project. I'm hoping to meet with them next week with our economic development director. So we are thinking about those things. It's just, they're not controlled by zoning and therefore they're not part of this public hearing. But in fact, the city staff are working on those things at the same time.
[Sheila Ehrens]: Right, right. Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great questions, Sheila. Thank you so much.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: If I may, I just wanted to add that we could add some incentives specific for this area to address the riverfront. So to encourage riverfront design.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think that could be some recommendations that we consider as a board after discussion. I see two hands left. Just a reminder to the public, if you, oh, three hands, nice. If you want to make comment, please use the raise hand function. The next commenter that I see is Kellogg Kellogg. Please state your name and address for the record. Alicia is going to start a timer for three minutes and I'm going to unmute you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, this is Jonah Dacola and I'm at 11 Killscythe Road in Medford. I would like to take advantage of, Emily, your street viewer in reference to my question. If you could bring up 30 Killscythe Road. It's a Scottish word. probably meant to give the British the finger at the time it was named, K-I-L-S-Y-T-H Road. I'm at 11 Killscythe Road and my question is related to Paola's explanation of the shading and the 45 degree angle and the reference to elevation for abutters. So in looking at this street, uh... you can see that uh... somerville did what they always do they don't take into any account in their zoning review of broadway with suggesting six stories on either side of broadway and you know shading medford as a already have with their large apartment buildings on the top of winter hill I've just done quite a bit of work for the community in getting a new transformer put in, so that when I placed solar on our system, on our building, we wouldn't take all the capacity of the infrastructure of National Grid, so that our neighbors could also put solar on their buildings. But if you bring up the street, Emily, you can see that there is an inclination, the terrain. So please explain how we could put a four-story building. It seems like our building would become nonconforming as it stands. and our abutters, which I appreciate because I can see the shadow that our building casts, not only on our street, but many streets over in the time period that you're explaining. So I'm not a proponent of trying to go up higher and shade more of my neighbors, considering the prices of electricity. Furthermore, Emily, if you could also bring up in the answer to the question, the top of Killsite Ave is what we call around here Upper Broadway. And how does that affect emergency services? I'm not talking about traffic and parking. I'm talking about a ladder truck for a multifamily building that has very short setbacks to abutters. made of wood construction and the use group and the facades of our combustible facades. After seeing what happened in California, it makes me a little concerned about what more density will do. Maybe I'm just a, you know, have a long memory for Chicago and Chicago fires with wood structures tightly packed.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'm going to ask you to just wrap up your question so we can start to get an answer because that might trigger some additional feedback from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. Please. And if you have a street view, it would be helpful if you could bring that up like you did the last.
[Emily Innes]: I'm just looking for direction from the, the chair, I do have the street view on my computer.
[Alicia Hunt]: Please go ahead. This is the area that's in corridors, this is not under the area that's of the public hearing tonight so this zoning is in pre draft, nothing has actually gone to the city council to be referred to you yet.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, recognize that. So maybe let's do a quick answer for this. But Jonah, it sounds like this might be feedback that we're able to implement at future recommendations or other opportunities.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the shading. So I think that's a great idea, but just how it would relate, maybe we'll answer some questions for folks if they could see the street view.
[Emily Innes]: I am adding the street view now having been directed by the chair, you should all see it. So I think we can safely say, sir, that you have significant typography on your street and I appreciate you bringing this up. I think 1 of the things that's been most helpful to us as we. uh, as we've had these conversations is hearing specific speed feedback about specific streets and asking what those conditions are. So this is, this is very useful. It is part of, uh, the, the corridor zoning as, uh, Director Hunt mentioned. So there's nothing final on that. What your comments allow us to do is to go back and check some of the conditions along these streets. and see what's appropriate. There are two things that I do want to very quickly address because they're more general comments about zoning. One is, I mentioned zoning was an imperfect tool in some ways for things like historic preservation. It also doesn't cover everything and what does sort of work with it are the building codes, and the building codes have strict requirements. You mentioned concerns about the distances between buildings. The building code does have requirements for that. In general, our setbacks also are similar to those, and we can certainly look at it on a case-by-case basis. When we are looking at older neighborhoods that may be nonconforming in terms of setbacks, either front, side, or rear, building sizes or building heights, it's also possible that they don't conform to the current building codes. So just to keep that in mind, but thank you for bringing this area up. We will take a note of it and see if we need to make any recommendations the next time we go to planning and permitting to continue the discussion of this draft. Again, it hasn't been referred to the CD board just yet, so we appreciate it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great, thank you. The next commenter that I see is Zoe Mutsos. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to go ahead and unmute you, and Alicia is going to start a timer for three minutes.
[Zoe Moutsos]: Hi, Zoe Moobsos, 33 Johnson Ave. My question is specific to the squares zoning, West Medford Square in particular, but I think it applies to Medford Square as well. You know, if we could see the ranges or the MXs that are happening in those in West Medford Square, it might help a little bit. I remember at one of our meetings, Emily and Paola talked about when a parcel is redeveloped, when The zoning, I think it's the zoning, mandates that the sidewalk become a certain width. Because West Medford Square, I am always curious whether the high street to between like Snappy Patty's and the ice cream shop are more narrow than anywhere else on High Street, because it feels that way. And then you think about going up higher and that those sidewalks are narrow, not super narrow, but narrow. And if we are successful in getting folks walking around there, we got to have some wider sidewalks if those places are redeveloped. So could you remind us again when or how that would come into play? Because I think that's really important Also, for sense of space and scale that you're not going to feel like tall buildings are right up against the street, which makes it feel like a tunnel and kind of dark. And then I would just also say. Last week, the presentation at the Q and a that Emily, you gave, I thought was really, really helpful in, like, stepping through this full process. So, if anyone hasn't seen it, or you have an opportunity to go to another Q and a, I would encourage. in his team to do that presentation again, because that was really thoughtful, and I think answered a lot of the questions that people continue to have. And you start to see the layered process, and it starts to click together how these things work separately, but also in tandem.
[Emily Hedeman]: Zoe, did you have any other questions? That's it. That's my question. Awesome. Thank you so much. Very thoughtful questions. Emily or Paola, did you have any thoughts or feedback on this?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: I should defer to Paola, yes. Yes, if I may. So thank you for your feedback. Thank you for encouraging people to go. We are there for answering any questions we are doing today, but more specific. We usually have big maps so we can point out to specific areas, et cetera. So thank you for that. And the next one will be the ninth at the library about parking and TDM, which I think it's also very interesting in the TDM, the transportation management might be very interesting for a lot of people. So very welcome. Just wanted to address that. And second, so yes, we do have, we ask for whenever there's a new development, that they will address the sidewalk. we don't ask for, it depends by lot, if they already have that space or if they don't. So what we want is that at the long term, so whenever all that high street is being redone, that we at least have those, and I think it might be 12 feet of sidewalk, so that we have at least space for good walking and even being able to have green between traffic and the sidewalk. So sometimes when they are very historic, they are very narrow. And so to adapt those areas, it is a little bit more difficult. So this is the chance that we have with zoning to ask for that 12 foot sidewalks. So it depends, you might already have that. And so you don't have to do any extra. But if your law does not allow that sidewalk, then you would have to step a little bit.
[Emily Innes]: And just to clarify, that is extending the sidewalk onto the private property. So for example, if you are adjacent to the public sidewalk, the public sidewalk is only six feet wide. Then on the private property, you would have to bring it up. In the areas that require 12 feet, you would have to bring it up an additional six feet on the private side. So it doesn't, I think this was a source of confusion when we first started talking about it. It does not affect the public right of way. It's an addition on the private property.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Thanks for that, Emily and Paola. So, Zoe, I saw your hand pop back up. Do you have a clarifying question? I do.
[Zoe Moutsos]: I do. Yeah. Sorry about that. When you say, do we, can you show us where if this happened, it would be 12 feet, because I think those sidewalks are nowhere near 12 feet right now. And it would be 12 feet on one side of the street, right? We're not saying like, not 12 feet in total, two sides of the street, 12, because they are, I don't think they're 12 feet anywhere that I can think of, at least in West Medford, maybe in front of the school.
[Emily Innes]: So think of it as changing over time, right? This would be a development by development. So you would have a situation, because when we talk about zoning, we talk about something that might happen over 20 to 30 years. Some things might happen within the next five years. Maybe there's something that happens within a year. So you would have a condition in which the sidewalk is going to widen or narrow depending on whether or not a building has been developed, but that requirement would apply throughout the district. It just depends on when a property is redeveloped as to whether or not the sidewalk happens. And remember, you're not thinking about the the currents that you're adding on to the current sidewalk on the private property side. So if you had buildings that were rebuilt on either side of the street and had sufficient depth to meet the requirements, then that's where you would get the sidewalks.
[Zoe Moutsos]: So it could potentially look a little bit like a zipper for a while.
[Emily Innes]: It could, yes, exactly. You see that in other places where there are historic buildings, and new infill development has come in over time. So it's not uncommon to see that effect. Okay. All right. That's great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Thank you, Zoe. The next commenter that I see is Caitlin. Please state your name and address for the record. Alicia is going to start a timer for about three minutes, and I'm going to go ahead and unmute you. Danielle's got the timer this time.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Hi, I'm Caitlin Robinson, 31 Everett Street. In response to a speaker earlier, Emily had brought up the street view of Medford Square, and we saw some of the historic buildings there, including like the building that has Real Gusto. And I And she made a comment about, like, you know, redevelopment would now be subject to parking minimums. And I just wanted to say, like, how alarming it is to me that, like, in the historic city center, that development might now have parking minimums. So, like, even if it's, like, underground, that being, like, more, like, the driveway, like the curb cuts for driveways, I just feel like it would be completely inappropriate for like the historic city center. And then a question that I have, which I apologize, I missed most of this meeting. So this may have already been addressed. But as far as setbacks go, one of the things that I find really charming about Medford Square is that the buildings are right up to the sidewalk. Are there setbacks required in that area of Medford Square or will buildings still be allowed to be right up to the sidewalk?
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. Do you have any other questions?
[Kaitlin Robinson]: No, that's all.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Just real quick on the parking. We're not doing anything with parking right now. That does not mean we agree with the parking, but it also means that the requirements that are being discussed today are the current requirements. So we could do nothing. And if Real Gusto was to be redeveloped, there would be some parking involved. So this isn't like this isn't because of the work we're doing now. This is like step one of like overall change in the city. So just want to kind of put that out there because I agree with you, Caitlin, I think, you know, if they had to have like a bunch of parking spaces that took up, you know, the river or the street or the first, that would be awful. And we don't want that, which is why we're kind of working towards, you know, I think what we're all imagining Medford to be. you know, happy, healthy place for everyone to, you know, live, work, raise their family and have fun. So that's just my first note on parking. And then setbacks, I'm going to defer that to Emily and Paola.
[Emily Innes]: Actually, Madam Chair, I'm going to take parking briefly and then turn it over to Paola. But in terms of parking, again, driving people, no pun intended, to the Monday meeting, something that I have seen in other communities and is quite common for a central commercial district like this one, a downtown area or a square, is relaxation of parking requirements. I have seen, for example, the idea that if a historic building is preserved, that parking is not required for the historic part of the development. I've seen others where there's an incentive to have the ground floor commercial by not requiring parking for that, but maybe there is a requirement for the residential parking. All this to say that because we have not, we are not coming forward yet with any parking recommendations, that we're hoping that all of these topics are a conversation on Monday and really want to hear from people exactly some of the things that have been expressed about parking, about people's thoughts about parking today. With that, I will turn it over to Paola, but just to remember that if there is no change to the existing building, there's no requirement for a setback, right? The zoning does not affect what exists now. It provides options for what could happen in the future. So, Paola, I'll turn it over to you on setbacks.
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Yes, so if I may, the front setbacks that we have, again, is to provide as much space for walkability and activation of the street. So what we have is a minimum for front setback of three. And that is always to add to the sidewalks that are usually narrow. So we ask for a sidewalk of 12 and then three setback. So what we try to do that is if they want to do terrace, if they want to do any display, the menu, any sign that they have those three feet to at least be able to do that, we want to give some flexibility. do you hear me now yes okay uh sorry my uh the the last time i heard was gone one second the battery is gone flexibility now i can hear you okay you're live uh in my living room um so if the um So we wanted to create that flexibility between that inside and outside private and public space to give at least those three feet. Now, we also give extensions up to 20, but you have to activate that area. So you can use up to 20 if you do a terrace, if you do a green area, if you provide sitting, if you provide something that is activating or giving green. to the street. So those are the frontages that we have. What we want is to create walkable areas, especially on the squares, to give a lot of public space. So the minimum is the three. We want the buildings to be as close as possible. And if they do setbacks, they need to be activated.
[Kaitlin Robinson]: Okay, thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great comments, great questions. Got a couple more. The next commenter that I see is ADM, Sharon Diesso. Please state your name and address for the record. I'm going to ask you to unmute, and Danielle or Alicia will start a timer for about three minutes. I can't hear you, unfortunately. Can you make sure that your audio is synced with your computer? I can't hear you. So if you're talking, the microphone in the bottom left corner should be lighting up green. If it's not, then I think you can go to test And then that will walk you through a little troubleshooting exercise. Yeah, I had to just do it myself because I forgot how to do it, so. I'll give you a minute. Unfortunately, I still can't hear you. This is definitely one of the challenges of these virtual meetings. Danielle or Alicia, would you be able to help Sharon troubleshoot in the background?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm going to send you a private message. Just definitely respond to it so that I know that you've seen it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sharon, while you're troubleshooting, I'm going to take another new commenter, but we'll come back to you, if that's all right. And just to give the public a heads up, we typically only have each commenter comment once. That's our usual practice. So I'd encourage those that have additional comments to send them via email. We may get to a second comment, but we typically don't do that, just to try to have equity across the commenters. So the next commenter that I see is Fire East Ford Tau. You're going to get a request to unmute, and please state your name and address for the record. And Alicia, I can start a timer on my phone, just so you can focus on troubleshooting with Sharon.
[Alicia Hunt]: Daniella's the timer going right now. Sharon, can you just give me a thumbs up if you saw my message? Okay, great.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. I'll do the timer anyways, just in case. Fire East Ford Tau, are you there? We can't hear you if you're speaking. Looks like you just muted yourself or somebody muted you. I'm going to try again. Fire East Ford Tau. All right, unfortunately, we're not able to hear you. Let's see. Oh, and the hand just dropped.
[Alicia Hunt]: Karen sent me her message in text because she's not been successful in the troubleshooting. So I'm going to read her comments out loud.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate you being patient with us, Sharon, and thank you for sharing your comment, Alicia, if you wouldn't mind.
[Alicia Hunt]: She says, I hear real concerns here tonight. We should not be planning, and this planning should hold until safety, traffic and practability are addressed. 70% of our traffic is from out of town. A bike rider will not make a point. Sadly, that will not change. Thank you. In my math class, negative two and negative two is negative four.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I hear you. A lot of concerns about traffic, parking. You know, what impact will this have on everybody's experience in the city? especially those that actually live and pay taxes here. And we've talked a little bit about how, you know, zoning is, is really just the regulation of private, private land. And it needs to be done in partnership with changes made in public lands like roads. I don't know if there's there's more we can say about that. I'd encourage you to go to the parking meeting on Monday or share additional comments with Alicia, specifically if there's streets or addresses or corners that you have experiences on. I see you typing, so I'm not sure if you're typing to Alicia again. Yes, okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: We'll make it work. She said more so it should be in joint with property taxpayers by vote. So I will say, I just do want to express that there's laws that control zoning and state law is that this is the process for zoning. And it has to go through the city council and the planning board. You cannot pass zoning in cities in Massachusetts through a popular taxpayer vote. It's not allowed. So I just want to make it clear to people that it's not that we're not considering that it's not legal. So I had heard that before.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and there are indirect ways that you can influence this process. One of them is being on this call right now, providing your input. I know that some city councilors have also received messages from their constituents. That's another way to influence it. City council elections are coming up. If you don't like what's happening, then there's an opportunity to try to get somebody new in there. I don't mean to be glib about that at all. And I'm trying to recognize, that there should be as much public involvement as there could be within the laws that we have today.
[Alicia Hunt]: Is there anything else? She sent one other comment. I'll just read it. Non-safety is a violation of a mayor and a council oath.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I mean, safety is definitely a value within Somerville. I think that that's something we're, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've been up for way too long. I used to work for the city of Somerville and serve on their redevelopment authority. Every once in a while, my wires get crossed. I don't know if other board members are getting their wires crossed too, but yes, safety is definitely a value in Medford. And I thank you for reminding us of that mission. So what I see in front of us is two repeat commenters, Fire East Ford Tao, and then I see board member Adam with his hands up. Adam, did you have something you wanted to add real quick?
[Adam Behrens]: I did. Yeah. I think it was mentioned in the, in the mystic Avenue rezoning. But I just had a comment kind of on the, on the discussion. And that was, I think one of the first ones that the board, we as the board had heard. And so we sort of came in with a idea of like how zoning worked and how stuff worked. And the thing that was a super helpful for me in that conversation was. with Emily and Polly, you had kind of talked about how like zoning is really kind of a long term vision. It's not a an overnight thing that just that that that dramatically happens, you know, sort of the next day. And so it's a mechanism of like changing some of the incentives and some of the processes and what's allowable. But that, you know, the built environment is actually takes a long time to then sort of graduate into that target state. And that's just kind of helped me just think about these changes, and then the other mechanisms that operate sort of on different timelines that the city has around, you know, okay, we have a kind of a 10 or 20 year zoning plan. Okay, we can thread in with the city, how do we think about bus routes, how do we think about increased public transportation, how do we just how do we think about kind of stepping into this because there's, you know, going to be sort of all these interlocking things that we can then do together. over the coming years. So that was just a, just kind of my thought. I think often when I start the zoning meetings, I have to remind myself of that too, because I look at it and I'm like, oh, wow, this is so much, there's going to be so much change. So that was my comment.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I think that puts it into a helpful perspective. And, you know, thinking about I think it might have been Zoe who was talking about the sidewalk changes, and she made the comment like, oh, it might look like a zipper for a while. I thought that was a really good way to think about this. There's going to be some old, some new, some changes. And eventually, it's all going to come together. It'll be a little awkward for a while, a little bit of a Medford adolescence coming at you. But yeah, good comment, Adam. All right, so I'm going to go back to FireEastFordTow, see if we can get one last public comment. FireEastFordTow, are you able to chat? Do you have any technical difficulties that you can share with Alicia or Danielle? I'm not getting any information from FireEast4Tow, so I'm going to make my standard disclaimer. If you are having technical difficulties and you're not able to comment this evening, please send an email to our Medford OCD email address. It's OCD at Medford-MA.gov. Did I get that right? Drop it in the chat. Seeing no new public comments, I'm going to close the public comment period for this meeting. I'm going to open it up to the board for further questions or discussion. This is when we start to think about, are we ready to vote on this? Are there certain recommendations that we want to put forth? Do we need more time? If we do want to see changes, we want to provide direction to Emily and Paola, Alicia and Danielle, so that the revisions can be as thorough as possible, if we are to continue this public hearing. So I'd like to open it up to the board for any Any discussion, any thoughts on what we should do next? Ari, I see your hand. Hi.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. I have actually a just very specific question for city staff and the consultants that was brought up as we were talking about parking and Medford Square. Have there been any conversations with Atrius Health about using their parking garage outside of their business hours? Because that seems like it could be a really nice multi-use and solve a lot of problems.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think that every time I go there to my doctor office.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah, that's a great. I realize that's a private public partnership. We can't control it, but would love to know if there are any discussions.
[Alicia Hunt]: Madam chair, we have attempted to reach out to them. We talked to them when they were the former owner. And now actually the developer that we have selected for Medford Square Parcels is extremely interested in connecting with them because they think it could be extremely helpful to our, to everything, to the design and the construction phases. So now they are trying developer to developer to see if they can make something happen there. I think that's as much as I can say on that.
[Emily Hedeman]: And not only from like a parking perspective, but just, you know, it's such a great spot for a lot of different uses. I do love having a parking spot when I go to visit my PCP there, but.
[Alicia Hunt]: Absolutely. And I hope everybody hears you because actually we're going to change the parking behind City Hall so that it's City Hall. Oh, interesting. So that like in the short run, because many people who go to visit their doctors there prefer to walk park in the City Hall lot. and walk across the road, and then staff don't have enough spots when they're trying to park for work. This sounds like a- More patients follow your example.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, it's not the best garage, but I definitely don't want to run across three lanes of traffic. Anyways, great question, Ari. I think maybe not 100% for tonight, but regardless, let's get those wheels turning. Any other thoughts from the board, whether it's questions, reactions to comments made by the public, know, thoughts on timeline. I personally feel like, you know, if we were to put recommendations together tonight and vote on it, it would be rushed. I think there's a lot of questions that the public brought up. They brought up a lot of really thoughtful comments. So my gut is saying continue, but I also want to make sure that when we do continue, we're providing the city and its associates really thoughtful, specific feedback so when they come back, we can have a more productive discussion. And we obviously don't have to pass it. at that next meeting but we just want to keep getting closer to something that is right for Medford. Peter I see your hand.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah I think you you kind of captured my my sentence pretty well on this. I couldn't can't really put my finger on anything specific but it just doesn't feel all the way there yet and I think it would be good to to continue to as well but like you said I want to be able to provide the city and the consultant team with with feedback so we're not just saying well We don't know what.
[Emily Hedeman]: Come back to us.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. Come back to us. We don't know what with. I think it's important that we do include that specific feedback to them so that we give them something to do, because hopefully we would like it so that it comes back with something that hopefully we can pass at the next meeting. Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam? Oh, sorry. Peter, were you done?
[Peter Calves]: No, that's good.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sorry, Adam.
[Adam Behrens]: Yeah, I agree. And then it does feel a little bit different than the prior corridors. Just maybe to publicly sort of share my, my sort of immediate reaction where it just, it feels a little bit less of kind of the transformational rezoning that we were kind of talking about with mystic have and, and I forget the other Avenue. And then the thing that would be helpful would be to obviously to digest a lot of the public comments to read through again, the written comments, there was a lot of written comments submitted. And then just, it's always helpful also to kind of transparently for the public to like actually walk around the neighborhood with that like envisioned future state of like, what is this gonna feel like? And then there's nothing obvious in my head right now about kind of the shape of like recommendations of what to change. But again, it would be really helpful to digest the commentary from today.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. And I would also ask that the presentation that was given tonight be put in the publicly available materials, as well as shared with the board, if that's an option.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's there now it went up after 5 today, but it's there now with the Google files.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. Yeah, so it feels like as a board, you know, we're largely on the same page in terms of. Continuing this, um. You know, we can talk about date specifics later, but what. What specific feedback do we have? I have notes on lot size. I have notes on the sunlight and air modifications, or the sunlight and air angles. I have some specific questions on specific parcels in Medford Square. What else do we have?
[Peter Calves]: I don't have anything that specific. I did generally have a note about the angles. I can't remember the technical term. But yeah, I don't. The phrase has left me, but the shade angles or something along those lines being potentially too... I don't remember if it's too steep or not steep enough.
[Emily Hedeman]: I think the desired output was lower buildings.
[Peter Calves]: Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, but maybe like some like a little comparison on like where that angle could be taken from. just to help show the consequences of, looking at it now, it's the minimum daylight standard. Looks like it's coming from the roof. What if it's the cornice? What if it's the foundation? Just generally, what are the consequences of that? Adam, I see your hand.
[Adam Behrens]: I know.
[Emily Hedeman]: No, you're good. This is what we're supposed to do.
[Adam Behrens]: So let's do it. The other thing when I sort of look at the zoning, there's a lot of commercial in this one and these. And just when I went through the written comments, I don't think I saw much from any of the like small businesses, local businesses. I would just be curious if there was, if there, if there were thoughts from sort of like that, that like kind of segment just on things that they want to see in that corridor. And I think, I think obviously like my headspace is, you know, we're really trying to design it for the people that live in the community and, and, and obviously the residents of the community and a lot of the small business owners. My partner is a small business owner in Medford and, um, It's just the input that I haven't heard in the last like couple couple meetings. And so I don't know if it would help if if there was any of that if it would be pointed to just to be able to look at it. I didn't I didn't. I didn't see any.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, that's a great comment and I'm kind of flipping through now to remind myself, I don't think we have anything from. like a non, like a business owner that doesn't also own property. Like we have some property owners. Sorry, Alicia, were you?
[Alicia Hunt]: I was gonna say, let me direct you to, there's one who's been very thoughtful and deliberate. Oh, awesome. Her first name is Paige. Okay. I would look for that one. She's included a lot of things. She's also had some back and forth with us in the office about- Oh, awesome. the city and economic development staff to support small business owners who might potentially get displaced because their building gets developed or somehow gets impacted by that. And so we actually called her attention to something that you all, we've discussed before, but didn't come up this evening, which is the, you can get one story of incentive for providing a 15% rent reduction for a minimum of three years to either a nonprofit or a business that has 10 or fewer employees.
[Emily Hedeman]: So that was- I don't know if I see her comments in the folder.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm wondering if, because her email was back and forth with the staff, I wonder if it didn't actually go to OCD. I've just have been assuming that everybody has.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, I see a page on the line.
[Alicia Hunt]: Page Boldini.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I know we closed the public comment for the meeting, but can I, as the chair, make an exception?
[Alicia Hunt]: Oh, that she's here on the call tonight. Her emails actually went to me and the city Councilors, and they did not realize that she had not copied the OCD email address.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can I make an exception and is it legal for me to?
[Alicia Hunt]: Did you guys vote to close? Well, you haven't closed the hearing, so you've only closed it for tonight. You could reopen.
[Emily Hedeman]: I only closed the public comment.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And that didn't need a vote. Right. So I think you can reopen the public comment if you choose to.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay. I'm going to reopen the public comment. John, I see your hand up, but because it's on a topic, is it okay if we shoot to create? Okay, thank you. I really appreciate that. Paige, please stay here. We're going to have a brief Republic comment. Yeah, this is perfect. I'm so happy you're here. Thank you so much. Please state your name and address for the record. If you don't live in Medford, but you work in Medford, you know that address is great too. You know, we recognize all connections to the city, you're going to get three minutes to talk and I'm going to unmute you now.
[hLm7uOhMYTQ_SPEAKER_28]: Thank you so much. I apologize. I'm joining late. I just was out of a gun. Um, this is such an honor to be chatting with everybody joining late. So don't want to be repetitive. Um, I did actually I emailed the city councilors, Director Hunt, members of Director Hunt's office, but I also did email the OCD. I'm not, maybe the wrong one, but yeah. Okay, so I separate it down. I did email that. So just to clarify. Yeah. Um, but yes, I spoke directly from coming as a business owner on the Boston Ave corridor and a resident. I'm also a member of the Chamber of Commerce. And my questions were about how we could be proactive to support our small businesses. I am supportive of zoning. I'm very reform and housing in specifically where my business is. It's mixed use. It's not it's not zone from excuse. Excuse me. But it probably would make sense. But as a business owner, what is the city going to do to support us? Director Hunt had replied about incentivizing. But I just want to, I have a whole list of questions. So thank you for the opportunity. And I think it might have been Adam, I was just listening into asking about that from the small business community. It's really important that we also support the businesses that have chosen to be here. And yes, I lease, I don't own my building. And I'm up near Tufts, so I'm also very mindful of what that looks like when it comes to zoning and housing in the Dover Amendment. And I just really want to be an advocate for the community where I don't know if I could afford to rent a space if it was fully developed. I don't know what that would look like during development. And granted, it might not happen right away with zoning, but the potential is to incentivize my landlord to probably do something like that. So what are we going to do as a city to support our small business community? Because I would hope that we don't want to lose us. We've all worked really hard to help grow what these neighborhoods have become. And yes, there are a lot of us that are in buildings that are not probably zoned appropriately. So I am hopeful that we can be supportive of that. And then when it also comes to that proactivity of what we can do for our small business community, you know, if my business is rezoned, what are we gonna do to support where I could potentially be or my colleagues in the future and how to also incentivize the landlords or the building owners to develop for people like myself in mind. So thank you so much for the opportunity and thank you for everybody working hard and everybody joining us tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks Paige, really appreciate you joining and joining early, joining late, everything is appreciated. We really like these kind of robust discussions and yeah, I echo your appreciation of board member Adam for bringing up this perspective. I think this is like the first time we've had like a lot of commercial before us. So it's definitely an important perspective. I know Alicia brought up the potential to incentivize landlords um, to provide leases for existing businesses or local businesses. I'm not sure what the exact language is, um, off the top of my head, but, you know, there is a world in which we have greater incentives than what's suggested. Um, you know, thinking about Salem Street, we had the whole fountain, uh, fountain incentive where, you know, people could, I think, have one fountain and get an extra half story of space. And we thought, like, you know, is that really Is that really commensurate with the work that throwing in a fountain does? So maybe something like this, preserving a local business, providing them with a long-term lease, maybe that's a more meaningful incentive, a larger incentive than other options, or I don't know. There's some creativity we could have around there in terms of our recommendations. So definitely noted. And I don't know if any of the board members have any reactions or thoughts to what Paige said. We're leaning towards continuing this, so I encourage you to come to the next meeting where we discuss. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your comment. John, thank you for your patience.
[John Anderson]: Oh, my pleasure. Although I am getting hungry. I just want to, I just hope that, you know, I spoke about streetscape and historical context And there was general nodding of heads and, well, we might be able to do this, we might be able to do that. But I would hate to see it just get lost in the long list of things that maybe we should think about someday later. Meanwhile, the zoning will be changed. People will start building buildings. All this will go on. I mean, the, Comprehensive plan mentioned this as something to do, and that was finalized, what, in 2023? And now it's 2025, and nothing's happened with that. And maybe in 2027, we're still thinking about it. I don't know how to do it, but I would like to see our feedback to the city council somehow address these concerns and make some sort of concrete suggestion, if we can think of any.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I mean, the classic saying is, you know, the best time to plant a tree was yesterday, like the time to preserve history is today.
[John Anderson]: Right.
[Emily Hedeman]: So yeah, maybe the specific suggestion there is, you know, investigate if historic conversions or, I don't know what the right word is, if it's preservation or whatever, if that can be included in more of the, zoning categories. So we like expand that some of like the mixed use zones, because I think it was missing from there.
[John Anderson]: Yeah, but I was also thinking, I was also thinking about the whole question of design review, and trying to have some sort of consistency. I mean, I'm not an architect, I don't know, what's what's the most appropriate thing? I mean, maybe we want to be thinking about red brick, or something else. or ultra modern, you know, steel and glass, I don't know, but something that just keeps, so you don't just have a hodgepodge of whatever's easy and less expensive.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, well, I'm a failed architect, so I'm even less qualified than you. But I believe the design review discussion, that is, that's like after zoning, right?
[Peter Calves]: Yes, I think what we were discussing is it's going to be part of that wrap up, where we come back at the end, once all the geographic stuff is taken care of, and that's where we can do the design stuff.
[Emily Hedeman]: Is there a risk? I'm thinking about Cheryl's earlier comment about, and I think it was later addressed, but I remember her concern being something along the lines of, we're doing, we're doing one thing, like we're doing rezoning, and then we're kind of leading leaving this gap period, where, you know, maybe people that care less about what their community looks like, you know, maybe they're just throwing up a random sketch up model and building that. Are we creating this gap, where things that the community might not want to happen could happen?
[Peter Calves]: I mean, In theory, I guess. But I don't know, from a practicality standpoint, to set up a whole design guidelines in the next two weeks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, I mean, are we creating gap? I think the answer is yes. Can we avoid the gap? I think that answer might be not really.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I think the strategy might be to make the gap as short as possible. But I don't think we can, assuming that's a conversation we should have, and I think it is, I don't think we can, I think it would be unfair to city staff and to the consultant team to be like, we're not going to approve anything else until you spin up this whole new thing that is kind of tangential. I mean, I think they're kind of two separate objects that work together. Or at least that's my understanding.
[John Anderson]: Well, I'm not really comfortable with tangential. I mean, I do see your point. Are we operating under a two-week deadline? No.
[Peter Calves]: I just said that because that's the next meeting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, like if we were to continue this, you know, we could continue it to the 18th. There is also a special meeting scheduled for the 25th. We could also decide to continue it at those meetings too. So I think he was referring to the next meeting. Yeah.
[John Anderson]: I know there hasn't been a motion yet, but I was just sort of the conversation seemed to assume that we were going to continue this tonight.
[Unidentified]: Yes. Yeah. Okay.
[John Anderson]: Yeah.
[Ari Fishman]: Yeah. And I'll also, if Alicia wants to say something, I was going to say also in favor of continuing recognizing that it is about 10 PM. And I did want to flag that a member of the Community Preservation Committee, which I serve as the Community Development Board representative to, Doug Carr, he has proactively created draft design standards over the last 10 years. He said he brought it to a previous iteration of the Community Development Board. and there wasn't interest. And he's asked me a few times if I thought there would be interest now. And I've told him, yes, absolutely. So I'm just flagging that that that's a conversation that he'd be great to bring it to.
[John Anderson]: Thank you so much for pointing that out, because I worked with him, you know, decades ago on this, and I'm sure he has lots of thoughts.
[Ari Fishman]: But kind of to my point that it is 10 p.m. Does it make sense for me to make a motion to continue to a date?
[Emily Hedeman]: I still see Alicia's hand. Oh, sorry, Alicia. And I'm curious. I'd love to hear from Emily or Paula if after Alicia, if they have any specific questions for the board just to help guide their work between now and the next meeting. And also here, when they would be able to come back to the next meeting. realizing that you are both humans and have to actually do the work. So Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: So on completely separate topics, if you were to continue this, I do recommend that you continue it to the 25th so that you have 18th for just residential, the 25th for the squares. It will be easier on you as a board and it will be easier on the public. And we would then help, like we would communicate that out that separate dates for separate meetings. So that's one thing. Just very briefly on design guidelines. First of all, if Doug sent them to me before, please send them to me again. But I will remind this board that we still have site plan review for anything that is over 10,000 square feet. or six or more residential units, or a couple of other weird things, the building has to go through site plan review. And part of site plan review has been the architectural look and feel of the building. And that comes first. So I just, yes, there's a gap, but how big is that gap when you actually look at all the large buildings, or in that case, not so large buildings? So you do have that.
[Peter Calves]: So there might be fewer things that would actually be able to fall through that gap because of site plan review.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. And the things that would tend to be, unfortunately, the single family homes, which tend to be something that it's much harder to do guidelines on, that should be, frankly, a conversation, I think, with the residential. But yeah, it's a tougher conversation as well.
[Peter Calves]: That's good to know.
[Alicia Hunt]: Design is subjective.
[Peter Calves]: It's tough. Yeah, but that is, thanks for bringing that up, to kind of recenter that while there might be a gap, just because of the process of site plan review, it won't apply to that many things.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, it's not like a chasm. It's maybe a little. Okay. Emily and Paola. Have we in the public provided you some good stuff to work off of? Is there anything we can clear up?
[Emily Innes]: Thank you for that opportunity. We agree with Director Hunt's assessment of the schedule. I think that will make it easier for us to be responsive to you and to comments from the public for both topics. So I appreciate that. schedule. We've heard a lot tonight from both you and the other people who have spoken and appreciate all those comments. I think we have some direction in terms of providing you some additional information, especially on how we're looking at sun and the incentive zonings and a couple of other things. If the members of the board have, you know, you've been presented with this for the first time tonight, so if you have individual questions that, you know, you wake up tomorrow morning and say, why didn't I ask this, if you can funnel those separately, obviously, through Director Hunt, so as to avoid a meeting law, but she is, of course, keeping us abreast of anything that she's heard that is germane to what we're doing. So, we would greatly appreciate that. I think in terms of direction, as per the other discussions, Are the boundaries right? Are the specific districts? You'll note from this that we have broken up the mixed use districts into finer gradations, and that has been in response to public feedback. So if there's You know, we think this one would be better applied to this area versus that area. I think that's that's important to us to hear. And then we've heard a lot of things that could go into the incentive zoning or the community benefits or other or the development standards tonight. So, again, feedback on those would be very helpful.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, one thing you just brought up was the boundaries. I don't think we got a lot of feedback on that. But we did have a couple of members of the public mentioned non-compliance. I'm wondering if that may spark some discussion around boundaries, specific plots. So I would add that to our want list.
[Emily Innes]: I think we have it on our list. And I'm also going to, Paola, did you want to speak or are you going to say it was on your list?
[Paula Ramos Martinez]: Uh, no, I was going to say that it did like a very quick filtering with the 5,000 and in that area specifically, almost all of them were more than 5,000, but we will look into more and see if effectively that is, um, a good one, or maybe we need to push them into other districts, uh, so that, um, they are better fitting in other, um, in another district, but absolutely we would look into that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Anything else people can think of? Okay, cool. Thank you. So with that, I'm looking for a motion to continue to a date certain. Wait, do I have to, I don't have to close it, right?
[Alicia Hunt]: No. Closing the hearing would be a different thing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Close the hearing before you vote.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. Okay. So, um, I'm looking for a motion to continue the public hearing, um, for West Medford and Medford square. Um, to June 25th, which is a special meeting, um, for the board. I assume it wasn't regularly scheduled. Yeah. Are you making the motion, John?
[John Anderson]: I so move. I'll second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Is that a second? Yeah. We're going to roll call vote. I'm going to call you as I see you. John Anderson?
[John Anderson]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Adam Behrens?
[John Anderson]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman? Yes. Peter Kaufs?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino? Yes. And I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also a yes. Okay, so we're going to continue the public hearing for West Medford and Medford Square to June 25. Thank you so much members of the public for all your comments. Emily and Paola, as always, out of the park. Felicia and Danielle, can't do it without you. We do have a couple more agenda items to get through, but we'll be quick on those. We have two sets of minutes to review. Is there any discussion on any modifications needed for the minutes for members of the board? All right, seeing none. We still don't have a clerk, but do a quick click through. So seeing no discussion, I'm gonna ask for a motion to accept the minutes from our April 2nd, 2025 and May 21st, 2025 meetings. Yeah, we're gonna do a roll call vote, call them as I see them. John Anderson.
[John Anderson]: I think I should abstain since I wasn't a member then.
[Emily Hedeman]: I agree. Adam Behrens?
[Adam Behrens]: Aye, or yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino? Yes. Ari Goffman-Fishman?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes, although I will flag that we are just voting on the fact that we have received and cataloged them. So you can, if you so chose, you could vote that we have received them. But anyway, I'm a yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: We don't have a parliamentarian role, but if we did, I think it would be you, Ari. Peter Kalbs.
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: And I, myself, Emily Hedeman, am also a yes or an aye, whatever we're saying at 10.03. The next agenda item was the zoning updates presentation of draft zoning of other quarters. We covered that during the West Medford Square Um, Alicia, Danielle, is there anything else for zoning updates that needs to be discussed?
[Alicia Hunt]: I will just tell you that we have, so the residential is continued to the 18th. We have also formally had the ADUs referred to you, and we advertised that public hearing for the 18th. So you can actually hear the ADUs on the 18th as well. Awesome. Looking forward to that. And we're working on a new contract with Emily for next year, because this is not gonna end June 30th, and our current contract goes through June 30th, just FYI.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, and I appreciate the city providing the resources to do this work, and Edison Associates to be doing the work. So thanks to all. So with that, I am looking for a motion to adjourn.
[John Anderson]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, John. Can I get a second?
[Adam Behrens]: One second.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thanks, Adam. I'm going to call him as I see him. John Anderson.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Peter Calves.
[Peter Calves]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Goffman-Fishman. Aye. Adam Behrens.
[Adam Behrens]: Aye.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sabrina Alpino. Aye. And I, Emily Hedeman, am also an aye. That concludes our meeting. Um, as always, thank you so much to city staff for your work and your dedication in these efforts. Thank you to my fellow board members. Um, I think Eileen Paolo may have dropped off, but, um, also appreciate them. And then would be remiss if I did not say thank you so much, members of the public, for your continued participation, enthusiasm, um, on these topics. It means so much to us and the rest of your neighbors. So thank you. Have a nice night, everyone.