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[David Blumberg]: to call the meeting to order. And as always, begin with some obligatory messages for you. 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 and adequately access the proceedings as provided for in chapter two of the acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. If despite our best efforts we're not able to provide real time access we will post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that, given the remote nature of the meeting tonight all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Please know if you're interested in more information that project materials for projects that appear before the board can be viewed on the city's website recently improved website. Medford ma.org, and you can go to boards and commissions and find community development board there alphabetically and click through and see what's in front of us from meeting to meeting. So we'll start things off with a roll call of members of the board. I'm Dave Bloomberg. Welcome, Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.
[SPEAKER_30]: Here.
[Unidentified]: I see Klyce. Here.
[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedeman.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[David Blumberg]: Peter Kaldas.
[Unidentified]: Here.
[David Blumberg]: Hari Goffman. And Christy doubt our regular member is not in attendance tonight. Also George Fisher is not with the board from this meeting forward but we welcome re and Peter I think our he's been elevated to full time member from associates so thank you all. All right, Amanda if you could, as a courtesy and to let the folks in the public know who might be on our call tonight from city staff.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So myself, Amanda Centrella, Planner in the Planning, Development and Sustainability Office. We also have Director of PDS, Alicia Hunt, and Senior Planner, Danielle Evans. In addition tonight, Director of Traffic and Transportation, Todd Blake, will be joining us, as well as Building Commissioner Bill Forti. And Bill, actually, if you wanted to say a quick hello at all, you're welcome to. I know you had kind of wanted to make an introduction.
[Bill Forte]: Thank you, Amanda, Mr. chair through you. Thank you. I just wanted to introduce myself as your, your not so new building commissioner I've been in the city a little over six months. So I've passed the the probationary period so it looks like I'm stuck here. I just wanted to attend tonight's meeting to get a feel for how the, you know, how the board operates and try to become a little bit more in touch with some of the projects that are going on when I get calls all the time. Obviously they're like, oh, so what about this? And what about that? I'm like, what, what? You know, like I'm a little confused. So I thought that I would start attending here regularly just to see what's going on. So thank you very much for your very kind and warm welcome. And I look forward to seeing the board operate tonight. Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much for being here and welcome to your first appearance. It's great to see you. Great to have you in the audience tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: And I also just wanted to mention our fabulous graduate intern, Ren, who is joining us tonight as well from PDS.
[David Blumberg]: Absolutely. Emphasis on the fabulous. Okay, should we go to the first item on our agenda then say plan review, and also special permit application for raising canes chairman Bloomberg and board members.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Kathleen Desmond Council for the applicant raising canes LLC.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, let me interrupt you just for a second because I have to read the public hearing notice before we can. I'm sorry. Let me get right to it. Metro Community Development Board shall conduct a public meeting. Let's see. Oh, it was a different date, relative to an application for site plan review and special permits submitted by Keynes restaurants. The applicant is seeking to construct a drive through restaurant. in a commercial one zoning district at 509 to 511 Riverside app, requiring a special permit under our zoning ordinance. And there's also a request for a waiver of off street loading requirements, also a requirement of the zoning ordinance. We will discuss as a board the second interview and special permit recommendations to the city council the city council is actually the special permit granting authority for this matter. So with that, thank you and sorry again for the interruption.
[Kathleen Desmond]: No, thank you, Chairman Blumberg. Tonight here with me is the applicant, Adam karate senior property development manager of raising Keynes restaurants LLC. Karen Johnson vice president of development with charter realty development. On behalf of the owner of those with us a limited partnership, and the development team project engineer Eric to rule of older engineering. project architect Jeffrey Whitney, a media architects and profit traffic engineer, Patrick Dunford, senior project manager with the HP engineer and consulting. As indicated, the application before you this evening is an application for site plan review in conjunction with an application for special permit to construct a 3,320 square foot eat-in restaurant with a drive-through to be situated within the confines of the outdoor shopping center known as the Fellsway Plaza, located at 760 Fellsway Medford Mass. I believe that you had, Mr. Chairman, the 509511 address I believe that would be the proposed address in the event that the project were permitted. All of the sites with buildings within that 760 Fellsway property have different addresses, so that they're identified differently, but the property is 760 Fellsway as it currently stands.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you for the clarification. We appreciate that.
[Kathleen Desmond]: By way of background, those who might be unfamiliar with the site, the Fellsway Plaza is comprised of three separate parcels of land, each owned by separate entities. The subject site, owned by Fellsway Limited Partnership, contains a total land area of approximately 670,378 square feet. At present, there are three buildings situated on the subject site. One, a building that houses approximately 13 commercial units occupied by a mix of retail restaurants, fitness and medical uses, and it going from left to right, bio life would be the building on on your left side of the site of that 13 units and Carter. Carter's is the, the building adjacent to the second building on the site which is a stop and shop. supermarkets. In addition to those two buildings on the southerly portion of the site. There is currently a freestanding building with approximately 2800 square feet occupied by Eastern Bank, that includes a drive up service window. As proposed, raising Keynes restaurant site will consist of a least area situated within the north northerly portion of the property, consisting of approximately 31,491 square feet of land, and in proximity to the current location of Eastern Bank. The proposed site for racing canes as you indicated is located within a C one district that requires a special permit for the establishment and we need in restaurant with a drive through from city council pursuant to table a table of uses and parking regulations item g two of the ordinance. In addition to the special permit for construction of the restaurant. The applicant is also requesting a waiver of loading requirements in accordance with section 6.1 point three of the ordinance, which appears to suggest that the restaurant, based on its gross leasable floor area may be exempt, or alternatively a special permit pursuant to 6.1 point 10 of the ordinance. to reduce or waive the requirement of a dedicated loading space. And then lastly, the applicant is requesting two waivers relating to site plan review and the plan submitted, the first having to do with the necessity of including contour line elevations, and the second having to do with the required elevations for existing buildings on the site. And these were submitted with the application. With that, I'll turn the presentation over to Adam Karachi, and he can explain to you a little bit about the operation of Raising Cane's Restaurants, LLC, and then the rest of the development team can go through the site plan with you. Adam.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, Kathleen.
[Unidentified]: I do have a presentation if I could share my screen. Thank you. Good evening, everyone.
[SPEAKER_05]: As Kathleen said, my name is Adam Karachi. I'm the senior property development manager for Raising Canes for the East Coast. And this is our fifth location that we're doing in Massachusetts. I'll just give a brief introduction on who Raising Cane's is. We were founded in 1996 outside the north gates of LSU with our first restaurant opened by Todd Graves. He started it as a small business, ran it as a small business for many years. Then around 2002, 2003, we started to expand. We do one thing, we call it our one love, and that's the quality chicken finger meal. Unlike some of the other competitors in the market, we don't have a lot of different items on our menu. And that is very important when we discuss later operations and how we differentiate ourselves from others in the industry. We currently have over 700 locations. There is a location at Boston University that opened in 2009. And there is a location that opened today in Back Bay neighborhood at 755 Boylston Street. We have Marlboro opening on May 17th and Methuen opening in August this year. So there are some existing restaurants for you to visit and get an idea of who we are. We pride ourselves on our active community involvement, so every restaurant will have a dedicated marketing manager who is plugged into your community that will actively seek to provide back to your community with feeding the hungry, entrepreneurship, active lifestyles, pet welfare, and education being the primary focuses, and then anything else that is proposed to us, we obviously entertain. Raising canes was named after Todd Graves, the founder's yellow lap cane. And so you'll see a lot of that throughout the presentation referenced back. And that also lends to one of our core values being pet welfare. So Kathleen went through the description of the application requests. I will not repeat that. This is the site plan that Kathleen discussed. There's the three parcels here, the adjacent Eastern Bank to the left of our proposed site. This area roughly following my cursor being the lot that we're discussing this evening, 760 Fellsway. There's a zoomed in version of our site plan. Kathleen, do you want me to get much into the site plan right now or just talk about the operations of the drive-through? Or do you want to wait on that.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Eric is probably whether it's Erica you you can go through the site if you like first or if you prefer to do operations it's up to you, Adam.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, let's, let's talk about the site first I think that's better so that they understand. how that integrates with the operations. So we're proposing roughly 3,300 square foot building, as Kathleen mentioned, with a dual drive-through. And so what you see here are two drive-through lanes that goes under a canopy and then proceed around the building to another canopy. And I'm actually got a zoomed in version. This is Eastern Bank, just to give you context, Riverside Avenue at the intersection of Route 28 and Riverside. So during COVID, it became very obvious that operations of drive-thru restaurants needed to adapt to remain viable. And so we started implementing dual drive-thru lanes, and what we found is that they made our business more efficient. As I mentioned earlier, we have one item on the menu, that's the chicken finger. It comes with crinkle cut fries, Texas toast, coleslaw, and our sauce. There's not a lot of variety. So you can order three tenders, four tenders, six tenders, and that's really the only customization that's available. There aren't other items on the menu. There are no shakes. There are no salads. There are no burgers. It's chicken fingers. You can get a chicken finger sandwich, but What that essentially does is it allows the customer to know their order and to get it out pretty quickly and allows us to have a two and a half minute service time from the time the customer places the order to when they're getting their food and leaving. We've designed this drive-through to stack, leave its 20 cars, but Pat can speak to that later. And we recently studied similar locations that have opened in the Philadelphia metro area that would basically corroborate that this is sufficiently stacked. So there are two types of operations that we would discuss typically. There's peak and off-peak operations. We I'll start with with offbeat. So that's basically your mid afternoon and your late night. That's where the drive through is going to function. As a traditional drive through, and so you'll have 2 lanes that come in. They've each got their own menu board, and then they merge. just hard to see what this line means, into one lane and they go through the traditional pay and then pickup window. That's going to be, again, off-peak, you're talking two or three cars in the drive-through. Peak, which is lunch and dinner rush, so 11 to 1 and then 5 to 7 respectively, We turn off the menu boards we don't use the pay the pickup window we have crew members station strategically out in the drive through and that's what these hatched crosswalks are for. And they usher course forward, they take orders, they take payment via tablets they can they can do cash. And then they make sure that people are moving quickly and efficiently through the line. They walk in these hatched crosswalks or in sidewalks along the edge here of the pavement. And then the food is brought to the outboard lane via crew member and under this covered canopy. The crew members do have area of refuge during the hot and colder months under this canopy that's over the menu boards. They're heated and they have fans and misters for the summer. That's a little bit different than what you're probably accustomed to seeing in drive-throughs, and I wanted to get that out of the way and explain that because it really does affect the design and the implementation of the site. I will say that we did receive some feedback regarding the site plan and I hope you'll be pleased that we've incorporated it later on in the presentation. This is some typical landscaping that we would provide. I did want to show you that the site via a color site plan is going to have A lot of landscaping typically we would spend about $200,000 on landscaping package for a site of the size. So, a lot of trees, a lot of ground cover and we use quality plant materials, we are looking for. vivid color in all seasons. So you'll notice some snow, we've got some red berries here, and we've got different types of plants that produce different types. I'm not a landscape architect, but we have different types of plants that provide a visually appealing landscape palette year-round. I know there were some concerns about turning movements to the site plan, so I briefly wanted to touch on that. This is the exhibit for a large SUV, showing that this is a Ford Explorer in this case, is able to make the turn and to the drive through without running any curbs or anything like that and leave the site. This is the fire truck apparatus making its way through the site, and that was done per the spec of City of Medford fire apparatus. And then the delivery truck coming in, and then sort of coming in this way from the site access circulating through the site. There is a small loading zone that is provided circulating through around Eastern Bank and then back out of the site. This is a WB40, so it's a smaller delivery vehicle. It's not the standard delivery vehicle that you would see go to a supermarket or even like a Domino's uses a larger delivery truck. This is smaller and more appropriate for the site. With that, that kind of brings me to the more technical aspects of the site, the stormwater, the grading, and the utilities. And I would prefer to yield that over to Eric Dubrul with Bowler to discuss further.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_10]: Thank you, Adam. Yeah, again, for the record, Eric Dubrul with Bowler Engineering, site civil.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Can I just jump in for a second? It seems like there's a lot of white space outside of these drawings. Can you zoom in a little bit so we can see it better? It's kind of hard to see. Sure.
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me see if I can make that happen. I'm operating off of SharePoint at the moment.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_10]: Maybe the bottom right. Yeah. But there, and would you mind going back to the zoomed in render plan I just want to hit a couple highlights on the site plan that might be worth hitting before we move on to the boring utilities and stormwater. So Adam did an awesome job covering most of most I was going to go through I just want to touch on a couple of items. made a strong focus on pedestrian connectivity for this project, you'll note we've towards the north we've, we've broken through there's an existing fence that runs along Riverside, so we've broken through that fence added a, an accessible connection sidewalk connection through to the front door of the property. And then as well as on the middle Sex Fellsway Parkway driveway, we've run a sidewalk all the way around the perimeter of the site. So you essentially have 270 degrees of pedestrian connectivity on this site, all accessible. We've also provided a bike rack at the, I guess, top left corner on the patio for a bike facility there. I think that was a highlight. I just want to make sure we touched on that briefly. Relative to the landscaping, just to provide a little bit more detail, I don't want to go into some great detail, but effectively over 400 new plantings on the site and giving back 390 square feet or so of additional green space, which is always obviously a nice benefit to have when you have a redevelopment project. And now we can talk some utilities and stormwater. For the most part, water, gas, electric, sewer, they'll be all new services coming from Riverside. So all new proposed services. The stormwater under existing conditions, the existing parking lot is all paved parking. It sheet flows to an existing catch basin at the bottom left. We're proposing to capture the stormwater now through deep-sump hooded catch basins before routing it through a stormwater quality unit to get the needed treatment before outletting to the existing connection within the plaza. And I guess bringing me to my final point, we've discussed with various departments through some of the staff comment letters that are available, specifically for DPW and engineering. A lot of those comments revolved around utilities and stormwater. So we spoke with them and we've come to a resolution for all of their comments at this point. And so we'll be adding some additional stormwater quality with some Philterra tree box filters, if you will, in the next round of revisions. But we have not revised or formally revised plans in response to those comments. We wanted to come before the board, collect any of your additional comments, and make one final round. But we are confident, through the DEI staff comment letter, engineering, health, and fire, that we'll be able to resolve 100% of their comments in the next round of revisions. So I think with that, Adam, I will yield back to you to talk architecture. Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_05]: These are the proposed elevations that were submitted with the application. They use a variety of materials, there's different textures and rhythms to the building to provide a visually appealing structure. These are the 2D color elevations. This is the palette of materials. So you'll see there's some perforated metal. There's some Nichiha panels to provide. These are faux wood for practical reasons, but they provide a wood texture to the building. Two types of brick, aluminum storefront, a recycled car hood material for one element of the building, which is this one tower here.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then Galvalume siding, which is on the dumpster enclosure here.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I've got some photos, so I just want to point this out, because you'll see in the other photo they don't have that, and that's really the only thing that's different. This is an example of a restaurant that recently opened in Houston, Texas. This is the same prototype that we're proposing here. So you'll see there's the brick, there's the recycled car hood material, a similar patio. All patios are custom to the site to fit the site dimensions for the restaurant. And then you can see this is the canopy over here that's over the drive-through pickup window where the orders are brought out. I do apologize for the 360 and pedestrians was taken from a Matterport survey. This is the drive-through facade and the canopy that I was just talking about over the pickup window and a different view of the patio, some umbrella seating. Again, this would be different for your site to fit the site dimensions.
[SPEAKER_06]: The patio facade wraps around the building. and then the rear facade.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the gavel in that I was talking about earlier would wrap and enclose this walk-in cooler. So it wouldn't be the raw walk-in cooler appearance here. Those are the Nichiha panels around the corral. This is basically a service area off the back of the building. That's where any sort of carts or anything like that would be stored. So they're out of view and not unsightly. And then this is the trash enclosure. We may be proposing a different enclosure here. I can let Jeff speak to that. He's our architect. I know for sure it's not covered. This was a local requirement in Houston. And then this is the canopy over the drive-thru that I was talking about earlier. This is Houston, so they only have fans and misters. Yours would have heaters on it. And then the drive-thru menu boards that are used during off-peak hours. And this is a quick shot of the interior. Just thought that would be interesting to share with you. I know it's not particularly germane, but the variety of materials carries into the building. It is a very industrial feel inside. All of the artwork that is on the wall, with the exception of a few things that are prototypical, like the E, the Raising Cane's logo, and the Raising Cane portrait here, are custom for your city. And so there are often things that are found on eBay or yard sales that are memorabilia from your location that are then framed and hung inside of the restaurant. Often that has to do with colleges or high schools or unique experiences or just cultural things that have to do with Medford.
[Unidentified]: Jeff, would you like to add anything?
[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, thanks Adam. Yeah, just mentioning that at this location, the dumpster enclosure would be a split face CMU, more structurally sound. Again, it would not have a roof at this location. But again, it would be a masonry appearance, full through CMU. with gates, the fronts, metal gates painted, so everything is enclosed within the enclosure, so you don't see anything. To keep the environment clean, we like to keep the area completely clean of any debris and everything. It's just a better environment for the crew and the customers.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thank you, Jeff. That's it as far as the building goes, you can see my next topic.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'll let Pat with VHB speak to that, but before I would defer back to Kathleen.
[SPEAKER_30]: So moving on to traffic at this point, Pat, would you like to discuss the traffic signs and where we are in terms of
[Unidentified]: I think there's something wrong with your sound or having trouble hearing you. Is that better? Yes.
[SPEAKER_30]: Yeah. Pat, would you like to move to the traffic portion of the of the presentation?
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. And first off, good evening. My name is Patrick Dunford. I'm a transportation engineer. with VHB, we've been working with Raising Canes and the site to come up with a workable traffic solution, which I believe we've done. If I could ask, I think it was Adam, you had some nice visuals up on the screen a second ago, if those could possibly be called back up.
[Unidentified]: Sure. I know you had your presentation, so I don't know if you wanted to drive it.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: Actually, if you don't mind doing the Vanna White thing for me, it would be greatly appreciated.
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you want me to pull up your presentation?
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, actually I thought it was embedded in this, but if not, if you have it, that'd be handy. I can certainly call it up if you don't.
[Unidentified]: I got it. Sorry about the confusion folks. Okay. Thank you and sorry for that initial delay.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: So what I'd like to do is walk you through the traffic study that we had prepared and submitted, as well as some ongoing site planning that we're coordinating with Adam and with Bowler Engineering. Before we get down to that level of the site as shown here, I would like to kind of zoom out and just show a little bit more of a global view on the next slide, which is typically what we do for traffic work. I think we had shown a site plan earlier. This is just an aerial little star where we hope to have the raising canes going. If you could jump back. There we go. And, you know, the stop and shop is in the bottom of the screen. Ocean state job lot is in the far left. And, uh, you know, we, as a group have been working on this plaza over this over several years. So we've become pretty familiar with it. A lot of, uh, interesting things going on and you can see with the darker pavement up on route 28 at Riverside, uh, DCR is in the process of wrapping up some intersection and sidewalk work in that vicinity. which I can talk about momentarily. The traffic study that we did was submitted this past January, and that actually was based on traffic counts that we had done the prior year, and we made sure those had the appropriate adjustments to make sure we're truly getting an understanding of what's going on in the area. Now, we had started focusing just on the area that I had in the prior screen, and we had done our traffic counts at those locations circled in red. And those are the ones obviously with the proximity to the site. That's where the bulk of the customers would be coming in and coming out. We've had a series of discussions and exchange of information with cities, mobility and planning staff. And through those discussions, we were asked to expand the study area and take a look at some additional locations, which I've highlighted in blue. Those are a few areas further West on Riverside. Route 16, we even looked at Wellington Circle as well as another intersection about a half mile off the top of the screen. Certainly from all of you driving through these areas, there's lots of stuff going on at those locations. I will tell you once we took a look at the projected traffic for raising canes and the fact that that is predominantly pass-by oriented, Um, which are basically people driving, stopping in on the way to another trip, either on the way home from work or doing business during their lunch hour. These projects tend to generate a good amount of traffic at the site itself, but downstream that traffic tends to already be on the roads. And now these people have that option to pull in and grab some food while they're in the area. So we weren't finding a major impact at these locations further up and down on the screen. When we do these types of evaluations as well, it's not just the initial traffic counting. I personally went out here several times on an ongoing basis. just to make sure I was actually seeing what's happening on the ground. Once we do that, we project about seven years forward into the future. We want this to work today. We want it to work long-term. So we had to account for all the various other development projects going on in the area, which we did in our study. So in doing that, we have a good understanding of what this is going to look like in the future. And when a raising canes is added, The critical part obviously is estimating how much traffic it's gonna generate. There's a couple of different ways of doing this. One of them, I imagine this board has heard of in the past, is using information from the Institute of Transportation Engineers. It's a national organization that collects traffic counts for a variety of uses, including restaurants somewhat similar to this. We did take that what I'll call textbook approach And then we supplemented that with Adam's help where he actually gave us some recent traffic studies that were done for three different existing raising cane sites out in Illinois. And again, as he had mentioned earlier, they are starting to pop up in Massachusetts. But at the time of our initial work, they weren't there. So we use that other data from what he provided. And we took an average of that and it was pretty similar to what the ITE textbook approach said. But just to make sure we weren't missing anything, we opted to use the busiest site out of that database and essentially base the traffic on what I'd call a worst case basis, the maximum generation that we saw. So that's what we took a look at. And then we also, again, accounted for the fact that some of these people, the majority, in fact, are already driving by the site and would be convenience trips. So when we took a look at all that, the impacts and kind of the periphery of this aerial really weren't that noticeable. What we did do was focus back in, if you could jump ahead Adam. So what we found introducing that new use in a relatively quiet part of the parking lot, which again I've labeled with that little red star. Not a lot going on there today that's remote parking for either the bank or the stop and shop or other uses and really no one's really using it. So it's kind of a quiet corner of the site. What has been happening, there's a couple different things going on out here. First and foremost, I've highlighted it in blue in the upper right corner. The intersection itself route 28 at Riverside of labeled as DCR improvements. They're doing some work out there to clean up a lot of the long standing deficiencies at that location, pulling in some of the curb lines to make it a little more pedestrian friendly little bit of a traffic calming element. And they're also extending that work further to the west on Riverside Avenue and further down route 28 along the plazas frontage, improving the sidewalk condition. I think a new bus stop went in recently. They're still doing that work and I've reached out to them a few times just to kind of stay on top of what's going on there. So that's one thing that's already happening independent of this project. The other, Biolife, was referenced earlier when we were orienting you to the site. They had certain obligations that they had to do, which starting I guess from Route 28, just south of that signal, heading to the south towards the main buildings with the stop and shop and others, they actually striped some bike lanes within the site. You know, predominantly this is an auto oriented area, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't accommodate bicyclists. So, what they had decided to do was stripe some bike lanes to get people comfortably into the site by bike also installed some new bike racks over by the bio life. Um, that project also put in, um, a speed feedback sign, which I'm showing in the upper left-hand side out on Riverside Avenue. Um, that's really nothing specific to that use or this plaza as a whole really, but I know there's been some longstanding speed concerns out here. So that sign was installed, uh, just to reinforce what the speed limit is supposed to be 25 and, um, just bring a little bit more awareness to it for some traffic calming. So that's stuff that's happening in the background. What we've been looking at and talking about is we want to make the site much more accessible, much more orderly. So a few things we had noticed, and I guess I'll just start from the top and work clockwise. There's currently crosswalk going across Riverside Avenue where I've labeled it eliminate mid-block crossing. From a technical standpoint or just kind of a common sense safety standpoint, that's not the best place for a crosswalk. You're mid block, there's a lot of people turning in and out of the plaza driveway at that point. And this is something that had popped up in a study by the state a few years ago as well, that it's really not the best location for that. So what we're looking to do is not just eliminate it and walk away, but hopefully restripe that further to the west on Riverside, probably to the left of the driveway. or another nearby location through consultation with the city. We're still working out a lot of these details, but we just wanna make something that's a little bit safer. By the same token, anyone who might be walking on Riverside Avenue from some of the nearby neighborhoods, Eric had talked about earlier, we are introducing a break in the fence along the property frontage. So it'll be inviting for pedestrians to come in at that point, instead of just walking in the main plaza driveway. or having to wrap around the site on the other side. So it's a simple connection. We could go back to Eric's plan at some point if we need to, just to look at some of the details, but it gets people in safely to the front door of the building. Similarly, on the opposite side of the plaza, I guess to the east of where we're gonna be putting raising canes, there is sidewalk out there today. It's not in the best shape. So what we're gonna be doing is replacing that with new sidewalk. wrapping it around the raising canes Plaza, as we had shown earlier, and I'll zoom into that in a moment as well. Just to kind of again focus on some of the safety elements of this and pedestrians are certainly the most vulnerable so we don't want to ignore that. The other item at the Riverside Avenue site driveway. This has been talked about over the years and there was some striping put in recently. Basically, do not block the box is what it's referred to as. Just kind of diagonal striping out there that tells people not to pull their car and block the driveway. Most people prefer to avoid that anyway, so they don't have people giving them dirty looks, but we found it's helpful to reinforce it. Problem is when that was last done, the pavement markings have faded. So what we're going to be doing is reintroducing those, but using what's called thermoplastic pavement markings. where it's the same kind of stuff they use on highways, much more durable, holds up longer, much more visible. So we'll get that element back in there, which I think would be helpful. Moving a little further to the left, this one was interesting. Initially, we were not looking at this intersection, Commercial Street at Riverside, and through discussions with the mobility department, they pointed out that Signal has some existing issues. where, simply put, the detection is not working. So when you pull up as a driver on Commercial Street, there's no communication to the signal that you're sitting there waiting to turn onto Riverside Avenue, which certainly can be beyond frustrating. We took a look inside the signal cabinets. We think we have a solution that can be implemented there, and we're gonna talk some more with the City Mobility Department about that to get that in place and address that condition. A lot of this is still a work in progress. I think globally we've identified what needs to be done, but we're just still in communication just to make sure we're getting everything right with the various department staff that we're talking to. Actually, it might be helpful to jump ahead here, Adam, if you don't mind just zooming into the site a little bit in the next slide. So this is, you know, go back one if you don't mind. Thank you. So this is the same graphic that was shown earlier on the drive through and Adam did a pretty comprehensive job of explaining this so I don't need to belabor it too much. But I guess starting from the right, you can see here again the sidewalk we're introducing from Route 28. heading down and wrapping around the site, so you can walk comfortably comfortably to the front door. Likewise, there is a pedestrian connection we're proposing from Riverside. Now what we want is to avoid any conflicts with the drive through so first and foremost, There's two existing curb cuts that lead to the existing parking field that's part of the property. Those obviously have to be closed to have a controlled drive-through environment, which is what we're doing. Side benefit is that it makes it an easier path for pedestrians to get to and from the building. The drive-through layout itself, I'd say is very creative and something should probably be looked at more in the industry. I know there's a lot of fast food and coffee shops that have queuing issues. This is a very effective way of controlling that during the peak times that Adam had talked about. Again, we had actually looked at data from three existing sites out in Illinois and found the average queue was about 10 vehicles. Sometimes it got up in the low 20s. This site has been designed so you can contain 26 cars full length in the drive-through. Now, that shouldn't be something that you see every day, but we certainly wanted to make sure that we could accommodate it in the event it ever did happen. One, I suppose, nice benefit to this is that the entrance to Raising Canes is not directly onto Riverside, not directly onto Route 28. You have to go into the plaza, And it's probably about a combined 250 feet from route 28 turning into the parking lot to the site. So we're kind of remote, so there shouldn't be any spillover effects onto the surrounding streets. And again, this two lane scenario, they run it at other locations, I understand that it's pretty effective. So there's really no reason to think it can't work here. I can tell you, as Adam had mentioned earlier, some of the problems you see at other food uses are that they have a very complicated menu. People ordering coffees with various flavors, decaf, whatever, tends to slow the operation down. Cane's has a very focused menu, and because of that, they tend to put them through the line pretty quick, which keeps the queuing down to a controlled area as shown here. So really, their menu is actually very effective in helping control the traffic components of this. Again, we are talking, continuing to talk with the city mobility and planning staff. The parking demand should be adequately contained through what we're showing to the left of the building in the event there was a peak time or someone wanted to avoid the drive-through. that certainly be free to use the parking on the bottom side of the screen, which as you can see is pretty empty in this photo anyway. We will be talking to the city staff about possibly introducing some kind of crosswalk there if found to be appropriate and beneficial. But we do think that the parking can be accommodated as shown, and it should be predominantly drive-through use given the efficiency that they have in doing that. Now, one thing we did here, if we could jump ahead one slide, Adam, thank you. The plan that we have, we certainly like it and think it could be effective, but I understand there may have been some concerns about the relationship between raising canes and the bank shown on the upper left-hand side of the screen. This is obviously just a sketch and nothing that's been fully engineered. I believe this has been broached informally with the bank just to take their temperature on it. But the idea with this would be that would be dividing the two uses a little bit more than is what's out there today with the layout, where we'd have diagonal parking for the bank as shown on the left side, and in a one-way counterclockwise rotation around their building. which certainly works with their operation. What we don't want to do are see people from that parcel or people choosing to try to cut through that area, coming through on the top and immediately facing exiting drive-through traffic. So what we're exploring is where I'm showing that red arrow is perhaps making that a one-way aisle, reducing the width of that a little bit just to reinforce that, and putting up appropriate do not enter and one-way signs You may even pick up a few parking spaces out of reducing the width of that drive aisle. I'm not sure I think it was someone on the city, actually that brought that up so we wanted to explore it. But I think it's something we pretty readily could add to the plan just brings a little bit more control to the mix. So we're going to continue to talk about that with city staff. So overall out of this, again, we tried to make this as real world as possible, not just pulling numbers out of the textbook. As I said, looking at real data from existing raising canes in pretty successful locations, we have a good handle on how much traffic this will generate. We have a good handle on what the drive through can be expected to see and through Bowler and the rest of the team, we've made sure we've designed it to accommodate that. One last thing I think I'll start on and perhaps others in the team can finish it on the next slide. EV charging. This is obviously a short visit for most people who are raising canes. And I'm not sure the exact time, but it's certainly not like an office where someone's there the entire day, unless they're really hungry. But we are looking at doing some EV charging and actually good ones level two has shown here. So if someone's visiting the site, they can get a little bit of boost before going on their way. So we can talk more about that if needed, but as far as the traffic goes, I'm pretty confident with what we've come up with as a group. We're gonna continue to talk to the city staff and I can turn it back to probably Adam or Kathleen, if you'd like to talk more about the EV element. And I'm certainly here to take any questions you might have along the way. So thank you for your time. Absolutely.
[Kathleen Desmond]: I'd like to address the electric vehicle charging and then I'll deal with the special permit issue that we have with regard to loading.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, absolutely. We've seen EV charging become standard in states like California and New Jersey. So we've partnered with Blink, which is a third party that will operate the charging stations. We provide the power and let them power off of our grid, but they run the operation. They maintain them so that they're properly working and the restaurant crew don't have to maintain them. So it's a pretty good partnership with them. As Pat said, most people aren't gonna be inside of our business for more than, if they're dining in 15 minutes, because they get their food even quicker inside the restaurant, usually like 30 seconds. So we're providing the Fast IQ 200 level two series chargers at, well, I can get technical, but I mean, for the most part, they're gonna get a little bit of a boost while they're parked and eating, but they're not gonna fully charge their car.
[SPEAKER_06]: more than happy to provide that here.
[Kathleen Desmond]: And I think we did also have some discussions with staff about the specific location of those. So that's why they're not on the plan at this point. Because there was some discussion of it being outside of the lease premises so that in fact, employees could utilize the charger in addition to individuals who were there just for to pick up their food. But there was always an intent to include them. And, and in addition, so in addition to the special permit site plan review. We also have a request for a special permit to either wave wave the dedicated loading space, and, and under the new provisions of the code, I draw your attention first to 6.1 point three of the ordinance which appears to exempt non residential uses with 500 that 5000 square feet or less of leasing space from the minimum requirements. unclear as to whether that was to affect the loading requirements it seems to be in the general language, but section 6.17 is still there which requires one loading space for 2000 to 15,000 row square feet of area. So standing alone, this building, if it were to be viewed under 6.17, would require a dedicated space, but that is also further complicated by 6.1.7.1, which indicates that if you have a group of buildings, that you can calculate the gross footage of the total building area, and then apply that, which would require for spaces for the entire parcel owned by the fells bellsway Plaza limited ownership interest, and they do have those spaces located on the southerly portion of the property but obviously that's not close in distance to where this particular use is going to be. So as a practical matter, we understand and we wanted to bring before the board that we understand people aren't going to dolly all the supplies from the stop and shop, back of stop and shop to the front. So as you've seen on the plans, we've provided a spot, a loading spot, which will be available on off hours in the morning prior to opening the hours of operation being nine to 11 Monday through Thursday and then the weekends open until 12 in the evening. We are going to have to file with the city council special permit for extended hours. At that point, we'd be requesting that those extended hours also apply to delivery. But rather than dedicating a space, certainly we think that we've provided a loading area that will be sufficient during off hours to unload product. Because it wouldn't be a situation where you would have product unloading during the business hours in any event.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if I could add Kathleen we have a centralized warehouse in Taunton that Everything comes from paper products, chicken, Coca-Cola, other supplies. They all come from there. So that truck, depending on how busy this restaurant is, may come once a week, could come three times a week.
[SPEAKER_06]: But there's not going to be different trucks coming all times of the day that it will be after the restaurant closes.
[Kathleen Desmond]: The other special waivers that we were looking for related to the plans and I submitted that with the application. There was a waiver, which I believe this board can act on of the incremental elevations on the site. This isn't already a developed site and. I don't think there's any need for the elevations onto our lines for elevations. In addition, the site plan review calls for the elevations of all the buildings located on the site again those are all existing and have been existing for quite a period of time and are typically all one story buildings so there isn't any difference in elevations between the buildings that you have on site. So we also asked for a waiver as to that requirement. when the plan was submitted.
[Unidentified]: And I think with that, we can take questions or comments from the, from the board.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much for the, for the presentation to everyone on the on the canes team. Thank you very much. Any first we usually see if there's any city staff that want to weigh in quickly. If there's anyone here who'd like to do that. Building Commissioner, you don't have to feel like you need to or know you're here more and attendance to watch and see the board at work but Mr. Chair, thank you.
[Bill Forte]: No, no comments at this time I did review the project on we found it to, you know, to be, you know, substantially In compliance. The only thing I would mention is we did have something new in our zoning ordinance come up that probably I'm not exactly sure if I commented on in my letter of refusal but um. more than one principal building on a lot, I'm not sure if I addressed that with Attorney Desmond, at the time we were looking that over but might just be something that should be noteworthy or mentioned in the order, given, given if the board does decide to, you know, to approve the project, that just might be one thing that you may want to, you know, just put in your, in your front view, you know, That's really about it. I think that the only other thing was the loading zone, which, again, I don't see a great deal of impact here. You know, this type of operation doesn't really require many trips during the day. It's not constantly, you know, fueling up with new supplies. It's usually once a day, maybe twice a day on a busy day, but I don't see, again, that there's any impact. So other than that, I have no further comments, but thank you very much for considering me.
[David Blumberg]: Well, thank you. So let's before we discuss and comment as a board and interact with the applicant, let's, let's go to the public. I just want to mention for those who are viewing and participating tonight that we are making a recommendation as to a special permanent safe plan to the city council, so the city council is the ultimate special permit granting authority here. In addition to some of the other things that attorney Desmond mentioned, of course, but this is a one step and you might think of as a two step process in terms of public engagement. So Amanda, could you let us know if we have folks who are interested in participating from the public?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so if anyone is interested from the public, if you could use your reaction tool at the bottom of the screen to either raise your hand or put a note in the chat. I see actually something from, and as far as the chat, we can't use the comments in the chat as part of public record unless you speak them into the record. So I see a note from someone in the chat. Would you like to speak into the record? Steven Catino.
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, yeah, I don't see any problems with this. I kind of like the idea of something different, something new.
[Amanda Centrella]: And could you provide your, I'm sorry, David. I was just going to ask if you could provide your full name and your address for the record.
[SPEAKER_04]: Steven Catino and I'm from 8587 Albion Street in Medford.
[David Blumberg]: Thanks for being in here and thanks for participating, Steven. Sure. Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm taking a quick look at our office email and not seeing any additional comments.
[David Blumberg]: All right, well with that, we'll go to the board and close our public comment portion of the proceeding and move along past the board, we have a board member who'd like to pose some questions of the group. Yes, class.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Hi. Thanks to the team for submitting this application. Personally think it's going to be a nice addition to the. to the plaza and maybe add some activation to that corner. I have just a couple maybe questions might help to bring up the site plan if that's easy enough to do.
[Unidentified]: Absolutely. Cool. Yeah, that's great.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: These are in no particular order, just what I wrote down. It seems to me that it looks like you're doing a nice job of landscaping here. Could you actually pan down just a little? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's fine. There's obviously a lease line, and there's a very conspicuous break between where you'll be landscaping and where you won't. I just think it would make sense to be thoughtful about how that transition between your lease area and the rest of the landscaped area along that edge is treated. So that it doesn't look so different. You know, I guess basically what I'm advocating for is that the section along the front of the bank, you know, could potentially get the same treatment if it's only for a small area and just to make a more sort of unified look in that whole area. I'm also curious because I use this intersection a lot and I know that there's like this new bump out that they've built there and it's sort of been half done for seems like a year. And I'm not really seeing what I think is the line work that would reflect that on this plan. I was just looking on Google Maps and it does actually show that bump out, which is a really nice addition. I'm assuming that the state is doing that as part of the Fellsway, but it's sort of creating like a deeper section of sidewalk there. And I'm just wondering how what you're doing is or isn't sort of integrating into that revised corner condition. And that sort of ties into a couple other questions, like you said you're getting rid of the mid-block crosswalk, which makes a lot of sense, but you are keeping the one right at the intersection of Riverside and the Fellsway, correct?
[SPEAKER_05]: one in coordination with city staff, that's mid block.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, great. I think that makes a lot of sense. I think, you know, just for the purposes of this visual it would just make sense to get that those new curb lines at that corner on there, if nothing else to sort of illustrate what maybe the state has planned and how it sort of fits into what you're doing because I know you have You know, you talked about the break in the fence and things like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this line right here, it's just very faint and that's the bituminous pavement that's currently out there.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but no, I think if you actually look at the. Like, if you were to look at Google Earth, you would see that it actually goes out next to. the, the intersection down to two lanes at that spot. Um, so it actually like see where that white car is. And that, I think that the curb actually comes out and no, the other one below. Yeah. It would actually come out and go around that car currently. Yeah. So just, you know, understanding all the, all the sort of wine work and getting, the public right away on this drawing would be helpful. And then, so if you pan towards, put the building more in the center of the screen. So then it would help us to understand how there's this sort of system of sidewalks that is gonna start going down the Fellsway. So it leads to a couple more of my questions. A, your sidewalks, I think are, you know, the L-shaped sidewalks around the site are great. How wide are those?
[Unidentified]: I don't even trust this.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Pardon? Five feet.
[Unidentified]: Five feet. It seems a little narrow for a place that's very car-centric.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: There's part of me that wishes it could be buffered by landscape. I'm sort of on the fence about that. You know, we're trying in Medford to sort of implement complete streets. Certainly five feet wouldn't really fall, I think, within that dimension. I could totally be wrong. But beyond that, I think maybe the bigger issue is the lack of a crosswalk across that driveway right there. And I don't believe there's one today. It doesn't look like there is. you know, any effort to sort of make that crossing more pedestrian friendly would have to include a crosswalk in that location, which is sort of conspicuously missing. And I would really advocate for adding a crosswalk or, you know, and if it didn't make sense right at the apron, then moving it back, whatever dimension, Pat, to create a crosswalk. Um, so that people could continue sort of down towards, there's a bus stop right there. Um, and, and just sort of completing that, that gesture that started and done a really nice job of in that location.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: Um, I could jump in on that just for a second. Very good points all and the crosswalk you're talking about, it's the driveway itself on Route 28, correct? Correct. Yeah, I do have a message into DCR about that. I've traded some information with them over the past year. What you're seeing out there obviously is a work in progress, not quite done yet. I'm assuming they'd be doing a crosswalk there. I don't know for a fact because I haven't seen their final plans. But if they're doing all that work, I'd assume they'd be covering that, but we could certainly talk. And this is something your mobility group had raised as well. So we are looking into that further. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of officially what the DCR limits of work are going to be.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Perfect. And are there any plans for any, like, well, let me ask this, in that expanded area of sidewalk where it bumps out into the road more, what is the plan for that sort of horizontal surface? Is it all concrete? I know today, it's been, like, the curbs have been in for, like, it feels like at least a year, but it looks like the sidewalks, there's still, like, exposed dirt, and, like, I'm trying to understand what they're planning on that corner.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: And that's, I'm trying to get that as well. Typically roadwork, sidewalks, landscaping is more of, um, start up around April 15th, typically depending on weather. Um, so I don't know exactly how long it's been in a state of not being complete, but I do expect they'll be resuming that shortly if they haven't already. Um, so because the bump out. is taking the curb line further into Route 28, and they are doing a new sidewalk around the site on their portion. It doesn't change the site we're doing. We're doing everything within our limits. But out on Route 28, as you had mentioned, it is what they call a road diet. It's two departing lanes now. They've added a bike lane, and it's not only a bike lane, it's a buffered bike lane. So you have two car lanes and one bike lane. We're tying into wherever their sidewalk ends their work. So it's a continuous path into the site. And, you know, Eric and I and others can talk about, you know, exactly what the width of the site sidewalk will be and how that'll work. So just trying to gather a little bit more information, but that's helpful input.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Great. Thank you. Let me see. I think. When you went through the presentation, Adam, you talked about, you showed pictures of the inside. So I think I understand it that this is a place that will mostly get drive-through traffic, but you do have in-restaurant seating. Is that correct?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, we do. Jeff may be able to speak to it exactly, but I think it's about 50 seats inside. and about 40 seats on the patio, I think.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. So you showed a really nice photo of like an outdoor seating area in your presentation. Are we going to have that as well?
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, yes, sir. It would be this area. If you can see my cursor that it wouldn't wrap around like the one in Houston that I showed because we don't have as much surface area here, but it will look, um, let me just scroll down.
[Unidentified]: over the lag, sorry.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you would essentially have this canopy right here go across the entire facade.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Great. It looks nice. I think I just I think it's important to have the outdoor seating option, especially since you put in a nice spot where it's a little buffered but from the intersection but you know, would add would add life to that area. The only thing I guess that's maybe conspicuously missing is I like the landscaping that you're showing here and it'd be nice if there was a little landscaping around that patio as well, just to sort of, again, complete that that gesture. But maybe I'm missing it. I don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're limited on space here. So in order to provide the connectivity back to Riverside, we had to run the sidewalk along the front here. But we do have landscaping along the side of the building to screen the dumpster enclosure and the patio from the dumpster enclosure.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: All right, well, it'd be nice to see some landscaping out on the patio in some fashion, if it's at all possible.
[Unidentified]: I think that's all I have. Thank you. Excited for chicken wings.
[David Blumberg]: Peter, I see that your hand has been raised in a sense for some time, so the floor is yours.
[Peter Calves]: Thank you very much. I'd like to kind of echo the sentiment that's been raised, and I think this would be a great addition to this area. As someone who is a resident of the Wellington Circle area, I'm certainly looking forward to it. You showed that very nice interior shot, and I wanted to make sure that that interior will be Not, I was going to say that the interior will be accessible, but also that there's a way for people who aren't in cars to order at times when the restaurants open. I've run into this, thankfully not around here, but in other, in other cities where after a certain hour, if you happen to walk to a place or bike to a place, you're out of luck and you can't, can't get food unless you're in a car. And I just want to make sure, because I mean, as someone who would access this location for most of the year on foot or on bike, I want to make sure that I can come get my chickens. And they're not going to tear me away because I'm not in the car.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I mean, we typically do not close our dining rooms early. And the fact that this location, the restaurant would close at 11pm on weekdays and midnight on weekends is would reinforce even more than this restaurant will stay open. along with the drive-through.
[Peter Calves]: That's great. That's important to me. And you said you ran a WB40 for the delivery turning movements. I assume that is analogous to what you will be using for deliveries.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, correct. We've confirmed with the warehouse that that equipment can be utilized here.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, great. And I appreciate the addition of the bike rack. That's something that, once again, as someone who is likely to access this location by bike, I love to see it. Absolutely.
[Unidentified]: Thank you. Peter, are you all set then?
[David Blumberg]: At least for now, it's not to shut you down. Yep, I'm good. Okay, great. Ari, welcome aboard, the floor is yours.
[Ari Fishman]: Thank you. Seems like a really interesting proposal. This is where I do my weekly grocery shop over at the Aldi. So very familiar with this area. You kind of caught all the traffic questions that I had going in. My two major kind of more comments, I'm sure you've thought about them. The first one is I didn't get a chance to check Whether any or all of the plants were native, we've been trying to support our local pollinator populations. So if we can see if part of the mix of the landscaping can be supportive of that with native plants. And the second question was, since it is such a large parking lot, large shopping area, I know that there can be an issue with litter, especially with drive-thrus. Can you tell us a little bit about whatever routines are developed at other Raising Canes to make sure that there's not a huge littering impact locally?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, you're correct. That is commonly a problem with other operators. We actually score our restaurants monthly, they get secret shopped, they have unannounced visits from an internal team, and that affects their performance pay at the end of the year, so they are incentivized to keep the lot clean.
[Unidentified]: And that's it? In terms of?
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, they'll walk the site periodically throughout the day, pick up litter, throw it away. They'll bust the tables outside if people don't throw away their own packaging.
[SPEAKER_05]: We don't use, unless it's to-go, we use reusable trays with liners. There is disposable plasticware that's used, paper cups, but we don't use styrofoam clamshells unless it's to-go. And I think nationally we're moving away from styrofoam within the next few years.
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you. Oh, you're muted, David.
[David Blumberg]: I'm sorry. Thank you very much. I was just encouraging either Emily or Jackie if you have. You wanted to jump in. If you don't, that's fine.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I actually had circulation question. This is Vice Chair Jackie McPherson. I don't have any because the presentation actually went over everything, so I didn't want to reiterate something that was already presented. it was thoroughly covered.
[David Blumberg]: Excellent. And we're good for now.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yep. No questions. I do like that. The drive through Q is not coming off of the main road. There are other drive throughs in Medford where that is a challenge, so it's nice to see. Um some. Um some thought put into that, but no other
[David Blumberg]: Excellent. So I do have a few more questions but I guess where we're headed tonight is to, because the canes team has said that they're still working with the city so I feel like you're getting our initial feedback comments so that you can incorporate them along with the city staff and then we will be seeing you again for you know what would be potentially a final set of recommendations or final discussion before we made final recommendations.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Is that fair to say, that's fair to say, you know, with respect to the comments the department had comments I think the only area which we still have to iron out some issues would be with the mobility and the traffic. essentially for raising canes to perform. We've looked at all the rest of them and we're able to meet all of those, but the mobility requests are, you know, we need pricing still on them. And there's some things I think that we're not gonna be able to, having to do with Route 28 and signaling that are just beyond the scope of what this project could bear, frankly, so we still want to work with Todd, and see if we can come to some agreement.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, that sounds good. So we don't need to go through department head comments at this point because you're still working with them and we'll hear another round or a thumbs up from our departments at the next meeting so that that sounds really great. I just had a few comments that, and a lot of a lot of improvements. especially that access the pedestrian access to the sidewalk to I guess the north is really good. Could you, could you give me a little bit more on the eastern bank parking because I wanted to, you know, I guess one. One question the specific question is. Is some is some of the parking that you're dedicating to Keynes already promised to the bank through some other approval process or through something that the owner may have already promised the city.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: I'll take that one. Mr. Chairman Karen Johnson from charter realty and development.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: owners and owners managers of Fellsway Plaza. So if you can see from this plan, there's a darker dashed line. Exactly. That represents the ground lease line for Keynes and the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 spaces specifically excluded from that ground lease area are non exclusive spaces for Eastern Bank for their lease. And so, Eastern's entryway of course is opposite of those parking spaces. They have, I believe it's 19 spaces along the Riverside access, which they primarily use for employees. And then of course they also have drive up window and drive up ATM on the opposite side.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, so those those spots are sort of no one's borrowing from the bank to give to Keynes.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: That's correct. And that's why that lease line takes a job there.
[David Blumberg]: Sure. Can you give us some context then on this proposal? Because I think what we're seeing here imposed in red would make a lot of sense in particular to provide a little crosswalk there to the entrance of the bank would be a nice feature and the circulation being one way would be a good thing as well.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: Sure. When we were getting ready for a community meeting, I met with representatives of Eastern Bank and shared the plan with them. You know, on some earlier plans, we had that there was a walk-up ATM on this side. They informed me that was closed and that it's just the entry. And so they asked for some enhancements. And so they explained to me essentially how their operations work and that this is the primary entrance on this side. And they didn't express any concern related to safety, but what we just tried to look at is what would work better from an internal flow for them. And so in working with Pat Dunford from a traffic perspective and Bowler from a site layout perspective, we came up with this alternative plan. And so this, of course, adds additional landscaping at the island areas and or an additional space along this row. I really like one of the board members comments about extending that landscaping along the frontage. And if you noted from the utility plan, there is a fair amount of disturbance in this area to make the connection. So we'll take a look at extending that same landscaping I don't know if it's a good idea to have a theme all the way down the frontage. I thought that was a very good suggestion.
[SPEAKER_06]: I agree, Karen. I would support that.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: Yeah. So one of the things that we do need to do is get some better spot grades out there. that we're working with Adam on, you know, obviously, partly as an improvement here, partly as a land landlord improvement. I don't I don't I don't want you to think that they've been forgotten in the process because we have Um, and we were getting feedback before from the board and the city representatives before going back to Eastern, but they're very supportive of anything that improves that condition for them out there.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, I think that's great because it does interplay with the pedestrian access the traffic circulation those concerns that are so central to our review to see that improvement on the sort of other side of that parking aisle is would be would be a great thing. Can you, while we're all here, what's going on in that top corner there seemed to be a lot of oversized vehicles maybe it's like overnight parking or long, long term parking for someone.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: So, I did, I did get that comment through staff. and talked with our property management group. And honestly, we thought that you were talking about truck parking in the canes pad, which we're at a constant battle of trying to prevent that large tractor trailer overnight parking. Todd Blake noted that he's seeing a lot more of it since on the commercial side, you change the on street parking across from the Dunkin Donuts. But apparently that wasn't it at all. It was this parking that's right along the access to Riverside. And when we had a staff meeting with the city I drove through there, and it was a little bit later in the afternoon so I, I think I know that they are Eastern Bank service vehicles. why they are all there at the end of the day, I'm unclear of, and I do have to have a conversation with them about that. But please be aware that every single one of those vehicles on the side is marked EBC, and if you call the phone number, it's to Eastern Bank. So I'm not sure if they're using this as sort of a regional hub for their service vehicles, but we'll find out. Regardless, It is Eastern Bank's parking, effectively employee parking that they're taking up. So I'm not entirely sure how or if we'll resolve it. I appreciate you sharing that information and answering the question and indulging me as I dive too deep into your property management challenges but no worries we understand that this is a very visible shopping center and trust me your frustrations are our frustration.
[David Blumberg]: Well, just from our perspective, if you, if you do have that one way circulation, it's, it's going to help. Cause I think that creates a bit of a tight two way aisle over there, but it looks like you're going to be improving that area. So thank you. Okay. The hours of operation maybe you turn Desmond's question for you. And I honestly don't know the answer. Do you, do you think that that's part of the special permit that we are involved in or do you see that as entirely separate special permit that you need to get from city council directly.
[Kathleen Desmond]: So the hours of nine a.m. to 11 p.m. are permitted by the ordinance. It would be the extended hours till midnight on the weekends, which will need an extended hours permit, special permit from the city council. And that can't be applied for until after the project is permitted. So it's something that we have to do at a future date.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, unfortunate that it can't be wrapped up in this. Okay. That's probably all that I, I have right now. Any other follow up questions from board members. Let me know. I thought that sounds like we're sort of in agreement on continuing this to a future date to give you some more time. You being the cane, the canes team to, you know, update plans, meet with the city and so forth. I thought that we probably as a board could at least address the two technical waivers that have been requested. And those were the two requirements on the site plan itself, you mentioned the elevations, I'm looking for the citation I think it's 11.7.77. There was a second one regarding elevations dimensions I guess they're both sort of dimensional in nature, but the other one is item 10. Is that right attorney Desmond, do I am right.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Item 10 is the special permit and then that would be a recommendation to the city council on the loading area. Oh, I'm talking about your elevation concerns I think that the two waivers on on that were elevations as to building. You faded out a waiver from 11.7 point seven that requires locations elevations and dimensions of existing and proposed buildings, and or other structures showing setbacks from the property lines. And the basis for that request was that other than then Eastern Bank. Well actually all of the buildings are existing buildings that have been in existence for a long period of time. And they're all, you know, single story buildings for the most part. And there's quite a few of them so it would be an expense to show the elevations as to all of those buildings where there isn't really anything that is good they're all single story buildings, for the most part. And the second was 11.7 point 710, which requires existing and proposed contour elevations and one foot increments. And again, this is just a redevelopment of a site that's already been developed. So we're asking from a waiver from that requirement.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, so if we could, as a board of other members are in agreement. If we could vote on granting those two areas at least to give you that courtesy of that tonight. and then the other matters would, I think, wait for your return visit.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do we need to motion them separately or can we motion them together?
[David Blumberg]: I'm okay with them together.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, I'll make the motion.
[David Blumberg]: Seconded. Seconded, okay. And roll call vote. So we'll start with our vice chair, Jackie Furtado.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Klyce Andresen. I am Lee headman. I get a call us. I already government. I, and I'm also an eye so those two waivers are approved so you don't have to worry about that. Should we talk. Perhaps Amanda, is it time for us to talk about scheduling or what canes would like to do next.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, I think it could be worth raising while the group is all here. That's very good of you. Thanks. So yeah, I mean, we have a meeting scheduled next week, but I don't know if that's enough time for your team. Or if it is, then great. It would be on the third, so the Wednesday. Would your team prefer more time?
[SPEAKER_06]: I believe so. We'll need to get more answers, I think, out of DCR and understand the traffic a little bit more. It's a somewhat complex issue that we need to work through.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so we do have, because this isn't a public hearing, we do have the ability to do scheduling offline. But just in terms of a temperature check, we meet twice a month, first and third Wednesdays. So the third next week, and then the 17th are already on the calendar. And then we also have, I think it's the 7th of June, and the 21st of June. So those are sort of the like near term meetings. And if if your team had opinions about general ballpark, but I kind of feel like we can just figure it out offline.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm thinking the 17th, you'll have to weigh in on whether you think you can get the traffic wrapped up by them.
[39QZXkKLDII_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I assume getting answers from DCR if we can do that, which I'll endeavor to do, 17 should be fine, provided Eric can do his work as well.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, great. So that'll be a tentative yes, and we can follow up offline.
[Unidentified]: Excellent.
[Kathleen Desmond]: Thank you for your attention to this matter. We appreciate your input and your comments and we look forward to working with the city as always.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much. Thank you for choosing Medford thanks for all the work you put into this tonight we appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, ready for our next item on the agenda the plan development district proposed for 100 Winchester Street. And this is a first for us planned development district. And those of you who followed along with the new zoning ordinance, and the discussions that took place as part of that process, you may be aware that this is new technique that developer and the city can engage in this process to identify a parcel of parcels some footprint that is appropriate. They believe for special or different type of zoning analysis. The plan development district is something that requires an amendment to the zoning ordinance. So our involvement the city council's involvement is called for there. And then there's an approval process of whatever development might be actually planned within the district once the zoning ordinance has been amended. So that's just my own little 32nd summary of what the PDD ordinance calls for. So we're in the very first meeting of the very first stage. But the focus tonight is to think about zoning amendment that would find its way from us to City Council for further consideration. Amanda, how'd I do, is that all right? All right, thank you very much. So with that as background, let's bring on the team from 100 Winchester Street.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Hi, thank you, and good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. My name is Adam Barnoski. I'm with the law firm of Roberto Israel and Weiner at 255 State Street. I'm an attorney for 96-102 Winchester Street, LLC, the property owner and the proposed developer. With me are the developers, Steve Nardone and Gerald Nardone, Peter Quinn and Milton New, the project architects. Even Sawyer the engineer step on states traffic consultant, Katya Patsy although the landscaped architects and my co counsel, Michael Brown. If I may, Mr. Chairman, can I go through a brief overview of the project.
[David Blumberg]: Of course, we didn't want you to feel like you had to give every detail and, and, but again because we're sort of in the zoning phase of things but can't really appreciate what the PDD is without understanding what your ideas are for the site so absolutely please.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Sure, sure. So, so as you mentioned, we are here. plan development residential district under section 9.2 of the zoning ordinance. At the outset, I'd like to say that, you know, we're all very excited about this project. It's been a long time coming. We've had a few meetings with with staff and with the community about this project. And I'd like to thank planning, leadership and staff for for their part in helping us get to where we are tonight, which is a essentially the first official meeting in what we hope to be a productive process here. We do understand it's the first PDE so we're kind of all in this together at this point in time. So, I wanted to provide you with a little bit of overview of zoning and the project and property and then pass it along to Peter Quinn to discuss some of the design elements, we do understand that this is not, you know, a formal design review. So we're going to try to keep this short, particularly in light of the last hearing and try to make it as palatable as we can for you. If we could, while I'm giving my overview, if he's not already, could Peter Quinn be promoted to a co-host so he can share some of the photos in a few minutes? So first of all, the property. The proposed PDD site is located on the southern portion of Winchester Street, due east from the Ball Square T stop. The site consists of three lots comprised of five tax parcels measuring just under 50,000 square feet. The two lots located at 96-102 Winchester are contiguous through lots with frontage on Winchester and Alfred Streets. They've been used for many years as a commercial space for offices and garaging. The lot located at 104 is a corner lot with frontage on Winchester a two-story residence that has been deemed preferably preserved by the Medford Historical Commission. The site is mostly located in the general residential GR zoning district with a the zoning table detailing the uses, dimensional requirements for the PDE was included in the application materials. I'll get into a little bit more detail on that momentarily. However, it's worth noting that the PDE was developed with a specific use and specific structures in mind. And where in some instances, this board is going to see PDEs that could host a variety of configurations and uses, here, the zoning table was crafted with a particular project in mind. And as such, in this project. First, relative to the uses, they're identified in exhibit E of our submission. And we believe that these are in line with the other uses allowed in the area, that is, it's primarily residential with ancillary low-impact commercial. And second, the dimensional requirements. We've identified those in Exhibit F of the submission intended to blend with the underlying district's requirements with modifications to accommodate the scale of the project without disrupting the neighborhood and to allow room to modify if needed during the permitting process at different As currently drafted, the PDD zoning has proposed heights in line with recent developments in the area and along Broadway, setbacks similar to existing conditions of neighboring properties, below-grade parking in excess of the current requirements, and reasonable open space and lot coverage requirements for the area. In the broader, much broader context, the PDD is intended to create a gradual transition between the C1 zoning district and the GR zoning district. As I mentioned, while it's primarily located in the GR, there are in the C1 as well. And the commercial district, particularly along Broadway, is becoming typified by mixed-use developments, multifamily developments, and a continuation of commercial uses. So we think that this PDD, as we're structuring the zoning, fits in with the broader transitioning of this neighborhood and the city, particularly in relation to the district's proximity to the GLX and Ball Square T Station. development of the site I want to provide just a general overview of what the developer would be looking to build in the effect that the PDD is approved by the city. So the development would consist of a four story 65 unit residential building with below grade parking, a two building, and a community pocket park. This would be located within the new PD with a portion of the block bound by which Winchester Street to the west, a little higher to the north New Bern Avenue, Alfred Street to the east and Albion Street. development would raise the existing structures on the site with a new four-story residential building measuring approximately 63,000 square feet, 65 residential units on the first through fourth floors, 51 parking spaces below grade, 56 long-term bicycle parking spaces, a roof roof dock and rooftop solar arrays. The existing structure at 104 would be fully restored, and a new addition would be added to the rear to form an L-shaped building, measuring approximately 4,000 square feet. This would be that ancillary light commercial space. The use table we're seeking to craft into the PDD would allow daycare, office, gym, or similar use. A 104 would also be improved with a pocket park for public use with new landscaping, hardscaping and benches. I recognize that we've been kind of going through some of the plans as I've been speaking, but I would like to pass it along to Peter at this time if you'd like to elaborate on the design.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, good evening. My name is Peter Quinn, Peter Quinn Architects, 259 Elm Street in Davis Square, Somerville. The site has a couple of features that I think are worth pointing out. from an architect or land planner's point of view, are particularly interesting. First, of course, the site has frontage on three sides, which means it has a lot of frontage. And each of those sides presents a different set of design challenges. Secondly, the site slopes approximately 15 feet from the Winchester Albion corner up here. where my cursor is, all the way down to the lowest point on Alfred Street. So we'll be in our massing to put more of the mass of the building toward Winchester Street and then step it down with the grade on Alfred. As you'll see when we go into the building plan a little bit. So yeah, we have two principal structures on a single lot. That's part of our zoning applications to allow that within this particular new district. One is a residential building. There's a commercial building. You could think of it as a master plan, but that's not built in necessarily into the PVD. We also are, as mentioned, have, I will just add a couple of things that Adam didn't cover in terms of what some of the features of the building. It's fully handicapped accessible from the garage all the way to the roof. And it's about at this point, we are proposing 15% affordable. That's 10 units. So that's a fairly significant amount of affordable units for this project. And the commercial building, as I said, as was said, not only will provide some commercial space close to the other commercial development along Broadway, but it also means a restoration of the front part of the existing building, which has some historic content and is definitely worth restoring if we can figure out a way to make it work economically when we think we have. The other aspect of the commercial that's worth pointing out is that there's a beautiful tree that sits right, you know, about 15, 20 feet away from the existing building, and we intend to preserve that and create a kind of an active courtyard around it for the commercial users. And then finally, some other things about the site before I start to show you some images of the building. The site itself is developed so that it has multiple, it's primarily pedestrian oriented. It has multiple entry points for pedestrians. Here, for instance, for the commercial use, where my cursor is, a little pocket park that was mentioned. And when we present the landscape, perhaps next time, we can go into that in some detail. There's a lot of entry, formal entry to the front of the commercial building. And then a through walk that is private, but it does allow residents of the building to walk along the entire length of the site. And then we have our formal entry for the building itself right off Winchester Street. And we made a real effort to get cars off the site as much as possible. So we have a single driveway that's two way that leads down to an underground garage. The rise itself is on two different levels, each separated by about four or five feet, allowing an upper level to be built where the grade is higher, and then as we get closer to Alfred, it steps down. We also have an area for trash and recycling. This is an enclosed building that's an appendage to the main building. A few other things that are worth mentioning, I think. The landscape architect, Rodant, has made a real effort to gracefully delineate all the facades, all the street furnitures with nice plantings, primarily, as will be explained in time, with native plants or plants that are adapted for um, urban conditions. And so you see that, um, well, Winchester Street turns for Albion and then, of course, on Alfred, we're introducing some very nice, um, landscaping integrated with some of the trees that are existing there. In our building, of course, there's been a lot of talk about going all electric and net zero, and that is our intention at this point, but we still have to deal with making a final decision based on economics and availability of electricity and the extent of available power in the area. but we certainly will pre-wire for electric cars. And in addition to the 56 or so bike spaces that were mentioned, they're in a secure bike room that has a, you know, we'll have a repair shop in it, a repair bench, and outwash, bike washing component. We also are able to park bikes above the cars, you know, and probably be So that's the intention. Let me show you some nice images of the building. I don't want to go into the design too much because I know we're primarily here about the zoning, but you can see this gives you a good overview from the corner, Winchester being on the left here, and then Albion is just off to the right, the pocket park is shown there. This doesn't have all the trees in place because we want to be able to see the buildings, but it does give you an idea of how that existing building is restored. the front and windows are restored and then kind of a contemporary addition on the back. It's fairly simple, not trying to upstage the old house. And then because of the grades, we're actually able to have a raised patio around that tree. It sits higher than the street as it is. And so that would be an active courtyard with commercial users. It's a very nice feature. To the left, you see the new building. This is the four stories that we have on Winchester Street. However, we set back the fourth story to reduce the apparent mass of the building. We also introduced a strong cornice in keeping with the idea that a lot of the older buildings in the neighborhood do have cornices. And we introduced balconies at the corners and along the sides in order to break up the massing of the building at the eye level. You can see that the building is built on a kind of a plinth, and that is actually the underground garage that is bigger than the footprint of the residential structure itself. And so what we have here is like a brick structure, or there'll be a concrete structure with a brick face. And then the terraces that would be created around so that we've also offset the building from front to rear. The further distance that you see here is the Alfred part of the building, so that this gives the building a little bit of variety visually. This is an opportunity to break the mass furthest. You can see the driveway. This is a two-way drive on the left here. digging down to the garage. Plenty of room, it's 24 feet wide. And then at the end of that is the recycling center and trash collection. This is a view from Alfred's green seat here. What we've done is we've maintained a similar appearance to the building, but we've set the building for the building to three stories. And the purpose of this, of course, is to give Alfred Street a better sense of scale that's appropriate for Alfred Street, which is primarily one and two family residential. Then we further broke the mass of this into a townhouse-like form so that we can present a nice residential scale to the community there. There's actually no entry to the building on this side, except for if you're a resident, you can go on that through path and enter that way. This drive that you see on the right here is actually for fire access, and it has a minimal amount of paving, the rest is grass pavers or landscaping on the left side of it. Another view from Malfrey, looking back toward Winchester. The fences that you see on the left side are for the private residents that get around Albion. An aerial view similar to the street view that we had at the beginning, looking down into the courtyard of the commercial space and then the larger residential structures. Um. Surrounded by landscape wherever we could get it. Another view of that. All four corners provided. This is Alfred looking out over those houses there. By setting it back quite a bit in landscaping, and I think it does integrate very well with the scale of this street's neighborhood. Streetscape. And one last view. I'll leave it at that, and I'm happy to take any questions. And as Adam mentioned, we also have our landscape architect with us here, as well as civil engineer and traffic consultant. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Mr. Quinn.
[David Blumberg]: Adam, do you want to turn more to the zoning side of things at this point? I don't want to interrupt your proposed presentation, but... Sure.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: I mean, so we provided the... I mean, the zoning is essentially a mix of proposed uses and dimensional requirements that we have under the exhibits. I mean, we can walk through each of those if you'd like to. I'm not sure how granular you want to get,
[David Blumberg]: Sure, let me. I just wanted to invite whatever presentation you wanted to say on that. Okay.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, I mean that was generally I know that the board has these I you know I had has the has the submission. And, and it's, you know, as we discussed most of the dimensional requirements under the zoning basically allowed this. development by, not by right, but by special permit to the city council. So, you know, we tried to provide setbacks that allow some, some of a buffer. So we're now like within, you know, riding up against the setbacks, same with height, same with FAR and all the different elements that we have under the zoning code. And like I said, I'm happy to get as granular as you like. I think that, you know, overall the tables kind of speak for themselves. And that result really is what you're seeing here I mean there's the way that we've crafted the zoning tables and the uses that are allowed essentially are going to permit what you're seeing here, so it's primarily residential, there are light ancillary commercial uses that are allowed. But, you know, for example, it would be able to put this PDD through and build a seven story 400 unit complex here. So we tried to tailor it. So again, so we might be able to make a few modifications based on input by the board. But overall, we're pretty much working within the confines to allow this by special permit of the city council.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you. Well, we also have with us, attorney Jonathan Silverstein who is acting as counsel to the board to help advise us as we go through the process of recommending the amended ordinance. Presumably also advising the city council. Jonathan, would you like to say hello or. Jump in you'll recognize Jonathan from previous appearances before the board he's helped us with things like sort of our internal con management and board operations and some of the statutes that affect planning boards generally so good evening.
[Silverstein]: Hi, can everyone hear me okay.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, we can hear you. Thank you. Perfect.
[Silverstein]: Great. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I think obviously this is the first PDD that the board's being presented under the new ordinance. And as you indicated in your preparatory remarks, it really, the PDD presents a nice opportunity for tailored zoning for specific developments. And as Mr. Barnofsky indicated, A PDD can be a tool to paint with a broader brush for sort of a master planning exercise. That's not what's really presented here. This is a much more narrow in scope development on a smaller site. And this project, a lot of the legwork has been done up front by staff and by the applicant. to bring to the board a really almost fully formed proposal. And so this hearing is really an opportunity for you to, for the board to provide comment and get questions asked with respect to the intersection of the project with the proposed zoning. as Mr. Barnosky indicated, the zoning is really a means to an end. And so though normally when you're holding a hearing on a proposed zoning amendment, you're not considering specific projects. By its nature, PDD zoning is project specific zoning. And so this can be an opportunity for the board to ask any questions, provide feedback so that if changes need to be considered, they're being considered now rather than when you get to the point of your hearing under the State Zoning Act, chapter four, section five, by which point the zoning has been pretty much finalized and is gonna be you're going to be making a recommendation to the council. And really changing course at that point presents more of a logistical challenge than it would now. Again, I'm not suggesting that you're going to be looking to change course, but this is sort of that opportunity. So I guess that's the way I would explain my view of the most useful way to consider tonight's hearing. And of course, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much. And, yep, and I see. Director hunts hand is up you're exactly where I was going next we're thinking alike, because it is different in that it is a recommendation to amend zoning so the city has a perspective here and so I imagine director hunt you're going to help offer the city's view on on this and the benefits that may offer to the, to the, to the city so please.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I also just wanted to make sure that it was clear. It's probably clear to the board what the process is here, but this is new. And I know we have people online and who may be watching this on TV. At the end of this hearing, this meeting, there will be the zoning, the table and the map will go to the city council as a zoning change. So this is our opportunity to recommend that. however the way zoning is then adopted this will go to the city council they will then immediately refer it back to this board for another public hearing on this exact same zoning um and then this board will make any additional comments and refer it back to the city council for a public hearing where they would then vote to adopt the zoning um in this case this is a very well developed project and honestly we we've been talking how this seems like there's a few extra too many meetings in this. We're still figuring out this process. If this was a less well-developed project, that might be useful. We're working through that. Once that zoning is adopted by the council, this project then comes back for a site plan review because of the size of the project. So this is not site plan review, but that would occur. Or let me just say once the zoning is adopted, they will apply for a building permit. And when they apply for the building permits, then this project comes back for site plan review, and any further building permits and I believe actually the council issues the permit under it then goes back to counsel again. Um, so I just wanted to be clear that this project is going to be in front of, sorry, it'll be a special permit. So it'll go back and forth and be in front of this board several times. And I wanted people to be aware of that. This is the easiest time to make big changes. If when it came back to you next time to when it's referred back to the council and the board wanted to make any significant changes. It would then have to be re advertised and re heard by the planning board like it gets a very complicated them. So this is the point to make conversation. I will say that we have been meeting with this applicant Mr. Nardone for more than a year probably two years we've seen various iterations of this. Peter Quinn is a well respected architect that our board has worked with on this project and we've seen other projects by him over the years or my office has seen many projects by him. We think this is a great addition to the area. Planners will talk about the missing middle housing. And our housing production plan talks about the missing middle, which is sort of like, in some sense, this might be a little on the large size for that. That might be more like 10, 30 units. And this is 65. But this is not a high rise apartment building, right? This is a community scale building. We really like this. We like the low energy of it. We love that they came to us with solar, that they're trying to go all electric. We love the adaptive reuse of the building that they're keeping on site and the addition of a pocket park. I like that they keep saying that maybe daycare there, the city needs more of that. I'll take this opportunity to encourage that yet again. And this is very close to the some of the new T stops. And so we think this is a great location for more housing like this and for dense housing. So from the perspective of process, and then from the the building, you know, we've, we love that we like, I mean, obviously, y'all will have discussion and there'll be site plan review. But this is a good fit for the city and meets the needs of our housing production plan.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much for the background on the process and also the city's voice on the, on the project much appreciated. Amanda, do we were going to the public on this one are we not.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, this is a public hearing so we should at some point open to the public.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. Maybe that's appropriate this time to to solicit some input. I think we need to see the tables and talk about some of the zoning details but if we can have the public if there are folks who are interested want to comment on the overall process and the overall project, it would be nice to hear from them.
[SPEAKER_04]: Steve Coutinho again could I speak.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, if you could just share once more your address for the record.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm 85, I'm the representative of my aunt, 8587 Albion Street. Welcome again. So, you know, I mean, I'm going to be honest with you, my family's owned the house for about 100 years now, just about on Albion Street. So of course, you probably know that this was a project back in the 70s, that Mr. Collegian, the farmer owner, I wanted to do something in the back as well, and all the neighbors opposed it. But I'm not here to oppose it. It's a beautiful project. But, you know, my concern would be like with the 65 units, you know, given like the new T station there's a lot more pedestrian trap pedestrian traffic, in addition to the amazing student population at Tufts University who live on Albion Street with the traffic, you know, then people pulling in and out of, out of the driveway I'd be concerned with that. But more importantly, a couple of things come to mind. When they started digging for the T, we had a bad rat problem and mice problem, which I never had before. And what's going to happen with that? Because these buildings and the house at the corner has been there forever. It's not been utilized. I'm sure there's mice in there. I've never seen a rat until the T project. And in that area, not even a mouse. But, you know, once the T project is like brutal, I saw dead ones in my yard, live ones, you know, so I just want to make sure that all those problems are going to be, you know, thought of, you know, I think, you know, it shouldn't be a cost for us because last time with the T, the city said that we had to pay for certain things. But, you know, to go through this again, it was like brutal, you know, like holes in the yard, rats and, you know, the whole bit. Um, you know, like, my concern, you know, like, we've, you know, we've been lucky to have the privacy all these years with nobody in the back sitting on your deck or in the yard. You know, I don't know, the 65 units is too much for the area. know, but I love the design, the architecture and all that. And then what I'd like to also ask is, you know, again, with the alley that we use all that that path, what's going to happen with that again, that we use now for our backyards? Is that going to stay intact? Are we still going to be able to use that land?
[David Blumberg]: I don't know that I have the answer for you, Mr. Catino but we could ask someone on the project team.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Sure, so are you referring to the backyard that, like the backyards that are currently utilizing a portion of the project property? Is that what you're referring to?
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I thought that it was a land that was donated to the city many years ago when the bonds were there. I mean, I heard that those bonds were used for, horses or cows or something like that, you know, from milk cows, you know, so my grandfather told me. But there's land in between the houses on Albion Street until they hit the, you know, the structures on your project. Yeah, I'm like what I call is that called one place or.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Well, yeah, there is an area called long place what I will say is that the, the air there is a there is a portion of property if you look at the survey you can see this so there is this portion of property called long place that I believe is. property. And you can see, you can see by what's up on the screen there that like for example, there's a shed that crosses that property line. And it's the intent of the developers to leave that area untouched by this, that they don't plan on retaking that lawn place for their own use. So that if you, and if you, I'm not sure if that's Peter or Milton that has that, but could you bring up the following, a drawing that shows the, the proposed development on top of the survey plan, so you can kind of see what that's going to look like. Yeah, so if you see, you can see law in place there. You just had it. You might be able to see it here. And so you can see that that does remain undisturbed.
[SPEAKER_04]: So would we still be using the land or not?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: I mean, as far as the development goes, it's not like, yeah, this is a very, can you see that on your screen, sir?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I can explain that. This is the property line right here where my cursor is. Yeah, thank you, Peter. And then there's approximately 15 feet of encroachment that is on our client's property. but the idea is that the fence that is there will be rebuilt and continued access will be provided to those owners on Albion Street. That you'll be able to do what for the owners? You can continue to use it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So as you have it, but it's, it's not, we're still, we need that land for our total lot area.
[SPEAKER_04]: For your what?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: lot area for the lot area so that there might so there might be some further discussions with with the owners on that on that strip but it is again the intent of the developer to not build on the area that's being utilized by by those properties.
[SPEAKER_04]: So what will it be used for then?
[Adam Hurtubise]: As I said it's used it's used by the the Albion residents.
[SPEAKER_04]: So are they going to keep it open or are they going to put a fence in the back or? Six foot high privacy fence. Oh, so six foot and it's like, you know, the 15 feet. Yes, beyond, just as it is now. They'll continue to use the land. Okay. All right. And then. You know, again, you know, like I said, I love the project. And can you explain to me again what the outcome of that 104 Winchester is? So I see, you know, you refixed the structure, you're adding to it. And then what is it going to be used for again?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Well, we're trying to determine what the best use for that is. I think ideally, you know, it's been brought up that a daycare could be used or possibly a gym. What we've done in just bringing it back to the zoning table, what we've tried to do is to allow any uses that are allowed by right in the subject zone, in the base zoning districts, the C and the GR to be allowed, but I think the idea of what everyone seems to be interested in is one of the uses that I've specified. So this project is significant. There's a significant amount of time that's going to pass between when it's approved and when it's built, then once you have tenants. So there's been no use that's been committed to it just yet.
[SPEAKER_04]: Then are these going to be, again, I kind of missed part of it, are they going to be condos or are they going to be apartments? that people rent?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if that's been, Peter, do you have an answer on that one?
[Adam Hurtubise]: My understanding it's apartments, but it could be condos, it's a market condition thing. Yeah, that can also change over time.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so you're not sure if you'll be selling them or renting?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Not yet, not at this point.
[Adam Hurtubise]: If I may, through the chair, just mention, see the fences behind the Albion residence. This is a six-by-five fence.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so that's going to be all still part of what, you know, the Albion Street portion used in the past, and there's going to be a lane back there for the tenants to go, but that would be on the other side of the fence? Right, exactly.
[Adam Hurtubise]: So you maintain your privacy as course, you have a building there now, but you would have a fence.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, right. And then, yeah, and then again, like I said, you know, big concern is like with the rat population, and you know, once you start digging, what's going to happen, you know, so I don't know if there's any answer to that at this time.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I'll just say that Typically, in order to get a billing permit, you have to have a rat mitigation program. Right. Probably something the MBTA didn't think about. Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you'd have a program in place. I know I own another piece of property in Everett. And it's kind of the same thing happened, but like the new developer, anytime I have a problem, he sends somebody over there. So it's not coming out of my pocket. Exactly. So that would be similar to this. That would be a contact that we can call. The city's not going to say pay for it yourself.
[David Blumberg]: My understanding is that the, the Board of Health of the city weighs in on that sort of stuff in connection with the issuance of the building permit so they have plans for you know the waste and the trash and, and other controls erosion controls and rodents that sort of thing is all part of the city's review of a proposed development closer to that building permit. Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay. So, I mean, you know, on the record, you know, whenever, but I mean, I really need to, you know, like to see something that's going to be available for, you know, the residents in the area, because like I said, it was horrible when you never well, you're never used to seeing them and you see them all the time at that point, you know, but I think it's subsided, but I'm not sure if they're still underground.
[Amanda Centrella]: If I might jump in, I just want to make sure that we refocus the conversation, definitely recognizing the concerns that you're raising, Stephen. And there will be multiple opportunities, I think, a little bit later down the line as we talk more about the project itself. And there's permitting attached to this pathway. And this is actually more about the zoning implications for the project. I hope that that clarifies things. All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, then again that the last piece I would say is, you know, is it too many apartments for that area. But, you know, I'll leave it at that for you to consider. So, I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak.
[David Blumberg]: Absolutely. Thanks for your input today. Thank you. Amanda, do we have other members of the public who'd like to participate.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Hello. Could I speak.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, if you could just share your name and address for the record, please.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Sure. It's John Carroll and I'm at 35. I'm at 35 Clayton and it's Clayton Avenue, not Clayton Street. I believe I share a driveway with Mr. Nadoni. Um, I, uh, was a little surprised by, I think it's director Hunter's tone, um, seemed rather presumptuous and overly positive. It sounds like it's already green lighted and without any public input. So it's just taken aback by her, uh, her. presumptuousness, I guess. I will not rehash the rat problem. I know we understand that we've already had a couple of years of significant excavation construction with the Green Line. Your underground parking, I think, is going to be another major noise issue. there. And again, I worry about the rats. I worry about the utilities in terms of water being used. Is our water pressure going to change? But most importantly, it feels like an encroachment because we're on the Alfred side, and we've had the privilege of having that kind of blocked off. Opening that up is gonna change the little enclave that we have over here. It is all residential housing. The parking, my sense is that the parking is gonna get worse over here on the side streets. Our visitors, our guests aren't gonna be able to have the availability that we have right now. So I have a lot of concerns and I think, did I see a roof deck up there as well? Anybody?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yes, did.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Okay. And it's fully screened up here. Fully screened. Yeah. So it's open. And I, you know, we're in Tufts area university. I can just hear frat parties up there at night. I have a lot of concerns.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, we certainly appreciate your participation tonight and as we've mentioned and many of us have mentioned that this is just one of the first step in a process which does include the city council on a couple of different occasions and you may find, you know, you can obviously share your concerns, not only with this board but also with your elected representatives as well so.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, and could you just clarify director hunch's position, I'm sorry I didn't catch that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I'm the Director of Planning, Economic Development and Sustainability. There have actually been at least one public community meeting on this project, but it was quite a while ago. I don't know if the applicant or one of the staff remembers when that was.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, there was one a while ago. It was also very short notice. As this was too, I think we got 48 hours notice.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: That meeting was just for the record, that was August 29th, 2022.
[aBgYkA4WX0I_SPEAKER_08]: Okay, that's all I have for right now. But again, we've been on the call since 630. It's been a long night, and I wish we had more of an opportunity to discuss this and hear from some of the other neighbors.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you for your input. Amanda, can you tell us, are there perhaps some other neighbors who are waiting to weigh in or other residents?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, would anyone, you can raise your hand with the react button. You can use the chat function just to, if you need any help getting unmuted or you can unmute yourself and offer a comment.
[SPEAKER_13]: Sorry.
[Amanda Centrella]: I'm not seeing anyone here. I am going to just quickly check our email, refresh the page. But we didn't receive comments ahead of the meeting. And no new emails.
[David Blumberg]: OK. So with the focus tonight on zoning, oh, I should say, with the public period closed at this point, if we don't have anyone else out there, Are there members of the board who want to say something now just in terms of the overall project. I think the next thing we'll do is turn to the table of uses and the actual specifics to see what our feelings are about the zoning amendment but are there any comments at this point. General.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean I have comments David I don't know if you want me to wait or not I wasn't.
[David Blumberg]: Um, well what I thought, if it's just sort of like hey, how do you feel about the project, I, that's sort of what I'm calling for and I'm thinking that we would turn next and actually look at the real nuts and bolts of the zoning amendment. So, depends on what you'd like to say. Um, can wait if you want, whatever.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: No, I mean I can go ahead. I think, um, please. Um, parking ratio. What are you proposing for parking ratio for this project? And how does it compare to standard?
[Adam Hurtubise]: So it is compliant with the new bylaw, which states the ratios for market rate and for affordable units, definitely. So we, you know, I think we actually have a spacer to the spare under that ratio, under that guideline.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Which is?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Let's see, off the top of my head, I think it's 0.8 for the market rate and 0.5 per unit for the affordable.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: For a total of? 51.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think 50 is actually what you need, probably at 50.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Does the parking occupy the entirety of the subgrade level under the building?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Well, there's a bike room, there's utility rooms. But generally? Yeah. Just to give you an idea here, this is the lower parking level. So you come down, the center of the building is where the elevator is to navigate between the different levels of the building. There's a bike room down there, there's a large electrical room, what's the need. And then parking for the 26 in this garage, you can go up. There's another parking garage when you first come in here, there's 25. So you, okay, it's like a split level parking garage. Yes, exactly. Okay.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I, I think, I think it's a nice project. I think it's, I think it's nice that you scaled it appropriately to the neighborhood. and use the step back to really sort of respect that scale. I don't have any real comments on the architecture. I think it's a little curious, and maybe you can talk through this a little bit, that you haven't used that facade along Alfred Street to to sort of make the same moves that you have on the front, or maybe a better way to say that is, it seems like a missed opportunity to create a more neighborhood friendly interaction with Alfred Street, like with some entries and things like that. I know that's not to maybe exactly how these kind of buildings work, but it does seem a little strange that there's no sort of entry piece on this side that's sort of engaging Alfred Street.
[Alicia Hunt]: Can I sorry I hate to interrupt, but we have another hearing tonight and this is going very long can we really restrict our site plan review comments to when we have site plan review and really focus on the big picture and the zoning. I'm very sorry it's it's nine o'clock and there's another hearing after this.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: That's fine. Yeah, I mean, I was a little confused by the by the description of The series of meetings because you said if anything is going to change it has to be brought up now.
[Alicia Hunt]: The zoning needs to change the zoning would be tonight. The site plan will actually be after they apply for building permits, which is a whole nother thing so if it's anything in the zoning that needs to be changed, that needs to be tonight. Anything about the facade the layout the plantings all our typical site plan things that will have a site plan review on sorry I, I know it gets very, we've been very confused about the process.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Okay. All right, well then I'll just let it keep going.
[David Blumberg]: Thanks, guys. Ari, I see your hand up.
[Ari Fishman]: Great, thank you. I had the opportunity to visit the site and do a tour with the property owner and developer, along with Amanda. My impression after that tour is that it seems very thought out. I have kind of some things that I want to bring up when we get to site review in terms of details, but in terms of the big picture, it's a much larger lot than it's looked like when I've driven past it a million times. The height seems like it should fit the neighborhood, and while The nature of having more housing is that there's less privacy. We also desperately need more housing. And I thought, and I think the very dense one and two bedrooms right near the T is a really smart move for giving people space to live in our community. So I think that the scale makes sense to me.
[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Ari. Any other comments on the board here you had your hand up at one point but all good.
[Peter Calves]: I'm good for now I may have things to say and come say plan review but as for zoning things on restrict that to zoning.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, so who would like to take the lead then on helping us to focus on the specific zoning
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Sure, Mr. Chairman, so I would say if you have, if the board has the submission in front of them, we can look at, I think I'll briefly go through the table of uses, and then I'll pass it to my co-counsel Michael Barone to talk about the dimensional requirements. But if you look at exhibit E, it spells out the proposed This is our draft, we will have to work with any recommendations the board will have to work with Attorney Silverstein. to the zoning ordinance. And so it might look different than what it looks like here. But essentially what we've done is we thought at the outset to pull in because the site is located in the GR and the C1 to go through and say that anything that's allowed by right in those zoning districts, we would put into allowing it by right under the PDD. So we just tried to take, so that's why if you look at exhibit E, you can see that there's a column for GR, there's a column for C1, and there's a column for PDD. So basically, if it's allowed, and either of those have made it allowed.
[David Blumberg]: Now, that being said... Adam, if I could just interrupt you, sorry. Amanda, is it possible for you to pop that on the screen for us? I think my associate Milton can do that too. Okay.
[Amanda Centrella]: That would be great. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: That'd be super. Can you just make Milton view presenter, please?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: So in going through these, you'll note that there is a difference between what is going to be or what we've proposed to be in the PDD in terms of uses. opposed to what we actually plan to, to build the developer plans to build here so to the extent that you would be in the board's purview or the city council purview to scale back some of the uses. Certainly, we'd be willing to do that, but the thought again is not to try to prejudice this property by limiting uses that might otherwise be allowed by right example, you have a museum, a community use which is a museum use that's allowed by right under our PDD. Now that's because it's allowed in the C1. There's no intent to use this as a museum use, but we're trying again not to prejudice the site. So if you can go through now, Milton, I think, could you could you bring up the actual zoning table of uses? Looks like you're under the dimensional
[SPEAKER_13]: Oh, I see.
[Peter Calves]: I see what you're saying. One second.
[SPEAKER_13]: Sure.
[Amanda Centrella]: And when you do, if you could zoom in a little bit, that would be great.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: So it's another, yeah, it's another set. Well, so this, yeah, this is a little bit different Milton, I think that we, there's actually an exhibit that we have in here that has, it's basically an amendment to 312, which is the key table of use regulations. Oh, I see, that wasn't in my... That's not in your deck, okay. No. Okay, well, I mean, if the board staff has that available.
[Todd Blake]: Are you talking about the one in your names?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: It was exhibit E on the submission. It was the zoning table of use. The zoning table of use is with the GR, the C1, and the PDD listed on there.
[Alicia Hunt]: Amanda, do you want me to share that? I have that up on my screen if that's helpful.
[Amanda Centrella]: That would be great. Thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Thanks. Great, thank you very much.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, so, so this is a, it's a three page or sorry, it's, it's, it's about, it's a few pages long if you go through it and basically go what it does is it goes in the zoning table. So we've gone through and allowed by right any uses that are allowed by right in either of the underlying base zoning districts. So again, the purpose here is to not prejudice any of the uses, but the intent is to permit what you have before you. So again, we're amenable to having comments from the board and if there's again I'll give the museum use for example. If there's any interest in restricting those uses I think we'd be happy to do so because the uses that we are looking to utilize are
[David Blumberg]: Let me interrupt and to ask a question again I know this is awkward because we don't really have our procedures down, this being the first go. Maybe attorney Silverstein, is this like, should we be getting board comments at this point on very specifics yes or nos for each box or is that going to be a follow on meeting. After you've had a chance to work on the proposed amendment.
[Silverstein]: Right.
[David Blumberg]: I don't wanna waste everyone's time, but I also don't wanna miss the right time to give input, so.
[Silverstein]: Sure, so I would say that what, in terms of the changes that I think you'd wanna make now, it would be changes that would really dramatically change the scope of what would go into the zoning. So I think what you don't want to have happen is a zoning amendment goes to the council, gets referred to the CDB for your traditional public hearing, and then you find yourself wanting to make recommendations that would substantially change the scope of the amendment. tinkering with the table of uses, changing a Y to a CC or an N, that would all be within the scope of something you would expect to see when you hold that sort of public hearing and make recommendations. I think, let's say, the board were to decide, you know what, we really don't want residential on this site. We'd rather see life sciences. Life sciences is not allowed, residential is. We want a residential use to be prohibited and life sciences to be allowed. I think that's larger, higher level scope of really changing the direction of things that you would want to discover now. Fine tuning the language is something that you would traditionally do through recommendations to the council when it comes back to you on an actual formal amendment, if that makes sense.
[David Blumberg]: I think that does make sense I think that's helpful. I just know my experience as a board member I think this board works really well when we have a fresh set of eyes and we put it in out on the table we put it on the screen and we kind of go through each one together and we come out with a pretty good process that worked during the zoning amendment. back and forth. So I don't know. I'm feeling like maybe this could be our next meeting. We could put this on the board and really get it down to where we have specific recommendations from the board to go forward. Would that make sense? I don't want to be an obstacle to allowing this to go to the next level when it's ready.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I want sorry I can't find my raise hand with my screen shared, I just wanted to ask a process question of the attorney as well. Um, it seems to me there's two perspectives on this right now and one is that allow everything that's allowed because. We don't want to further restricted for any future development in the long future, but it is my understanding that with the PDP, you have to exercise your rights under this change zoning within two years you have to get a building permit and and get started. which would imply to me that 40 years from now, if they want to use something else, this is not actually the zoning, it reverts back to the underlying zoning. Do we know, is that correct? Because in that case, in my mind, we wouldn't want a large table like this. We would want only like the five things, the 10 things they think they might do in the next two years, simplify all of this. Um, are you able to speak to that?
[Silverstein]: Sure. Um, so. I think that's a good point. Um, you know, bearing in mind that this is. Maybe not strictly speaking what you would traditionally consider to be an overlay district, but it's similar in that the base zoning remains available. to the applicant. And so either they're going to exercise the PDD zoning or they're not, which is their choice. And as you said, if they don't, then they have to exercise the zoning and then obtain a building permit within set time standards. And otherwise they have to start the process over again. So I think I could envision a situation where, say, the commercial space, there may be a desire to have flexibility in terms of how that commercial space could be used, because there's uncertainty as to what the highest and best use will be now. And you may want to, or the applicant and the city may want to leave flexibility Once the PDD is exercised, it won't be possible to just then go back and revert to the base zoning. They'll be operating under the PDD zoning. So it may make sense to keep in any uses as allowed uses or special permit uses that you could reasonably anticipate that commercial space being used for, even if it's not specifically contemplated now. So it might be a little bit of both in terms of leaving options open, but it doesn't necessarily, for instance, there's some industrial uses that are allowed in the base zoning, but you might determine and the board might determine would not be a good fit with the rest of this PDD development if it moves forward. So maybe it makes sense to pull those out.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: If I may, Mr. Chair, so what I could suggest is if it would make the process a little more refined, I might be able to work with Attorney Silverstein, I can discuss with my client, but I anticipate that if it would be helpful, we could go through the use table and really carve out the uses that are relevant here. And we could, you know, dial back the base zoning uses that are not anticipated here, if it would make the board more comfortable. Because I understand that, that if you're looking to approve this as a PDD, and there are uses that are going to be by right, and they're inconsistent with the presentation, that you might not be comfortable at the next go around of them still being in there. problem at all in going through and just carving out and really just limiting the uses to the multifamily that you've seen and then really trying to figure out what the uses in that commercial building will be and making sure to take out items that we just know for certain will not be used.
[David Blumberg]: I think that that would be really smart. It would be a good use of time. I think it'll streamline what's in front of not only us, but we're more flexible, but maybe most importantly, what's in front of the city council. So I would be in favor of that suggestion. I think that would be helpful. Then we'd have a more refined product that we as a board could weigh in on a little bit and hopefully endorse and send forward.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: and I think that that would probably still be consistent with the with the process as it's laid out because if this board is going to be that presented with with the zoning amendment I think that that zoning amendment would be would be tailored towards this discussion not to say that that the board would be committing to something they haven't seen yet but I think it might be more palatable.
[David Blumberg]: That sounds good to me Attorney Silverstein, Director hunt or you also open to that any issues there. I think that makes good sense.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, that works I honestly hadn't envisioned the board going line by line through all of this tonight that that hadn't crossed my mind or we might have suggested it earlier, sorry.
[David Blumberg]: No problem. All right, so we've closed public comment at this point. I'm thinking we've identified our next steps. Adam, are you on board with that on behalf of your team?
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Yes, absolutely. And thank you all for your comments, your input and your time tonight.
[David Blumberg]: Excellent. Okay, well, thanks for your patience. We look forward to seeing you kind of in the next go round, but Amanda, please.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, sorry, just before anyone leaves. So this is a public hearing, and I think that we would need to have a vote to continue the public hearing to a date certain. And so I guess this is sort of a question to the applicant on how much time they think that they would need to kind of go through this next step of pairing back. We do have a meeting. Advertised and available next Wednesday on the 3rd. But if you need more time, we can kind of go over other dates.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: Well, I mean, I guess just to clarify, I mean, I think the. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is a way just because this is a long process already, if there's a way to satisfy this step three, and also do the edits that we've discussed here. I mean, I guess I'll defer to Attorney Silverstein on process here, but it would be my thought that we could continue to move forward in the process and that I don't believe that the board is voting on what's been presented to it tonight. I think that this is, as I read it, the process would be to have this meeting and then we would go then to, I mean, I guess I'll just defer to Attorney Silverstein on what that next process is. Because there, I mean, was the process that at step three, this as drafted would be referred to the city council?
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. Could I suggest, I think what we're wondering is, would it be sufficient for the board to say, big picture what you've presented is fine. The zoning that you put in front of us is too broad. We'd like to see it scaled back to only represent the project that you're talking about. In which case, we're supportive of the project as it's generally the general form of it. And therefore, this could be voted out of this hearing. The applicant would then present zoning that would allow what they've proposed. Um, but scaled back and not more than what they've proposed to the city council, which the city council would refer back to this board for comments. This board would then make comment on that more refined less deep like scaled back more restrictive zoning. With that, does that allowed under this process.
[David Blumberg]: I would suggest that that's a possibility of adding two steps where you don't want that to happen. I think that you what you want to do is refine it, focus it, have us vote on it because it won't take us long. Then you can go to city council, and they're not sending it back to send it back to you know I understand send it back for the first time for us to say we want four changes to go back to city council.
[Danielle Evans]: I don't think they could not even discuss it right like don't they. refer it, like they could just open it and refer it to the board.
[Alicia Hunt]: I think what what you're saying is that he thinks that when the refined version comes back this board is going to change it.
[Danielle Evans]: Like any, like, like any zoning amendment, the process is it goes to the city council gets referred to the city board. You all make the changes you want. And then it goes to the city council. Is that not what we're doing?
[Silverstein]: If I could jump in, Mr. Chair, I think maybe it would make sense from a process standpoint. We know that this board has to hold at least one more public hearing and then make recommendations before the council can adopt a zoning amendment. So no matter what that's gonna happen, So I think what I'm hearing staff say, and it might make sense from the standpoint of streamlining the process, to task staff, council, the applicant, to prepare and submit to the council the zoning amendment. referral back to the CD board is automatic. It's ministerial, it has to happen within 14 days and then any suggested tweaks from there, if there are no big picture concerns the board has at this point, that could be those, that fine tuning can be recommended coming out of the next public hearing after the referral back from council. I guess I could throw one other option out there if the board's uncomfortable with that, which would be that the fine-tuned or the revised zoning amendment before it's actually submitted to council on the board's behalf, could be circulated to board members. Obviously you could not deliberate on it outside of a public meeting. However, what board members could do would be to reply back to staff, whether or not they feel that an additional hearing session is required before it gets referred to the council. So if there are real concerns that members have, you wouldn't say what those concerns are. You would be sort of looking at it saying, yes, this is something I think we should meet on one more time. Not articulating why, because that would be a deliberation outside of a public meeting, but just, yes, I would like to schedule a meeting. The hope of course is that that does not happen, and the referral can take place, but we could say, all board members, please let staff know within two days if you feel a further meeting is necessary before it gets referred to council.
[David Blumberg]: I guess maybe I'm causing too many problems. My impression of the process is that our board was supposed to recommend the amendment, to the council and that the council would actually have an expectation that we, using our sort of expertise on things, we would have weighed in and they would be disappointed otherwise to not hear from us and would just throw it back to us and add additional steps. I'm not suggesting I'm looking to make additional steps by being disagreeable about things. I just don't know what the city council's reaction is going to be for the same this thing for the very first time. If you think it'll go to them and they're ready to deal with it and they can send it to us and we can make a few recommendations off of it.
[2H_zQ7mI46g_SPEAKER_07]: I'm fine with that. If I may, Mr. chair, I'm just, you know, I'm reading the I'm reading the steps. And it does say that so you're going to hold this hearing, you're holding the hearing now and then it says, the CDB holds public hearing, prepares text of the proposed zoning amendment and locates the new district on the map. And then the amendment is presented to the city council. So, I mean, I don't think that there's would be any inconsistency if what we're telling you this evening, and if the board is looking to take a vote on this, that we would make, and we could work with council to make sure that the uses are consistent with the proposed somewhat of a broad term, but we could, I mean, under the table that we did provide this board, it does say, that's what Milton was actually had up in front initially, was that the uses are multiple dwelling, childcare center, office, gym, and then it says, as well as other uses allowed under C1 and GR. So I think we could take out all other uses and have the office, the gym, the daycare. And then, you know, I would need to speak to my client to make sure that we're not limiting. But I would I would say would be other ancillary light commercial uses. And if you'd be if the board would be comfortable doing that, again, it's going to go to the city council, they're going to talk about it, it's going to go back to the this board, you can talk about it, then it's going to go back to the city council for a vote. I think there's gonna be plenty of time to refine this and still logic to the project to go forward without the need to come back on the same step three which I just think might might be redundant.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. So what's what's our vote tonight that it's a vote on a conceptual conceptual approval.
[Silverstein]: So interestingly, Mr. Chair, there's no formal vote required under the ordinance, but you could, the board certainly could take a vote to support the zoning in concept and to request that staff work with council and the applicant to revise the zoning as discussed to narrow the scope of the allowed uses and to submit that to the council. So if the board did want to take a vote, I think that would be an appropriate vote.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, that sounds good. I've been doing a lot of the talking other board members. If someone's in support of this idea of could propose a vote in support of the adoption of the PDD. and to request that it be referred to city council after collaboration between city staff, council, and the applicant to work on a narrower scope of uses that would apply at the PDD.
[SPEAKER_30]: Seconded.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, roll call vote. Attorney Silverstein stop us if we're, if we're being bad. Not at all. Okay, excellent.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I just, David, it has a lot with the fact that you're also an attorney and if anyone was going to understand what was going on tonight you'd be.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, well I do try. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay, with our roll call then right back to you, our vice chair Jackie Furtado.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Hi. Hi.
[David Blumberg]: Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Hi. Hi.
[David Blumberg]: Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Hi. Hi.
[David Blumberg]: Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.
[SPEAKER_14]: David, quickly before we get into the next item, I need to take my dog out for a walk. I should be, you know, hopefully less than 20 minutes, depending on how he feels, but I still have the group now, so I'll be stepping away for a little bit.
[Unidentified]: And the record will reflect that. Thank you.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, Amanda, keep me on track here. Are we ready for our next item?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, we are.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. And should I be reading a notice?
[Unidentified]: Yes. Okay, thank you. Public hearing notice. Okay, the next item is concerns. Ruhal.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, we met for Community Development Board will conduct a meeting tonight via zoom relative to an amendment to the site plan submitted by Zion, Brian. So Thor, excuse me, Brian, for the construction of a new 22,025 square foot beer hall. 142 mystic Avenue petitioner submitted a modified site plan for the review of the board with additional design details and commenting for the changes conditioned by the board at the October 22 hearing. So, Would the applicant team like to present and let us know where we're at I guess I should, before I do that, turn that over to you we have some members who are not, I think, on the board at the time that your hall first appeared before us. So, as, as background, we gave an approval to the site plan there were conditions, it was a conditional approver approval with conditions. And then it was an unusual step in that we had a list of items that we asked the applicant to return to advise the board about these. I think there were nine items. So we envisioned a return visit, and this is the first of the return visits.
[Zac Bears]: Kyle is going to be presenting tonight. Kyle, are you there? Yeah. OK. Can I share my screen?
[Amanda Centrella]: It would be all set.
[Zac Bears]: Okay. So I'm going to make this short and sweet because we've been waiting for three hours. So I'm going to try to go through everything as quick as possible for everybody. It's been six months since we last sat with this board and went through the original site plan for the Great American Beer Hall. We're happy to say we've made a ton of progress based on your suggestions, comments from the previous meeting back in October. Over the last six months, we've worked tirelessly with our architect, our civil engineering team to improve the site. to its best ability and we welcome to all your thoughts and opinions that you guys suggested on the first go around and we appreciate those. And I think you'll be happy to see that we've made pretty much every accommodation to every suggestion made. I did want to start our presentation off by introducing a financial commitment partner on this project, which is actually Mass Development, which we were able to secure funding with shortly after the New Year program became available to us, and we jumped right on it. happy to say that the state is on board for this project and we have a representative of mass development on the call tonight. She would just like to say a word or two and basically what this beer hall could mean for the city of Medford and why they are interested in funding us in this project. Her name is Julie Cohen and I'll let her take it from here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Kyle. And thank you, everyone. I'm Julie Cowan, as Kyle said, with Mass Development. My role at Mass Development is as the Vice President of Lending for the Greater Boston Region. But I'm also a longtime community volunteer. And so I just want to say to you, I applaud you all for the time and commitment that you're giving to this committee. Certainly in this evening, you're diligent in your questions and your attention to the projects. And it's clear that you care about your community. I'm not going to talk to you about what mass development does. I'm not going to talk to you about my CV, other than to say to you that the reason I'm here this evening is that my commitment to this project and my enthusiasm for it equals that of my fandom of the Boston Bruins. which are currently tied with the Florida Panthers. So in the interest of seeing the last few minutes of the game, I'm going to just zip and talk to you about the reasons that I feel and why Mass Development are embracing this project. First, I want to say to you that it's interesting concept as a community gathering spot. Mass Development serves as the economic development finance agency and land bank for the state. And when we get involved, We hope to be there at the invitation of the community. We serve a variety of constituents and our role is to help you to promote economic development and to stabilize communities, to create an environment where businesses, nonprofits, municipalities, not just survive, but thrive. This is an interesting concept for us in that the community gathering spot that these gentlemen have designed in the form of Great American Beer Hall with the customers that are coming through there, they're likely to support other businesses that are in the area. And then people that might be interested in either establishing a new business or relocating a business may also then be attracted to the City of Medford. So we see it as one where there's a good opportunity for follow-on investment to help further your own goals within the City of Medford. The second is jobs creation. It's within our mission as a state agency to help create jobs. And we see this as a significant driver of a variety of levels, a variety of hours to accommodate the different needs and the plans for the business. It'll draw from the surrounding neighborhoods. So it'll help people that are already living there, to stay there, to build their own economic strength and wealth, but also may prompt some interest in people moving into the area to get that job at Great American Beer Hall. Third is that in the presentation it mentions right there SSBCI. This is something, as the slide tells you, that came out of ARPA. It's a significant tool for us in partnership with Stoneham Bank, which is the bank of choice for the group. behind Great American Beer Hall, it allows us to partner with them in providing support for a startup business in a lending environment that can often be risk averse. So we're able to help the bank and the partners to create this business. And the fourth is when we talk about being in partnership with the community, it really is about helping you to improve your own tax base. And you're gonna have a parking lot that's gonna be activated into a building I mentioned it as a community gathering spot. And by doing so, it'll be adding to your tax base. So for those reasons, You know, we're glad to be involved. Certainly Stoneman Bank has shown a commitment to the project and clearly the partners have as well. They've devoted their personal resources. They've invested a significant amount of money in this, but they've also, they've come to it with a unique blend of talent and experience that tells us that the project will be successful. So with that, thank you for giving me a few minutes on your very, very busy agenda, but we're really happy to be here.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. Thank you, Julie. Go Bruins. All right, so I'll continue off that but as Julie mentioned, you know, now that we have kind of our financing in place we've been hard at work over the last six months doing everything we can.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I apologize, Kyle, I don't mean to interrupt you but there's something I should, I want to make sure there's not a conflict and I want to make sure that there's nothing precluding the approval from the board for you. So, Julie Cowan is my quasi-partner over at Mass Development. I work for the Secretary of Economic Development. SSBCI funding comes through my channels, and I just wanted to make sure that there's no conflict. I don't know if, David, if you're able to answer that question, but I just want to make sure that I'm not the reason that the proponent won't move forward.
[David Blumberg]: I would think that the most conservative thing to do is to recuse yourself from the deliberation, which is unfortunate because we always like your participation.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: But I just don't want to make sure that Kyle and Brian does not come after me if there's anything that concludes this process.
[Zac Bears]: Thank you. We had no idea. Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you so much.
[Zac Bears]: Better to be safe. Thank you. Thanks, Jackie. All right, so yeah, without boring everybody with the review of the entire plan as it once was presented back in October, I'm just gonna focus on the things that we have done to improve our plan since we last met. And as you mentioned, back in October, we were essentially given an approval with conditions and a list of those conditions that we needed to meet and come back to this board and present to you, and we have done that. I have the civil engineer, Michael Giuliano on the call, and we also have the architect, Andrew Larson on the call. So I'll just step through and try to be as quick and brief as possible. So everybody who's familiar with the site 142 Mystic Ave, these are the satellite images of what the current use of the property is, which is essentially a tow yard and a bus yard. Basically, we've been hard at work trying to improve our site plan and improve some renderings for you guys and invest more money into this project and show you some higher quality things. a bit underfunded in the first go around and it was kind of basic drawings and schematics. So we've invested a lot of time and energy in presenting these to you. So the building has made significant improvements. As mentioned, I have the architect on the call to answer anything specific about the building in general, but I'd like to kind of just keep things moving and step it through. And if you have questions, we can reserve those for after and Andrew can hopefully answer those for us. It's a pre-engineered metal building. It sits on the lot just the same exact as we presented it back in October. The most improvements we feel we have made is a lot in the material choices that we're selecting. We've introduced as much greenery as possible. A lot of things you're seeing out here are live hop walls grown on vines, which we think are really cool. It ties into the beer hall aesthetic and it adds some greenery to the outside. We've also proposing a green screen on the side of the building facing the parking lot. But I think this is probably the most telling of all. This is an overlay rendering of the existing site. To the south, you can see the Atlas Liquors building there, and to the north is 131 Mystic Ave. The building sits on the southern side of the property. You can see the whole building there, 22,000 square feet. Basically, we have our parking lot on the left side here. This is the landscape that we've introduced. This is all in the landscape plan on the civil plan. I'm just showing you kind of the aerial rendering to try to put it all in perspective. Parking lot over here, our EV spaces are located still here on the side. We've introduced the crosswalk to the building from the parking lot. We've introduced crosswalks at all points coming from Mystic Ave into our property. We have our parking lot in the front, our landscape buffer on Mystic Ave. We have our pedestrian sidewalks coming off Mystic Ave and coming into the property. We have our pedestrian sidewalks going along the building and entering our building. Um, we have our little roof deck out here and our patio. Um, we tried to shield it with as much green as possible. We've consulted with the, uh, department, um, necessary, the fire department for the, uh, fire truck access. We've consulted with the traffic department and director Blake. Um, so we've done the best we can with this and we feel like, um, and it, we feel like we've, we've accommodated everything that you guys are looking for and have severely improved the site from what it once was. So I'm going to go next to the more. detailed plans. That was just kind of the pretty pictures, but let me get down to landscape plan. So this is just our planting plan and our landscape plan. This was done by a landscape architect from Gregory Lombardi design. Basically he spec'd various plants and listed them all here. This is included in the package we submitted to the board. So all these trees and shrubs and ground cover and grasses were selected by this group. Essentially, we have our landscape buffer going around the whole front and around the side as much as possible, and along the beer garden patio in the front, and then on the perimeter where we can around the main parking lot. That's the landscape plan, the site civil plan. As I said, civil engineer Michael Giuliano is on the call. He's been working closely with the city on getting this thing where it needs to be. He's also been in talks with the fire department to ensure that we have what we need for the fire truck in and out. So all that has been detailed here. It's provided to the planning board in the packet that we gave you. Forgive me if it's a little blurry here when I zoom in, but It has everything detailed, the crosswalk. It has your sidewalks, your ADA ramp access. It has everything listed there, including stormwater, drainage, utility, all that. Also included in their plan, this is the fire truck. Turn around, so this is for the Medford Force T-RAD fire truck turning plan. This was in consultation with the fire department. The fire truck can access the property on three sides, can come in through, park in the parking lot in the front, approach the building from the side and reach the building from the rear. We have letter of endorsement from the fire chief as well. So basically, Basically the things that you guys asked for and the approval of conditions, I'll just run through that list quick, but I just wanted to give you that quick overview of where we're at with our plan. A few things that we addressed here. So first was the applicant needed to improve pedestrian access with concrete sidewalks at the site entrance on Mystic Gav. We believe we have done that. We also included the curbing along Mystic Gav and the entrance to be vertical granite curbing. The, you asked that we replace all sidewalks and drive opening with new concrete along the entire property frontage. We've done that everywhere except for the curb cut. Second thing, applicant to provide new ADA compliant pedestrian sidewalk within the site to main entrance to the building. We have done that. It's in the plan. The site shall be designed with ADA compliant sidewalks and parking spaces required by law. So we did just that. The third thing you guys asked for, applicant to improve the landscape buffer along the Mystic Gap frontage to include nine and a half feet. We have done just exactly nine and a half feet. Applicant to increase the project gross landscape area to at least 9,000 square feet. We are at 9,500 square feet. Applicant to increase the total landscape and open space area to at least 13,400 square feet. We are at 13,700 square feet. applicant to include planting hedges along at least 80 feet of the Southeast Philly property line currently abutting Atlas Liquors. This was actually suggested against by the fire chief and his letter is provided. He wanted more fire access to the site and doesn't believe that those plants are appropriate in the sense that if he needs to get around the building, he doesn't want those there. So we deferred to him on that. Um, next thing.
[David Blumberg]: Hold on a second. Can I stop you on that one? Because I thought I saw a recommendation. It was the size of the, there were trees in the way and it should be bushes instead. Like, can you show us what that is?
[Zac Bears]: And yeah, so essentially, yeah, he, he didn't want the tall hedges. So, um, we still have the green space and small edges. He didn't want anything smaller. Yeah. He didn't want our provide. He didn't want anything too tall. So we just still green space, but smaller plants. Can we go to the landscape plan? Yeah, I see.
[Unidentified]: Sorry, go up on. Please scroll down. Yeah.
[Zac Bears]: So just along the Atlas liquor line, he didn't want any, any tall trees there. So we just have small shrubs all along here.
[Unidentified]: Something we weren't against at all doing for you, but it was something that the fire chief did point out.
[David Blumberg]: Yes, well, and what was what was the concern of today?
[Zac Bears]: I know it's not your so yeah, so he has for access on that side of the building. He's driving in Atlas Lickers. And he didn't want he didn't want tall trees in the way if he needs to put out a fire on the side of the building. So his request was just small, like, you know, two foot bushes on that side.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. Okay, thank you.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Okay, sorry, I lost my thought. Okay, applicant to include a landscape buffer zone around the main parking lot. This is where I think Brian can speak to this. This is in regards to the adjacent lot to the northern side of the property. So it's the same landlord that owns 142 Mystic owns 134 Mystic. And the 134 Mystic is a very tight and narrow driveway off of Mystic Avenue. It's a long lot. So In reference to future development, the ask is that there may be shared parking at 142 Mystic when 134 Mystic is developed. So that would be the one area in which we are looking relief from this board, is that's one area that we've looked at and we believe that's the one area we're looking for relief. And so we didn't feel like it was necessary to do something in lieu of that. So we actually put pickleball courts in off of the, Kyle if you want to go towards the beer garden. So right here, I'm going to zoom in a little bit. Two pickleball courts in open to the public. So I'll move on and we can go back to that.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, we should go back to that because I'm not sure that you need to leave everything open to have shared parking.
[Zac Bears]: But yeah, we can go back to that. All right. So the next thing, bike rack of at least 15 feet in length. We have done that. You can kind of see it's blurry in the image here, but it is listed on the civil engineering plan as well. But it's right here. Applicant to include two loading bays at the rear, that is included. It's again, more detailed on the civil plan. You can see it, and they are clearly labeled. Next is applicant to include provisions for running electrical conduit for future electric vehicle parking for at least seven parking spots. We have it on the landscape plan and the civil plan, all labeled for EV.
[David Blumberg]: Next one applicant to provide a fee, just to be clear that so that conduit will be run.
[Zac Bears]: Yes, correct. Yeah, we're actually gonna we found a grant program where we're actually going to be. Our plan is to have them open on opening day. So, super. Yeah. Yeah, so that's on the civil plan you'll see the conduit. Applicant to provide a phase plan for inclusion of fully functioning electrical vehicle parking to the office planning developments sustainability. We have already hired a power management company. We are in that process right now. And as Brian said, we are hopeful that we'd have it even operational by opening day. Okay, so next is the applicant to include parking lot lighting and outdoor lighting in accordance with Medford City Ordinance. We provided the Omni Beer Hall site plan, which is outdoor parking lot lighting in accordance with the Medford City Ordinance. We provided a full lighting plan. It's actually on slide 30. I mean, if you want to show it. Yeah, it's in the packet that was sent to the board. I'm capped out at 25 here, Brian.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: All right. Thank you. But there's this right out there. We can come back to that if you want. Yeah. I'm going to include permeable beavers to the outdoor beer garden patio. permeable beavers are included on our plan in the outdoor beer garden in Applicant to include an appropriate barrier around the perimeter of the beer garden patio. Applicant to use an industry standard of planters and guardrails that is compliant with the applicant's liquor license. So if you can kind of see, it's in here. We're working with the architects on how to make this as visually appealing and visually aesthetic as possible. So we can go into that a little bit more if you want more detail in our architects on the call to discuss options. But that is our plan. Applicant to provide ADA compliant pathways from the parking lot to the building. We have done that. We see the civil engineering plan. Applicant to include trees and plantings per the landscape requirements listed in City Ordinance 6.3. The landscape plan was created in August. The new landscape plan that you're seeing before you tonight is in accordance with Ordinance 6.3. And then the only concession we had to make was that one small one with the fire chief on that side facing Atlas Liquor.
[David Blumberg]: So, maybe we can stop right there just to ensure we're streamlined and no one wants to stay longer than we need to. What you just went through are the conditions to the approval of the site plan so you're reciting the fact that almost all of these you have reflect on the plans and all that kind of good stuff. I just want to say from the board's perspective at this point, unless city staff tells me otherwise. that, like, it's in the city's hands. I don't think that the board itself is determining whether the pedestrian sidewalk is a compliant. So we're, we're relying that the condition still applies, appreciating, you're saying yeah, we've got it on the plans and we're on board, but I feel like
[Zac Bears]: I mean Michael Giuliano was on the call can can speak to that I mean we wouldn't get a building permit if we were.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, so I just want to make sure that those conditions are applying so obviously can't get the permit until the things are squared away but that's, that's fine, like we're not working on that. So that we have the green border issue which we can talk about at the end if you want to keep going on your list. And then the patio with the permeable pavers, and I remember, Emily this was, this was perhaps one that you raised but maybe I'm mislabeling. What's, what's the scoop on on the patio, how much, how much is the hardscape that's impermeable how much is permeable.
[Zac Bears]: Andrew, are you on the call? Can you speak to that for square footages?
[SPEAKER_21]: Yeah, can you go to the landscape plan that you had your landscape architect prepare?
[Zac Bears]: Andrew is our architect from Vision 3 Architects.
[SPEAKER_21]: I think it was actually Michael's latest site plan had the differentiation between I thought it was one of those plans. Either way, it's proposed to be about 60% hardscape and 40% permeable pavers, roughly.
[Unidentified]: Is that just for the beer garden patio? Or is that for the parking area as well? Because I think the comment was about the parking area as well. I don't have the notes in front of me. Oh, you guys might have the parking areas asphalt.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, we never garden is the permeable pavers and the the poured concrete mix.
[David Blumberg]: Emily in fairness, just looking at the conditions or at least what is, you know, in the record, it's just for the outdoor beer garden.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Great. Thanks for checking. I really appreciate that. Yeah, that's a great change. Thank you guys. Yeah.
[David Blumberg]: Mr. Chairman, are you okay if I continue or do you want to, yeah, we've got the we've got the landscape in between the two properties but otherwise I think now you're going to move to the rest of the list, which are the items that you were going to come back and inform us about.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, so the next thing was applicant to evaluate, reassess and report on traffic circulation, public access and pedestrian circulation. The reassessment is not limited to but shall include concerns about people crossing the parking lot, vehicle access and inclusion of tighter radius curb edging. So this was all done with, we hired a third party traffic engineer and we've attached that letter and made adjustments to the site plan based on some of the information from that traffic study. We've also been in close contact and working with Director Blake on these issues. And I think if you have any questions regarding any of that, we can go through it more, but I believe we've reached from what I understand, a satisfactory condition on the site. The site circulation aisle provides a 24-foot drive aisle, which is sufficient to accommodate two-way traffic flow throughout the site and accommodate turning maneuvers to and from perpendicular parking. The proposed pedestrian accommodations, including sidewalk internal to the site and designated pedestrian crossing areas, will provide for safe pedestrian connectivity between the proposed building and the parking field serving this project. The loading dock and the dumpster area has been located in an area to minimize the potential for conflicts between pedestrian and vehicular traffic and loading activities for this project as well. So we feel like we've satisfied that. Those are direct quotes from Sean Kelly, who's of Vanassie & Associates, who did our traffic survey. And I believe we could... which leads us into the next thing, which is the applicant to work with the city director of traffic and transportation to maintain existing bus access.
[David Blumberg]: This is- Before we leave the first of the items, do we have input from the city, Amanda or others on traffic? We've got fire truck modeling and all sorts of other stuff. The fire department doesn't like the shrubs, have they weighed in on these items?
[Danielle Evans]: If I may we have provided a memo. It did come in late, but we tried to organize what was before you tonight. The various conditions outlined under the second condition of the decision from the last meeting, they were here, and whether we found them to to be met. And there's some narrative of discussions with Director Blake, who I believe was on this call. It looks like he's still here, but we had numerous discussions with him. I personally didn't have any more discussions with the fire department. Is Alicia here or Amanda? Were there any other concerns that we were made aware of?
[Amanda Centrella]: by fire department.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, I knew about the shrubs or the tree issues on that side of the building, but I don't think there was anything else that would have affected the site plan.
[Amanda Centrella]: Correct, yeah, we didn't hear on any other items from the fire department.
[Alicia Hunt]: Would it be helpful to just step through each of the conditions that they asked to have changed?
[Danielle Evans]: that we uh since we organized our thoughts on this because a lot of this was working um with the with brian you know significantly and you know meeting to you'll find what would work for the site and what would um be aligned with you know the the goals and the purposes of the conditions and um the the standards of the ordinance Right, so very tired at this point, I don't think I can even talk. So, I'm going to pull up the memo, which has organized right.
[David Blumberg]: Well, let me articulate what what the concern is and then maybe you can see how to best address it. The first set of items. Those are all conditions that we consider. And I think we can probably weigh in on, for instance, whether we want to make a waiver or an amendment on the landscape between the two properties. Some of these other things were a bit more open ended work with the city on this address traffic flow. If, if this site plan went to the city departments, and we got input, and the approval was based on the input. And now there's new information that's showing up, and we don't have the input of the city departments, then, then we're missing a step.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, right so that clarifies it so the item, a applicant to evaluate reassess report on traffic circulation, etc. That the applicant met with us they met with the traffic department they met with everybody. Several times they met with the building commissioner. They provided supplementary materials addressing the site circulation and access and the landscaping, and they were presenting those tonight but we feel that that condition was addressed that they met with everybody and that they met what was needed. Is that the item that you're asking about.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, that's the, that's the.
[Alicia Hunt]: The next one was that the applicant was to work with the director of traffic and transportation to maintain existing bus access. We felt that that was completed. They did that.
[David Blumberg]: He's satisfied. Let me go back to the first one, because there's a level of question, questioning from the board members about the traffic flow, one way two way angle parking not angle parking so I think we probably do need a little bit more in terms of what did they look at and what is the traffic flow going to going to be now versus what it was before.
[Danielle Evans]: So the original proposal was two ways throughout the entire site. And they went back to their traffic engineers. It wasn't quite what we asked, because it was we explored it and they say it works. We're like, well, that wasn't exactly what the condition was. We don't want the two way. We want to simplify the circulation. So they listened to what we had to say and came back with It's one way through the actual parking lot aisle.
[David Blumberg]: I don't know. We haven't heard that. We're telling you.
[Danielle Evans]: We're telling us this is what we came up with. It's going to be. Yeah, I can.
[Zac Bears]: I can speak.
[Danielle Evans]: I can speak in our memo.
[Zac Bears]: So David, I met with Marianne O'Connor talking about demolition. I met with the fire chief to talk about the return access. I actually did took all these meetings on my own. We don't have really the funds in the budget for an attorney or an engineer to do it. took it upon myself. So I handed in, I met with Vanessa and associates. I talked about the issues that came up in the board. And the big thing that came up was the vehicle, sorry, the truck delivery access in and out. So on the loading dock, they're going to back in and then they're going to need to take a left to go out through that main aisle. I can't have delivery trucks going straight to where that parking is. and then going and then making that turn. It just, the turn axis doesn't work as good as that main aisle. So I met with, you know, Alicia, Dan Hill, Amanda, and I proposed this idea of one way in that parking lot. So when you take that left, you can't come back out the way you came in. You have to head, you have to go towards Mystic Ave. And that's something I submitted after the fact, after our meeting, after this was done.
[David Blumberg]: Sure, so is there just a little visual so the board members can see that I did make something.
[Unidentified]: Let me see if I can find it. I know Amanda, you probably have it too, but I'm going to go through our emails.
[Alicia Hunt]: The one on the screen is demonstrating why the trucks need to be able to go in the main aisle to so that they can't go, it's, they can't go through the parking so the main aisle there needs to be two way and you can see that because of the truck. turning. But if a vehicle were to drive down that and turn into do you have one that shows the arrows in the parking lot? Is that what you're looking for?
[Zac Bears]: I made it and I sent it over after our meeting.
[Amanda Centrella]: I just I just found the file screen. I just pull it up.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Amanda.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, so if we pull this here, and then Kyle, would you mind stopping your share? Sure. Thank you. And we're gonna do this.
[Unidentified]: Let me make it a little bigger.
[Amanda Centrella]: This is what you were referring to, right?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the blue line is the truck turn access, and that red line is the one-way traffic of how our customers would access the In-N-Out.
[Amanda Centrella]: So basically, to clarify, any non-delivery vehicle would come in, could shoot down, take a leap through here, this is all going to be one way, come back out. Delivery vehicles follow the blue line, so they'd have to back in and then back out again.
[Zac Bears]: And our deliveries are not when we're open either. They're in the morning. So no customers.
[Amanda Centrella]: And as so part of what we outlined in our memo is that part of the mitigation for that and something that the applicant has agreed to is this crosswalk here, which goes to the main entrance of the building. And we ran this by Todd. This is to be a raised crosswalk. So bit of a traffic calming measure, you know, slow people down on the way in and out and make it very clear that this is a point of access to the building.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, is there is the memo something that came out, like, right before the meeting, or, yes.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So if it's at all helpful, I'm happy to throw the memo on the screen. And just because sometimes I know it's helpful to see like the things written down and we can go through one by one and kind of talk about from PDS's perspective, the logic behind certain recommendations that we make that speak to each of the conditions that were meant to be presented at this meeting.
[David Blumberg]: Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: And as Amanda's doing that I thought it would be helpful to share so some of the stuff that Daniel's bringing us experience from other boards is that she's found it to be much more efficient and working in other communities where the staff prepare a memo with information. about concerns and recommendations that in normal times we would provide to the board several days in advance with your packet but in this case frankly we've been too swamped and behind and as we were trying to prepare for this meeting realized that this is the perfect example of when I had said to them once we're fully staffed it would be good to start doing these memos, but we realized that this project was the level of complication that was the perfect example of why we should be doing these memos. So we apologize that it was so late in coming.
[David Blumberg]: Well, so in fairness, and I'm pretty sure this is probably super valuable for us. Should we just continue this for next week so we have time to consider the memo? I mean,
[Alicia Hunt]: It's really important to this applicant to move things along fairly quickly. So we'd rather step you through it.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, we were willing to read it tonight, but it was, we knew that the meeting would be long. And if we wanted to organize our thoughts and keep it, you know, on track to discuss the things that needed to be discussed, make the findings that need to be fine, get all the waivers that need to be made to button it all up. So we are happy to walk through this. We don't want to belabor or... Us preparing a memo wasn't meant to delay the hearing.
[David Blumberg]: No, but it might have the information that we need so that we could relatively quickly get comfortable with what's being presented. And so... Can I ask... What?
[Zac Bears]: If it's up to the applicant, it'd be more important for us to, you know, move forward with this project tonight. I don't mind. I don't mind. We've already waited three hours. We can go through each piece.
[David Blumberg]: The board members want to weigh in on that issue. So I'm not.
[Emily Hedeman]: I mean, it feels like a repeat from last meeting with you guys. I mean, it sounds like this is a great project. It's 1012. want to make it 1112, let's just do it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I mean, I do.
[Emily Hedeman]: But I do want to reiterate to the applicant, that the time pressure you keep putting on us is just straight up disrespectful. So like, let's be respectful of time.
[Zac Bears]: We've been here for three hours. And you're gonna tell us that we have to wait another week. That's a no fault of our own. We've prepared all our documents.
[Unidentified]: Kyle, I'm the one that's saying let's do it. Thanks, Emily. Thanks, Brian.
[David Blumberg]: Any other board member have a thought on this. I just assume continue it because I'd like to consider the information and we have a meeting scheduled for next week, Emily's willing to go forward I'll go forward if the majority wants to do that.
[Peter Calves]: I have, I have no problem going forward if we can do that quickly. take a while. It's going to take a while and rather continue but I mean, it looks to me like this memo is only three pages if we can go through those three pages relatively quickly and then get an understanding that would be my preference.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, thank you. Place you good sense for us.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: No, it's okay. Not not especially yet. Okay, that's cool. All right. I won't be here next week so
[SPEAKER_26]: I'm game to try, I'm definitely starting to fade, but let's give it a shot.
[David Blumberg]: All right, let's give it a shot.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, all right. I'm gonna take the lead and then Danielle or Alicia, please feel free to step in if I'm botching it. So you all can see my screen, correct?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes, thank you Amanda.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. So first, just to reiterate, in our decision, or the board's decision from October there was a list of conditions at the top that was like hard set, you know, in concrete conditions for the project and then there were a list at the bottom that folks are going to come back and present on. So these are referring to those with one exception. So the first being to evaluate, reassess, report on circulation, public access, and all of that. And so we started talking about that here. we feel that, and there are other parts which we'll get to that kind of speak to this, but so we've discussed here that this alternate proposal for the circulation is addressing the concerns that the board had raised in our opinion, that there's mitigation for the two-way traffic and that the two-way traffic lane and the central lane there is serving a reason or has a purpose, which is to allow for appropriate term radiuses for delivery of vehicles. Other elements of that have to do with landscaping, which we're going to cover in a later condition. So I'll pause there. Any questions?
[David Blumberg]: Okay, so this the plan with the two way in the front, and the one way in the larger lot is something that will be reflected in their plans and the city will enforce in terms of signage and that kind of stuff that would go along with that.
[Amanda Centrella]: Correct.
[David Blumberg]: Okay.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. Letter B applicant to work with this traffic and transportation director to maintain existing books access asset. access, we feel that this was addressed. The bus stop, I think, is somewhere over here. Yep, install bus stop sign here. And there is another stop on the other side, which we will get to how we feel that this proposal actually expands access to that in a different letter. Pause. Any questions? letter C, applicant to demonstrate how the public accesses the site from the existing bus stop. So this is kind of similar vein. They have agreed to a proposal, which we'll describe in a lower letter, which helps improve the accessibility to the site because it involves this crosswalk. And so as a result, we feel that this condition is sufficiently addressed. So we'll get a little bit more into that a little later down. Pause. Any questions? Nope. OK. Letter D, applicant to provide a planting and landscaping plan that meets the appropriate ordinance standards. So on this one, the applicant, actually, it's not on this plan. So I'm going to stop sharing screen. Um, if someone has handy, there's a landscaping plan, Brian, that you provided today that has some additional landscaping, basically tree wells. Um, there's about four of them and they take up about, um, like four parking spots worth of.
[Zac Bears]: Want me to share my screen?
[Amanda Centrella]: Uh, yes, please.
[Unidentified]: Okay. One second. Let me just find it.
[David Blumberg]: And Amanda, can you please let, uh, make that memo available in our or tell me where to find it on our.
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure, it's it should be in the meeting materials folder now. And if it's not, then I'm happy to give a link to this Google document version, which has all the same stuff in it.
[Peter Calves]: David, it's under your hall in the top folder of that I've had to look around for it too.
[Amanda Centrella]: So sorry to make you dig.
[Zac Bears]: So yeah, this is the I just wanted to show that I know there's the rule where you need to have a tree shade every 10 parking spaces. So this is the proposal.
[David Blumberg]: PDS memo. Okay.
[Amanda Centrella]: Great. So if you take a look here, there's this provision in the zoning that requires a certain amount of interior landscaping for within a parking lot. And so we did some of the math and these four additional wells here that you see along the northern edge of the property are additions that we feel will meet that requirement. And with trees, et cetera, the idea being that that kind of creates a little bit more of a visual buffer between the properties without obstructing the potential for shared parking in the future with the adjacent site. Um, let me just take a look my notes here.
[David Blumberg]: Can you just walk me through again, or the four green squares on the top.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So these additional spots here are to help comply with zoning landscaping requirements, and to provide a bit of a visual buffer between this property, and the adjacent property, and what's going to go in those. I think we discussed tree wells.
[David Blumberg]: Trees, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: So Brian, I'm imagining, did you just Photoshop those greens?
[Unidentified]: I did, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: OK, yeah. So basically, this is illustrating what we will be conditioning, which we have the language in the recommended condition. So we're going to want trees. So the number of trees will be in excess of what is required.
[David Blumberg]: So there'll be a tree in each one of those?
[Zac Bears]: There'll be a tree in each one of those green spaces.
[David Blumberg]: And they'll be like the trees that are lining up? Yes.
[Zac Bears]: Kind of the same trees that are... Exactly, yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Does the applicant have flexibility to decrease the size of those green areas if the trees they're putting don't require that much space?
[Zac Bears]: You say decrease the size of the green?
[Emily Hedeman]: Um, yeah, decrease the size of the green and, like, kind of readjust the parking spaces.
[Zac Bears]: I don't think we do, uh, just, yeah.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so there's a, there's a minimum kind of, um, like, floor area, almost, like, space requirement, um, for landscaping within interior parking spaces.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, thank you. I appreciate the, um, background.
[Danielle Evans]: There's rules about how many interior parking spaces can be in a row without being interrupted by an interior island.
[Amanda Centrella]: And then also of note here, kind of again to sort of, because there's not this landscaping buffer on the edge here, another concession that the project has made has been to put two pickleball courts, so striping for two courts in the parking that's in front of the building along Mystic Ave, which our office thinks is a really great use of the space, having that black space there better than having just parking. And there is actually a very strong desire and enthusiasm for pickleball in the city.
[David Blumberg]: How does one do that without the nets have to be there?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, we'll have so it's as long as we don't have that parking demand, for that space, which during the week we don't anticipate it at all, probably on the weekends. But yeah, we're going to provide the nets and we're going to provide the lines. And since it's open to the public, given the current conditions of Mystic Ave, I can't imagine there's anywhere that's open for pickleballs.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah. And I think, um, one of the nice things about pickleball is, um, there are a lot of mobile nets, uh, and like equipment for, so that can be moved in and out. And this is actually how the existing pickleball courts function, um, on city property. Yeah. I like this.
[Emily Hedeman]: Um, is there any issue with like this being right up against mystic with like stray pickleballs going into.
[Zac Bears]: I think we have enough buff. We have enough buffer with the landscape. Maybe we can zoom in on it. But no, I don't think that's going to be an issue. If it is, we'll do some sort of netting.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, it looks like the director of traffic does have the same question. But it sounds like he's satisfied with the answer. I think this is cool. We had residents just ask about pickleball courts with some tennis courts that Tufts was redoing. So this is great.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay. All right. So I'm going to keep moving. Folks are okay. Yep. So letter E applicant to provide. Oh, I'm sorry. I should back up and say that there was the one there was as a part of one of the concrete conditions in the decision, which is labeled one G in the decision. If you're looking at that. there was language saying or a condition saying applicant to include a landscape buffer zone around the main parking lot. And so this is a request from the applicant.
[David Blumberg]: Just to be fair, that is a requirement in the ordinance.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes. So, and the board, I'm sorry, I believe that's the case. And I also believe that the board has the ability if they so choose to waive that requirement.
[Zac Bears]: So I could weigh in and give you more information here on the line if you'd like, if it helps. It's tight. It's so tight right now. There's the driveway aisle of 134 and 142 Mystic. And it's just a really narrow, long site. And so that the landlords want to be able to use some of the parking at 142 Mystic to develop 134 Mystic. And I'll just give you an example. There's this building in Woburn, it's one of the Cummings buildings, and it's a long, narrow lot similar to what we have. They divided it up into these nice, pretty cool retail use buildings. That's why the idea is that's been kicked around, and I'll just show you right here. I just put this together, but if we were to do something like that, this row would be that shared parking for the 134 Mystic redevelopment, we'd be looking for rock climbing gyms, golf simulators, a coffee shop, gyms and yoga studios.
[Unidentified]: That's the vision behind 134 Mystic in the ask for shared park.
[Danielle Evans]: If I may through the chair, Brian, the site plans indicate that there's a retaining wall there. I'm trying to figure out how this share what's going to work. Was it just people would park there and then walk? No, no, no, let me explain. Yeah, so navigating this great difference.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah. So the picture, the picture in the middle is the is the The difference in grade between 134 Mystic and 142 Mystic, the picture on the right is the grade between the Verizon building and 134 Mystic. So any redevelopment is going to require that building to be demoed and something new to rebuild. And so when that happens, we would raise the grade up. It's like 134 Mystic is like sunk below the Verizon building and below 142 Mystic just for whatever reason. It's just been like that forever. And so we would raise the grade to be equal to 142 Mystic to be able to use that shared park.
[Amanda Centrella]: Any other questions before we keep moving?
[David Blumberg]: If you go to redevelop it, you could just open it up. I don't... What do you mean?
[Zac Bears]: I'll tell you that it's a long like narrow site so the thought is to build another building sort of like the like what we have with the beer hall facing each other.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, that's great. Sure.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah.
[David Blumberg]: But I don't know why that why the green landscaping is an obstacle to doing that.
[Zac Bears]: Because we don't, right now the driveway aisle is right here. It's so tight on the current building. So to get to the back of 134 Mystic, this is the line right here. So we don't have the square footage to have the parking and a landscape buffer. I can't take it from 134 Mystic because the driveway aisle is too tight. And then I can't take it from 142 Mystic because we wouldn't have enough room for the parking.
[Amanda Centrella]: And if it's helpful to add, the drive aisle on the 142 Mystic Ave site in the parking lot needs to be a certain width for it to be safe. And there's recommendations about what that width should be, and this currently meets it. And I believe when we talked to Director Blake about narrowing that width, it's feasible but not recommended, especially for this kind of a use.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, we did push to see how narrow we could get that and we understood the reasoning for why it needs to be that wide and taking it from Director Blake of safe maneuvering and that it could cause conflicts if people had to take so many different turns to back out of their spaces. So as staff, we couldn't see how conceivably they could put a meaningful landscaping buffer in between the two sites and you know we don't you know we never want to see somebody doing something to their site that would preclude future development and you know having to like rip out trees or something so I wouldn't want the adjacent site to somehow be stymied from that. Developing in a way because of, you know some trees that we want to save on the other side that. We're planted in the wrong spot or something like that. But that that's staff's perspective on that.
[Emily Hedeman]: That makes sense to me. Um I mean, it would be nice to have green space here, but taking taking into you know, ignoring what's happening on the other side of the fence. It sounds like we can't fit it on this site. We do have green space between the other row of parking and the main drive aisle. So, you know, that's nice. And I, you know, I don't think that this should be what stops us from moving this project forward. So I'm fine without it.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I would compare with that. I think this would be nice to have if you could fit it, but I don't see it as a reason to hold up the whole thing.
[Unidentified]: At least not at this time. OK, thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Y'all comfortable if I keep moving?
[Unidentified]: Keep going.
[Amanda Centrella]: All right. So letter E was applicant is to provide detailed exhibits of the proposed building designs, which they have. So we feel that that's completed. In the planting plan, the letter F, applicant is to prioritize native species and plants with lower water needs. And our staff recommend that the board just retain this as a condition in the decision. So for when the applicant gets to that stage, they can comply.
[Unidentified]: And I see a hand raised by Director Blake. Thank you.
[Todd Blake]: I just want to clarify because I don't recall stating that if the parking drive-out is a one-way, then if you have a one-way parking aisle, you could switch from perpendicular 90-degree parking to angled parking.
[Unidentified]: And when you have angled parking, you could narrow drive-out in general parking dimension design. In case that's informative to anyone.
[Zac Bears]: It was, it was important to the landlord that we keep it open, and it'd be this style parking. If you see, if you go to like assembly row and you see like how they do parking over there it's not typically angled parking.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry I just gotta jump in here, like, this is not the Wild West, like, you get a parking engineer and figure this stuff out, it's possible. It is definitely possible. Director Blake just said it, I've been thinking it since the beginning. You do a cross sectional diagram of this and you get a traffic engineer or a site engineer and you figure this out and you do it. We've asked you so many times, I'm at a loss personally.
[Unidentified]: You don't park against property lines, it's just not good design. Michael, do you want to weigh in?
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I might join in with Eaglebrook. I mean, we can look at to see if we can angle that, and certainly it is possible, and obviously the parking spaces become longer because right now they're 9 by 18, so once you angle them, they'll be 20 or 22 feet in length, and I can see what that dimension, see what we can do to you know, increase the amount of space between the property line agent parking.
[Unidentified]: Okay. So they'll take a look at that.
[David Blumberg]: Amanda, do you want to continue?
[Amanda Centrella]: Sure thing. letter G applicant to explore the use of a one way vehicular loop and angled parking through the site. So this is relevant to what we were all just talking about.
[David Blumberg]: There we go.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yep. And I think we've explained the one way vehicular loop piece so that it's not so viable for the central drive aisle, but the applicant has proposed it for the parking lot. And yes, just mentioned the angled parking as to be explored. to be included in the final The applicant has been in conversation with Director Blake regarding which of the off-site mitigation items as outlined in the letter are to be included. Director Blake, and he can speak for himself, but our understanding is that he maintains the mitigation options of his letter as they're outlined. and they are based on the project size and estimated traffic impact, and he recommends that the applicant include several mitigation items subject to MassDOT approval or reasonable alternatives, which are outlined in his letter. The applicant has communicated to us that the budget and timeline for their project is very tight and is concerned that pursuing the MassDOT mitigation items will detrimentally impact the project timeline. And as an alternative, the applicant proposed to commit to the provision of radar feedback signs, which is one of the items labeled in Director Blake's letter to I, but asserted that additional offsite mitigation would not be financially feasible. After reviewing mitigation for neighboring projects, it was, and this is somewhat new news, it was confirmed that actually radar feedback signs are going to be placed on Mystic Ave by an adjacent site, 162 Mystic Ave Theory Wellness. And so it doesn't make sense to include them again. The in consulting with Director Blake, staff determined that a potential equivalent option that would not require MassDOT approval would be to provide painted bump outs on the side streets in the vicinity of the project. And that's labeled as item 2i in Director Blake's letter. Um, after discussing mitigations options with director Blake and the applicant and confirming project constraints with stone and bank, the lender. Or 1 of the lenders, um, suggests that there be an alternate proposal for consideration and that this. be. So currently there is a lane merge located on Mystic Ave, basically by the proposed driveway entrance. And that could create some potential conflicts among vehicles kind of driving along Mystic Ave, as well as people entering and exiting the site. And so described as item 1A in Director Blake's letter, shifting the lane merge and moving the crosswalk that exists there to an appropriate corresponding location would help address this potential conflict and better support pedestrian safety when crossing Mystic Ave. Um, PDS feels that addressing this piece of it, the lane merge and the crosswalk are the more critical mitigation items, um, and recommends that the board consider including a condition requiring the applicant to first pursue this mitigation measure with MassDOT, which would require the submittal of a professionally prepared plan to MassDOT by a specific date. City staff would also help facilitate and connect the applicant to MassDOT. And if they hear back from MassDOT in the affirmative, they would be responsible for furnishing those improvements. However, if MassDOT does not approve of the proposed mitigation, so that lane merge movement, or is unresponsive to the proposal by the time that the applicant is applying for a certificate of occupancy, the applicant would be responsible only for providing the painted bump outs. So mitigation item 2i. I'm going to pause for a second because I feel like that's a lot. Are people clear on what I'm articulating?
[David Blumberg]: The, the ever dedicated director Blake, it looks like he's still still on the line hanging in there. Can, can we hear from our most dedicated.
[Todd Blake]: Sure. How are you feeling about all this. So, I think as Amanda had mentioned. I will take my narrow view of traffic only no reflection on the type of use, or how cool that may be. So, in regards to traffic alone which is my role for the city. The letter. After reading the study and the trip generation and potential traffic impacts, I believe my memo with recommendations is in line with, you know, consistent with the size and proportion related to potential impact as other previous projects such as 162 Dairy Wellness, Mystic Ave Dairy Wellness or Raisin Cane that was on earlier or any other similar projects. So, yeah, I do agree though the RFP should be taken off the menu because it is being covered by 162 Mystic Ave.
[David Blumberg]: Could you get comfortable with the recommendations from from PBS.
[Todd Blake]: I know it's not an ideal and it's a good question. Yeah, I was trying to take my narrow view of traffic only, and again being consistent so that to this project or any other project before after it doesn't seem favorable unfavorable in any way and unfair. And also my duty I feel to the neighboring community who points out any safety or traffic related things. So I guess I'll just reiterate my position on keeping the memo as is.
[Unidentified]: Okay. Thank you. Any questions on sort of what PDS outlined?
[Amanda Centrella]: I know it was sort of a lot.
[David Blumberg]: Let's see if I've got it straight. It sounds like, you know, director Blake is has his recommendations from his memo and PDS is trying to forge kind of a compromise, if you will, prioritizing measures, but trying to understand the budget that's involved from the applicant's point of view. And so, the best item would be the one that would include dot sign off. If you can get it, you can get it. And if not, you go to the next most impactful mitigation step from PDS's point of view.
[Unidentified]: Is that fair? Yeah, that's my understanding.
[Todd Blake]: Okay. Mr. Chair. Yeah, absolutely. I would just try to clarify whether the board seems going with what I had suggested or planning, which is obviously near purview, whichever it is, I just wanted to clarify that there seems to be some misunderstanding about, you know, at least the way I write stuff, proposing to MassDOT and something being no fault of the owner of the project. The intent is to provide a good faith effort of providing a plan that shows whatever that is. and going through that process and not necessarily not having doing that, which then therefore they deny something.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, Todd, I wanted to meet with you as soon as possible to go over the process, just so I understand it better. And get modern traffic engineer to draw the plan and just walk me through how it works with mass dot. I think that's making a really good effort, like right away. I don't want to wait to the very end to do this. I want to do it now.
[Todd Blake]: Yeah. Did you have VAI prepare the study? I don't have it in front of me. If you do use Vaness, they're very familiar with MassDOT process and have submitted to MassDOT for this very, you know, similar process, not same items, but similar process for 61 Locust Street and some other projects. So they know how to go about doing that.
[Unidentified]: Okay, I'd still appreciate your input on it. Okay.
[David Blumberg]: So it sounds like we have to make a decision, but do you have more on the list, Amanda, to summarize for us?
[Amanda Centrella]: I think I think that's those are all of the items and just taking a note here. And I think just to give a little bit of logic behind our thinking for that final recommendation. So shifting the lane merge and the crosswalk. We feel is, is one of the priority items. And so, making that good faith efforts and mass dot feels. like it ought to be one of the pieces that come out of this. But I think to add some assurance or mitigate some of the risk to the project on that, we've added this timeline of to submit and then to hear back before certificate of occupancy. And in the event that that does not work, that there's this alternate plan that still provides the city with some mitigation for the site. Um, And I'll just mention that if we get to a point where, or the project gets to a point where maybe they've heard back from MassDOT in the affirmative and they start working on the mitigation, if it's not completed by the certificate of occupancy, we could, the board could also include some language if they so chose to either allow for maybe a temporary CFO until that work is complete or to continue through with it so long as the work is started. And I think unless Danielle or Alicia have any other pieces they want to add, that might be it.
[David Blumberg]: So where does that leave us we've got some open items. So we still have the issue of the angle parking, and what's going to happen on the border over there. And we have this question that you've presented about the PDS recommendation on the mitigation traffic steps.
[Unidentified]: Traffic mitigation.
[Amanda Centrella]: If I may.
[David Blumberg]: Oh, please. I'm just trying to find, identify any open items.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so on our prep document, David, I did list some potential either motions or items just for the board to consider. It includes the ones you just mentioned. Also, to amend the decision to include a condition that the applicant furnish and install a raised crosswalk at the building entrance and provide clear signage or other traffic wayfinding measures for that to reinforce that intended circulation. So that was one of them. And the potential, you know, the consideration of a waiver for condition 1G, which is the landscape buffer to amend the decision.
[Unidentified]: And I think those were the items.
[Peter Calves]: Okay, I mean, correct, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm new at this, but my understanding of what we have open is that there are some things that are continuing conditions of the decision that if not, that while not resolved are in progress, and that does not impede anything at the moment, but there are these open items that we need to address now. So something like the traffic mitigation, we don't need to be prescriptive about exactly what types of exact mitigation need to happen as long as some form of either Director Blake's recommendations or the PDS recommendations happen and we approve that.
[David Blumberg]: Well, I think that's sort of where we were, that got us to this point, which is, we said, figure out traffic mitigation and resolve it collaboratively with director Blake. And that's what they're, they're trying to, I think, get us to bless the direction they need to take, you know.
[Alicia Hunt]: If I might, it's something that is difficult that gets run into when we're dealing with state roads is that clearly the appropriate mitigation involves something that we don't the city doesn't have the authority to approve. And so how do we on these roads. put these into place, which is sort of what we're recommending, is that they have to. So sometimes with the state, having the design and the plan is what it takes to get it done, but that it takes a long time. So what the director is recommending, if I might speak for him, I think, is that the applicant has these things drawn out, engineered, presents them to the state. The state may choose to allow them to do it right now, or they may take that into account for later. And it will come with the weight that the city asked them to do it. So it's not like they're coming, it's coming out of the blue. Now the state knows what we're asking for. And here's an engineer drawn thing. So there is benefit to that, even if if it happens that they decide that they don't approve it. For example, if the state's about to rip up that road, they might say, not right now. We're not going to hold up a certificate of occupancy because the state doesn't let them do it right now. And so that's sort of where, but this is the kind of thing that when we don't own the road, you know, we can't make them do things on that road.
[Unidentified]: And that's, that's the difficulty here.
[Todd Blake]: I think in previous memos, and in this one, I usually write a subject to approval and if to no fault of their own, like the case that Director Hung just pointed out, that would be no fault of their own if they went through that process and the state just decided for whatever reason. And that's why sometimes my memos are longer, because I offer an alternate for that case. But there have been, like 162 MISTIC did include conditions that that required the state agency and then reason canes as well.
[Unidentified]: So yeah, it's the luck of the draw which road you're on.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, well this, I think there's only so much we can do tonight it's angle parking analysis is going to happen that's not going to be done here in the next 10 minutes. Yeah, I agree with that.
[Alicia Hunt]: So one thing that I have to raise, we were very concerned by the applicant telling us about timelines and deadlines, which is why Amanda and I got on the phone with his bank and his lender and spoke to them directly to better understand this. And they basically said to us, this is how the banking world works. This is how the finances work. They are not a very large corporation. They're very small. They have their own finances on the line here. And they have to follow a very strict timeline or this project doesn't happen. And I have concern taking that from any applicant or any developer, but we spoke directly with Stoneman Bank on this. There are some, I think that if this was delayed a week, because we thought that these things could be brought together a week, that that was not going to cause a problem. But if this is something, and I don't know, I don't know how long it takes to redesign the parking. That's part of why we thought we had asked all the questions we needed to ask about was there any way to make this tighter a few weeks ago, and we understood that there wasn't. just because if it's a week or so, it's fine. And I'm just relaying this to you because people like to come and say a project's going to fall apart if we don't get our timeline. That's why we spoke to his bank a couple of weeks ago. So that's my concern. I'm wondering if Todd can weigh in on, like, is this something that could be done right away? Like, is that possible? Is this going to anything that affects his budget significantly or any noticeable impact to his budget will cause problems for Stone and Bank? They've already made them cut the budget. And we don't want to see them lose their financing, lose their mass development loans, because we need to have some plantings along the border. It just feels like the trade-offs here. I just want to make this clear. This isn't some, you know, North Point development company that can do it.
[David Blumberg]: Well, there's a professional on the line who says that he can take a look at it. And I can't imagine it would take all that long to get onto here.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Alicia, if I had this CAD drawing, I could do this assessment in about 20 minutes. So, and I'm not an, I'm not a traffic engineer.
[Danielle Evans]: How would this, I'm trying to think of like the angle parking like from like a pedestrian standpoint like is that a safer condition. Backing out and all and what would we not be able to have the interior landscaping islands anymore How would those work in an angled situation, be angled. I just feel like it's going to be little. I don't know, strange. I don't really see that. I'm not a board member, I don't have a vote, but I don't necessarily see the advantage of angled parking from, you know. Peter, were you about to say something?
[Peter Calves]: Yes, I was gonna say, I'd like to echo Director Blake's comments in the chat. As a practicing traffic engineer, this is not a very difficult thing to look at. And also, from the perspective of parking design, it is, I mean, the angle parking is not, especially in a parking lot setup, is not noticeably less safe. And it would just be the geometry that would shift. It would not.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: It's the kind of thing you can only do when you have a one-way street, obviously. And what it does is it enables you to take the drive aisle from a 24-feet foot width, which you need for two-way traffic, to a dimension potentially much less than that, down to 16 feet potentially. So, yeah. So a normal parking stall with 60 feet, right? An 18 foot drive aisle, two 24 foot, that doesn't, well, whatever it is, 24 foot and two stalls at whatever. And this just enables you to crunch that number down, which would push the whole thing down and now enable a strip along the property line, just something, you know, we've been asking for forever. You can Google it, it's pretty easy.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_01]: This is Mike Giuliano. When would you need it for your next meeting because it's certainly something that can easily be done just a question of how much in advance do you need it. I think you said you had a meeting next week.
[David Blumberg]: Yeah, we're scheduled, we're scheduled for a meeting on a week from tonight.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, same time of week. Yeah, so you know that we can have it on Monday of next week as far as showing that layout.
[David Blumberg]: That would work.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_01]: That would be great. And we would obviously have landscaping on adjacent to the property line and where the existing aisle is between the main aisle and parking lot. The question is, would you still need to show islands within that angled parking lot every 10 spaces. Could we eliminate that? Because now we're going to increase the landscaping along that property line significantly.
[David Blumberg]: Well, I thought that those spaces in part were proposed by PDS trade-off with the... Yes, that was at least my understanding that it was a trade-off because they couldn't have the cover that they
[Peter Calves]: they previously thought. And if we were expanding the landscape cover, then that would become unnecessary.
[David Blumberg]: I think Peter's right.
[Danielle Evans]: Well, there's a strange provision in the ordinance. It's 94, 6.3.5 large parking areas. And since it's kind of a weird parking lot, we're kind of, Amanda and I were looking at it. We're like, okay, if we drew a rectangle, like what would we consider like this parking lot? Like, okay, like this, the long skinny parking lot. Okay, that has over 20 spaces. So that's subject to this interior landscaping requirement, but then it's okay, but it's so skinny. So where would you fit this interior? landscaping. It's those we just kept getting bumped against like how, so you can get the perimeter but you don't have the interior. What counts as interior, or it's not very clear but there is. I mean it does say that you can't have was it no more than 20 spaces parking spaces in a row that are uninterrupted by a
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: by some form of an island, which I think they still would need to do if it's considered interior parking, but it's... Danielle, I think this is... We're doing the work for the engineer and I'm not particularly feeling like that's appropriate.
[Alicia Hunt]: No, no, she's saying that this is not in mitigation for the buffer. Actually, the thing in mitigation for the buffer was the courts, the pickleball tree wells were because Danielle's been reading our zoning with a fine tooth comb and realize that this is in the performance standards that was added by the board over the summer.
[SPEAKER_30]: Correct.
[Danielle Evans]: If it isn't going to meet the interior landscaping, you would need to grant a waiver for it, is what I'm bringing up to your attention, of the actions that you need to take when you ever approve the site. If you approve the site plan, there are going to be certain waivers that you're going to have to grant or not grant for some of these buried landscaping provisions that are scattered throughout the ordinance that are hard to find, and I've been trying to wrap my head around them and making sure that Everything that needs to be addressed is addressed.
[Zac Bears]: Can I just say one thing? Just going back to MassDev and going back to the bank, like, jeopardizes everything for us. Even if it's a week, we would like to close on our loan. Changing the site plan sometimes changes. If we lose parking spaces, we'll change the factor of how the bank actually looks at us. And so I would like to take this as a recommendation. and move forward tonight. Is that at all possible.
[David Blumberg]: I'm feeling that consensus is for a week so that we can see what this, what this thing looks like, but I, I'm just one vote so let me present that to the board and see if someone wants to take them at a point where I'd rather just take a vote tonight on it and not Well, you really don't you really don't get the call on that. Okay, not being disrespectful I just that's the way it is and it's 11 o'clock.
[Zac Bears]: I understand I didn't mean to be disrespectful and just trying to be honest about our budget.
[David Blumberg]: If there's a board member who'd like to offer a motion to continue this for one week to our next meeting. Or another motion. If I'm not reading the room correctly, that's fine too.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Well, let me ask this question, Brian. You just said that potential change to the site plan could have impacts on your funding.
[Zac Bears]: It affects everything, our lease.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: No, I understand. I understand. But if we were to ask you in good faith to attempt to make this change to your site plan post-funding, then the bank would say no. But what do you mean by that?
[Zac Bears]: I can make a good faith effort and ask, but right now I'm locked into, you know, I'm locked into the funding. I could go back and say, Hey, look, this is what the board said. And can we make this change? I just don't want to jeopardize kind of losing what we have with everyone involved in this deal.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I completely understand, but you know, this is something that we've asked about since you first came to us.
[Zac Bears]: I realized that, and I handed in everything so far in advance with the intention of getting feedback really far in advance. And if changes were to be made, I could have went to the landlords. I could have went to the bank and said, hey, here's what we're hearing. And again, I took the time to meet with all these people. I didn't have an attorney do it. I didn't have an engineer do it, an architect do it. I did it myself. David? Yeah.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I just I mean the bank could could could our approval be contingent on a, on a, on the site plan that proposes an alternative layout for that parking field.
[David Blumberg]: We've sort of already been through that one, one time and we're, we're, we're back at it again. I mean, I just get to a final resolution so they don't have they don't have to come back to us at all at that point.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we did, we did give them a some sort of approval previously, we did continue to the contingency right.
[David Blumberg]: It was, it was our approval. One of the conditions was a landscaping buffer between the properties.
[Emily Hedeman]: And they'd investigate the angle of parking.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: Yep.
[Unidentified]: Ryan, you've sort of put yourself in the situation, you know? Okay. Yeah.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: The problem is, is we could, we could grant you this with this, this approval with this contingency, but if it doesn't work out, then now, you know, the blame is on us, not on you. And that's not a position we're comfortable with. I'm certainly not.
[Unidentified]: Okay.
[Zac Bears]: If you don't feel comfortable with the design, I guess, I guess that's it.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's just, it's bad planning to park against somebody's property.
[Zac Bears]: I mean, the owners own that it's the same landlords as one 42 mystic, the same people own one 34 mystics. So the whole idea was that when they go to develop one 34 mystic, that becomes shared parking because 134 Mystic is very tight and narrow on the Mystic Ave side. So without that, 134 Mystic becomes, I don't know, 50% like the value because you literally can't develop it without parking it.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: But now you're saying something different than you said earlier. You're saying we can't take land away from that property to create a green strip.
[Zac Bears]: No, no, no. So here is the current condition right here. See that driveway aisle?
[Emily Hedeman]: Where's the property line?
[Zac Bears]: Okay. So this is the, This is the rough property line right here.
[Emily Hedeman]: In the photo, where's the property line?
[Zac Bears]: It's inside the red rectangle. Can you go back to the photo? Sure. The current building is the property line.
[Emily Hedeman]: Where's the property line?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, where that bus is, where that building is to the right, that is the property line. 134 Mystic, the current building is right there on that drive aisle. It's so tight to drive in there. I can't take.
[Emily Hedeman]: But these are separate parcels, correct?
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, but they're owned by the same landlord.
[Emily Hedeman]: I understand that, but you know, present ownership does not indicate future ownership. So if we just look at the parcel that we're talking about right now, where you're proposing Great American Beer Hall, completely ignoring what's happening in the other parcel, because it seems like that's kind of its own situation. If you angle the parking, which it sounds like is feasible, that gives us about six feet of space, and you can investigate whether a landscape buffer is possible in that space. The engineer that you brought on the call, I'm assuming he's an engineer, said that he'd be able to get it by Monday. That would give us plenty of time to hear it by Wednesday.
[Zac Bears]: If that works, then it sounds like... Are you saying to put a landscape buffer in between 134 and 142 Mystic?
[Alicia Hunt]: And can you clarify what you mean by a landscape buffer? Like, because I think that what I'm hearing is they're concerned that it's bushes that people couldn't walk through and they would like, but if grass and, you know, grass and planting, right, you're not saying it needs to be something that prevents people from moving between those two properties.
[David Blumberg]: No one has ever said that. We've been talking about this for months. That's never come up. I think that's what he may be hearing, because, because that that that was the whole crux of my question like how does that defeat the ability to develop the person you just walk from one spot to the other.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Emily Hedeman]: Like see what you have in between the parking area and that driveline.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, so the left-hand picture is the drive aisle for 134 Mystic Ave.
[Emily Hedeman]: Again, we're not talking about 134 Mystic Ave. We're talking about the property where Great American Beer Hall is located.
[Zac Bears]: What was the question? I'm sorry. I thought that was what you were asking.
[Emily Hedeman]: No. In the landscape rendering that you have?
[Unidentified]: Yep.
[Emily Hedeman]: Pause.
[Unidentified]: OK.
[Emily Hedeman]: So do you see? I think I can draw and stuff. Let's see if that works. I don't think I can.
[Elizabeth Bayle]: We got the annotation turned off.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK, that's fine. So we have the drive aisle between the beer garden and the parking area. See how there's a little landscape area with little kind of, assuming those are trees. They don't even have to be trees.
[Unidentified]: But take that, copy paste, and throw it on the back. Klaus, what do you think? I think this is like, this is a difficult situation.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, because you know, I, I think Brian, the problem is, is that like, we asked you to investigate this and you didn't, you know, if you had brought us a drawing, and showed the angle parking and showed the straight parking. And you put them side by side and you say, here's the reason I want to stay with the parallel parking this this this and this and look, and you can can, but you didn't, you just said, I'm not doing that.
[Zac Bears]: No, I didn't I didn't, I didn't say that I brought it to the landlord's attention, and this is the way they prefer to do it. I didn't, it's not like I didn't, I didn't look at it and said, oh, I don't want to do that. You know, screw that. That's not the case at all. I brought it to their attention.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't sound like it's the angled parking's been studied.
[Zac Bears]: It's something they don't want. It's, it's what they asked of me. It's what's in our lease. This is the site plan that they wanted. And they've, they've owned this for a long time. Same as the other one.
[David Blumberg]: The landlord's a related party. This is.
[Zac Bears]: Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's just because we're related doesn't make it easy. Trust me.
[Unidentified]: How do we move this forward? And I'm asking the board just to clarify.
[David Blumberg]: We can continue for a week. That's one option.
[Unidentified]: that.
[Danielle Evans]: Did we want to say Todd has had some comments in the chat. I don't know if anyone wants to.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I saw Todd's comments, and I think if we were going to go with the what we had just been talking about with the landscape buffer, then that's not a problem because while it would be shared parking.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to confirm, comments entered in the chat are not part of the record. So if people are going to view this later. It might be helpful if we verbalize them.
[Unidentified]: I can read that. Thanks, Peter.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah. Yeah, Todd commented that angle doesn't work as well with the shared scenario because the angle requires adjacent traffic flow in a certain direction. And also it's said that night parallel parking can go as low as 20 feet aisle as opposed to 24, but the fire department usually has reservations about widths in that scenario.
[Unidentified]: Sounds like both of those would need to be assessed via a study.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think- Brian, what would be at the end of those parking spaces along the property line? Would there be a fence? Would you do wheel stops, which are not great?
[Danielle Evans]: There's a retaining wall, I think. Or is it holding up against retaining the wall on the other side?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, it would be a fence. It'd be a fence until 134 Mysticsville. I think it's the present condition. Maybe a different fence. Yeah, there's a fence there now. There's nothing and there's nothing in our code Alicia that says you can't park against the property line.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, I don't. Right now I have to ask Danielle because she's been going through this with a fine tooth comb.
[David Blumberg]: Well, there's supposed to be a buffer. I mean, this landscape buffer is not something we're making up.
[Todd Blake]: Yeah, not that Medford's, it's pretty common in other zoning codes to have a minimum certain buffer. I couldn't say if Medford's does or not.
[Alicia Hunt]: The first buffer that I come to is one that's screening between residential or non-residential use against a residential use. And then the next one is the large parking areas issue.
[Peter Calves]: And that's Alicia clarify that's not a buffer, that's the large parking areas with the one tree for 10. Right. Okay.
[Danielle Evans]: A lot of our landscaping and parking requirements overlap and are some things that are that address landscaping for specifically for parking will be completely somewhere else than you would expect them to be. It gets really it's. It's not intuitive and it's not easy to find some of these buried provisions.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, this is we're coming back to the, the issue that a lot of these were put in by the, all of these provisions were put in by the lawyer, this board reviewed split them up and reviewed them but we didn't actually have any consultants weigh in on that. This is where I'm, we're working now with the city council to bring in some consultants to actually look at zoning in a bigger picture way.
[Unidentified]: These are not long standing, all is what I was trying to say all of this is relatively new in our zoning. Mr. Chair, does anyone have any additional questions for me. While you are you also in City Hall Todd.
[Danielle Evans]: So, really wish I went home that's all I'm saying.
[Todd Blake]: I just hope and even establishment is still open.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, we're either gonna have to continue or I'm just gonna have to leave. I've already missed the last train out of Boston. So I'll be waking my wife up to come pick me up.
[Emily Hedeman]: So I'm gonna- I'll make a motion to continue to next week if that's what we need.
[David Blumberg]: Is there a second?
[Peter Calves]: I'll second that we are not going to get anywhere productive at the moment, unfortunately.
[David Blumberg]: Yep. Okay, make sure I get everybody on a roll call. Jackie is accused. Okay, Clayson Jason.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, sorry I'm accused.
[David Blumberg]: It's okay, you're there. and Emily.
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[David Blumberg]: And Peter. Yes. Are you still there?
[Ari Fishman]: Yep. My zoom crashed, but been here. Yep.
[David Blumberg]: Okay. Are you in favor of the continuance? I think that's our only option right now. Yeah. Okay. And I'm a yes as well. So we'll pick it up next week. Sorry, we weren't able to come to a full resolution on this tonight. Do we dare do anything else or do we go right to adjournment?
[Emily Hedeman]: We're meeting next week, maybe adjournments best. Okay, I'll make a motion. Second.
[David Blumberg]: Okay, um, so I will ask all those in favor of putting the approval of minutes on for next week and continuing the meeting, trying to do two for one here. Just say aye when I call. Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.
[SPEAKER_30]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Clayson Dresen. Aye. Emily Hedman.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: Peter Kaldas. Aye. Ari Goffman.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[David Blumberg]: And I'm an aye as well. Okay, we will see you next week.
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