[Emily Hedeman]: Welcome to this evening's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. Chair Jackie McPherson is not in attendance this evening. So I will be chairing the meeting in progress. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Let's begin with some obligatory procedural matters. This hearing of the Medford Community Development Board is being conducted via remote means. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided in Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023. A reminder that anybody who would like to listen or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included in the meeting agenda posted on the City of Medford website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting tonight, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. Additionally, project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website medfordma.org by navigating to boards and commissions, selecting community development board and clicking on current CD board filings, which is under CD board meetings. Danielle will provide a link to the CDB page in the chat. Danielle, I believe you've already sent that through. Yes, thank you for that. So let's kick off with roll call attendance. Jackie McPherson. Peter Calvis. Here. Ari Fishman. Present. Pam Mariansky.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Here.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sally Akiki. Present. Sherrod, but Richard Rhea. And myself, Emily had him in present. Danielle, can you please introduce any staff on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, myself, Daniel Evans, senior planner in the Office of Planning, Development, Sustainability and also present is Alicia Hunt, the director of Planning, Development, Sustainability. Great, thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: We're going to kick off the evening with 290 Salem Street. This is a continuance from April 3rd. This is a site plan review and special permit to allow the construction of a three-story mixed-use building to contain seven residential units above ground floor commercial space. A quick note on timing for any of those, anybody joining the call, we expect to only have a quorum until 7 p.m. and expect to continue to the next meeting. So I just wanted to provide that heads up in advance. questions. Can the staff please make any introductory comments?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes Um, as you're all aware, this was continued a few times while we worked. Um well, staff worked with the architect team to make some revisions. Um there's been a few iterations that have gone back and forth. Um and. you know, tweaks that need to be made. So while we have quorum tonight, tonight is an opportunity to give some direct feedback so that we can get to the finish line.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great, thank you, Danielle. So I would like the applicant to bring up the most recent changes on the screen, and then I'm actually going to open to the board for feedback. My intent with this is to maximize the direction that you receive from the board so that the applicant can engage on those specific topics rather than a wholesale presentation. Can the applicant please bring up the most recent documents?
[SPEAKER_04]: I have host disabled participations screen sharing.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can the host please enable screen sharing?
[Danielle Evans]: done.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right. Well, good evening board. And thank you very much. My name is, as you guys know, Jacob Levine. I'm the architect behind this project, working with the client today. Our lawyer Adam is out. So I'm going to just kind of be doing the little bit of introduction to keep things quick note.
[Emily Hedeman]: I was hoping to open it to the board first, because I think there's some specific Feedback we were hoping to really focus in on um, I welcome, you know your other other comments But I think in the interest of time because we do have that 7 p.m quorum cut off Um so we can kick things off with the board and then go from there. Is that suitable for the applicant? Absolutely Great. Okay. So with that i'd like to open discussion, uh up to the board i'm curious for other board members feedback Before I offer my own All right, seeing none, I'll jump right in. Thank you so much for the revised drawings. I really do appreciate the continued efforts as well as the iterative process that you've engaged with, whether it's with us, the board, or with city staff. From my recollection, there were two specific items that we were hoping to, that I was hoping to talk about this evening. I think the larger one is the corner treatment, but potentially the more straightforward one is that back corner with the yellow VW bug. So I'm hoping that you could offer a little bit of clarification here, because when I look at this rendering, I'm seeing vegetation in the middle of the parking area. And then when I look at the plan, it doesn't exactly line up. So I'm curious You know what the actual condition is here Okay, it could just be a perspective issue but um wanted to get some clarity there
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate that. I think it might just be a perspective issue, like maybe up here, you could see a little bit clearer than I'm trying just to the landscape is on the perimeter of the site. And if you kind of look at our proposed site plan, you know, it's all vegetated with bigger trees in the corners. So I think something that we discussed in one of our prior meetings was this building not feeling as well grounded, I think would be a good phrase for it, meaning the back end of it is floating up. And so a couple of solutions that we looked at were essentially to open the model, to use a screen in the back of the building to help ground it, so when I mean screen, we were discussing back here actually using a green screen. Typically everywhere else, I shouldn't say typically everywhere else, we have a six-foot tall wood fence, and then back here would actually be a taller trellis fence that I would feel like would tie well with the vegetation. We looked at potentially having screening on the Park Street side as well. So that would be over here. But we've gotten some feedback from the town members themselves, citizens that they're a little bit worried of the pulling in and out of Park Street. So if we were to put a fence, essentially, You know, if I was to put a fence down here and if you think about the cars coming in and out of Park Street, I would be afraid that you're going to kind of lose the visibility coming down Park Street. So, for me, I thought the best solution was to actually have that green fence down on this back wall. So that protects. the parking lot down in here and then using this vegetation along the perimeter as the screen for the parking at the ground level. When you're looking down Park Street, essentially, it's all going to be filled in with landscape, but it's not necessarily a solid mass wall at this point. I think the idea that the building being raised off the ground like this, it hits in two ways. I still think maybe there's something that we can do with the structure a little bit more to make it a little bit more ornament or a little bit more heavy. But unfortunately, until I get my structural engineer during the construction documents to help me size these members, I don't want to just make up some tree-oriented, you know, structural column that in reality isn't going to be anything like that. It's going to be more of like a two by two.
[Emily Hedeman]: But I think it's a really helpful perspective because I think based on the plans that you had shared, because when we see that that first elevated floor, there's no There's no like atmospheric element to it. So we don't realize like where it lines up with the parking below. So I think that was a misunderstanding on my part. I had assumed that the back of the building was the back of the parking. Oh, I see. Yeah. So this is a really helpful perspective. I appreciate you pulling us into the model. Yeah. From that side perspective, it, it still feels like it's floating. Um, and now that I understand that, the back of the building is not the back of the parking. Previous solutions that I've kind of been thinking about don't work. So, okay. Are there any other thoughts by other board members? Was I the only one that maybe had this one misunderstanding?
[Peter Calves]: I did not. quite want to chime in on that but I did want to chime in on the curtain wall in the corner. I do like the new curtain wall treatment, the new corner treatment that's not quite the solid curtain wall. I think that's a while giving a lot of natural light to those units on the corner, I think it's a bit more nuanced of a treatment and I think it's not going to result in as much of the solar glare concerns coming down Salem Street that we were looking at last time. So thank you for that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you for that, Peter. I appreciate it. Still thinking about this back corner, Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, Emily, the challenge or board member, excuse me. The challenge I have is where this facade starts, it comes right into where the spaces are, right?
[Emily Hedeman]: Parking's already tight.
[SPEAKER_04]: You got it. So I looked at, well, maybe if you took this column and you put it more under here to kind of ground that corner of the building, would that help? But now I'm kind of more in the middle of a parking spot. So that's why I think maybe there's something that can be done with these columns down the line. to help kind of ground it a little bit more rather if they're like a teed off or just a little bit more masked, that might help. But, you know, having that wall would be all the way back here. I think I understand where the confusion kind of happened, but in the landscape, I think would do a good job kind of hiding that. But you're the one, you like the five points of architecture, right? Pilote, ribbon windows. I do, but
[Emily Hedeman]: You know, the application of PLOC is not simply to enable parking. It's to embed like a lightness in the building and the conflict between the massing of the front, which is very, very heavy and settled. And I think aligned with the neighborhood, I think that fits in very well. I appreciate the modern touches you've made to that. The back embodies the lightness, but it's the contrast between the two that I think creates the unease in terms of that back corner. If this whole building was on pillars, I think this would be a different conversation. I'm not suggesting you do that, because I think that the commercial space is a huge asset to this area of Medford. But yeah, I mean, it's not. Yeah, does that make sense? The conflict between the weight and the lightness is, I think, where this unease. I want to get some other voices in here. So Sally, do you want to chime in, please?
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: Adding the trellis on the back, I don't think it's the best idea on the long term because then it's maintenance. It may fall apart. I don't think it's the best idea. But maybe try to add the trellis longitudinally from the column towards the edge. So perpendicular to what you were suggesting. Or any other element. It's not necessary to be a trellis. This would create a wall, a vertical wall, which would balance, quote unquote, this lightness that feels unease that Emily is talking about. So maybe going perpendicular to the wall that you were suggesting rather than putting a trellis on the side.
[Emily Hedeman]: Pam?
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're still on mute. Yeah, I'm glad to see the sun going back to that front corner. I'm glad to see it's not just all glass. It's not like a whole glass curtain. Yeah, it seems like it would work better for residential use if there's a little more privacy. Yeah, and again, I'm not an architect or trained in any of this, but it looks a little like Different than the rest of the building. And again, I'm not a trained architect, but if there's a way to pull in some of the elements on the rest of the building, I don't know if it's like that gray siding or even like those more square sort of panels. It just seems like that's sort of like these white, it looks like more corporate to me. If you were to block off the rest of it, it just sort of looks like a corporate building. If there were a way to kind of soften those white squares and kind of tie in some of the colors or elements from the rest of the building, I think it would look less sort of disjointed to me. Again, sorry if I'm not using the right words to describe everything.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was supposed to be the same color. Yeah.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry. I can try harder.
[5GOoqKbpo08_SPEAKER_00]: Okay. No, I think even that would help it just less of a separate element that was put on there.
[SPEAKER_04]: Like in this model. Yeah. Okay. I hear you 100%.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you. And Pam, you might not be an architect, but that's a very valid, thoughtful comment. So thank you for speaking up. And thank you, Sally, for your previous comment. Peter.
[Peter Calves]: Uh, yeah, I just have kind of a clarifying question, question for the discussion. It's kind of, I feel, I feel bad. I feel like this is the engineer in me. I'm like regarding the back, are we talking about just kind of how it, how it looks and how it feels or is there some functional aspect there? Cause I'm just trying to like separate in my mind what, what we're talking, what the discussion is about. Like, is there, because I don't know, to me in the level of what I need to, pay attention to, is it about there being some problem with the use and occupancy of the building, or is it about how it relates to the rest of the neighborhood? And I'm just having trouble looking at that.
[Emily Hedeman]: I would say it's more the latter. Okay. Compatibility with size, scale, and design of other structures in the neighborhood. Okay, cool. That's fine. I mean, engineering-wise, I'm assuming the applicant is going to bring in a structural engineer who's going to verify the structural integrity of the building. So that's not up for discussion at this point.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's fair. I was just trying to clarify what discussion was.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I think Sally could be onto something in terms of rather than looking east-west with that. screening, maybe it's a north-south, not a full divider as you're showing in your rendering, but maybe it's aligned with the outer edge of the parking space along Park Street. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know. I'm actually on the camp of, I very much like the building kind of floating back there. So I have to also wrap my head around a problem to find a good solution.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sure, and I appreciate that. I think while design is subjective, we are working to make sure that from a size scale design perspective, there is some compatibility with the neighborhood. So that's why we're trying to give you this direct feedback, whether it's You know, move the screening so it's aligned with the parking markings. Maybe it's more robust vegetation.
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, is that something that is going to kind of hold us up? Or is there a way that we can try to get approval in the next meeting, and this is something that we're going to work with in the construction document design development phase of things? Or we need to figure out all this stuff I mean, like you just said, please, I hope you know how much respect I have for all of this. And this project is really important to me and my firm. But it is somewhat subjective, and I just don't want to continue to to try to find solutions for problems. When you start adding more things, like all of a sudden we have a wall that's east to west. Well, all of a sudden that's a wind problem now, right? Because it's just the way that the building fits. And that new wall is going to have a four foot foundation to it because it's 10 feet tall. And I just cost the client $40,000 to build that wall.
[Emily Hedeman]: feedback like that is really helpful for this group. You know, understanding, because at the end of the day, I think, and I'm not going to speak for the board, but my priority is to increase the number of housing units in Medford, as well as, you know, the amount of viable commercial space. So at the end of the day, I don't think that this is something where we can't come to a path forward. But given our process, this is something that we do have to confirm within this body prior to moving on, because any significant changes would have to come back because of the special permit process. And Danielle, I don't know if this is a good time for you to provide more insight, or maybe you've had your hand up for a while.
[Danielle Evans]: Thank you, through the chair. When the board approves this, you'll be approving control documents and you can add conditions, but generally you want them to be very specific and it's hard to condition design changes as it's subjective, and sometimes it's not clear what we're looking for. So I would want pretty complete final elevation drawings to be the control documents. Different material changes could be de minimis, I think the level of detail that we're looking at is not something that can be could hold off. Some ideas that I had was looking at the Park Street elevation is pulling the sign band, where it says Salem Place. there's no. Um. Bottom band that for treatment could somehow be pulled to the back. It just feels like it kind of just cuts off. Um. And it's just somehow to, like anchor it back there, and I do appreciate seeing the model because when I was looking at it land view, there's no, um. the site plan, so I couldn't see where the building ended and where the parking began, so it wasn't clear. And even looking at the model, it's still not clear, like, what is the landscaped space? What is the actual travel path of the car entering and exiting. So that parking space that's in the front, how is that maneuvering out? Cause that doesn't make any sense to me. I had thought that that was under the building. If that's not under the building, then that's problematic. Is it aligned under the building or is it actually out closer to the street? I can't tell.
[Emily Hedeman]: Under the under the building.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's a line to the corner to the building and then it's maybe a quarter of the way underneath it itself. So, it is under the building on the.
[Danielle Evans]: East West side, could you just pivot it again? Sure. You see how it's hard, from this perspective, it's hard to see that that corner of the building, that it drops down and aligns with that edge of the parking space.
[SPEAKER_04]: Gotcha. Yeah. So that's my edge of the building. Okay. Well, that's some good feedback, thinking about wrapping this ribbon and maybe it does come down to have some way.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. I think that I mean, also considering some of the comments you've made in terms of, you know, like how deep does that foundation need to go? You know, at what expense would it be to, you know, this project? Because those are things that, you know, we do need to consider in addition to design. And, you know, by no means do we want to, you know, burden this project unnecessarily, but I think that could be a reasonable solution. Realizing that we have five minutes left, I want to open this back up to other members of the chair, as well as the applicant, if there's anything else you want to share. All right, seeing none. public comment. Um do you think it makes sense to open it to public comment?
[Danielle Evans]: To the chair. I'm not sure if there's anybody here if they have for four minutes. Um yeah, three minutes, but otherwise, um. Any of the public is welcome to email design specific changes. The zoning board did grant the variances for the setback. So we have our envelope that we're working with. So now we're looking at the site plan review criteria, which is the design, which is very much what is under the board's purview.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Can I add one last comment? So we did go through and update the fenestration for Daniels, and I think it looks dynamite. So I do appreciate that. I think that brought a lot of balance. I just have to make one last argument for keeping this light and airy. And you have the school right around the corner and little kids around. we just want to make sure we have good visibility and a really functional way that people come in and out of this building, deliveries, whatever it might be. Because this is going to be a busy, with Salem Street, that's going to be busy. I just really want to make sure that we're not detrimentally adding a vertical element here that's going to cause an accident and harm.
[Emily Hedeman]: I really appreciate that point. How about, since we are going to continue this regardless, at the next meeting, I'd love to see a rendering that reflects those sightlines with, if possible, with streetscape context. So even if it's just a screenshot from Google Maps with a very rudimentary overlay of You're using review for this, though. Just place the person in the parking spot and then out on the street and show us if that concern is valid, because it may be. And I'd really appreciate some background on that, because I think it is a valid concern. I just want to go from there. Yeah, if you know, something blocking it, and then show something not blocking it. And then we can go from there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just, I just trying to get Okay, we just really are trying hard not to just continue to kick the can down the road. Yep. You know, one time after another for for my for my clients standpoint.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yep. And I appreciate that. And I would say work, you know, hand in hand with city staff. And Danielle, if there's any interim discussions that need to happen, let us know. Peter? You're on mute.
[Peter Calves]: Just doing my clerk job and reminding us that we need to move on in like a minute.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah. So realizing that, can I get a motion to continue to a date certain, which I believe is May 1? May 1 without prejudice?
[Peter Calves]: Can I have a second?
[Emily Hedeman]: Second. Okay, thank you. And then I would like to recognize the applicant. Just for one last comment, it seems like.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you. Just to be clear, this is the only thing that I'm going back to the drawing board for is this corner. We're okay with the other corner facade for now and some other things. Is that right? Just studying this?
[Danielle Evans]: I can talk to you offline about all that too, and be in communication with the chair as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, good. Thank you guys so much for your time tonight.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, we appreciate your work on this.
[Alicia Hunt]: You had a motion to call vote, you didn't vote. Oh shoot, we didn't vote.
[Emily Hedeman]: Shit. Pam left, are we... just vote.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay. Um, I don't think you have to be a member. You didn't have to be a member to continue. You have to be a member. You have to be voting eligible to, uh, approve the case, but to continue a case, you don't have to have quorum and you don't have to be eligible otherwise to vote on the case.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay, good. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: So let's vote to continue it.
[Emily Hedeman]: And we have, uh, Sherrod on the line.
[Peter Calves]: Sherrod is here now.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes. Okay. So we're going to do a roll call vote. Jackie McPherson. Peter Calves.
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Fishman. Yes. Pam Mariansky. Sally Akiki. Yes. Sharad Bhadracharya.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman is a yes. Thank you for waiting for us to make it official.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, guys. We'll see you in a couple weeks.
[Emily Hedeman]: Have a nice evening. Thanks, Alicia. Appreciate that. All right. So the next item on our agenda is the proposed new South Street local historic district. I'd like to ask the staff to make introductory comments.
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. Um, so I received a request from Chair Bader, who is on the call. The Local Historic Commission, is it the Medford Local, now I'm messing it up. It's a local district historic district commission. Yes. They're interested in creating a new local historic district on South Street. And one of the steps under state law to create a new local historic district is they prepare the study and I'll let Mr. Bader go into it into more detail, but this is before you to make a recommendation to city council. Correct.
[Christopher Bader]: And I have a presentation if that's appropriate.
[Emily Hedeman]: That would be great.
[Christopher Bader]: I'll make you a co-host.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can I share my screen?
[Danielle Evans]: You should be able to now.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh. Anyway, sorry. So share screen, yes. Sorry. I haven't given a presentation in some time. Oops. Just a minute, please. Oh. OK. Can you see my screen?
[Emily Hedeman]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK. So here is, let's see, slideshow. Here we go. OK, play from start.
[Christopher Bader]: OK. Can you see my screen now? Yes. Still see my screen? For both South Beach District? Okay, so the Historic District Commission, there are two historic districts in Medford, one the Simon's Historic District on High Street, and the other, the Hilltop, it's historic district behind the library. These were created in 1985, and there have been no historic districts created since then. Now, there's a big problem there, because there are a lot of historic buildings in South Street that go back before the Civil War, and they need to be protected, and they're very... We've gone through the entire process with the Mass Historical Commission, with public hearings, and so on. And I just want to run through my presentation at the hearings here tonight. So this is what South Street looked like in 1880. You can see that grandfather's house is there. That 21 Touro that there was a lot of discussion on about 10 years ago is right there. There are a whole bunch of houses, uh, starting here, running down through here, all, all pre civil war. These are all going to be in the new historic district. Um, there are, um, this house here, which appears to be on Manning street, but actually has a Walnut street address. And then there are a couple of buildings on the other side of South street that we want to protect. Uh, I think there's 31 and this one here is 23. Anyway, let me go through the buildings very quickly. As I said, we targeted pre-Civil War buildings. There are Victorian buildings in this area. There are actually probably at least 20 of them, but we didn't target Victorian in this particular round of the South Street Historic District. It could be expanded later, but we're focusing on pre-Civil War buildings for this particular iteration of the Historic District. So this is a house built in 1845 by a sea captain. In the slides that follow, an asterisk will reflect houses that are associated with Medford's historic shipbuilding history. 23 South Street. We can talk about this a little later. The developer who owns this building has a few concerns. Another very early house, the Manning Foster house, the Luther Turner house. Mr. Turner was also, I believe, associated within the shipbuilding industry. A somewhat later house, but also a beautiful one, right on South Street. An 1851 house, again, in that same block of South Street. 54 South Street, now you may be familiar with the 54 South Street in that there was a lot of, a developer bought the entire property and wants to, and probably is, building a second building right next to it. There was a lot of discussion about that. This would put both of those, put the entire lot under Historic District Commission control. 16th South Street, another beautiful building, a little later, 1912. Another pre-Civil War building. It's, you know, it's kind of altered a lot, but it's in the same block, so I think it's important. It is in a historic building and it is in the same block, so I think it's important to include it. The, an 1840 building that, where the, It was built by someone with the last name of James. A person named John Chardy, who was an American poet of the 20th century, also grew up there. Again, as someone associated with the shipbuilding industry, 1822, a quite early building. And 114, of course, grandfather's house. Then on Toro Ave, we have 11 Toro that was built in 1840. It doesn't look like much, but it was built in 1840. Okay, this is the house that there was much It was much to do about 10 years ago. Tufts University owned it for years, as they did the grandfather's house. They wanted to develop the entire lot, and the community rose up against that. And this would protect that lot and this house indefinitely. Let's see, this is the oldest house in the district, on Walnut Street. Mr. Bradbury was also associated with the strip building industry. Another very old house. Oh, 15 Walnut, right. This house is really on Manning Street, but it somehow, for some reason, has the address of, I worried about this for quite a while, while I was preparing for this meeting. 15 Walnut is the actual address of this house. Okay, so taking all that together, we have proposed a historic district that includes all the buildings that I just showed you. It starts at Grandfather's House, runs down South Street, jogs up a little bit on Touro Ave to include 21 Touro, which is the house I was talking about, runs all the way down South Street, And it has this beautiful block right here. This is like one of the gems of Medford is this block right here. And this is the lot that was acquired by the developer that's been in front of the Historical Commission and the Zoning Board for months or possibly even years. All this will be protected. And as I say, 23, a developer has some concerns, but it's a very, very old house. 31 is also an old house. And that is the extent of the proposed historic district. I should mention that in one of the hearings, the owner of this little house right here, six to eight men, expressed concern and said, why is my house going into the historic district? And well, it was for real, sorry, It was for reasons of continuity, but the owner said quite correctly, well, this is just a generic 20th century triple-decker. Why does it have to be in a historic district? And the commission agreed. We modified the maps to exclude this building. Oops, I keep doing that. Uh, and, uh, and so this little, I think we tried to be responsive to, to, uh, to residents concerns. Now, uh, again, uh, this is what South street looked like in 1880. Uh, you can see, as I mentioned, you can see a grandfather's house all the way down and, um, So let's just have a look at what does Mass General Laws 40C require? Well, first of all, the Historic District Commission itself has to initiate the process. We did that in late 2022. We have to submit a preliminary report to the Mass Historical Commission. We did that in July of last year. We have to get approval by the Mass Historical Commission. There was actually a quite lengthy hearing, and they approved it unanimously. Then we held public hearings. Normally there's only one public hearing, but we held two because of certain concerns. And as I say, on the basis of those hearings, we did remove one house. And then consultation with the Community Development Board, that's you. Then we follow up with vote of City Council. It has to be approved by a two-thirds vote of City Council. And finally, the city bylaws would be revised with the approval of the Attorney General. So, what does it mean to be an historic district? Well, first of all, the design, any design, okay, so I should start out by saying that we don't, everything is grandfathered. In your house, we don't require anyone to change anything about any house. We only govern the, the historic district commission only has control over changes. Now as to changes in an existing building or construction of a new building, design is one of the most important considerations. The design of an addition or a change to a house has to be in keeping with the historic nature of the house. In the case of a new building, such as the one being built on 54 South Street, it has to be in keeping with the historic character of the neighborhood. That does not mean that it has to be, if you will, a Victorian design. I think a lot of you seem to be very knowledgeable architecturally. It merely has to be harmonious with the buildings that are already there. My favorite example of this is the public library in Arlington. Where a new. a new wing, basically the size of the old, the entire old building was attached to a Victorian, a modern wing was attached to a Victorian house, to a Victorian building, and I think very successfully. That's the kind of thing we're looking for, for a new, any new construction. It's not necessarily Victorian design, although that would be fine, but simply something that is compatible with the the Victorian nature of the neighborhood. Then we're also, wait a second, come on. We're also looking for materials. Materials have to be in keeping with the existing house, except for practical reasons. For example, it is not really practical, for example, to require window sills to be made out of wood. That means if you do that, you really have to replace them every 10 to 20 years. People don't want to do that. They want to put in a artificial material that looks as much as possible like wood. That's actually fine. Similarly with parts of the building that touch the ground, we do allow artificial materials that resemble the original materials. So there's no absolute prohibition on any material. And we work very hard with residents to make sure their needs are met. Oh, okay, so I should say that's it. Everything else on the website is website only. Everything is considered in account a case-by-case basis. There are no absolute prohibitions of anything. We've never approved the demolition of a house, but there's nothing that would prevent us from doing so. Okay, one more. Okay, how are historic districts administered? Well, with the historic commission, we're all volunteers. The way we control what happens in the district is that if you want to make a change, if you want to get a building permit anywhere in the district, no matter what you want to do, it has to go through us. And we have to issue a certificate of appropriateness for you to even get a building permit. The commission meets once a month and sometimes the residents or developers want a quicker meeting. We do everything possible to accommodate that kind of request. Uh, we've sometimes had somebody say, you know, I can't wait a month. I want, I want this happen next week. We have gone ahead and scheduled a meeting, uh, the following week. Um, as I say, we can't be totally flexible because we're all volunteers, but we do our best. And, uh, we have actually never said no to anyone, not while I've been in the 10 years that I've been chair. Um, We try to work with people and we come up with solutions that work either for the developer or for the homeowner. That's it. Okay, questions, comments?
[Emily Hedeman]: I do have one question to kick us off. I do appreciate you going into detail about the little little tooth cut out on Manning Street, the building that was removed from the district. Yep. Have you done a comprehensive analysis of every building in this district to confirm? Yes.
[Christopher Bader]: OK. Yes, there are. The Massachusetts Historical Commission maintains an inventory of what are called Form Bs. Form B is a building is a It's typically a 10 to 20 page document describing a historic building. There are Form Bs for every building in the proposed historic district. OK. When we started out, there were three buildings that did not have Form Bs. We commissioned them. Those Form Bs are now available. And yes, we have analyses. And we can make every Form B available to the board if you wish.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. And then apologies if you if you covered this and I missed it, but how what's the what was like the the owner notification process that.
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, sure. Well, that's specified in the statute. There needs to be 14 days written notice by US, you know, US mail. And so we set out We had two hearings, both of them had a 14 day notice.
[Emily Hedeman]: And, you know, what was attendance like for those hearings?
[Christopher Bader]: We had probably, probably 20 at each 20 people at each hearing. So including so a significant portion of the residents, and and a certain number of butters or just concerned residents of Medford. And I should say that approval was really overwhelmingly positive. Most people thought this was fine. Um, a few people have expressed concerns. Uh, I talked about six to eight Manning. That's the one we carved out and the developer of 23, um, also expressed concerns, uh, because you know, he's a developer. He wants to be able to do what he wants. Uh, and I, and I said, look, we, we've worked with developers. I've been on this commission for 20 years. We work with developers. We, we, we find solutions. We're not, you know, it's, it's. It's literally true that we've never said no to anyone, but the fact that we could say no kind of motivates them to work with us. And we found solutions for every developer, particularly a good example of a solution where we spent months, literally months, probably five, four or five meetings working with a single developer on a single building with seven hillside. It's the building behind the library. He wanted the developer who took a gigantic Victorian house and wanted to make it even bigger and convert it into condominiums. And, you know, it was a very successful project. And I think a good example of how we can work with developers if they're motivated to work with us.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. I'd like to open this up to any comments from the board.
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: I have a question if I may. Sure, Ali. So Mr. Bader, how does this overlay with the zoning and the area because you're providing a lot of flexibility. Yes. And thus we're losing somehow the benefits of having a historic district with all this flexibility.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, we don't, we, the developer has to, we have no, the Our controls are, first of all, our controls are totally laid on top of the controls of the zoning board. And anything that requires zoning, we don't have the power to grant a zoning variance. You have to go to the zoning board for that. If you want to do something that either the zoning board approves or is already allowed by the existing zoning, then you come to us and we decide whether the design of materials are appropriate. Does that answer your question?
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, partially, because the zoning, I believe, in this area, for instance, doesn't really allow for, let's say, three-story building. I don't believe so. Alicia and Daniel, please correct me if I'm wrong. So I'm trying to understand, then, what is the added value of this?
[Christopher Bader]: Oh, the added value is that the historic character of the neighborhood is preserved. Um, you know, you don't have to do that. You can build, you know, a totally modern ugly brick apartment building on any, on, on most of these lots. And there would be enough if they were, if the zoning board approved it, or if it was already conforming to existing zoning, they'd go ahead and demolish the building and build and build something hideous. Uh, residents don't want that. that is most residents of the district and actually of others and residents of Medford generally.
[Emily Hedeman]: Just to clarify, you know, it might be hideous or, you know, abhorrent from a design perspective, but I think maybe the thing to focus on is that by adopting this historic district, it would preserve the neighborhood. the specific elements of the neighborhood that have been identified. Yes. You know, preserving neighborhood character can sometimes get into touchy territory. Yes. You know, in terms of, you know, equity. So I think that's definitely something for us to be mindful of. That being said, this is largely already a residential neighborhood. So, you know, I'm okay with that. But, you know, I recognize that Alicia had her hand raised. I'm assuming it's It's related to Sally's comments. I wanna pass it over to you.
[Alicia Hunt]: Thank you, Madam Chair. I mostly wanted to provide like a technical clarification on it. Zoning tends to talk about the dimensions, right? The setbacks, the heights, the widths, and the historic district talks about the materials of the building, the colors and the materials of it, and that the zoning would never talk about what is your building made out of? What are the materials it's using? That is something you do in site plan review, but not in zoning, especially not in a residential district where we're allowing single family homes. We would never be talking about, the zoning board would never speak to what does the building really look like that's actually not truly in their purview. unless they're going from that. Some of the requests that comes in is two and a half stories versus three stories. And that affects the look of things. And that, I could imagine, might kind of be the one place where it crosses a little with the historical.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes. Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say, is that massing can become a design issue, can become a design question, and is therefore under our jurisdiction. If the massing is inappropriate for the neighborhood, That's a concern for us.
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: Just in order to close basically what I've just started basically. I am with having this as a historic district. I live at South Street and this is what I enjoy about South Street. On the contrary, I'm concerned with this flexibility. that we are having, like is it too flexible? So maybe based on your experience, Mr. Bedder, you can just give me an example where we were not too flexible or we were able to achieve what is best for the neighborhood. Like for instance, one of the buildings right across my street, they've already added a floor. Let me pull up from your slide basically the name of the building.
[Christopher Bader]: Sure. What's the address?
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: It's 31 South Street. They've already started construction and they've added a floor. Yeah. Sorry.
[Christopher Bader]: 31 South Street. 31, yeah.
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: So for instance, in this case, how we could have made things different in order to preserve the aspect, even though they did a nice job, honestly, but.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, well, we would have to, we typically have an architect on the commission, and he or she will typically evaluate better than a layman can, what the massing, how the massing will affect the general look of the neighborhood. If the massing is appropriate for the historic area, that is, basically in layman's terms, and I'm a layman, if it were something that could have been built at the period that the original house was built. So would, could this house have been built with three stories? Probably not, but would, is it really going to alter the look of the neighborhood? You know, that would be a judgment call. I wouldn't be concerned about the, you know, we try to, we want to preserve the nature of the house and the nature of the neighborhood. That doesn't mean that we are against development because the last people who would be opposed to development are the Victorians themselves, right? And we want to recognize that and to have a... We're not creating a museum. We are preserving the historic nature of the neighborhood and we're allowing it to grow organically. I think that's the best way to put it.
[Emily Hedeman]: Chairperson Bader, would it be fair to say that the flexibility you're alluding to does not extend beyond what zoning allows? It just means that you're not going to unnecessarily withhold permission to do work?
[Christopher Bader]: Well, we have only two criteria. We have design and materials. If the design and materials are correct, It's okay with us. Anything else? If you want a zoning variation, you go to the zoning board. Yes. Does that answer your question?
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: The answer is mine. Thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Awesome. Peter, I see that you have your hand up.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, thank you. I just wanted to voice my appreciation at the I guess, to use a word from the Historical District Commission's own processes, the appropriateness of this district. I, like Emily alluded to, run in a lot of the times, have concerns about preserving neighborhood characters, just running into running into equity issues and housing supply issues, but this looks like it was done very, very conscientiously, and I appreciate that. Well, thank you.
[Emily Hedeman]: Sharad, I see your hand going up and down, so I want to make sure to give you some space to contribute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a question.
[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: My question is, Bill, why do we need another historic district to begin with, and why can't we just go property by property, like one by one houses only. I think it's a big chunk of the neighborhood that's taking up the historic commission, and there are a couple of exclusions there. So if you want to make a historic district, have no exclusion of the entire neighborhood. Or if you're going to have exclusions, just focus on the few houses which we do have information of the historic nature, like going through all of the slides, you had a few information of the a grandfather house, a sea captain's house, and a few. And a few didn't have a lot of historic information. So why are we even considering them to be part of the historic commission? So my thinking is we can choose one by one houses and not have an entire district.
[Christopher Bader]: The Massachusetts Historic Commission strongly frowns on that.
[Emily Hedeman]: Can you give us some of our background into why?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, they want to preserve neighborhoods, not single buildings. So the only way they would approve a single building is if there is a single, there's sort of an island of history that is in the middle of a bunch of houses that are totally unrelated. So for example, if everything on South Street except grandfather's house And say 21 Turrell, which is another beautiful historic house. If all those buildings had been demolished and replaced with, you know, 50s ranch houses, We would certainly go after 21 Toro and Grandfather's House as single house historic districts. And the Mass Historical Commission permits that. But in the case of where there is actually a historic neighborhood in place, they want the historic district to actually be as inclusive as possible.
[Emily Hedeman]: I also have a point of inquiry, maybe. I guess it is. Sure, I think you brought up a good point, which Trevors and Bader may be able to clarify. So you have this collection of slides, most of which have an address, sometimes there's a name for the house and a year and a photo. If there's not historical information featured on the slide, does that mean that there's no historical information available for that property? You had mentioned.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, there are four Bs for all 17 properties. There are 17 properties in this district, proposed district, and they all have four Bs. A four B is a document of 10 to 20 pages listing all the owners of the house and little bits of biographical information about each owner. It also discusses the architectural design of the original house, then the history of the architectural changes as far as we know, and a general recommendation of whether this house preserves its historic nature or not.
[Emily Hedeman]: So it might be fair to say that the The information presented on the slides is just a brief excerpt. Oh, god, yes. Significant.
[Christopher Bader]: This is one picture and one name and one address.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK.
[Christopher Bader]: There's, as I say, 10 to 20 pages available about each house. A lot of them are available on a database that's run through the Mass Historical Commission. And for any that are not there, I'm happy to send them to you.
[Emily Hedeman]: OK. Danielle, I see your hand is raised.
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, and there was the 32-page report that outlines these as well. Macris.net, you can always look up your house. My last house had a Form B on it. It was really interesting to learn about. It wasn't in a local school district, but it had a Form B, which I thought was nice. What's it called? Macris, M-A-C-R-I-S.net?
[Christopher Bader]: Yes.
[Danielle Evans]: Nice. And the entire city is not inventoried. So I noticed that Ryan Hayward from the Medford Historical Commission is also on the call. Their commission is methodically going through and trying to get the entire city inventoried. But there's funding necessary for that, because you hire someone to do it.
[Christopher Bader]: Yes, and we that is the Historic District Commission are the beneficiaries of that. Most of these buildings already had Form Bs. We only had to commission three out of the 17 buildings. So we're grateful to the Mass Historical Commission for commissioning those Form Bs.
[Emily Hedeman]: Great. Alicia, I just got the right URL. I can drop that in the chat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[Emily Hedeman]: The mhc.neededtogo before it.
[Danielle Evans]: The joys of Google. OK, cool. I always Google it, I feel like. Or I have a Google Arts. I love it. Oh, and through the chair, I originally had my hand up because I wanted to speak to the zoning. OK. general residential and apartment one, which actually does allow for a great deal of density. So there's nothing that would preclude to have some density condos, apartments within a form of a building that could look more in keeping with the times. It would be how does it present where door placements are and things like that. So it can be done sensitively. And it wouldn't be in conflict with our goals for housing production.
[Christopher Bader]: Exactly.
[Danielle Evans]: That's a helpful clarification. Thank you, Danielle.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, yeah. As I say, you know, we have most of the meetings that we we have as a at the commission are people who want to build additions to their houses and be able to house more people. And I understand that, you know, that is one of the goals of one of your this board. And there's absolutely nothing that well, not absolutely nothing it has to be done and compete in in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and the buildings. But really, there's absolutely nothing stopping people from building additions to their houses that could even be bigger than the house itself.
[Emily Hedeman]: As long as it is in coordination with zoning as well.
[Christopher Bader]: In coordination with zoning. And I should point out, by the way, that the most most famous house in this, uh, what'd I do with it? Uh, the most famous house in this district, uh, grandfather's house is actually a good example of this. The original house is this thing right here, uh, in the back. This, this thing here is actually an addition that dwarfs the original house. Um, And no, I mean, the Victorians would do that. And that is exactly the kind of thing we would allow if it's historically, if it's appropriate with design and materials.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like I need to take a long walk along South Street.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, the house in the back is probably the one that's referred to in the poll.
[Emily Hedeman]: That's very cool. I want to make sure that we're capturing all board comments. Give another opportunity for hands. Otherwise, I am looking for a motion to recommend or not recommend approval.
[Alicia Hunt]: You should probably, pardon, you should probably open for public comment.
[Emily Hedeman]: Oh, okay. I did not see. But it would be appropriate. Okay, I do not see that in my chair notes, but that is a good correction. At this time, I'd like to open to public comment. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. As a reminder to all meeting participants, please refrain from using the chat function to provide comments if that is unfortunately not part of the public record. However, if you're having audio or other technical issues, you can enter that into the chat to just give me and staff a heads up. And we'll go from there. Danielle, have you received any previously sent emails or letters?
[Danielle Evans]: Um, no, I have not. And it's not a public hearing, so it's not, you're not compelled to open public comment, but of course you can receive public comment. The public hearings are held, but I have not received anything except from the, except from member Hayward of the Medicare Soul Commission who supports this.
[Emily Hedeman]: I do not see any hands raised. So at this point, I'm going to close the public comment. Offer it up one more time to the board for any comments or feedback or questions. If none, I'm going to look for a motion to recommend approval or to not recommend approval.
[XKbpn7WuHTw_SPEAKER_02]: I set a motion for approval.
[Emily Hedeman]: Do I see a second? I, Peter, second. Awesome. Thanks, Peter. And because this is a remote meeting, I'm going to do roll call vote. Jackie McPherson. Peter Calves. Yes. Ari Fishman. Yes. Pam Mariansky. Sally Akiki. Yes. Sharad Bhadracharya.
[SPEAKER_00]: I abstain, please.
[Emily Hedeman]: And myself, Emily Hedeman, is a yes.
[Danielle Evans]: Can someone remind me who seconded the motion? Peter did. OK. Sorry, I don't have Clem here to take notes.
[Emily Hedeman]: That was good to ask questions. Well, Chairperson Bader, thank you so much for coming and presenting about the historic district. So the motion passes?
[Peter Calves]: Is that right?
[Emily Hedeman]: The motion passes, yes. Best of luck as you move this forward, the work that you and the commission do.
[Christopher Bader]: Thank you. And thank you for listening, and thank you for giving us our approval, and we will move forward. And we will have a meeting with the city council as soon as possible. And I encourage everyone to attend. And if you wish to send your comments to members of the city council, you should, of course, do that too. All right.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Chairperson Bader. Have a nice evening.
[Christopher Bader]: Bye-bye.
[SPEAKER_03]: You too.
[Emily Hedeman]: So with that, our next item is approval of minutes. I don't believe I saw any in the meeting folder.
[Danielle Evans]: I'm sorry. I did not receive any minutes. Um And I. Wasn't able to prepare them in Clem's absence. Okay.
[Emily Hedeman]: Okay Um, I'm going to propose that we postpone the zoning overhaul updates to the next meeting, primarily because we're missing a significant number of board Um, so with that, looking for, oh, actually, um, yeah. Danielle or Alicia, do you have anything else that we should cover in this meeting? Any other updates? No. Okay. Uh, with that, I'm looking for a motion to adjourn.
[Peter Calves]: So moved.
[Emily Hedeman]: Thank you, Peter. Can I have a second, please? I second, Sally. Thank you, Sally. I'm going to do a roll call vote. Jackie McPherson. Peter Cowles.
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Ari Fishman. Yes. Pam Mariansky. Sally Akiki. Yes. Sharad Bhattacharya.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[Emily Hedeman]: Myself, Emily Hedeman as a yes. Have a wonderful Wednesday evening. Thank you all so much for your participation and your patience with me chairing in our wonderful chair's absence. She will be back next time for regularly scheduled programming. Thank you all so much.