total time: 15.38 minutes
total words: 1270
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll 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 for in Chapter 2 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's website. If, despite our best efforts, we are not able to provide real-time access, we will post a recording of this meeting on the City's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of this meeting, tonight all votes from the Board will be made by roll call. Please also know that the project materials for all projects before the board can be viewed on the city's website at mefferdma.org, and you can click under current seating board filings. Danielle will provide a link in the chat. I'm going to do a roll call vote for the board. Let's see, Vice Chair Emily Hedeman is not in attendance. Peter Kautz?
[Peter Calves]: Present.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Present. Anne Marianski. Present. Sherrod Baracharia. Present. And myself, Jackie McPherson. Danielle, can you introduce any staff on the call?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, we have myself, Danielle, Senior Planner, and Alicia Hunt, the Director of Planning Development and Sustainability.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. The first item on the list for the agenda today is special permit for drive-thru use, 3850 Mississippi Valley Parkway, which is Bank of America. It's being continued from 9-6-23, and the applicant is actually requesting a continuance to the next CDB board meeting on October 4th in order to give them more time to work out approvals with the other tenants and shop improviser. If I can please have a motion to continue Bank of America's item to October 4th. A second motion. Second. I will do a roll call vote. Peter Cowles?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Yes. Pam Mariansky? Yes. Shirad Bharacharya? Yes. Myself, Jackie Gray-Pherson, I'm a yes. Our next item on the agenda for tonight is the planned development district for 243 Mystic Avenue, Vernon Bile. I will read the public hearing notice. The Medford Community Development Board shall conduct a public hearing on actually from I apologize, I said it wrong. We will conduct a public hearing on September 20th, 2023, after 6.30 via Zoom remote video conferencing, relative to a petition by 243 Mystic Ave LLC at 45 West 3rd Street, Boston, Mass, 021127, to amend zoning map, City of Medford, Mass, dated April 13, 1965, as referenced in Medford zoning ordinance. Chapter 94-2.2. The amendment proposes to change the zoning district designation of the property 243 Mystic Avenue as depicted on the plan entitled Site Layout Plan dated June 15, 2023 to Commercial 2, which is a C2 zoning district to a planned development district, which is a PDD, which would have a new development standards per Medford zoning ordinance Chapter 94-9.2.3. Attorney Gareth Bozeman, of Pierce Atwood has been retained by the city of Medford and is available as support and counsel for the board. He will assist the board in answering any questions or make a revision to the amendment. Board members should feel free to ask questions. First up, are there any comments from the city staff to add? Danielle?
[Danielle Evans]: Thank you. I just want to remind the board what stage of process we're in as we've seen a few PDDs churning through the process. So there's the three phases. The first one you already saw for this, where you wrote the zoning, prepared the draft, and then it was submitted to city council. So that was at the first, the first meeting was on August 2nd, and then submitted to city council on August 15th, where they immediately refer it to the city board, which is tonight. where you will then, um, the purpose tonight is to discuss the amendment and, um, you could vote on it tonight or you could continue it. And basically you're voting on what kind of language you'll be recommending that city council, um, approve at their, at another public hearing.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. Thank you so much, Danielle. I'm actually going to have the representative from Greater Bayou introduce yourself. And please, you can begin to present.
[Jim Heffernan]: Hi, Madam Chair. Yeah, happy to start. We'll introduce ourselves around the table. I'm Attorney Jim Heffernan and Rich May, representing Greater Bayou.
[Peter Calves]: I'm Matthew Juras, Principal at CI Design Architects in Boston.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Kadisha Hindi, co-principal at Vernon Bio.
[Jim Heffernan]: Doug Medveds, co-principal at Vernon Bio as well. I'll just add, Danielle Stoll, what I was mostly going to say about the process where we're at. There's been no changes to what we presented to you back on August 2nd, and the city council didn't add anything else from their discussion. And we have no additional changes from what Attorney Horsman and I had worked out in July. So I'm not gonna re-repeat, but if you want us to repeat anything, we're happy to, and we're happy to discuss the draft zoning however you and the board would like to discuss it. So thank you for hearing us today.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Are there any members of the board that were not participating previously that would have questions for the proponent? Because at this point, if you were absent on the first hearing, you are now able to participate.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, I was not present on August 2nd, but I actually, my first meeting was one of the earlier meetings you guys had before the PDD process, but I wanted to, if I could get a recap as I leave into what the zoning changes exactly, because I mean, I can, I've been reading through the materials
[Danielle Evans]: Madam Chair, if I may. Yes, please. I would like to pose the question to Attorney Boersman. Since this is a new public hearing that kicks off the actual zoning amendment process, we probably should have a presentation. It doesn't have to go into all the details, but it should cover basically the basics of what is in this proposed amendment.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree. I mean, you know, you're most, most of you are familiar with this from our last meeting and session on it, but, um, this is its own separate public hearing and, uh, could be helpful to, uh, do a very brief presentation. I don't think it necessarily has to show the project plans, but if anybody wants to see those, we can certainly talk about, or talk about the project itself. Um, just a reminder, there really, really two things going on here. The rezoning, I should say, stands on its own, and it's its own process. And the project that's contemplated by this rezoning will go through its own permitting process that will include site plan review and a special permit. And we don't, at this stage, want to get into anything specific about the project itself, but the rezoning does contemplate this particular type of project here. So it's not like the two are totally separate. So I guess, did you want me to, did you want the applicants to do a presentation, Madam Chair, or how would you like to proceed?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you for asking, Attorney Gordon. At this time, I think if you can give us a high-level overview of what the actual amendments are, since there's no changes from, but at the same time, because one of our board members was not present, I'm guessing he may want to see a little bit more of the proposal that's so that he can, at that point, know. Peter, if I'm not correct, if I'm correct, are you looking for the proponent to do an actual overview? Or do you just want to do a high level?
[Peter Calves]: I was more interested in the zoning changes. I was present for one of the proponents' previous presentations before the board of the project, so I'm familiar with the project. I just was looking for more of the specific what we'll be discussing this evening. I'm aware of the project. Actually, my first meeting was the first or second time you guys came in.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Then in that case, Attorney Wiseman, because it's being immediately referred back from the city council and to me, um, standing alone and saying this, I think it's just more of an administrative process of it coming back to the board to be represented. If you could just give us the high level, um, details, I think that would suffice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right. Right. So, so we're creating an overlay zone, um, called the, uh, PDD to be, I think, um, PD to Mystic Avenue Plan Development District. The underlying zoning does not go away. So somebody could still come in and make those uses in the underlying zoning. But the idea is if somebody pursues this overlay zone PDD district and applies for and receives a special permit, then they've opted into the overlay zone and they can no longer do the underlying zone. So you choose one or the other. But you do have the front option of choosing one or the other. We're presuming the applicant here is going to choose to go ahead with the special permit process and exercise the PDD 2 zone. So what that would do is primarily make what is make the life sciences and research use that is contemplated by this particular project essentially by right in that they don't need to go for a special permit before the Board of Appeals or the CDB or anyone else. But the applicant does still need to go and get a special permit for the PDD district from the city council. You still have that level of review and discretion. And one of the things that the zoning does is ensure that either before or concurrent with the city council's special permit, which would ultimately approve both the project and the PD2 district, the project does go through site plan review with the community development board. So you'll see the specifics of the project at that stage again. So through the PDD2 district, we've created this by right use. And if it's exercised, eliminated a lot of other uses like automobile repair that we're not so interested in being made of this property, specifically at the kind of density that's allowed by the PDD2 rezoning district. We're creating new dimensional requirements or allowances that will allow A life sciences building to be built out, um, at a greater density than the underlying zoning allows for any development. Um, we're reducing the parking requirements to encourage a more transit oriented development and allow for that, uh, greater density. Um, we have a few provisions that we. have put in place to increase flexibility to make this process smoother. Um, then you sometimes see in a special permit process, uh, there's, there's an option for the applicant to work with the city, city staff, um, to create a so-called cooperation agreement that would deal with mitigation, um, any, you know, potentially construction sequences, sequencing, any types of, uh, issues that give rise to impacts that the city would want to be dealt with. If the applicant turns, you know, just chooses to go forward with the cooperation agreement, we would try to hammer that all out in advance through talks and negotiations and meetings, and then present it to the city council as part of the special permit process for the city council to adopt or not adopt. If the city council prefers to go through Uh, sometimes the more arduous task of, of devising its own special permit conditions on the spot, it can still do that. But the idea behind the, uh, cooperation agreement is, is to try and work out as much of this we can, as we can in advance. Um, we've created flexibility so that, uh, the, um, the developer can come to agreement with the, with the planning division on, uh, in-kind linkage as opposed to just paying a fee for linkage as is ordinarily required. If there are specific actual things a developer can do or build that would be better suited for mitigation than your typical linkage fee, we have the option of doing that. Again, it's an option, it's not mandatory. If people choose to go with the ordinary linkage approach that applies And there are also requirements in terms of the process here. The applicant has already proposed and demonstrated a preliminary plan showing the project. That plan hasn't been acted on in any way. It's really more informational and serves as a basis for this zoning, rezoning bylaw. Uh, when it goes for that special permit before this, the, uh, city council, it will have to, um, produce its final app, its final plans. And, uh, there are limited instances and limited ways in which the final project can be different from the, uh, preliminary plans. But the overall idea is that, you know, if there are any changes, they have to be adequately mitigated and they have to be relatively minor. so that we already know what we're kind of anticipating in terms of an actual project proposal at this special permit stage. Let's see if I have anything else we should cover. Oh, and then finally, you know, we created a provision at the end. The idea is if the applicant goes forward with the, the PDD district, then the specific terms and anything specifically spelled out in the PDD rezoning needs to be complied with. There sometimes are in any rezoning, as I'm sure you experienced, unanticipated consequences when you're not aware of a provision. that that might affect what you just amended. Uh, so we created a provision at the end of the PDD rezoning so that the city council and its special permit proceeding can waive other requirements of the zoning ordinance. Um, so long as it's not directly contrary to the PDG PDD, uh, zoning, zoning ordinance. But, uh, I don't anticipate that happening. It's just nice to have it. Because if we find anything during the application process needs to be dealt with, we really don't want to be going back to square one and revising the rezoning ordinance and doing it all over again. That would require going through the prior meeting, the city council meeting, this meeting, and redoing everything. So we sought to avoid that. uh, by allowing for some flexibility for waivers from the ordinance. But again, anything that's specifically spelled out in the rezoning ordinance that we're contemplating today must be complied with. Is that clear enough? Yes. Thank you. You're welcome.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you, attorney.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Are there any other questions from board members? So yes, I do have one for, um, attorney Rosemond and that's just, it sounds like at this point, um, unless I'm missing something, it's already gone through an inner, an inner process back, um, with yourself and, um, attorney Heffernan, um, with comments from city staff. So I, I don't have any other questions. I want to know if there was any concerns from the city or from yourself at this, at this juncture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have any concerns. I think, uh, you know, the city is still protective, protected. Um, you know, there's still discretion in the special permit process. There are, you know, there are requirements that the developer needs to meet, but we've also sought, I think appropriately for a development of this complexity. to create a process where we can work out any things, you know, that, that comes up with, with the, um, developer, hopefully cooperatively and address what's going to be the big concern here will be, you know, what impacts this project has and how we can mitigate them. Uh, so I think we, we both protected the city and created flexibility. That's helpful to the developer. I don't have concerns with the process. And I think we're at our third meeting on this and nobody's. raised any issues or concerns. So it was pretty well vetted before it came before you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. I appreciate your full detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: If there's no other questions from the board, I will open up for public comment period. Those who wish to provide comments can use the raise hand feature or message Danielle in the comments. You can also send an email to OCD at medford-ma.gov. Before providing your comments, please state your name and address for the record. Danielle, can you please manage the public comment queue and read any previously sent emails or letters?
[Danielle Evans]: I don't see any raised hands. There were no emails up until the start of this meeting, but I can check. Are you able to log into that? I didn't get that added to my Outlook yet.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes, I'm checking it. Sorry, we use this email box for anybody who wants to reach the office for other things. So I am just making sure that none of these unread emails are in any way relevant. No, okay. And there's nothing today. So I'm through all of today's email and there's nothing relevant for this project.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Thank you. Then I will close the public comment period and bring it back to the board. Do you have any, does anyone have any final concerns or questions to be clarified?
[Peter Calves]: Not at this time. I'm forward to seeing the team for their, for their special permit and they hash out this project and get it moving.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Awesome. Then at this point, I will look for a motion to recommend the PDE for 282.43 for the planned development district for the zoning amendment to the city council for recommendation of adoption for review and possible adoption. I so move.
[Peter Calves]: I second it.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I will do a roll call. Peter Kautz?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Yes. Pam Mariansky? Yes. Sharad Baracharia?
[Ari Fishman]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson, I'm a yes. Thank you so much to all that are representing the Vernon Bio from CI Boston Design, Tony Heffernan, and everyone else that has come tonight. We look forward to seeing you in the future.
[Jim Heffernan]: Thanks, madam chair. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And thank you, attorney with me. Thank you. Have a great evening.
[SPEAKER_00]: You too. Good night.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Good night. Okay. The next item on our agenda tonight is approval of minutes. Before we move to approve the minutes, I do have one quick thing and that's just the consistency of, um, I guess my title within some places it says chair, some places it says vice chair. But other than that, I don't see a problem with them. And these are the minutes from August 2nd, 2023.
[Alicia Hunt]: So while Danielle's reading them, it's technically possible to make the motion to edit it. So anywhere it says vice chair, that we correct it to say chair, and then somebody else can make the motion to approve the minutes as amended. And that you're just trusting that those typo type errors will just take care of them.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, sorry. And that's, and that's literally what I was, um, I didn't know if anyone else had any changes or anything like that, but if, if no further changes or concerns, uh, I will. A motion to approve the minutes from August 2nd, 2023. So moved. And a second. Second. Roll call. Peter Cowles? Yes. Ari Fishman? Yes. Pam Marianski? Yes. Sharad Bharacharya?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Myself, Jackie McPherson. Yes. Our next item would be, sorry, it's just miscellaneous items if the city has anything. or any other updates or anything for us at this point? There was one that I wanted to just call myself, if you don't mind. And that's just recognizing the Roberts Rules of Order. And that's that all of us have anyone can put have the ability to discuss within a meeting, obviously, and present a motion, but they must be recognized through the chair. So going forward, I just want to make sure that as we proceed with these meetings, that any discussions or motions put on a table are actually through the chair. And I'm just stating that for public record. And if there's anything else from the city or Our next meeting is October 4th. That's correct, Daniel?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes, that is the next meeting. I don't know if we should bring up that it's the same night as the mayoral debate. It was brought up to our attention. Oh. I don't know. I'm fairly certain that that debate will be recorded, and there won't be live participation, like asking questions from the audience. We did get a request to see if possibly some agenda items could be continued to another meeting, but I don't know.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I don't know if the board can vote on that, but I am highly interested in that debate. That night, and I know that it's recorded, but I've been anticipating it for a while. So I don't know. I don't know that others would participate that night if we would have full participation of items.
[Ari Fishman]: If so, I would like to go to the debate. So I would not, you know, I wasn't the person who asked it to be moved. But if it is compatible with other people's schedules to find another time, I would also be very interested to see how it goes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely be available for me and don't get me wrong. It's just I was going back to if Whoever's presenting materials for the meeting that night, if they're interested in continuing, I'd be OK with that.
[Danielle Evans]: Or we normally start at 6.30. I think the debate starts at 7. I don't know if there'd be any appetite to start at 6 to do both. I think anything that's public hearing, we couldn't take before 6.30, but if it was just a public meeting, we could take it earlier. I think we have 590 Boston Ave is proposed to be on the agenda that night, but it's not a public hearing. It's just a meeting where the city board is advisory. making a recommendation to the zoning board, as this is amending a previous site plan review variances. And I think there might be a special permit in there. So that could conceivably be taken up at 6. But I just wanted to put it out there that we had gotten someone from the public. So.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, because I wanted to be there. Yeah. And then I think about it, I don't, I personally, and this is for the board's review, wouldn't want to see all of those items pushed on to the next meeting, and then we're there all night either. So, I don't know, whatever you decide, whatever is decided, if you can let us know, I guess.
[Alicia Hunt]: Are there some things that have to, like you just continued the Bank of America. Sorry, I wasn't focused on that. Did that get continued to that meeting?
[Danielle Evans]: October 4th. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So I do have a question on that since we have a full quorum and that's not so much discussing the item itself, but I'm just, I'm curious as to how the city's rectifying their situation with, um, or if the city is even involved with the tenant versus landlord parking issue. I don't know. Is that going to continuously be a thing or are you asking for some proof to move forward?
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm just curious. The reason it was continued was because they knew not to come back in front of you without a level of agreement between the tenant and the landlord. So they have provided us with some documentation about, so their full leases, I would frame it this way, they do not fill our public documents, but they provided us with excerpts from the lease and a letter from one of their tenants expressing concerns and exercising their rights in the lease. To require a certain amount of parking, therefore, they're not coming back in front of you until they have a site plan that. The landlord has signed off on basically, so they provided us with a draft site plan. I think it was that sent to the board Danielle this week. The 1 that they sent.
[Danielle Evans]: I put it in the packet.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay, so it was there, but the landlord is not agreed to it. Therefore, they, they chose to they said we don't we don't have agreement. So we're asking for continuance. And so we have been going back and forth with them with the goal of not having it come in front of this board until the. applicant and the landlord agree. If in the end, what they agree with is what we don't recommend as staff, then that's in front of you. We don't tell you what to decide or not decide, but they're trying to come to meet what we want.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: At this point, they're not agreeing, but there's a possibility that they can agree on something that's still not in compliance with city zone for the parking lot.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, nothing would be in compliance with zoning, right? Just because of it's the nature of it. Yeah. But they need site plan review regard. Oh, this isn't a zoning matter. This is a site plan review matter. No, I mean, yeah. They might not meet our performance standards.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's what I meant. Not so much zoning, but for the parking lot itself and how many parking spaces are supposed to be there and so forth, is what I meant.
[Alicia Hunt]: They have more parking than is required by our zoning? But they are saying that their tenants have veto power over the use of parking. And so for them to turn parking into green space, their tenants have a say in that. And so until they have agreement from their tenants, the landlord will not approve it. So it's possible that they'll come back with something that we all love, and that would be lovely. And it's possible that they will come back with something that we don't love, but it is what they like their best offer. And then that will come in front of this board to make a decision on. But what we don't want to do is have them show you things and then happen what happened last meeting.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, but they haven't agreed on it themselves. So they show us something and they can't even do that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, right. Yeah. So there's, I mean, we're hopeful that they'll have a decision. They're hopeful that they'll have something for the next meeting, because they would like to move forward with this project. But How do we know? And I've met with them a little bit. We've exchanged a number of emails. We've offered to meet with, well, actually, we discussed tonight offering to meet with one of their tenants. So we've been working it behind the scenes. Thank you. Yeah, I feel like there's other administrative stuff that you would like to know. We had so many things at city council last night, the city passed the extended stretch code. So, like, there's the stretch code and then there's the additional, like, the more strict 1. So last night Medford became the 20th city to pass it in the Commonwealth, the 20th community. Medford in passing an ordinance has to vote, publish it in the paper and vote again. So it passed its first reading last night, but it's unusual for Medford to pass it once and then not vote for it and then deny it the second time. That would be very weird. We also approved a DIF, a District Incremental Financing for Medford Square, also passed its first reading last night. So that plan is available, that is to help with the development of Medford Square. I was on the City Council for five items, just trying to think if anything else was relevant to this board. They'll have? We'll bring them. We'll see. It's a property that may come in front of this board for an A&R or subdivision. We need to meet with legal first.
[Peter Calves]: I wasn't able to go to the MBTA community's public meeting. How did that go?
[Alicia Hunt]: So we basically took feedback on that. We're looking at a bunch of different things. I feel like we could send you the slides.
[Peter Calves]: I assume, are they on a municipal website somewhere, and I could look them up?
[Alicia Hunt]: Not yet.
[Peter Calves]: OK, gotcha.
[Alicia Hunt]: Good point. We do have a web page, right, Danielle? Yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: I'll message Emma to see if she can get them on.
[Alicia Hunt]: She's usually quite quick if we send her stuff.
[Danielle Evans]: It should be on, we recorded it.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't know. Medford TV is understaffed. They lost their key staff people, so they're a little behind. It's easy enough for us to send the Zoom link and password if you wanted.
[Peter Calves]: If you could just post the slides somewhere.
[Alicia Hunt]: In a big picture way, we're looking at the area around Wellington Station. The state changed some of the guidelines very recently, like three weeks ago. And so we're kind of scrambling. But Mass Housing Partnership agreed this week that we need more technical assistance. And so Danielle and I are meeting with a likely consultant tomorrow to just review the scope and make sure she can do it. Our goal is to get draft zoning to the City Council by October 3rd or 4th, whatever day is the Tuesday, which, as you can imagine, feels a little insane.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, that's pretty tight.
[Alicia Hunt]: But that would allow this board to have a public hearing on it. Mid-October and then the city council to hear it in November with a goal of saying to this board, you could have two or three meetings on it. You can continue it. That's fine. You're not under the gun. And then the goal would be to say to the city council, you could have multiple meetings. You don't have to vote in like we hate saying to somebody, you have to vote for it tonight or else we're going to get in trouble. Right. That's what we're trying to avoid. The end result is we're probably I don't. We'll see what the consultant thinks we can do tomorrow. This state would like it to all be passed by December 31st. By advertising the public hearings, it'll give us a lot more flexibility, because if it's not ready in time, then we just continue the public hearing. We have to literally advertise, send something to the newspaper tomorrow in order to have a legal public hearing on October 18th, because the lead times with the newspaper and the frequency that it prints. So it makes things a little I want to say stressful, but we're trying to guess when we could have it ready rather than push it out further. Are you aware that the state has a deadline that they want rapid transit communities like Medford to have this by December 31st?
[Danielle Evans]: But then they just updated the guidelines pretty significantly at the end of August.
[Peter Calves]: Yeah, they changed everything over halfway through the year. And it's like, oh, now you have five months to do everything.
[Danielle Evans]: And it's funny because part of the language in the updated guidance requires a 90-day application in advance to try to incorporate this new mixed-use provision. And there literally isn't 90 days from when they passed. They don't even have an application yet. So it's like, we could never. conceivably meet this new 90-day deadline. No rapid transit community can because it's long after when it was due. So for the 12 communities that are the rapid transit communities, it's been very challenging because we have the most complicated issues, we're denser, more It's a mostly redevelopment. Most of us are coastal. We'll have some flooding issues to contend with. And it's just, it's interesting.
[Alicia Hunt]: So we are meeting tomorrow. Danielle and I are meeting with the state. And we are meeting with a consultant to determine if they're going to be able to help us out in a short time frame. One of the things that I'm going to ask the consultant for is, Danielle, I can never think of the word that I want that's like the visuals that show you the massing study. Massing study? That's the word. A massing study, right? So it shows you like boxes. in your street layout so you have an idea of kind of how dense that would be. So we would really like to have a consultant. We had a consultant that helped run numbers, did data crunching with us, but that's not really his area. So now we're going to talk to another consultant to see if they can help with that and to refine the numbers and to help draft the zoning.
[Peter Calves]: Great. Yeah. I appreciate the update. I just thought about that.
[Alicia Hunt]: By the next meeting, it may be all written. But it'll come to you for a public hearing. So you guys definitely get a say in what it actually says.
[Danielle Evans]: So it could be coming as early as October 18th.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm just smiling, because when it comes to MBTA communities, and I'm sure this is not a conflict, but I always literally I have Chris Clutchman at my disposal, like, can you can you explain this to me? And so now that it's met for it, it's like, I don't have that to explain it to me, because I can't reach out for it.
[Alicia Hunt]: It's, it's, it's interesting, you know, that Danielle used to work for Chris Clutchman.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: she's my old boss. She just got she's like moving on up over and what is the executive office of communities and livable cities? H? The old DHT? Yeah. Yeah, she's now she took over for her former boss, which I don't really know what that title is. But she's like heading up that department now. So which is cool. Anyways, alright, so I don't want to drone on about things. Thank you so much.
[Peter Calves]: Yes, thank you for all your work and thanks for the update on that.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I was just going to say that those zoning amendments all passed at city council, but we may have even had a meeting since then. So, no, so you guys approved zoning amendments. The city council accepted all of the amendments that all of the recommendations that this board made. So this board is now the SPGA for a bunch of uses in a bunch of zones, like car dealerships. There's a major car dealership that may be applying to move their the equivalent of their corporate headquarters to Medford, so might not be a bad.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: You know, as a board, we will review it for the highest and best use for Medford. I'm sure we will, right? All of us. We'll see what's what.
[Peter Calves]: That's what we're here for.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: That's what we're here for.
[Danielle Evans]: We will be fair. Yeah. So did we make a decision on October 4th? Or should we figure this out in the interim?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes, I wasn't trying to shut it down myself. I don't want to I could. Me as it wasn't board member, I wouldn't want to not have the meet and just because. I can, I can always view the debate later, which would be a bummer. However. especially if there's pressing items on the agenda or so many items that they would spill over to the following meeting and we would be there all night.
[Danielle Evans]: I think the 18th would be the 3A zoning meeting. 3A, MBTA. Yeah. Okay. On the 4th, it's the Walking Court PDD. And then, yeah, 590 Boston Ave.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And Walkland Court, that will be their third time coming before us? Second.
[Peter Calves]: Second, yeah. They came in August.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. They've been legally referred to, and their public hearing is advertised. Did we also advertise it for the first, for the mid-November?
[Danielle Evans]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: So if that got continued two weeks, That shouldn't be any problem.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah, that's a, well, I know that's not at your level, but I was talking to Danielle about that the other day. That's one of those, I just, I don't get the second meat and it just feels like it should be, it's an administrative process that feels like it should just be handled with the city solicitor or the city clerk and not coming back to city. But who am I to talk?
[Alicia Hunt]: I've just. It's a legal zoning process. And what I've been told is that you could hold the city board public hearing and the city council public hearing jointly. But then you would have like 15 of you all being there to ask questions. And like some places do this regularly. Medford never has. Maybe once the new city council's elected, maybe it's something to consider that you legally can hold the public hearings jointly. then they would present once to both of you. I think you would all deliberate separately. I don't understand how that would work. I'd have to have that explained to me. Danielle, did you ever participate in those in another community?
[Danielle Evans]: Yes. I think the situation that was different was that it was sort of like that intro initial meeting. But they definitely voted at their own meetings, I believe.
[Alicia Hunt]: So they'd get a presentation and then still have a separate meeting for voting? Because I thought the whole idea was to have you could have one public hearing with both the city board and the city council present. They could both ask questions. The city board would make recommendations right there in live real time to the city council. And then the city council would vote and approve it.
[Danielle Evans]: or deny it. I can remember how we did it, because we definitely did in Watertown and Somerville, but I've just lost so many brain cells since those days.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So it's a public hearing, but I'm still, and this is not to hash out here, I'm just so confused on the legal process of it coming before us for the initial recommendation. They refer it back to city council. Because city council can't do it for, like, whatever, a certain amount of days, it comes back to us. I feel like that is where it can be clinked up at or coordinated, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'll read Lynn's handbook to try to figure it out. I'm not a lawyer. It just sounds like there's something disconnected in the process that... wouldn't matter legally as long as we're following the proper administrative process. But again, I don't, I'm not strong in that. I'm still trying to figure it out.
[Danielle Evans]: I think it's because the way that the PDD zoning was written was that the CD board writes the zoning and submits it. So there's so many different entities that can propose a zoning amendment. One of those is a planning board, which you guys are. It can be so many residents. It could be our office.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. So since we are the ones, right. Okay. I think it's, yeah.
[Danielle Evans]: So it feels redundant, but it's, you're agreeing on the zoning. We hereby now are agreeing on the zoning that we wrote, even though it's initiated by a property owner, essentially though. Yeah. It is, it does feel kind of an extra step. Yeah.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay. All right, well, thank you. I won't belabor that. Alicia, thank you so much for letting us know about things to come going forward and not to hold us up anymore. I don't know if there's any other updates that anyone wants to provide, but I will ask for a motion for adjournment, if not. Motion. A second. Peter Kautz?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Ari Fishman? Yeah. Pam Ariansky? Yes. Sherrod Baracharia?
[Peter Calves]: Yes.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And myself, Jackie McPherson. Thank you, everyone.
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