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[Andre Leroux]: Welcome everyone. Welcome to the June 22nd, 2022 meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. Pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this hearing of the Medford Community Development Board will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by accessing the meeting link contained herein. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, and public participation in any public hearing during this meeting shall be by remote means only. To participate remotely outside of the virtual platform, questions and comments may be submitted via email to ocd at medford-ma.gov or by phone to 781-393-2480. That's 781-393-2480. And I will... call the meeting to order. We will take a roll call vote of the members. So when I call your name, just say present. David Blumberg.
[Unidentified]: Present. Christy Dowd. Present. Deanna Peabody. Present.
[Andre Leroux]: Vice Chair Jackie Furtado.
[Unidentified]: Present.
[Andre Leroux]: I don't think Kless is here tonight, right?
[Amanda Centrella]: Ooh, let me check my notes.
[Unidentified]: I think you're right that he was unable. In the meantime, I'm here, present. Sorry, I just need one more moment. Plus did RSVP, so I'm gonna send him a message. I think we can get started anyway.
[Andre Leroux]: All right, let's go to the approval of minutes. We have some minutes from... Are these the ones that we already did? Is that right, Amanda?
[Amanda Centrella]: No, these should be new, I believe. Yeah, so previously we did November 18th.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay.
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah.
[Andre Leroux]: Okay, I was looking at these and they did seem new, but I was just now looking. Again, that confused me. All right, we have the minutes from the December 20th, 2021 board meeting. And any comments, edits, revisions, questions by members of the board? Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes of December 20th?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Andre, this is Jackie. I present the motion to approve the minutes from December 20th.
[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Jackie. Is there a second?
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Deanna, I'll second.
[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, Deanna. Roll call vote. Is it order? Christy Dowd?
[SPEAKER_03]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg? Aye. Deanna Peabody?
[SPEAKER_03]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Vice Chair Furtado?
[SPEAKER_03]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: And I'm an aye as well. Minutes are approved. Next item on the agenda is our continued hearing from last meeting of June 9th, the site plan review recommendations to the Zoning Board of Appeals in regards to 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway. Proponent is rise together. And we had some questions at that time, we reviewed a lot of the conditions and questions that we had, but there were some engineering issues. I think that the engineering team weren't available at that time. So now we have, I believe the proponent has their engineers with them. And we also have our municipal engineer as well to help us through this. So let me turn it over to, would that be you, Quinlan?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yep, I'll take it. Thank you. And I think either Tim or Mark might be sharing their screen. I'm happy to share my screen too, if either of you don't have it up or available.
[SPEAKER_15]: I have it up.
[Unidentified]: I can share it. It's Mark. Perfect. Thanks, Mark. Yeah, let me, I got a full screen, there we go.
[Andre Leroux]: Just to remind the members of the public and our board members participating, there were some questions we had. I know I had in particular about the height of the retaining wall around the rear of the property and the effect on the adjacent wetlands and the butters. So that's just the big context for this.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I'll leave it in PDF. Here we go. Sorry about that.
[Amanda Centrella]: Just a quick note that Klaus is trying to join us, but he's having some connection issues. I think we can continue to get started, but hopefully he'll pop in shortly.
[SPEAKER_15]: Let me know if you guys can see that. Can you see this?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I think we're good, Mark. I can see you there. OK, good. So yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board. Great to be back here this evening again with the team here. For those of you who might be on the call that haven't met me yet, my name is Quinlan Locke. I am the project manager with Rise Together, working on 4054 Mystic Valley Parkway. This is the third time we've been to the Community Development Board. A lot's been discussed, and we look forward to discussing some of those retaining wall issues that the chair mentioned earlier. If you can go to the next slide, Mark. Just again, a quick recap on some of the project team here, just focusing on tonight's topic on the retaining wall. Mostly you'll be hearing from our VHB civil team who's on the call tonight, as well as MDLA landscape. They'll be on the call answering any questions at the end of the call as well. And with that, we have some members of the rest of our team here as well, if there are any other questions after that. Next slide, please. So the last time we were here is about two weeks ago. We had a great conversation about some of the items from the first hearing, but there was one particular item that I think the board wanted some more information on, which is really the civil design, especially with the retaining wall around the property. Um, you know, what, what is the retaining wall? How does it work? Why is it needed? All questions that, um, we, we had a meeting with a few, few members that are on the call tonight, uh, last week. And, uh, and Owen Bortala and a few other members of the city were on the call last week. It was a great conversation on just what the retaining wall is and what it means to the property as well. So. Looking forward to getting right into that tonight. If there aren't any questions on that, I'm happy to turn it right over to Mark Jones to go over, who's on our DHB civil team, to go over the retaining wall itself. Thank you.
[SPEAKER_15]: All right, that would be me. I'm up. Hi, Mark Younghens with DHB. We're the civil designers for this project. I'm with Tim Smith, who's here. who's working through the nuts and the bolts, and then Stephanie Krul, who's on our team as well, whose understanding of the resiliency conditions here is also a big part of the design that we've developed. I think it's important to know that this building, its first control was really Mystic Valley Parkway, of course. That's where the building front door is. And this is the place where we want to make sure that we have an accessible entrance from Mystic Valley Parkway. And that's really where we began when we began to set this building. The width of the building is really established by its use as a lab building. It's 140 feet wide, which is pretty close to a lab requirement. Sometimes they'd like to be a little wider, but this is what the site would allow. The building has a 20-foot driveway around the building, which is designed to allow fire apparatus to circulate around the building without any issues. It's a one-way circulation. These arrows are actually flow arrows, but not directional arrows. That was, once again, the base case, if you would, everything we needed to make sure this building was accessible and safe. This is the service area right here off the one-way drive, trucks come in and they back in, they get off the driveway, and then the parking entrance is over in this corner. The elevation of the building is driven by a number of factors. First off, it's that, how can we have, this is a nice plaza, we can see it later on the landscape drawings, but we need an accessible route from here to here. And because this is a plaza, the way ADA determines its, Acceptability is it needs to be ADA accessible in every direction, not just in one direction that you're walking. So that kind of drives what we can do on this plaza. So if we come from the street, which is about elevation nine existing, and come up as fast as we can, we get up to elevation 11.35 for our finished floor. And that was sort of our starting point where we looked at, okay, so how does this work with the surrounding site and what do we need to do to carry this forward. Now, if you went out there today, there's the Bertucci's. Love Bertucci's. And this parking lot, which is actually the impervious area before and after are surprisingly similar between the two, the existing and the proposed condition. But if you went out there today, you'd find that from this point right at the frontage all the way to the back of the site, it's kind of an even slope all the way back. to the back edge of the site, and then it drops off to where the wetlands are. This heavy line right here is the wetland flagging line. So it's generally sloped from front to back. There are no drainage system components on this site. Everything is sheet flow. There's nothing there to catch sediment. There's nothing there to control oils that might come out of cars. There is nothing there to control the peak flow coming off the site and into the wetland. everything that goes from this site except for a small strip out front flows to this wetland and which extends back, back this way. So and the generally the design that we're required to follow is that your proposed site has to match the existing drainage conditions so that the water that is feeding that wetland continues to feed that wetland in the end condition. And we have to provide components that improve the water quality over the existing condition, manage the sediments, manage the oils, and also provide a level of treatment. So what we came up with was we had to have some vertical to allow us to manage the, let's go, okay, we'll go with this one, to manage the site drainage. This section here, Is the section taken? Well, that's, okay, I'm sorry, this keeps grabbing me.
[Unidentified]: Apparently, my ability to negotiate Adobe is a little challenge.
[SPEAKER_15]: This green shape here is a big tank. It's a tank designed to mitigate the peak slope from this site. All the drainage that comes off the roof or the parking lot, gets routed through this chamber and if you can imagine it's like a bathtub with a hole at the bottom you can fill it up as fast as you want but the water comes out that hole at a reasonably consistent rate. This way we can manage the site stormwater to match the existing conditions or be less than the existing conditions what which is generally what the design requirement is. This is a section through here where you can see that this is our holding chamber and we had to fill the site just so we could capture the drainage and catch basins along the side of the site and direct it to this chamber. This chamber fills up and then this chamber discharges to another chamber, which is just off the page. right here, which provides treatment. And that's a cartridge system we have, once again, which sort of polishes the stormwater to make sure it's the best quality that we can have before it goes into the wetland. So it has a positive effect on the wetland. So a lot of this, this is the existing grade down here. Once again, it slopes back down to about elevation four at the back of the site from elevation nine at the front of the site. And this fill here, which is covering over our tank we have enough cover over our tank to have our dry vial we need at least a pavement box here works just works for our drainage system providing us with the vertical we need to make this thing work the even the polishing chamber has I believe it's four inches of vertical it needs to get it through the system and Tim will And so this is sort of our beginning point. The other piece that drives this design is this site is in a flood zone. It's in essentially a flood area that is contiguous with the Mystic Valley River. So this area here is part of a flood zone that essentially extends across Mystic Valley Parkway.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, Mark, I just want to interject. It's the future flood zone. It's not currently within. Yeah, it's not within the clean. Yeah, I just want to make sure that there is no land subject to flooding resource area on on the site. So sorry about that.
[SPEAKER_15]: Excellent point. Excellent point. You're right. It's a future resource, not a current resource. Got it. I'm sorry. So, all buildings that are being built nowadays, no matter where they are, are really being asked to look at future flood conditions and plan for the future flood conditions. So, the 20, 30, 100-year flood plain is 11.5. Our finished floor is 11.35. So, the other thing that drives this design is the need to get the building above at least the 20, 30, 100-year flood elevation. So we have a finished floor of an 1135, and then we have additional flood proofing to at least 1385. It actually may be to 1435. It's between 18 and 24 inches, but the minimum is 1385. So above finished floor, we're going to have additional flood proofing on the building, protection of doors and windows and entrances, so that if we do have this 100-year flood condition, we can protect our building. So this is sort of the condition that we're being asked to design to. Well, we look at the site and we say, why is there a wall there? That's being driven by the conditions and we feel that if someone's going to build a building next door to us, they're going to have to take into account all the exact same things. One of the questions that there was concern about is, how does this connect to things that may happen next door? I think you'll find that in the future as people want to build in this area that they're going to have to take into account these exact same constraints. We also did a section longitudinally, which hopefully will make things a little clearer. And this is Mystic Valley Parkway on the left. So this is going from Mystic Valley Parkway all the way to the back of the site. The shaded area is where the building is located, just to simplify. So here's Mystic Valley Parkway existing grade. Here's us coming up as quickly as we can to 1135. And then this is the grade of the site. Along the side of the building, we have a reasonably even grade because those first floor doors need to land at that grade, the loading dock needs to land at that grade, and the parking entrance needs to land at that grade. Down to the back of the site where this is probably a little easier to see all as one strip. It shows here's our detention tank in the back, our drive aisle in the back, And then a 42-inch fence, once again, for fall protection. And then the wall leading to the edge of the site, and then the drop-off toward the wetland. And once again, flood elevation is blue. Our protection elevation is in red, our minimum protection elevation. I thought the best picture, and I'm going to go forward a little bit if you guys don't mind, that really, we say, thank you. I'm going beyond thank you. Because I thought there was one rendering in here that really, from Mystic Valley Parkway, this is what you're going to see. We're meeting Mystic Valley Parkway. We're providing that accessibility that we want here. And that wall sort of presents itself over time into the back of the site. And so this is generally kept level. And once again, being driven by that accessibility and that flood elevation. I thought this was a great rendering. It really showed what it will feel like in the end. And I don't think it's abrupt. I think it actually works really well with what we think is the most important connection, which is out front.
[Unidentified]: So I will stop there and see if there are any questions. Sorry if there's barking. I have a puppy in the background who doesn't figure that out yet.
[Andre Leroux]: Why don't we go through the rest of the presentation. I don't know if you have other team members that are going to say a few comments and then we'll come back to the board members.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I think, you know, we have one more slide after this just kind of showed some examples of what the wall could look like. That helps a little bit. So the wall is on that red line there. That's the existing property line. You can kind of see right below that is a section diagram of what the wall is. And these are just examples of what could be done with the wall as well. Right in the middle here. And, you know, there's a lot of opportunities to create something new here. Um, and to the right here, you'll see the existing well, what is what will be the proposed fence? It does have to be rated for vehicular impact because there is a drive aisle there. So. There needs to be a certain rating to that fence, but. MDOA is on the call. Our landscape architect can talk a little bit more through these if we want. But other than that, Mr. Chair, I think that concludes our core presentation tonight. We did want to open it up to questions and comments, if there are any, and make sure that we have plenty of time for that.
[Andre Leroux]: Great, and Mr. Lockett, can you speak a little bit to any conversations you've had with abutters? And I know that there's a kind of a hockey stick shaped piece of land that wraps around this parcel. Could you maybe just explain that and show the board members that?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, absolutely. So the conversations with the butters, you know, that there's has been conversations with the two of butters that we have to the site, one of them is the, the owner of what is what we're calling a hockey stick parcel, which actually wraps around the eastern and northern edge of the site. And that parcel is actually owned by the same group that owns the entire wetlands area. So really been engaging in good conversations with them about that parcel, what could happen there in the future, any sort of proposed conditions. Right now, that parcel is actually, is parking that we believe used to serve the Bertucci site. So it is impervious today and it's actually fenced off. I think we had a good picture of the existing conditions in the appendix, Mark, I'm not sure if you could find that. But today it is parking. Yeah, there it is right there. So that fence that you see there, the gray fence to the left that runs all the way to the back of the site is actually the property line today. And the rest of that gray fence going from left to right on the backside of that tree is what we're calling the hockey stick parcel. So there is some parking there today, some asphalt's there, but it's not accessible to cars. And we're not anticipating that it will stay parking for the foreseeable future. It won't be able to be accessed from our site. It won't be able to be accessed from the street. As you can see, there's a tree in that street pole there. So we do anticipate that site changing and the conversations with the abutting properties that we've had are sort of leading in that direction as well.
[Victor Schrader]: Sure, I can jump in as well on that question. Quinlan, if you don't mind, I also had a conversation with with Charter Realty, who's the owner of the hockey stick parcel. And they're very familiar with the plans. Karen Johnson, which are Charter Realty. Told me that I could I could tell the board that they're they're supportive. They do look forward to seeing more information on what the final materials will be for the retaining wall and and also discussing the construction process with with rise in the city as this moves forward. But they're there. aware, paying attention, understand that it'll go to ZBA and CONCOM next, and we'll be following that process. We have a good relationship with them here at the city. So, you know, if anything comes up in the future, we have the ability to reach out and engage. And I know that RISE and Charter have been talking since day one as well.
[Unidentified]: Thank you, Victor.
[Andre Leroux]: Just looking at these two images here, Quinlan, the fence line that's shown in the rendering is where the chain link fence is now, and there's some unused. asphalt that is on the other side of your property line that obviously you won't be part of this. Here in this rendering, it looks nice and landscaped. It could be nice and landscaped. The asphalt could be broken up. could be planted, there could be kind of a wildlife corridor along that edge. Obviously, you don't control that land, but is that something that you might seek to landscape in your negotiations with Charter?
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, I think that's exactly right, Mr. Chair. That's where these conversations are heading. And we hope that that site will change. I don't think they want empty parking spaces or asphalt on their property either. That can't be used. And it would just benefit us if we did those improvements over there. So that's where those conversations are heading. I don't want to commit that we're going to do them. It's not really our site. We are committed to working with them to make it something different than just that asphalt area right there. It's not really doing anyone any benefits over there, including the site owners. So if we can do anything over there as far as benefits to the landscape or anything like that, we are looking into that and hoping to come to a conclusion with the landowner there as well.
[Andre Leroux]: I'm going to stop the screen sharing right here so I can see my board members. Any questions or comments from any of the board members? Any feedback about the materials of the retaining wall or anything like that?
[David Blumberg]: I just had a question about this tank the water runs into. Is this something that has to be maintained on a regular basis to operate properly?
[SPEAKER_15]: The tank itself doesn't require much maintenance because it has catch basins upstream that'll manage the sediments that are alike. If there's maintenance, it's maybe once every 10 years. The treatment, the polishing filter, if you would, at the end of the tank, has cartridges that will need to be changed every year or two or maintained if you would. But there's a maintenance plan that'll be developed as part of the design.
[David Blumberg]: Is that a maintenance plan that the developer will enter into with the city to ensure that certain things happen at the site? Is that what you're referring to?
[SPEAKER_15]: Well, usually we do them for the owner for as part of their own facilities plan, but we don't they don't usually go into an agreement with the city. It's kind of their own responsibility.
[SPEAKER_13]: Yeah, if I could just jump in for a second. Generally, during CONCOM hearings, the CONCOM will probably anticipate asking questions about the maintenance and would probably want to see the O&M plan in their files for their records being associated with the order of conditions that they would eventually issue for the site.
[SPEAKER_15]: Yeah, there'll be a formal O&M plan that is part of the process for sure.
[Unidentified]: All right. Thank you, Michael. All right, other questions or comments?
[Andre Leroux]: One comment that I have, and it's not really for the proponents per se, as much as maybe for the city in general, would be to, you know, since this is a significant open space in the city that's behind this property, and it's also projected to be an area at risk of flooding in coming decades, that it would make sense for the city to start looking strategically at some of these open spaces that are in flood prone areas and perhaps use community preservation dollars to acquire them Especially if there's going to be a row of development here, that's going to lift the edge of all of those properties. It may turn the area behind it, that wetland into a retaining area eventually. I just think the city really needs to be thinking long-term about this and strategic and trying to acquire some of these possible wetlands.
[Unidentified]: I will say that it's the city.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't want to speak for own because it's actually the engineer before him was part of looking at large wetlands in the upper mystic area and plan strategic plans to use them for climate. And the difficulty, one of the reasons this wasn't selected as a project location was actually because of its private ownership. And because the city doesn't own it, we don't have control over it. One of the things that we should be talking about as we look at zoning change and update is, as the proponent alluded to many municipalities require and zoning that you have to build to future floodplains like the 2030 or the 2050 and the 100 year that are some common ones and we really should be building this into our policies and our zoning going forward because there are some things that should be that the city should be looking at. And then there's also, you know, the responsibilities of the owners to protect their own properties as well. And so I actually appreciate the fact that this proponent is looking at future floodplains, future storm surge possibilities, and, um, how they can manage their properties with it so that we are not then running rescue operations on their property if things flood. One of the slides, I know the board was shared the proponents slides, including the appendix. One of the slides in the appendix is about future strategies for preventing wide scale flooding. And that is something that I have been working with um our regional resilient mystic collaborative on that that project and getting large-scale funding because none of the uh things that one would do to prevent this flooding is in medford but medford would benefit dramatically from these items occurring basically so i thought i'd just share that with the board yeah and and director hud could you just maybe give like a two sentence overview of what those
[Andre Leroux]: flood prevention measures entail?
[Unidentified]: Are we talking about the dam?
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I was muted again, sorry, yes. So there's a number of things that include the Amelia Earhart Dam. Sorry, I had them up in front of me a second ago. And raising that or hardening it, but there's also some looking at a flood barrier next to the Encore Casino. There's some areas in Somerville at Draw 7 State Park that we're jointly working on and at the MBTA Bus Depot and at the Schrapp Center. The one that's really, really the most benefit to the City of Medford though is the amazing raising the height of the Amelia Earhart Dam, there was a storm. actually two winters ago now, that came within 18 inches of overtopping that dam. And some of you may remember that Medford used to be, well, no, none of you will remember that Medford used to be a floodplain from your personal experience, but before that dam was built in the 60s, a good portion of Medford had salt marsh, so.
[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Director Hahn. I know we have a comment from a member of the public. Amanda, do you have that?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, let me pull it up. So this comment is from Anna Salvo at 112 Lawrence Street, Medford. In reference to the detention tank, has the possibility of a living or green roof been factored into the total rainwater runoff of the building?
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I think, yeah, and Mark, feel free to jump in.
[SPEAKER_14]: We also have Jacob Jacobs, who's one of our architectural consultants on here, who's been who's been looking into some of this as well. But Mark, I don't know if you have something to add first there.
[SPEAKER_15]: No, actually, we did not take credit for that sort of a treatment on the roof that wasn't in the plan at the moment. It's as I understand it as a lab building, you have limited space because these require some significant systems, but No, there's no part of the design that includes that kind of mitigation.
[Andre Leroux]: I believe one of the conditions that we had that we talked about last meeting was to kind of examine, analyze the real estate on top of the roof and to either accommodate solar facilities or green roof as part of it.
[Alicia Hunt]: One thing that might not be 100% clear, if there was a green roof that would reduce the amount of runoff going into the tank, not increase it. So it's better to not take it into account when designing the tank, the sizing of the tank, because you would actually reduce the size. If anything, it would not increase the amount of runoff, a green roof.
[SPEAKER_15]: Right, the tank size would, yeah, I'd leave it in the conservative side, because you want to plan for a winter, a shoulder condition, shoulder season condition.
[Andre Leroux]: Right, and just to be clear, the lab buildings are particular in that they have a lot going on on the roof, so it makes it difficult to do some of these other things that we might ordinarily be more aggressive about. But I don't know if, you know, Mark or Quinlan, you want to speak to you know, whether you think there may be space up there for one or the other of these.
[SPEAKER_14]: Yeah, and that's why I was going to turn it over to Stephan from Jacobs real quick. It's something that we talked about a little bit after the last meeting when we had a discussion with you guys. So I don't know, Stephan, if you want to hop in real quick.
[rHW3832dHik_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, I mean, we're definitely going to evaluate possibilities for both photovoltaic as well as as well as opportunities for green roof. You know, the lab building in the systems that are required to make it function successfully. including, you know, making it ready for a potential net zero in the future, tend to eat up roof opportunities, but we're still going to evaluate it during later design phases to try to optimize photovoltaic as well as green roofing systems.
[Andre Leroux]: That's one of the conditions. Obviously, we can't figure that out right now, but we're directing the proponent to explore that and incorporate it if they can.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Andre Leroux]: I would, you know, I don't hear any other comments right now. So Amanda, if you could just monitor that, let me know if there's anything else coming in from members of the public. I would suggest to the board and the proponent a condition that's not really prescriptive, but that, you know, directs the proponent to continue dialogue with the abutter to see if they can't come to an agreement about landscaping that parcel, the adjacent parcel for, particularly as kind of a wetland buffer and as a wildlife corridor.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's great. And that's something we wanted to do anyway. So I agree that that'd be great. Thank you. Any other comments or questions from the board?
[Andre Leroux]: And I know we have the city engineer. Oh, and we're telling here I don't know when if you want to make any comments about about this how, what is your kind of review of this project and like on the engineering side on the engineering side, then basically looking at stormwater and seeing how it's going to.
[Owen Wartella]: basically meet the standards of the city and state and the general public. I think that we've reviewed this conceptually and I've looked at the design plans and it appears that the project will benefit the wetland from the existing conditions. basically, you know, the runoff is going to be treated. It's not treated now. So these are all improvements to the stormwater runoff.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Andre Leroux]: Would there be a motion by a member of the board to approve the site plan review with the conditions that we discussed both at the last meeting and the one that I just proposed tonight. Yeah, Amanda.
[Amanda Centrella]: Would you all mind if I read out those conditions just to ensure that everything is captured?
[Unidentified]: Great, thank you.
[Amanda Centrella]: Okay, great. Okay, so that the proponent commits to having the site be electric ready. That available roof space be used for solar panels, and if not feasible, that available roof space be considered or used for a green roof. That the building be LEED Gold Certifiable. That the proponent commit to joining the Lower Mystic Transportation Management Association. That the proponent complete the mitigation efforts proposed in the Director of Traffic and Transportation memo from May 12th, 2022. that there be showers and lockers on site, that there be at least 10 outdoor and 42 indoor bike parking spaces, that 10% of all parking spaces are to have EV charging, and we've called out here that as presented, that would be 43 spaces, that the programming space be available to the public and that it be available for scheduling and hosting community groups, That the proponent work with city staff to determine an appropriate amount of visitor parking for the retail location. that the proponent make a best effort to connect with the abutter to remove the asphalt and provide landscaping on the adjacent property as a wetland buffer and wildlife corridor. And I wasn't sure if there was a desire by the board to mention some sort of deferring to the Conservation Commission on wetlands protection. I raise that to you all.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, we were just discussing in the office that if there were specific changes that the Conservation Commission requests with regards to the edge, that they would not need to come back to this board, that we would just notify this board, but they wouldn't need to come back because it was a change in conditions, but rather that this board would defer to Conservation Commission requirements with regards to the wetland buffer and the, yeah, basically with their conditions.
[Andre Leroux]: Makes sense. Board members, does this capture our discussion?
[SPEAKER_13]: Mr. Chair, if I may. Yes, just one quick comment. Amanda, the condition about the green roof and the PV, maybe I just didn't hear what you were saying correctly. The commitment is to explore the feasibility of both PV and the green roof, correct?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, and I can reword that to make that more clear.
[SPEAKER_13]: Fantastic, thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: Is there a motion to approve the site plan review with the associated conditions to the ZBA?
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi, Andre, this is Christy. I will make a motion to approve the site plan review as the conditions were read by Amanda.
[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Is there a second?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Andre, this is Jackie. I second the motion.
[Andre Leroux]: Thank you, Jackie. Roll call vote. Christy Dowd.
[Jenny Graham]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: David Blumberg. Deanna Peabody.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Jackie Furtado.
[Unidentified]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Les Andresen.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: I'm an aye as well. I have one, two, three, four, five to one, the motion passes.
[SPEAKER_14]: Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board, appreciate your time and looking forward to keeping you updated on the project as well. All right, thank you very much. Thank you.
[Victor Schrader]: Thank you all for your time.
[Andre Leroux]: The next item on the agenda is the city board rules and regulations. And I'm gonna ask David if you can take the lead on that. But David, before we start, I don't know if, did you wanna make any other, any final comments about the last project or have any discussion?
[David Blumberg]: just while we're all here amongst friends.
[Andre Leroux]: Yes, as a kind of an invitation, if there were concerns that you didn't want to raise there, but that we should be aware of.
[Alicia Hunt]: But you're still recorded. I always feel like people need to be reminded of that.
[David Blumberg]: I don't mind. I don't mind sharing my thoughts it's fine, but thank you for the reminder, appreciate it. I just I think it's too big, and in light of the allowable height in the zone. So that's that's my concern I mean I think the projects can deliver a lot of benefits to the city so. these folks seem to be intent on doing a good job. So I think ultimately it'll work out. I just, I have a hard time seeing how the ZBA under the statutory standard is gonna approve that variance, but.
[Owen Wartella]: Well, thank you for sharing that.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I will say that it does sort of feel like to me that, and we talked about this at one of the earlier meetings that It seems to me like there should also almost be like a little overlay district in this area to sort of guide development along the parkway. Because in a way I do agree with David that it's a really big project and it's, you know, I mean, I think the thing for me is, looking at the apartment building next door and sort of thinking of a row of buildings that meet the scale of the two that are there. But yeah, it's interesting.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: Any other board members wanna comment?
[Jenny Graham]: Just that I hope that the city really focuses on a master plan approach for that area. I think that it was really important that this project be leveraged to really activate that area. But I do get concerned about the long-term plan for that whole area.
[Unidentified]: And it really needs to be thoughtful.
[Andre Leroux]: By that whole area, you're along- All the parcels that are coming up, yeah, on that side. Also, the plaza around the corner as well, right?
[Jenny Graham]: Yeah. Yes. Yes, that whole zone.
[Victor Schrader]: Maybe this is a good time to jump in and agree completely and let the board know that we did receive notice from the Mass Gaming Commission that got some funding for a study for this area. And I sent out a scope through the chair, Andrea, I can send it directly to members if you'd prefer. Yeah, that'd be great.
[Andre Leroux]: Why don't you do that?
[Victor Schrader]: Okay. Well, I'd love to get your eyes on the scope and it encompasses Mystic Valley Parkway, a lot of interesting development on commercial Sycamore Ave, Fellsway Plaza. It's a very large area. It's really consequential for a lot of reasons but also could proved to be just super beneficial if it's thoughtfully redeveloped. And I think we imagine this as being kind of our catalytic kind of assembly opportunity. And not to say that it's going to be exactly that project, but just from a benefit standpoint, there's real There's real excitement on our end to look at this closely and to get input from you all in the community on what it should be and understand what the market wants it to be as well. So we're going to be getting started on that. Wish it were in place now, but definitely getting started on it.
[Alicia Hunt]: There's some synergy with the fact that there's the massive MassDOT Gaming Commission review of the Wellington Circle itself. in the eye to making it more pedestrian and bicycle friendly is the goal but also to be able to meet to move large amounts of vehicles through there as instead of getting stuck there at the lights as we tend to see and those projects have been alerted to take into account additional development in this area, because we're so close to the T. The proximity makes it such a good place for transit-oriented development, whether you mean that residential or commercial, but for that intersection, Right. It's so close, but you can't get there. And so the fact that there is actually a massive project with so much money that they were told to look at grade separated options, that that was not just automatically out of the scope of the project. I don't think we'll end up with grade separated based on what I've seen myself. But to think that that much funding is in scope for that project, and they're not asking the city to pay for it. There are other entities that are going to pay for that to really open up access to that T station there. When we talk about development along Mystic Ave. I don't really object, but it doesn't have the accessibility to the rapid transit that this stretch of land actually has, and then the open space for people to use it. That is one of the least, the most underused open space tracks. It's such a large area and it's so poorly used by the public. And the fact that you just would have more people there and more people would feel comfortable there. There is in fact a playground designed for McDonald Park. that was supposed to go in right as the pandemic was starting. Honestly, I'd have to go back to Dennis in our office to find out the timing, because it's very close to the wetlands and the river. So the Conservation Commission has been very in the loop on that, or he has as the environmental agent as that piece. So I just thought I'd throw those in there.
[Andre Leroux]: Well, one little note that I have to comment on is just in terms of the park there, I think that, you know, there's benefit to leaving some parkland in kind of a passive state and not having to, you know, over-program it. I feel like, you know, I live near Riverside Park and there's a lot of things going in there. We've seen dog parks go in. We've seen, it's just kind of like open spaces getting kind of chipped away and it's a wonderful outdoor area. And it's an area that we will need in, you know, in case of flooding to be able to absorb land. So that's just my two cents on that issue. And I do see that park actually gets used a lot. I'm over there all the time and there's a lot of people, a lot of families come in having picnics there and birthday parties and get really good use out of it. Very, very diverse use, I would say.
[Alicia Hunt]: That's good to hear. It's such a big space that when you just drive by, you don't even realize that there are people in there.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, you don't see it from the roadway. Because it's actually protected by that hillock and it's nice and quiet on the other side.
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I think it's a gem and it's quite nice.
[Andre Leroux]: A lot of fishing over there and everything else. I don't know if I would eat the fish, but there is a lot of fishing going on. Anyways, onto the next agenda item, which is the long awaited rules and regulations of the CD board. So David, I'm going to ask you if you could kind of introduce this for us.
[David Blumberg]: Sure. Yeah, much, much less interesting than the discussion that preceded it, but we've started on this process and been working on it for quite a while now. before under the old zoning and now we have our updated zoning so those updates that I made most recently were sort of a reaction to having read through the rules post zoning amendment to make sure things still line up okay. We do have very old rules. I've covered this for everybody, but just in case someone may be watching. Just looking to make them a little bit more up to date, more current. I've taken a look at some neighboring communities and tried to develop using the same framework as our old rules to try to add some best practices into our rules to help us as a board moving forward. So I've made a handful of changes here as a result of having read it in the last week or two, including I changed vice deputy or deputy chair to vice chair, because that seems to be our language that we'd like to use for Jackie's position. And made a couple of stylistic changes on there. I also added a couple of notes about the associate member, which is now approved, which was not approved when we started this process. in particular that the associate member would be introduced or appointed sort of item by item on the agenda. So for instance, if one of the regular members had to recuse him or herself, the chair would introduce the fact that the associate member is going to participate in this particular matter. So those are some of the exciting items that have been added, and I've responded to other comments. I don't know if the public sees these things, but we've had a sort of a threat in our margins here, various comments, and I've tried to respond to those over the various drafts that we've worked on. So hopefully that's enough background for now.
[Andre Leroux]: Thank you. Any members want to weigh in on this? I just wanna say thank you for putting in so much time, David, really, really appreciate it. And your expertise as an attorney, making sure that everything lines up is really valuable. So appreciate it.
[David Blumberg]: Well, thanks. I probably had a little more fun than I should admit going through it, but I did learn a few things along the way because it's been a project I've been working on almost throughout my tenure. It feels like throughout the tenure. So I was able to learn a number of things. Alicia taught me some stuff. We had KP law pop in every now and again to educate us. So hopefully we've all learned a few things along the way as part of the process too.
[Andre Leroux]: been a working group of one board member. With some city staff participation. Well, I'm not sure how controversial these are. They look pretty good to me. Any board members have anything you want to say?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I wanted to echo your thanks to David for all the work that he put into it. I did look over and I don't really have any objections because it just looks, I mean, all the work that was put into it, he just made it that much better. And it's very clear, the clarity of it, so much so that a couple of things stood out to me. And I'm just wondering if we were to implement this, when do we start? Like for instance, it was just brought to our attention. Unfortunately, Andre, we'll be losing you as chair at the end of your term soon. And I do know that it says going forward, there'll be one year, term for chairs, but it doesn't say what the term is for vice chairs and so forth, so on. So I'm just trying to figure that out in between. It's been an honor to be a vice chair alongside you. But I also want to make sure that we're conforming and giving other people that opportunity. So those are the only questions. It was so good, David, that it got me thinking along those lines of just how we're going to implement it and follow.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, that's a good point, Jackie.
[David Blumberg]: Boy, I don't have my packet with me right now, Jackie. But if I have a limitation on the chair as only being able to serve for a year at a time, that's what you're suggesting, right?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: No, I thought that's what I saw. Maybe you struck the language, but I'm almost positive I saw that within the content. but it could have been something you struck out.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm checking, but I think my understanding, sometimes I see this and things and you could read it as limited, but that it's appointed for a year means they have to be reappointed and that it doesn't preclude them from being reappointed, but it doesn't mean they're automatically the chair for three years in a row. Okay, okay.
[David Blumberg]: I would concur with that. I think that's how it's set up. The term limits that are general to our terms, putting aside any officer title that anyone holds, just our regular terms, that's driven by the acts, the enabling acts. But this is just, as a board, every year we have to go through the process of electing our officers.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: OK. And even with saying that, I mean, again, with getting a new chair, I'm just wondering, are we going to have like an election, a re-election for vice chair? I just want to make sure that we're going along with what is suggested.
[David Blumberg]: That's how I pictured it is each first, I think it's the first meeting in July. Okay, so go through that process and go ahead and get somebody could serve in that position multiple times, presumably, but you'd only have it for a year at a time.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I'm just going to put a plug there. Everybody should be thinking about that because Andre down from this board and so we need to get this
[Andre Leroux]: I just want to clarify because this question has come up to me. This is just the end of my term. I've had two terms and there are term limits. So it's not like I'm just leaving.
[Alicia Hunt]: This is one of the few boards that I have to step down. Yes, there are term limits.
[Andre Leroux]: And Deanna as well, actually, we came on at the same time.
[Amanda Centrella]: You will both be dearly missed, but we can talk more about that in the July meeting.
[Jenny Graham]: I feel like we all just got started, didn't we?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I'm just going to say it now. I know that Amanda's been communicating with people. As we're setting up a meeting with the comprehensive plan consultants to present stuff to this board, Deanna and Andre, you're very welcome to attend and participate in that meeting. There is some level of intention that it's so that if the board who's going to be asked to approve the plan later has changes, I'd rather have those changes now and not when we literally come to approval. But at the same time, this is about making the plan a better plan. So if you can, we would like you to participate in that meeting.
[SPEAKER_03]: planning on participating.
[Victor Schrader]: And Deanna and Andre, just because we're losing you from this CD board doesn't mean you can't join other boards or commissions. If you're interested in that, we'd love to talk to you about it.
[Jenny Graham]: CPC is looking for people.
[Victor Schrader]: Shameless plug.
[Amanda Centrella]: I will just also make another note here that, as was thoughtfully laid out by David, there is a clerk position, which I think currently we have not formally filled, so something to consider for the next meeting in July.
[Andre Leroux]: That was actually going to be my one question about this was whether, given the fact that the staff, the city staff, essentially serves that function, whether we need to have a clerk, but I don't know, David, if there was conversations around that or your thinking.
[David Blumberg]: I tried to set it up because the statute for planning boards calls for a clerk to be one of the, it's one of the positions that someone would hold that title. But the services that Princess Amanda is so capably providing to us now, she could continue to provide. Our clerk would just sort of ensure that things like minutes are produced and presented at each meeting, that sort of thing.
[Andre Leroux]: Yeah, I think that could be helpful, especially to review the minutes, make sure they're accurate. That would be good.
[David Blumberg]: All right, well, I'm convinced. We can always change them too as we go. So that's the ultimate comfort.
[Andre Leroux]: Well, is there a motion to adopt the rules and regulations of the CD board as proposed by member Blumberg?
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'll make that motion. I'll second it, it's Jackie.
[Andre Leroux]: A roll call vote. David Blumberg. Where are you on this? You're going to give us the surprise now? Definitely. Christy Dowd.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Jackie Furtado.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Bless Andreessen. Hi. Hi as well. Passed unanimously. We have some rules and regulations and thank you very much, David. All right. Let's see here. Let me just, next item on the agenda is just miscellaneous and other updates. So we did cover a couple of things that probably fall into that category, like the transition of Deanna and me. But is there anything else, Amanda?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, just a reminder. July 14th is our next meeting. During then we'll have the comp plan presentation discussion of election of these new or not so new roles. And one piece that wasn't floated with you guys yet is that we have since been kicked a zoning map change petition from the city council. two petitions actually for the kind of same area. It's a kind of like Boston Ave stretch that includes like 200 Boston Ave, 222. So our first formal vote experience with potentially some new board members will be during that meeting as well. And obviously you all get the materials ahead of time to review for that conversation.
[Andre Leroux]: And Amanda, how many board members, new board members do you expect to join the next meeting?
[Amanda Centrella]: Hoping two, maybe three, but put feelers out. Well, feelers out for two, one and we've made an offer to just waiting to hear back final confirmation.
[Andre Leroux]: And is there also recruiting happening for an associate number?
[Amanda Centrella]: Not yet. But well, I think. I should revise that statement. We've been looking at applications that have been coming in with kind of an eye to both like full membership roles and associate member roles. So that's, you know, been a part of the process. But if I would highly encourage folks, if anybody comes to mind, to please encourage them to apply. We're still looking and reviewing.
[Andre Leroux]: And that, the application, the board application, can you drop the link in there for people?
[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, I actually don't know where it lives.
[Alicia Hunt]: I can get it. It's, so people are aware it's on the boards and commissions webpage. So the easy URL is for me to just say medfordma.org slash boards. And on that is paperwork submission Boards and committees application is the second bullet on the list. Interested in serving on one of the boards, please fill out an application form. And that's one of those URLs that no one could ever say on television, because it's a string of letters and numbers. So we direct everybody to medfordma.org slash boards. And it's a nice new online form where you can check off. And if there are any like ad hoc boards that are just appointing for a short period of time, they would be available on there as well. And I would encourage people to always apply for anything that looks interesting to you and don't worry about whether or not there's an opening. Openings occur all the time. And sometimes there are openings because people say, well, if there are other people actually applying, then I'm willing to step down. But people feel obligated to stay until there's a replacement.
[Andre Leroux]: Great, thank you, Director Hunt.
[Amanda Centrella]: Some other updates or one more really is just, I mentioned this last meeting that Theory Wellness, which is a proposed cannabis dispensary project at 162 Mystic Ave has submitted their materials for site plan review. They requested a brief extension in that kind of initial review that we do administratively to tie up a few loose ends, but assuming that those get squared away in the next week, we should anticipate hosting them for a meeting for site plan review towards the end of July. So I will be in touch with folks about scheduling. And the last piece is there are a couple of folks that I still need to grab signatures from for the plan sets for Steve Miller Drive and Freedom Way. I was just notified that there is kind of a scheduling urgency around some of that to make the city council meeting in July that's happening. So if y'all haven't seen it already, for those that I'm waiting on, just take a look at your email and feel free to be in touch. We'll figure that out.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: And that's everything on my end. Um, Andre, this is Jackie, I just wanted to clarify on that going back to the zoning map change, Amanda, are you able to give a little bit of specifics about what that zoning change would be for 200 blocks and I'm just a little, I thought that was like a shared space already, like with toughs being there and just like office space. I'm just wondering what that's change would look like. Amanda, do you want me to speak to that?
[Alicia Hunt]: That is right, the block with Tufts. There's the block with Tufts and then there's another group of parcels and that other group of parcels, including a upholstery shop that's been closed for quite a while, that whole group is owned by one person. So those two property owners put these requests into the City Council and it's to change it from an I, the industrial zone, to an O2, which is the new office two zone. Okay. So that would actually allow life science, would allow some more height there. It would allow some reasonably sized life science to be built there as of right actually, but with site plan review because they would be big buildings. Okay. Thank you.
[Andre Leroux]: Thank you for asking that.
[Alicia Hunt]: It'll be formally presented next week, but it was at city council this week and the week before so.
[Andre Leroux]: All right. Well, I think we've come to the end of the agenda. So if there's no further comments. Is there a motion to adjourn.
[David Blumberg]: I'd like to offer a motion to adjourn.
[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, David. Is there a second?
[zMDmsK0LIsU_SPEAKER_03]: I will second.
[Andre Leroux]: Thanks, class. Roll call vote. David Blumberg. Aye. Christy Dowd. Sorry, was that an aye? Aye. Jackie Furtado.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Deanna Peabody.
[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Aye.
[Andre Leroux]: Les and Jason. Hi. And I'm an I as well. So I'll probably still see y'all on July 14th, but it's been a pleasure. So thanks, everyone.
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