AI-generated transcript of Community Development Board 06-07-23

[Amanda Centrella]: Hi, everyone. Thanks for waiting for us a little bit. We just wanted to get our ducks in a row before opening up the meeting. And we're just letting people file in. I believe everyone is in. And with that, I'll pass the baton to Chair Blumberg.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you, Amanda. Welcome to tonight's meeting of the Medford Community Development Board. I'll call the meeting to order and as always begin with some obligatory messages for you. First, to let you know 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 two of the acts of 2023. A reminder that anyone who would like to listen to or view this meeting while in progress may do so by accessing the link that was included on the meeting agenda posted on the city of Medford website. If despite best efforts, we are not able to provide real time access, we'll post a recording of this meeting on the city's website as soon as possible. A reminder that given the remote nature of tonight's meeting, all votes from the board will be made by roll call. An additional reminder to everyone, project materials for the projects before us tonight and others that come before the board, past and future, can be viewed on the city's website medfordma.org If you find your way to the tab for boards and commissions, you'll see Community Development Board they're listed alphabetically click through and you'll find the projects before us. So begin with a roll call of members in attendance tonight. My name is Dave Bloomberg. Happy to have all of you here. Vice Chair Jackie McPherson.

[Jenny Graham]: Present. Christy Dowd. Present.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Jenny Graham]: Present.

[David Blumberg]: Ari Goffman Fishman. and two members Clayson Peter absent tonight, but we'll move ahead with the group here. And I guess I'll ask Amanda first to introduce the benefit of the public and others participating any of the city staff that are on the call tonight.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thanks. Thank you, Chair. So myself, Amanda Centrella, planning staff in the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. We're also joined by Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability, Alicia Hunt, and Danielle Evans, our senior planner, will be joining us shortly. I also wanted to take a moment to introduce a new graduate intern in our office, Clem Doucette. We're excited to have them. And I believe that's everyone from Cityside who's attending tonight.

[David Blumberg]: Great, thank you. Let's go to our first item on the agenda then. We have a review of a proposal from Tufts University. So let me read the public notice on this. This is regarding a meeting tonight relative to an application for site plan review submitted by the trustees of Tufts College to construct a two-story, 3,595 square foot infill addition to an existing building, Eaton Hall at 0 College Ave here in Medford, with landscaping and interior alterations. The project is subject to site plan review for Dover amendment uses per our zoning ordinance. And this is a bit of a new twist on our updated ordinance that a matter like this would be before us. So with that, let me turn things over to the Tufts team. Good evening, Mr. Chair, can you hear me?

[Dash]: I can absolutely How are you doing attorney dash doing very well sir attorney Adam dash 48 Grove Street in Summerville and Davis Square representing the trustees of Tufts College with me tonight as you can see is Rocco Dorico the executive director of government and community relations for Tufts he and I will be doing presentation. Jennifer also with us just in case there are questions or we brought everybody just you never know. Jennifer Whitney, the Senior Project Manager for Capital Projects Department for Tufts is here. Nicholas Botts and Joy Wang from Niche Engineering. Peter Vieira from Payette Architects. Regan Shields-Ives from Feingold Alexander Architects. Nathan Scott, Associate Director of Capital Projects for Tufts as well. But it's a fairly straightforward application, one would hope.

[David Blumberg]: Welcome to all of your colleagues. Thank you for being here tonight. Just for the benefit of those maybe in the public who are watching and interested, we did ask, given the nature of this work and its location, for you to maybe scale back in your presentation a little bit. Tufts usually does a very robust presentation for us when matters come before the board. So just as a note for those who may follow matters with Tufts, I wanted to let you know.

[Dash]: Understood, and I can explain why that is. Of course. I do have some slides not as robust as one would usually see from us for that. I can take a hint. Can you see that on the slide?

[David Blumberg]: It says sharing, but I don't see the material yet. It says you are screen sharing.

[Dash]: There you are. All right, cool. All right. So as you stated, this is an application or site plan review of a Dover amendment used for to construct a two-story infill addition with rooftop mechanicals to the building in the Tufts campus known as Eaton Hall, and to make some landscaping and interior alterations. The slide would be on the left. There we go. The location of it, as you can see here outlined in red, the building is completely surrounded by the Tufts University campus. It is located in the apartment two zoning district. The only non-Tufts abutter is within 400 feet of the MBTA railroad tracks, and there's one rental property in Somerville. It's all really surrounded by Tufts. Going down here, you can see the existing conditions. This is Eaton Hall, which is an academic building on campus. The proposal is to build this infill addition in the center, which is a 3,595-square-foot, two-story infill addition. This will increase the size of Eaton Hall such that the ground floor will increase from 12,755 square feet to 14,410 square feet. And you can see it here on the front of the square where we're doing this infill addition where the building currently jogs in. The use of the building is going to remain academic. Rocco, can you explain just briefly what's going on and why we're doing this?

[Rocco DiRico]: Thank you, Adam, and thank you members of the board for letting us present to you tonight. As Adam mentioned, this is an academic building. The use will remain academic. This building houses our number of arts and sciences departments, including theology, sociology, and the classics. As we're looking at many of the older buildings on our campus, we're looking to renovate them. And our three main goals are sustainability, accessibility, and community. From a sustainability standpoint, all the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection systems will be replaced and improved. And this is part of our effort to make the building more energy efficient and less reliant on fossil fuels. Um, from an accessibility standpoint, this renovation includes essentially located wheelchair, accessible entry that opens into a gathering space and has elevators and direct access to the academic green. It also makes our classrooms offices, breakout areas and gathering spaces. More accessible and then finally on a note on community, you know, we're really trying in these renovations to create breakout spaces and collaboration spaces that encourage community so that our students can gather together with faculty and staff. and create and be innovative and discuss. So this all fits in line with our larger mission and our larger philosophy on making improvements throughout the campus.

[Dash]: Thanks, Rocco. You can see here, this is sort of a detail of the front end with the landscaping. I would note that the building, the accessibility and the energy efficiency will be improved from the project. Energy usage will be reduced. So that's all to the good. This is the dimensional table, which is in our application. The existing dimensional requirements will comply with the zoning ordinance, except the existing nonconforming maximum lot cover will be increased by 2%. Of course, what is the lot, quote unquote, is a little bit less important because Eaton Hall faces on the entire green of all the buildings and it's sort of one interconnected whole. So however, just to be technical about it, that is the, I do want to point that out. As the board knows, this Dover amendment projects are limited to two inquiries. One is a Dover protected use, which clearly an academic building is, and two, reasonable regulations to certain things can be imposed. I would note again that the change in the existing non-conforming lot cover is only 2%. The project's going to allow ADA and compliance and energy efficiency and adapt an old building to modern needs. and there's no new nonconformity created, no other existing nonconformities are going to be exacerbated. This is the project schedule because people often ask us what we're going to be doing and when. I saw that we did note, I just want to point out, and I have raised this with staff, that there are some condition proposals from various departments. I would say that they're all fine. There are maybe, there are three I wanted to point out that I think are boilerplate that probably don't really apply. One is regarding filing 21E environmental reports, which really we don't have to do for something like this. Second is about not making noise to bother the neighbors, and that's really only us. I'm happy not to do that, but I don't really think it really matters much. And the last we've got to do is sanitary conditions, and I believe that's got to do with making sure we pull the proper permits to do the construction, which clearly Buff always does. I think that's, we're gonna do those things. I just wanted to clarify that those, just to clarify that those are what those three statements from the health department are about. But other than that, the applicant asked that the board approve the site plan review for the project.

[Rocco DiRico]: Adam, can I just point out one typo before you conclude? Construction is actually proposed to start in fall of 2023. So I apologize for the typo on the presentation.

[Dash]: All right, well, thank you for taking the hit on that one. So I'm done sharing. That's pretty much all it is. It's just a relatively small info to an existing building. Okay, great.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you very much. Amanda, anyone on the city side? Not that anyone has to comment, but we always invite the city to comment.

[Amanda Centrella]: I don't think we have any additional comments at the moment.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, and we should solicit input from the public if there are members of the public here who'd like to participate.

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, so if I may, if anyone from the public would be interested in participating, you can use the raise hand feature at the bottom of the screen, or you can put your name in the chat. I can also receive emails to OCD at medford-ma.gov. And as I refresh that page now, Let's see, we haven't received any emails up until this point. And just going to give folks maybe a minute to see if anyone wants to speak.

[David Blumberg]: And then nothing received in advance of tonight's meeting from public. Correct.

[Amanda Centrella]: That is correct. And I'm not seeing any hands or notes in the chat either.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, great, thank you. We'll close the public comment period then and turn to the board deliberation. We are limited in our second interview of this type of a use, of course, first to determine that it is a Dover amendment use. I think, unless there's objection from another board member, we can take notice of the fact that an academic building in the center of the Tufts campus would satisfy that. Then we could consider reasonable regulations. If anyone feels like they want to speak on these matters. Otherwise, I'll go through the list but speak up if you, if you have some comment or question regarding bulk and height of structures yard sizes lot area setbacks, open space parking building coverage requirements. Any comments from the board.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: This is Vice Chair Jackie McPherson. As Attorney Dash has mentioned, the nonconformity increased by 2% of the lot coverage. That really isn't a thing, right? Because it's an academic quad. I'm just, I want to make sure that we're clear here. I don't I don't see any issues and as far as parking, because again it's academic why it does, I don't think that will increase parking is right.

[Dash]: Right. Yeah, no, I can respond to that if you'd like Mr. Again, this is according to the assessors. This Eaton Hall is parcel T-00-21. They divvied up the quad into little parcels. There's really no reason for it because obviously it's not taxed. I'm just being technical by the code terms. I'm using the lot that the successors have put this building on, but it's really not lots, it's like a whole. I don't think it's important, but I did want to call it out to be honest and open about it.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I agree. It's very common with campuses. It's hard to define lots.

[Dash]: That's why we have three addresses for it, because it doesn't really have an address. It's zero College Ave, or 5 the Green, or 8 Upper Campus Road, depending on where you are.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yeah. I just wanted to be clear. Thank you. And one other question that's kind of related, but not really. When is sociology moving to Eaton Hall? I'm a Tufts alum. That's the only other question.

[Rocco DiRico]: as they are very eager to get into this new building. So they, I think, will be the first group to move in, Jackie. So they're very eager to move in.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Awesome. Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: OK. Yes, Christy.

[Jenny Graham]: I just have more of a question out of curiosity. First, the rendering looks very nice. But in terms of the glazing with the stretch code, what is proposed? How are you addressing that?

[Dash]: Someone from the architecture team?

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I'm just curious because I'm doing a study for Harvard, and there's been a lot of discussion.

[SPEAKER_12]: Sure, I can address that. Hi, Peter Vieira from Payette. So the project incorporates, obviously, there's some glass overlooking the quad very much in keeping with the idea of making this space more inviting. But there are actually areas of solid and opaque glazing on the edges and up on the second floor behind. a sort of glass screen that's in front. So we do actually, of course, we need to meet that code. We do actually meet the code, but it's through a creative use of how we've used the opaque portions of the cladding in conjunction with the glass. And it's triple glazed, I should add to it. It is all triple glazed.

[Jenny Graham]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, excellent. Unless there's other discussion from the board, we could entertain a motion to approve the application for site plan approval.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second the motion.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, and let's hit a roll call vote then we'll start, as always, with Vice Chair Jackie McPherson.

[Unidentified]: Hi, Christie.

[David Blumberg]: Hi, Emily. Hi, Ari Guffman Fishman. And I'm an eye as well. Thank you, attorney dash and Rocco and everyone here on behalf of toughs.

[Dash]: Thank you very much on behalf of TUS for your time and attention to this.

[David Blumberg]: Good evening. Good night. Okay, now we'll move on to our next item, site plan review for 285, 295 Middlesex Ave. Let me pull up the notice on that. Give me a moment. Okay, this board will conduct a meeting tonight via zoom relative to an application for site plan reviews submitted by maldex limited partnership, regarding the tenant fit out of an existing 27,160 square foot building previously a fitness center to a supermarket at 285 to 95 mil sex have in Medford. This is a project that involves a change in principle use of an existing building containing 10,000 square feet or more, meaning that it meets the definition of a major project. And under our zoning ordinance, it therefore requires site plan review by this board. So let me invite the applicant team to introduce themselves and present.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Thanks. My name is Katie Weatherby. I'm here on behalf of WS Development. We're the owners of Townline Plaza, which is the overall shopping center there. And I'm joined tonight by H-Mart and our consultants. We have Keith on the architecture team, Kristen on the traffic and engineering side, and then Joe on the civil engineering side. I thought I would do something similar to Tess, do a brief overview, and then if there's questions, invite the experts to help chime in.

[David Blumberg]: OK, great. Thank you.

[Unidentified]: I'm going to attempt to share my screen. Are you able to see HMART at Townline Plaza?

[David Blumberg]: Yes, we can see it.

[Unidentified]: OK, great.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: So I thought first I would kind of orient people to the site. This is called Townline Plaza. I would say very appropriately as it is on the town line, but it's actually the city line, so it should probably be renamed City Line Plaza. But this is the city line that goes through Medford to the south and Malton to the north. The green line here, if you can see my hand, I'm following it. If not, it is the green line around the property. That shows the extent of our property. We did want to call out that we have a parking easement to the south that feels very much like it's part of the property, but it is owned by the National Grid at this point. And then just site where H-Mart is going to be going within that plaza. Zooming in a little bit more, you can see where the proposed H-Mart is going. This location was previously occupied by Crunch Fitness, if you're familiar with the area. They relocated to our sister property, Broadway Plaza, just about a year ago in March of 2022 to make way for H Mart to come in. And actually, before it was Crunch Fitness, it was a store market for about 20 years. So this same location has actually been a grocery store before, which is one of the reasons why, as a landowner, we knew a grocery store would be a great idea. Continuing on, I pulled some aerial street views from Google just to kind of orient people. And then that way, if you want to do later, you could go and kind of replicate the same views. If you're coming up from Middlesex Ave. from Medford, there's a car wash to the right. And this is kind of your first view of the property. This right here is the former Crunch Fitness, where H-Mart will be going. If you continue a little bit ways up, you see that there's a right turn in only, which will actually bring customers right to H Mart. So it is a really great feature of the property as it exists today. So this is showing the lower right-hand view shows the right turn in only. Continuing up Middlesex Ave and about to change to Highland Ave as we cross the town line is the main entrance to the property. Dunkin Donuts is to the right. This is a full, Cars can go in and out at this intersection. And then the northernmost property entrance is next to John Brewer's Tavern. So that's kind of the full extent along Middlesex slash Highland Avenue. And then some views from within the property. There are two major buildings today, as well as a Dunkin' Donuts out parcel. H-Mart is going into the easternmost building, and they're kind of anchoring the building. Along the strip today, there's a lot of existing stores, really a traditional shopping center in that it has a little bit of everything. It does have restaurants, retail, some service uses as well. In the top left view, Crunch is all the way at the end, sorry, former Crunch, future H Mart. Then the bottom right view is just looking at that area a little bit closer. And then as you continue through the site, this is looking back towards the side of future H-Mart and kind of along H-Mart on the top left. And then the bottom right view shows the large parking field that is behind H-Mart, where also they'll be doing a lot of their loading and service.

[Unidentified]: A little bit about H-Mart.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: They are an Asian American market. They've been in business for nearly 40 years. They have over 78 stores in 14 states. They do have other locations in Massachusetts already. Cambridge is 1 of them. They pick locations where they can really serve the community that they're in, and they're very attracted to Medford, particularly because of the college. So great that tops was here earlier.

[Unidentified]: And these are some pictures from other locations.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: The plans that were submitted, I'll go through them briefly as part of the site plan review application, showing the existing conditions. The property was built in the 1960s. We've had tenants go in and out of the various stores along the strip since then. Duncan was added at some point after that. But this main building was built in 1960 and it's had a lot of different uses, but mostly remained the same. This page now shows some changes to the site that we're proposing to accommodate the use. H-Mart is taking the building almost entirely as is. Like I said, it was a grocery store before it was a fitness use, so the building actually was set up to pretty well already handle the use. Because of that and because it previously had a grocery store in the shopping center, there's really not that many changes to the site that needed to be made to accommodate it. The minimal changes include shifting one island to accommodate a truck turn, which we will show later. Then the elimination of some parking in the rear to allow loading and service in this back corner. They're adding cart corrals, doing a lot of improvements inside the building, but the site mostly was set up already today to accommodate this use.

[Unidentified]: More technical drawings on the side improvements.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Then to understand the existing composition of the property, You know, there's Duncan, like I talked about proposed grocery store that we're talking about tonight. There's retail, there's a doctor's office, there's some restaurants. There's a smaller grocery store on the left. There's actually like manufacturing and Armatron International. And this is also another great view to kind of show where the city town line goes through the property.

[Unidentified]: And this is just an overall existing conditions view of the property that shows both the Medford side, as well as the Malton side.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: We received a lot of questions and comments through city review. And so we pulled together a couple documents that address some of those. And then we'd be looking forward to talking through any additional comments and some of those comments with the board this evening. One thing we did want to note is the The size of the project we understand warrants a major project. However, it is reoccupying an existing building and a mostly existing site as it exists today. A lot of the conditions we read almost like it was a brand new construction. We were building 25,000 square feet. So we just want to emphasize that we really tried to keep the site work as minimal as possible because it worked. And so we weren't planning on doing a lot of site work because it existed and functioned well today.

[Unidentified]: So there were some questions about truck turning.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: We actually, this is one of the items we worked really closely with H Mart on, was understanding how the site can accommodate the truck turns. It's a shopping center. We really want to make sure that customers are not impacted as the grocery tenant has a lot of trucks coming to and from the property. So we need to understand how those trucks would service. And so this shows the truck entering the property. This helped us determine the one area that we did need to modify the site, which is just, we had one loss of a parking space to accommodate an area that was previously a little tight on the truck turn. But this shows the truck driving through the property and then backing into the loading dock. And then in order to exit the same way, the truck just needed a little bit more maneuverability to take a couple of turns. One thing I will note is that These programs are often a little conservative. I have seen truck drivers do some very, very tight turns, but this is a conservative, safe truck movement. There are also questions about existing bike racks and stop lines and adding some stop lines and stop signs. So we do have some existing bike racks on property today on both sides. This plan shows a couple here and then a couple over here as well. So there are bike racks in both Malden and Medford. And they look like little circles on the sidewalk today. I can go back to different aerials if helpful to see them. And then we do have stop lines in some locations, but we do recognize that we probably need to add a few more stop lines throughout the property. So this just shows that yes, we are accommodating those.

[Unidentified]: I'll pause there.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: I included all the submission materials in case there were questions that were more helpful and answered by other materials that were not planned in nature. But I just want to comment that the existing site does really accommodate the use well. And some of the conditions imposed were for offsite work that we were a little surprised by because this is such a minimal change to the existing site.

[David Blumberg]: to is at the end of your presentation. We'll hear from some of your colleagues.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: That's the end of the presentation. And I think they're here more if there's specific questions.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. Any city staff in the queue to speak on this one, Amanda?

[Amanda Centrella]: Alicia, Danielle, any comments you guys wanted to provide?

[David Blumberg]: You don't have to, we always just invite. How about members of the public at this time? Amanda, any folks who'd like to participate or speak on this matter?

[Amanda Centrella]: Yeah, so once more, just want to invite folks who would like to provide comment that you can do so if you use the raise hand feature at the bottom of the screen. You can also use the chat box if you're not sure how to use that feature and put your name in there and I'll call you in the queue. And I do see a hand raised. So Judy Kim, if you could just provide your name and address for the record.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, my name is Judy Kim. I live in 48 McCormick Ave in Medford.

[David Blumberg]: Welcome. Thanks for being here today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, thank you. This is my first time and I'm so excited for H Mart coming that this is my first time joining a meeting because I wanted to express my excitement for this development. As Catherine had mentioned, there are several other locations within Massachusetts, but they are a pain to get to. The one in Cambridge, the parking is abysmal. The one in Burlington, you cannot get there during rush hour because of the 93-95 junction parking lot. you know, having one in Medford is so significant for me. I'm really excited for the diversity of produce and food products that aren't really available in existing grocery stores in Medford, but would be available. And I also think I see the potential for a very large customer base, you know, not just in Medford, but also with our neighbors in Malden, which has a significant Asian population. And so, you know, I was born and raised in Korea, I am now a US citizen, but you know, it's always good to introduce, you know, neighbors and family to cuisine that's, you know, near, dear to my heart. So I am very excited for this development and I hope you really consider this, you know, seriously. Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Thanks for your comments. Amanda, you're looking out into the universe there to see if we have

[Amanda Centrella]: Yes, I'm seeing no other hands raised or chats and I'm just refreshing our inbox to make sure nothing else has come in via email. And yep, it looks like nothing has.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, so we'll close that public comment portion then. Questions from the board for the applicant this evening?

[SPEAKER_19]: I have one that's- Ari, go ahead. Sorry.

[David Blumberg]: I couldn't see you because I only have so many windows there. Yep, sorry.

[SPEAKER_19]: Love HMARC, super excited about this and agreed that it would be a great addition to the community. My question is the Cambridge one I know has a food court as well. Is that something that's being considered or planned for this one?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Is that something you're able to answer? I would say yes, but not with any certainty.

[SPEAKER_11]: Yes, I can answer that. Keith Bettencourt from BK Architects, I'm the architect of record for the project. It will have food court functions as well, very similar to the Burlington and the other locations.

[SPEAKER_19]: Great, I look forward to many delicious pastries and the kind of official route would love to kind of make sure that there's the appropriate trash and litter mitigation for outdoors, especially in the parking lot.

[David Blumberg]: Any comments on the policing of the lot, maybe, issue that Ari's raising?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so as the property owner, we do have border service that goes around and empties the existing trash cans. We've actually something we monitored closely. Really during COVID, we did notice an increase and we're very thankful it's returning to post COVID or pre COVID levels in terms of the trash on property. But we do have existing landscapers that maintain the property itself. And then with regards to H Mart, I've switched to this plan because they do have a lot of dumpsters. They'll of course work with the health department on anything that's required permit wise, making sure it's adequate road and control and things like that. But it's something we do take very seriously and we closely monitor.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: David, this is Vice Chair Jackie McPherson. I have a couple of questions. One, it is exciting to have this new means coming in, and I can definitely see a large customer base and maybe market demand. And speaking of that, one of the things that I noticed And just for the area over there in Middlesex Ave, is there, one of my first questions is, I wasn't aware that this was a grocery store previously. I thought it was always a fitness center even before crunch. So I didn't realize that it was already set up to be a grocery center. So I'm trying to figure out how emergency vehicles and if trucks are tight and they're loading. How would emergency vehicles go in there? Then my second piece to that is traffic generation trips are going to be higher. And I want to know if it was standard uses or if it was actually determined at certain peak hours. And then secondly, the pedestrian set up over there is lacking on Middlesex Ave. So I have a couple of questions surrounding safety. And if it wants to just speak a little bit more on so basically my overall questions are safety. Access for proper access for emergency vehicles and then. traffic generation, which you say, for instance, this is as we just heard from one of our residents, Miss Kim stated that it would be a demand, even I was shocked, you know, it sounds like it's a great place going to bring all kinds of people. Are we prepared for this and with the proper traffic generation resource?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Sure, so I will give high level overview answers, and then I'm going to turn over some of the experts, particularly on traffic, because we do have our traffic engineer here this evening. So in terms of emergency access, the building today exists in the same condition. We're not making any exterior changes that would impede access. We're actually, we've had a lot of interaction, unfortunately, with the fire department in recent years. But they've been able to service the building to our knowledge, This was in terms of a truck accommodating a turn was the one thing we had to make. Fire truck access is a little bit different maneuverability. We've never heard from the fire department of any issues accessing the space. We'd be more than happy to submit a plan that shows the fire trucks circulating the property and work with the fire department if they do have concerns. But the property as it exists today is being serviced by Medford Fire and I haven't heard of any challenges. In terms of level traffic. And like I said, I'm going to turn it over to Kristen afterwards to talk in more detail because she's the expert. This property was originally set up as a shopping center. And so it was a grocery store back in, I think, stop star market closed in the late 90s. But I can get that exact date for you if you'd like. And one of the great things about a shopping center is that there's complimentary uses and different ebbs and flows throughout the day. And the grocery use actually really works well with some of the existing uses on site. Dunkin Donuts, we know, will be really busy first thing in the morning, not as busy in the afternoon when grocery store picks up. Retail really is a weekend peak. Grocery store does have a weekend peak, but it's a lot in the evenings. In terms of the restaurants on property, which are another weekend peak, they're scattered throughout. So we do think while this will bring traffic to the property, we actually think the property is set up in terms of its existing parking and circulation to accommodate that. As if you go by the property today, there's a lot of parking that isn't being used. We're kind of waiting for this to come in. Something that was commented on previously, I did want to address in that same vein as employee parking. Currently today with this large vacancy at the end, employees are allowed to park throughout the property. we will encourage employees to park back in this large parking field once H Mart is open. And that will really keep the open, the front parking area open for customers. In terms of pedestrian access, there is sidewalk access off of this entrance going through the property along John Burroughs Tavern. And then it is a parking lot. I hope that cars are driving very carefully. And we do have crossings from within the parking lots. You'll see these existing cross points. They're mostly set up with the existing ADA parking to make sure that they have a compliant route across the property. If you've been there during COVID, we previously had this drive lane shut down with some seating for the Donut Villa that actually will not be in place this summer now that we're post COVID, fingers crossed. but so this will have full access and having pedestrian crossings in this way helps to slow traffic down and making it more regular circulation throughout. One thing that H-Mart did comment to us and one of the reasons they're excited for this location is with college students, they've noticed a lot of those students using Ubers. They don't have cars and so college students will grab an Uber, which will actually then have a great place to drop them off near the front door. So it's a different type of trip. not really resulting in parking, and then brings them in close proximity, and then they can load the groceries up and get away. I will allow, oh, sorry.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm sorry, one of my biggest concerns is that the walkability issue over there. My dentist is actually located right next door to Crunch Fitness. And when I walk over there, and so what you bring it in the college, tuck, tuck, and just having other options, not all will use Ubers a lot. will implement the blue bikes that the city is installing around Medford now. And so, and I've seen that a lot, even increasing with going to BJ's across the street from that. And so I'm just a little concerned about, I literally, if I'm walking over, if I decide to leave my car at home and I'm walking over there, I'm making a run for my life. And it's like, it's a little bit more than hoping that the cars will drive, you know, safely. And I'm not putting it on you. It's just that it is bringing in more traffic. So that's where my concern comes.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: We'd be more than happy to look to it, accommodating more bike parking. That's great to hear that the existing parking might not be enough. So we can definitely accommodate that.

[David Blumberg]: Are you willing to accommodate the 13 that director Blake has asked for?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: So we have 10 existing, so we can definitely add, you know, they're usually in pairs. So we would add four more spaces, two more racks.

[David Blumberg]: Jackie, I don't want to cut you off and I don't think we heard from the traffic engineer.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: That's it. Thank you. Yeah, Kristen, if you'd like to talk a little bit more about the technical traffic and how shopping center and grocery store work, that'd be great.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, yeah. Thank you to the board for having us tonight. Kirsten Braun, I'm the traffic engineer for the project. And I work for Chapel engineering and associates. So we did perform a traffic analysis as well as parking analysis for this site. One important thing to note that I think Katie brought up a lot is there was previously a supermarket on the site, and generally shopping centers of this size will include a supermarket so it doesn't necessarily mean that re adding a supermarket is going to result in a significant amount of trips. At any rate though, we did look at the increase in traffic associated with adding in the supermarket and the increases are not significant. And that's for two reasons. One of which is a lot of people when they go to a supermarket, they're on their way home, on their way to work, on their way to run some sort of other errand. And what they'll do is they'll swing through and go to the supermarket on their way to somewhere else. So technically that traffic already exists on Middlesex Avenue. The second reason is a lot of people too when they go to shopping centers, they won't necessarily only stop at H Mart, they might also go to another store within the shopping center. So while that is two trips within the shopping center, it's really only one trip on the adjacent roadway. So those are the real two main reasons why, you know, traffic isn't going to increase that much. Another thing to note that we didn't take a credit for in our study also is the fact that this is such a great area for walkability, bikeability, transit. So we didn't take any sort of credits for that kind of activity on site. But we probably do expect, given this location, that there will be a decent amount of those types of trips, but we didn't take any sort of credit for those mode splits. But really, essentially, supermarkets within shopping centers don't result in a significant increase in trips because of all the various reasons that I had mentioned. And I can answer any other specific questions related to that. But that's just sort of a gist of the traffic study and what kind of traffic increases we can expect.

[David Blumberg]: I guess.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'm just having a hard time envisioning it only because I know just from being in Medford itself and living across from Wegmans with that, that's a larger and it brings a lot of traffic to the region. And with H Mart being specialized, we just don't know the market base and what that traffic would bring. So I'm just not convinced that it won't be a huge significant increase. But I'll leave that to the traffic engineer.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, I think any of us who have been to the Burlington, I mean, I've never been in the Burlington market because I've never been able to park there. Yeah. That's anecdotal. I'm not running the numbers.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: Yes. And my thoughts are anecdotal from being a neighbor, and from pretty much using all these spaces that we're referencing, and just me being over there. So I guess I'll just, I'll defer to the experts on that. It's just as a neighbor myself, or as a resident of Medford, it's just a concern.

[Jenny Graham]: We also separately took a look at parking. And what we did is we counted the parking demand on site during peak periods. So it's for shopping centers, it's typically midday. And we did find that the existing parking lots are currently very underutilized as is. So we don't expect a parking issue associated with the supermarket, even when we layer that traffic on. And also Katie had mentioned something earlier as well that a lot of the uses within the shopping center have different types of peaks. You know, coffee shops are morning, grocery stores might be midday. Some of the restaurants are probably, you know, between the 7 to 8 p.m. hours. So it's really actually a good situation and that there's such a mix of uses on site that all their peak parking demand hours are all very different.

[David Blumberg]: I see, oh, thank you. Jackie, unless you have more, I see Amanda's hand.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I just had, I think, a clarifying question. I want to say in Director Blake's memo that there was that acknowledgment of, you know, some underutilization of the parking, but that a lot of that may be parking in the rear of the site, and I was wondering if you could speak to How, you know, the typical person, not necessarily an employee would access. The, you know, and the rest of the property from the rear. If there were to be parking back there, if there is there, like. Yeah, are there sidewalks that kind of connect to the front of the property?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: There are not currently today, but we do mostly anticipate that to be employee parking. If you visit the property today, almost anybody you see parking out front is actually an employee. We will be shifting those employees back behind the property. There is passage along the side of the building. There's some parking that's striped along here that we could in the future look at removing a couple of spaces to create a striped walkway if we do find that customers are parking back here. For employees, a lot of these doors, every single one you see here, including H Mart, does have a rear door. So it's a really great place for employees to park because they can get in very quickly, particularly in the winter and not have to walk around. But we do envision that the front parking will mainly be utilized by customers. Thank you. I did want to have just an overarching comment. We definitely appreciate the board's interest and concern in parking and traffic. And I wanted to say that as the property owner, and I'm also the property manager, we're very interested in as well. If customers can't park on property, if they can't maneuver, they're not going to continue shopping there. And so it is really, really in our interest to make sure that everything works really, really well. We work closely with our leasing team to make sure we have the right mix of tenants on site. When I go on, sometimes I call them different flavors. But so we think about the different uses that are on the property and make sure that they're all complimentary to each other. A lot of thought went into adding HR in the grocery store and we think it will be really great.

[David Blumberg]: I guess the potential rub on that is that this board is charged with evaluating, among other items, the safety from a pedestrian and vehicular point of view on the site. And while I don't doubt the sincerity of your comments that you'll continue to evaluate the property, it is incumbent on us to evaluate it in its condition as it's presented. And if we determine that more needs to be done to condition approval potentially on that, and I'm getting the sense from you that you're not open to making modifications to the site. Maybe I'll let you speak to that or correct me if I'm wrong. Before we go too much further.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm sorry that came off that way we really had evaluated the site as it exists, and saw this use coming in. you know, we know it's an existing use that's allowed and the size of it is discussing the major project and the site plan review. So we really hadn't contemplated a lot of changes to the site, like if we were putting a brand new grocery store, that's kind of more what I meant. We definitely if we feel like we need to stripe certain areas, reevaluate parking or traffic circulation on site, we could definitely do that. We just had only received the comments on Monday. So we would need to take a little time and go back and do some layouts and see what we could accommodate, and then come back to the board if that's their wish.

[David Blumberg]: OK, I appreciate that. Thank you for clarifying. Much appreciated. Other board members, before I ask any questions.

[Jenny Graham]: Yeah, I would just like to second what you are stating, David. I think I would be more comfortable if the proponent could digest the comments, consider them, and then come back and see how much they can respond to. I think it's a great project. It's a wonderful opportunity to bring a grocer like this to our area. However, it also presents other opportunities to improve what is a pretty rough looking area and the pedestrian safety is definitely of a concern. But also as you know a good community member I would like to also see the opportunity to clean up the edges and improve. landscaping, but primarily the pedestrian safety and really be clear about what's going on with traffic and how best to respond. Understanding that this site was originally a supermarket, you know, if that was in the 90s, I think, you know, fast forward, here we are 30 years later, let's just be clear about what has changed in the city.

[David Blumberg]: You don't have to speak to that. I just wanted to give you the opportunity, of course.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that. Yeah, we're happy to go back and review pedestrian circulation throughout the site and see if there's things we can do to accommodate the board as well as city staff comments on site. I just want to clarify a lot of the questions and comments have been about circulation on site traffic obviously is off site. Some of the comments we received from city staff previously were about offsite improvements. And that is really something that we'd have to take like a budgeting exercise and look into because this was an existing site. So I don't wanna go off and look at onsite circulation and then have the board expecting other items. We'd be happy to look at pedestrian routes, provide a little bit more information, see if there's other things we can do to address the concerns on the property.

[Jenny Graham]: I would just like to add to that though. I would like to see as a board member what your best faith effort in responding to department comments about offsite mitigation. That's what we need to evaluate. How do you respond so we can make a recommendation?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: especially accessing the site from Middlesex Avenue. That's one of my biggest, because again, as Christy has already mentioned, as a board, we're looking to make sure that as you're building, we're making sure that we're getting, we're making sure that there's a community benefit and you being a community neighbor, this is our opportunity to make sure that it's done well. And not to put the stress or burden or economic burden on you, but at the same time, pedestrian safety should be at the top.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Definitely understood. And so I do just want to clarify that the sidewalks that exist out front of the property, including the crossing, are state lands. And so that wasn't something we had contemplated. We can definitely look at the landscaping. We can have discussions with the state about any future plans they have to update the sidewalks in that area. Striping in terms of things is relatively low cost. So if the state would like us to strike the crosswalks at the entrance, that's a very easy thing for us to do. Gets a little tricky sometimes just with jurisdiction, but we'd be happy to coordinate with them on that.

[David Blumberg]: Other, I don't know if that was a good dialogue. I don't wanna cut it short, but I don't wanna dwell on it too long as well. If there are other comments, questions from board members or Christy, if you wanna keep the podium for any more comments you might have.

[Jenny Graham]: No, that was a fair response and I appreciate that. Thank you.

[David Blumberg]: Okay. I can't see Emily on my screen. Are you?

[Emily Hedeman]: I echo other board members comments, and I think a nice response to this, I'm not saying your other responses aren't nice, but maybe a nice way to frame it would be to kind of tell, similar to how you did with the college students, telling the story about they arrive by Uber, they get dropped off here. Tell us that same story for pedestrians coming from the north, coming from the south. I mean, I go to the advanced auto parts store at this plaza, you know, probably more than I should, and I drive there. But if I was walking there, I can't see myself, you know, taking the long route all the way around, you know, the northern plaza to get to the southern plaza. I see myself, you know, either walking all the way down to the southern entrance and then cutting straight up or, you know, like Jackie was saying, putting my life in my hands and going all the way across. So if there's some way, whether it's through crosswalks or directionals or landscaping that you can kind of tell the pedestrian what their transit story should be, I think that would be really helpful for us.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Great, we'd be happy to come back and present that, thank you.

[Emily Hedeman]: Yeah, but thank you for this. And I love H-Mart, so I'm really excited that this is gonna be in my neighborhood.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Excellent. I have some sad news for you, though, that Advanced Auto Parts just closed.

[Emily Hedeman]: Well, maybe that's good for both of us. Thanks for the update.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, well I had a number of things that I'll just, instead of sort of direct questions, maybe I'll just share them as feedback for tonight because it sounds like we'll be reconvening to talk about things in more detail. Certainly, you know, WS is, I live amongst many of your buildings here in the seaport and you're certainly filled with very capable and creative people on your staff, I'm sure to be able to to do a bang up job between now and our next get together but vehicle charging was one question I had again you don't have to respond to these I'm just sort of giving you my list. The idea of requiring as opposed to just recommending the employees to park in the back I think would be a good thing. I was going to ask you about some directional signage to inform members of the public that additional parking is in the rear maybe there are two or three of those that could be strategically placed. We talked about the bike racks. There was a comment from Director Blake as well about sort of scheduling the deliveries and maybe just as a practical matter, it's not that big of a deal. H-Mart probably doesn't want deliveries coming in when all their customers are there. So maybe you can just share some info there to satisfy that concern that was raised. Stop lines, stop signs, it looked like you were indicating those on there. We'll ask Director Blake to take a look between now and our next get together to see if he has any thoughts on that. Anything you can do to increase the number of crosswalks internal ones I think would be nice, just to sort of freshen things up and make sure that folks are feeling comfortable, getting from the public sidewalk from the south I know you pointed out pretty clearly where it is coming from north, and also just making sure that they can walk through the drive lanes and feel comfortable. that we're doing so. You had the traffic mitigation steps and Director Blake's memo, of course, and as you've already alluded to, a couple of those require some mass DOT participation, which I think we'd want your best efforts on. And if that doesn't work out, maybe you can work with Director Blake slash the planning and development staff to come up with alternatives if DOT doesn't cooperate. Down the road. So those are some of my things in the week was we have the letters with conditions from the various departments fire department diversity equity Board of Health traffic I've already mentioned but engineering as well so to the extent that you're able to look at those and either say, yeah, it's a thumbs up all around, or here are a couple of things that we don't quite agree with the city on, and this is what we're doing instead. That also is super helpful for us, so we can understand where we're going with our decision.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much. I was taking a lot of notes. On a lot of the conditions, I did want to clarify one thing. A lot of them, particularly Fire Department, Board of Health a little bit, DEI, are items that would be on a building permit set. And there's some work that the tenant has to do to figure out like location of sewer and a couple other things to clarify. I frankly didn't want to seem rude and say this will be on a subsequent set of drawings, but we can definitely go through and kind of call out which ones will be on future sets of drawings if that's helpful.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah, you don't even have to for our purposes, just to fill you in kind of on our practice. If there's something that is going to be addressed in the construction documents or in that building permit application phase, say we're in agreement with those conditions or we're happy satisfying the fire department's conditions 2, 3, and 4, whatever it is. That's kind of all. We want to know if there's something where there's a stumbling block, where there might be kind of an issue. But if your feeling is, yes, in principle, I'm good with those, and we will address them in detail with the building permit, that works for the board. You can get past us with that sort of an explanation.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: OK, great. Thank you. OK. And then I took all the notes on the comments. Thank you very much for the feedback. Employee parking, I'm going to go a little out of order. Employee parking is something that we actually in our leases require that they do have to park where we tell them to. So it is a little bit stronger. We frankly are a little lax right now. That's what I was trying to indicate, but we will definitely police that in the future. Directional signs are a great idea. I took notes throughout people's comments. There's a lot of comments and great feedback on pedestrian access the roots Emily storytelling was a great idea. I like to tell stories so we'll definitely come back to a future meeting and kind of tell more of the pedestrian story and the access way through the property before. And, you know, I think, internal crosswalk stoplight stop sign walk through all all. go to that. Vehicle charging is a little, it's something we're definitely looking at across the company. We've implemented them in a couple places. It requires a partnership with a third party to do that. One of the challenges we actually run into is that it's a little bit of a long process working with utility providers on the easements. So as a company, you know, occupying an existing building we see is something that's very green. We've recently switched a lot of our power supply to be green. We're definitely trying to do more that's green and we're open to it, it's just a little bit challenging for us to work through some of the technical things on the EV charging, but we're not closed to it. So we'll definitely keep an open mind on that. And I will definitely come back to a future meeting and address a lot of these comments.

[David Blumberg]: Okay, that's that sounds really good. I, I can't stop myself I'm sorry. But just my in my, to my own eye, we needed to see a little pedestrian crosswalk that would be along the building just some ability for someone to safely get from the back lot to the, to the entrance. unless there was an accessible entrance in the back and people could go in and out over there. And sometimes the retail operator has that too. And then I just wanted to point out the drive lane requirements of the fire department. And I don't know anywhere where your numbers are, but just as another thing to keep in mind as you do some planning on the site plan.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: You mean the width of the drive lanes, correct?

[David Blumberg]: Yeah. And I guess to my, again, to my eye in particular, it's alongside the building, um, in either over or next to you, the easement for parking, you know, and is that, does that meet the city's fire department standards for width of a traveling?

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: We'll come back and do all of those things.

[David Blumberg]: Yeah. So Is it fair enough that we should talk about scheduling to have you come back and see us? I see Amanda's hand is raised. Maybe she was thinking like I was.

[Amanda Centrella]: Thank you, Chair. So two quick notes just for Katie and Janessa, who I believe is also on. So PDS staff is more than happy to connect you with any of the appropriate staff as you guys are kind of digesting feedback and if you're wanting to discuss any of the above. So obviously, you've got my number. We can figure that out after this meeting. just wanted to make sure that that was really apparent. And yeah, and as the chair mentioned, so if the board is interested in continuing the hearing, we'll need to continue to a date certain, which just means, you know, whatever meeting seems appropriate for both the applicant and the board that's on the calendar in the future. So I'll throw out a couple of dates that we have, which is, so I don't know if it's too quick, but we do have a meeting in two weeks from now on the 21st of June. We'll also have a July 5th meeting, as well as a July 19th meeting, and I'll pause there.

[David Blumberg]: And just for my 2 cents, I'd encourage you to take the time you need. And I know, again, you're a really strong organization that has a lot of resources. So maybe a quick turnaround is not a challenge, but take the time you need, and then things will go that much more quickly for you, is my forecast when you return to the board.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

[Unidentified]: We would love to come back on June. Oh, Danielle is signing on to us too.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, Danielle Evans, senior planner. You can also request to be heard at the next meeting. And if you're not ready in time, then we'll, you know, before we post the agenda, it'd be great to know if you're ready or not. And we can indicate on the agenda that you'd be requesting a continuance and you could do so. Great. Without comment or you know, any discussion if you're not ready. So if you wanted to shoot for that, but if you're not ready, that is an option.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. We would love to shoot for that. We had talked earlier in the week that we had a lot of information to digest and we'd probably be continuing. So we were expecting June 21st, if that is still available. And then Amanda and Danielle, I know we'll be talking a lot in the next two weeks leading up to it. So thank you for that. We will definitely we're going to do our best and hope to get through all the comments and then be able to respond appropriately. Thanks everyone for the input.

[David Blumberg]: That's great. As a formality, do we want to vote on the on the continuance or okay? Yeah, let's do. Let's do that. If there is there a motion to continue this matter until our next meeting on June 21st. Christie Dowd.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Hedman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Ari Goffman-Fishman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: And I'm an aye as well. Thank you, Katie. Thanks for being here. Thanks to all you and the rest of your team. We look forward to seeing you again.

[qefSwzu_K1A_SPEAKER_02]: Great. Thank you very much.

[David Blumberg]: Thank you. Okay friends. Next item on the agenda, and I think it was on the public agenda so we'll have to make mention of it. It was a request to submit a petition to propose changes to the zoning ordinance so I'll turn this over to city staff.

[Amanda Centrella]: I'm happy to jump in unless Alicia or Danielle wants to.

[Alicia Hunt]: Do you want why don't I just sort of go so I asked Amanda to put this on. I don't know how closely any of you guys follow the city council agendas, but you would see that the city council last night had on there, a bunch of zoning amendments, and a lot of them have been like how did those city Councilors come up with those, those very technical like changes that feel administrative. So some of those, we met with the city council in a subcommittee about a change that one of the Councilors wanted to propose about the use table. And at that meeting, they said to us, they wanted to get those use table changes. Basically they're changing automobile uses from a yes to a special permit is what they would like to do. And they said they wanted to get that through as quickly as possible. And they said to us, we know that you have administrative things and clerical type stuff that you've been talking about that you want changed right away. Do you want us to add any of those into the thing we're going to put on the agenda right now? And we said yes. In fact, yes, earlier today we were discussing putting them on the CD board agenda because they could come first from the CD board to the city council. So they invited us to draft some of those up. So we did, and we gave them to them. And I don't think any of them would be in any way stunning or shocking. There are things that we've discussed here and there with some of you, or you'll look at them and go like, Oh, that's really super technical. So there will be a public hearing that we will be posting to discuss those. So last night, today's Wednesday, right? They voted automatically to refer them to the CD board for your public hearing, where you will then discuss one of the Councilors. I've actually talked with Councilor Bears, who'd be happy to come talk particularly about the one that is coming from the Councilors, so that you would understand what they were thinking and why to help sort of move that along and make your recommendations on it. And then Danielle and Amanda and I can explain the rest of them. Um, we can send them to you now. They were on last night's city council agenda, but they need to be publicly noticed. And I will tell you that in, uh, we did move that through fairly quickly. Um, so it was actually today that I sent them to city's legal legal council, just to say like, Hey, any comment, are these all appropriately drafted? Do they need any edits, et cetera? with the intention of, for your public hearing, having legal feedback, if there's any. And most of it is extraordinarily straightforward, but people will ask, has a lawyer looked at this? So that's why it was on the agenda and why we all then never had any materials to give you.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: So to clarify, this is for one change or a few changes?

[Alicia Hunt]: There is, I think, six on there. And I'm happy to sort of go through them, but like some were errors, some were like misunderstandings of how some were unintended consequences once we started applying things. One of them's a clarification about who the SPGA is in certain situations that there's conflicting stuff. Like the ZBA had been voted to have five members and two associates in when we did that change back three years ago. And then when they did the recodification, somehow what got written in there was five members and one associate. And we actually went and pulled it. And we said, hmm. So some of these things like that, you could say, is that stenographer's error? But if we're doing changes, let's just do it as a change. Then it's better. and happy to discuss them all in detail. They're not in detail on your agenda tonight because what we wrote, the original plan was that I was gonna explain a bunch of these and then have you review them. I'm also, if anybody wants to discuss them offline, obviously they're publicly posted. You're welcome to talk to any of us. I would say that Danielle and I are the real experts in them. Some came from each of us.

[David Blumberg]: Can I throw one more into your mix just to think about? And that occurs to me today as I was preparing for the meeting, and it's occurred to me in other meetings. And I know when Jackie ran the 200 Boston Ave, I know I could tell Jackie you were arm wrestling with this as well, is just how do you work through the things that were really limited to evaluating in connection with the site plan review? And so one of the finer things maybe that I'm struggling with is how to reconcile. You know, you have, let me put it out there. We've got 11.7.10 standards for approval. And that's kind of like, oh, you know, are you worried about traffic? Are you worried about safety? That sort of, okay, that's great. But it also says the site plan should be consistent with 6.4, which I think is good. That's performance standards. But then there's 6.1 and 6.2 and 6.3. And so I've just, I'm sort of scratching my head along your lines of like, is this a typo or is it deliberate? Because I feel like 6.2 on signage has always, everyone's always deferred to the building department on signage. It doesn't seem like that really comes up for us to talk about. In 6.1, it's parking and loading, which, We might talk about if somebody's not meeting the standards or we want to know if they're hitting the standards or not, but it kind of speaks for itself. You've got 6.3, which is landscaping and buffering, which, like when we had the American Beer Hall recently, we were relying, I think, more on the PDS staff to kind of figure out, hey, how many trees are there and, you know, what's the open space looking like? And then there's some stuff within 6.4 itself, like the lighting standards that I think are more akin to like the science, like, you know, am I going to really add a lot of value in figuring out what the lighting, I don't even know what the units of measure are well enough to really talk to it, but maybe that's more like signage. So I guess it's a long way of me saying that I feel like there are some things that are real good for the board to weigh in on and kind of look and feel kind of things. And then I feel like there's probably some of these items that really are more like just straight building commissioner, or city confirmation. I'm sorry, so much time to get that out.

[Danielle Evans]: And so I think, if I may. So in site plan review. You all can waive some of those standards and signage landscaping in the parking and loading. So I think that's why it's included. So if they were going to depart from the strict compliance, you could review those. So in the future, and my goal for when the next decision is to be made is to have a draft like a draft decision with some, you know, some of the staff findings and outlining what needs to be met, you know, what complies, what doesn't comply, what you would need to review to kind of lighten the load of going through all the findings.

[David Blumberg]: I guess just to respond to your, to your suggestion there. I, I don't know like if we have the right to leave some of the parking requirements that that makes sense to me but it's not, it's not within the scope of the standards for approval, you know, so it's a little bit, it's a little bit weird to me, but I guess if this. If we knew who was responsible for 6.1, like the building commissioner, right? You go down there, you give them for a building permit, and they say, you're denied. You have to go to a special permit, or you're not in conformity for these following reasons, whatever it is. It feels like 6.1 would lend itself to something like that. And then somebody would come to the board and say, oh, we're short, but we want forgiveness because of some discretionary basis. This is not something we have to decide here but I'm just trying to point out I feel like things are treated a little bit differently in section six, but maybe the groupings could be thought about so that the right ones are clumped together.

[Unidentified]: Maybe that's what I'm trying to say.

[Alicia Hunt]: I think I'm getting it and I think what some of what we're looking at is. a result of how these were put together. Right. So the six sections, they existed. And then during the recodification, they put in the performance standards. And so some of these performance standards were kind of dropped in here. And then there was an expectation that the city would refine them and that the council would refine them more, but they just got sort of put, and we tried to get some of them edited up, we all looked at them, but they didn't, it didn't like flow as one coherent document after that. I think that's part of what we're hoping to do with The, so the council, and, you know, honestly I apologize because sometimes there are things that I know so is going on so well because I'm in the middle of that I forget who I've said this to. So, I apologize if I have and I apologize if I haven't said this. So the council has been talking for a while about hiring a consultant to do like a redrafting of zoning. And that is actually so I worked and Danielle and I worked with the city council president and vice president to draft the scope for a consultant, that would be planning and legal together, that would be hired jointly by the council and our office to work on a full revamp of zoning, like things for example, that our zoning looks at stuff differently than other cities, right, like it's doesn't it ties uses to zones, but it doesn't tie dimensions really to our zones. And that's odd. But that also like what are the performance standards and what should they be that are appropriate for Medford, We had a lawyer who came in and said, you should have performance standards. Here are some cookie cutter ones, edit them. But we never had a consultant come in and say, here are performance standards that are appropriate for your community. And that is something that we're planning to do. The RFP is ready to go out. Honestly, it may have been posted. I think that it hasn't. I think we're waiting for the procurement officer for just a few last tweaks. And we're going to put that out. There's going to be money in the council budget and then some money from our office in the new fiscal year to pay for a consultant to work with us on all of that. And it feels like that kind of rework of which performance standards are there and where are they belongs in that mix and like thinking about it and what are the dimensional standards. I am kind of kicking your comment down the road, but because we have an intent I'd like to do it intentionally as part of an overall. If there is like there are a few things there's something around fences that the ZBA has said could we please fix that sooner, because it's causing them to have to have hearings on things that they don't really feel should be in their purview. Um, so there may be more tweaks coming, um, and the ones that you'll see on this list are absolutely things that we said cannot wait for a full rewrite. Okay. But if there are other things, we do have to just work with what are the process and I just want to be careful about if we have a bunch of administrative changes, I think for everybody's sanity, I'd like to move them through and then get another bunch and move them through and not have like some that are in this stage and some that are in that stage and have us leapfrog like that will confuse people. But I could be talked out of it. I'm not, I don't have my heart on that process.

[David Blumberg]: I just wanted to share while we were all together on that. So I see Ari's hand up. Is that yes, Ari?

[Alicia Hunt]: Your sounds really bad, we can't understand your words. Sorry, Ari. Try again, maybe if you reconnect them.

[Unidentified]: Oh, we lost Ari completely. Looks like they're frozen. Oh, poor Ari.

[David Blumberg]: Was there other hands up Daniel you had, but you're okay now.

[Danielle Evans]: Yeah, we can email you the draft that went to City Council.

[David Blumberg]: Oh, if you want sure.

[Danielle Evans]: I've been looking at stuff, knowing that there might be tweaks from legal counsel.

[Alicia Hunt]: I suspect that legally, and honestly I've done fewer zoning changes and you probably have Danielle. that what went to council probably has to show up at cd board exactly like that as the referral but that we would also if legal counsel made suggestions about changes we would send those to you as well and then your recommendation back would include those things. And I think I either thought of saying this or maybe I'm repeating myself. If anybody would like to discuss any of these offline, you're welcome to do that too. Because sometimes some of these get super in the weeds and it can be easier to like, wait, I don't understand this. And then we can talk it through if anybody needs or wants to do that.

[David Blumberg]: Oh, Ari, Ari, my friend, you're back. Welcome.

[Ari Fishman]: Sorry about the technical issues.

[David Blumberg]: You sound great, by the way.

[Ari Fishman]: Excellent. So glad to hear it. It froze on a lot of faces of entertainment with my technical issues, which is fair. I was just hoping to ask for the two sentence summary of kind of the idea behind Councilor Behr's proposal.

[Alicia Hunt]: The one that's the vehicle changes the auto. There is a concern that there are too many big parking lots full of vehicles, there are too many auto repair shops that that's not the highest and best use of spaces, particularly along mystic gas. And that we know we would like to do a rezoning that allow multiple stories and more dense development. And we also know that there are there is at least one, if not more vehicle repair places actively trying to relocate to Mystic Ave because they feel it's an appropriate place to go because they're getting pushed out of Somerville, other place in Cambridge. And because they're actively trying to come and we actively, we would really like to see something more and better there. They would like to change the uses from being as of right to special permit, um, to sort of send the signal that actually we're, we're slowing down on these. Um, I think there was some thought they wanted to change them to just know, and, but that might be a little too much too fast. That's the thinking.

[Ari Fishman]: I was wondering if there was someone actively trying to relocate there.

[Alicia Hunt]: There is actually, and the general feeling was also, I will tell you that there is interest in hearing from the board who you think the appropriate special permitting authority should be. Um, for some of them had been special permit by city council. And so the switch was to put them all there. But I think the Councilor may come and say that they're not actually wed to that idea. And should it be the plant the CD board? Should it be the ZBA? So I actually give you that so you could ruminate on that in advance as well. Because that's an open conversation.

[David Blumberg]: All right, does that include our Item number four, zoning ordinance, we're all set. Can we move forward to the minutes? Okay, excellent. We have before us the minutes from the April 26 meeting. There were a few changes made from based on board input and reflected in yellow on the draft that was shared amongst the board. Are there additional comments, questions, or if satisfied, would someone like to make a motion to approve the April 26 meeting minutes?

[Unidentified]: I so move.

[David Blumberg]: That's one, and do we have a second?

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I'll second.

[David Blumberg]: All right, roll call vote then to approve the meeting minutes. Vice Chair Jackie McPherson.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Christy Dowd.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Emily Headman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: Ari Goffman-Fishman.

[Unidentified]: Aye.

[David Blumberg]: And Emily as well. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much, everyone. Miscellaneous updates we have anything going there Amanda other things to share.

[Amanda Centrella]: Sure. I'll be quick. So, we do have a meeting on the 21st. There are a couple of items on the agenda, including possibly, or, well, including the continued hearing from tonight for H Mart. So, we will see another planned development district for 280 mystic have. I'll actually, we have those materials now so I will forward them all to you all early just because so you don't have to be like chewing through all of that material over the weekend before. We also have, and I should mention for 280 Mystic Ave, it's sort of a very large life sciences park campus feel type development with some retail uses and I think restaurant uses proposed as well. So exciting stuff. Additionally, we'll see a petition for a zoning map change for a site at 99 Revere Beach Parkway. So this is not a PDD, just kind of a simple, you know, here's an existing parcel, zoned this with a petition to rezone to something else. And in addition to that, a special permit review for Bank of America site in the Wegmans Plaza, so I think the address is 3085 Mystic Valley Parkway. They, the Special Permit Granting Authority is city council so in the head, a little weirdness with their permitting pathway which we can explain over email, but basically, the board will be making some recommendations to counsel. And yeah, I think that's it for next meeting. I do want to just acknowledge that terms are coming up for several of our members, so Christy, Klaus, and David. So next meeting may be your last. And so we'll be celebrating them and all they've contributed. We are interviewing several candidates. I have some things set up next week. And so just a gentle reminder for existing members to be thinking about elections in that first July 5th meeting.

[Paulette Van der Kloot]: I wanted to speak on a July 5th meeting. I know that I will not be in attendance because I won't be in the states. So I don't know where that leaves us with quorum or anything like that.

[Amanda Centrella]: No problem, yeah, we can talk offline. And if you have like feedback or any of that for the elections themselves too that you want communicated, we can figure that out. But thanks for giving us a heads up.

[Alicia Hunt]: People who don't show up to things get elected to stuff, you know, just saying.

[David Blumberg]: When we come back, it'll be the one woman community development board.

[Ari Fishman]: Speaking of- Nothing, you couldn't handle it. Um, history board or historical commission. Um. Are there upcoming meetings? I think I agreed as an interim and just wanted to check in if there's anything I'm supposed to be doing.

[Amanda Centrella]: Oh, the community preservation commission or committee. I'm sorry. Thank you. Um, actually. I'll check with Teresa, the new coordinator, on when the next meeting is. I know that sometimes there's a break in the summer, but I think that that's later. So I do think that there may be a July meeting or so. So I'll let you know. Thank you.

[Danielle Evans]: In the interviews with some of the new prospective board members, we're going to be pitching that you get to serve on the CPA, the CPC. So hopefully it'll be, your commitment will be short-lived, but we think that you'll fall in love with the CPC and you'll want to stay. Fall and try.

[Alicia Hunt]: Two other just little administrative-y things. I'm not sure, but if you all are aware, in the last three weeks, we've had two new full-time staff start in our office. So Laurel Siegel, who some of you may know, she's been active in the Medford community for many years. She's our new CDBG Community Development Board Community Development Block Grant Manager. She's very excited to be on staff. And Barbara Hines is not from Medford she's new to Medford for this is our new housing planner and she started about a week and a half ago I think maybe two weeks ago. three additional students who have started, two, three additional students that have started in our office in the last two or three weeks. So we are really staffed up during the summer when most of our students are gonna be working full time. So this is a great time for us to be moving things forward. And if you stop by, it's like flooded with people here, like we're pouring out of the seams. And we have an economic development planner position posted that we are still actively recruiting for. So if you know economic development minded people, this position works a lot with small businesses, signs, outdoor dining, the former one has been doing electric vehicle charging stations. So that position we're actively recruiting for. And I'm in interviews for the climate planner position.

[Unidentified]: Okay.

[David Blumberg]: I'm happy to talk to folks that are interested in the chair position as well. So extend that invitation again. Unless there's something else we could entertain a motion to adjourn.

[Emily Hedeman]: I'll make a motion to adjourn.

[David Blumberg]: And is there a second?

[Emily Hedeman]: Let's go see a second.

[David Blumberg]: All right, we'll call vote motion to adjourn vice chair jack McPherson. Hi, Chrissy dot. Hi, Emily heaven. I already government fishermen. I, and I'm an eye as well. Thanks, everybody for your work tonight appreciate it. We'll see you again soon.

Jenny Graham total time: 5.22 minutes total words: 462	Paulette Van der Kloot total time: 4.64 minutes total words: 447